A Brief History of Seven Killings (55 page)

People think that I have animosity towards Papa-Lo. Me have nothing but love for the man and I would say the same to anybody who ask. But this is ghetto. In the ghetto there is no such thing as peace. There is only this fact. Your power to kill me can only be stop by my power to kill you. You have people living in the ghetto who can only see within it. From me was a young boy all I could see was outside it. I wake up looking out, I go to school and spend the whole day looking out the window, I go up to Maresceaux Road and stand right at the fence that separate Wolmer’s Boys’ School from Mico College, just a zinc fence that most people don’t know separate Kingston from St. Andrew, uptown from downtown, those who have it and those who don’t. People with no plan wait and see. People with a plan see and wait for the right time. The world is not a ghetto and a ghetto is not the world. People in the ghetto suffer because there be people who live for making them suffer. Good time is bad time for somebody too.

That’s why neither the JLP nor the PNP fucking with the peace treaty. Peace can’t happen when too much to gain in war. And who want peace anyway when all that mean is that you still poor? This is what I thought Papa-Lo understand. You can lead a man to peace all you want. You can fly out the Singer and make him sing for money to build a new toilet in the ghetto. You can go wind your waste in Rae Town or in Jungle and par with man who only last year kill your brother. But a man can only move so far
before the leash pull him back. Before the master say, Enough of that shit, that’s not where we going. The leash of Babylon, the leash of the police code, the leash of Gun Court, the leash of the twenty-three families that run Jamaica. That leash get pull two weeks ago, when the Syrian pussyhole Peter Nasser try to talk to me in code. That leash get pull one week ago, when the American and the Cuban come with a colouring book to teach me about anarchy.

These three men leave me a busy man. Mr. Clark talk about Cuba like a man who can’t accept that him woman don’t want him no more. And he not letting that happen to Jamaica, whatever he think that might mean. Strange how a man wants to fuck with a country him never live in before. Maybe he should wait a year and then ask himself if this country really worth buying a Valentine’s card for. I tell you, move with these white men long enough and you start to talk like them. Maybe that’s why Peter Nasser now calling me busha. One vulgar politician waiting every day for a phone call from the airport about the coming Rasta apocalypse. One American who answer to an American who answer to an American who just want to step on this country to jump over to Cuba. And one Cuban, living in Venezuela, who want this Jamaican to help the Colombian ship his cocaine to Miami and move it on the street in New York, because the Bahamians was a bunch of battymen who started to freebase off their own supply and selling that shit local. Worse, those little pussies don’t like how blood taste. Three men who want this fourth one, me, to shape 1979 for them. Me, I’m getting tired of doing what men want, including Papa-Lo.

But Papa-Lo energize himself for the mission of justice though. It run through him like a Flintstone vitamin. You’d think he was doing fifty-six acts of penance for the fifty-six bullets fired at Hope Road. Right before the second peace concert, I feed him Leggo Beast. Tell him that Leggo Beast was hiding in his mother cupboard just five house down from him, but didn’t tell him that he was hiding there for two year now. The man take the news by sucking in the air. Couldn’t tell if it was a wince or a sigh. He and Tony Pavarotti and some other man march down to the house like he was Jesus about to clean out the temple. He was going to turn it into a show, for
the people, the ghetto and for even the Singer to see that he was taking revenge nobody ask him to take. Drag the boy and his mother out of the house and proceed to beat the poor woman who already past forty right in public.

Say what you want about a boy who try to kill the Singer, but it’s a different story when is a mother trying to keep her only boy alive. But Papa-Lo must have people seeing him do something. Like he making a difference on something that already gone and done and can’t change. He try to make an example out of her, burn down her entire life and kick her out with him own boot, but all he do was make an example out of himself. Like some naigger being extra wicked to impress the massa.

Then Leggo Beast start to scream that is the CIA that make him do it. The CIA and people from Cuba, which don’t make no sense since everybody know that Cubans are communist and would not have any dealings with anybody from America. As if Papa-Lo knew anything more about the CIA than any Jamaican. Then Leggo Beast start to scream how this was my idea. I watch Papa-Lo watching me to see if I blink. Leggo Beast scream it for so long that he started to wonder if he should believe it, after all in Jamaica what don’t go so, go near so. In fact that is exactly what he say to me when he come knocking on my door the day after I tell him where to look, with two youths so young that their gun was sliding down into their brief. I look at the two of them hard and both look away, the one on Papa’s left fidgeting like some nervous girl. The other turn back and try to look. I mark him. Papa-Lo tapping his foot like he already annoyed.

—What no go so, go near so, he say.

—What Leggo Beast think him saying now? You don’t know the proverb about the drowning man?

—Drowning man don’t have time to make up a story with so much iration to it.

I squeeze my knuckles to stop myself from telling him that iration is not a word.

—And I don’t have time to bring to the light why you can’t trust an idiot
like Leggo Beast. Two years to get as far away as a man could go, and the furthest he could reach was his mother cupboard?

—But you did know where to find him though, me brethren.

—The mother go shopping every week and always coming back with a big bag from the market. Why so much food when is only she one live there? You think she running a Salvation Army? The real question is how come you, the don of all dons, didn’t even notice?

—Can’t have eye in every nook and cranny, me good brother. That no be what me have you for?

—Oh. Well, don’t ask me no idiot question ’bout the Singer when you know the answer already.

—True? So give me the answer quick then nuh? Since you—

—If it was me trying to kill the Singer, not one of those fifty-six bullets would have missed.

Always speak proper English when you want a man know that this argument is over. Papa-Lo walk away with the little boys hopping behind him. Little after that he taking Leggo Beast to a kangaroo court on McGregor Gully to prove to himself that he can still ration out rough justice. Some people say that the Singer himself show up to watch it, which strike me as a strange thing to do with the world watching him every move, but the only person whose word I would trust is Tony Pavarotti and he not saying nothing. Then he find some of the men involve in that horse-racing con and take them out to the old fort to turn them into fish food. Thing I want to ask: how all this blood on your hands work when you’re on a mission for peace?

My living room is getting dark. I’m waiting for three phone calls. My big son walks past me holding a chicken leg. He’s already looking so much like me that I had to rub my belly just to make sure that I’m the one with one.

—Boy, what you doing here and not by your mother? Hey, I talking to you.

—Cho man, Daddy. Me can’t deal with her sometime, no lie.

—What you do to upset the poor woman now?

—She never like something me say ’bout you.

—Something I said about you. And it’s didn’t like.

—Cho man, Daddy.

—What you tell your mother?

—Haha, that even bad man can cook better than she.

—Hahahahahaha, boy, you not easy at all. But is true, though. I never know a woman who was such an enemy of the kitchen. Might be why I didn’t stay with her too long. You lucky she never shoot you.

—Wha? Mama know what to do with a gun?

—You forget who her man used to be? What you think? Anyway, it too late for you to be walking ’round my house like duppy.

—But you awake. You always awake this late.

—Oh? What you doing, watching your father?

—No . . .

—Your lying about as good as your mother cooking.

Don’t know how I didn’t see this coming. I watch the boy, just one year in high school and not even twelve yet. He trying to be brave, looking straight at me, eye to eye and frowning a little because he don’t know yet that you have to age into a stone face. It’s the first time he doing it, he know and I know, the son trying to stare down the father. But boy is a boy and not a man. He can’t hold it, not yet. He look aways first and just as quick turn on the stare again, but he just lose the round and he know it.

—I waiting on a phone call. Go bother your brother, I say and watch him walk off. The time soon come when it is me who must watch him.

One day, my son, you will know enough and see enough that you can get the last word. But not tonight. One phone call I don’t want bothering me in the night is Peter Nasser. Is two months now since I first clue him in on the Rasta Apocalypse and he still either sweating blood or giving some stupid girl at Lady Pink the sloppiest seven minutes of her life. The point about the Singer was already proven, to him, to Jamaica, to Medellín—and Cali, but he wouldn’t let it go. Why? Because even if the Singer wasn’t going to be the voice of this new party, movement, whatever you want to call it, he was going to be something else far more important: the money. By now three thousand family see a little money every month because of the Singer, even
the family of the boy who shoot him. Speaking of shooting up, even I get the shock of my life, the next time I see a picture of him in the
Gleaner
. There right beside him was Heckle.

Back on that night when Weeper stop the car near the Garbagelands and throw Heckle out, me never see head or tail of him again. Another one of those men I didn’t realise was smarter than Weeper, if not braver, smart enough to make me think very carefully who I was keeping alive. So smart that he was the only one who catch the drift that after doing what we do there was not coming back. I like when a man can read writing on the wall. But Heckle should have known that he have nothing to worry about, retribution was coming for the stupid, not the smart. If I spoke to him I would have tell him, Brethren, don’t fret. The world smarter with you still in it. Still he catch where the wind was blowing quick and flee, jumping out of the car like a dog let loose. Garbagelands wasn’t even supposed to be his stop. Weeper sniff out where most of the men run off to, and those he couldn’t find, the Rastas did. Nobody saying nothing about them, since the only evidence that Rastas was on the hunt was Demus swinging from a tree in the John Crow Mountains, the john-crows already gone with his eyes and lips. But nobody could say where to find Heckle. Not even him woman, not even after slapping her three time and grabbing her by the neck, almost strangling her. I tell you, that make me admire him even more, a man who was a genuine disappearer.

But then almost one year later, Papa-Lo come stomping to my house more mad than usual. Not just mad, but so perplexed his eyes almost crossed.

—He take the pussyhole on tour with him? You can imagine that? Him get this man a bombocloth visa.

—Calm down nuh, man, you no see say is five?

It really was evening, and peaceful in the ghetto.

—Me no understand it at all. Maybe he really is like the prophet. Me don’t even know if Jesus would ever do such madness, and him did love to confound the wise.

—Who the Singer get visa for now?

It could only be the Singer he was talking about.

—Me never believe it until me see the little pussyhole hiding behind him like frighten fowl. Heckle. Heckle, me say.

—Heckle? For real?

Who knows where Heckle was hiding for almost two years? South Coast with the hippies? Cuba? Wherever he was, he just plant himself at 56 the third day after the Singer come back for the second concert. No gun, no shoes on and stinking of bush. Of course the Singer know exactly who he was even though I am sure he never see anybody. I don’t know what to admire more, his bravery or his stupidity, but the man just walk up to Hope Road, walk past security when they see how him look like death, throw himself at the Singer feet when he come out of the house and beg forgiveness. Kill me or save me, what I hear him say. Of course every single living soul on that compound wanted to kill him. They wouldn’t even need to worry what to do with the body.

Maybe it was lucky for Heckle that Papa-Lo wasn’t there. Or maybe he was lucky that by now, the Singer only take the long view. Or maybe the Singer think that any man with hollow-out eyes like he smoked lizard tail weed, a smell like cow shit and bush, with shoes that give up once the first big toe burst out, couldn’t get any lower. Or maybe he really is a prophet. The Singer not only forgive him, but move him quick into his inner circle, even taking the man with him when he leave Jamaica. Papa-Lo didn’t find out until he see that picture in the
Gleaner
.

For the first time in years I have to rethink the Singer. Papa-Lo cussing about another situation over which he have no power. After the Singer bless which man would dare curse? Heckle turn untouchable. He never return to Copenhagen City either, or Jungle, or Rose Lane, but take up residence in the same house where he try to kill the people who live there. When he wasn’t there he was all over the world.

Now it getting late and I’m still at the phone waiting for it to ring three times. These people know how I feel about being on time. I can’t stand late and I hate early. On time means on time. One man has four minutes. The other have eight. The other have twelve.

—Kiss me neck, is all me children haunted tonight?

My youngest, the girl, is in the doorway yawning and rubbing her eyes. She’s standing on one foot and rubbing her calf with the other. Her little Wonder Woman t-shirt pop out even in the dark. Her mother had plait her hair in two before bed, and I can bet she would be very mad if she see this little girl walking around late in the night, pulling her panty like they itch. She’s not going to lose those cheeks, just as her mother never did. At least she light like her mother. No future for no dark girl in Jamaica, despite black power bullshit. I mean, look who just win Miss World.