A Brief History of Seven Killings (33 page)

—You can’t come back here.

—How you mean? But me come back.

I looking for wood and stone and nail and dried blood but this is not the shack, this is not even inside and the woman is the woman I live with, the woman whose name I can’t call out. I say is me.

—Madman, come out of me yard!

But me is not no madman. Me is the man who live with you like you is the mummy and me is the daddy. And just then I realize that I can’t remem
ber what she look like and don’t see her face but I know that me in her house. My house. The red house on Smitherson Lane fourth from the crossroad, the house with an inside kitchen that most people around here don’t have and have to cook outdoors.

—But me live here as you man.

—Man? Me no have no man. My man dead. Him dead to me. Get out now.

She done talk. She pick up a stone. The first one miss and the second one but the third hit right in the middle of me back.

—Wha the bloodcloth do you?

—Come out of my pussycloth yard! Rape! Rape! Rapery in me house! Lawd me pussy ah get trample! Rapery!

If there’s one thing that Papa-Lo simply can’t abide by is a rapist. Better you murder ten woman than rape one. The woman me live with stoning me and I running left and right like a ground lizard. She scream again and the sun shine down on me like a spotlight. See him there. The sun send demons after me, just as he send demons after Judas Iscariot.

Come out, she say, and I turn around to see her raise her hand to throw another stone. I look at her straight, and don’t blink. She drop the stone and run into the little bedroom that me and she make wet so much that she have to hang out the mattress to dry. On the other side of the fence I don’t see or hear them but I know them coming. I look out from the fence and see Josey Wales with three men behind him that me seen before. One is Tony Pavarotti but the other two me don’t know them name. I want to shout out is what kinda a fuckery this after all the brethren never did even at the house. Before I can shout that it’s me pap pap pap go off in the distance then bang bang bang on the zinc fence, the last bang just missing my right ear. I don’t know why but I look out again so that Josey Wales can see that it’s me and not some rapist but he look straight at me as he running and fire again. Four bullets bust through the fence and two zip-zip right past me. I run around to the back of the house and jump the fence but don’t land when I thought I was going to. Not a road, but a gully deep like the way to hell. I can’t stop falling. I try to roll like Starsky or Hutch would do but my right knee land
first and drive into the ground. No time for aieeeee. Running left would take me deeper into Copenhagen City and running right would take me downtown.

In downtown buses on the street with no time to wait. The sun is so high that it hit only the tip of building. Boys younger than me run past with stack of newspapers on them head. The Singer Shot! Manager Critical! Rita treated and sent home!

Jah live.

No.

Bam-Bam

D
on’t hide
in plain sight, don’t hide in plain sight, pussyhole. That shit come from movie and gunman only see what in front of them. Don’t hide in no crowd either ’cause all you need for crowd to change to mob is one See him there! No him dat? and we become me and them. But he was with them, and from them and everybody now against me. I want my daddy to come back and my mother to not be a whore and Josey Wales to not try to find me. Last night, man, last night. Weeper jump out first, then Josey Wales and me no know, me just jump. Me no wait ’pon Demus. No, star. But then me no get far when bullet start chase after me, brap brap brap. Me run thinking police deh ’pon me. Me turn left and bullet turn left. Me turn right and bullet turn right. Me run until me back in the Garbagelands and bullet still a follow me. Me dive into a big pile of garbage that smell like shit and piss and rotten egg, and it wet. Wet and stink, and the wet and stink drip in me hair and on me lip. Me don’t move. The stink garbage shelter me, hide when them pass. Not police.

Josey Wales and Weeper both with gun cocked.

—You think you get him? Weeper say.

—How you mean if me get him? Me look like me ever miss?

Weeper laugh and wait. A red car drive up and them get in. Now me can’t go back home. Me stay in garbage until the wet stink dry on me. Me don’t move until me know all of downtown Kingston gone to sleep. Me run out of the Garbagelands and through the empty marketplace. Near here is where Shotta Sherrif live. Me sight a shop that either didn’t close or just opening up since is curfew. All me hear on the transistor radio is treated and sent home, but will he perform? And me know Josey miss. The dutty stinking pussyhole miss, me know me should a go back and finish him me
self. Me know me should a gone back and make sure. Eight r’asscloth bullet the man fire and still miss. And now him after me.

Me need coke, even half a line, even one third of a line. Last night, in the middle of the night somebody splash something in my face and I couldn’t breathe. Not water, water run off quick, this stay on me face then run down slow, into my nose and mouth even though I blow and blow. Like saliva. Like God go to sleep on top of me and drool all over my face. I wake up choking and he still on me breathing his hot stink breath into my nose, no, a dog. A dog was licking my face. Me jump up and yell and kick the dog and watch it yelp and run away on three legs. Now me deh ’pon a park bench in National Heroes Park. They say he coming, they say it right there on the wall, that poster with the Singer pointing to the sky, Smile Jamaica a public concert, Sunday December 5 at five p.m. He beat death like Lazarus, like Jesus. People in the park talking, already people coming, walking right past me, the madman on the bench, and saying that they hope police going deal with me so that decent people don’t have to abide by no stinking madman. They come from early in the morning, people waiting for him. I blink and see them running in and out of the people and coming for me. They look like babies but one have three eyes and one have teeth so long they hang out of it mouth and one have two eye but no mouth and one have bat wings. Last night after me get ’way from Josey Wales somebody start chase me again. They chase me all the way up Duke Street to the park. No, last night me catch a sleep ’pon the railroad tracks. No, last night me did fall asleep in the Garbagelands because Josey Wales was shooting at me and me only wake up because somebody set my heap on fire. I don’t know if this is two nights since I shoot him or one. But the newspaper wouldn’t take two days to tell the world that the Singer get shot and live. That not even gunman can silence him. Everything is one day, no two. Me know we go after him on December 3. But people coming into the park two by two and four by four, so it must be December 5.

Josey Wales pop in my head and I remember running from him and I remember that I was telling myself don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry, you little battyman, but I cry anyway because I didn’t understand and I don’t under
stand why he was shooting at me when he send we out and then for the first time my mind run on the others and I wonder where they be. Or if Josey Wales shoot all of them already and is only me left. And I don’t know if this make sense to big people, but it don’t make sense to me. I didn’t stop running even after I couldn’t hear Josey Wales no more. I take foot from the Garbagelands and run and run and run all the way downtown, on Tower Street going east to west past haberdashery and Syrian shop and Lebanese supermarket all closed until the general election pass. Tower Street cut ’cross Princess Street and them beggarman, Orange Street and them higglerwoman, King Street and them tradesman and Duke Street and them lawyer lawyer. I turn up Duke Street and run into darkness. And I realize it’s not Josey Wales coming after me, or Papa-Lo or Shotta Sherrif, it’s him. He beat death and he coming after me. He not even coming, but sitting back maybe on some hill somewhere and setting a trap knowing that people like me born fool, and going fly straight into it. National Heroes Park. Is him park today and he own every single man who will set foot in it. All of Kingston. All of Jamaica.

Thick juice like saliva on my face, in my eye and in my nose. Me wake up choking on bench in the park with bird shit on my shoulder. Me don’t know if me drop asleep again and wake up, or if the last time me wake up was a dream. People are already in the park to wait and see. I see and wait. For them, for the police, for JLP gunman, for PNP gunman, for you. By four o’clock there must be thousand more, all of them waiting but something different. These people are not JLP or PNP or any other P, they’re just man and woman and brother and sister and cousin and mother and bredren and sistren and sufferah and I don’t know these people. I get up and walk and move past them, in between them, around them like a duppy. Nobody touch me, they don’t step out of my way, they just don’t see me at all. I don’t know people who don’t pick side. I don’t know what they look like, what run in their head before they say something, people who never wear Jamaica Labour Party green or People’s National Party orange. And these people getting bigger and bigger and the crowd bigger and the belt around the park
about to burst and spill but they waiting on him and they sing him songs until you come.

The crowd is one. Them going know me no one of them, sooner, later, sooner. Sooner or later one of them lambs going say see him deh! See the wolf. Me no know how them going know but them going know. But them don’t care about me. Me is a bug, a fly, a flea, less than that. Third World Band playing, surrounded by every policeman in Jamaica and the prettiest woman on the stage talk like she is John the Baptist and the Singer is Jesus, and she make the crowd ooh and ahh and yay and her dress red and orange and flow down to the ground like she is Moses burning bush, but she not talking to them, she talking to me, saying hey, little idiot, who are you to think you can take down the Tuff Gong.

The crowd rush forward and roll back. East swing to west and west swing back and I trying not to look and I trying to not make anybody look at me, and two boy pass by, one of them looking at me too long, but the other drop a newspaper. It’s dark but the streetlight hit the people and sometimes hit the ground. Jamaica
Daily News
. The Singer Shot. Gunmen’s night raid leaves Wailers Manager Don Taylor—I-Thr—somebody step on it, then another, then another, the crowd suck it up and the paper is gone.

I look up and he—

Not he. You.

You look right at me.

You’re onstage fifty, a hundred yards aways, not even feet but yards and you look at me. You see me long before I see you. But you not looking at me. The only light now is on the stage and I lost in the darkness.

You wrap tight in a black shirt like you coming out of hell and I can’t see your pants, I don’t know if it’s jeans or the leather one that make the woman who I live with breathe heavy. You spin and the light flash through you whipping up your locks. Blue jeans. So many people on the stage that you can’t even dance like you used to. The pretty woman, your John the Baptist, have her arms folded but she feeling the music. Then on the left me see a duppy and try to run. Me run into a chest. I say sorry but the man don’t
even feel me, he only feeling the positive vibration. Me look back and the duppy not a duppy, but your woman dressed in white. The horn blow and you stand still. I not hearing you, I hearing the people and they hearing you and I can see you but you lock me out like I must be deaf and I wonder how this night would play for deaf people and if you really starting a revolution if they can’t join.

You.

You say that you always knew, always knew that you were confident in the ultimate victory of good over evil. You not talking about me. Me know you nah drop prophecy ’bout me. You ah idiot. You forget that you is the lion and me be the hunter. You flash your dread again. Then I forget that though you be the lion and me is the hunter, me inna fi you jungle. Concrete Jungle. Me turn fi vanish but there nobody move, nobody get hurt. The crowd stand still then push forward. Then they start to jump and I stop. One foot crush my toe and another and another and if I don’t start jumping they all going stomp till one by one they trample me down.

You doing it.

You telling them to close in and stomp down Babylon. Now me jumping to you singing to them ’bout me. You is the lion and now you is the cowboy, going to chase those Crazy Baldheads Out of Town. I look at the ground but the bass about to push me down so that the people can trample me. And the guitar coming through the crowd like a spear straight for me heart. Me did think it was one day since we shoot you but when me take a stop is two and me don’t know if me did sleep in the Garbagelands, or Duke Street, or the park and when evening turn to morning and then evening again for two days. And where me did gone for a whole day that me can’t remember. But me can’t think nothing right now ’cause you just ah attack me and everywhere me look to run the people just ah block me and maybe they should block me because Josey Wales must be here too, and Papa-Lo and me see that this is what you plan all along.

I look up and people still in the tree and one of them must have a gun aiming at me head.
Now you got what you want, do you want more?
you say and is me you a say it to, ah me you ah chat ’bout, and only me know what
you really mean.
You think you bad, pussyhole? You think you can come take this bombocloth? You think you can kill off the Tuff Gong? You think you can just snuff out His Imperial Majesty either? Jah Live, pussyhole, and Jah coming to cut out you bombocloth heart. Jah going point him finger like lightning to strike and burn you down to pile of ash good for nothing but for a mangy dog to lift him left leg and piss ’pon you so you wash ’way down drain.

Now you get what you want, do you want more?
No. Me no want no more because me see them, the baby with bat wings, and the baby with two eyes but no mouth and more burning blue flame, and taking their time walking through the crowd and I want to shout people you no see them? You no see the demon them? But the people looking at you, only at you. Something slither over my foot and rub scales against my ankle. And then do it again and I scream but the guitar scream the same time and suck mine out. Maybe if me no run but try to walk me can leave. So me take foot, cut through, but everybody jumping and waving and grinding and singing and to the left is uptown, to the left me sight Wolmer’s Boys’ School and nobody would see me, so I head left but people keep singing and moving and singing and jumping so much me can’t see but me walking and walking and every time I think something, that I finally reach the end of the park another voice say
You not going nowhere, pussyhole
and then you sing
So Jah say
and make it official.