A Brief History of Seven Killings

Every time I pass on the subway to take the bus I forget that the bus is so much slower. Price I pay for hyperventilating whenever I’m underground. At least I’m awake. Last week I slept past seven stops and woke up to some man in the seat across looking me over, like he was trying to figure out which body part to touch to wake me up. No men on the bus today.

Eastchester is empty too. Maybe the Jamaican football team is losing a game somewhere. It says something about me that even in my own thoughts I’m such a considerable bitch. I’m sure the average person is just as rude, racist, irritable and nasty in their own thoughts too, so I don’t know why I’m beating up myself. I just need to get home, make some ramen noodles, throw myself on the couch and watch America’s Funniest Home Videos or some other no-commitment TV.

I really need to stop thinking about Jamaicans. Or maybe I really need to up the Xanax. I mean, I don’t feel bad right now, I really don’t, but common cold is not the only thing you can feel coming.

At Corsa. There’s no food in my house. I ate the last ramen two days ago, threw out all the Chinese this morning, and those McNuggets were a bad idea, even when they were fresh. I’m looking at my door and the window that looks like I left it open, even though it’s March and know there’s no food in my house. I really don’t want to go to Boston Road, but this is what’s going to happen. I’m going to sit inside and watch TV until the hunger I’m not feeling now gets worse, and then end up going anyway.

So I’m walking down Corsa to Boston still hoping for my Mary Tyler Moore moment. The dumbest idea ever on a street packed with people not making it, but I still imagine. This is what happens when your life is work, TV and takeout. It’s almost like I’m living like an American, damn it, and screw all of you and your rules. I don’t know. But I do know if I had popped a Xanax I wouldn’t have been thinking so much already. I like to believe that everything in my house, from towels all the same colour, to the coffee machine where I press one button, is there just to make my life simple, but I’m realizing that they are all there to make sure I don’t think. Imagine, my mother thought I could never put my life together.

Boston Jamaica Jerk Chicken. Jamaican Chicken and Food, Hot and Ready. Two rows of orange plastic booths with ketchup, salt and pepper on every table. Eat here? The thought is gone as soon as I think about it. On the counter right beside the cash register, coconut drops are in a cake dish reminding me of country. Never liked going to country — too much coconut drops and pit toilets. Right beside it another cake dish with what looks like potato pudding. I haven’t had potato pudding since 1979—no, longer. The more I look at it the more I want it, and the more it feels like I should think it’s a sign of something deeper, that what I really want is to taste Jamaica and that just sounds like some psychological bullshit. Funnier to think I just want something Jamaican in my mouth that’s not a penis. Damn dirty woman — no, damn dutty gal.

Now me feel like me want chat patois all night, and it’s not because I was hanging around that woman and her gunman boyfriend all afternoon. Maybe it’s because I’m looking at damn coconut drops and feel like asking if they have any dukunnu, asham or jackass corn.

— What I can get you, ma’am?

Didn’t even see him sitting behind the counter, but then I see why he didn’t see me. Cricket on the small black-and-white TV on the plastic chair beside his.

— West Indies versus India. Of course we doing nothing but bare fuckery again, he says.

I nod. Never liked cricket, ever. Dark skin, big belly in between two muscular arms and a white goatee. This might be the first Jamaican man I’m speaking to in weeks and his eyebrows are raised — fed up with me already.

— 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.