A Brief History of Seven Killings (50 page)

The more I gave the man booze, the more he kept talking, and the more clear he got, the more things didn’t add up. The Jamaica Defence Force haven’t exactly been tight-lipped about the whole thing. In fact I met the army officer in charge who seems like a nice enough man, if not a little too rough around the edges. The men were all Wang Gang or ex–Wang Gang members and associates who infiltrated the Green Bay JDF training range where they opened fire on the few soldiers who were there that morning for target practice. Maybe they had planned revenge to get back at them for patrolling their community with too much heavy manners. Or maybe they heard there was a lightly guarded arsenal of new weapons for the taking. Either way they got what they deserved
coming down in high noon, like they was cowboy
. Except . . . except, you can’t come guns blazing if you don’t have any guns, hell, if you were coming to pick guns up.

Back at Bill Bilson’s office when I told him I ran into one of the men who escaped from Green Bay he suddenly got super interested in knowing who he was. Just a guy, I said. You know how it is, after a while they all look the same, I said. Bigoted bullshit, I know, but since Jamaicans believe deep down every white man is kinda racist anyway it was convincing enough to throw him off track. Anyway, so he showed me these pics he said some guy just left in his mail slot. Some guy? Now who’s being shifty, I almost said, but didn’t. Instead I looked at five dead bodies sprawled out in the sand. Two in one shot, two in another and all five in one shot with nothing but shadows of the soldiers looking over them, no actual soldier in any shot. Only one of the dead men wearing any shoes. Little blood, maybe it all just sunk in the sand, I don’t know. It’s not like it’s the first time I’m seeing a dead body in Jamaica.

—Hey, Bill, so what’s the deal with this? Does the JDF know that you’ve got them?

—Them must by now. Me can’t say for sure that is not them leak it in the first place.

—Oh yeah? So what’s the story?

—What is your story?

—Huh? No, brother, you first. Surely there had been an official statement. I mean, this was nearly a year ago.

—Statement? Soldier don’t release no statement. But your friend the major—

—Not my friend, buddy.

—You going want to tell certain gunman that. Anyway, the major didn’t release no statement but him did say that a group of assailants tried to attack a contingent of JDF officers at their target practice facility in Green Bay. The gunmen maybe was thinking that if is shooting range they call it, people must have gun somewhere.

—Who says they were gunmen?

—Every single man was from West Kingston.

—That line from him or you?

—Haha. You not easy at all, boy. Anyway, him say them just draw down
on the premises in the middle of the day like them name cowboy. The JDF had no choice but to return fire.

—Don’t you need to be fired on to return fire?

—What you mean?

—Nothing, buddy. Just shooting the shit. So these guys attacked at noon, right? He said noon?

—Eehi.

—Huh. But . . .

I didn’t get it. I mean, come on, the shit was spread out in front of me like a fat stripper. Maybe he’s either that dumb or he’s doing that hear-no-evil-see-no-evil thing Jamaicans do when they find themselves smack dab in the middle of politricks. The major gives this statement saying the gang attacked them at noon and they returned fire. But I’m looking at the shot, looking at the shadows in the photo, and every single shadow is long and stretched out. There’re no long shadows at noon. This shit happened in the morning, any half-blind, senile, semi-retarded old fart could see that. But I looked at them too long, the pics. He noticed that I stared too long and he wasn’t about to forget that I cut my own question in half. Jamaicans have a way of looking at you when they finally dig that you’re the kind of white boy who catches on quick. They hold the look too, because then they’re wondering for just how long have you been catching on and have they been saying too much. If it’s one thing Jamaicans are still pretty proud of is their genius for keeping their guard, not letting anything slip. Not giving away anything even if they want to fuck you right here and can’t bear to wait.

Okay, don’t know how Aisha came into this. Maybe because I’m in bed. Maybe because I’m in a bed with a fucking man sitting on the side of it. I wish I still slept with my watch on. Brother, can’t you just steal something and fucking go? Who the fuck, in the midst of robbing a joint, takes a breather? Oh Jesus, don’t, don’t please don’t please don’t sit, Jesus, he’s gonna sit on my . . . he’s on my foot. The bastard has his bony ass on my foot. He’s turning, holy shit. Now it’s dark. Red darkness, the light forcing itself through my eyelids. Open slow . . . no, you fucking idiot. Do I want to see him shoot me quick? Maybe it’s better if he blows a fucking hole in the
middle of my sentence. Maybe I should die thinking something smart. Is this the part where I think about heaven and shit like that? My Lutheran mom would be proud. Does he think I’m asleep? Where’s the second pillow? Is he going to cover my head with it and fire? I’m such a coward, I’m such a coward, such a motherfucking coward. Goddamn it. Open, motherfucking eyes. He’s not looking at me. He’s still looking at the ground. Shit, damn, motherfucker, what is he looking at? Some stain on the carpet that looks like Jesus? I thought only ceilings had that shit. Cum stains from the nasty fuckers who slept in this room before me? I really hope they cleaned the sheets before. You can never tell with a hotel off Half Way Tree Road.

If you go two blocks down and make a left on Chelsea, walk just up to the bend where there’s the Chelsea Hotel, there’s a sign right up front that says under no circumstances will two adult men be rented a room. I guess if you’re a pedophile, on the other hand, that’s cool city. I don’t know why I’m thinking that, I don’t know why all of a sudden I really wish these were well-laundered sheets. Sheets that make me want to use words like laundered. No, well-laundered. Jesus Christ, motherfucker, leave already. At least I won’t remember how I was a fucking coward in all of this, lying down in my bed, hoping shit doesn’t fall out of my bag or that my left foot would stop trembling, or maybe it’s just tingling from having fallen asleep, how am I supposed to make a mad dash for the bathroom if me leg is asleep? Me leg. Now I’m worrying in Jamaican. Brother, can’t you just be a pervert? Can’t you just grab my nuts then go?

So a soldier shooting some kids in Green Bay early 1978 leads to the birth of the peace treaty. A police shooting downtown less than a year later and people are already talking like it’s the end. Usually when a gunman is moving in neutral space and the police or the army is suddenly on the scene with guns, it’s a set-up, sometimes within the gunman’s own party. That’s what happened to a couple of PNP goons years ago (so Priest says) and what might have happened to this guy I tried to ask Papa-Lo about. This meeting Priest did set up, though God only knows what they thought of me, since I was there as some loser who knew Priest. I couldn’t even figure out this kill
ing anyway, since Priest told me one of the terms of the peace treaty was that nobody gave anybody up to the police.

Hell, the minister himself kinda laughed when I brought up the whole thing to him. He said
off the record
before I started taping the whole thing, like he heard some jerk say it in a movie last week, but then just repeated what he already said in the press, that these men would be hunted down like dogs. Mind you, dogs are usually doing the hunting, not being the hunted, but I guess one gets similes wherever one can find them. He was smart enough to notice I was being a smartass and that was all she wrote with that interview. Minister was a piece of bullshit anyway, with his stupid nappy hair brushed back so hard it actually became straight.

I’m rambling. The point is that a big part of this peace treaty, according to Priest, was that nobody gave up names to people like the minister anymore. And yet here we had a dead man, a gunman, sorry, political activist, and having been smack dab in the middle of criminal intelligence, I knew there was just no fucking way Babylon found that man by themselves. Jamaican police wouldn’t find a billboard in the middle of Half Way Tree with a naked woman spread out fingering her pussy and saying look up here, Babylon, unless somebody told them where to look. Like Priest, this man could slip into JLP and PNP territories. Unlike Priest, this man had real clout, being Papa-Lo’s number two or three. It was something though, wasn’t it? That Kingston got to the point where such a top ranking could go get drunk with men whose friends he might have even killed. You talk to Bill Bilson, John Hearne, just about any journalist, intellectual, light-skinned person who lived above Crossroads and they all try to find new ways to ask how long will it last, not from concern though. That loud sigh and head nod is trying to say I’m so exasperated, but it’s really saying that not even this would make us give a fuck. Why am I going on about the fucking peace treaty? It wasn’t even a real document anyway. Except both Papa-Lo and Shotta Sherrif flew to London to meet with the Singer about it. Not like any of that is news, but how things go from hopeful to hopeless in just one year, who the fuck knows.

Actually I know. Papa-Lo knows but he’s not telling. Shotta Sherrif knows, but you know when somebody stops telling you a joke or a story because he figured you already know the end? Except I really don’t know.

There’s a man in navy blue sitting on the edge of my bed. I’ve met Papa-Lo before. Right before this peace concert I went to the Copenhagen City with Priest. There was a big man making himself even bigger by spreading his arms wide and hugging everybody, and I’m not a brother to be taken aback, but even I was kinda thrown off by the big man’s bear hug. Everybody safe here! Is peace and love vibes we ah deal with! he would say, then he would ask where Mick Jagger was, maybe him did lock down with more black pum-pum than him can deal with. Took me all of two minutes to realize the glimmer twin’s rep stretched beyond Studio 54.

—You’ve heard
Some Girls
? It’s a return to form for them.

—Me hear plenty girls.

That was all she wrote on that one. Flash forward to just a few days ago and I’ve never seen a big man look so small. He didn’t even have the energy to tell Priest ’bout him bombocloth for bringing the white bwoi back again. He didn’t want to talk about the guy the police shot. He didn’t want to talk about the police. He was doing that thing, that thing old people do, when they know too much or maybe they’re finally past the age where you just figured the whole world out. You figure out shit between people and why we are all so base and vile and disgusting and how we’re just fucking beasts really, and it’s a wisdom people get at a certain age. And it doesn’t have to be an old age because really Papa-Lo isn’t so old, nobody gets old in the ghetto. It’s the age where you learn something, I don’t know, but something big and something gray and you just know there’s no use in trying anymore. But as I was saying, in just one year he had the look, and it was making him exhausted. No, not exhausted, weary.

—Why did the police kill your number two?

—Why rose red and violets blue?

—I don’t understand.

—Y is a crooked letter with a long tail. Cut off the tail and you get V. V is for vagabond, and you is a vagabond.

—How did they manage to kill him?

—With two or three gun, me hear.

—You think the PNP gave up your guy?

—What?

—PNP. That they tipped off your boy? And why wouldn’t the police respect the treaty?

—White boy, you full of joke. Who tell you that policeman sign treaty? And what you mean with this PNP tip-off business?

—You may be right.

—Haha, white boy, you going tell me if me right or not.

He was right. Shotta Sherrif looked at me when I brought up the death of number two. He looked at me exactly as Papa-Lo.

—Bad times is good times for somebody, me boy. Bad times is good times for somebody.

—Who tipped off the police about number two?

—You see Josey Wales since you come here?

—I’ve only met him once.

—He live down the other end. Ask him about the number two.

—Josey Wales?

—Me don’t know nothing ’bout the street anymore. The peace over.

—The peace between who? Can I ask you what you mean? Can I ask a few more questions? Papa?

Guess not. Didn’t have to find Josey Wales, he found me. Just as I was leaving Papa-Lo’s gate, don’t ask me why I was walking backward as I left Papa-Lo but I was and backed right into two guys. The bald-headed one didn’t say anything, didn’t even look at me even as he was holding my arm and taking me down the street. The don going to talk to you right now, said the other guy, bigger, fatter, with baby dreadlocks. But isn’t Papa-Lo the don? A question I did not ask. Bald guy in blue, dreadlock guy in red, moving at my sides in perfect step, this must be a cartoon. And the people in the street just looking away. When we were passing, they just looked away, and I mean nearly everybody. Everybody looked away, only two women and one man holding eye contact, staring, like they weren’t even looking at me really.
Like I was a ghost, or a stranger being driven out of town. Every Jamaican village is a one-horse town. They took me to Josey Wales’ place, let me in through the front door, but nobody told me where to sit. An Esso calendar tacked itself to the first of three big windows in the living room. The only windows I’ve seen that have not been shot out. Curtains on each window, red and yellow floral pattern, he has a woman living with him.

—Nice curtains.

—Plenty of questions you’re asking, white boy.

—Huh, I haven’t . . .

—Palavering around the place with your little black notebook. Do you write everything in that?

I’ve heard about Josey Wales’ high opinion of his English.

—Where did you learn to speak like that?

—Where did you learn to shit?

—Huh?

—You saving the intelligent questions for last?

—I’m sorry, I . . . I . . . I—