Omar Musa - Here Come the Dogs

‘What about companionship? Don’t you think you need that?’

She laughs. ‘I don’t need anything. Least of all from you.’

I want to make her take the words back.

She’s loving it,

suddenly self-destructive.

‘Used to getting your way, aren’t you Solomon?’

I stand up, shaking.

‘See you again soon? I’ll call you,’ she says.

‘I’ll think about it.’ I want to hit her.

‘I’ll see you next week. Don’t take yourself so seriously, Solomona.’

She’s still smiling.

I leave,

thinking about Georgie,

lovely and safe and dependable.

Dependent.

On the TV:

‘Mr Crawford, we understand that you are in support of recent calls to change the Racial Discrimination Act. Don’t you think, given the race riots in Shellfish Bay, that this is a rather inflammatory proposal?’

‘On the contrary, I think this is exactly the time to take another look at it. The mood of the electorate is one of understandable frustration. The Australian identity is being contested as we speak and I believe that one essential part of the Australian identity is being forthright and honest, something that political correctness has been white-anting for quite some time. Amending the Act is not, as some contend, a green light for prejudice; rather, it is a green light to express ourselves more fully as Australians.’

‘Mr Crawford, is there any truth to the claim that it was police brutality that started the riots?’

‘Absolutely none. It is merely the actions of a few thugs and should be condemned as such.’

‘And do you have any more information on the young man injured in the riots?’

‘He remains in a critical condition. I grieve with his family and I am praying for his swift recovery.’

Jimmy slowly gets into bed and knows the hound will follow.

‘Good boy.’

He tucks the pillow beneath his head and his eyes are aching from the twelve-hour shift. His inner thighs are chafed raw from the shabby material of his cheap suit — inexplicably, as he sits at a desk all day. He is so tired it feels as if the bed is radiating outwards around him, stretching like a desert. He feels something running towards him. Soon the hound bounds onto the blankets with him, lightly arranges itself — snuffle, pad, pad, snuffle — then twists into a ball with the motion of water spiralling down a drain. Jimmy rubs the dog behind its ears and Mercury Fire makes a sound of satisfaction, deeply reverberating in his throat, almost a purr. Then he yawns, and in the near darkness his teeth appear like some fine rock formation. His breath, the smell of dead meat, somehow pleases Jimmy. A warm-blooded, loyal, gentle being so close. Closer and more affectionate than Jimmy had ever been with a woman. The night is strangely cool. Jimmy draws the blankets around himself, moves so that their bodies can share some warmth, then falls asleep.

His bed stretches outwards

and becomes an enormous limestone plain.

He stands and begins to run.

Mercury Fire keeps pace with him,

running towards a body of water

in the distance.

With each step Jimmy can feel himself getting stronger

and he wonders if he is taking on

the animal’s spirit.

The dog is saying,

‘Run on, my friend, run on, run on, my master.’

When he reaches the water’s edge,

he doesn’t slow,

but leaps perfectly into it

and becomes at one with the lithe body of a river.

He swims and can hear the dog’s voice,

encouraging him forward,

but he can no longer sense him at his side.

Jimmy swims deep down,

into a grotto

where there are thousands of voices

and golden lights.

He swims through a doorway

and finds himself standing at the back of a crowd,

completely dry.

Run DMC is performing

and through the drift of dry ice

he sees Jam Master Jay’s gold ring

as he scratches on vinyl

as black as his leather jacket.

Jimmy pushes through the crowd to the front

and he is holding a pair of Adidas in the air,

waving them from side to side.

Jimmy is hauled onstage

and joined by Rakim, Ghostface Killah,

who pours him a tall glass of Hennessy,

and a young Jay-Z,

who hands him a mic.

Jimmy faces the crowd;

lights and mirror balls are floating like seraphs.

He starts rapping,

freestyling flawlessly, intricately,

catching whatever beat DJ Premier

(who is now behind the decks)

is spinning.

When he finishes,

someone takes the microphone from him.

It is Sin One,

standing almost seven-foot tall,

rapping a famous verse from ‘Orphan Slang’.

The crowd is on its feet

and Jimmy is leaping up and down,

his hair in his eyes.

He goes offstage

and is ushered down a hallway to a door

covered in dripping blue paint.

He opens the door

and it takes a moment

for his eyes to adjust

to a concentrated darkness.

When he closes the door behind him,

there is sudden silence.

He sees the figure of a naked woman at the window,

overlooking a big, broken city.

He cannot see her face.

Without turning,

she beckons to him with a sweet voice

and her body is gilded in moonlight.

He goes to her and she undresses him

and gently kisses his ears and neck and eyebrows.

It is Kayden Kross

and she is wearing no makeup.

She whispers secrets to him,

revealing her authentic, tender self

that nobody else has seen.

He kisses her eyelids

then she climbs on top of him,

but as she does,

her face changes

and starts scrolling through the faces of other women –

Hailee, Scarlett Snow, other pornstars.

Her pale belly is twitchy when he touches it.

Her ribs look like a pharaoh’s headdress.

As she begins to move,

he looks down at his body

and sees that it is Solomon’s.

Blonde hair falls in a wave around him,

drowning him,

and her lips become as big as the night

and swallow him whole

like a pill.

In the morning,

he is incredibly hungry.

No graff and music blogs to wake him up today:

the hunger alone

has made him alert and sharpened.

At McDonald’s,

the cashier is talking about church.

Her eyes widen when he makes his order.

‘All for you?’

Two schoolkids

watch him eat three hash browns

and two servings of hotcakes.

‘Hey, kids. Ever seen a greyhound?’

‘Yeh.’

‘Like em.’

‘Nah.’

‘You know they can reach up to seventy k’s an hour? Crazy, huh?’

One shrugs,

One smiles.

As he leaves,

the cashier is talking about cleavage.

He feels light,

and stops to lick dew

from a blade of grass.

At work,

he is called into his boss’s office.

‘Look mate,

we’ve been monitoring your calls

and sad to say, you’re not doing a good enough job.’

‘You firing me?’ says Jimmy, hopefully.

‘No, no.’

‘Didn’t think so. Impossible to get fired from public service, ain’t it?’

‘I think you’ve got the wrong attitude, mate.’

Grey walls.

A spray can would change that.

With several callers,

he holds the phone away from his ear

and has to pinch himself so he doesn’t scream.

Count. Breathe.

On his lunchbreak,

he sees a fabric shop.

Colourful beads, cloth.

He buys a piece of felt

and keeps it in his pocket

as he answers calls,

stroking it from time to time

to remind himself of Mercury Fire’s ears.