Omar Musa - Here Come the Dogs

Today he doesn’t feel like talking about crime. It’ll bring down his delicately balanced mood. ‘Ah, just painted a house on the other side of town, brother. Nothing too much. The couple were happy with it.’ He keeps his eye on the television but can see that Jimmy is scratching his Adam’s apple in disappointment. On the TV, it’s the scene where Chopper is trying to convince his mates to kidnap the prison guards and lay siege to the jail. ‘What a plan. Dumb cunt,’ snorts Aleks. ‘You’d get fucken forty more years.’

Jimmy looks at him again, trying to glean some insight from his mate’s offhand comment. Aleks places plates in front of his wife and Jimmy. ‘ Pileshko ,’ Sonya says shyly, gesturing at the chicken with her chin. ‘ Fala mnogu, Aleks.’

Sonya is Anglo but she’s been with Aleks for so long that she speaks Macedonian almost fluently. She took immediately to the structure and Aleks’ obsession with all things traditional. He beams with pride and kisses her, then says to Jimmy, ‘Not too shabby, ay? Come on. Eat up, both of you. You’re all skin and bone.’

Sonya begins to tell Jimmy a story. He listens to her, almost childlike, experiencing each emotion as she tells it, eyes shining when hers do. Aleks knows she’s always had a soft spot for Jimmy, that he reminds her of a hurt dog she once found on the side of a street, all kicking legs and wounded eyes. She regards Solomon as flashy and shark-like, and feels as if Jimmy is someone who could flourish if given the oxygen. Or explode?

The hound

As I untie the leash,

I put my nose to his head.

The fine fur is almost odourless,

a scar from the muzzle on his face.

I trace a finger over it.

Cradling the long head in my hands,

I look into the lone alert eye.

It would be easy to crush his skull

with a cricket bat or a rock,

in one perfect stroke.

Fuck, what am I thinking?

I pull the leash away.

Mercury Fire pauses,

streamlined and legged

to a grass-warped shadow.

Then he dances away with the shadow,

cantering off and building to a sprint within bounds,

his spine as flexible as a bow,

body extended,

charged with blood,

with ancient chases

and deer courses in forests long gone.

Like him,

I used to run and run,

from here to the stone gazebo

on the edge of the park

and back again, to keep lean.

He’s bounding towards some joggers

on the far side of the oval,

long legs still powerful.

Contracting, extending,

contracting, extending.

Is he imagining the race?

The arena,

the ceremony of gamblers and luckseekers,

the strange smells coming to him from the stands,

the straining hounds on either side,

eager and competitive souls in their chests?

A pointless struggle,

actors in a strange tragedy

where the winner never wins,

never gets its prey.

The true winner is removed,

a tall figure in the stands

with a ticket in his hands.

When I quit basketball,

I forfeited adulation

and the weekly engagement of muscle and will.

I used to walk home

through this oval,

lie in the dew,

drunk and reeking,

thinking of the times I pured a three

or threaded a pass perfectly.

Misses,

awards,

failure.

No basketball, no dad to play for –

been rudderless ever since.

Maybe that’s why I bought the hound.

Maybe it was a reason to be responsible for something again.

I see a figure in a red polka dot dress approaching

then I look back to Mercury Fire.

He changes direction and veers towards me –

something in his sight streak has appeared.

He’s snapping after a butterfly,

bright yellow and out of reach.

My affinity with him,

my fear of him,

deeper than appreciation of speed.

We’re nothing but spray cans,

used up and thrown away,

creating something that gets painted over within a day.

He comes back to me,

panting and smiling.

The figure in the red polka dot dress is close.

‘Good boy,’ I say,

patting Mercury Fire.

‘Hi,’ says Scarlett Snow.

‘Hi.’

The gazebo

There’s no one around

and the windows are partially obscured

by bare rose bushes.

I hike her onto the stone bench

and offer my throat,

which she clasps with two hands.

I peel the red up

and the white down.

And now the consuming danger,

the fierceness of summer

riding on our shoulders,

my thumbs on her ankles,

the minutes trickling down our backs

and her black hair.

I stare at the long, trembling dusk

as I lick a bead of sweat from the side of her face.

‘Wanna meet up tomorrow?’

‘Don’t get ahead of yourself, mister.’

She’s become cool again,

almost professional,

but the danger is still hot on my body.

She kisses me quickly.

‘Seeya soon, mama’s boy.’

An argument with Georgie

She just called the Samoan guy at the petrol station ‘bro’.

No way.

‘Can you not say that, Georgie. It’s fucken annoying.’

‘What?’

‘Bro.’

‘Bro,’ she mimics back.

‘Seriously.’

‘Why not? You say it all the time.’

‘I’m a dude. It sounds ugly when a chick says it.’

‘Solomon, that’s ridiculous.’

‘I’m just saying. Doesn’t sound right. That’s a guy’s word.’

‘I’ll stop saying it if you do.’ Her lips set.

‘Fuck that.’

‘You’re a pig.’

‘Oh, yeh?’

‘And an egomaniac.’

‘That all?’

We walk in silence.

Of course that’s not all.

I clear my throat. ‘Hey, Georgie. You realise that no matter how hard you try, you’ll never be one of us.’

‘One of the boys? Wouldn’t wanna be.’

‘Nah. You know what I mean.’ I cough. ‘Ethnic.’

‘Why are you saying this, Solomon?’ Her voice is shaking. My mind is perfectly clear.

‘Just letting you know. No matter how many politics courses you take, how much yoga you do, how many fucken Buddhist scrolls you hang in your room — you will never be.’ I snort coldly. ‘I know how you girls think. And I’ll let you in on another secret: no matter how many times you fuck me, you’ll always be white. I’m not gonna fuck some colour into ya and I’m not gonna fuck that white guilt outta ya. You will never be anything but what you are.’

She’s crying now.

That felt brilliant.

In Woolworths, Jimmy grabs a tin of coffee before heading to the wall of fridges lined with frozen dinners. Maybe lasagne tomorrow night. There is something about all the packets stacked up in supermarkets that he likes. In petrol stations, too. All the brightly coloured boxes, piled high and deep — the gaudiness, the abundance of it. You’re in charge, browsing where you like, and it’s all on display for your pleasure. Take what you want.

When he closes the fridge door, he turns and catches a glimpse of the girl from the travel agency, Hailee, walking up the aisle with a basket. He keeps his head down and watches out of the corner of his eye as she stands in front of the rows of pasta. When she moves on, Jimmy glides to the head of the next aisle and watches her as she chooses some rice. She’s in running pants and her hair is pulled back, and Jimmy can see what look like simple diamond studs in her ears. He can just make out a tattoo on the back of her neck — a coathanger? He shadows her again as she moves on to the deli. As he hovers by the cold shelves of fresh meat, she seems to look right at him, but offers no flicker of recognition. He pretends to be looking at Christmas crackers.