A Brief History of Seven Killings

Millicent Segree is a student nurse who works at Beth Israel Hospital. Two weeks earlier, several Jamaicans were admitted to the hospital for gunshot wounds. Millicent hid her Jamaican identity from the people who came in with the patients. One of the patients indicated that the gunshots had to do with the killing of Benjy Wales. This name made Millicent feel despondent. She spent the next hour trying to forget about it.

While looking at a man and his young daughter at the bus stop, Millicent misses her father, though she doesn’t know whether he’s still alive. She’s tired of being anxious, but still avoids the news, not wanting to know what’s going on in Jamaica. She reckons with her loneliness and the way people in the Jamaican Bronx perceive her. Once, a white man asked her if she ever knew the Singer. Millicent said no. She reminds herself she is still alive.

Alex takes the C train to see if people are reading his seven-part deep dive on the Kingston gangs in The New Yorker. No one is reading it, which reminds him of his general frustration with contemporary culture.

When he gets home, Alex sees four Black men waiting on his stoop. Alex tries to walk past them, but they tell him to go inside. There are two men in his kitchen, one of whom is wearing a silk suit. The man in the suit, Eubie, tells the other man, Ren-Dog, that Alex is the man who killed Tony Pavarotti.

Josey and Doctor Love haven’t seen each other in a while. Josey asks whether his imprisonment has anything to do with Peter Nasser. Josey is aware of Nasser’s ambitions for knighthood and suspects that his freedom would limit Nasser’s chances.

Doctor Love says that they are both relics, indicating that they will both be forgotten by all except those who find value in them. Josey believes that someone in Miami ordered Doctor Love to find him, but Doctor Love explains that it actually has to do with Doctor Love working as an informant for the DEA—the US Drug Enforcement Agency.

Doctor Love went to Benjy’s funeral, which angers Josey.

Millicent tends to a Jamaican patient in intensive care while addressing questions from his female companion. Millicent isn’t assigned to look after this patient, but she comes anyway.

Dr. Stephenson arrives. He knows that Millicent isn’t supposed to be there, but asks her to stay while he explains the state of the patient because he cannot understand the Jamaican accent of the patient’s female companion. Dr. Stephenson asks Millicent to translate from her “native tongue,” which Millicent counters is English. The doctor explains that the patient’s status is complicated by his lack of consciousness. Millicent is irritated by his patronizing behavior.

The woman pressures Millicent into answering her questions by pointing out that she heard the doctor say she wasn’t assigned to care for her husband. Millicent assures her that she isn’t involved with her husband in any way and is just curious about the Jamaicans admitted for gunshot wounds. The woman doesn’t believe her, so Millicent adds that she wonders why the Jamaicans bothered to bring the violence to New York, rather than starting over fresh. The woman suggests “is the same crap [that] send them here” (633).

The woman demands the truth about her husband. Millicent admits he has a slim chance for recovery. She finally asks the woman if Josey Wales shot her husband, surprising herself. The woman answers that Josey didn’t personally do it because he’s been incarcerated for two years. Her husband was, however, a Ranking Don.

Alex fears Eubie and Ren-Dog are seeking revenge for Tony Pavarotti. Alex admits to stabbing Tony in the neck.

Eubie brings up Alex’s feature in The New Yorker. The gang members intimidate Alex, but Alex is unfazed. Eubie orders Ren-Dog to deal with him.

Josey paces in his cell. He knows that Nasser is nervous about being implicated if Josey starts cooperating with the US government. Josey believes that everyone owes him, especially Nasser. Doctor Love disagrees, indicating that no one forced Josey to do the massacre at the crack house, which everyone knows about because of a feature in The New Yorker. Josey and Doctor Love blame each other for making the Storm Posse as ruthless as it is.

Doctor Love accuses Josey of being a psychopath. Josey accuses Doctor Love of being a puppet for the CIA. He reminds Doctor Love that he remembers everything about their involvement with Johnson and Clark. Josey threatens to cooperate with the US government unless someone arranges for his release.

Josey isn’t scared because he thinks he owns everyone. Doctor Love tells him that this isn’t the case: The person who ordered Weeper’s hit in New York has been waiting for Josey to fall. Josey realizes that Doctor Love is talking about Eubie.

Millicent says she’s never been around a gangster before. She and the Ranking Don’s wife argue over the way Millicent talks in the doctor’s presence. Then, the wife asks why Millicent would want to be around a gangster. The wife believes that the violence will soon end now that most of the gangs have eradicated each other, and Josey Wales is facing long-term incarceration.

Millicent gets faint. The wife steadies her as Millicent tries to pretend she isn’t bothered by the discussion of Josey. The wife hopes that Josey gets the death sentence. She implies that the deaths of Josey’s children were karma for his actions, even though they kicked off the recent gang violence.

The wife wonders why Millicent is so interested in Josey. Millicent has a vivid flashback to her last night as Nina Burgess, witnessing the ambush at the Singer’s house. Josey’s threat made her believe he would find her eventually.

Ren-Dog tortures Alex. Eubie forces Alex to read from his feature entitled “A Brief History of Seven Killings,” which is about the crack house massacre and the formation of the Storm Posse. In the third part, Alex tells the story of Monifah Thibodeaux, a person with a drug addiction. Eubie and Ren-Dog interject to criticize Alex’s writing. Eubie is curious to know why Alex has chosen to write about seven killings when he says in the first part that 11 people were killed. Alex explains that he couldn’t find information on the other four killings.

Alex urinates in his clothes out of fear that Ren-Dog will beat him again. Eubie makes Alex skip to the part about Monifah’s experience in the crack house. A pregnant Monifah had worn a hoodie that day to hide her belly so that she could buy drugs. Monifah was killed instantly when the Storm Posse reached her room.

Eubie wants Alex to revise the next part of the feature.

Josey retrieves a machete from inside his cell and threatens to chop off Doctor Love’s arm. Doctor Love reminds him that he has one more son who is still alive, insinuating a threat to harm the boy if Josey acts. Doctor Love clarifies that he isn’t working for Eubie or the CIA, but he wants to ensure that Josey will stay out of gang affairs.

Josey offers to withdraw as a witness. Doctor Love implies that he was sent by the Medellín cartel to assassinate Josey and gives Josey some pills to sedate him as a final act of mercy. Josey takes the pills, reflecting that both he and the Singer needed to die before the thing they wanted most could be achieved. He loses consciousness wishing it was 1978 again.

In part four of the feature, Alex does not narrate a killing. Instead, he narrates the formation of the Storm Posse, which Eubie describes as being full of inaccuracies. Eubie knows that Tristan was Alex’s source.

Alex guesses that Eubie wants him to retract the fourth part of the feature, but Eubie instead tells Alex to keep everything in except the parts about the Storm Posse’s New York operations. He wants Alex to make it seem as though Josey acted alone in the crack house massacre. This will discredit Josey’s link to the gang and thus nullify any value he has as a government witness. In its current draft, the feature could serve as criminal evidence against the Storm Posse. Alex stresses that revising the story would ruin its integrity, which requires the context of the Storm Posse to make sense. Eubie doesn’t care.

Eubie wonders why Josey sent Tony to kill Alex—Eubie can’t imagine that it had to do with drug trafficking. Alex suggests that Eubie must have known about Josey’s attempt to kill the Singer, which shocks Eubie.

Eubie recalls Heckle, who sought the Singer’s forgiveness and became part of his inner circle. After the Singer died, Heckle vanished. Eubie hints that Heckle is in Germany. He encourages Alex to keep writing, but has Ren-Dog shoot Alex in the foot to caution him. Finally, Eubie leaves, claiming to have killed Josey Wales.

Because of her talk with the gangster’s wife, Nina goes to a Jamaican restaurant near her house, her first time eating Jamaican food since she left the country. She chats with the man at the counter and learns about things that have changed in Jamaican culture since she left.

While she is eating, Nina sees a news report announcing the death of Josey Wales, who has been burned alive in his prison cell. Nina leaves the restaurant and vomits. When she gets back home, she places a long-distance call to Kimmy.