A Brief History of Seven Killings (78 page)

Josey tried to get leave (which is a weird way of saying it) to go to his son’s funeral but they wouldn’t allow it. Why would they? Let the don out of prison to twenty thousand of his own people, how the hell would you get him back? U.S. government probably heard that idea and screamed a thousand no’s. Funny that for most of the eighties when Josey built his empire—with major help of course—they didn’t so much as give a fuck about him. Fucking New York, man, I told him he shouldn’t have done that shit. Black boys really gotta learn to control their fucking tempers. That day in 1985 Josey Wales shot out of nowhere to near the top of the DEA and the Feds’ list. And as soon as the JLP got kicked out of power he became one hell of a sitting duck.

But before all that, the bigger he got the more untouchable he was. Josey is driving down some street, I can’t remember which, but this is in a place called Denham Town. Wales drives straight into a bus. Comes out and he’s mad. But the driver is just losing it and drawing a crowd. Don’t know what
he said but he just going off and off, and shouting and threatening and God knows what. The only time he shut up was when some woman shouted
is Josey Wales
and the whole street scatters leaving the poor bus driver. Josey’s not even looking at him when the man makes like Road Runner straight to the police station. Poor guy. About thirty minutes later, Josey Wales shows up at the police station with ten of his boys. They walk right inside, grab the bus driver, and walk right out. Not a single cop even gets up. The man must have shat himself and bawled like a fucking girl when he saw the policemen looking the other way in their own fucking station. Right outside, with cops and people watching, those with guns shoot the bus driver, those without guns stab him. Was like crows upon fresh carcass. They arrested Josey, of course, but the prosecution just couldn’t find any witnesses. Not a single one.

Meanwhile Cali is saying this motherfucker is a badass like no other badass has ever been fucking bad. Give him and his posse the U.K.

This was the man who went into Rema with his boys, and killed twelve just like that. Why? Because some of the guys there started to complain that their little community was being neglected. Josey was always one for making his points clear. Police filed a warrant, Josey skips to the USA, but by now he’s a Person of Interest so he skips back to Jamaica. They take him to court, but the one witness suddenly she’s got amnesia, no wait, she wasn’t there, no wait, is a long time now she hasn’t changed her glasses prescription so now she’s blind as a bat. Really she just can’t remember and was so confused by the whole thing, because gunshots were flying everywhere.

But last year, his daughter was outside some club with her boyfriend and some Eight Lanes goons just sprang out of nowhere and opened fire on the two of them. They just Swiss cheesed the dude till he ran out of places to spring holes. Girl was cradling his body when they walked up right to her and shot her clean in the head. All I could think of was at least they didn’t rape her first. I still wonder if they knew who she was. I mean, fact is, like with Griselda in Miami, if you keep pushing and pushing too far, sooner or later your enemies are going to push back. And if you keep making enemies, sooner or later they’re gonna reach critical mass. Only a matter of time be
fore you make enemies as ruthless as you, after all you’re the one raising the bar. Me, I’m never in a place long enough to build a roll call of enemies. That shit is like any other relationship, you nurture it. That’s why I never was one for Colombia or Kingston. I’m a facilitator. Speaking of critical mass, by now the Feds had racked up multiple charges against Josey and they wanted him bad. Somebody had to win the war on drugs and it sure as hell wasn’t going to be a nigger from a Caribbean shithole who should have stuck to pot. This time, they got him in prison. And this time, he’s going to rot.

Yeah, I went to him in prison and it wasn’t visitors hours either. As soon as I said hey Josey, he sat up on the bed and took a good while to look up. When he did, he was smiling, but a small one almost like he was shy. And then he said,

—I knew they would send you.

—How’s things,
mijo
?

—Looking at you the better one, Doctor Love.

Two

M
iss Segree?
Miss Segree? Millicent Segree? Miss Segree?

—It’s not Miss.

—Oh. I’m sorry.

—No problem, Mrs. Segree.

—It’s not Mrs. It’s not Miss, it’s Millicent Segree.

—Okay, ma’am.

—You know what? Fine. How much is it?

—The entire prescription is fourteen dollars, ma’am.

You know, most of this feminism business was nothing more than white American women telling non-white women what to do and how to do it, with this patronizing if-you-become-just-like-me-you’ll-be-free bullshit, but if there’s one thing I agree with is damn, I hate when a man feels I’m obligated to disclose my marital status to somebody I don’t even know. Even this bullshit about status itself as if married and spinster are the only two choices for defining myself. Or because I’m a woman I’m supposed to have a status at all. Hey big boy, here’s my status. Hi, before I tell you my name here’s my status. Maybe I should just say I’m a lesbian and throw the problem back in their faces for them to define it.

Xanax for anxiety. Valium for sleep. Prozac for depression. Phenergan for nausea. Tylenol for headaches. Mylanta for bloating. Midol for cramps. I mean, Jesus Christ, menopause come already. Isn’t there some fast-track for a hot flash? It’s not like I’m ever going to breed, so why keep the damn store door open? I’m at the Rite Aid on Eastchester in the Bronx, just a block from my place on Corsa Avenue. August means I’ll be living there two years. Of course despite working at Beth Israel which, it goes without saying, has a pharmacy, I fulfill prescriptions on Eastchester because who wants to see
a nurse buying so many pills? Yeah things are confidential but I’ve never come across anybody who if given the chance wouldn’t talk your business. This just make things less complicated and in the past few years I’ve just gotten allergic to complicated things. Even men. You can’t stand a man who’s the same yesterday, today and forever? Give him my number. It’s always when they start to talk about their feelings and—I love this one—where is this going? that I get so sick I have to reach for the Phenergan.

So I cross the street to the bus stop and pop one. Zantac. I’m going to need a Zantac after wolfing down a muffin for breakfast. I wish Dunkin’ Donuts wasn’t all the way on Gun Hill Road, I could use some coffee. But I can’t stand Gun Hill Road. Especially on these wet days when winter can’t decide to leave and spring can’t decide to show up. And I’m not ruining one more shoe while they figure it out. Outside the station is always the same old men with nowhere to go and I can’t tell if they’re looking at me as men, or as Jamaicans. To make it from street to door to turnstile to train would be hard enough if I didn’t have to stand there in pigeon shit waiting on the 5. And it never fails, nobody waiting on the train looking like they have anywhere to go. No shopping bag, no knapsack, no briefcase, nobody carrying anything. Me looking like Miss Virgin Mary because I’m going to the hospital. Not a nurse, training to be one.

The school director looked at me and said we don’t always get women at your point in life, usually they’re just starting out. Who’s to say I’m not just beginning life right now? I said to the man who was clearly not buying it, but for some reason didn’t feel like telling a woman she was too old. Every day I go to work, I try to figure that one out. But then Lord knows I know everything about knowing people only in the context of them needing something from me. Millicent, it’s too early in the morning to be so bitter. You actually like the white stockings and no-sex-here shoes, remember? Meanwhile at Beth Israel you’re in triage and find that you like it very much.

But two weeks ago, for like seven days Jamaicans kept coming in with all sorts of gunshot wounds. All of them men, four of them by the time they got here, there was nothing to do. Girlfriends and baby mothers screaming out
woi
!
Wha me a go do with the pickney dem?
As if I knew the answer. Me, I’m
putting on an extra-thick American accent and saying shit like
wah-der
instead of water because I don’t want anybody to figure I’m Jamaican, which is just fuckery because so far I did like that the hospital thought I was their own Madge Sinclair from
Trapper John, M.D
. One of the doctors even called me Ernie once and even though I said
my name is Millicent, Doctor,
I couldn’t stop grinning. But it was just weird, these Jamaicans with gunshot wounds coming from the Bronx, which is not exactly near this hospital. I didn’t ask what was going on this week but a doctor did, and one of the men with three bullets in his backside says,
Them kill young Benjy. Is armagideon now, Kingston, Miami, New York, London. Them kill young Benjy
. Who is this Benjy and how did he die? the doctor asks. I’m there squeezing the IV bag in my hand so hard it almost bursts.

—Nurse? the doctor says. I hook it up to the man’s arms without looking at him. I didn’t want him to give me the eye of recognition. I’m not no kindred spirit. Who’s this Benjy? the doctor asks again and I want to say shut the fuck up, but all I can do is start an IV. Thank God, when I finally look at the man he was giving the doctor this stare, eyebrow raised and indignant like he’s thinking, What you mean who’s Benjy? I certainly didn’t want to know.

—Benjy Wales, the son of the don of dons, the man says.

The doctor’s face didn’t change much, but I had to look away. I just stopped. I don’t know—something just went black and I walked away. I could even hear the doctor saying, Nurse? Nurse? But it was like some transistor radio from far off. I just kept walking and walking until I was in the elevator. Spent the next hour in the cafeteria on the ground floor. Told them I was suddenly dizzy and had to tolerate at least three asking me if I was pregnant. I was this close to saying how about me chopping off my pussy and putting it on my forehead. I had to tell them I had a crippling migraine and was botching finding a vein for the IV.

I have this system. It’s really only three words: NO MORE DRAMA. Got it from black American women who were sick and tired of men and all their shit. I don’t want any fuss, kass-kass, conflict, disagreement or entanglement. I don’t even want drama on TV. Ever since the Jamaicans brought
their party to the hospital I had to add Tylenol to my list and up the Xanax just so I could go to work. Wales, it’s just a name. It’s just a goddamn name. Like Millicent Segree.

Waiting on the M10 Express. Ever since then I’ve had this headache right above my right temple. It never gets better or worse, but just won’t go away. Maybe it’s a lump. Maybe I need to stop training myself to become a hypochondriac. Honestly only two days ago I got so anxious I couldn’t breathe and remembered that people have been known to die from anxiety attacks. Of course this only made me more anxious. The last time it happened I had to start singing “Just Got Paid” out loud for it to pass. At a bus stop in Manhattan. I think a little girl started singing with me. A little black girl is running around the bench at this bus stop. Another is sitting in her father’s lap. He’s on the bench waiting on the bus. The little girl running is singing something that sounds like “I Know What Boys Like” but there was no way she would have heard that song. The father is trying to balance the daughter, a baby really, and his newspaper. The little girl runs headfirst into his rib cage, and he grunts and laughs. She pushes her bagel to his mouth and he takes a bite like a bear. She squeals. I try to look away but can’t, not until they look at me first.

Girls who love their daddies always come at them sideways. I see it all the time in the hospital. Daddies carrying sick baby girls with poor breathing or insect bites. Women supporting sick fathers for just one more MRI or dose of chemo. Maybe fathers are just more narrow on the side. Yesterday, a teenage girl in the ER, after screaming at her father for ten minutes, just came at him sideways, wrapped her hands all around him until her fingers met, and rested her head right in his armpit for him to drape her. It’s not like I miss my father. I don’t even know if he’s dead. But I’m starting to miss not taking Xanax.

I’m waiting at the bus stop with the father and his two daughters. He’s just laughing, mumbling, uh-huh-ing and yes sweetie-ing. Still can’t tell if he’s Jamaican. One just makes assumptions about anywhere between Gun Hill and Boston Road. They don’t even notice he’s giving them the daddy gaze. This man in the hospital said to me, You just didn’t know you could
love anybody or anything that much. It frightens you all the time, every time you hear some kid got hit by a bus. The daddy gaze, I wonder when they lose it.

I never hear anything good, so I stop watching news. I don’t even want to know what’s going on in Jamaica, but if it’s spilling into Bronx and Manhattan then the news can’t be good. Jamaicans here never tell me anything I want to hear so I don’t talk to Jamaicans. I never missed the country, not even once. I hate nostalgia, nostalgia is not memory and my memory is too damn good for it. The thing is, if all of this is true, then why the r’asscloth am I in Jamaican Bronx? Corsa, Fenton, Boston, Girvan, you might as well call the whole place Kingston 21. On Corsa I’m the lonely woman in the house on the corner, the person who is going to die, rot and sprout poppies before anybody even wonders whatever happened to her. The witch at the end of the street, the Boo Radley. Who the r’ass am I kidding, they probably think I’m just the Christian lady who never have no boyfriend. I’m the stuck-up, stoosh nurse who always wears white stockings and sensible shoes who always leaves and returns to her house in uniform so that nobody will know her in any other context and who don’t talk to nobody.

I wonder if anybody ever sees me go out at night. I like to think I don’t give a shit about what people think, but then I always leave through the back door. I just hope no more Jamaicans with gunshot wounds show up at the hospital. I just hope . . . You know something, Millicent Segree, nothing good ever comes from taking your thoughts down that way. Even thinking about thinking them just makes the headache beat down the side of my head even more. No more damn thinking. Last week a white college boy heard my accent and asked if I ever met the Singer. And it hit me: I’m one of the few who can answer the question with a yes, but it still pissed me off. Then he started to sing the song with the birds, and for a while I could bear it until it made me think about dead years. Shit, thinking about remembering dead years always makes me remember dead years for real and fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck all that. Fuck the dead. I’m still living.