Marlon James - A Brief History of Seven Killings

Of course the son of a bitch hung up. And he hasn’t called back. I suspect that he’ll never call me again.

Fuck this desk. Fuck this office. Fuck this country. Fuck this year already. I’m going home.

K idnap Mick Jagger and make two million. Me and Tony Pavarotti we out in a car, riding up and down a road that twist and turn like river, riding right up next to the windy wavy sea. Josey Wales didn’t come. Racing for the curb, the Ford Cortina. Swerve left then swerve right, a wave just burst on rock and froth splash and hit the windshield. This is how close to the road is the sea, how close we is to the sea and Pavarotti still driving, cooler than coolness’ mother.

Tony Pavarotti with his nose like a Pavarotti. Can’t remember him mother nor father, can’t remember him growing up or doing the things boys do when growing up or getting into crosses boys get into. It’s like he be the sidekick in the movie, the baaaaaaaaad hombre who just show up in the middle and start walk and talk like we was waiting for him all this time. Tony Pavarotti just is, and you think hard about what you need before you call him. And he will lie and wait in an old building window all day, or up in the tree on the hill all night, or in the wall of garbage in the Garbagelands or behind a door for as long as it take for him to become a complete shadow and take out your enemy from three hundred feet away. He do work for Josey Wales but not even Josey had whatever it take to keep Tony at him side permanent and plenty people side with Josey permanent these days. We don’t talk. When I stay home I stay inside, and when I go I leave the country. I don’t go to him doorstep. But Tony Pavarotti is man who serve every man and no man and today all day he in my employ, in the left seat driving and hugging the thin road, too narrow for such an angry sea.

Learn this: Jail is the ghetto man university. Slam clink slam. Babylon come for me two years ago — is it two years yet? I try to not forget any time Babylon encroach ’pon the I. In the truck to take me to jail a policeman spit in me face (him new), and one, when I say, Pussyhole, you spit smell like bubblegum, gun-butt me between the head so hard that is when they throw water on me in the jail I wake up. Both police dead before 1978 thanks to the man beside me who carry them to me as soon as me come out. Learn this all nice and decent people, Mama-Lo didn’t raise no son who walk with he back straight to get spit on like mangy dog. And this here Papa-Lo never ever forget. Man, like we don’t forget, we collect. We take them to the end of Copenhagen City where only John Crow live and rich man shit drain into the sea and one start to wah wah wah ’bout how him wife not working and he have three pickney and me say all the worse for them now they have a dead pussyhole for a daddy.

But back to when them send me to jail. And even if you could jimscreechy, slip through the system you can’t slip through the iron. Iron is iron, and iron stronger than lion and steel don’t budge. The bars say, There’s no way out, just cease and settle and if you ever plan to travel you better tap inside your head and tell it to start traveling. This must be how man end up reading book they otherwise wouldn’t read, and write book too. But the bars also say, Nobody can come in and stop the learning, so maybe a learning is a visitation in your head and maybe a jail make you still in the spirit so that you ready to hear it, because, gentlemens, nobody — and I mean nobody — can learn nothing if them not ready to listen.

The car hit a bump but Tony Pavarotti don’t notice. I wish I didn’t jump like a man who can’t drive a car. He the only man I know who drive with glove, they cover him palm but show him finger with a cut-out for each knuckle and the back of him hand. Brown leather. The sun running away before we get to the bay. It don’t have what it take to witness when man get dark. The moon now, the moon is better company especially when it full and fat and deep like it just rise out of blood. You ever see a moonrise? I want to ask Tony Pavarotti but I don’t think he would answer. You don’t ask a man like this them kind o’ question.

I pull two cigarette out of my pocket and give him one. He stick it in him mouth and me light it. Palisadoes strip, past the airport, on the stretch to Port Royal where James Bond drive the man off the road in Dr. No . We drive along until we reach a fort that build from before man like me come over on the slave ship. 1907 Earthquake — half of it sink into the sand but if you drive fast it look like the fort was just now rising out of it. You see cannon peeking out of sand and you wonder how tall and proud it must did look when Nelson hop on him hob-leg all around it. Nelson we learn about in high school along with Admiral Rodney who save Jamaica from the French. Who going save Jamaica now?

Farther down this road is Port Royal and Fort Charles that everybody done know. But few people know the beach bush hide two more forts including this one. I stick my head out the window and watch the last sun streak turn orange, then pink, then nothing and I can hear the sea growing wild even over the car engine. Me and Tony Pavarotti driving to the lost fort in between the sinking sun and the rising moon and the disappearing shadow. We make a sharp left through prickle bush and swing over a rough bump. Me hold the door like a man that can’t drive. We ride over a mound, that look like a mountain top, because from the top is a steep drop right down to the beach. Bumpy ride down, swing to the left then right, pull you hand into the car before the prickle bush slash the window — my hand would be bleeding right now. Down, down, down. The car swing left, again then right, then jump — we going roll over right now, have to, how this bloodcloth man can so calm and don’t say nothing but grip the steering wheel like race car driver? The car skidding down, me about to shout out hey! But then we brake. Tony Pavarotti slow the car down to crawl as we come the thin strip of beach up to the entrance of the fort. No gate so we drive in. Kingston is a now place across the sea.

The car stop. Tony wind down him window and climb out in one swing, like is the style. Him on the right, me on the left, we both reach the trunk the same time. He stick the key in and fly it open. If the first boy could scream he would scream at the weak light, this is for sure the most brightness them see in three hours. It did take all me rage to push the last two in the trunk meself for me would a deal with them from long before, almost two year before, but by now me no have none of that left, nothing left to pull the first one out but two hands. Him light like a feather when me grab him by the collar. The handcuff behind him back stain sticky with blood and his wrist white where black skin supposed to be. He smell like shit and iron. Boy bawling over tears so him cheek and eyes red and him nose have booger running down over booger. The man Tony Pavarotti pull out just the same, both of them stink and also wet from them own pee-pee.

On the way over here me did all set to ask them, You remember the beach, pussyhole? You remember when you pull gun ’pon the Singer ’cause other man fuck up your samfie business but you want him fi pay for it? You did know then that him mark you face? You did know you was dead from the second you pull gun ’pon the man? You might as well did pull gun ’pon God. Me did have all them things fi say to the two but now, in the fort where Spanish man and British man and Jamaican man dead over years and years, reminding me that one day me too soon dead, me don’t have nothing to say. And Tony Pavarotti never ever say nothing.

But them saying plenty. Even with the gag me can make out letter and word and sentence. Each blink of their red eye fierce and squeezing out tears. Beg you, Papa do, me never did involve, look how me still poor. Beg you, Papa do, the Singer did already gimme mercy. Beg you, Papa do, all me know ’bout is the horse race, me no know ’bout the ambush in the night. Beg you, Papa do, make me go out to sea and me will swim ’way like mermaid to Cuba and never come back to Jamrock again. But me don’t care. There is a bunch of man who ambush the Singer in the night. There is a bunch of man that pull gun on him at the beach ’cause they drag him into horse race con-plan fuckery him never have nothing to do with. A wind in the air say them was one and same man. Another wind say them be two different entity. But even to that me run out words to say. Me just don’t care. Them drive a gash between me and the Singer, a cut that heal but leave a scar. Man must get punish for drawing gun and man must get punish for firing it too. The devil who standing waiting at the gate of hell can do all the sorting out. All this me think to say to the two, but don’t. Me, Papa-Lo, the biggest most magnificentest man in the ghetto. Me might as well be Tony Pavarotti. He already dragging the first one through the bush, out onto the black sand beach.