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Part 4, Chapter 12
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in A Brief History of Seven Killings, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Violence vs. Peace
Masculinity, Sexuality, and Homophobia
Jamaican Culture and Identity
Politics, Power, and Corruption
Witness and Storytelling
Summary
Analysis
Weeper is in Bushwick. A woman is yelling at him, saying that a nearby “crack ho” offered to give her 12-year-old son a blowjob in exchange for his pocket money. Weeper never has any problems with the East Village, but is always having to deal with issues in Bushwick. He speaks to one of the spotters, a young boy called Romeo who tells him that the runners and guards have mostly disappeared to find other work. He adds: “Your dealers ain’t dealing.” Weeper panics over the fact that Josey is going to be there in a few hours. Meanwhile the mother is still following Weeper around, complaining.
The scene Weeper encounters in Bushwick is totally chaotic. Just as in the story of Bam-Bam, children who grow up in the midst of the crack epidemic in New York are completely robbed of their childhoods. This is true both of the boy who is offered a blowjob by an addict so desperate for drugs that she ignores the fact that he is only 12, and it is also true of Romeo, who enters the drug game at a young age.
Themes
Weeper tells one of his men to check out what’s happening inside the house. Eventually Weeper slaps the mother who won’t stop talking at him. He chokes her and tells her to get lost. Weeper goes inside the house and finds one of his dealers lying on the ground, smoking crack. He tells the dealer to get up, and he replies that he won’t take orders from a “faggot” with a hickey on his neck. Weeper shoots him in the head. The woman who tried to give the little boy a blowjob enters and tries to take the dead dealer’s pipe, but he points his gun at her and she flees. Weeper puts the crack rocks and pipe in his pocket and tells his man to find the other dealer, as well as Romeo.
This scene indicates that part of the reason why Weeper has done such a poor job of keeping control of the operation in Bushwick is because he is a cocaine addict himself. Although he may not be on the level of the dealer lying on the floor smoking crack when he is supposed to be working, the fact that Weeper puts the dead man’s crack rocks in his pocket demonstrates that Weeper’s ability to conduct business has been compromised by his drug dependency.
Themes
