Get Millie Black

This is just another story about Jamaica.

It won't add up.

It won't make sense.

But like every story about this country,

this is a ghost story.

A ghost is a chill you can't trace.

A memory you can't shake.

Some spirits are not even dead.

Call the girl, Millie Black.

She is me.

Call the boy Orville Black,

my brother.

Ghosts move into a space

that somebody's left for good

like our house when Daddy took off.

The girl and the boy fill their empty space

with songs, with magic,

and with secrets.

The Mama?

She filled her emptiness with rage.

Dirty little faggot.

How many times? The girl stopped count.

But this one time something kicked inside her like a horse.

Mama made one phone call to England.

One taxi ride

and she never saw her brother again.

It didn't matter if she tried to write or call,

Mama made sure the brother slipped away.

Welcome to the UK.

Are you staying with relatives?

Yes.

I knew bad news was coming when Mama finally called.

Yeah.

It's your mother.

Is Orville there with you?

Mama please, you have to let me talk to him.

No way to say it but to say it.

Your brother...

He ran away to the Gully. They had one of those riots there.

Millie, he's gone. He's dead.

I wish he was in Heaven,

but that's not where God's sending him.

She was wrong. Orville wasn't in hell.

Hell was living with her.

But Orville's spirit wasn't at peace.

Neither was mine.

I could feel him, on my back,

chasing after me when I chased after men doing children wrong.

Metropolitan Police. Open up.

He looks like my brother.

If you didn't know me you'd say I was just doing my job.

Nobody knew I was paying an unpayable debt

to a ghost.

But on the day Mama dropped dead,

who should raise up like Lazarus?

One flight later, I left freezing rain for scorching heat.

Lookin' for my once dead brother.

You know how it feels,

when it's the living that haunts you?

But this ghost story needs a beginning.

So let's start here.

Right here.

General.

Empress.

One special, coming right up.

We should get married.

Next week look good.

Well,

are you working?

Because, I want to be a housewife.

I work for my Daddy

and my piggy bank is half full.

Boy, get your raas to school.

Blessings.

Curtis.

What, you sleep late?

Breakfast.

That a man smell?

Hey Millie,

my boyfriend playing detective in your sex life again?

No, I'm just asking about her date with the bartender.

I saw his dick, but I don't know his star sign.

Is that a date?

Come on, you're driving.

Take his half-Trini ass to the office.

I'll see you guys there later.

This estate agent

has been bugging me with unsolicited offers.

What? Good offer?

It's not for sale.

The house is done with you, my girl. Flip it and sell it.

Get yourself a fresh start.

Hibiscus hasn't seen it yet.

You mean she doesn't want to.

You've been back from London a year.

And the house is finally ready for her to move in.

I just need her to see it.

Look, you offer her a roof, she's going to choose the Gully every time.

No way you two going to share -

Yeah ok maybe, but she's my sister.

I owe her even if she wishes I stayed in London.

Not the only one.

Boss.

Superintendent Barracat.

Black. You running on Jamaica time now?

I want updates on this one.

Busy morning. And that nun's getting on my nerves.

Sorry, Sister...?

Agatha. Convent of Grace High School.

Sixth form plotting a coup by now.

Oh, on Pechon Street.

Oh you know us. Past student?

No, I went to Our Lady the Immaculate.

Where she learnt her uptown ways.

Janet Fenton. Two weeks now since anybody's seen her.

Pickney bum school all the time.

No. Janet is a straight-A student.

She'd never miss a day from school.

She even volunteer on our literacy program for underprivileged kids.

How come nothing from her parents?

Father's gone and mother's barely a mother.

Some kids have to raise themselves, Detective.

Mother's name?

Ruth Fenton.

Blond weave and tight clothes.

I telephoned and all she has to say is 'I ain't seen Janet neither.'

What, two weeks and still you're the one here?

Was anything off when you last saw her?

Janet usually catch the number 33 bus.

But one day I see a car come and pick her up.

You know, most of these boys, they borrow their mothers' cars.

But this one was something else.

Come from a world that I know Janet don't come from.

You didn't catch a plate?

Well, that would make me the detective and you the nun.

But she was chatting up the driver like she knew him.

Ah, have you ever seen her with a boyfriend?

Boyfriend?

No.

Remember what I said.

Sometimes it's the living that haunt you.

Not dead, but gone.

This crime story is old.

But people make it new every day.

Ruth? Ruth Fenton?

Hey.

Hey stop.

Help!

Just relax, just relax.

We are the help, Mrs. Fenton.

Didn't realize you were police.

Yeah, right.

Is there any reason why you haven't reported your daughter missing?

Janet? She comes and goes as she please.

It's a long time since I fussed over that.

What, even though she's skipped school two weeks?

You know neglect qualifies as child abuse, right?

She's not a child.

Wow, usually it's the neglect part people deny.

She sent rent money just last week. How can she be missing?

But why the raas is your 16-year-old daughter paying your rent?

For all she costs me, that's the least she can do.

Who's the boyfriend?

Mrs. Fenton, who's the boyfriend?

Who's not her boyfriend?

No. You know what we're not gonna do?

Descend into this 'my daughter is a whore' bullshit,

because then I would have to conclude that you are in fact, her pimp.

Inside. Come on, her room. Now.

Hot Pinky.

Sounds like a club. I'm on it.

In this country nothing haunts like history.

Pick something ugly, bigoted, hateful, shameful, violent,

and you see a shadow reaching back 400 years.

I came back to find my brother Orville.

Instead I found

Hibiscus.

Batty boy.

Charged with prostitution again.

Bis. Are these bruises from the police or a trick?

Hey, settle up.

Pencil him in for next week, huh?

Fuck off.

Dropping him off at the Gully?

Hold on. What did your batty boy detective friend just say?

Hey do I look like a batty boy to you?

I know this bitch knows my pronouns.

She.

You get the Hot Pinky details?

It's out on Harbour Street. One of those go-go clubs.

Run by a lady named Alicia Bonnet.

List of priors.

You use your digital forensic background for that?

Google. Try it sometime.

Dropping me off?

At the Gully?

Not a chance.

Those boots are sick, my girl.

It's wicked, ain't it?

Would look wickeder on me.