A Brief History of Seven Killings (20 page)

—Sunbathe topless, my ass. That just makes you a WASP chick that sucks dick. Catnip for the fucking Moroccans.

—Wonderful, now you’re whoring out your own wife.

—Well, you do have that sexy new haircut, I say, but she’s gone off.

Nothing gets her going more than the sense that she is being ignored. I can hear her volume increase. I’m tempted to say you’re welcome, instead I turn around and see it, just popping out of nowhere. His house. I drive past this house all the time and yet I don’t think I have ever looked at it. It’s one of those houses that must tell you that it’s had a long past. I heard that Lady Musgrave Road happened because she was so horrified that a black man had built a mansion on her route that she had her own road built. Racism here is sour and sticky, but it goes down so smooth that you’re tempted to be racist with a Jamaican just to see if they would even get it. But the Singer’s house is just standing there.

—You giving him a lift somewhere?

—What? Who?

—We’ve been idling at his house for over a minute now. What are you waiting for, Barry?

—I don’t know what you’re talking about. And how do you know whose house this is?

—Every now and then I climb out from under that rock where you put me.

—Didn’t think you’d care for someone so, so wild, so unkempt.

—Christ, you really are my mother. I quite like wild and unkempt. He’s like Byron. Byron’s a—

—Stop treating me like I’m a goddamn idiot, Claire.

—Wild and unkempt. He’s like a black lion. Wish I had some wildness. Instead I got Yale. Nelly thinks he wears leather pants really well. Really well.

—Trying to make me jealous, sweetheart? It’s been a while.

—Honey, I’ve not tried to make you anything in four years. Come to think of it, Nelly did say there was a reception for the peace concert tonight and she—

—Don’t fucking go over there tonight!

—What? Why wouldn’t I? . . . I don’t take orders from . . . wait a minute. What did you say?

—Don’t go over there.

—No. You said don’t go over there tonight. You’re up to something, Barry Diflorio.

—I said I don’t know what you’re talking about.

—I wasn’t asking a question. As for the part where you get all spooky again to make me mind my own business, let me save you the trouble by not caring. Barry—

—What? What now, Claire? What the fuck now?

—You missed the left turn for the hairdresser.

The wife thinks she’s the only one who wants to go home. I want that too. I want it so fucking bad I can taste it. The difference is I already know that there’s no place we can go back to, no home in that sense anymore. Neither of us remembers that little Aiden is still in the car.

Alex Pierce

T
he weird thing is,
you try to sleep, you try so hard that you realize soon enough that you’re actually working at falling asleep, and will never really fall asleep because then it’s not sleep anymore, it’s work. Pretty soon you need a break from work.

I open the slide door and let traffic in. The problem with New Kingston is that reggae is too far away. I never had this problem when I stayed downtown where music, some jam session or some concert, always bubbled up. But damn brother, this is 1976, almost 1977. People from the embassy who I don’t even know started telling me to not go below Crossroads after a certain time, people who’ve lived here for five years, and yet still sweat before noon. You can’t trust somebody who tells you how much they loved your column about The Moody Blues. I’ve never written any column about The Moody fucking Blues. And even if I did, it would never be something some asshole getting fucked by the man would like.

Couldn’t sleep so I put my jeans and t-shirt on and went downstairs. I need to blow this joint. The woman at the front desk was snoring so I slipped by before she gave the customary heads-up to all white people leaving locked doors at night. Outside the heat is fucking dancing around me. The curfew is still on so all you get is the feeling that trouble might want to hang out, but no real trouble at all. Here’s the skinny on the rest of the night: I see a taxi driver, reading the
Star
in his car parked in the parking lot and ask if he could take me to somewhere that’s still jumping. He looks at me like he sorta knew the type, but maybe the jeans were too tight, hair too long or legs too skinny, and I wasn’t some fat fucker in a Jamaican Me Crazy t-shirt who came down here to ball with his little dick.

—I think, Mayfair Hotel lock up, pardner, the taxi driver says and I don’t blame him.

—Wasn’t thinking of somewhere white folks go to run away from the black folks, buddy. Hook me up with some real action?

He looks at me good and even folds the newspaper. I’d be a liar if I said this isn’t one of the greatest feelings in the world—when the normally unflappable Jamaican just got his ass flapped. He looks at me like it’s the first time he’s seeing me tonight. Of course this is the point where 99.9 percent of Americans fuck it up by getting too excited that a Jamdowner thinks they’re cool without passing the can-you-bubble-to-the-reggae-riddim test first.

—What make you think anywhere open? Curfew, me brother, everywhere under heavy manners.

—Come on. In Funky Kingston? Not even curfew puts this city on lockdown.

—You looking for trouble.

—Nah, running away from it most likely.

—Wasn’t asking no question.

—Ha. So come on, somewhere must be jumping, curfew or no curfew. You’re telling me all of this city is locked up tight? On a Friday night? That’s some crazy jive, mister.

—Friday morning.

He looks me down again. I’m tempted to say yeah, bud, I only
look
like a stupid tourist.

—Jump in and let see what we can find, he said. We going to have to stay off main road so Babylon don’t stop we.

—Rock ’n’ roll.

—That’s what you going say when you see these roads, he says.

I want to say buddy, I’ve been to Rose Town but that’s just white people mistake number ten: being proud about visiting somewhere Jamaicans would never be proud to visit. He took me to the Turntable Club up Red Hills Road, another one of those streets that the hotel concierge gives a strict time limit on how long a person of caucasoid extraction (her words,
not mine, swear to God) should consider himself safe. We passed a line of boys roasting chicken in oil drums with the smoke hazing straight across the road. Men and women sitting in cars, standing by the roadside, eating pan chicken and soft white bread, closing their eyes with big grins, as if nobody should be getting this kind of bliss at three in the morning. Seems nobody here heard there’s a curfew. Funny that we should end up at the Turntable Club because the last time I was here I was trailing Mick Jagger. Dude was going batshit crazy over all the stone-ass foxes in the club and all his favourite colour, black. The driver asks me if I’ve ever been to Turntable and as much as I don’t want to be a smartass, I hate when they think I’m just some ignorant cracker.

—Breezed through a couple times. Hey, whatever happened to Top Hat? And didn’t Tit For Tat used to be just down the street? Saw some dude get fucking clobbered for hitting up some pot in the bathroom. Bud, just between me and you? I always liked Neptune better. Turntable gets too mellow, man. And they play too much fucking disco.

He spent so much time staring me down in the rearview mirror that it’s a wonder we didn’t crash.

—You know your Kingston, he says.

And it weirds me out. I never even liked Neptune and was only guessing at Top Hat, I could have sworn it was called Tip-Top. Without Mick or Keith to tail, the Turntable Club became just any other club with too much red light. Thick with people like this curfew was somebody else’s business, not theirs. I got a beer and somebody tapped my shoulder.

—I goin’ keep talking to you while you try your hardest to remember my name, she said.

—You always such a smartass?

—No, just making it easy for you. Whole heap of black women in here.

—Give yourself some more credit.

—I give myself plenty credit. You, on the other hand. You buying me a Heineken or what?

And so it goes, I wake up before the sun comes out and she’s in the bed beside me, not snoring but breathing heavy. I wonder if this how every
Jamaican breathes, you know, just out of pressure or necessity. Can’t remember when she wrapped herself into the covers tight, like I did something that she doesn’t want me to do again. I want to wake her up and go sweetie I know the deal with Jamaican women, hell with any foreign women. They have to take the lead and it’s cool city, really. Pete from
Creem
landed in jail two years back when a Bermuda groupie started screaming rape, because according to him, he only suggested they French fuck. I remembered her. Jamaican girl who said she went to Brooklyn whenever she wanted to experience ghetto life. I remember that made me laugh out loud. Dark, dark skin, straight, straight hair and voice that’s never tender, ever. Of course we slept together that night, both of us were at the Supersoul concert being bored by the Temptations trying to phone it in, and neither of us was having any fun. Truth be told I was happy to see her at the Turntable. It had been a year. Figured out the name yet? she said as we went back to the taxi that I didn’t know waited for me. The driver nodded but I couldn’t tell if it was in approval.

—Me say if you remember my name yet?

—No, but you look an awful lot like a girl I know named Aisha.

—Driver, is which hotel him staying?

—Skyline, miss.

—Oh. Clean sheets then.

She’s fast asleep in bed and I’m totally naked and looking at my belly in the mirror. When did it get so soft? Mick Jagger never gets a belly. I turn on the radio and the Prime Minister just announced a general election in two weeks. Damn, that’s hard to core right there. I wonder what the Singer thinks, if the government set him up to piggyback on the good vibes from his upcoming concert. What else could it have been, Third World leaders kinda revel in a sorta obviousness, I hear. It just seems so awfully convenient.

I’m supposed to have lunch, or rather coffee, with Mark Lansing. Ran into him in the Pegasus Hotel lobby last night, after another powercut. Went downstairs looking for smokes but the gift shop was already closed, so I walked over to the Pegasus and who should I see in the lobby like he was
just waiting for somebody to see him? How’d the Antonioni shoot go? I said and he snickered twice, not sure if he should answer or find it funny. Too busy with my own stuff, though there has been offers, he says. I’d ask Mark Lansing what he thinks about this sudden election announcement, but he’d be so stunned that I asked him a serious question about politics that he’ll just give me a shitty answer and ask why do I need to know since I only write for a music magazine, the same one he once said he read every week.

At some point I must have mentioned how much I’ve been trying to get thirty minutes with the Singer or he must have heard from someone, because now he felt that I needed something from him. I remember it, him saying the exact words
poor guy maybe there is something I can do for you
. I did not tell this asshole to go fuck himself because, funnily, in that one split second I felt sorry for him. Loser has been waiting to have something over somebody for years. Now I’m having lunch with him later, so he can tell me how fricking awesome he is for getting to film the Singer with his expensive camera, and he’ll use the word fricking. He told me it was expensive but never told me the brand, thinking I wouldn’t know anyway. Fucking idiot probably went to bed with a stupid grin on his face, saying to himself, Look at me, motherfucker, I’m finally cooler than you. I need to get me some coffee real quick before I start to totally spazz out and freak the fuck out of Aisha. She’s still asleep.

Papa-Lo

P
eople like me
love to talk, everybody know that. Me par with the Singer because he love to talk too, even when he pick up the guitar and making ism rhyme with schism he still talking. And even when he rhyming ism with schism he still expect you to talk back, for is conversation we having, people. The reggae is nothing more than a man talking, reasoning with another man, conversating to and fro, as I would say.

But check this. Some man don’t talk. And just as how man who love to talk par with man who also love to talk, man who keep quiet par with man who keep quiet. Man who keep secret par with man who keep secret. You go to certain party, certain meeting, and you see Josey Wales go up to certain man, or they go up to him, and together they keep quiet. But last night was a hot night with no moon and today barely born. Me sleep for one hour and wake up with restlessness in the spirit. For too long now, way too long, something trap up in my head that must come down out my mouth. If I was a writing man it would have come down on the paper. If I was a Catholic it would come out all over the confession booth.

My woman gone to the kitchen to boil tea, and cook corned pork and yam. She know what me like and laugh when me cuss her out ’bout her donkey hee-hawing in the night. You don’t complain when me make other sound in the night, she say and take her jiggly backside to the kitchen. I slap it before she gone far and she look at me and say mind me tell you singing friend that you still eating pork ’pon the quiet. For a second I think she mean it, then she laugh and walk off singing “Girl I’ve Got a Date.” Some man never get the woman who cure them from looking for other woman. But even she can’t do nothing ’bout the restlessness in the spirit. She can make the food sweeter, and rub my head down softer, and she know when
to tell the man them don’t come ’round the house today, but she know there be nothing she can do or say to put the spirit at ease.

Maybe because is December. After all, only when we come to Reve lation that we take stock of Genesis, right? Going to December make me think about January. And not just because the PNP fucked up the country. Everybody know that communist done infiltrate Jamaica. More and more Cubans coming here, but nobody know that more and more Jamaicans going there. And when they come back, they can work an AK-47 like them born to control it. True thing, a school getting build over in St. Catherine and not one man on the job speak English. Then before even God can say, But wait a minute is what this? every doctor in the hospital now name Ernesto and Pablo. But January take something from me and give it to Josey Wales. And right now, everybody know.