Marlon James - A Brief History of Seven Killings

He told me it was because he’s the only man that can walk through Copenhagen City and the Eight Lanes.

Kiss me r’ass, ah that him tell you? Yow, you hear what Priest tell him, brethren?

Not true?

Nah, man, that deh part true, but is not ’cause him have no Jesus power, pussycloth idiot always a gwaan like him about to give you five loaf and two fish.

Huh?

Priest walk through ghetto because he the only man in the ghetto that not even puss ’ fraid of. Why you think man call him Priest?

Well, he…

Learn this, white boy. Is long time Priest want to be big shotta. Long time. Every day him asking the don, Don, man, gimme a gun nuh? Gimme a gun nuh? You no see me born fi turn rudie? Well Shotta Sherrif get tired of him ah yap-yap like them little pussyhole and give him gun. You no know what the boy do? My youth shove the gun in him brief and right deh so, all of a sudden kapow! Him shoot off him cocky. Is a wonder how him never dead.

One time me ask Shotta if he did take the safety off on purpose but all now him no answer me.

Is a wonder how him never kill himself after that. I mean, if you can’t ram out the pussy, wha you ah live for?

Brother’s still gotta tongue.

Wha you just say?

The Eight Lanes. It’s true, Priest didn’t do shit to set me up with the Eight Lanes. I just asked the nervous lady at Jamaica Council of Churches if I can talk to some of the people behind this peace treaty. She made a call and next thing I knew she said you can go down there tomorrow. Jamaicans, they never leave their prepositions out. It’s always either up here or down there, up there or down here. Nothing like Copenhagen City, that’s for sure. You veer through the market and if you’re not dizzy enough from all that stuff, wood stalls full of bananas and mangoes and ackee and grapefruit and jackfruit and frill dresses and gabardine cloth for pants and — blink you’ll miss it, rolling papers, and reggae bumping, always bumping, you’re never going to hear that shit on the radio, then you almost walk past Lane Number One of the Eight Lanes.

But every lane has a corner and every one has four to six guys on the corner standing on the verge of getting it on. They left me alone so I figured that by now, thanks to the Singer, they’re used to white people strolling into their territory. Better answer: nobody moves without the don’s say-so. Nothing like four hungry boys waiting to pounce being held back by an invisible leash. Priest was so busy warning me about Copenhagen City that it didn’t even cross his mind I might go to the Eight Lanes. He said it only the day before I came down here. Priest also thinks I’m working on his clock. He also thinks I’m some stupid American who is still alive only because of him. But Lord knows coming down here might have been a stupid thing to do.

To think I try so hard not to be lumped with those fuckers on the North Coast wearing Jamaican Me Crazy t-shirts, but how many times can you say, Brother, I’ve been to the real Jamaica. I was down here with the Stones when they were recording Goats Head Soup at Dynamic Sounds though I got nothing to do with the record being an absolute piece of shit. And in the years since 1976 Peter Tosh can actually see me in the same room without insisting I leave. And you should have been there when I told the Singer that his version of “And I Love Her” was Paul McCartney’s favorite Beatles cover ever.

So no, I’m not scared to go deep into Kingston. But sweet Jesus, there’s deep and there’s this. And it’s the kind you’ve never seen before despite the hundred times you’ve seen it. I tried drawing parallels before but you just can’t when you’re there. You pass the boys on the corner and it never occurs to you to look up, to get a sweep of the place. So you pass the boys and the men playing dominoes. The man facing me had swung his hand far back to whirlwind slam it on the table and win probably so I could see his smirk, but he sees you and his hand slows down and he just places the domino on the board all delicate like the play itself is so lame that he’s ashamed that a white man was around to see it.

You continue and you wonder if you’ve just become the show. You expect people to look at you, even stare, but you just never expect it, the movie thing. Where everything grinds to a slo-mo and your ears pick up silence like it’s at full volume and you wonder if somewhere music just stopped, or a glass just shattered or two women just gasped or if it was quiet all along. And you pass the first house, no, not a house, somebody’s home maybe, but definitely not a house and you try to not stare past the three children in the doorway. But you do anyway and you wonder how come it’s so well lit? Is it a corridor between houses or is the roof gone? But the wall is blue and deep and you wonder who is it that thought to take care of the place.

The little boy, wearing a yellow Starsky and Hutch t-shirt that reaches his knee, smiles, but the two girls, both bigger, have already been taught not to. The one on the lowest step, almost down in the road, lifts her dress up to show her jeans shorts underneath. The door behind them is so weathered it’s driftwood, but I try to not look at that either because just two feet or so down a woman is on the steps combing the hair of a bigger girl on the step right below. And between the three kids and the woman — mother? — is a brick wall with so many bricks dug out that it’s a checkers pattern. Somebody started painting it white but gave up. It kinda throws you for a loop because the PNP won the election and this is PNP turf. You’d think their own slum would have come off looking better, but it’s worse than the JLP area. And worse is always relative each day in Kingston and — what the fuck, there is a fucking man sitting on the side of my fucking bed and I’m thinking about a fucking ghetto that is fucking ten miles away.

Oh shit, dude, sit up straight, don’t sink further into the bed. Come on, you’ve been here, what now, ten minutes? Are you asleep? I’ve done that, resting my forehead in my hands with my elbows on my knees, but usually I’m not asleep, I’m tripping. I don’t know. Fuck it, I’m going to roll. What’s the worst that could happen? Him panicking for a little before he realizes I’m still asleep. It’s only natural I should roll, he’d think it weird if I didn’t roll a little. Wouldn’t he? I want to see his fucking face. He rubs the back of his head, bald, I see that now, and his hands reddish brown? Maybe it’s blood rushing? I’m going to roll over and kick him in the back. Yes, that is what I’m going to do.

No. I just want to get up in my own fucking hotel room and order a fucking cup of joe, which will suck because this is a cheap-ass hotel that thinks Americans are too stupid to know what real coffee is supposed to taste like which is kinda true if you always drink shit to the last drop, but I’ll drink it anyway, because I just need to keep my mouth busy while I transcribe this fucking tape from yesterday that might not even have anything juicy on it.

And then I can grab my knapsack and pull on my jeans and jump on a bus and look at people thinking holy shit, there’s a white dude on the bus, except they won’t think it that way and I’ll just mind my own damn business and get off at the bus stop in front of the Gleaner and talk to Bill Bilson even though he’s a fucking stooge for the JLP and the American government who’s always feeding that guy at the New York Times some horseshit. But he’s essentially a good guy and he’s always good for an anonymous quote or two and all I want to do is ask him if Josey Wales couldn’t remember what day it was when the Singer got shot (but what a tragedy it was), how come he could tell me they shot him just as he was about to hand his manager some grapefruit even though nobody knew this little fact other than the Singer, his manager and me, since I’m the only person they have spoken to about it. I mean, it’s not like it’s a secret or anything but it’s the kind of detail that only slips loose after you’ve done the long hard work of making an interview subject comfortable.