A Brief History of Seven Killings (34 page)

I going to make it to the east.

No.

So Jah say
.

No bombocloth duppy going catch me.

Yes, them going catch you.

So Jah say
.

Josey Wales going find me and then he going kill me but he goin’ kill me quick because me know. Or maybe Papa-Lo going find me and he go ing kill me slow so that all bad man would know.

Yes.

So Jah say
.

Nobody can kill the Tuff Gong.

So Jah say
.

Me take foot. Me walking, me foot moving faster, but you getting louder, louder, louder, and me take a stop and look and you nearer than before. Loosen the line to trick the fish. And then you look at me and me can’t move. And the babies with bat wings and blue flame coming closer, me can’t see them but feel them and me can’t run from them because you looking at me. And you better stop. You hear me? You better stop. Was not my scheme to kill you, I don’t even care if you live or die. Leave me alone, leave me alone, fucking head-lice-infested natty-head Rasta. You looking at me, I know,
so Jah say
. So many people in the stage that you can’t even move, police chief in khaki, white man with camera, the Prime Minister standing ’pon top of a Volkswagen, black people so plenty and so black they look like shadow wearing clothes and dancing and skanking in the dark. And you singing and your ghost wife singing and everybody singing and the crowd singing and your real voice slip under all that.

I look at you and see your mouth moving, singing one thing but talking something else.
Look up here Babylon boy, think you can come ’gainst the livication of His Imperial Majesty King Haile Selassie. His foundation is in the holy mountains. Jah loves the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob. Glorious things have been spoken of thee, oh city of God. I’ll make mention of Rahab and Babylon to them that know I. Behold Philistia and Tyre and with Ethiopia it shall be said that this man was born there and the highest himself shall establish the earth, Jah! Rastafari. Look up here so boy.

I look. But you not looking at me. You don’t need to look at me for the same reason God don’t look at man. For one look and man eye would burn out of him skull, burn to nothing, not even a speck, not a dot, less than that. That is not me talking, but you. Me not me no more, me don’t sound like me only you and no people deh ’bout, only shadow and no sound dropping through the speaker, only the deep end of the riddim. And you hold the mic up in the air like a torch and cover your eyes again, but you seeing all. They think you dancing but you signifying, your word not mine. My sweat run cold and it won’t stop, it run down my back like a cold finger right down the split between me bottom.

Then you move your hand and you flash your dread and lock your stare on me. Through me, inside me, behind me, you reach straight into my heart and grab it. You say watch the work of Rastafari. Watch him turn lion into hunter and hunter into hunted. You know I lost my gun, the gun that nearly take you. You know that even if I did have the gun I couldn’t shoot. You know that me is nothing, me is a dead man. You know my heartbeat the snake around me feet, you know you can will the crowd to push me down and swallow me up. You in the jungle, the bush, and you step out in the clearing for audience with His Imperial Majesty. You step forward and roll up your sleeve. Babylon try to smite you through the hand, but fail. You pull the first button on your shirt, then the second, then the third, then puff out your chest like Superman. You point to the wound on your arm and the wound in your chest. You do the war dance of victory and you relive the hunt and everybody see but only I know. My sweat cold. You point to your wound like Jesus pointing to his side to show the work of the spear. More people on the stage now and the pretty woman take back the mic but not before the wind blow and the cock crow and you pull two pistol fast from your holster like the Cisco Kid. Like Marty Robbins. Like, like, like the Man With No Name. You throw back your head and laugh so long that the laugh don’t even need a mic. You laugh at me then stop quick and fierce and look straight at me, you eye two fire. I shut my eye tight until I feel you not looking and when I open them you gone. And me know me dead, I can only run when I see that you leave.

But the baby with bat wings flying after me. People shoving, people pushing, and something or somebody hit me straight in the face. Then another hit, straight in the belly, and I think I going vomit but I piss myself. Me not crying. Me not going cry. I can’t stop anything that going to happen to me right now, not even my own piss. It run down me foot and people hitting and slapping and punching and passing and running and running and passing. I make out of the park, before people realize that you gone and not coming back, so the street dark and empty and I don’t know any of the building across the street. I don’t even notice Josey Wales’ man Tony Pavarotti until he right in front of me, until him knuckle charge straight for my face.

Demus

M
e run all day
into the night. Two nights ago I was running down a dream.

A gully so stink with garbage that even the rat them don’t come ’round too much. I run from Duke Street up to South Parade and jump on the first bus leaving. Me can’t remember if me pay the conductor the five cents. Only four people did was on the bus and only one behind me. Me head start to hurt me, not a big hurt but that nagging one, like a buzzing mosquito fly through your earhole and now he moving up to the top of your head. The buzz that make you feel somebody eyes on your back. I turn around and it’s a school boy. Take off the uniform he not older than me, me think. But he not looking at me. Or he only looking at me when I turn my back. I turn around again. I want to walk up to him and cut a telephone mark on him right cheek with my switchblade. I want to smash him head for going to school ’cause me didn’t have no chance to go to no pretty school in any pretty khaki uniform. But he is just one boy. I turn my back again and I hear horsefoot. I hear horsefoot getting louder and louder and I know it’s the ratatatat of this old bus old engine but I hear horses coming. That’s when I jump off the bus in Barbican and climb down from a little bridge down to a gully underneath and stay there.

When me wake up, a hand ’pon me balls. A hand grabbing my pants hard making me jump. All I can see is the hand stretch out from a pile of garbage, a garbage monster made out of newspaper and cloth and plastic bag and spoil food and shit. I yell and kick the monster straight with my foot and it fall back and scream. Some of the newspaper fall away and a woman head pop out. She black like tar with her hair crust up with dirt and paper and two pink hairclip and when she scream again I see only three
teeth, one so long and yellow, that she must be vampire covering up herself with newspaper. She still screaming when I look around and find a rockstone and threaten to fling. She jump up quick, I forget how mad people can be fit and bouncy and ready to run, which she do, down the gully screaming until she get so far that she just a blip, a dot, nothing.

I can’t tell the last time me eat food. The last time me bathe. And I was hoping that if me didn’t think about a line me wouldn’t want a line but now me think about it and is all me can do to stop it. But then me hear horse hoof again. Me heart start to beat fast, boom boom boom with the horse foot clap clap clap and me hand and foot feel cold and getting colder. Me head saying run fool run and the gully shake. But is a truck passing over the bridge. I have to stay hungry. If I stay hungry I think about food. If I stay hungry for a line I think about a line. Because if I think about how hungry me be then I never have to think about Josey Wales
fucking fool it was almost you, it was you until you sniff Weeper shit
. I don’t have to think about this bridge and how me only did want to show the brethren not the Singer to never fuck with Demus. How me sick and fucking tired of man using me, first the brethren, then Josey Wales
fucking fool it was almost you, it was you until you sniff Weeper shit
, and before that every man in the fucking ghetto who only think about what they want and how to use me to get it. Something must be on my head that say: use him, for him fool enough, and it must be true. Under the gully you just never know how the stink can drive a man mad. How he can think crazy shit and wicked shit and nasty shit, kill a baby shit or fuck a little girl shit or shit in church shit because the stink so stink all you can think is that the stink must be easing into you like water through a strainer and now you must be stink too. And I just want to wash it off, I just want to wash the whole thing off but the water running through the gully stink too. No. Now I have to think straight. I have to think like a thinking man. I have to get out of Kingston. I have to go. I have to go somewhere, somewhere people never talk about, somewhere like Hanover, who the r’asscloth know what going on in Hanover? Hanover so far from the rest of Jamaica that I can bet they don’t even vote in no election. Go to Hanover and take a name like Everton or Courtney or Fitzharold, a
name that sound like both mother and father raise me. I hear the horse hoofs again and get up and run. I run in the same direction that the madwoman run me must be mad too hearing horse hoof like me is some naked runaway slave with the mass hot on me trail while me go to the land of Maroons. That must be it, maybe I should run to the maroons—who run to the maroons in 1976? But who going look for me there? This sound like reasoning. It sound like solid reasoning. Like me still have sense. At least me still have sense. It almost make me laugh, me running through the gully, watching it go dark every time me run under a bridge then back into the light when me run out from under it. I run and run and run until the air start to taste salty and me know me soon near the sea. I run and run until the sun reach the top and bake me back, then slide down and down and down until it shock the sky one last time with orange, then sink. And I don’t stop, not even when me see that me don’t have on no shoes and the water me splashing in start to get cleaner.

I run to a burnout car and almost stop to go in and hide until me turn into bones, but me keep running. Nothing hurt me unless me think about it, so when me think about food, hunger stagger me so bad that me fall down and roll. So me stop thinking about food. Running make me think that surely it soon be curfew so me can climb out of the gully and go somewhere where they be food to thief or water to drink, but me cuss ’cause there me was thinking about food again and me belly groan and cut me up with pain. Is true, you do feel better about things the further you run from it.

I pass the skeleton of a truck next and is not till me pass the skeleton of a boat that me see that me not in the gully no more. But me not in the sea either even though me tasting the salt and smelling the waves. Me toes digging in sand and mud and all around thick with tree, yellow tree that look like plastic with branch the bend smooth and vines hanging down and curling on the ground like snake. The sand cold and wet in one patch, then dry and hot in the other. I walk past a wet patch and a little hole open up and all sort of crab rush out. I stoop down and watch them, the light going out and sea getting louder. I look up and right there in front of me is a plane. It look like it fall and try to fly again but get trap in a spiderweb. The plane
still struggling but the bushweb winning. It upright like a cross but the belly still silver and shiny. Half of the left wing gone and the tail sink into the sand. Sea bush and sea flower pushing through the cockpit and out the windows as if bush was the real passenger. Crab running all around it. Part of me want to fly open the door and look if a real skeleton inside and part of me want to sit in the seat and wait for the plane to pull itself free and fly away. The bush rustle and branches crack like wild pig tromping through the bush. I turn around and five six seven eight Rastaman surround me, all of them in white.

—What the bloodcl—

Bam-Bam

M
e a scream out lawd!
Woi! Nonononononononono! screaming but me can’t scream ’cause the gag block me mouth and me tongue can’t push it out and me vomit come up and me can’t swallow it back down and me coughing and choking. Josey Wales pull off me own ganzie them was using to blindfold me and all me can see is torch and shadow of man and shadow on tree that look like big giant hand stretching out from the ground but everything blurry. It dark and me try to run but me foot tie together and me hands too. Me can’t do nothing but hop so me hop and Josey Wales laugh. I can’t see him, me just hear the laugh. But then he nod and come out from behind the tree and I see that he is a man and not a shadow. And Weeper and Tony Pavarotti grab me and lift me up and me can’t do nothing, me can’t punch them, or thump them, or stab them, or kick them, me can only look at them real fierce, look at them like just once, just once pussyhole Jesus Christ give me the superpower me begging for since me was twelve. Make me stare them with heat energy power that slice them in two. Jesus! Jesus! They grab me and lift me and swing with a one, with a two, with a three and let me go and me fall right down in the grave landing ’pon me stomach with me face right in the mud. Mud cake in me right eye and it burn and it hurt and me can’t blink all the dirt out. Me roll over and they just watching me from up top and Josey Wales look down grinning and me mouth taste like vomit and stone and nooooooooooo noooooooo nooooooo me hand a burn and the skin won’t come off! The skin won’t come off! The skin won’t come off so that the blood would loosen the rope and free me hand. Weeper just shoot me, just shoot me please just shoot me, shoot me you bloodcloth wicked pussyhole, shoot me! Shoot me! Josey come up to edge and piss down on me. Me hand behind me back I hearing earthworms
and ants I hearing ants they going bite and Pavarotti start filling up the grave nooooo nooooo noooooo mud raining dirt raining kicking and kicking and kicking five feet not six feet under can’t get up can’t get up mud and dirt and dust to dust and rocks and one rock break me nose and rock bullet me eye and no more toe and noooo sweep with you head sweep it off sweep off the dirt blow hard blow hard blow hard no no no no no no no no no no no no no blow hard can’t blow gag Jesus Superman Spiderman Captain America stare hard and superpower goin’ come superpower and me don’t have a little finger and me pull and pull and pull the rope over the stump of the little finger and free! Free! But the dirt raining and rising and me can’t look up but me hear them digging and throwing and dirt and dirt and stone clap forehead, can’t think superstare pow wap zip zooo zooom zooooooom pow them take this make joke see I can kick ’way dirt with two foot at the same time can kick ’way dirt like football, like you no like football kick ’way see it deh me bad me bad me tired me tired the dirt keep landing wetter and heavy like God pushing me down no no nuh nuh n—dirt in me left eye can’t shut it can’t blink can’t blink Weeper laugh more dirt more people more more more wiggle! Wiggle! Wiggle! Wiggle foot foot stuck then rock! Rock! Rock side to side no side only dirt turn over turn over ’bout turn over and crouch like baby crouch and so you have air I should have fuck the woman I live with no not her some other girl the girl two door down some other girl white girl charlie’s angel pussy pink pussy is pink me see in daddy secret book under the bed which he take out when he think me sleep and go off by himself and make man sound jesus me hard could fuck the ground must fuck the ground fuck fuck fuck want pussy no don’t want pussy fuck fuck fuck bend her over and rub the cunt and hoist up the battyhole and sink down the cock and it tight feel like piece of liver wrap ’round you cocky big big like daddy cocky when he fuck me whore mother her back to him she didn’t care who sleep and who wake and when she raise up herself daddy cocky like flagpole she raise and raise and couldn’t come off but she don’t want to come off she slide back down and yelp like puppy pussy cocky balls balls and me never see me father naked and me never see him fuck me mother maybe some other man maybe Funnyboy no he is battyman who
make man suck him cocky then shoot them and shoot them dead and me never reach Cuba and me never go to Barbados and never take the S off Superman chest and can’t cry through the left eye it full with dirt so breathe in short not deep air scarce air scarce can’t feel new dirt dump on me only hear it so dark and wet and heavy, the dirt heavy and can’t more no no no no no no no stop stop breathe breathe short save save what? Dig dig dig dig chuck chuck chuck dead you going dead you going dead make me dead quick no live no dead you going dead take another breath don’t use up the air the air feel wet and hard and tight somebody hand over me nose it feel like somebody hand over me nose ah ah ah ah ah hhhh hhhhh Jesus! Jesus! Jeeeees one breath breath breath 1 breath 2 breath 3 breathe 4 breathe breath breathe fi fi fi fi fiiiiiiiiiiiive breath six breath se se se se sevennnnnnnneight br nnnnnnn huhhhhhuhhhuh hhuh hhuhh breeeeeeeeeeehuh huh huh hh hhh hhhhhh h h h h h h nine! Niiiiiiiiine nuhhhh nuhhhhhhhh nuhhhh huhhhh hhhhhhh hhhh h h hhhh h daddy no not the yellow fire engine the red one the yellow one can’t be real daddy no daddy I want a kisko pop and and lollipop and a tootsie pop and all kinda pop and a purple crayon and red too pink no pink is for girls pink is for girls HubbaBubba chewing gum don’t stick even when you blow a big big bubble biggest and bubblest ring around the rosie pocket full of posie aw shucks aw shucks we—