Marlon James - A Brief History of Seven Killings

— What no go so, go near so, he say.

— What Leggo Beast think him saying now? You don’t know the proverb about the drowning man?

— Drowning man don’t have time to make up a story with so much iration to it.

I squeeze my knuckles to stop myself from telling him that iration is not a word.

— And I don’t have time to bring to the light why you can’t trust an idiot like Leggo Beast. Two years to get as far away as a man could go, and the furthest he could reach was his mother cupboard?

— But you did know where to find him though, me brethren.

— The mother go shopping every week and always coming back with a big bag from the market. Why so much food when is only she one live there? You think she running a Salvation Army? The real question is how come you, the don of all dons, didn’t even notice?

— Can’t have eye in every nook and cranny, me good brother. That no be what me have you for?

— Oh. Well, don’t ask me no idiot question ’bout the Singer when you know the answer already.

— True? So give me the answer quick then nuh? Since you—

— If it was me trying to kill the Singer, not one of those fifty-six bullets would have missed.

Always speak proper English when you want a man know that this argument is over. Papa-Lo walk away with the little boys hopping behind him. Little after that he taking Leggo Beast to a kangaroo court on McGregor Gully to prove to himself that he can still ration out rough justice. Some people say that the Singer himself show up to watch it, which strike me as a strange thing to do with the world watching him every move, but the only person whose word I would trust is Tony Pavarotti and he not saying nothing. Then he find some of the men involve in that horse-racing con and take them out to the old fort to turn them into fish food. Thing I want to ask: how all this blood on your hands work when you’re on a mission for peace?

My living room is getting dark. I’m waiting for three phone calls. My big son walks past me holding a chicken leg. He’s already looking so much like me that I had to rub my belly just to make sure that I’m the one with one.

— Boy, what you doing here and not by your mother? Hey, I talking to you.

— Cho man, Daddy. Me can’t deal with her sometime, no lie.

— What you do to upset the poor woman now?

— She never like something me say ’bout you.

— Something I said about you. And it’s didn’t like.

— Cho man, Daddy.

— What you tell your mother?

— Haha, that even bad man can cook better than she.

— Hahahahahaha, boy, you not easy at all. But is true, though. I never know a woman who was such an enemy of the kitchen. Might be why I didn’t stay with her too long. You lucky she never shoot you.

— Wha? Mama know what to do with a gun?

— You forget who her man used to be? What you think? Anyway, it too late for you to be walking ’round my house like duppy.

— But you awake. You always awake this late.

— Oh? What you doing, watching your father?

— No…

— Your lying about as good as your mother cooking.

Don’t know how I didn’t see this coming. I watch the boy, just one year in high school and not even twelve yet. He trying to be brave, looking straight at me, eye to eye and frowning a little because he don’t know yet that you have to age into a stone face. It’s the first time he doing it, he know and I know, the son trying to stare down the father. But boy is a boy and not a man. He can’t hold it, not yet. He look aways first and just as quick turn on the stare again, but he just lose the round and he know it.

— I waiting on a phone call. Go bother your brother, I say and watch him walk off. The time soon come when it is me who must watch him.

One day, my son, you will know enough and see enough that you can get the last word. But not tonight. One phone call I don’t want bothering me in the night is Peter Nasser. Is two months now since I first clue him in on the Rasta Apocalypse and he still either sweating blood or giving some stupid girl at Lady Pink the sloppiest seven minutes of her life. The point about the Singer was already proven, to him, to Jamaica, to Medellín — and Cali, but he wouldn’t let it go. Why? Because even if the Singer wasn’t going to be the voice of this new party, movement, whatever you want to call it, he was going to be something else far more important: the money. By now three thousand family see a little money every month because of the Singer, even the family of the boy who shoot him. Speaking of shooting up, even I get the shock of my life, the next time I see a picture of him in the Gleaner . There right beside him was Heckle.

Back on that night when Weeper stop the car near the Garbagelands and throw Heckle out, me never see head or tail of him again. Another one of those men I didn’t realise was smarter than Weeper, if not braver, smart enough to make me think very carefully who I was keeping alive. So smart that he was the only one who catch the drift that after doing what we do there was not coming back. I like when a man can read writing on the wall. But Heckle should have known that he have nothing to worry about, retribution was coming for the stupid, not the smart. If I spoke to him I would have tell him, Brethren, don’t fret. The world smarter with you still in it. Still he catch where the wind was blowing quick and flee, jumping out of the car like a dog let loose. Garbagelands wasn’t even supposed to be his stop. Weeper sniff out where most of the men run off to, and those he couldn’t find, the Rastas did. Nobody saying nothing about them, since the only evidence that Rastas was on the hunt was Demus swinging from a tree in the John Crow Mountains, the john-crows already gone with his eyes and lips. But nobody could say where to find Heckle. Not even him woman, not even after slapping her three time and grabbing her by the neck, almost strangling her. I tell you, that make me admire him even more, a man who was a genuine disappearer.

But then almost one year later, Papa-Lo come stomping to my house more mad than usual. Not just mad, but so perplexed his eyes almost crossed.

— He take the pussyhole on tour with him? You can imagine that? Him get this man a bombocloth visa.

— Calm down nuh, man, you no see say is five?

It really was evening, and peaceful in the ghetto.

— Me no understand it at all. Maybe he really is like the prophet. Me don’t even know if Jesus would ever do such madness, and him did love to confound the wise.

— Who the Singer get visa for now?

It could only be the Singer he was talking about.

— Me never believe it until me see the little pussyhole hiding behind him like frighten fowl. Heckle. Heckle, me say.

— Heckle? For real?

Who knows where Heckle was hiding for almost two years? South Coast with the hippies? Cuba? Wherever he was, he just plant himself at 56 the third day after the Singer come back for the second concert. No gun, no shoes on and stinking of bush. Of course the Singer know exactly who he was even though I am sure he never see anybody. I don’t know what to admire more, his bravery or his stupidity, but the man just walk up to Hope Road, walk past security when they see how him look like death, throw himself at the Singer feet when he come out of the house and beg forgiveness. Kill me or save me, what I hear him say. Of course every single living soul on that compound wanted to kill him. They wouldn’t even need to worry what to do with the body.

Maybe it was lucky for Heckle that Papa-Lo wasn’t there. Or maybe he was lucky that by now, the Singer only take the long view. Or maybe the Singer think that any man with hollow-out eyes like he smoked lizard tail weed, a smell like cow shit and bush, with shoes that give up once the first big toe burst out, couldn’t get any lower. Or maybe he really is a prophet. The Singer not only forgive him, but move him quick into his inner circle, even taking the man with him when he leave Jamaica. Papa-Lo didn’t find out until he see that picture in the Gleaner .