Here Come the Dogs (2 page)

whimpers and yelps

as they scrape in the traps.

We begin to cheer.

The race

Bang goes the gun,

They are a rumbling mass at first

but as they round the corner

they separate into surreal, spear-headed things

that lope and arch through the air –

The crowd rises

and we do too,

ten-feet tall and charged with powder,

seeing the race in jittering frames.

Here comes Mercury Fire!

Right down the straight

he looks like a young dog again,

propelled by furious, otherworldly energy.

He's neck and neck for the lead with

two black hounds,

‘Come on, boy. COME ON!'

and Mercury Fire is straining onwards

every muscle working for the one goal,

courage and conviction in the blood,

launching over the track for the last time.

He comes in third.

I realise that I've been holding my breath

the whole race.

What happens to a racing dog past its prime?

Jimmy says they find them homes

where they get retrained as house pets.

Aleks says he's heard of a bloke

in Wollongong who's killed over five thousand

healthy hounds with a captive bolt gun

once they lose speed.

I say they get their ears cut off

(cos of the ID tattoo)

then let go in the bush

cos owners don't have the heart to kill them.

Jimmy

Jimmy is arguing with me about money again.

‘Jimmy, it's five fucken bucks, mate. I'll pay ya back tomorrow.'

‘That's what you always say.'

Jimmy –

catfood-hearted,

jelly-spined motherfucker.

Cheap-deodorant, call-centre Jimmy.

No good with his fists

He's family but,

so what the fuck can you do?

Outside the racecourse

Eyes tick like a stopwatch/

People head home or out/

A cop car smears by/

Then a Ninja Turtle-green Supra

with two chicks hanging from one window/

techno pumping/

‘Ay, boys, show us where ya piss from!'/

We're cracking up

and our middle fingers go straight in the air/

This is good shit/

‘Oi, I'm tilted.'

‘Me too.'

I'm trying to keep it together but

Jimmy and Aleks not so much.

Chewing like mastodons,

they must've taken pills, too,

the sly cunts.

People are milling around the entrance.

The old timer is rabbiting on to someone

and we swerve to avoid him.

Gladys

I chase her down in the carpark.

Red, wary face,

god-awful turquoise windcheater

and a cockney accent.

But there's something about the old duck

that chokes me up.

I introduce myself,

squat down and pat Mercury Fire.

‘He did good, yeah? Especially for his last race.

I trained him since he was a pup,' she says.

Mercury Fire studies me with

his one good eye, grinning and panting.

‘I know, I know. Me and my mates have

been watching him race for the last year.

The best there was, seriously. I mean is. Was.'

I'm talking too fast. Slow your roll, Solomon.

She's looking away now –

‘Yeh. Probably gonna send him to a new home, or . . .

I'm moving back to England in a few weeks.'

Why at that age? Are those tears?

She keeps talking –

‘They like it, you know. The dogs. They like racing.

People reckon it's cruel but we treat em better

than most owners treat their dogs.'

She's looking directly at me now.

I wonder if she can tell I'm out of it

but then she looks past me.

I shake her hand awkwardly. ‘Best of luck, ay.'

‘Yer, you too.'

She smiles and I smile back.

‘Hey, can I ask you something?' I say.

A phone call

Georgie's busting my balls

and it's ruining my high.

‘It's cruel, Solomon.

They exploit those poor animals.'

Hasn't she got something better to do?

I thought she was studying.

‘Can we talk about this later? Please.'

I hear Jimmy behind me

singing ‘My Cherie Amour'

I throw a crushed tinnie at him.

‘I'll be back at yours a bit later, all right, babe?

Don't wait up for me.'

The cypher

On the way to get chips and gravy

we see a cypher –

Seven kids, seven heads bobbing,

some of them sipping on longies

as they wait for their turn to rap.

The lad beatboxing is a Koori fulla –

I used to play ball with his older brother.

He's supplying a steady, boombap beat.

A few of them nod at us

and we observe from outside the circle.

I always thought that, from above,

the circle of heads

would look like bullets loaded in a chamber,

each MC ready with his percussive, weaponised voice,

some rapid fire,

some jamming.

A pretty brunette is up first.

She's got a dope flow

but it's obviously a written verse.

Next is an African cat

who's using an American accent –

we all wince.

Someone else takes over the beatboxing

and the Koori fulla starts freestyling,

clowning on people in the circle.

He's a cocky cunt, just like his bro.

His flow is a bit off

but his punchlines are hitting

I make a mental note

to keep an eye out for him.

I look up and for a second

I swear I can see skulls swinging

from the trees above us

but then I realise it's a trick of the light.

Jimmy and I step forward

and rap for a bit

but we're rusty.

All it takes is a week off

to lose the edge.

Plus neither of us were ever MCs.

But it's part of the game –

Afterwards, we smoke a joint with the youngsters.

‘You lads aren't going out tonight? Heaps going on, uce.'

The Koori lad and the brunette are arm in arm

and he says, ‘Nah, brus. Can't get in anywhere, ay.'

The brunette pipes up, ‘Would rather be doin this anyway.'

We laugh.

‘True.'

Fights are freight trains

You can see em coming a mile off,

The line for chips and gravy is rowdy.

This shardhead behind us is

gnashing and doing a weird jig

on the spot.

Jimmy blows kisses

at his methed-up, cue-ball eyes,

Aleks places

a hand on Jimmy's shoulder –

‘Leave it, bro. Leave it.'

My bro cocks his head,

as if trying to hear a faint noise.

He looks at me,

then back at Aleks.

Then he turns to the shardhead

and spits in his face.

When the meth head lashes out,

it's wild but somehow finds its mark –

a savage kiss on the end of a whip.

Jimmy drops straight away.

Before he even lands Aleks and I

are on the shardhead and

there are no words,

just the sound of rockmelons

dropped onto asphalt from a bridge

and soon blood mixes with chicken salt

and footsteps are everywhere and a chick is on her mobile

and Aleks is grimacing as he punches

and the methhead is shrieking like a berserker now

and some of our punches are landing on each other

and one of us is yelling same team, same team

and Jimmy is on his feet unsteadily

smiling eagerly,

and he says ‘white cunt' but we all know

it's not about that well it may be

and he starts to kick the shardhead in his face

but that's not cool so Aleks edges back and is shaking his great head

and the chick is screaming

the cops are on their way fuckheads

so we wrestle Jimmy out the door

and into the early morning darkness.

What's got into him?

These swings are too small for us.

Aleks is throwing tanbark into the dark –

he hasn't said a word since the fight.

I roll a joint and pass it round,

Jimmy won't shut the fuck up

about the fight,

reliving it over and over,

Without warning, Aleks stands up,

walks to Jimmy and stops in front of him,

faces centimetres apart.

Jimmy looks confused at first

then stares back,

face hardening.

Aleks searches Jimmy's face,

holding him squarely with his stare,

breathing, searching.

‘I'm off, brother.'

Jimmy starts after him but I grab his forearm.

‘Leave him alone, bro. Jimmy. James, leave him alone,' I say.

Aleks is now a slash of ink,

Jimmy sits back down –

‘What's got into him?'

Wish we had a white person with us

Ten empty cabs have passed us by.

The cabbie

His breath smells of cardamom tea

and a twelve-hour shift.

He eyes us warily –

‘If you need to vomit you tell me, yeah? I'll pull over.'

‘Nah, nah. No worries. We're big boys, mate.'

There is a diamond-shaped,

gold-tasselled passage from the Qur'an

hanging from the rear-view mirror.

The cabbie smiles tightly. ‘Big night?'

‘Bro, you don't know the half of it. Fucken hektikkk.

Ay. AY! Turn this song up!' slurs Jimmy.

‘Where you from, mate?' I say.

‘Here.'

‘Nah, nah, I mean originally.'

‘. . . Pakistan.'

‘
Assalamu-alaikum,
brother.' The words sound strange coming out of my mouth.

His eyes, framed by the rear-view mirror, widen with surprise. ‘
Wa-alaikum salam.
You Muslim?'

‘Yeah, once. Um, I mean, yeah.'

‘His name was Sulaiman,' Jimmy crows. ‘Now it's Solomon again.'

‘Sulaiman? Ah, a good name. A wise man.' The man nods.

I wind down the window

and blow my breath out subtly,

hoping he won't smell the alcohol.

When I get out at Georgie's college,

I shake the cabbie's hand –

‘
Assalamu-alaikum
.'

He turns to smile

and I see for the first time

the right side of his face is

‘Wa-alaikum salam.'

Drunk sex

The arch of her foot

on my teeth,

her thighs move apart.

Erykah Badu's voice curls

around us.

The heat unbearable.

‘Fuck.'

One of her heels is digging

into my flank

and in a shudder of moonlight,

I realise she has cut her hair

into an ashen wedge

She holds my face close,

and I try to smile

but her presence is crushing,

Instead I keep moving,

deep, shallow, deep, shallow,

and I'm relieved when she closes her eyes.

I watch her eyelids,

and notice for the first time a crooked lower tooth.

Afterwards,

watching a dreamcatcher spin on the ceiling,

my skin sticking to hers,

I say, ‘I bought a dog tonight.'

‘A dog?'

‘Yeh. A greyhound.'

She pauses before laughing uncertainly

‘You mad bastard. You've got nowhere to keep it.'

A dream about Georgie

I'm the only passenger on a plane –

the sky is the colour of Turkish delight

or suicide bathwater.

Shirtless,

tattoos alive, swarming,

jostling down my forearms.

There's a gin and juice on the tray –

I hear a sound

akin to birds chirping,

but can't tell where it's coming from.

Georgie appears –

stepping down the aisle solemnly,

as if at the head of a procession,

carrying something heavy and square.

She's wearing weighted pendants in her lobes

and a headdress of feather flowers.

She looks beautiful and sad.

The plane starts its descent.

I can see rivers, lakes and dams,

holding within them braided veins of light.

The land looks both rich and barren.