EVERYONE CALLED HIM JOHNNY NOW, even his wife. It had started the previous April with Bowra on his first visit to Gordon Hall, and when later he had tried to correct Harris by repeating his real name, Harris had said that they knew his real name fine but Johnny was what they called all nice white men. Then Terron had picked it up and started referring to his friend as Johnny whenever he moved among the people down at Barrett’s shop, with Yvonne, Bush, Barrett and his wife and the half dozen or so regulars, all of whom, though they thought of themselves as friends of Johnny, knew that Terron’s position was closer. After all, the Rastaman practically lived with Johnny and his family up there on Church’s hill. Eventually, with everyone else calling him Johnny, his wife too began to use it as his name, at first as a joke, then gradually as if it were in fact the name he had been born with. By January, if a stranger asked him his name, he answered with Johnny, unless the person happened to be white, in which case he answered with the name he had been born with.
Terron’s name, of course, had not changed. In spite of Bowra’s and the other Gordon Hall Maroons’ fondness for calling him Rasta, he remained Terron to everyone else, except perhaps in Port Antonio, where he had been a child and where he was still commonly known as Stammer. Tonight, out on the terrace with Johnny, as he struggled to tell Johnny what had happened in Nyamkopong in the twenty-four hours since Johnny had left with Bowra and his people for Gordon Hall, his childhood affliction had returned. Terron’s tongue, teeth and lips, instead of making their usual dance, tonight bumped and stumbled against one another, so that Johnny couldn’t make out what the man was trying to describe to him. The only other time he had seen Terron turn into Stammer had been back in Gordon Hall last April, when Bowra had challenged him to name the thirty-six sacred herbs and Terron had been able to name but twenty-three. Then, as now, Terron’s huge and serious face had lost all its balance and proportion and had come to organize completely around his mouth—his brown eyes wildly struggling to see what was the matter with his mouth, his broad, flat nose seeming to pull itself flatter, to give the lips more room, his cheeks, chin and forehead drawing back and away fearfully.
Placing a hand on his friend’s shoulder, Johnny silenced Terron and drew him over to the edge of the terrace. Below them in the hazy twilight lay Montego Bay, and the Caribbean, silvery gray near shore where it fell in the shadow of the hills of Anchovy, scarlet-streaked out near the horizon, where the last light from the setting sun spread across water from the red western sky beyond Negril.
Slow down, man, and tell me from the beginning, Johnny said. The children, two girls aged eight and ten, had followed their father and his friend out to the terrace, and they too were trying to tell him what had happened during his absence from them, only forty-eight hours, more or less, but in this strange land, enough had occurred in their daily lives to make them eager to report it to him. Johnny’s wife stood at the sliding glass door of the living room and watched her husband ignore her children.
Benjie’s dead, Terron finally got out. Johnny’s wife went back to the kitchen and hollered for the girls to come and eat supper, and reluctantly, the girls left the terrace for the kitchen.
Dead? Why? How? Johnny ran his hand through his greasy hair. His clothes were rumpled and dirty, and he looked exhausted, with deep, dark circles around his eyes and a three-day beard on his face.
Terron drew close to him, and even though they were now alone on the terrace, talked in patois in a hushed voice. He was shot, Terron explained. Five times. Then they scalped him, he said, using that word, scalped.
Who, for Christ’s sake?
The cops. Babylon.
Johnny sat down slowly, like an old man, on one of the pink wrought iron chairs. Benjie was shot by the cops? Jesus. And scalped! What do you mean, scalped? Like Indians? He shuddered.
Yes, like Indians. They cut off his locks, his dreadlocks. With scissors. They brought the scissors with them from Maggotty in the Land Cruiser, Terron said. They cut the locks of a deader, he said, repelled and amazed. No Rastaman no deal wi no deaders. Praise Jah, Jah lives—and then he was off on a singsong chant about the impossibility of death so long as God, Jah, lives in every man, and no man, who knows that, can fear death—I-man who know I-self cyan deal wi no deaders—rolling on and away from what Johnny apparently thought was the subject, for he quickly interrupted him.
Why did the cops shoot Benjie? He was just a kid, for Christ’s sake!
They shot him because they found his gun. The cops had gone into the House of Dread this morning, Terron explained, had routed the brethren there out of bed and had found Benjie’s gun. They had simply picked it out of his bed, where he kept it when he slept, and then they shot him for it. Five times, twice in the head and three times in the body. His “structure,” Terron called it.
But he didn’t have any bullets! Didn’t they see the gun was empty?
It was empty then, Terron explained, but they could tell by the smell that it hadn’t been empty long. The gun had grown bullets and had fired them not long before the cops kicked in the door of the House of Dread and started laying about at the sleeping Rastas with billyclubs. And when they yanked Benjie out of his bed, they saw the gun, and then the Sergeant, Sergeant Kemp, sniffed the barrel, and he knew.
Knew what?
Knew that the gun had been out shooting. And he figured Benjie was the one who had been shooting it. So they shot him.
Who the hell was Benjie supposed to have been shooting at?
Colonel Phelps.
Phelps! Did someone shoot him?
Benjie’s gun shot him, Terron answered. It grew two bullets and it shot him. Bang, bang! he said, pointing with a finger at his friend’s face. In the eyes, one bullet in each eye.
Johnny looked away and lit a cigarette. Inhaling deeply, he leaned back and, letting the smoke drift from his mouth, made little ohs with his lips. After a few seconds, he said, Okay, let me get this straight. Someone, using Benjie’s gun, shot Colonel Phelps sometime last night. When the cops from Maggotty busted into the House of Dread, they found Benjie’s gun in his bed, saw that it had been fired recently, and so they shot him, in cold blood, and then cut off his dreadlocks. How do you know Benjie didn’t shoot Colonel Phelps? Maybe Kemp was right. At least about that, I mean.
Terron explained that the boy couldn’t have done it because when Colonel Phelps was killed, sometime around midnight, Benjie was in the bush with Terron, helping to watch over his and Rubber’s ganja patch. He was going to be my new partner, Terron said. Then he told Johnny that Benjie had spent almost the entire night out there, smoking and reasoning with Terron, and by the time he left, it was almost dawn. A few hours later, Terron had been awakened by his cousin Juke, who had been inside the House of Dread and who’d come to tell him about Benjie’s murder.
Did Benjie have his gun with him when he was out in the bush with you? Johnny asked.
No. He was worried that someone had stolen it. According to Terron, the gun had disappeared from Benjie’s bed the night before.
How was that possible? Johnny wondered. No one can steal a gun from the bed you’re sleeping in.
It probably just got invisible for a while, Terron explained.
Oh.
According to Terron, the problem lay not in the disappearance of the gun but in its reappearance in Benjie’s bed. Otherwise, the cops wouldn’t have shot him. Another problem, apparently, was that the police had now practically taken over the village, and the celebration had been cancelled. The Colonel was a monkey, Terron pointed out, but an important monkey, especially today. So the police had forbidden the people to dance or sell food or set up the sound systems, and they had sent everyone home. Then he, Terron, had got nervous, and he’d hitched a ride out of town with a Rasta from Montego Bay and had come straight here, to warn his friend Johnny.
Warn me! Of what?
The police.
What are you talking about? I was in Gordon Hall last night!
Terron knew that. Everyone knew that. But apparently Colonel Phelps’ wife had told the police all about the visit yesterday from Colonel Bowra and the Gordon Hall Maroons and, until they found Benjie’s gun and shot him, she had claimed that Bowra had gone around town threatening to kill her husband and that the white American, who owned a gun, had gone around with him.
I don’t own a gun! Johnny shouted.
Terron said nothing, merely raised his eyebrows in mock surprise.
Johnny stood and was pacing nervously from the edge of the terrace back to the sliding glass doors by the living room, as if eager to lock up his house but not sure of where to start. So you think the cops’ll be coming here now. Because they think I have a gun.
You’re a white man, and a foreigner. They’ll make you go back to the States…
But I don’t have a gun!
Terron ignored him and went on explaining how he should handle the situation. He should cover the gun with heavy grease and wrap it in plastic and bury it in the bush where he can find it again. Also, he should get rid of all the ganja he had in the house. There was no problem with the several dozen plants they had been cultivating since November in the flower gardens—Terron had yanked them up and burned them this afternoon as soon as he arrived from Nyamkopong. Then, when the cops can’t find anything illegal going on here, they’ll leave you alone again, Terron explained, because you’re a white man and a foreigner, the same reasons they bothered you in the first place. They’ll probably expect something for their troubles, of course.
You mean a bribe.
This house is a rich man’s house, Terron reminded him. They’ll see how you live.
Johnny grunted. Okay. I’ll get rid of my stash, it’s not much anyway. As far as the damned gun goes, that’s no problem. It doesn’t exist.
Terron raised his eyebrows again, this time with high admiration, as if his friend were saying that the gun was now invisible. His stammer gone, he was able to speak smoothly again. Jah will protect you, he said. Bowra and Mann have arranged it. Your family will be safe, and you’ll be able to continue with your work, he said matter-of-factly, as if giving a knowledgeable opinion of tomorrow’s weather. He knew the signs.
My work? What work?
Terron sat down in the pink wrought iron chair, stretched out his short legs and crossed them elegantly at the ankles, and was rolling a spliff. Your work as a wizard, he said.
I’m no wizard, for Christ’s sake. And what the hell are you doing, rolling a spliff? I thought we were supposed to clean this place out.
We are, we are, he said, smiling and lighting up the spliff. Jah will protect. Don’t worry, Jah will protect.
Shaking his head, Johnny went into the house to get his stash, a few ounces of lamb’s breath that he kept in his shaving kit. As he crossed the living room, his wife called him from the kitchen. Are you going to eat?
Yeah, yeah, in a minute! he answered impatiently, heading for the bedroom.