A Brief History of Seven Killings (25 page)

Josey Wales set out for Trench Town with just one man and Doctor Love. I shout out that he mad to go with so few but things now at the place where even when I shout Josey Wales don’t hear me. They set off in Josey’s white Datsun. One day later, is Josey that make the news. Two tenement yard in Trench Town blow up with explosive, seven house, a bar and a shop burn to the ground from fire. Peter Nasser call me and read a story about it from the
New York Times
on the phone then cuss because me wasn’t laughing as loud as him. He hang up and I know where him phone ring next. I still can’t remember when Josey Wales get phone.

January 6, police buss in on the Wang Gang because they live on Wang Sang Lands, a ghetto that is JLP but not controlled by we. Them boys have plans, and diagram and chart. And explosive. Two of them know the Cuban by him other name, Doctor Love, and the rest even talk about how they get gun from America. Me cuss ’bout all them little upstarts that nobody controlling will turn out to be a bigger problem than Shotta Sherrif. Still me picture Shotta Sherrif over in the Eight Lanes with him eye trying hard to stay open, just like me.

January 7, six boy from here buss ’pon a construction site on Marcus Garvey Drive and kill two policeman. I only know because I hear them laughing when they drive past me on the way back. Me lose me cool right away.

—Who the bloodcloth send you out to go shoot up construction site? me say, but the first boy start laugh at me. My bullet bust through him right eye and leave through the back of him head before he finish laugh.

—Who send you out, I say again and point me gun at another boy. Then something happen that me didn’t have a pen to mark with so me mark it by scratching me gun with a stone later. The rest of the boy pull them gun at me. Me couldn’t believe it. Me stand there watching them watching me and don’t say nothing. Then one of the boys looking at me burst blood from the top of him head and all down flat. The rest of them drop them guns and start to bawl and cry like they just remember that none of them reach seventeen yet. I turn ’round and there is Tony Pavarotti, holding him rifle and looking into the viewer and beside him Josey Wales. Both then turn and walk away. The same day, the Wang Gang attack a construction site on Marcus Garvey Drive and kill two policeman. The day after, this idiot government make a new law: anybody them find with a gun get send to prison for life.

Peter Nasser tell we to put more pressure ’pon PNP communities so we put more pressure. More than Shotta Sherrif can handle with no Buntin-Banton and Dishrag to back him up. The Prime Minister then come up with idea that the people hire Home Guard to guard they house and street.
People like Peter Nasser come on TV and say, Jamaica, I only have three words for that kind of measure: Ton Ton Macoutes. He call me to read some article from a newspaper in America name the
Wall Street Journal
.

—“Jamaica is not going communist. It is merely going bananas,” ha ha ha, you nah laugh, busha? It funny, man, it funny nuh bombocloth.

Then January 24. Seventeen people dead from counter flour.

February 10. Josey and Doctor Love and Tony Pavarotti leave out. In Jonestown and Trench Town, plenty bomb go off. Same month Wang Gang bust in on a youth club dance in Duhaney Park and kill five. Eight wounded.

March. Can’t remember which day. Police see Josey’s white Datsun and follow him all the way into Copenhagen City. The police demand that he get out of the car ’cause they plan to impound it. Copenhagen people come down on them like judgment with bottle, stone, stick, whatever and the police almost die like whore in the Bible. I remember two thing. The party leader himself have to come down to save the policemen. And two, Josey is a man of the people now.

All nice and decent people, me tell you a lie still. You think me stop like how blood taste when me kill that high school boy, but that was just part of it. And just because me stop like use gun don’t mean me did have a problem with how Josey did want to use him own, or even Tony Pavarotti, who never waste a bullet. But that Cuban man, that damn Cuban Doctor Love.

May 19. No, me don’t forget the date. He and Josey Wales go to the Orange Lane tenement, sneaking around like rat. But this time they take me. Maybe they did think there was something for me to see and it wasn’t just the boom. All the Cuban had with him was some white putty and some wire. But he find the one gas cylinder in the yard and stick the white putty on it. Or white bubble gum, and the second I think it’s bubble gum me wonder what is this little pickney shit and why Josey Wales like it so bad that he almost jump up and down like school girl and, as the Cuban say, blow we cover. Then he stick two wire in the putty, two wire that is part of a coil that reel it out far over the fence.

When the place explode, one whole wall blow apart, and what don’t blow apart catch fire from all the gas that spray. Josey had him gun ready for
anybody who try to run out and for any fireman who try to run in. Me run from me hear the boom. I wonder if certain man look at me as a coward after that.

May, June and July, plenty tribulation did ’pon the city, brethren and sistren. War in Babylon spread to Spanish Town. The police learn a secret that did shut so tight that is the first time me telling all of you. We in Copenhagen City have we own hospital. We have it for years. The PNP didn’t know. Shotta Sherrif didn’t know, he did just think that Copenhagen City man hard to dead, that we invincible. Truth be that fi we hospital better than the rich people hospital up in Mona. Me no know who bust it, but the police find it in June. Them never know say we could treat gunshot better than any doctor in Jamaica. Me still don’t find out yet who bust the secret, but he better hope me find him before Josey Wales. At least me will give him six hours to run. But here is something me didn’t know until the damn newspaper tell me.

June was the first time in a long time police come right ’round to where me be and drag all of we out of jail. Me woman go to the door, but they kick it open and strike her in the face with a baton. Me about to say whoever do that dead tomorrow, but that would just give them reason to kill and they hungry for that reason for years now. Me only hear the door bust off the hinge and me woman scream. I run out of the bathroom to see fifteen machine gun already pointing at me.
Every single gun here hungry for a gunman, so give we a reason, pussyhole,
one of them say. This wasn’t no police, this was soldier.

Soldier in brown-green uniform with plenty pockets and shiny black boots. Soldier don’t act like we is crime and them is order, soldier act like we is enemy and this is war. They go through every one of the tenements and yards and even the community center and the reason is this: ’round the same time they find we hospital in Copenhagen, they find two cell in Rema that they use as prison. Rema gunman who supposed to answer to me, kidnap two man from the Eight Lanes and hold them for nine hours and beat them. That is what they tell the police who raid Rema and find the cell. Then they raid we and drag we out of we house, some of we still in brief,
some of we cover up in nothing but towel. Me no mind Rema having cell to deal with a PNP youth who think him bad. And understand me again, me no want no ism or schism named communism in this yah country. Me no want no socialism, or communism or tribalism where PNP boy move in and take we space. But me have big problem with not knowing shit ’bout it.

The police take we to jail and lock we up for three days, long enough for we to overrun the cell with we own shit and manstink. One window in the cell and me sit by it but never say nothing. Not to Josey, not to Weeper, not to anybody. Me just see and wait. While me in jail two bombs explode in Elysium Gardens.

Doctor Love.

Alex Pierce

S
o this source,
right? Tells me that the Singer might have been involved in a horse-racing scam at Caymanas Park some months ago. In Jamaica people have a way of saying that if shit didn’t go down a certain way, then the truth is probably not far from it.
If it no go so it go near so
. I don’t believe for a second that the Singer could be involved in any kind of scam, that’s just fucking crazy. But I’m pretty sure someone is taking a shit and stinking up his own house. My source even told me that one afternoon, maybe couple weeks ago, the Singer came back from Fort Clarence Beach, which already made no sense since even I, a white man and the embodiment of Babylon, knows that he goes to Buff Bay every morning, like clockwork. Few people seemed to know why he went to Fort Clarence, which is curious. He went with some people who came for him, and only one of them did his own people recognize. Then he comes back home three hours later, so furious that his face was red the rest of the day.

Aisha left almost four hours ago, I think. I’m in the hotel room still on the bed and still looking at my belly. This whole fucking trip is a bust. I don’t know what I’m doing here. I mean, I know what I’m doing here. I’m the equivalent of the
National Enquirer
scandal hunter for the rag that scooped the Daniel Ellsberg interview. But I’m worse than that, I’m the little lowlife that captions the photo of what some fuck with only one hit song was wearing in the studio. This whole job is just plain bogus. But maybe I should stop looking at my belly and focus. Besides, feeling sorry for oneself is so 1975. Something is coming, I can feel it. Maybe it’s something in music, I don’t know. I’m on my bed, smelling Aisha’s perfume in the sheets and looking at the sun hitting the window when the phone rings.

—In the middle of something . . . or somebody? he says.

—Nice. Been working on that delivery all morning, huh?

—Haha. Fuck you too, Pierce.

Mark Lansing. At some point I need to find out how this cunt knew how to reach me.

—Nice day, isn’t it? Isn’t it a nice day?

—Looks like any other from this hotel window if you ask me.

—Hold the fucking mayo. You’re still in bed? Working girl must have been one hot bitch. You, my man, need to have a better outlook on life.

For the life of me, I don’t know if it’s because I’m the only American here he knows or if he’s under the seriously mistaken idea that we’re buddies.

—What’s shaking, Lansing?

—I was thinking about you this morning.

—To what do I owe that act of charity?

—Well, lots of things. I mean, you’re pathetic, but I’m your friend, so I get to tell you that.

I want to tell him he’s not my friend, that I wouldn’t befriend him if he was all that could stop me from being buttfucked raw by Satan and his ten big-dicked demons, but he’s in that one mode where he’s actually interesting. When he needs you for something but is way too arrogant to ever come out and say it.

—So yesterday evening I’m in this room with the Singer—

—What room? What the fuck are you talking about, Lansing?

—I’d be much better able to talk about it without you fucking interrupting me, Pierce. What, your mom didn’t have any Emily Post books when you were growing up?

—Raised by wolves, Lansing. Raised by wolves.

I’m tempted now to go way off topic, far into fucking space, because I know how much it annoys him when I don’t pay attention to what he says.

—In fact I was only just now reflecting on how my mother did it, catching and killing her own meat. Seriously, speaking of Emily Post, I had an ex-girlfr—

—What the fuck, Pierce. I don’t give a fuck about your fucking mother. Or your ex-girlfriend.

—You should. She was fine. Not your type, though.

Seriously, I could do this all day. I wish I was right in front of him to see his face get red.

—Pierce, seriously what the fuck,
hombre
?

Hombre?
That’s new. I should use it so that he’ll think he just started some new slang or something, because “hold the mayo” is going fucking nowhere.

—You were saying about this morning. Your thoughts ran on me for some reason?

—What? Oh. Yeah. Yeah, this morning. Here I was, with some guy from
Newsweek
, yeah? And some chick from
Billboard
, and some other chick, yeah? I think she introduced herself as
Melody Maker
, yeah. They’re all asking the Singer some questions about this peace concert, though his manager did most of the talking. Yeah, it was a conference at his house.

He’s fucking lying. There’s no way he could have had a press conference this morning without me knowing about it. And why is Lansing speaking cockney all of a sudden?

—Yeah, it was pretty quick so they probably didn’t have time to contact you. But don’t worry, my man. Some guy from
Rolling Stone
was there, or at least he said he was from
Rolling Stone
, which was odd. I mean, don’t you work for those guys?

—This guy from
Rolling Stone
, did he say who he was?

—Fuck if I remember. The second I heard
Rolling Stone
, I immediately thought of my good buddy Alex Pierce.

—How nice of you. Buddy.

I’m trying to think of a polite way to get this asswipe off the phone so I can call my fucking boss to see if it’s true. I could say that it’s just like this turd Lansing to pull some shit like this. Like somebody with no friends, he never could gauge when a joke went too far or just wasn’t fucking funny. But if this is true, it would be a new low for this fucking magazine, I swear to God. Shit. Fucking shit. So they leave the real journalism to . . . who the fuck knows? Robert Palmer? DeCurtis? Meanwhile they send me off to write about fucking Bianca Jagger filing her nails, while her husband re
cords some reggae shit. I mean, if that’s all they want from me, why not just send the fucking photographer, who by the way, I’ve yet to meet. Fuck this. Seriously, fuck this.

—And here I was thinking, this must blow for my buddy Alex, he just can’t seem to get a break.

—What do you want, Lansing?

—To be called Mark, for one.

—Lansing, what do you want?

—I was thinking more about what
you
want, Pierce.