A Brief History of Seven Killings (73 page)

—Not even a resident?

—Well, I have a Jamaican passport.

—With your real name?

—No.

—Christ. What did you do?

—Me? I didn’t do anything.

—Says you. Come on, you must be on the lam. This story is already the most exciting thing I’ve heard since I can’t even remember. What the fuck did you do? Who are you running from? I must say this is quite thrilling.

—Who knew that when you opened your door that your day would come to this? And I’m not on the lam. I’m not the criminal.

—You got a son of a bitch for a husband who used to hit you.

—Yes.

—Really?

—No.

—Dorcas. Or whatever your name is.

—It’s Dorcas now.

—I hope you thanked her for her generosity in sharing her name.

He stands up and goes back to the window.

—Since you migrated here under a false name, I’m right to assume that the person you’re running from is in Jamaica. But they clearly have the resources to track you here, hence the false names.

—You should be a detective.

—What the hell makes you think you’re so damn safe?

—You’re blocking the moon. And I’m living here since 1979 and he hasn’t found me yet.

—So it’s a he you’re running from. Did you have to leave kids behind?

—What? No. No kids. Good God.

—They aren’t so bad until they start to talk. Who’s this guy you’re running from?

—Why you want to know?

—Maybe I can—

—What, help? Already helped myself. He’s far away from New York City. And probably have no reason to come here.

—You’re still hiding though.

—Lots of Jamaican live in New York City. Somebody might know him. This is why I don’t live near Jamaicans.

—But why New York at all?

—I wasn’t going to spend my life in Maryland, and Arkansas was not going to work out. Besides, a big city is better overall. Public transportation, so you never need a car, you never stand out unless you’re with a white man on a train uptown, and jobs where nobody asks anything. And even in between jobs you still have to appear to be working, so leave your home the same time every day, come back around the same time every evening. When I’m not working I just go to the library or MOMA.

—Hence knowing the difference between Pollock and de Kooning.

—R’ass, I didn’t have to go to MOMA to know that.

—Don’t sound like much of a life if you’re still watching your own back. Don’t you get tired?

—Tired of what?

—Tired of what indeed.

—Right now life is having a place and establishing credit. Pretty much everything here is on a payment plan even though I could very well have paid for all of it up front. That’s from chapter four. Look, if this is the moment where we have the big catharsis, I’m very sorry to disappoint you.

—Oh disappointment is the last word I would think of when I think about you, darling.

I really should have said I’m not your darling. I really should have said so. Instead I said,

—It’s getting late. You should go home.

—How do you propose that a distinguished white gentleman of a certain age get himself out of the . . . Where are we?

—The Bronx.

—Huh? Strange, I totally forgot. And how did we . . . Never mind, nature calls.

He closes the door. His jacket had slipped off the chair and I pick it up. Heavy, too heavy for a summer jacket, I’m thinking. It’s even lined. I would have sweat off these hips in this jacket. I’m folding it over when I see writing way up in the left shoulder, which does not look like cleaning instructions. It’s in handwriting, like somebody wrote it with a Sharpie.

IF YOU ARE READING THIS AND ARE NEAR THE OWNER OF THIS JACKET PLEASE CALL 212 468 7767. URGENT. PLEASE CALL IMMEDIATELY.

The phone rings three times.

—Dad! Dad! Jesus Christ, are you—

—This is Dorcas.

—Dorcas who?

—Dorcas Palmer.

—Who the fuck . . . Hold on, you the woman from the agency? Hon, it’s the woman from the agency.

—Yes, from the agency. Mr. Colthirst—

—Oh sweet Jesus, please tell me he’s with you.

—Yes, the mister is here. I just want you to know that he was the one who insisted on leaving the house. I mean, he’s a grown man who can do what he wants but I couldn’t leave him alone and—

—Where are you now? Is he alright?

—In the Bronx and yes. What is—

—I need your address now, right now, you hear me?

—Of course.

I gave him my address and he hung up just like that. No sense beating around the bush as Americans say. I knock on the bathroom door.

—Ken? Ken? Look I, I called your son. He says he’s coming to pick you up. Sorry but it was getting late and you can’t stay here. Ken? Ken? Mr. Colthirst?

—Who are you?

I press my head to the door because I was sure I didn’t hear right.

—Who the fuck are you? Get the fuck away from the door. Get the fuck away I said.

—Mr. Colthirst?

I reach down to grab the doorknob, but he had locked it from the inside.

—Get the fuck away.

Tristan Phillips

T
ell me now for real.
You really think that Josey Wales fly all the way to New York, six years too late, to deal with you himself? You look like you suffering from a too big view of yourself, my brethren, just a word to the wise. But then again, me pretty sure the reason Josey leave me alone was that what he really wanted to kill was the peace movement. And with that dead he didn’t need to kill anything else. Plus, me make a big point to stay out of him way and he stay out of mine, since to take me on would mean directly taking on the Ranking Dons. No, we nowhere as big as Storm Posse, but still he would be wasting a lot of time trying to neutralize we. As for Weeper, he and I know why he’d never make a move on me.

But your case is sorta different though, sorta special. Josey order some vanishing cream for you and you take out him best man. Maybe him respect you, he can be weird ’bout them things. Maybe him all forget you . . . then again no, Josey Wales don’t forget nothing. He must think it make no difference whether you living or dead, well the difference being time and money to cancel you. Or maybe him priorities shift.

Still, I don’t think he come here for you. People in here only know so much, but Josey not the man you say you didn’t meet six years ago. Him and this man named Eubie, who be here since 1979 selling weed and coke, almost turn they dealing into a legit business. Almost. I told you, the one thing about Storm Posse why they will always be bigger than Ranking Dons, is that them boys have ambition. They got plans. Man in here tell me that Storm Posse running things in New York, D.C., Philly and Baltimore. I mean, since I in prison them push all the Cubans back down to Miami. Thanks to them the Medellín cartel don’t even think about chatting to Ranking Dons. You know things bad when in all this crack explosion you
the one who get stuck with having to move heroin. But that Josey Wales, man, him is a thinker and Eubie even smarter. For one, both of them too smart to trust each other.

You don’t seem convinced that he not after you. Listen, brethren, Josey Wales not coming for you unless you give him new reason to. None of them boys in no rush to kill no white people either, because then the Feds would come sniffing. No brother, you gone clear. Unless you going write some article about all this.

A book?

Well some people just asking for it, eh? Brethren, you can’t write no book ’bout this. Make me get this straight. You writing book ’bout the Singer, the gangs, the peace treaty. A book on the posses? You know, each one of those is a whole book. What you going write about anyway? You have no proof of anything. Who talk to you other than me?

Listen, you already enjoying God’s grace right now. You write anything ’bout this, nobody can protect you. Right now you no longer somebody he need to be concerned about. You have family? No? Why not? Either way, that’s good because these boys not ’fraid to lick out ’gainst your family. And by no family you mean no brother, sister or mother? Shit, Pierce, then you have loads of family. Only this year, them boys find two dealers from Spanglers working the Bronx. For once Storm Posse didn’t storm the place with bullet. No sah, instead they behead the two boy then switch the heads each on the other body. Why you don’t do yourself a favour and wait till everybody dead? Brethren, is gang we talking ’bout, you probably won’t have to wait too long. Look ’pon me. Me supposed to be the one who know better. You know me even come ’pon TV? Twice to talk about the warring and the peace. Everybody look ’pon me and think now there is the one man who going graduate out of the ghetto. But . . . yeah, a whole life of fuckery follow that but . . . But even me who know better and can talk better, where you find me? See it deh.

What ’bout Josey?

No, my youth, man like that don’t go jail. In fact, I don’t think he see a jail since 1975. Which police force, which army bad enough to try take him?
Me don’t see Copenhagen City since ’79 but me hear ’bout it. Brethren, is like them communist country you see ’pon the news. Poster and mural and painting of Papa-Lo and Josey all over the community. Woman naming them pickney Josey One and Josey Two, even though he not fucking nobody but him wife, no, they not married for real. In him own way, you could call him a classy brother. But still, you want to get Josey you have to mow down the entire Copenhagen City first, and even then. You also have to tear down this government too. What you mean, government? Come, man, Alex Pierce, who you think give this party the 1980 election?

You know what I picking up ’bout you? You is definitely a reporter. No doubt ’bout that. You can go somewhere and just pick up information, especially information that people weren’t planning on giving you. I mean, look what you get from me just today. You ask the right question or at least the kind of wrong question that make people want to talk. But you know what wrong with you, or maybe it not wrong at all, it just prove you is a reporter. You don’t have no sense of how to put everything together. Or maybe you do but you just don’t know how to. Funny, eh? Josey Wales after you for something that you couldn’t even do. Oh, you can do it now? That why you writing a book? Because you can figure it out or you still writing to figure it out?

I have a question for you.

I want to know when exactly Jamaica hook you. No, I don’t want to know why, you just going give me the same fool-fool bullshit white man always say when they talk about Jamaica, like she’s some whore with the sweet pussy you can’t give up, or some dumb shit like that. Some one-inch-dick cracker say that one time, but since you have Jamaican woman I going assume you have more than a one-inch dick. So lay it on me, as the Americans say, what is it about Jamaica? The beautiful beaches? Because you know, Pierce, we’re more than a beach, we’re a country.

Oh.

Thank you for not giving me the same shit. It
is
a shit hole. It’s hot like hell, traffic is always slow, and the people not all smiling and shit, and nobody waiting to tell you no problem, man. It is shitty, and sexy and danger
ous and also really, really, really boring. Tell the truth I don’t like it either. And yet look at the two of we. Change the circumstances and we couldn’t wait to go back. It hard though, don’t it? Hard for you not to compare her to a woman. Congratulations, that is very non-white of you.

What a non-climax this is! Anti-climax, is that what they call it? You have to admit that if Josey Wales was waiting right outside this prison gate for you it would have been a more interesting story. At least you get to leave, all I get to do is wait.

March 1986, my youth.

What I going do? Me no know, go somewhere in Brooklyn where me can get ackee and saltfish.

Haha. As if me can leave Ranking Dons. My life do stay like yours, Pierce. People like me, our life write out before we, without asking we permission. Nothing much we can do ’bout what God decide he want to drop on you. Oh? Is that them call fatalism? I don’t know, brethren, that word seem more connected to fatal than it connected to fate. You know something, maybe you should write this book. I know, I know what I just say, but now me checking things deeper. Maybe somebody should put all of this craziness together, because no Jamaican going do it. No Jamaican can do it, brother, either we too close or somebody going stop we. It don’t even have to get that far, just the fear that somebody going come after we going make we stop. But none of we going see that far. I mean, shit.

Shit.

Damn.

People need to know. They need to know I guess that, that there was this one time when we could’a do it, you know? We could’a really do it. People was just hopeful enough and tired enough and fed up enough and dreaming enough that something could’a really happen. You know, sometimes I see the Jamaica
Gleaner
in here and the whole thing in black and white with just one or two headline in red. How long you think it going be before we have a picture in colour, three years? Five years? Ten years? None of them, brother, we already did have colour and lose it. That’s kinda like Jamaica. Is not like we never have good times and now have something to look forward
to. We did have things going good and then it go to shit. Now is shit for so long that people grow up in shit thinking shit is all they is. But people need to know that. Maybe that too big for you. Maybe that too big for one book, and you should keep things close and narrow. Focused. I mean, to rahtid, watch me asking you to write the whole four-hundred-year reason why my country will always be trying not to fail. You should laugh. If I was you I would laugh. But, man, you did notice it, don’t you? That’s why this peace thing haunt you for as long as it did haunt me. Even people who usually expect the worst did, if for only two or three month, start to think peace a little then a lot, then peace was all they could think about. Is like how before rain reach you can taste it coming in the breeze. Look ’pon me, me not even forty yet and me already seeing only what behind me, like some old man. But hey, this decade only halfway in, right. Things can go either way. Nostalgia they call it? Must be because me in foreign too long. Or maybe you just can’t make new memory in prison. What you think? You should tell me when you have your first sentence. Me would love to know what that would be. Oh, you have it already? No brethren, don’t tell me. I want you to write it down first.