Omar Musa - Here Come the Dogs

‘Really? I thought they do it by force.’

Aleks laughs. ‘True. But in this situation it’s not mutually beneficial for anyone to use force. Play this thing right, we can be winners. You get direct access to the good shit. My friends make money. You make money. You’ll be rich as bloody Ottomans, mate.’

‘Then why shouldn’t I go straight to them myself?’ the bikie says.

‘Because they’re fond of me, these fellas. They value loyalty. And loyalty’s a hard commodity to come by in this country. It’s at a premium, don’t you reckon?’

‘All right. Then you? What’s in it for you?’

Aleks looks across the river again. The boy is reeling something in. Carp? Redfin? The water must be so low right now. What fish would be in there? he wonders.

‘Me? I work for myself. Just a little extra cream will do me fine. A sip from the bubbler, like I said.’

‘A bit of a rogue then, ay?’

‘Fuck noath, brother.’ Aleks grins and makes a mental note to use the word later. The bikie was right — Aleks treasures his position as an outsider among outsiders, a solo operator, doing as he pleases at a mid to low level in the criminal world. Over the years, he has acted as muscle, as a liaison, negotiated drug deals, intimidated and used fraud, all the while doing his day job. He doesn’t consider himself a criminal, merely an opportunist. In the chaos of a war-torn country, he’d learned that you have to take what you can get, when you can get it. The same, it turns out, applies here. At times the urge is there to go all in, but he’s been slow and steady, ready at any point to fade into the background. For his family, all for his family. ‘A rogue. Yeh, I like that. Look, at this point, don’t worry about me. I’m just sorting them out and the rest’ll follow. We all win.’ He claps his hands together then makes an open gesture, as if releasing pigeons from a rooftop.

The bikie has taken his sunnies off and squints at Aleks, studying him. He sees something, then slowly nods. They shake hands. Aleks waits for the ute to leave then he drives slowly up the long, bluestone driveway. As he swings onto the road, he nods at someone in the tree line.

Jimmy and Solomon stand with Mercury Fire in between them. Gladys is talking in a torrent. The boys try to shuffle back into the shade of a tree, as the sun is burning their skin. She carries on, unperturbed:

‘He fell from the sky.

I was looking over me backyard,

making a sandwich.

The lad next door skied his cricket ball.

We both looked up

but both lost it against the sun.

I saw something moving waaay up high,

gliding,

a V shape.

I couldn’t believe the ball had gone that far.

I saw the ball drop in the corner of me eye,

but I kept looking at the V.

It turned and rose and turned.

Me head was right back.

Suddenly

it split into two and a black blob

fell

towards the ground.

I felt it hit the earth,

and maybe I heard it, too,

but I couldn’t see where it landed.

I ran towards the fence and I knew it was something important.

A change.

Even before all that,

luck had played a huge part in me life.

I was always a street fighter,

a tough old bird.

You have to be, growing up in Streatham.

South London.’

Jimmy whispers something about the rapper Roots Manuva to Solomon, who shushes him. The old lady continues.

‘It’s not all luck,

but that’s what has played the biggest part.

That’s what I think I thought.

I looked underneath the old plum tree

and saw something against the fence.

I didn’t want to touch it,

then it made a sound.

It looked like a bloody grey tennis ball.

Then I realised,

a tiny face was looking back at me.

I thought it was a possum or a water rat at first.

But it wasn’t.

It was a little puppy,

a bloody and broken little critter,

with fur the colour of mercury.

I scooped it up and squinted at the sky again.

I saw an eagle with wings

maybe as long as a man’s arms.

Could’ve been a wedgetail.

The little grey ball whimpered in me hands.

It looked as if its leg was broken

and it had one eye staring at me,

bright as a button.

The other had been scratched,

maybe even torn out, by the eagle.

Who’da known that pathetic lil thing –

lil gift of the sky –

would be a champion one day.

I could hear the kids start their game again

on the other side of the fence.

I went inside and called a vet.’

She is crying now and the brothers, one with his hand on Mercury’s head, the other on its twitching withers, don’t know where to look.

‘Bro. I’m drunk as.’

‘Me too, brother.’

‘How the fuck we get here? This place is way too posh for us.’

‘Aw, we’re celebrating, bro.’

‘Celebrating what?’

‘Buying the hound.’

‘Oh, that’s right, ay.’

The bar is brand new, the latest hotspot in town, with a line almost around the corner. Young chicks totter like fresh-born foals. The boys are smoking just outside the door. Solomon is handed an ID by a nervous teenager who mistakes him for a bouncer. All the staff wear waistcoats and the wall shows raw brick in places. Concrete and a rust wall. The couches are rich brocade and the curtains have a bullion fringe. Despite all attempts, it is a parade of vulgarity. Neon lights shine through Alizé and Patrón bottles behind the bar. Metro roidheads and wannabe footy players wear shirts printed with the names of foreign cities they’ll never visit and compare copycat tatts and gym muscles. Women with fake breasts and fake tans flick tousled hair over shoulders with manicured hands, waiting for someone to shake a bag of coke like a polaroid and lead them to the bathroom.

‘Live by the bag, die by the bag’, says Aleks.

A woman is yelling, ‘Where’s Caitlin? I’ve lost Caitlin,’ while men stand against the wall, observing her, hands crossed over genitals, bobbing their heads to the beat. Everyone’s eyes are elsewhere, on the door especially, to see if someone new comes in, each person ignoring exes, tracing hands around waists, heads thrown back with exaggerated laughter. A small, awkward dancefloor has formed, and the DJ switches from ambient tunes to old Ja Rule and TLC. Jimmy yells at him to play some Gang Starr. The DJ is a hip hop head from way back who does this lark on the side. He smiles tiredly and says, ‘Yeh, for sure, bro, a bit later.’

Jimmy sprinkles some MDMA crystals into Solomon’s palm, and watches as Solomon licks them off discreetly. Georgie looks away. Aleks is toying with his keys, chatting to a scientist who has just been laid off in the latest round of government cuts. A man, by himself at the edge of the bar, watches them all. Jimmy begins to tell a story, his voice loud and slurring.

‘You know how Sin One became so good at rapping? He ran away from his auntie’s place when she was on the heroin, bro; ran into the bush as far as he could. He was only six. He couldn’t read or write. He couldn’t even speak, did you know that? He was mute. He ran up into the hills, chasing a feral dog, and found a cave. He sat in the cave for five fucken days straight and when he was there, a swarm of bees came in. They went in his eyes, in his nose, in his ears, his throat, but they never stung him and he sat there, still as a Buddha. When he came out, he had a different voice; his mind had been rearranged somehow. He could fit words together like a mosaic. Then his Tongan neighbour gave him a Big Daddy Kane tape. The rest is history, bra.’