A Brief History of Seven Killings (81 page)

—She wants to know why we’re doing so many tests, Doctor.

—Oh? Well, could you tell her—

—She understands English, Doctor.

—But you could tell her in her native—

—It’s not a language, Doctor.

—Oh well. Ma’am, as you know, your husband had surgery for gunshot
wounds causing serious head trauma and unstable spinal fracture. Sometimes, especially if the patient comes in still conscious, we can tell how it’s gonna go. But your husband did not. Also, gunshot wounds have a nasty way of causing more damage where they leave your body than where they entered it. Being that he’s not awake and it’s too risky to wake him, we’re still not sure if either spinal function, or if his mental state is altered in any way. We need to run tests because his status might be changing, maybe even for the better. But there’s no way to know for sure without regular testing. We may need to step up a dose, decrease a dose. He might even need more surgery in ways that are just not obvious. That’s why we need to test regularly. I hope this makes sense. Ma’am?

—You’re fine, doctor, I say, knowing that the remark would irritate the shit out of him. He nods at her first, then me, then leaves. I can hear the patronizing talk he’ll give me at the water cooler even now. At least I’m too old now for him to place his hand on mine when he’s doing so—a trick which supposedly makes nurses’ panties wet. I swear if doctors would get out the way nurses could get on with actually healing people.

—So is where in Jamaica you come from?

—Excuse me?

—Excuse yourself. Is where in Jamaica you come from?

—I don’t see how that’s your—

—Listen, lady. Me hear you when you tell the doctor how you was just passing by, all of thirteen floor up from the same emergency room me carry him. What him woulda say if me did tell him say is every day you come in me man room like is your man, for no reason? So stop with the damn fuckery because you can’t come from no place but Jamaica with a name like Millicent. Millicent Segree? You no just come from Jamaica, you come from Country. So you can go on stoosh with them white people all you want, but you not fooling nobody.

I tell myself I don’t have to take this and if I leave right now, this hospital is so huge that she would never see me again. All I had to do was leave. All I need to do is put one foot in front of the other and march out of here before this woman get all ignorant.

—’Cause me sure you never leave Jamaica talking so.

—What if me come from uptown?

—Maybe. You sound flat and dull like them uptown woman for true. But at least you don’t look like you live in you battyhole. No, you—

The monitor beeped and she jumped again.

—You want to hear that sound, I say. —Is when you hear one long beep that don’t stop that’s bad.

—Oh? Oh. Me never know. Nobody never tell me. Why you keep coming up here to look ’pon me husband?

—Me no have nothing to do with your husband.

—Trust me, me love, me never worried ’bout that.

I want to tell her both to fuck off and that I admire her quickness.

—You don’t get a lot of Jamaicans in this hospital. Only one old woman who died last year from a stroke. Then suddenly we have whole rash of them, all of them from gunshot wounds. And he is the last one still here. Of course I would be curious.

—Curious me r’ass. If you curious you come in and read the pad by him bed that all the other nurse read. But you come in and look. And if me late you always here, and if me early you quick to leave as soon as me come.

—People shoot people in Jamaica all the time, but me come to New York to see it up close.

—See it up close? You no see nothing. Wait till you see a boy get shot in the club.

—But why they bring it here? Why bring it to America? You’d think if you come here you could brush off all of this crap and start over.

—Is so you do it?

—I didn’t say that.

—But is true. You and you stoosh talk.

She gets up for a few seconds then and sits back down. I’m still near the door, wondering if I should back out slow or fast.

—For some man, for plenty man, is that same crap the send them here. Otherwise them wouldn’t have no way to come to America.

—I suppose.

—Fact, that. And you not in here just because you never see no Jamaican. You in here for something else. Lady, me is woman too, you know. Me know when a woman want something.

—I really should head back to the ER.

—Then go on. And the next time me can tell the doctor that like you how you just come in here all sort of time when you feel like.

—What you want to know?

—Me husband. Me ever going hear him talk again?

—You really should ask the doctor—

—Talk.

—You don’t want to hear it from me, I’m not a doctor.

—Talk, me say.

—Like a four-year-old, maybe. And that’s if he recovers. He going have to learn everything over and he still going sound like he’s retarded.

—Oh. Him going walk again?

—The way things look, he might not be able to hold a cup again. I hope you know I can be fired for what I just tell you.

—Fired because you is the first one tell the truth?

—Is not my job to tell you the truth. Is my job to tell you what we think you can handle. And nobody here can really predict what might happen to a patient, so nobody want to say something and it don’t go so. He could recover or he could—

—Dead.

—That too.

She looking at me as if she’s waiting for me to ask that question. Or maybe I’m just reading what I want into her face. The monitor beep but she doesn’t jump this time.

—Josey Wales shoot him?

And there I said it. All these years I never said his name once. Could never bring myself to even use it. I know that later I’ll start beating myself up over how I let my own mind run wild with me for years over my thinking this man hounding me, when me sure if I walk right past him he wouldn’t know me from anybody, even if he stopped to chat me up.

—Josey Wales?

—I don’t mean personally. I mean, his gang.

—You don’t know no Jamaicans in the Bronx?

—What this have to do with anything?

—Them don’t call gang, them call a posse. And Josey not going nowhere since him in prison now for long past two year.

—What?

—So you don’t even read one issue of
Gleaner
or watch no Jamaican news? Them going ship him to America for American court this month, me love. Is Josey Wales’ posse that shoot up the club. Everybody know Tatters is Ranking Dons’ night club. Them don’t own it or nothing, but them always in there. You know what funny? Me still remember what song was playing, ’cause me just ask somebody how come “Night Nurse” still sound so sweet. Don’t ask me why me didn’t see it coming. Josey Wales’ son get kill in Jamaica and whoever do it must be connected to Ranking Dons in some way or ’nother. You lucky you manage to run far away from Jamdown, but for the rest of we Jamdown follow right back o’ we.

—So your husband was just a bystander?

—No, lady, him was a Ranking Don.

Six

S
o Jesus Christ
kill Tony Pavarotti?

—Jesus is right. Look ’pon the man hair. You woman make you leave the house like that? And here me did understand that all white man shave except the ones who in some cult a breed him sister.

—And is bell-bottom jeans that? To rahtid.

—Brethren, what me want know is, where me can send telegram to tell you that is 1991? You look like you ’bout to sing “Disco Duck.”

—Nah, man, Eubie, is “In the Navy.”

—The whole a unu can stay. Caw you no know say is this look a carry it now, you no watch the MTV? No, man, my boy just stick to him gun and wait it out till the look come back inna fashion.

—That is one hell of a wait. Then is what you waiting on for the near fourteen years? For one of we to come find you?

I got a hunch these are not the men you ask to get to the point. They’ve left me on the stool and now I’m in the middle of men circling me like any minute now they’re gonna put a dunce cap on my head. Or pounce or knock me over the head with a baseball bat. At first I thought they were circling like sharks but this is a fucking shitty time for a bad metaphor. Fucking idiot, I’m editing my life even as a bunch of big black men with guns take over my house. And we can rule out robbery, though for once I wish it fucking was. Haven’t heard the name Tony Pavarotti in years, maybe even seven years or so, and I only heard it once, from Tristan Phillips. I don’t think about that day at all. And neither had anybody else since nobody did anything. Even did some checking, as much as I could anyway through microfilm of Jamaican newspapers, and there was nothing. No police report of a murder, or even a body found dead at the hotel. Fuck you, Faulkner, the
past really isn’t dead. It’s not even past. I didn’t even know the man’s name until I met Tristan Phillips.

—To the neck, I say.

Silk Suit and Pig Tails both look at me like I interrupted them. Ren-Dog, or at least I think that’s his name, puts the remain ing fruit in the fridge and takes the blender to the sink. I can hear it coming, me telling him not to use the dishwasher for just one blender. But Pig Tails and Silk Suit are still looking at me.

—To the neck’s how I did it.

—Did what? Silk Suit says.

I’m sure he said his name was Eubie, but I can’t seem to retain anything. Right now there could be seven men in total or six, but I just can’t remember.

—Killed him. I mean, stabbed him. I mean, I stabbed him in the neck, probably to the jugular.

—He mean in the neck, boss, Pig Tails says.

Eubie stares him down so hard he winces.

—Which one of we here go to Columbia University? Eh? Which one ah we? You think me don’t know where the jugular vein be? How long before him dead, two minutes?

—Almost five.

—Then you hit the wrong jugular, my youth.

—It’s not like I had expertise in the area.

—Really? With the questions you love ask and the stuff you like write maybe you should think ’bout that little bit. Especially from what I’ve been reading in
The New Yorker
.

—Everyone’s a critic, I say.

I didn’t see the punch coming. Right in the temple. I blink, trying to get the shock out, and shout fuck.

—This look like a movie to you? I look like I have time for the wisecracking white guy?

—I guess you Jamaicans love to carry a grudge, huh?

—I don’t think I follow you, young man.

—This Tony Pavarotti dude? Your top man. You guys talk about him like he was the baddest motherfucker there was, and yet some fucking
skinny journalist drops him with a fucking letter opener. And then you guys show up fifteen years later—

—Sixteen.

—Like I fucking care. Show up to do what, to finish the job? How
Godfather Part II
of you.

—Boss . . .

—Is cool, Ren-Dog. Brethren think nobody here watch movie.

I’m rubbing my temple and they’re still circling. He wait till he’s behind me to talk.

—How you think all them man, how Ren-Dog get to be in this room. You think him is here fi make juice?

—Dunno.

—Ren-Dog?

Ren-Dog looks at me and says,

—M60.

—M60. Every man in this posse have to pick a bus and pick a stop. First man or woman off the bus they shoot. Bonus if they dead.

—That supposed to scare me?

—Watch it, boss, look like somebody balls growing in them pants, Pig Tails says.

Me, I’m looking at a man with dreadlocks pig tails, a man in a wife beater making juice and a man in a silk suit that looks like fucking satin with a white handkerchief popping out of the pocket because Momma didn’t teach him how to fold a fucking pocket square and it just hits me how absurd this all is. No, not absurd, fucking ridiculous.

—You getting bold, boy, Ren-Dog says.

—No, I’m scared shitless.

—Look here—

—No, you look. I’m fucking sick and tired of you guys acting all big like you on some fucking sitcom. Fucking coming into my house and making juice and trying to have some conversation like you’re the intelligent criminal, all complicated and shit in some movie, when you’re just a bunch of fucking thugs who shoot women and children. I don’t fucking care that you
fucking read. I don’t fucking care how smart you are. I don’t give a shit about your goddamn freshly blended juice. Or how I dropped the baddest gangster you fuckers could produce out of that fucking island. In fact why not just do it, huh? Just do it. The less of your shit I get to hear, the better off I’d be anyways. Just fucking do it, then get out’a my house so the neighbors can call the cops. And take your fucking fruits with you, I don’t even like juice.

—You right, Eubie says. —That wasn’t supposed to scare you. When I want to scare a man I don’t fucking talk. Ren-Dog, deal with this pussyhole.

Seven

S
o what did
Peter Nasser want anyway?

Josey Wales is walking around his cell, without realizing he’s pacing I bet. But every time he goes off into the dark corner, I think he’s going to emerge with a nasty surprise. Maybe not a gun, but maybe a shank he can throw like a dagger straight for one of my eyes. And it happens every time. He walks past the cell bars slow, looking at me until he’s at the corner; turns to head to the back until the slanted shadow sucks him up. Then he goes silent too so you can’t follow even the sound of him in the dark. Not even footsteps. Sometimes he stops and you wonder, What is he doing in there? What is he preparing? And then when he comes out of shadow for a quick second your heart jumps. And it jumps every single time he does it. I can’t remember which one they said was more dangerous, the wounded lion or the caged one.

—A reason to stop shitting himself. Why you care ’bout Peter Nasser all of a sudden? No you just say you don’t see the boy in eleven years? And he’s just the sixth man to pay tribute to me this week. Now everybody want to know what am I going to do if I get send to American prison. Well, they should have done more to keep me out of prison in the first place. And funny how everybody seem to think American court going convict me. But check it—when Yankee justice come knocking first, everybody forget Josey and leave it to me to sort it out. And now when things didn’t sort out all of a sudden everybody trying to sort it out himself.