Marlon James - A Brief History of Seven Killings

Those who are about to die can see the dead. That is what I’m telling you now but you can’t hear me. You can see me following you, you wonder if I’m walking then why does it look like I am not touching the ground even though I walking behind you, behind them? They followed you all the way down to where the swamp meets the sea, you didn’t even notice until they were all around you, right by the still shiny plane with the dead man in it surrounded by sacks of white powder. They were seven and you thought they were horsemen from Revelations but they were just men with cutlasses who could smell you out by your fear, men who didn’t pursue you at all, but waited until you fell right into place. I can see that you see me. This is not good for you.

You woke up with it on you, demon spit clumped around your face like someone held you by the feet and dipped your head in gelatin. You scooped some off and thought it was a dream, but it was already in you, you breathed it in like a fish. You and the boy buried alive and the rest of them that will never notice that they now sleep on their backs.

Is the white man that don’t make no sense, no sense at all you’re thinking. I’m following you like the widow in a funeral procession. Your pants snag on a half-buried rock and rip your left pocket. These men pull you like a fish and with each pull the noose around your wrists gets tighter. They’ve been pulling you for miles and you twist and turn but the last time you twisted you rolled onto your belly and the rocks felt worse, slicing lines down your belly, a jagged red one cracking your right kneecap. They’ve been dragging you over secret roads, forgotten lanes, weed-ambushed paths and hidden rivers, through the cave that leads deep into the Kingston that only dead slaves know. Only one of them is dragging you and not making much effort to do so, he never yanks, he tugs you like you’re a pillow full of nothing but feather, sponge and air. You’re not heavy at all: nobody under twenty is heavy. I try to bow my head in reverence as we march, but my head falls whenever I nod and my neck snaps. You roll again and wet grass cuts your face. You’ve been screaming for miles but the scream dies in a gag, but I will be there to listen.

Rasta avengers all in white smell of ganja smoke and iron in the blood. Seven men with nothing to say, seven men, one pulling you by rope through the bush, up this hill, down this valley, then up another hill while the bloody moon pays no attention. I wonder how their pants stay so white in the bush. Three of the seven have wrapped their head in white, like African tribal women. You can see me. You’re hoping that I read eyes. I can and they don’t care when me roll and me face and nose and mouth full with dirt and grass it bitter it bitter it bitter nuh fuck where we going where them go ing me face going scrape right off and me head going look like the bloody moon and the moon be bleeding and the grass slice through me skin with every step and they all moving through the bush like they not walking nobody walking everybody walking on this air gliding through bush the bush blade cut ow. But you’re not the man I’m waiting for. I thought so because I smelled his scent on you, faint, but there, and I almost thought it was him until I saw that it was you. Many more will have to suffer. Many more will have to die.

These men sing no songs as they drag you through the bush. My skin is as white as their clothes but I have no clothes on. You can’t stop yourself from trying to scream. You’re wondering if I am with them or not, if they can see me or not, and if I am not real then this is not real, and even a procession towards death is just a metaphor for something else. You have never heard the word metaphor.

But you have it in you, something I did not have. An understanding of the men taking you up. Maybe after so many miles of being dragged you’ve separated them, id and superego, your mind that knew you had it coming and your heart that could never accept it. It’s the irrational side of man that clutched the straw, that tried everything to stay alive, that grabbed clumps of air in the midst of a fall over a balcony, screaming to God for a grip. I have no understanding of the man who killed me. You look at me, and even in the dark I can see your red eyes blink fierce.

He right there. He looking at me and at them. He marching at the back, left right left right, plenty step behind them and he looking at them and at me and at the sky like he crying and he don’t talk to them help me help me police murder stop don’t walk like you don’t see blood and you not no witness. I don’t know if that make more sense than that he be a white man so white man say something nuh? Scream run come back with gun scream run don’t just walk and no me nah look ’pon you when them pulling me through the bush me pull back no twist spin ’round ’pon me back the bush underneath me rope around me hand burning roll over back on stomach no back no side no stomach and see them two no three no four we on a hill must be ’cause the rope pulling me harder and it hurt and the white man looking but then he head gone and me can’t see ’cause is deep bush and the bush thorn cut bombocloth jeeezas the white man gone but then he back see him there still behind but him head gone, no, it swing like he no have no neck then he use him hand what him doing? He putting him head back on he screwing it tight Jeeesaz Christ Jeeesaz Christ, bombocloth is not man is rolling calf but he look like a man but him eye not on fire and me go through a bush and stuck stop pulling stop pulling me scream into the gag stop pulling and he stop pulling and two come ’round me no don’t kick me and other one set him foot on me side no don’t kick me and push to roll me over and the two of them is Rasta they dreadlocks alive like is snake, no smoke, no snake and they in white and both have machete in left hand, no right hand forehead booming don’t chop me do please don’t chop me and it cold where me little toe suppose to be the left one, no the right me woman crying she crying right now she find other man to mind her the pussycloth whoring bitch no she crying she gone to Josey Wales and ask where me man deh? What you do with him? Josey Wales get her too he fuck her he fuck her and turn her into fool or him give her money you hear that? Me have judas woman too white man, me too, and the Rasta in white kick me and roll me out of the bush the moon white it not bleeding no more r’asscloth me wrist burning they pulling me over a rock in the middle of me back cutting scraping down it hook me pants they pulling and pulling stop stop stop they pull rip tear they pulling me up the hill and bye-bye pants behind wet grass cutting through the white man gone they pulling me bump me head bump asphalt road they drag me across a road scraping stop stop stop gravel dig into me bottom gravel stuck in me back digging digging my bottom wet, wet bottom blood know is blood sticky iron smell blood white man is blood for true answer me pussyhole where you deh? Them pull me ’cross the road into bush still up the hill Josey Wales me going kill Josey Wales me oh God Jesus Christ Jesus Christ Lord Jesus me no want to dead lawd Poppa Jesus Woi Jesus do me no want to dead the white man come back the white man is Jesus no why you don’t say nothing look blood running down him face.

I say too much. I’m the man nobody listens to. And soon you will be too. They pull you up the steepest the hill has been, your body snapping twigs and crushing leaves and even I am wondering why the moon won’t pick a side. They pull you onto a trail that runs along a dark river rustling, I have some memory of this place but I don’t know if it’s my own. They drag you along the path for minutes, and then stop. I look ahead while you try to swing around and do the same. When you see what I see your mouth will exclaim so wide that the gag nearly falls out.