A Brief History of Seven Killings (27 page)

My mother is usually crocheting or cooking whenever I visit. But today she’s sitting in the red velvet armchair my father sits in whenever
Dad’s Army
is on. She’s looking away from me even though I said hello twice.

—Mummy, you tell me to come over here. What can’t wait?

She still isn’t looking at me, just pressing her knuckles into her lips. Kimmy is at the window walking back and forth, not looking at me either. I’m surprised she didn’t just jump at me saying that it’s not like Mummy is taking me away from anything important. There’s a new crochet on the cof
fee table, probably from Mummy working all night. Pink thread and my mother hates pink. She also usually crochets into some animal-shaped thing and this doesn’t look like anything I recognise. She crochets mostly when she’s nervous now and I wonder if something happened. Maybe she saw one of the men who attacked her, maybe it was the gardener next door and maybe they feel somebody is watching the house. Maybe they came back and stole something and threatened my parents to not say shit to the police. I don’t know, but her being nervous is making me nervous and Kimmy hovering around like she couldn’t do anything about it until I came makes it feel even worse. I look around right then to see if anything is out of place. Not that I would know if it was. Kimmy is pacing and pacing.

—Kimmy, stop moving up and down like some damn monkey, my mother says.

—Yes Mummy, she says. I want to repeat it like a teasing six-year-old. Yes Mummy my ass. The way Kimmy jumps back ten years to make her parents baby her, you’d almost think she was a son and not a daughter.

—And my own daughter. Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ.

—Mummy?

—Talk to your father.

—About what?

—I said talk to your father.

—Talk to Daddy about what? I say that to her, but I look at Kimmy, who is now making a show of not looking at me.

—Even a coolie would have been better but . . . My God . . . it’s so nasty I can smell it on you.

—What you talking about, Mummy?

—Don’t you dare raise your voice at me! Don’t you dare raise your voice in this house. All those years of bathing and I still couldn’t wash the slut out of you. Maybe you should have get more beating. Maybe I should have just beat it out of you.

I’m standing now. I still don’t know what you talking about, I say. She is still not looking at me. Kimmy finally looks around and tries to give me a blank stare, but she can’t hold it. She looks away.

—So you’re a whore now or just his whore?

—I’m not a whore. What the hell—

—Don’t swear in my damn house. I heard all about you being the whore for that damn singer in his house. How much he paying you? All these months you not having decent work I’m here wondering, How is Nina getting by without gainful employment? How, since she not asking for money and she don’t have any friends—

—I have plenty friends—

—Don’t interrupt me in me damn house. I buy this damn thing with me and Mr. Burgess’ money.

—Yes, Mummy.

—Pay for it cash with no damn mortgage either, so don’t think you can back talk me in my own house.

My hands are trembling like I just spent three hours in a deep freeze. Kimmy starts to walk to the door.

—Kim-Marie Burgess, you keep your backside quiet. Tell your sister how it’s the big news clearly that she’s debasing herself with that, that Rasta.

—Debasing myself? Debasing myself. Kimmy has a Rasta boyfriend.

—You comparing him with what you’re wasting your privates on? At least he’s from a good family. And he’s going through a phase. A phase.

—A phase? Like what Kimmy is going through.

—I swear every time I think of you and that singer, in some nasty bed smoking weed and getting pregnant, I want to vomit. You hear me, I want to vomit. You is such a nasty little girl, I bet you just bring all sort of head lice into my house.

—Mummy.

—All those years of schooling to become what? One of him woman? That is what high school education provide for these days?

Now she’s sounding like Daddy and I wonder where he is. Kimmy. She did it. My mother is shaking so hard that when she gets up she falls back down in the chair. Kimmy rushes to help her like a good daughter. She told them. She told them something. And she knows me too. She knows I’m not going to tell them about her because one bad daughter would depress my
mother, but two would finish her off. She’s counting on me to be the good daughter who will take anything and she’s right. I’m almost impressed by the bitch.

—All I can think of is you bringing that ganja smell and frowsy arm into my house. I can smell him on you. Disgusting. Disgusting.

—Oh? And you can’t smell it on your other daughter?

—Don’t bring poor Kimmy into this.

—Poor Kimmy? So she can sleep with Rasta.

—Don’t you dare get impertinent in here! This is a God-fearing house.

—God know that is nothing but hypocrite in here? Kimmy get to mess with Rasta—

—He is not a Rasta.

—Go tell him that. In fact go tell your daughter that and see if she stay with him.

—From when you were a young girl you always going after your sister. All this hatred and envy for what? We never treat one of you better than the other. And yet you just have that nasty streak in you. I should have beat it out, that’s what I should have do, beat it out.

—Oh yeah. And when nasty man was beating that jewellery and savings out of you, you did like that?

—Don’t talk to my mother like that, Kimmy say.

—You shut you r’asscloth, you little bitch. Like say you good.

—Don’t talk to your sister like that.

—You always take her side.

—Well, I need one daughter who is not a slut. Even a coolie wouldn’t be so bad.

—Your damn daughter fucking a Rasta too!

—Morris! Morris, come down here and talk to your daughter. Get her out of my house! Morris! Morris!

—Yeah, you call Daddy. Call him so that I can tell him ’bout your little favourite little girl right here.

—You shut up, Nina. You already do this family enough damage.

—I’m the one saving this damn family.

—I don’t remember asking any of my children to save anything. I don’t want no damn room in some Rasta compound with no wife sharing and little children smoking ganja. Morris!

I want to grab something and fling it at Kimmy who still has not looked at me once. You’re probably already carrying one of his children already, my mother says. She sounds like she’s crying but no tears are running down. Kimmy is rubbing her back. She’s thanking Kimmy for helping her poor mother through all of this. I’m done. There is nothing left to say. There is nothing to do but wait for my mother to say something. I thought I would want to just go over there and grab Kimmy by the neck but I watch her rubbing my mother’s and feel sorry for both of them. But then she says,

—Mummy, tell her about the waiting outside his gate.

—What? Oh my God, now she’s waiting outside his house like some lady of the night. Even he now realizes she’s trash. Lord, look what me family coming to.

—You fucking bitch, I say to Kimmy, who looks at me blank.

—I said I don’t want such language in my house. If you can’t helping being a damn slut at least try to not talk like one when you’re in my house.

I want to say, And what about the slut that’s now rubbing your back? How no matter what Kimmy fucking says or do, they always have an excuse or justification for it as if they have been back-stocking on excuses from the day she was born and can pull one without a second’s notice? I want to say it, but I don’t. Kimmy knows I won’t. Kimmy knows I’m the good daughter who’ll stay good even when it’s worse for me. I’m almost impressed by how much I underestimated her. I’m almost impressed by how far she has gone and will more likely still go. I want to say that at least no man will ever beat me and leave me to think it’s just a strike for the struggle but I don’t. Instead my heart is pumping and I can only think of grabbing a knife, a dull one, a dinner knife, and walking to her with it in my hands, not stabbing her or cutting her, just have her see me coming and there is nothing she can do about it. Here I was in this fucking house with people I spent all day with yesterday, standing like a goddamn fool for something that I don’t even
want to do anymore. I bet Kimmy is happy. She gets to take goody goody Nina down a peg.

—Down there not scratching you with all that lice? It not biting you down there? How can you even stand there? Dear Lord, what kind of nasty daughter me have? I want to vomit. Kimmy, I want to vomit.

—Is alright, Mummy. I’m sure she don’t have no lice.

—How you know? Them Rastaman nasty you know. I don’t care how much money he think him have. They is all just nasty and chupid. Stand twenty feet away you can smell them coming.

—No, it not scratching with lice. Him did smell better than baby powder, I say and regret before the last syllable comes out of my mouth. I want to grab Kimmy and just shake her. Just shake her hard like a damn baby who won’t be quiet.

—Morris! Morris! I don’t want no damn nasty Rasta bastard pickney, you hear me? I don’t want no Rasta pickney in me house.

I look at Kimmy and wonder if this is what she wanted, if she didn’t realise it would get like this. My parents get attacked and she stays aways, not because she can’t deal with them being attacked but she can’t deal with any situation that she’s not the center of, even tragedy. Well, good for her. She wins. She knows I’m not going to say that she fucked him too. She knows I will trying to keep the sanity she’s dead set on taking away from her mother. I almost admire just how devious the bitch is. I want her to look at me and smile just to show that she knows that I know that she knows. My mother keeps shouting, Morris! Morris! Like it’s a magic spell where he supposed to appear.

The leather strap tears across my back, the tip landing at my neck like a scorpion just stung me. I scream but the strap slice across my back again and then two times on the back of my leg and I fall. My father grabs my left ankle and yanks me to him, my skirt pulls up and my panties are showing. He grabs me with his left hand and beat me with his belt. I’m screaming and Mummy’s screaming and Kimmy’s screaming. And he’s beating me like I’m ten. And I screaming for Daddy to stop and all he’s saying is damn girl need
discipline I going discipline you in the bombocloth house no Daddy please Daddy discipline discipline and he beats my bottom and beat it again again and I twist and the belt cuts my right thigh and he’s swinging and don’t care where he hit my knuckle when I try to grab the big leather belt with all the rivet because he love cowboy belts and I can smell my welts and screaming Daddy Daddy Daddy and Mummy screaming Morris Morris Morris and Kimmy just screaming and the belt cutting all over me I twist and it hit me right in me pussy and I scream and Daddy saying discipline and discipline and discipline and he kicked me I know he kick me and he’s swinging and I’m struggling let go of me foot let go off me foot let go off me foot and I swing ’round and my right foot kicks him in the chest and it feel like an old man chest and he falls right back and coughs but it’s only the air not the sound and I still screaming no words just naaaaaah naaaah naaah and I grab the belt and I go over him and I swing it on his legs and I beat him beat the son of a bitch, beat him beat him beat naaaah naaaah naaah naaaaah and my mother scream again don’t kill me husband don’t kill me husband and he’s coughing and I see that I was beating him with the buckle not the strap and turn and I tighten the belt around my knuckles and I look at Kimmy.

Barry Diflorio

M
y secretary came back
to me saying that Louis Johnson’s secretary had no idea where he went, which was her code for saying that she wasn’t telling. I had to get up from my own damn chair and walk down the corridor to this woman’s desk to ask if she enjoyed working here and plans to do so in the future. And should she plan to, then it was best to remember that she works for the Federal Government of the United States of America, not Louis Johnson. I could see her eyes widen even within the huge frames of her pink Batgirl glasses, and her forehead wrinkle even though that severe, car-grease ponytail didn’t fucking budge. Takes years in the embassy to learn to not look scared and she was almost there, almost, but you could tell she hadn’t quite yet figured out how to gauge the level of threat lying in the passive-aggressive remark from a superior. She couldn’t tell if I was fucking with her or not. Liguanea Club, Knutsford Boulevard.

I’ve been there of course. Reminded me of the Gentlemen’s Rodeo Club in Buenos Aires and certain clubs in Ecuador, Barbados and South Africa. Liguanea Club at the very least had dark-skinned people and quite a few Arabs doing the let’s-pretend-we’re-white thing which just never gets old. I leave the office and drive straight out onto Oxford Road where people are still waiting, in the sun, for visas, and head west. At the intersection of Oxford Road and Knutsford Boulevard I turn right, heading north. The guard at the gate takes a look at the white man in the car and doesn’t ask questions. The green Cortina is at the end of the parking lot. I park at the other end, even though I’m sure that Louis doesn’t know what car I drive.

Inside, the dining room was packed with white men dressed in suits on lunch break and beautiful brown women in tennis skirts drinking rum and Cokes. I heard them before I saw them, Louis throwing his head back then
slapping de las Casas. Of course it was him. At first I wanted to go over there and ask Louis what the fuck was up, and do it in front of de las Casas. God, I hate that guy. He has this thing about him I only see in beauty queens and politicians. This “of all my mother’s kids I love me best” kinda thing. He thinks he’s a revolutionary, but he’s really just an opportunist. Louis and Luis, now there’s a comedy sketch waiting to happen.

I’m at the far end of the bar trying to not look like I’m looking over. Somewhere, someone is writing a spoof of a spy novel and I’m the idiot at the bar trying to be James Bond. Hell, if I’m going to do this maybe I should order a martini. They both get up and I suddenly realize that they may have to pass me to get to the parking lot. Johnson walks over to the open archway a few feet from his table and the Cuban follows. Outside in the lot his car driving out. I’m on the road in seconds, his car still only a couple hundred feet away. Thank God rush hour is rush hour everywhere in the world.