From the Bookshelf of Around the World in 80 Books…

Sometimes a man get kill because he look at another man in a way that he didn’t like. And killing don’t need no reason. This is ghetto. Reason is for rich people. We have madness.

Sometimes a man get kill because he look at another man in a way that he didn’t like. And killing don’t need no reason. This is ghetto. Reason is for rich people. We have madness.

Don’t make no mistake, it don’t take nothing to kill a man and even less to not care that him dead. Certain parts of town you let the baby walk the street and you leave him when he play in the shit water. And when him get sick so that he is just a ballooning, bursting screaming belly that used to be a baby, you take your time to go to clinic which too packed anyway and the baby dead while you waiting in the line, or maybe you take pity and cover the baby with your pillow the night before and either way, you see and wait, because death is the best thing you could do for him.

This is how you stop a screaming man. Punch him in the face if you want him to feel like a man or slap him across the cheek if you want him to feel like a girl. Josey Wales lift Bam-Bam off the ground with left hand and slap him with the right. Slap east to west then slap west to east and east to west again, like the man is him woman. Me scratch me head because me can’t think about how a wet slap must feel like, for me can’t remember when Josey Wales and Weeper come back. One blink they not here, another blink they appear like magic. Like Obeah. Josey still slapping Bam-Bam, telling him to stop cry like bitch before he really give him something to cry ’bout. The two man from Jungle say go suck your mother, and turn to rush him but Weeper whip out two gun like a cowboy gunslinger and say settle yourself, brethren.

Josey open a big box and plenty gun come out, most of them M16. Weeper open a little box and plenty white powder come out and Funky Chicken and me swarm the table, with Bam-Bam whimpering me me me. Weeper chop up a pile into umpteen skinny line. So he go first then Funky Chicken, then me, then Weeper again, which make Josey Wales shout at him that he did say that he going to let go off that fuckery. Weeper say, Everything kriss, my youth, everything kriss. One of the boy from Jungle put him nose down on the table but the other boy say no. Weeper point him gun at the boy face and say don’t think me can’t shoot you and still find use for you body. He point the gun at the boy but the boy didn’t flinch. Weeper pull ’way the gun and laugh. I watch Josey Wales watching the whole thing. Josey Wales don’t take no line.

Midway through the third line of coke I gone further than where thinking can take me. Dillinger playing on a transistor radio, I didn’t know the shack have a radio but coo deh, a radio, and Dillinger gonna lick the chalice inna Buckingham Palace and chase Mr. Wallace. The railroad shack hot and stink with piss and ting. I done three line but Weeper keep cutting and the lines so thin that as soon as you sniff it gone. The two man from Jungle laughing loud and crying and singing the tune and waving him gun. And Weeper cut me a line and I sniff it in and it burn but sweet burn like a pepper burn and the shadows starting to jump off the wall and dance. Heckle and Funky Chicken look like fool but not me. I beyond wise and fool.

Little things can fill up a long hour. So Josey Wales say hold on, Joe, and I say me no name so, but me can’t remember my name so I take the name Joe, and I say just call me Joe, and it’s the sweetest name, sweeter than sweet. Ten minutes pass, fifteen minutes, one hour, one day, five year. I don’t care, whatever time pass too long and Weeper cut me another line, but say I not getting it unless I show him how to handle the gun. I tell him even a dumb pussyhole who come out of a batty can fire gun and he slap me, but I don’t feel anything. And is just so it happen. I don’t feel no slap, no pain and no bullet. I don’t tell Josey Wales. And when the shadows start to dance they tell me that we have to kill him, we have to kill the thiefing friend and him too, for he and the thief is brethren. And that make him just like the thief. I don’t know how much time passed, but the radio in my head sweet like fuck. He ask if me ready and me say how you mean? Nobody can touch me now, and my eyes see so far and so deep that me in Josey Wales’ brain then out and he didn’t even know. I know how they going to tell this story even now. I know which part get keep and which part get lost.

This is how it feel when you know that you could kill God and fuck the devil. Josey Wales say we set out soon, but I feel like we should set out now and ah grab me gun and think how I want to kill kill kill this pussyhole and nobody going get to kill him but me and I want to kill, kill, kill and it just feel so good, so raasclaat sweet every time I say Kill kill kill that the echo in the room sweet too. Josey Wales say time to go. Outside is two white Datsuns. Josey Wales tell we right before we leave how you playing both sides but you still a PNP stooge. And how you about to record a song that say under heavy manners and everybody know that is PNP slogan. And that you never change, but after this things goin’ change big.

—You sorry you tried to kill him?
—What? No. Me sorry him suffer. A gunshot would have be easier. Sometimes I think the one thing people like me and him have in common, is maybe we must die. That whatever we start, can’t finish unless we get out of the way.