Omar Musa - Here Come the Dogs

Aleks speaks in a low voice. ‘Mark?’

The man nods. Aleks gestures to the kitchen table. On it is a CB radio tuned to the police channel, and a photo of a handsome, suited man in front of Big Ben. It looks out of place. ‘Come here, brother. Sit down.’

The man stands up but doesn’t walk straight to the table. He goes to the sink and takes a long drink of water from the tap. It goes all over his unshaven chin. He wipes his mouth and then sits down. Wil and Dave stand behind him. From the CB radio they hear a low and steady stream of male voices. Aleks switches it off and the only sound now is a weak fan and cicadas outside. He picks up the photo and realises the well-dressed man is Mark. ‘You know who I am, brother?’

The man nods. Aleks continues. ‘Look, I don’t know what you done. But I got two jobs to do. Number one. The man who sent me wants his cash, understand?’

‘. ’

‘Speak up, brother.’

Mark is unseasonably pale and the sweat shines on his Adam’s apple. He clears his throat and when he speaks again sounds surprisingly posh. ‘I told him last time. I don’t have it right now.’

Aleks shakes his head. ‘I’m not messing around this time, brother.’

Mark looks away, then mumbles, ‘In the laundry. Linen closet.’

Dave leaves the room. Aleks leans close and there’s sweat on his forehead too. He smiles, ignoring the stench of the man’s breath. ‘Number two. How do I say this? The man who sent me can’t have scoundrels like you running around saying they played him for a fool, understand? So there’s a couple ways of doing this. Either you can carry on, make a scene, and there’ll be a lot of blood — it’ll be messy. Or you comply, all right? We’ll bandage you up nice and tight, cut off the blood flow. It won’t hurt a bit. You can take it to emergency and they’ll sew it right back on. No problems.’

The man looks at his children on the floor, as if they might provide an excuse or answer. They look like twins, perhaps four years old.

Mark looks back to Aleks, as if seeing him for the first time. ‘You gonna do this in front of my kids? Mr Janeski, it’s no good for them to see their father —’

‘ Father ?’ Aleks’ voice suddenly loud. The children look up. ‘Father? Frying yourself up on a glass barbecue all day. Look at yourself. Look at them. Haven’t eaten in days by the looks of things. Half high off the fucken secondhand ice smoke. And you’re handling fifty large. Fifty thousand bucks and your own kids are starving. You fucken disgust me, mate.’

However, Aleks nods to Wil, who ushers the children into another room. For a few moments, there is only the sound of the fan and cicadas, before Wil returns. Aleks feels like a cigarette but smiles benignly and speaks to Mark in a low voice. ‘This is the way it starts again for you, brother. Give and take, give and take. That’s what the world’s about right there.’ He suppresses a cough. ‘I once knew a man who was a soldier. He had two kids, just like yours. And just like yours, these kids had never done sin, never even thought it. Their father went for a walk to the market one day and when he was gone, another soldier came to their door. But this soldier, he was from the army their father was fighting against. He was starving, wounded, begging for water. These children led him into the house, gave him bread, drink. They let him sleep. As he did, they tied up his hands. When the soldier woke up, they’re sitting there, watching him. At first he was confused, like what the fuck’s goin on? But soon, he’s full of poison, brother. He spat at them, cursed their country with every name under the sun, cursed the diseased cunt they were born out of, called their mother a whore, a Jezebel. Those children, they’d killed him by the time the sun went down and their father returned. The point? There is no point, brother. It’s just a story.’ He smiles for a moment but then his face becomes grim. He wants to ask the man how the fuck he got in this situation, how he had squandered all of his opportunities, but instead he says, ‘So, brother. You’re gonna co-operate, aren’t ya?’

Mark looks out the window. Then he slowly places his hand on the table, smiling as if he’s merely playing along with a prank.

‘Good boy,’ says Aleks.

Wil pulls out a length of rope and tourniquets Mark’s arm tightly from the wrist, winding it up and out so that the hand is almost white and bloodless. Wil hands Aleks a cleaver. The type they cut up smoked ducks with in Chinatown. Aleks holds it to the light and looks at both sides, then inexplicably, sniffs the metal. It’s sharp enough to shave with. Dave comes back into the room, holding a bag. Wil holds Mark in the chair now, as he’s started to struggle, realising that the situation is real, and Dave seizes the bound arm and holds it on the table. Mark’s eyes are wild, looking from Aleks to his hand to the door of the room where his children are. The door like a blank piece of paper.

The man’s mouth isn’t working properly and his vowels sound misshapen. ‘No. No, please! Aleks. Mr Janeski —’

‘Just relax, all right brother? Spread those fingers. That’s it. Don’t worry, brother. I won’t take it off at the knuckle. I’ll do it right here so they can sew it back on. No problems at all. That’s right, brother. Relaaax.’

* * *

The men part ways with handshakes, no words. Wil still has vomit on his chin.

Aleks goes for a long drive. He then makes his way to a suburban tavern and sits behind the wheel for another hour. He finds a hat at his feet and pulls it low. He climbs out and stares for a minute at the gym bag next to the tins of paint. He hadn’t even had to use it — fear always the strongest weapon. The carpark is mostly empty, besides three cars and a motorbike that appear and vanish in irregular blinks of light from a streetlamp. Behind them a pale copse of eucalypts, the limbs upflung like ballet dancers.

As soon as he enters the tavern, the bouncer asks him take his hat off. Aleks stares. The man’s mouth twitches with recognition and he shrugs his shoulders deferentially. His voice is way too high for a man of his size. ‘Sorry, mate. They’re just the rules.’

‘Rules?’ Aleks grimaces then takes his hat off. He pats the bouncer on the shoulder and for a second feels sick, really sick, as if he might faint. All this violence. For what? ‘No worries, brother. You gotta earn a living. I understand.’

He buys a beer and exchanges a fifty-dollar note for coins. He heads straight for the pokies, sits down and his face is lit by the lurid buttons. There are fluro pyramids floating on the screen and for a moment he wishes he were somewhere else. But where? He keeps drinking and there’s something therapeutic about the rise and fall of his money in the poker machine. He is tapping the pokies with one finger. He stares at the finger and slowly shakes his head. He takes a break to smoke outside and the stars are dizzying. The streets veer off in every direction, lined with the abstract shapes of buildings and bushes. He stares upwards for a long time, then says to himself aloud, ‘ Neznam .’

I don’t know.

He buys more cigarettes, withdraws more cash, drinks more schooners. It takes the edge off, but only slightly, like a headache tablet for a deep wound. There is an old man playing the pokies who looks like he has endured a lot of pain, or at least witnessed it. He seems at peace somehow but Aleks pities him nonetheless.

Aleks rolls the bead in his other palm, the gold flecks demonic to him now. Yes, surely it is hell that lives within the bead, broken pieces of a gold mirror reflecting his private hell. He wishes he could split it between his thumb and forefinger like a nut and crush what is within. But he can’t. It’s too beautiful, too unbearably beautiful.