A Brief History of Seven Killings (53 page)

—Where the bird flying to?

—Brethren, weh you ah call me for?

—I don’t like repeating questions.

—He gone. They leave the manager at the hospital and take him up the white man hill.

—Police?

—One in the car with them, few more back at the place. Twelve Tribes on the watch all over the hill. And a white boy—

—A white boy?

—White boy with a camera. Nobody know where he come from, but him say him is with the film crew. Anyway, me done talk.

—No you no don’t done talk yet, Inspector.

—Me done sing this sankey.

—Done, canary you just ah start.

—Not even Jesus getting up that hill tonight.

—What about the concert?

—Full police escort to and from.

—The next day?

—I don’t know.

—Talk, pussyhole.

—The next day he supposed to fly out. Them have him on a private jet.

—When?

—Five-thirty or six.

—Morning or evening?

—What you think?

—To where?

—Nobody know.

—Jet going take off and nobody know where it going? Boss, you taking ghetto man for idiot again?

—Mister, me say nobody nuh know. Not even the commissioner know. He don’t even know that the Singer plan to fly out.

—Is a top secret?

—More secret than the colour of the queen panty. We only know because our man in the car with them pretend that he gone to sleep and listen to them talk. Him white manager tell him up the hill that as soon as he done with the concert—

—So it official. He going do the concert?

—No, nothing no official. Them just putting things in place just in case. Anyway, the manager say that as soon as the concert done him setting up a plane for him at the airport but early, before the airport even open.

—Norman Manley Airport or Tinson Pen?

—Manley.

—Overseas.

—You can radio the police up the hill.

—Yeah, man, but why would I want to—

—Radio your police up the hill. Right now.

Six in the morning and the airport looking like the first reel of a cowboy movie. Only thing missing was whistling wind and tumbleweed. Pink sky. Me and Tony Pavarotti waiting in the stairway leading up to the waving gallery. Somebody thought it was a good idea making this wall like some checker pattern with open space to stick a rifle through. Checker pattern shadow leave we in the dark. Pavarotti was shifting and moving, he wasn’t feeling for this angle at all. But the plane was already out on the runway,
waiting. Pavarotti quiet, his right hand gripping the trigger and his left eye in the rifle lens.

Way at the end of the runway, two jeep hang back lazy, Jamaica Defence Force, with four or five soldier positioned behind them, two with binoculars. See them from the second I went out to the waving gallery. Seeing soldiers on the lookout made me think of the Singer coming down from the white man hill. The look on his face when he wake up and see no police. He probably send two or three Rasta brethren ahead to see if the road safe, which mean he and his right-hand man was coming down the hill all alone. With no soldier watching through binoculars. You can always assume one or two things about the police: (1) make a deposit to a bank account or a back pocket and anything can happen and (2) that they always come cheap. But with soldier you never know. They hang back, standing watch maybe, but just as likely that they just waiting. I wonder if the pilot expect them to come over.

—Make sure you take him out before the soldier them drive over.

Pavarotti nod.

6:02. Everybody but the sun waiting for the Singer. For a second it feels like I waiting for a parade, like that grainy newsreel that come on TV every November about Kennedy in Dallas. Everybody waiting on the Singer. Not just me, not just the soldiers, not just Tony Pavarotti or the plane, but Peter Nasser, Doctor Love, and a phone number for the Medellín cartel that I never use myself. But then I wonder. Everybody waiting to see his next move or mine? Who is the real dancing monkey in this episode? Who people watching to see the next move? And if people say jump and you manage to jump high, do they stop telling you to jump, or disrespect you forever because you didn’t act like a man and say, Fuck you, bad man don’t jump for nobody. The problem with proving something is that instead of leaving you alone people never stop giving new things to prove, harder things. Bullshit things until it become a TV comedy. Or just a joke.

Tony Pavarotti tap my shoulder. He is here. He and another Rasta walking to the plane. Nothing moving but the dust they kick up. The airport is still empty and not waking up till seven. They look around while walking,
moving slow, stopping one second then moving again. The Singer look to the plane, scanning left and right, with the other Rasta walking backwards making sure nothing behind them. Both of them see the army jeep and stop. The Singer look at the jeep and look at the plane. Nobody move. Tony Pavarotti turning the gun to aim, following them. His finger slip around the trigger. The Singer looking at the soldiers and say something to the Rasta. They start moving again but slower, stopping right in front of the plane. Maybe they waiting for somebody to come out. I re member that Tony Pavarotti don’t need orders from me. I hear a click.

—Stop.

Pavarotti look at me, look at the two of them running to the plane now.

—No bother with it.

They run to the plane and have to close the door themselves.

When I get two phone call the next day I cut both short with the same line. You want him dead so much, you kill him.

Now I’m sitting down in my living room waiting for the phone to ring. This phone better ring soon. Soon as it start ringing I can stop thinking. Time for action, no time for thinking. I wonder if she pay the phone bill? The phone is supposed to ring three times before I go to bed. Not even tomorrow coming before my phone ring. Sitting down, waiting for the phone, the Singer enter my head again and I want to cuss. That man will never know how I come to near finish him twice. How I let him go because I knew that once he board that plane he will never come back. And yet in 1978, coming off the plane and even causing fuss in customs is he. In two years Peter Nasser know better than to come to me like a barking dog and to speak to me like a man. He even take to calling me busha all the time, which make me check if this carbolic soap was bleaching my skin. Me all stop using it, which made my woman very happy since she didn’t feel like she was sleeping in a hospital ward anymore. I don’t know what surprise him more, that the Singer was coming back to do yet another concert or that I know from before and tell him so.

—All this fucking peace treaty business, you have anything to do with this fuckery?

We’re at Lady Pink Go-Go Club, which he is liking just a little too much. None of the whores that Weeper used to deal with seem to be here anymore. Look like they lose interest in fucking Pepsi bottles onstage as soon as he lose interest in them. But the new lot include a light-skinned girl so of course the place packed. The head woman put the two of us in a room upstairs and ask if we want we cocky clean or batty wash. I said not tonight, but Peter Nasser wasn’t going to pass up the chance for a ghetto vacuum, as he himself call it, and look around as if it was going to catch on. He want to talk business even as the whore was sucking him juice out. I say, Brethren, two man can’t have cocky expose in the same room, is what you be? Last thing he want is man to call him battyman, so before he ask, I say I going outside. I said look for me in fifteen minutes but when I come back in eight she already walking out, spitting and cussing ’bout the bloodcloth white man who bust himself in her mouth.

—You know what me tired of? All this shit ’bout the peace treaty. Now Jacob Miller write a song about it? You hear it yet? Want me to sing it?

—No.

—Peace treaty to r’asscloth.

—Next time tell the soldiers don’t shoot.

—Soldiers? What you mean, Green Bay? All of this is because of Green Bay? You no hear the news, no saints were killed in Green Bay.

—Funny thing, eh? Don’t all of them come from your constituency? One of them even tell me that it was some man name Junior Soul who come to your lands telling them they can get free gun.

—I don’t know anything ’bout no Junior Soul.

—But everybody did seem to think I know. I ask people, Who from the ghetto would have a name like that? Sound like some singer out of Motown.

—Is what you know ’bout . . . never mind.

—Maybe he was something in the air.

—A natural mystic?

—You know that him coming back? Now because of all this peace treaty fuckery he of all people coming back.

—He was just here for this damn peace concert. Wasn’t that enough?
Isn’t he a Londoner now? Maybe he want install all those ghetto toilet himself?

—So if you did give the ghetto toilets, he wouldn’t have a reason to come back then.

—Of course Josey Wales, because my party is in power. You seem—busha, what the fuck you finding funny?

“Ma Baker” was playing out on the floor. I could hear it even over the crowd yelling and joking and cussing and screaming for the woman to spread out di meat. I didn’t bother tell him why “Ma Baker” makes me laugh.

—Nothing, busha. You really think the Singer coming back again for a toilet?

—Well, not a toilet exactly but fixtures and fittings, or whatever you call it that ghetto people bawling that they need now. They can continue bawl, who tell them to vote for this bombocloth socialist government. Twice. You have to ask, How far can a cocky go up you battyhole before you realise a battyman is fucking you?

—The Singer not coming to fix no damn toilet.

—So he’s coming again because of this fucking peace business. I hope you know this is making people further up very concerned. Very concerned. You know how many Cubans fly into Jamaica last week? And now that fuckery ambassador Erik Estrada parading around like he own the place.

—The Singer meet with Papa-Lo and Shotta Sherrif the same time.

—Who the r’asscloth don’t know that? Everybody mix-up-mix-up at 56 Hope Road, even your fucking Prime Minister used to act like he work there.

—The three meet up in England right before the peace concert.

—So? And the peace concert come and gone almost a year ago. So?

—You think three biggest men to come out of downtown Kingston only meeting about a peace concert?

—Seem to be as much as those three could handle.

—Peace concert was just the fringe benefit.

—I’m going to take it for granted that you know what that means.

—For real. Just as I take it for granted that your financial wizard boss know what really causes inflation.

There it is again. Peter Nasser doing the double take with just his eyes, so I don’t notice it. Syrians.

—What this little mongrel pussyhole doing, starting a third party? What serious things?

—You didn’t seem like you want to know a minute ago.

—Busha, talk the fucking things, man. Cho.

—There’s a program after the peace concert. A plan, call it an agenda.

—What kind of agenda?

—You ready for this type of news? A Rasta government.

—Wha? What the bombocloth you just say?

—This is how you going know, when a bunch of Rasta from England all of a sudden fly down here. Some land already. Hold on, my boy, you don’t know say even Papa-Lo turning Rasta? He stop eat pork months ago. Twelve Tribes meeting? Regular thing that for him now.

—Me’ll believe it when him stop comb him hair.

—Who tell you say all Rasta have dreadlocks? Jesus Christ.

Have to remind myself to not make him look too stupid.

—How you mean—

—Anyway, you want to hear what Rasta and honorary Rasta was reasoning in England or not?

—Me all ears, busha.

—So one of them, me not sure who, say, The idea is to involve the Rasta in society, politics and grass roots.

—Those actual words?

—Me look like receptionist?

—Whoopee. So they meet for the peace concert and start talking about government. Just like every man on every verandah in every home in Jamaica. This is the news?

—No, brethren. They meet about new government then start talking about a peace concert.

—What?

—You don’t know what clock ah strike. You didn’t even know that the clock was Big Ben. Hear the plan: to set up a new opposition from both sides of the ghetto, party truly for the people to get rid of the whole of you in the name of Rasta.

—Some Jamdown Mau-Mau?

—What?

—But Rasta want to go to bombocloth Ethiopia. Why them don’t just splash red, black and green paint on some fucking boat and fuck off? Call it Black Star Liner 2 or some fuckery.

—You think London Rasta know shit about Ethiopia? London dread know Rasta through reggae, busha. Wherever is the home of reggae is the real home of Rasta. All of a sudden Rastaman in England going to business school and running for London Parliament and sending them children to get all sort of education, even the girls. What you think all of that is for? England don’t want them. Where you think they going go?

—Shit.

—Downtown divide up, master. You should know, you divide it.

—Me never divide nothing.

—You cutting yourself out of your party now? The two of you divide it. Me? I just enforce it. But what you think was going to happen after the peace concert? What happen when people come together?

—No more divide.

—That’s just first phase, sah. People come together in peace, means people soon come together in politics. Already people picking out which don can be an MP of which area. That means no more you.

—And all this happen at this meeting in London?

—For real.

—But busha, that meeting was one year ago.

—So it go.

—You wait one year to tell me this?

—Didn’t think you need to know.

—You didn’t think I need to know. Josey Wales, me ever hire you to
bombocloth think? Does it look like when I need thinking done, I call the naigger man to do it? Answer me that.