A Brief History of Seven Killings (71 page)

You know what, forget Green Bay. Even though you know too much about that too, it say something that is Tony Pavarotti that try to kill you. That means is definitely Josey. No question about it, Josey Wales realize that you know he try to kill the Singer. Or at least you was going to find out, though me don’t know if you as smart as he thought you were because for six years none of this ever even strike your mind.

Now this make sense. So this is why you come pay me a visit. I must be the only person in the world who have this kinda something in common with you. What a thing, the only two man Josey Wales try to kill who still living. And any hour now he soon land in New York.

Josey Wales

T
his plane land
twenty-five minutes ago in JFK and we’re just leaving customs. Some bird tell me that this only happens when Jamaicans land. I don’t know how I know, I just know. Last time I fly to Bahamas the customs pussyhole actually say, Will all the Jamaicans stand to the left of the line. No, I didn’t stand to the fucking left and not one idiot say a damn thing when I go straight through customs and give them my passport. Didn’t even open my suitcase. Didn’t the Singer do that one time? Standing in line when the customs officer start to deal him some customs fuckery. He just grab him bag and walk straight out. Two Jamaicans in this line already get cart off by customs, one of them have three guards escort her. Fucking idiot, I hope she put the coke up her asshole and not up her pussy or worse swallow it, because all that time in there will cost her. Listen to me, thinking all Jamaicans must be drug mules.

Pity they stop the girl who look like she a mule when they should have stop the idiot embarrassing the country in first class. There we are, thirtytwo thousand feet in the sky and the air hostess announce dinner service. My girl took one look at what they was offering and say,
No to backside a food you call that? A good ting me bring me owner bickle
. Then I have to watch this damn buttu open her bag and pull out an ice cream bucket with fry fish and rice and peas. Damn fish stink first class so bad that I almost asked if I could move to a seat in the back—I’d even pay for it. Either that or whip out a gun and pistol-whip some class into her, if I brought one.

—Welcome to the United States, Mr. __________

I pass through the door into the baggage area only to glimpse two officers grab the young woman they pull out of line and throw her down to the floor. Outside of customs and we’re still inside the airport, one more thing
that’s different from Jamaica. And there is Eubie. Standing right in front of the crowd of people, a lot of them black, a lot of them Indian looking, waiting on people to come out. Royal blue silk suit with white kerchief in the front pocket like he is the black man in
Miami Vice
. I really need to watch that show. Something tell me that if I call him Tubbs, Eubie would like it, uptown boy trying to play hardcore, except he really hardcore. I spend a lot of time thinking about Weeper too, but not in the same way and not for the same things. And what the hell this man have in his hand?

—Eubie.

—Mah man! Mah main man, he say like an American black man. He’s still holding up the sign saying Josey Wales, just like the signs the two chauffeurs beside him are holding up.

—What is this?

—Haha, this? This is a joke that we call a Josey Wales.

—Oh. I not laughing.

—Jesus Christ, Josey, where you sense of humour gone? Or you ain’t never have one?

I hate when Jamaicans start to pick up American ways of talking, and when they flip back and forth it put my teeth on edge. I laugh.

—That more like it, although you heart not in it.

Then he flings the paper into the air just like that, grabs my bag and starts to walk out. I’m following him but still watching the paper sail through the air and land near a rent-a-car booth.

—Should be interesting landing in New York at night. Is a totally different city than in the day.

—How soon before we get to Bushwick?

—Just cool, man, Josey. The night young and you just come. You hungry?

—There was food on the plane.

—Which me sure you didn’t r’asscloth eat. Boston Jerk Chicken on Boston Road.

—Seriously, you think me leave Jamaica to go eat second-class Jamaican food? That’s what you think?

—Fine, you want a Big Mac? A Whopper with Cheese?

In the parking lot, a black minivan pull out and stop in front of we. Maybe is a good thing I didn’t have my gun or I would have it out already. But then it’s not like this is downtown Kingston. The door open and Eubie point. For some reason I don’t move until he get in first. He’s nodding him head.

—Good old Josey, still trusting nobody after all these years.

He laugh, but I still don’t know what he talking about. I can’t remember Eubie from the old days. Outside we seem to be driving through lights, although I thought we would be passing mile-high buildings right away. So far New York looking like Lejeune in Miami, but I thought the streets would have been wider. Nothing but cars speeding past on the highway, which was strange since Eubie himself said nobody drives in New York. Maybe this wasn’t New York. I would ask, but Eubie already thinking he too smart. The van slow down and for the first time I realize that another man in the back. Stupid, stupid Josey Wales, you know better than this. No gun, surrounded by a crew from a man I work with but for real don’t trust, I should have at least asked for a gun as soon as we step out of the airport. We turn off the big highway and I see a sign saying Queens Boulevard. Strange this boulevard is much wider than the highway. We rolling down this street with brick townhouses, all of them three floors and sometimes four with a verandah and plastic chairs and bicycles outside.

—This is Queens, by the way.

—I know.

—You do?

I don’t answer him. We hit a pothole and I jump.

—Betram, what the fuck, man, you just run over a goat?

—Pothole, boss.

—Imagine the don, man, leave Jamdown to run into pothole, what a ting.

—We didn’t want him to feel like stranger, Eubie.

—Haha.

I’m hoping that nobody see me jump in the dark, or I might have to do something.

—My boy Josey jump like he hear duppy.

Everybody laugh. I don’t like how he’s parring with everybody like he and them is size. I don’t like when any fucking man disrespect me, even as a joke. This man really thinking me and him is neck and neck. He really think so. I wonder if this would happen if Weeper was managing Manhattan and Brooklyn the way he seem to be managing Queens and the Bronx. We need to talk as soon as we get out of this van. Meanwhile I’m wondering what the man in the back doing. Then we on another highway, and I look over and there is the sea or the river and there is a neon sign of the old Pepsi label, old from when I was a boy.

—So, Josey, I was thinking. I—

—You going talk business in the van?

—What, this? I trust my men implicitly, Josey, meaning—

—You not about to tell me what implicitly mean.

—Woi, Josey check you out, nuh? Man bad like sin! But ah nuh nothing. We can wait until we reach Boston Jerk Chicken. Funny, eh? What are the odds, Boston Jerk Chicken from Portland would land on Boston Road in New York? That is what me son would call irony, from him lit class. They grow up fast, eh? How old you big son be now?

—Fourteen. All this can’t wait till we get out of the van?

—Just making convo, but suit yourself.

The van stop. I didn’t even notice that we was in the Bronx. I know it was after nine but the street still busy, with people moving up and down in the middle of the road, along the sidewalk and in and out of store like it’s still daylight. Cars park on both side of the road and all of them either Buick or Oldsmobile or Chevrolet. Miss Beulah’s Hair Technique, Fontaine Brothers shipping, Western Union, another Western Union, Peter’s Boutique Men’s Clothing, Apple Bank, and then Boston Jerk Chicken. The place look like they was about to close, but somebody must did see Eubie, because a light from the back just go on. So now I’m wondering if Eubie forget that I say no Jamaican food, or if this is another cute disrespect. We sit down, just me and him at an orange plastic booth near the door with him directly in front of me. One of his men by the cashier and two stand up outside.

—How much security you usually need ’round here?

—Not too much, Ranking Dons know better than to try move in on Boston or Gun Hill Road. Last time they try a thing they drop two of me dealers. Now you know this nigger wasn’t going take that shit lying down, right? We hear that a party going on in Haffen Park with plenty of Ranking Dons. We just drive down in three car, jump out and shower that whole park with bullet. We didn’t even shoot to kill even though one or two man did suck salt that day. All me care ’bout was that at least one of them was going shit in a colostomy bag for the rest of him life. That was the last time them fucking batty boys mess with the Bronx. Pushing smack in Philly is the best move they ever make. Still, them getting bolder in Brooklyn. Too bold, if you ask me.

—Tell me.

—What?

—Tell me how bold.

—Well, your man Weeper can best tell you—

—I didn’t ask Weeper, I ask you.

—Okay. Okay. Real talk then. You boy fucking around in more ways than one, while Ranking Dons, driving up and down in a triangle on Broadway, Gates and Myrtle, watching your boy fuck up. Spotters can’t find runners, dealers shooting up, meanwhile them boys and they Chevrolets patrolling all over because they know they can’t set foot in the Bronx or in Queens. My man report all this to me.

—Your man? How he know so much?

—Don’t take this no way, but I have one of Weeper’s runners on the lookout for me.

—What the bombocloth, Eubie, you a spy ’pon the man, ’pon me?

—Oh for fuck’s sake, Josey, like you don’t have man spying on me. Or Bricks run to phone booth every night to make collect call to him woman. Me no care. I actually don’t mind at all. It keep me on my toes and remind me not to fuck up. My man report to me twice a week. I mean, I can’t imagine he finding out anything you don’t already know.

—Like what? Test me.

—Like how your boy Weeper is a user.

—Weeper sniffing coke from as early as ’75, that not nothing new.

—But new it is, Josey. Now him smoking crack and you and me know that crack is not coke. Can a man do good business even when him deh ’pon coke? Of course. Every man me know in the music biz a lick coke. Hookers and blow them call it, my youth. Back then the biz did even have a sort of class. But crack is different business. Every single dealer who switch from coke to crack mash up. You can’t hold a single thought on crack. You can’t do no fucking business. Crack is you business. You can’t add number when you on crack. You can’t separate what to sell and what to buy. Shit gone to hell and you don’t even care. When you see Weeper ask when last he go to Bushwick. Ah smoke up crack and . . . well . . . them other things is fi him business, but the man is a r’asscloth crackhead, and this is a r’asscloth business.

—How you know him smoking crack?

—My man see him do it.

—Fucking lie that, Eubie.

—Brethren, what make you think him hiding it? You no understand. When a man ’pon crack him don’t fucking care. Is damn slackness, man. The man a shoot up crack like some crack bitch, and messing up him spots, and when him not doing that, going on with all sorts of nastiness that him must did catch from Miami ’cause there’s no way he could be doing that shit in Jamdown—

—Enough.

—And Ranking Dons is nothing but john-crows, before a body even dead they start to hover close.

—Me say enough, Eubie, to r’asscloth.

—Alright, brethren, alright.

—Enough of this bombocloth fuckery, make we go.

—Brethren, the food don’t even come yet.

—Me look like me bombocloth hungry? What me want to do is go to Bushwick. Right now, Eubie.

John-John K

S
o there was this time
in Miami way down on Collins in South Beach. I was smoking Parliaments in a Mustang that already smelled like ass, bitching over being given bad info on a pot pickup that was just not going to fucking happen (yeah, the aim was to jack the stash and then sell it), when like moths sniffing out the new chintz, some boys started to come over. A blond one, hair long and curly like he spent most days posing as Farrah Fawcett, glided his way, jeans split at the side and cut like hot pants, so high that white pockets poked out. He was singing too, voice deep enough to kill the Farrah vibe,
more, more, more, how do you like it, how do you like it
. I wanted to say, Faggot, it’s nineteen eighty fucking three.

Motherfucker’s roller skates stopped somewhere in that girly middle between pink and purple. Lilac maybe, something that fags would know. Rollerbitch never saw him coming, the dirty one, black hair so ashy that it seemed grey, sliding up through the blindside of the car like he’s following shadow. I didn’t even see him until the rollerbitch glided straight into a kung fu kick to the side from kid’s combat boots. Rollerbitch went rolling, teetering, tottering like a drunk dancing queen, trying to regain footing but unable to stop the skates without wiping out on the asphalt. Bitch screamed and cussed and tried to stay up but barreled backways on one foot then the other until he went butt first into a pile a trashbins by the wire fence. Take your clap and your stanky ass to Hialeah, the boy said. Spic of course, but a cute spic, maybe not long from Cuba, not long enough for the dirty
pinguero
to know that
The Wild One
was one fucking old movie and leather wasn’t the coolest bet for what was still the tropics.

Spic bent down into the car window smelling like he was smoking only thirty minutes ago. His left canine was missing, but his eyes were black and
hungry, his chin strong like Vinnie Barbarino’s on
Welcome Back, Kotter
. Kid stuck his hand in the car and I grabbed him—hunter’s instinct. Smokes, the kid said, and I let him go. The kid said nothing else, just went around to the right side and got in the car. I would have let him blow me there, but shit I had to jet, these run-down art deco–style hotels were becoming a major downer. Kid said, What the fuck, Papi, I don’t travel. I said, Well get the fuck out of my car then. Kid changed his mind and said drive me someplace nice. He took another cig out of the pack and stuck it behind his ear. I’m thinking that hopefully the rifle wasn’t on the bed or this kid would get scared. Kid was just staring at my cowboy boots.