A Brief History of Seven Killings (38 page)

Do I have any passport photos left over?

Do they have hot water in America?

Dumb bitch, of course they have hot water. And they don’t have to turn on the heater and wait either. Maybe I should put a capful of Pine-Sol in the water. Jesus Christ, Kim Clarke, you have his sweat on you, not pus. Look,
boss, that is all the money I have, you have my watch, you even have the chain he gave me last week. Now I’m going to have to say that it fell down the drain or something. Give me the damn passport. What you mean me have one more valuable thing? I don’t know what you’re talking about.

Oh.

I tell you, you could be from the South Pole or south St. Catherine you man is all the same
Don’t back-talk to the man, Kim, just get it done
. Here? In your office? People outside
of course people outside. He wants everybody outside to hear and know
. How do I know you going to hand it over afterwards?
Don’t aggravate the man, silly cunt you been waiting two years, almost two years but still a long time, and he can tear everything up right in front of you—do I have any more passport photos—I really don’t like when people take pictures of me, do I have the negatives? Pictures all over the wall, naked white women, two black, squeezing their titties together.
Oh don’t take off my dress? Jesus Christ wait nuh, I can pull down my own panty thank you.
Kim stop looking at calendars and remember to act like it’s a big hataclaps when he pushes himself in you, he’ll
Ooh, ooh, oh God you never tell me you was so big
Big like a rotten banana, don’t you agree Miss December? You see him taking it out all the time to every woman who comes through that door that needing something they’re not supposed to have. Will I have time to buy ackees after this and still wash him out? Maybe I can go over to the hotel across the street and slip in their bathroom and wipe this son of a bitch off me. Hush, Kim Clarke, close your eyes and think of Arkansas.
Uh huh uh huh uh huh
. On his door is NOTARY PUBLIC and JUSTICE OF THE PEACE in reverse. When a man behind you can never tell what he have coming. Shit, didn’t even notice that me frigging finger was in the stamp pad. Great, purple ink on fingertips while this man keep working me from behind and all I can hear is skin flapping and slapping. Maybe I should steal these fake stamps just in case I need another passport.
You soon come?
One year, five months, seventeen days, eleven hours, thirty minutes and this is what you come to. This is what it takes to finally get it, the passport, the visa, the ticket out of bombor’asscloth Babylon—I hope to God this man comes soon. Just close your eyes and think of tumbleweed, Kim Clarke. Arkansas, no Arkansaw, I love it. We’re going to
pull up in a wagon on top of a hill and Laura Ingalls and Mary Ingalls and the little one who keeps falling in the grass are going run towards us for by now we have three children all girls, okay maybe a boy, but only one. God, good thing I’m on the pill. Maybe this son of a bitch won’t give me gonorrhea. I hear people in his office stopping to listen. No finger has struck a typewriter key in seven minutes, I’ve been tapping the seconds and watching the clock on the wall. And Miss April, Miss May, Miss September and Miss August, not pressing her titties but spreading her—maybe if I get on like a blue movie girl this would finish quicker—Chuck, does he know that I know that he keeps all the
Hustler
magazines under the cash box in the hidden drawer at the back of his desk in the study?
Screw
behind the golf bag?
Penthouse
in the same box as his ties because he wants me to find that one so that I can get tips from The Happy Hooker?
This always goes on longer than you think it will go. Funny how it’s the sex that brings me back to thinking in Jamaican,
no, Kim Clarke, you will not now think about what that makes you
. The son of a bitch was fucking me for seven more minutes. Nobody outside typed a single letter. He gives me the passport and I open it again to look at me looking at me with a visa stamped across my head. It’s B1B2. I was going to cuss that I had paid for a green card, but then thought maybe I should take what I get and let Chuck do the rest—who knows what this son of a bitch would want me to do for a green card.

Kim Clarke, you lie.

You’re lying now. A lot of that really happened. But you said nothing to the man, you didn’t even grunt. You just raised your skirt and pulled down your panties and prayed that the man didn’t have syphilis. And he was almost nervous, so much so that it was then that you realize that you were probably the first woman that fell for the threat and he couldn’t believe his luck. You weren’t tapping to seconds, you were tapping his back just so he could get a rhythm and maybe not think about his wife, and when he finally came you felt sorry for him, because he knew you had to walk through the door past his staff. And you haven’t looked at the passport since because if you do even the shitty photo will make you ask yourself if it was worth it. Was it worth it, Kim Clarke? Yes, yes, yes damn it, and don’t ask me again.
Me would fuck him again and put him cocky in me mouth. Me will even lick him battyhole, this is 1978. Is nineteen seventy fucking eight and a woman must know that sometimes the only way forward is through. When I landed in Montego Bay I knew that whether on a plane or in a box, I was going to leave this place. You almost think you did get me don’t it, Jamaica? You almost think you did get me. Well kiss my bombocloth ass. Shit, purple thumbprints all over the fridge—how much washing this going take before it’s gone?

Waiting for the water again. Standing under the showerhead listening to the drain hack a cough. This fucking country. Every day water goes at the precise time you need to use it. I wish there was a river behind the house so I could go wash like a country woman. Just fucking fabulous, the one afternoon I need a shower. Get this man off me before my man comes home. Why can’t I feel more? Why don’t I feel more? My heart beats faster when I’m experimenting with a new dish. Maybe if I punch it hard enough or long enough blood will fill up where conscience supposed to be. Don’t you understand, I WANT to feel something. I want my heart to pump because guilt riding it hard and won’t jump off. Guilt would mean something. How many times should I wipe before it’s clean? What I would give for water to come back right now. Please, right before he comes home. No? Then fuck you then. As soon as he comes in I’ll have dinner ready and then I’ll play with his hair like I’m not even thinking about it and he will love that. Maybe I will sing “Dancing Queen,” he knows how much I love that song, or maybe Andy Gibb. Maybe “Shadow Dancing” will come back on the radio and I will pull him from the chair and say dance with me, baby, and he will say Kim Clarke, no, babykins you sure you’re okay? And I will just show him the visa.

No. That’s a terrible idea. You already told him you had a visa, fool, and it’s not like he asked. Show him now and he will see that it was stamped only last week. And he still hasn’t said beyond a shadow of a doubt that you were going with him. But why would he have to say it? We can’t be living together for him to just up and go. Is he practicing to see which goodbye will cause the least tears? Which one won’t make me try to kill him? Is
he doing it in front of a mirror? Kim Clarke, if you had sense you would have gotten yourself pregnant by now. If I stop taking the pill today will I be pregnant by the time he’s setting to leave? Today I will love his hair, and ask when I need to pack.

Kim Clarke, you make a wrong move. Kim Clarke, shut up and get out of this shower. I need to cream my hair. Should I do that here or in America? It’s coming down to that with everything. Should I do it here or when I go to America? Jesus Christ, the day when I get bored with thirteen channels, what will I do? The day I get bored with corn flakes, no not corn flakes, Frosted Flakes. The day I get bored with looking up and seeing buildings that clouds hit and run into. The day I get bored with throwing out bread because it’s been there four days and I want a new loaf. The day I get bored with Twinkies, Halston, Lip Smackers, L’eggs and anything by Revlon. The day I get bored with sleeping straight from night to morning and waking up to the smell of coffee and the sound of birds and have Chuck say, Did you have a good night’s sleep, babykins? And I’ll say yes I did, sweetheart—instead of watching the dark all night, and listening to the damn clock tick, because once I fall asleep things come after me. I thought we were going to stop this thinking business, Kim Clarke. Seriously, thought is one tricky bitch. Because all thoughts take you back to that one thought and you will never go back to that one thought, you hear me? Never go back. Only stupid women ever walk backwards.

—I love this country. You people have got it so good and don’t even know it. But you got a shit for brains Prime Minister, how come you people voted for him again?

—You want to stop using “you people”?

—Sorry, babykins, you know what I mean.

—No I don’t know what you mean. I didn’t vote for him.

—But—

—Stop the “you people” like I’m the rep for all the people of Jamaica.

—Sheesh, it’s just an expression.

—Then express yourself better.

—Damn, what got your panties in a bunch this morning?

—You know us people, every day is that day of the month.

—I quit. I’m going to work.

You, girl in the mirror. You, girl, Kim Clarke, admit that it was easier to do it when you made yourself mad at him. But what did you do, stupid bitch? You never get mad, you never give him reason to even think about going away and leaving you behind. You never become the difficult bitch, that’s the white woman’s territory.

—Well, hopefully you’re in a better mood when I get back.

—Hopefully you stop chatting shit when you get back.

Sometimes I think he likes me feisty. I don’t know. A woman supposed to know when to shut up and make a man think he won. I don’t even know what that means. I used to think I knew what American men want. When he takes you out for Kentucky Fried Chicken it a “date.” But if he only comes around every now and then for sex then he’s “seeing” me. Or I’m “sleeping” with him. Crazy business, if he is only coming around for sex the last thing I want him to do is sleep with me. Can you make a man love you harder?

The company is pulling out after thirty years in Jamaica, he says on the “date” last week. Alcorp mining finally get their bauxite belly full and now packing up to go. Chuck says
it’s because of this bauxite levy, which is just step-one towards nationalization, which is in itself step-one towards communism
. I said you Yankees are afraid of communism the way old country women are afraid of rolling calf.
What’s that?
he said. The boogieman I said. He laughed that loud laugh.

—Gotta get out before this becomes the capital of Cuba.

I laughed that loud laugh.

—I might know something you don’t, Kim.

—No, you might have heard some things I haven’t heard. Not the same thing.

—Damn, that mouth on you—

—You don’t complain when you’re inside it.

—Babykins, you’re one sexy bitch, you know that?

Do men marry their sexy bitches? I need to take him someplace where
he’d have to introduce me, just so that I can hear what he calls me, see where I stand. Right, like I really want to know that. Kim Clarke, your life is nothing more than a series of plan B’s. I must be glad that I have a man who likes to rub my feet. A big man, a tall man, a mountain. Six feet four? Must be at least that. Grey eyes, lip so thin that it looks like somebody just cut a slit open. His hair is curly, now that he’s growing it out. Big chest and arms, he used to work with his hands before he started to work and eat at a desk. Brown hair on his head, but red above his penis and sprouting from his balls. Sometimes you have to just stop and look at it.

—What are you doing?

—Not doing a thing.

—If you keep staring at it like that, it will shrink away from you.

—I just waiting for it to burst into flames.

—Black men don’t have pubic hair?

—How would I know?

—Dunno. I mean, you’re a modern woman, right?

—Modern woman meaning slut?

—No, modern woman meaning you’ve been going to Mantana’s for months. And having fun.

—How you know what kind of fun I’ve been happening?

—I was scoping out the scene in Mantana’s long before you took a look at me, Kim. Seriously though, you’ve never slept with a black man? Not even with a Jamaican?

Mind, do a check of what situations this man calls me babykins and what situations this man calls me Kim. This is important, Kim Clarke. Men marry their babykins. Yes they do. Maybe I should be glad the man hasn’t called me sexy bitch in a while. When last? Can’t remember. Think harder. No, I can’t remember. I need him to move from I love you, but only enough for a tearful goodbye to I love you so much let’s get married right now, right here, so that you fly back to Arkansas as Mrs. Chuck. Isn’t Arkansas one of the places that hate black people? If I can get him to marry me, can I get him to move to New York, or Boston? Not Miami, I want to see snow. Yesterday I stuck my hand in the freezer for as long as maybe four minutes to
feel what winter must feel like, and almost stick my head in as well. I grabbed a clump of frost and squeezed until the cold started to burn and the ache reached all the way to my head. I rolled the clump into a ball and threw it at the window. The ball stuck for a second then dropped and I cried.

—
Baby, I never leave anything up to chance
.

I wonder if that means me. He wasn’t about to risk me leaving and never coming back to Mantana’s, even though I was there every night. Looking. Or if it means that he has already bought tickets or the company has given him tickets back to America. Tickets. Ticket. They gave him only one to come here, why should they give him two to leave?
Charles, Charles, we can’t be giving extra tickets to every man who falls in love with the local wildlife, what do you think this is,
South Pacific
?
Oh stop thinking, Kim Clarke, believe you me, you’re going to drive yourself crazy. Back in church youth group they used to say that worry is sinful meditation because you are choosing not to trust God. I used to think that if nothing else, the one thing I knew in high school was that at least I was going to heaven and not all those nasty girls who let boys feel them up because they said their titties were growing fast and the boys said we don’t believe you. Had to move all the way to Montego Bay to make sure I never ran into any of those bitches again (no that’s not why, stop lying, like it matters now). At least I didn’t have no fucking child making my titties drag down to my kneecaps, Jesus Christ I used to hate those bitches.