Marlon James - A Brief History of Seven Killings

Something good must be on the damn radio. FM: more music, less talk. Wish Chuck was here. He can dance much better than me, the disgrace to the black race. It’s something when a white man can dance. He took us to the club for our anniversary — six months already. He wanted to celebrate our six-month anniversary. And they say woman is the cornier sex. But still. Sixth was dancing. Fifth was earrings. Fourth he tried to cook chicken and failed. My mother would have said that means he’s not a homosexual, dear. I don’t know, but sometimes there’s just too much Chuck. I’m starting to like him more when he’s at work. No. That’s not true. Right now I’m loving his hair and tonight I will love how he sleeps.

Back at Mantana’s when I met him I was at the point where that inner voice said whatever it is, God, let it happen now please. I was so sick and tired of being sick and tired. I was so ready to go. My boss put his hand on my knee the same day, second time? No, third, and asked me how much I liked working here. And how he could tell that this job was a make-or-breaker, a last resort. Like selling cheap as shit jewellery from some overglorified coolie shop calling itself Taj Mahal was the best I could do. Except it was, Kim Clarke. All you needed to take the job was to know that they wouldn’t have wasted a second to look for somebody else. Montego Bay just had to work. It had to, there was no going back to Kingston.

I don’t think of Kingston. I want to think about Andy Gibb. Almost as cute as John from Dukes of Hazzard . Andy Gibb: hair, chest, hair, chains, hair, teeth, hair, hair. John the Duke smile, hair, jeans, hair like a girl, I just want to be your everything , Luke Duke’s big white duke down the left leg of his pants, Jesus Christ girl you must be the one woman in Montego Bay with such a dirty mind. But it’s not “I Just Want to Be Your Everything” on the radio. Do it light, take me through the night, shadow dancin’ . I know what I want. One night where I don’t think of Luke Duke when Chuck inside me, on top of me. No I didn’t think that. Yes I did. I should go cook his ackee. He likes it for breakfast. He won’t mind it for dinner. I will think about how I love his hair.

Sooner or later he’s going to know. Kim Clarke, you think you’re so smart. That man bound to find out if he don’t know already. This morning I only took ten dollars. It was the most in one shot. Last Friday, five. Four days before that six, no five, no it was a five-dollar bill and two one-dollars. I never touch the U.S. Look, he just going to think it’s cute. Which wife doesn’t take from her husband’s wallet? I’m not his wife. I’m going to be his wife. No you’re living together. It’s what people do in the modern age, this is 1979. I really need to cook. I’m sure he doesn’t know. I mean, what kind of man counts how much money he has in his wallet?

An American man.

All of them come through Mantana’s. White men, that is. If the man is French he thinks that he gets away with saying cunt but saying you cohnnnt, because we bush bitches will never catch his drift. As soon as he sees you he will throw the keys at your feet saying you, park my car maintenant! Dépêchetoi! I take the keys and say yes massa, then go around to the women’s bathroom and flush it down the shittiest toilet. If he’s British, and under thirty, then his teeth are still hanging on and he’ll be charming enough to get you upstairs but too drunk to do anything. He won’t care and you won’t either, unless he vomits on you and leaves a few pounds on the dresser because that was such dreadful, dreadful business. If he’s British and over thirty, you spend the whole time watching the stereotypes pile up, from the letttttt meeeee sssssspeeeeeakkk toooo youuuuu slowwwwlyyyyy, dahhhhhhhling beccauuuuuse youuuuuuu’re jussssst a liiiiiiitle blaaaaack, speed of their speech to the horrible teeth, coming from that cup of cocoa right before bed. If he’s German he will be thin and he will know how to fuck, well in a car piston kind of way, but he will stop early because nobody can make German sound sexy. If he’s Italian, he’ll know how to fuck too, but he probably didn’t bathe before, thinks there’s such a thing as an affectionate face slap and will leave money even though you told him that you’re not a prostitute. If he’s Australian, he’ll just lie back and let you do all the work because even us blokes in Sydney heard about you Jamaican girls. If he’s Irish, he’ll make you laugh and he’ll make the dirtiest things sound sexy. But the longer you stay the longer he drinks, and the longer he drinks, well for each of those seven days you get seven different kinds of monster.

But Americans. Most of them spend a very long time, or an awful long time, trying to convince you just how like everybody else they are. I’m just an Okie from Muskogee. Even Chuck introduced himself by saying that he was just a regular guy from Little Rock . When I said why would anybody want to be just a regular guy, he didn’t know how to answer the question. There’s something though about a man saying upfront that what you see is what you get, nothing less but certainly nothing more. Maybe my standards are low. Maybe I just liked that there was one man who said it like it was. I don’t even think he found me that cute. Well of course he did, he came over and said howdy , and perfect timing too, right after the Frenchman was thrown out for shouting where are my car keys, you cohhnt, and the Italian went over to dance with some stupid American woman who flew here all alone because she saved up for twenty-six months and damn it, this big fat bitch is going to F.U.C.K. The Italian wasn’t the black, bulging, big-cocked mandingo that she had read about in Mistress of Falconhurst , but his skin was a little dark so he’d do.

Of course I was there every night. I moved to Montego Bay in January, right into a one-bedroom side of a house with a shared kitchen that a retired couple used to rent to boarding school students. But I lived at Mantana’s. From the first day on the job I heard about the night club. Well, overheard at work since none of those coolie bitches at the jewellery store talked to any black employee, other than to remind us that they knew the police and should just one pendant go missing we will spend the entire weekend getting raped in jail. Anyway, I overheard that Mantana’s was the place that was carrying the swing, and they only let you in if you had the right look, which thank the Lord wasn’t black . Who knew then that black would turn out to be the right look? Two weeks after moving here, wearing nothing but a white t-shirt, Fiorucci jeans and high heels, they let me in. Walked right past one of the coolies, the hook-nosed, long-haired one who almost called at me before she saw me looking and knew that she would never be able to live with herself. I came this close to saying that sometimes they want chocolate, not curry.

But once inside with the music everything that I thought it would be, it wasn’t. The DJ kept playing “Fly Robin Fly” and the white people were dancing like white people. And the non-white people, almost all women, looked at each other with a scowl because only a scowl could hide that we all had the same damn look. The white man please come over here and save me because I have nowhere left to go look. I feel like I pushed myself to the very tip of the country and all that’s left was to tip over. Or fly away. Who am I going to be in America? Samantha on Bewitched ? That bawling woman on One Day at a Time ? I want to run right into the middle of a city and throw my hat up in the air like Mary Tyler Moore you’re gonna make it after all. Jesus Christ I’m so ready to go.

I am so ready to go.