A Brief History of Seven Killings (87 page)

—Can I get a roast chicken no fry chicken yes fry chicken and rice
and peas if you have rice and peas and some fry plantain and shredded salad and—

—Woi, lady, slow down. The food nah run nowhere.

He’s laughing at me. Well, more like grinning and I don’t mind except now it making me wonder when last I make a man laugh.

—You have ripe plantain though?

—Yes, lady.

—How ripe?

—Ripe enough.

—Oh.

—Lady, don’t worry, it well ripe. The plantain going just mash up in your mouth.

I resist telling him I really mean it when I say that’s the most delicious description of food I have ever heard ever, and say,

—Three servings please.

—Three?

—Three. Second thought, you have any oxtail or curry goat?

—Oxtail on the weekend. Curry goat just finish.

—Fry chicken is fine. Leg and thigh thank you.

—What you want to drink?

—Is sorrel that on the menu?

—Yes, ma’am.

—I thought you could only get sorrel at Christmas.

—But wait. Is where you deh the last umpteen years, lady? Everything Jamaican boxed up and on sale.

—It taste good?

—It don’t taste bad.

—I’ll take one.

Didn’t feel like taking all this food back to the house. I don’t know but I loved the idea of just sitting in this little restaurant overhearing the announcer on TV get excited over cricket and eating fried chicken. There’s a Jamaica
Gleaner
and a
Star
newspaper in the booth right across. Also
Jamaica Observer
, which I’ve never heard of. The man turns on the big TV mounted from the ceiling, and the first thing that comes on is cricket.

—That JBC? I say.

—Nah, some hurry-come-up Caribbean network, maybe Trinidad, the way everybody sound so sing-songy. Is ’cause of them why Jamaica have carnival now.

—Carnival? With soca music?

—Eehi.

—Since when Jamaicans like soca music?

—Since uptown want reason to dance in them brassiere and panty ’pon the street. Then hi, you no hear ’bout carnival?

—No.

—You must no go back too much. Or you no have no family ’pon the rock. You read the newspaper?

—No.

—Is forget you a try forget.

—What?

—Never mind, me love. I hope you raising your children like Jamaica and none of them American slackness, you know.

—I don’t have—I mean, yes.

—Good. Good. Just like the Bible say. Train a child how he should grow and—

And I’m already tuning out. I’m in a little Jamaican food shop tuning out a man giving me granny wisdom. But damn this is good fry chicken, light brown and almost chunky and soft inside like he fried it then baked it. And rice and peas together, not the separated shit from Popeyes I have to mix together. I’m already a third of the way through this plate of plantains and was this close to anointing sorrel my favourite processed, possibly toxic, chemical lab re-creation of an original drink.

—Bombo pussy r’asscloth.

Couldn’t remember the last time I heard those words coming out a mouth that wasn’t mine.

—Bombo pussy r’asscloth.

—What going on?

—Look, me love. R’ass.

All I’m seeing is bad video of a Jamaican crowd, probably the same stock footage they’ve been using for the past fifteen years whenever anybody does a story on Jamaica. The same black men in t-shirts and tank tops, the same woman jumping up and down, the same placards made out of cardboard from people who can’t spell. The same army jeep moving in and out of camera. Seriously.

—Bombo pussy r’ass—

I’m about to ask him what so special about this report when I read the streamer at the bottom of the screen.

JOSEY WALES FOUND BURNED TO DEATH IN PRISON CELL.

The man turns up the volume yet I’m still not hearing a thing. There only the slab on the screen. Some man naked from the waist up, skin shiny like it was melting from all the heat, chunks of his chest and side blackened, large spots white like only his skin was burned off. Skin peeled off his breast like a suckling pig. I really couldn’t tell if the photo was out of focus or he really did melt.

—Copenhagen City burning down now. And the same day they go bury him son? Lawd a massy.

It’s running across the screen now: JOSEY WALES FOUND BURNED TO DEATH IN PRISON CELL * JOSEY WALES FOUND BURNED TO DEATH IN PRISON CELL * JOSEY WALES FOUND BURNED TO DEATH IN PRISON CELL * JOSEY WALES FOUND BURNED TO DEATH IN PRISON CELL

—No sign of forced entry, no visitors allowed in the cell today, nobody can say how the man get burn up. Maybe him just catch fire ’pon himself. Rahtid me can’t believe—

—They sure is him?

—Who else it going be? Some other man in General Penitentiary name Josey Wales? Shit. Fuck. Excuse me y’hear, lady, a nuff people me have to call now. Me can’t be—Lady, you alright?

I make it through the door just before the vomit burst my lips open and
splatters all over the sidewalk. Somebody across the street must be watching me hack fried chicken while my own belly is contracting the life out of me. Nobody is coming but I still left a mess right near his door. I’m trying to stand up straight but my stomach kicks itself again and I bowl over hacking but no vomit. At least the man is back behind the counter. I go inside, pick up my bag and walk out.

I’m on my couch and the TV has been on for two hours but I still don’t know what I’m watching. Don’t think I’ve ever seen a man look cooked. I really should get a cover for this sofa. And maybe a painting or something for the living room. And a good plant, no a fake plant, any living thing would die under me. The phone has been in my lap for minutes now. Just as the credits start to roll it rings.

—Hello?

—Putting you through now, ma’am.

—Thank you, thanks.

My hands are shaking, making the phone rattle against my earring.

—Hello? Hello? Hello, who’s speaking?

My hands are shaking and I know if I don’t say something now, I’m going to slam down the phone before she speaks again.

—Kimmy?

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Even before I knew I had a novel, Colin Williams was doing research for it. Some of that hard work appears in this book, but more of it will appear in the next. By the time Benjamin Voigt took over as researcher I had a narrative, even a few pages, but still not quite a novel. The problem was that I couldn’t tell whose story it was. Draft after draft, page after page, character after character, and still no through line, no narrative spine, nothing. Until one Sunday, at W.A. Frost in St. Paul, when I was having dinner with Rachel Perlmeter, she said what if it’s not one person’s story? Also, when last did I read Faulkner’s
As I Lay Dying
? Well maybe not in those exact words, but we also talked about Marguerite Duras, so I went and read
The North China Lover
as well. I had a novel, and it was right in front of me all that time. Half-formed and fully formed characters, scenes out of place, hundreds of pages that needed sequence and purpose. A novel that would be driven only by voice. At the very least I knew what to tell my other researchers, Kenneth Barrett and Jeeson Choi, to look for. In the meantime, thanks to a travel and research grant from Macalester College, where I teach, I was able to do quite a bit of research on my own. Without brilliant and creative students to challenge me all the time, and a strong and supportive English Department, the four years spent on this novel wouldn’t have been quite as successful or rewarding. That one-year sabbatical didn’t hurt either. Quite of bit of that sabbatical was spent writing at a French café in South Beach, Miami, thanks to awesome support and free room and board from Tom Borrup and Harry Waters Jr., who (knock wood) have yet to charge me rent though I invent reasons to use their place all the time. In fact, the draft that I eventually showed to my wonderful agent, Ellen Levine, and fine editor, Jake Morrissey, was written not far from the actual beach. Before them of course was Robert Mclean, my first-draft reader, and still the only person I trust to read a manuscript even as I am in the process of writing it (though he is still mystified as to why). Jeffrey Bennett, my brilliant last-draft reader, line-edited the whole thing before it went off to the publisher and corrected, among other things, my wildly erroneous
depiction of the drive from JFK airport to the Bronx. And thanks to Martha Dickson, who translated my loose English into Cuban Spanish when I made the mistake of thinking Mexican Spanish would do. A writer can go through days of distraction and self-doubt, so thanks to Ingrid Riley and Casey Jarrin for unwavering friendship, support and an occasional kick in the ass. Thanks to my family and friends, and this time around maybe my mother should stay away from part four of the book.