A Brief History of Seven Killings (29 page)

—Diflorio taking the long view. Look at that. It’s not like Guatemala,
since they’re smart, and it’s not like Brazil, since they have no desire to rule the fucking country.

—Who the fuck is your target?

—I don’t know what you’re talking about, Diflorio. If a bunch of men want to, say, get their feet wet, say, today, it’s not my business to interfere in domestic affairs.

—Holy shit, you mean today?

—Not privy to that kind of intel, Barry, but if I were—

—Call them off, Johnson. Do it now, for God’s sake.

—I wouldn’t know who to call, sorry. My educated guess would be that it’s too late anyway. Besides, it’s the policy of the federal government of the United States to—

—Blow it out of your fucking ass, Johnson.

—I’ll take you home to your beautiful wife.

—Louis, listen to me. I don’t know if you’re NSA, WRO or whoever the fuck it is you work for, but step the fuck back and let diplomacy run its course.

—Bang-up job in Ecuador, by the way.

—Shut the fuck up and listen to me. We’ve already invested, damn it. This administration knows it. The CIA director knows it. Seriously, who the fuck are you talking to? We’ve invested over ten million a full year before this election. Sal at the
New York Times
, the thirty fat fucks in the JLP, Jesus Christ, the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica.

—Why are you schooling me on this, Barry? We’re two sides of the same coin.

—I’m nothing like you.

—Even if those two sides never see each other.

—We’re so fucking close, you son of a bitch.

—I’m not the son of a bitch you need to be telling this to, Diflorio, that would be your little boyfriend Georgie Bush. Besides, it’s too fucking late, that’s what I’m telling you. Go home, go watch
Starsky & Hutch
. Go watch the news tonight. Gonna be something.

Papa-Lo

M
e can’t remember
when last me walking so fast and get anywhere so slow. Maybe is the sun working against me, she’s one cantankerous burning bitch today. When me ask Josey if him did know anything about Operation Werewolf, he did shake him head and say no. But Wang Gang have explosive and only two people work with the Cuban. Them and Josey.

Here is what me was thinking. With him controlling the east and me carrying the swing in the west and maybe Tony Pavarotti keep him gun aiming at the north and the sea to the south, then we well protected. But with every man scatter to points like a map, right hand start to not know what left hand done do. Me thinking this is my fault. It have to be my fault. If the body sick, the head should did know first. No so the story go? Me and Josey stop talk. No is not that. A man, no, certain men come between all of we, man who use we then throw we out like rubbish. Me getting tired of the wicked game, and Shotta Sherrif getting tired of it too. What a funny thing that me sure of the mind of Shotta Sherrif more than me sure of the mind of Josey Wales. Me is ninety yard from Josey house.

The world now feeling like the seven seals breaking one after the other. Hataclaps or ill feeling, something in the air. Two sevens clash in less than thirty days. I walking to Josey house and I forget what my woman looks like. Is only a minute it take me to remember but it scare me that I forget her face. But then I remember a little girl, that look like she, but we don’t have no pickney yet, even though plenty woman out there saying they boy and girl answer to my surname. I walking up the road and passing yard after yard. One tenement then the next tenement then the next, all four floors high, fence high enough to hide the ground floor, one building pink then the next green then the next the colour of bone I can’t even remember who make we
go with them colours, maybe the woman them. Me is seventy yard from Josey house.

When a father turn away from him son, he can’t act shock when the son don’t know him no more. Not that Josey is me son, he would shoot me if me even call him boy. But is my fault, me turn away from him because me carrying things that I used to think he can’t carry. That some people do nothing but dream and some people do nothing but act and that both good and bad. People like Josey have no vision, people like me have no drive. I’ve been thinking and I’ve been talking and I’ve been showing people a new reasoning that is just about we and only we. No politician and no government. A different kinda system better than the shitstem, where gun too heavy to carry so nobody carry any and where my woman and him woman and everybody woman don’t work no more just to get they boss richer. You wake up wanting new because old is so old that it don’t even stink anymore, it just blowing away like dry rot. Fifty yard from Josey house.

I want to leave him house with me and him of the same mind. Nice and decent people, the Rastafarian show me the way. The first way Babylon fool we is to get we to think we have future in the Babylon shitstem. And me tired of that and Shotta Sherrif tired of that and the Singer tired of that. Every time me go to the Singer house and me see that man from Copenhagen City and man from the Eight Lanes can par and reason, I just start to think that a triangle have three side, but everybody always only look at two. Forty yard from Josey house.

I know what Josey planning. Plenty people going dead before it happen for real. Josey and Doctor Love. Josey and the American. Josey and Peter Nasser. There is no way the PNP can get ’way with this election. A PNP win is hataclaps for the island. The American say that we is all that stand between peace and chaos, plenty and starvation. But Jamaicans can be fool, they can be really fool. Poor people already know suffering. If PNP win, then PNP-bad become PNP-worse. But still. Still I have to wonder ’bout the level of bangarang a man going to perpetrate when he won’t even tell me about it. When too many people in the mix don’t look like and don’t sound like we. Twenty yard from Josey house.

Ten yard from Josey house a line of bullet blast across the dirt one two three four five six seven eight and cut me off. Three jeep jump out of the lanes and drive around me and kick up dirt like white people tornado. The dust rise and rise and thicken and tighten. The trucks still driving ’round and ’round but me can only hear them, the dust making me blind. Is not before it clear when me see that all of them already jump out of the truck, policeman and army man, all with machine gun draw, some pointing at me, some aiming at the street, searching up and down for one idiot to scratch the itch to fire. I searching too. This never happen, even the baddest of Babylon know that the only way to get into Copenhagen City is to sneak through a loose gap or a uncork hole, like the sewage. Police know better than to set foot in here. Especially after what them get the last time. Soldier prefer to go back at a vantage where they can pick we off one by one like fly. I searching too, because my men supposed to be out with firepower ready long before any jeep reach Copenhagen City. But every house door shut. Josey not coming out. Josey not there. Tony Pavarotti not guarding the north. The place look like them town in Clint Eastwood movie that bandits empty out.

Two soldier in green and two policeman, one in blue and the other in khaki and sunglasses, walk towards me.

—What the bombocloth this is, eh? me say to the khaki police.

—H’is your name Papa-Lo? him say. He tall and his belly plumb out front like a pregnant lady.

—Who the r’asscloth?

—Oi, me look like hi love fi repeat when me h’address known criminal element? Hi’s say h’if you be the man them call Papa-Lo.

—You sound like you don’t know.

—Yow, me look like hi ’ave no time for no stinking ghetto boy?

He look right past me and nod two time. I catch it too late to duck before the soldier behind me ram the rifle butt in me head back. Him must did hit me again, because I hear two clap and me head get woozy, I can’t hold on to even the next word that was about to come out of me mouth. My knees drop me. I didn’t want them to, me fight for them to stand back up
but they wouldn’t stand me back up. The police and soldiers move in ’pon me. Them kick up so much dust that me never see the boots coming before they an inch from me face. Them kick up me face and work down to me belly and batty and balls before somebody yell that they need him alive.

Two time me wake up, two time them knock me back out. Third time me wake up, me rise from a cot and see the three stone wall of a jail cell.

Alex Pierce

F
or some reason
it just gives me the willies, riding shotgun down Hope Road with Mark Lansing. Motherfucker can’t drive to save his life, at least not in Jamaica. So we made it all the way to Hope Road from New Kingston driving in the center of the street because he just couldn’t hang left. Still, he’s got balls of a brass monkey telling all these Jamaicans to go fuck themselves when they honked at him. Me, I just sunk in the seat, half not wanting anybody to see me in a car with Mark Lansing—not that anybody would recognize me—and half hoping that if anybody shoots the slug will hit him first. It’s seven p.m. Work is over for most of Kingston, and the road is packed bumper to bumper, horns screaming like they’re continuing the cussing match everybody was having before they got into their cars.

A siren suddenly goes off and everybody but Mark swerves out of the way.

—Get out of the way, Mark.

—Fuck that shit, let them swerve.

—Mark, without going into the history lesson why some Jamaicans would only be too happy to kick a white man’s ass.

—They can try—

—Move the fuck over, Lansing.

—Fine, fine, sheesh, you really need to chillax, brother.

I’m in the car with Greg fucking Brady. The sad thing is Mark probably learned this lame shit from Greg Brady. Every single thing this guy does just screams little penis.

The ambulance dashes past and in a move that is shocking one second then absolutely inevitable less than a second later, Mark swings out and dashes after it. I like to keep track of the moments when I’m genuinely
speechless and not when I just say that for dramatic effect. He’s grinning like an idiot too, stunned that he hit on a brilliant idea. Four cars are behind us with the same idea. I see us coming to the Singer’s huge double gate. I mean, I don’t see it, but I know it’s just a block away. Lansing grabs the wheel and swerves into the driveway, making such a sharp right that the tires screech and the car behind him shouts
Suck yuh mother
.

—Up yours, brother.

We’re outside the Singer’s gate. It’s too dusky but I can see a tree out front, almost blocking the front door. The top floor looks like it’s standing on top of the tree from here. Lansing honks twice and goes to honk a third time when I put my hand over the damn horn. He scowls, gets out of the car and walks over to the side of the gate to get the guard’s attention. The guard doesn’t even bother to get up. I’m not sure he’s even talking until I hear Lansing say that he’s supposed to fucking park inside, what the fuck do you mean do you know who you’re talking to I’m shooting the big man right now today and fuck you if you think I’m not coming in. The guard isn’t nearly as loud, in fact it still looks like he’s not saying anything.

—Assholes. They’re not letting any cars in unless you’re family or band. Motherfuckers.

Lansing drives over to the apartment building facing the Singer’s house and parks in somebody’s clearly marked parking space. I get out of the car with him, not even bothering to point it out. He’s not taking his camera. This is funny, watching him stomp and fume like he’s about to give somebody a good talking-to. Jamaicans are so unflappable, they might as well be Minnesotans. They’re probably laughing all the way till he gets to the gate.

—Happy now? he says to the guard. I’d say I don’t recognize him, but honestly I can’t tell these guards apart. The guard gives him a look from toe to head and opens the gate.

—Not you, only one, he says to me and I step back.

—Just wait there, Pierce. I’ll get clearance from the big guy.

—Yeah. It’s been real, Mark.

—Just wait there.

He heads for the front door then turns left and disappears. I can’t see where he went. The guard looks at me and I look at him. I light a Rothmans and hand him the pack. He takes one and hands it back to me. Neither of us is taking this as some sort of connection. But at least he doesn’t mind me leaning against the gate. I can hear the band stopping and starting, guitar most of all. Damn me for stereotypes, but I thought I would have heard bass and drums first. I heard that the new guys in the band were pushing the Singer towards rock. I’d say away from his roots but then I’d become just another white man who has the presumption to think he can school black people on their roots.

Not much to see from the gate. The Singer’s beat-up truck under a shed. Trees, wild grass, part of the west side of the house and guards, at least I’m assuming they’re guards, about ten or so scoping the grounds. For the first time I’m noticing all the buildings around me. The apartment complex in front where Lansing parked, the set of townhouses one gate over, cars now cruising up and down Hope Road. I haven’t even thought about what question I’d ask him first. What do you think about the predictions of when the two sevens clash? Bunny Wailer’s new album? Does this concert mean he’s endorsing the PNP? If Rasta don’t work for the CIA, does he know who?

I take a pad out of my knapsack and look at the empty page. You’d think I would have written down a million questions to ask him when Lansing told me he had an in. Now I’m at his gate and I’m all out of things to say. I know there’s a story and I know I want to know it, but now I’m wondering if this is what I want. I can’t figure out if I just got a sudden case of the chickenshits or if I am slowly realizing that even though the Singer is the center of the story, it really isn’t his story. Like there’s a version of this story that’s not really about him, but about the people around him, the ones who come and go that might actually provide a bigger picture than me asking him why he smokes ganja. Damn if I’m not fooling myself I’m Gay Talese again.