Marlon James - A Brief History of Seven Killings

I didn’t see him again until long after Danny went back and I followed my sister Kimmy, who has yet to call her parents after they’ve been robbed and her mother possibly raped, to a party at his house. He didn’t forget me. But wait, you is Kimmy sister? Is where you was hiding? Or you was like Sleeping Beauty, eh, waiting for the man to wake you up? The whole time I’m splitting in two, the part of me that I like to shut off after morning coffee said yes, reason with me, my sexy brethren, the other part going what do you think you’re doing with this lice-infested Rasta? Kimmy left after a while, I didn’t see her go. I stayed, even after everybody left. I was watching him, me and the moon when he went out on the verandah naked like some night spirit, with a knife to peel an apple. Locks like a lion and muscles all over and shining in the moon. Only two people know that “Midnight Ravers” is about me.

I hate politics. I hate that I’m supposed to know. Daddy says that nobody is driving him out of his own country but he’s still thinking gunmen are somebody. I wish I was rich, I wish I was working and not laid off and I hope he would at least remember that night on his balcony with the apple. We have family in Miami. The same place Michael Manley told us to go if we want to leave. We have a place to stay but Daddy don’t want to spend any money. Damn it, now the Singer is so big nobody can see him anymore, even a woman that know him better than most women. Actually I don’t know what I’m talking about. This is the dumb shit women always think. That you know a man or that you’ve unlocked some secret just because you let him into your panties. Shit, if anything I know even less now. It’s not like he called me after.

I’m across the road, waiting at the bus stop, but so far I’ve let two pass. Then a third. He hasn’t come through the front door. Not once, not for me to run across the road that instant and shout, Remember me? Long time no see. I need your help.

T wo men bring guns to the ghetto.

One man show me how to use it.

But they bring other things first. Corned beef and Aunt Jemima maple syrup that nobody know what to do with, and white sugar. And Kool-Aid and Pepsi and a big bag of flour and other things nobody in the ghetto can buy and even if you could, nobody would be selling it. The first time I hear Papa-Lo say election coming, he said it cold and low as if thunder and rain was near coming and there was nothing you could do. Other men visit him, none of them look like him, some even redder than Funnyboy, almost white. They come in shiny car and leave and nobody ask but everybody know.

And at the same time, you come back. You bigger than Desmond Dekker, bigger than The Skatalites, bigger than Millie Small and bigger even than white people. And you know Papa-Lo from when neither of you have chest hair and you drive down into the ghetto like a thief in the night, but I see you. Outside my house, the house Papa-Lo put me. I see you drive up, just you and Georgie. And Papa-Lo squeal almost like a girl and run out and hug you with him bigness and you was always small and you have to bawl out for the man to put you down, any more hugging and touching and you going mistake him for Mick Jagger. You turn into the person who talk about a lot of people that nobody know and you talk about how this cokehead who call himself Sly Stone but who really have some girly name like Sylvester give you an opening slot like he throwing a dog a bone and you jump ’pon the stage and mash down the place but some of the black people say what is this slow hippie bullshit? and they don’t like you at all, so you say fuck this fuckery, better I do my own tour, and Sly Stone just go off and sniff some more cocaine, leaving you stranded in Las Vegas. We don’t know him either, but you’re the man who now talk about people we don’t know. You say the cokehead’s fans couldn’t take the real vibration and you leave after just four shows.

But that was just water under the bridge. You tramp through Babylon and the rest of the story Papa-Lo could tell it because everybody know it. So Papa-Lo tell it and you just nod. And then you say you have big things to talk about but it have to wait because now everybody hear that you in Copenhagen City and they come out to give thanks and praise to the sufferah who turn big star, but who don’t forget them sufferah who still sufferin’ and some thank you for the money for by now you feeding three thousand people, which everybody know but nobody talk about, but your truck look beat up and not what we expect and that make me angry because nothing worse than when a man have money and pretend he don’t have none like acting like you poor is some pose. And a woman hug you and say she have some stew peas and you say, Mummy you know me don’t touch the pork and she say is ital stew! And it good, y’see? And you say then Mummy run go bring me a big bowl, the biggest bowl in the kitchen, and bring it to Papa-Lo house because me and him have fi talk plenty things. And you and Papa-Lo gone off and none of him deputy, not even Josey Wales, follow him. And I watch Josey Wales as he watch them walk away and he stand there, and he look, and he hiss.

The two men who bring guns to the ghetto watch you sing yourself out of their hands and they not happy at all. Nobody uptown singing thanks and praises for you. Not the man who bring guns to the Eight Lanes, still run by Shotta Sherrif. That man know him party going up for re-election and they need to win, to stay in power, to bring power to the people, all comrades and socialists. Not the Syrian who bring guns to Copenhagen City and who want to win the election so bad that he will move God himself if God in the seat. The American who come with guns know that whoever win Kingston win Jamaica and whoever win West Kingston win Kingston, before any man in the ghetto tell him.

Prime Minister Michael Manley tell everybody on the TV and the radio that he give you your first big break and you wouldn’t have become famous were it not for him. And that he always support the voice of the downtrodden, the comrades in the struggle. Then you sing, never let a politician do you a favour or he will want to control you forever, but he didn’t think it was about him for by now he is not no politician, he is Joshua.

And the man who bring guns to Copenhagen City so that it can deal with the Eight Lanes problem hear of you talking all the time to Papa-Lo like you two is back in school and up to mischief and scratch him Syrian head and ask Papa-Lo why he talk to you, since you is known as a PNP man because they give you your first big break, and maybe this little Rasta trying to convert Papa-Lo to the PNP. You don’t know that from then on people watching you like a hawk, because you talk to Papa-Lo all the time and nowadays Papa-Lo even go uptown to your house to spend the whole day. That weekend when Papa-Lo did gone and nobody know where, rumour was that he did gone to En gland to watch you in concert. And word reach that you still talk to Shotta Sherrif, the man whose deputy kill me family, and me learn to hate you in a new way, even as me love Papa-Lo. You turning him, you converting him into something and everybody seeing it. Especially Josey Wales. Josey Wales watching you and I watch him watching you and he don’t like the way things running and he don’t say it too loud, but he say it to who will hear. And a little bird say Papa-Lo getting weak.

But then one day a boy from Copenhagen City rob a woman at gunpoint, a woman who sell pudding and toto by the corner of Princess Street and Harbour Street. She come to Papa-Lo house and point him out, a boy three door from my house who nobody ever like. And the boy mother shout, Lawd! Woi! Tek pity ’pon the boy, Papa. Is ’cause he no have no daddy fi teach him them things! And is lie, she lie, look how she pussy dry up. Josey Wales just hiss because Papa-Lo thinking too much these days, but then Papa rip off the boy clothes and yell out for a machete and beat the boy with the flat side, every whack slapping the air like a thunderclap, every whack slicing the skin a little. The boy bawl and scream but Papa-Lo big as tree and faster than wind. Do, Papa-Lo, lawd, Papa-Lo, but Papa-Lo, is caw she did want me buddy and me never give her, he say, which only make Papa-Lo worse. He kick the boy down and beat the boy back and batty and leg and when he tired of machete he pull off him own belt and beat the boy with the buckle side. And the buckle dig hole into the boy back and chest and forehead. The mother run to him screaming but he lash her one time in the face, and she stagger and run off. People come out to watch. He pull out him gun to shoot, but the mother rush in and cover him and bawl out and beg Papa-Lo, beg the woman who get rob, and Jesus Christ who rest in the hills of Mount Zion. Even Papa-Lo not going step in after Jesus intervene. Then he say, A woman who raise this kind of pussyhole deserve to get shot too and lower the gun right to her forehead, but he walk away.