Here Come the Dogs (5 page)

Can't wait to see the looks on their faces. Give me a couple of months, and I'm out of this shithole for good. Trust me.

4

The man, Ulysses Amosa, scoops up his heavy newborn and approaches the boy who is not his blood, but most definitely his charge. The boy looks afraid and retreats slightly, but Ulysses beckons and places the raw baby in the boy's arms. The boy cradles him delicately, the baby dark against his light-brown skin. The baby cries and blinks and cycles its feet in the pine-scented air. Ulysses now bends his great head and whispers to the pair of them, addressing them equally, saying that they are brothers, that they are linked by a divine bond of responsibility, stronger even than blood, and that it must always be so.

The boy vows to carry in his heart this edict and for the first two years sits next to his half-brother protectively, smoothing curly wisps of hair, kissing him on the forehead and whispering into his ear, ‘hello brother, hello little brother, my friend.' Yet to all observers, it takes just one look at their young eyes – the baby's steady and black, the boy's wavering like candleflames trying to right themselves – to recognise that the seeds have been sown for a different relationship altogether.

5

Familiar somehow

I roll up my sleeves so they can see my tatts.

The lecture theatre is full

when I walk in,

and I sense all eyes on me,

Still got it, boy, still got it.

I squeeze in next to Georgie.

She kisses me quickly

then faces the front.

Only two other ethnics in here:

Stuffy as a rape dungeon in here.

The lecturer, who is visiting from Brisbane, is talking about ‘lateral violence' and ‘the patriarchy'. The Polynesian girl raises her hand and explains that, in Samoa, there is a covenant of respect between brother and sister with special honour given to the sister. It is called
feagaiga.
She looks over at me as if she wants some back-up. The discussion is soon about something called ‘intersectionality'.

How the fuck did I get myself into this whole greyhound shemozzle?

Cross that bridge when I see it, ay.

The lecturer is a willowy blonde in a well-cut navy suit.

I started a degree at this uni, doing English and history. Mum was heartbroken when I dropped out, kept reminding me how disappointed Dad would've been.

A guy with glasses and frizzy red hair raises his hand and asks the lecturer, in a vaguely aggressive tone, if she believes in ‘misandry'. A groan goes around the room.

‘What's misandry?' I whisper to Georgie.

‘Hatred of men.'

The lecturer taps her pen on the table, smiling, as if she has spent her whole life preparing for questions like this, in deed and in word.

‘Where do I start with this old chestnut? I get a lot of these so-called Men's Rights activists asking the same question online, I can tell you, mate.' When she says the last word it sounds anything but matey. ‘As far as I'm concerned, sexism, just like racism, must have a power element involved to make it potent and/or relevant. And you cannot deny, statistically, that women are disproportionately affected by both economic and physical violence.'

I swear she looked in my direction when she said that. A to and fro begins between frizzy hair and the lecturer, its gladiatorial vibe almost reminding me of a rap battle.

Battle raps

Battles are heaps lame nowadays.

No beats,

No freestyles,

No flow –

Jimmy loves em

but we never go anymore.

Old Jimmy –

He's been pretty straight since

he got locked up as a teen,

but something diabolical is going on.

The frizzy-haired bastard won't die easily . . .

His voice timid:

‘You mentioned intersectionality . . . but if I can, um, I was wondering where you think class fits into all of this. I mean, what about class privilege? Could, say, the privilege of an upper-class Muslim woman outweigh the status of a poor white Australian man?'

. . . but the lecturer is a tigress

‘White male privilege supersedes all else. Misandry is like reverse racism. It's a fallacy – a concept that exists only in the minds of vapid, delusional people, not in the real world. The world, the weight of its history, the structures ingrained with sexism, would have to be turned on their heads in almost every way for me to believe that concept has any validity. It's bullshit.'

When she says that word,

her clipped speech drops for a second

and sounds Woggy, familiar.

Then it hits me. I do know this woman.

Holy shit.

I wonder if I should tell him she's in town.

What would he
do
if he knew she was here?

Georgie whispers, ‘What's wrong, Solomon?'

‘Nothing. Nothing.'

I look at the man

and his frizzy head is down,

embarrassed and dejected.

I wonder if he'll ever ask a question again.

The uni toilets

There are shittily drawn

cocks, balls and pussies on the wall.

I take out a Molotow

and bomb up the bathroom mirror,

the felt squeaking on the glass

leaving black letters

Just to let em know.

A glass of water

‘That bloke is an idiot. He always butts in with his contrarian questions.'

‘Yeah. Sexist prick.'

‘Typical.'

A long wooden table at a new cafe on the edge of uni, packed with Georgie's classmates. Nothing is under thirty bucks in this joint. Things on the menu I've never heard of – spirulina, quinoa, goji berries, Himalayan pink salt. I perch on the end and order a glass of water.

‘So I think I'm going to go to Africa these holidays to do some aid work,' Georgie announces. It is all white faces, besides the Eritrean girl, who looks away and adjusts her headscarf.

‘Wow, that is so brilliant,' says a redheaded girl with two moles on her chin. ‘I worked in Bangladesh at an orphanage last year for six weeks. I got this blouse there, actually. The children were such sweethearts. It felt really amazing to give something back.'

The Eritrean girl again shifts uncomfortably and I am filled with a sudden rage. ‘There aren't any people here in Australia you could help out?' I ask drily. The table turns to me. It's the first thing I've said all day.

‘True,' Georgie says accommodatingly, also seemingly surprised I've piped up. ‘I guess I could go to a remote Aboriginal community . . .'

‘No,' I say, ‘I mean here. In the City, in the Town. You know how many homeless people there are? Kids with no dads, bored outta their skulls. Three generations on ice. Start in your own backyard.'

‘That's not the point, Solomon. Does it really matter where in the world you help out, as long as you do? There's just something about Africa that really draws me to it.'

‘Look, I'm not talking about anyone here,' I say uncertainly, before deciding to plough in. ‘All I'm saying is that I hate it when people head overseas on their big exotic adventure when there are people in need here. It's so they can wash their hands of it and come back to their boring, middle-class lives, sit around at uni and brag to their friends about how they helped some real, authentic people of colour.' I pinch my middle finger and thumb together to accentuate my point. ‘People do that with hip hop workshops. Go to a community for three days, make good money, then never return.'

‘So what is it that you do, then? To actively help the community?' says mole-chin with a heart-eating grin.

That gets me for a moment, but I ignore it. ‘That's beside the point. It's the self-congratulation I hate. Like in that classroom. You crush some useless dickhead like that, or post a status on Facebook, then dust your hands off for the day. Tiny, pointless victories, while the world rolls on regardless.'

‘No, it was about making him recognise his privilege. You have to call it when you see it,' retorts Georgie.

‘How do you define privilege?' I ask, warming up. Been a long time since I discussed something like this.

‘Well, it's access to a certain right or advantage by a particular group or person. For example, yours is being male,' says Georgie, wrinkling her nose.

‘And yours is being white,' I shoot back. ‘Privilege is power. Privilege is the opportunity to exert power over others, to be corrupt.'

‘No, that's abuse of privilege.'

They are all staring at me, and I am feeling like I am holding court, warming to my subject. ‘Abuse is inherent
within
privilege – they're one and the same. The feeling I get most of the time is that the fervour that fuels these so-called activists is the same that fuels a racist or a sexist. They're not actually aiming for equality. They're aiming for a direct exchange so they can be the one in the privileged position and lord it over someone else. Different side of the same coin.'

‘That's a really cynical way of looking at the world.'

‘Yeah? Well, it's dog-eat-dog out there,' I say, shrugging.

They all go silent for a moment, mulling something over. I'm not sure whether it's my arguments or the fact that a guy who looks like me can speak on their level. Then mole-chin says, ‘Looks like a male ego has yet again hijacked the conversation.'

‘Yeah, because there's no such thing as a woman with a big ego —' I stop, and look around. Staring faces. Mole-chin is smiling. I feel like I've fallen into some sort of a trap; but what kind, I don't know. Tiredness overwhelms me and I remember something I saw on a Facebook meme, ‘Yep. Sorry. I guess I have to check
my
privilege. My bad.'

The conversation scurries on. I sip my water and stare away, still taken aback by seeing Jana Janeski. A boiling torment in my spine. I wish I could twist a valve in my shoulders and release it like steam, like I used to with basketball. Georgie, always conciliatory, scratches me on the shoulder and then rubs the back of my hand tenderly. When we first got together she couldn't get enough of putting her hand next to mine,
admiring the contrast of brown and white, touching my tatts, telling her mates how spiritual I was. She couldn't stop asking questions about Samoa, questions I found hard to answer.

‘There's a new exhibition of Pacific art on at the gallery, Solomon. Should be amazing,' she whispers. ‘Wanna go on the weekend?'

‘I dunno.'

‘But I thought you'd be into it.'

‘Why?' I say sharply. I'm about to add something else when I hear a familiar voice.

‘Oi, Solomon, ya dumb cunt.'

I turn and see Jimmy grinning lopsidedly,

Some of the uni students look at him angrily,

but he doesn't seem to notice.

He strokes his chin like a faux-intellectual and nods to himself,

as if he's come up with a brilliant idea.

Silly bastard,

but thank fuck he's here.

‘Come on, bro, let's go get Mercury Fire,' says Jimmy. ‘Hey, Georgie.'

Georgie doesn't look at him. He has never been of interest to her.

She gazes at me steadily then sighs.

‘Go on then.'

6

The day hot and strange and flattened, almost monochrome.

Aleks drives calmly, rolling the blue bead between forefinger and thumb. Spice 1's voice rat-ta-tats over funked-out keys and synths as the land unfolds before the Hilux. This part of suburbia has a wildness, as if the flats and houses on the edge of the bushland are in danger of being overtaken by it. He stops at a red light, and on the corner is a large electricity box with the ghost of a buffed chromie on it, its letters only vaguely decipherable.

Near the Greek Orthodox church, he sees a man in an orange hi-vis jacket standing in the middle of a field where there were once massive blackberry bushes, long since poisoned. The man has a measuring tape in his hands and the grass at his feet is almost white, bleached by drought. Aleks swings the wheel and turns into the old graveyard. He goes down a blue metal driveway lined by a calligraphy of ghost gums and observes a bird settle on a tombstone. As it lands, its wings take the shape of hands in supplication.

A ute is parked next to the far fence under an ironbark. He pulls up beside it. It's covered in Southern Cross stickers and bikie insignia. There are two men inside, both with long hair and thick, bristly beards. The
driver climbs out. He's a bikie, wearing wraparound sunnies, and has a strange triangular dent in his forehead, almost squarely above the gap in his eyebrows. Tattoos cover his arms, hands and throat. He offers Aleks a cigarette. They smoke together for a while, looking at the gravestones, between which are patches of dying daisies and purple bush sarsaparilla, the stones slanting in opposite directions, stained maroon and green by rust and moss. A magpie hops sideways down the cemetery's far fence and beyond that is the river, drying up.

After a while, the man speaks.

‘This is one of the oldest cemeteries in the state, you know. It's divided into four sections, see.' He gestures with a hairy hand towards the opposite fence, which is buckling and dark with treeshadow, then makes a chopping motion four times in the air, hand moving left to right. ‘Presbyterian, Anglican, Methodist, Catholic. A few Jews over there. A few gravestones in Arabic there – Syrians who came during the goldrush, you know? All the Abos and Chinks were buried outside the fence cos they were heathens. No headstones for the unconsecrated. Somewhere beneath us, there's hundreds of em. Thousands maybe.' He taps the ground three times with his shoe, as if knocking on a door. ‘A hundred years ago, most people in the Town couldn't even be buried here with a gravestone.' He smiles vaguely, then says, ‘Well . . . maybe you or me.'

‘Fuck that. I wouldn't wanna be buried here anyway.' Aleks catches himself and stamps out his cigarette. ‘No offence . . .'

‘None taken, mate.'

‘How do you know all that shit, anyway?'

‘Library card.'

‘Good for you.' Aleks scratches his ear. ‘So.'

‘So.' The man plucks a gum leaf from a branch and methodically folds it in half. He has very dry lips, which he wets with his tongue before speaking. ‘I've heard things, Janeski. Things that offend me. Things that make my life more complicated. I like my things to be simple.'

‘Life is never simple, brother.'

‘True. But a bloke can dream, can't he? You know, I wasn't even sure if I should come here today. I almost sent someone else.'

The men look across the headstones at a stand of poplar trees on the other side of the river. A boy in a wheelchair rolls off an unseen track and parks beneath them.

‘But you're here now,' says Aleks.

‘I am, indeed. But we're jumping the gun, Janeski. I feel like you had something to say to me.'

Aleks smiles magnanimously. ‘Look here, brother. Let's not mess around, all right? I know you're not here to fuck spiders. You're a smart fella. You'd be able to tell that I'm what you call a people's person. I meet all sorts of characters in this funny game. So recently, I made the acquaintance of some fellas in Sydney. Fellas with a bit of dash. Fellas that it's better to be friends with than enemies, understand? More importantly, these fellas have a lot of product in their possession. Cheap. Good quality. Direct from Afghanistan.'

‘How cheap?' the bikie asks. The man in the passenger seat of the ute is cocking his head, obviously trying to catch every word.

Aleks cracks his knuckles and says a number. The bikie nods. ‘Competitive. But what if I don't want to meet your friends?'

‘Well. Then things get . . . complicated again,' says Aleks. The boy in the wheelchair whirs a handline over his head and hurls it into the river. ‘But there's no need for that, brother. Let's be businessmen about this. Not animals. Let's . . . how do you say? Compromise. The way nations do it.'

‘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.