A Brief History of Seven Killings

The two men who bring guns to the ghetto watch you sing yourself out of their hands and they not happy at all. Nobody uptown singing thanks and praises for you. Not the man who bring guns to the Eight Lanes, still run by Shotta Sherrif. That man know him party going up for re-election and they need to win, to stay in power, to bring power to the people, all comrades and socialists. Not the Syrian who bring guns to Copenhagen City and who want to win the election so bad that he will move God himself if God in the seat. The American who come with guns know that whoever win Kingston win Jamaica and whoever win West Kingston win Kingston, before any man in the ghetto tell him.

Prime Minister Michael Manley tell everybody on the TV and the radio that he give you your first big break and you wouldn’t have become famous were it not for him. And that he always support the voice of the downtrodden, the comrades in the struggle. Then you sing, never let a politician do you a favour or he will want to control you forever, but he didn’t think it was about him for by now he is not no politician, he is Joshua.

And the man who bring guns to Copenhagen City so that it can deal with the Eight Lanes problem hear of you talking all the time to Papa-Lo like you two is back in school and up to mischief and scratch him Syrian head and ask Papa-Lo why he talk to you, since you is known as a PNP man because they give you your first big break, and maybe this little Rasta trying to convert Papa-Lo to the PNP. You don’t know that from then on people watching you like a hawk, because you talk to Papa-Lo all the time and nowadays Papa-Lo even go uptown to your house to spend the whole day. That weekend when Papa-Lo did gone and nobody know where, rumour was that he did gone to En gland to watch you in concert. And word reach that you still talk to Shotta Sherrif, the man whose deputy kill me family, and me learn to hate you in a new way, even as me love Papa-Lo. You turning him, you converting him into something and everybody seeing it. Especially Josey Wales. Josey Wales watching you and I watch him watching you and he don’t like the way things running and he don’t say it too loud, but he say it to who will hear. And a little bird say Papa-Lo getting weak.

But then one day a boy from Copenhagen City rob a woman at gunpoint, a woman who sell pudding and toto by the corner of Princess Street and Harbour Street. She come to Papa-Lo house and point him out, a boy three door from my house who nobody ever like. And the boy mother shout, Lawd! Woi! Tek pity ’pon the boy, Papa. Is ’cause he no have no daddy fi teach him them things! And is lie, she lie, look how she pussy dry up. Josey Wales just hiss because Papa-Lo thinking too much these days, but then Papa rip off the boy clothes and yell out for a machete and beat the boy with the flat side, every whack slapping the air like a thunderclap, every whack slicing the skin a little. The boy bawl and scream but Papa-Lo big as tree and faster than wind. Do, Papa-Lo, lawd, Papa-Lo, but Papa-Lo, is caw she did want me buddy and me never give her, he say, which only make Papa-Lo worse. He kick the boy down and beat the boy back and batty and leg and when he tired of machete he pull off him own belt and beat the boy with the buckle side. And the buckle dig hole into the boy back and chest and forehead. The mother run to him screaming but he lash her one time in the face, and she stagger and run off. People come out to watch. He pull out him gun to shoot, but the mother rush in and cover him and bawl out and beg Papa-Lo, beg the woman who get rob, and Jesus Christ who rest in the hills of Mount Zion. Even Papa-Lo not going step in after Jesus intervene. Then he say, A woman who raise this kind of pussyhole deserve to get shot too and lower the gun right to her forehead, but he walk away.