Marlon James - A Brief History of Seven Killings

Actually I know. Papa-Lo knows but he’s not telling. Shotta Sherrif knows, but you know when somebody stops telling you a joke or a story because he figured you already know the end? Except I really don’t know.

There’s a man in navy blue sitting on the edge of my bed. I’ve met Papa-Lo before. Right before this peace concert I went to the Copenhagen City with Priest. There was a big man making himself even bigger by spreading his arms wide and hugging everybody, and I’m not a brother to be taken aback, but even I was kinda thrown off by the big man’s bear hug. Everybody safe here! Is peace and love vibes we ah deal with! he would say, then he would ask where Mick Jagger was, maybe him did lock down with more black pum-pum than him can deal with. Took me all of two minutes to realize the glimmer twin’s rep stretched beyond Studio 54.

— You’ve heard Some Girls ? It’s a return to form for them.

— Me hear plenty girls.

That was all she wrote on that one. Flash forward to just a few days ago and I’ve never seen a big man look so small. He didn’t even have the energy to tell Priest ’bout him bombocloth for bringing the white bwoi back again. He didn’t want to talk about the guy the police shot. He didn’t want to talk about the police. He was doing that thing, that thing old people do, when they know too much or maybe they’re finally past the age where you just figured the whole world out. You figure out shit between people and why we are all so base and vile and disgusting and how we’re just fucking beasts really, and it’s a wisdom people get at a certain age. And it doesn’t have to be an old age because really Papa-Lo isn’t so old, nobody gets old in the ghetto. It’s the age where you learn something, I don’t know, but something big and something gray and you just know there’s no use in trying anymore. But as I was saying, in just one year he had the look, and it was making him exhausted. No, not exhausted, weary.

— Why did the police kill your number two?

— Why rose red and violets blue?

— I don’t understand.

— Y is a crooked letter with a long tail. Cut off the tail and you get V. V is for vagabond, and you is a vagabond.

— How did they manage to kill him?

— With two or three gun, me hear.

— You think the PNP gave up your guy?

— What?

— PNP. That they tipped off your boy? And why wouldn’t the police respect the treaty?

— White boy, you full of joke. Who tell you that policeman sign treaty? And what you mean with this PNP tip-off business?

— You may be right.

— Haha, white boy, you going tell me if me right or not.

He was right. Shotta Sherrif looked at me when I brought up the death of number two. He looked at me exactly as Papa-Lo.

— Bad times is good times for somebody, me boy. Bad times is good times for somebody.

— Who tipped off the police about number two?

— You see Josey Wales since you come here?

— I’ve only met him once.

— He live down the other end. Ask him about the number two.

— Josey Wales?

— Me don’t know nothing ’bout the street anymore. The peace over.

— The peace between who? Can I ask you what you mean? Can I ask a few more questions? Papa?

Guess not. Didn’t have to find Josey Wales, he found me. Just as I was leaving Papa-Lo’s gate, don’t ask me why I was walking backward as I left Papa-Lo but I was and backed right into two guys. The bald-headed one didn’t say anything, didn’t even look at me even as he was holding my arm and taking me down the street. The don going to talk to you right now, said the other guy, bigger, fatter, with baby dreadlocks. But isn’t Papa-Lo the don? A question I did not ask. Bald guy in blue, dreadlock guy in red, moving at my sides in perfect step, this must be a cartoon. And the people in the street just looking away. When we were passing, they just looked away, and I mean nearly everybody. Everybody looked away, only two women and one man holding eye contact, staring, like they weren’t even looking at me really. Like I was a ghost, or a stranger being driven out of town. Every Jamaican village is a one-horse town. They took me to Josey Wales’ place, let me in through the front door, but nobody told me where to sit. An Esso calendar tacked itself to the first of three big windows in the living room. The only windows I’ve seen that have not been shot out. Curtains on each window, red and yellow floral pattern, he has a woman living with him.

— Nice curtains.

— Plenty of questions you’re asking, white boy.

— Huh, I haven’t…

— Palavering around the place with your little black notebook. Do you write everything in that?

I’ve heard about Josey Wales’ high opinion of his English.

— Where did you learn to speak like that?

— Where did you learn to shit?

— Huh?

— You saving the intelligent questions for last?

— I’m sorry, I… I… I—

— You… you… you…

All this time I’m seeing nothing but a head wrapped in a towel on a person sitting in a couch not facing me. A don, man, with a girl who just sits there and keeps quiet. Where the fuck was his voice coming from?

— You smart mouth run out of fast. Sit down, white boy.

I sit down on the dining chair by the front door.

— They don’t sit in the living room in your country?

I move over to the living room, if that’s what you could call it since it was as small as a doctor’s waiting room. In fact the couch was gray with the clear plastic covering still on it. Not a girl just sitting there, I see the mesh vest first, then the big hands pulling the towel off his head. He rubs his hair a couple more times then tosses it behind him. Maybe he’s got the kind of woman who picks up after him. Josey Wales. He really is a big man, lighter than Papa-Lo, but his eyes are narrower than you expect, almost like a Chinese guy’s eyes. His belly is starting to push against the mesh vest, ghetto youth uniform though I’m guessing he only wears this in the house. When a Jamaican bad man ascends it’s noticeable in his wardrobe first. Once he steps out of the house he is always in a shirt, I hear, as if at any minute he might end up in court.

— You have your pen ready all the time?

— Yes.

— I know some men who behave like that with a gun. Two of them standing outside my house right now.

— Not you?

— Nothing good ever come out of a gun mouth. You need to improve on that thing about you?

— Say what?

— Move faster. Get better reflexes, I think they call it.

— I don’t understand.

— Just a while ago, just as I was saying that nothing good ever come out of a gun mouth.

— I heard you, Mr. Wales.

— Only the judge calls me Mr. Wales. Josey.

— Okay.

— Just as I was saying nothing good ever come out of a gun mouth—

— I heard you.

— Something sticking you up your asshole, why you keep interrupting me? As I was saying, just as I was saying nothing good ever come out of a gun mouth. Me see you jerk. Your eye blink open wide, like you never expect something like that to come out the don’s mouth.

— I didn’t—

— You did, brethren. But it was only like a second, so fast that most people would miss it. But none of my three names is most people. You probably didn’t even notice it.

— No I didn’t, and it’s my body.

— People like you don’t see much. Always putting down little note in your little book. Before you even step off the plane you already write the story. Now you just looking for any loose shit to add and say, See it there America, this is the Jamaica runnings.

— You know, not everybody, not every journalist is like that.