Here Come the Dogs (6 page)

7

Jimmy and Solomon stand with Mercury Fire in between them. Gladys is talking in a torrent. The boys try to shuffle back into the shade of a tree, as the sun is burning their skin. She carries on, unperturbed:

‘He fell from the sky.

I was looking over me backyard,

making a sandwich.

The lad next door skied his cricket ball.

We both looked up

but both lost it against the sun.

I saw something moving waaay up high,

gliding,

I couldn't believe the ball had gone that far.

I saw the ball drop in the corner of me eye,

but I kept looking at the V.

It turned and rose and turned.

Me head was right back.

Suddenly

it split into two and a black blob

fell

towards the ground.

I felt it hit the earth,

and maybe I heard it, too,

but I couldn't see where it landed.

I ran towards the fence and I knew it was something important.

Even before all that,

I was always a street fighter,

a tough old bird.

You have to be, growing up in Streatham.

Jimmy whispers something about the rapper Roots Manuva to Solomon, who shushes him. The old lady continues.

‘It's not all luck,

but that's what has played the biggest part.

That's what I think I thought.

I looked underneath the old plum tree

and saw something against the fence.

I didn't want to touch it,

then it made a sound.

It looked like a bloody grey tennis ball.

Then I realised,

a tiny face was looking back at me.

I thought it was a possum or a water rat at first.

But it wasn't.

It was a little puppy,

a bloody and broken little critter,

with fur the colour of mercury.

I scooped it up and squinted at the sky again.

I saw an eagle with wings

maybe as long as a man's arms.

Could've been a wedgetail.

The little grey ball whimpered in me hands.

It looked as if its leg was broken

and it had one eye staring at me,

The other had been scratched,

maybe even torn out, by the eagle.

Who'da known that pathetic lil thing –

lil gift of the sky –

would be a champion one day.

I could hear the kids start their game again

on the other side of the fence.

I went inside and called a vet.'

She is crying now and the brothers, one with his hand on Mercury's head, the other on its twitching withers, don't know where to look.

8

‘Bro . . . I'm drunk as.'

‘Me too, brother.'

‘How the fuck we get here? This place is way too posh for us.'

‘Aw, we're celebrating, bro.'

‘Celebrating what?'

‘Buying the hound.'

‘Oh, that's right, ay.'

The bar is brand new, the latest hotspot in town, with a line almost around the corner. Young chicks totter like fresh-born foals. The boys are smoking just outside the door. Solomon is handed an ID by a nervous teenager who mistakes him for a bouncer. All the staff wear waistcoats and the wall shows raw brick in places. Concrete and a rust wall. The couches are rich brocade and the curtains have a bullion fringe. Despite all attempts, it is a parade of vulgarity. Neon lights shine through Alizé and Patrón bottles behind the bar. Metro roidheads and wannabe footy players wear shirts printed with the names of foreign cities they'll never visit and compare copycat tatts and gym muscles. Women with fake breasts and fake tans flick tousled hair over shoulders with manicured hands, waiting for someone to
shake a bag of coke like a polaroid and lead them to the bathroom.

‘Live by the bag, die by the bag', says Aleks.

A woman is yelling, ‘Where's Caitlin? I've lost Caitlin,' while men stand against the wall, observing her, hands crossed over genitals, bobbing their heads to the beat. Everyone's eyes are elsewhere, on the door especially, to see if someone new comes in, each person ignoring exes, tracing hands around waists, heads thrown back with exaggerated laughter. A small, awkward dancefloor has formed, and the DJ switches from ambient tunes to old Ja Rule and TLC. Jimmy yells at him to play some Gang Starr. The DJ is a hip hop head from way back who does this lark on the side. He smiles tiredly and says, ‘Yeh, for sure, bro, a bit later.'

Jimmy sprinkles some MDMA crystals into Solomon's palm, and watches as Solomon licks them off discreetly. Georgie looks away. Aleks is toying with his keys, chatting to a scientist who has just been laid off in the latest round of government cuts. A man, by himself at the edge of the bar, watches them all. Jimmy begins to tell a story, his voice loud and slurring.

‘You know how Sin One became so good at rapping? He ran away from his auntie's place when she was on the heroin, bro; ran into the bush as far as he could. He was only six. He couldn't read or write. He couldn't even speak, did you know that? He was mute. He ran up into the hills, chasing a feral dog, and found a cave. He sat in the cave for five fucken days straight and when he was there, a swarm of bees came in. They went in his eyes, in his nose, in his ears, his throat, but they never stung him and he sat there, still as a Buddha. When he came out, he had a different voice; his mind had been rearranged somehow. He could fit words together like a mosaic. Then his Tongan neighbour gave him a Big Daddy Kane tape. The rest is history, bra.'

Aleks, Georgie and Solomon are staring over their drinks at him. Then Aleks says, ‘Where the fuck do you come up with this shit, Jimmy?'

Jimmy starts laughing, then so do Aleks and Solomon. Solomon throws his head back and big gusts of laughter sweep through him and he's shaking his dreds side to side with tears in his eyes. A group of women at another table all stare at him slyly, lingering over their cocktails.

Jimmy notices that Solomon's the only dark-skinned person in the room, besides a Maori bouncer and a table of well-to-do looking Indians, who stare at the boys like they're an unpleasant joke or a foul smell hanging in the air. Why is it that ethnics always hate other ethnics? The boys stare staunchly back at the Indians, who soon stand up to leave. Georgie looks away again and orders a lime and soda.

‘I heard your story. What a load of horseshit. How many lines have you had tonight, mate?'

The bloke on the edge of the bar says it. Jimmy squints and he comes into focus. The man is wearing grey, with husky blue eyes and light-blond hair whipped into a wave.

‘Who the fuck are you?' asks Solomon.

The man smiles and doesn't seem offended in the least. ‘Damien Crawford. Nice to meet you.'

Soon, a bit confused, the boys are shaking his hand. He tells them immediately he is a spokesperson for a government minister. He orders round after extravagant round for everyone, spending thousands. He begins to tell the boys that he studied law overseas, that before that he was dux of his high school, that at university he was heavily involved in student politics. Jimmy can't catch which party he belongs to. Who's in power anyway? Who the fuck knows?

Aleks smirks and says, ‘What's uni? Is it like TAFE but with better cappuccinos?'

The man smiles again. Soon he and Solomon are in a debate about boat people and the attention is immediately on Solomon, and his big hands that accentuate his words in a strangely delicate way. Jimmy notices how his brother's voice changes, the private school modulation, how he can immediately slip into the back-and-forth of argument, using words Jimmy's never heard him say. It suddenly hits him – Solomon is bilingual.

‘What we need is compassionate onshore processing,' says Solomon.

‘And relocation of funds,' adds Georgie.

‘Exactly. The current system doesn't work morally or economically. Costs the taxpayer billions every year that we could use way better —' Solomon is about to continue when Aleks butts in.

‘My parents, they came here with fuck-all, mate; they made something of themselves. They both had two jobs. We shared a tiny flat with another family. They came the right way and no one felt sorry for us. It's bullshit. People need to just get on with it. The government's doing the right thing – getting ready for when there's ten times more refugees.'

Georgie is shaking with anger. ‘Ugh.'

Aleks curls his lip. ‘Look. When NATO fucked us up the arse, we had one million Albanian refugees come across the border into Macedonia. You know how much that fucked the economy? Set us back decades.'

Solomon and Aleks have had this argument numerous times and for the most part agree to disagree, so Solomon speaks softly but firmly, using the Macedonian diminutive of Aleks' name. ‘But
Atse,
we're not talking about millions of people. We're talking about a few thousand. Also, it's not
illegal
to seek asylum.'

‘Yeah, but you let one in, you let em all in.'

‘Bro, you of all people should know how war can make people desperate.'

Solomon is about to speak again when Crawford claps his hand on Aleks' shoulders. ‘
This
is a man who's talking some sense.' He turns to Solomon. ‘What school did you go to?'

Solomon tells him.

‘Rugby scholarship?' asks Crawford.

Solomon flinches, but replies truthfully. ‘Basketball.'

‘Right.'

‘How you know I'm not a maths freak or something?'

Crawford shrugs and smiles again. ‘Just a hunch. Tell you what though, you'd make a good footy player. We definitely need it at the moment. The Wallabies are atrocious. No heart.'

‘Yeah, well, I'm not.'

Crawford sizes them up, looking at Jimmy's cap and Solomon's Elefant Traks shirt. ‘I heard you talking about Sin One. You must have heard he's coming back to town. He might very well be the only Aussie rapper who really competes on the world stage. Party, political, personal – he does it all. Pity time's moved on without him, though.'
Crawford sounds passionate as he speaks – there's something entrancing and terrifying about him. How does he know about hip hop? About Sin One? His eyes seem to change colour, and then he becomes suddenly dismissive. ‘Aussie rap – bit of a joke, don't you think? Can never compare to the real thing. Boys. Let me tell you another story.' Crawford begins to speak about boats and wars, deserts and islands. He says that truth is a metal you can bend with your will and with heat. He talks about an alley cat that tried to act like a tiger. The alley cat walked tall, it growled, it stalked through the city as if it was the jungle, but no matter how hard the alley cat tried, he could never shake the stink of the gutter. People always knew what he was and he was eventually castrated. ‘This alley cat should have known his station,' Crawford concludes. He must have drunk a full bottle of liquor to himself but is still speaking in clipped, perfect phrases, as if he has rehearsed everything he is saying. Georgie excuses herself and leaves the bar.

Jimmy goes to the bathroom to take a shit. He scratches a tag into the toilet roll dispenser with a key but his mind is spinning. He sits with his head in his hands and spits out the saliva that is flooding his mouth. When he goes back to the bar, the place is almost empty. He goes into the smoking area and sees Solomon beating Crawford savagely and silently in the corner. The blood sparks off his face like garnets and he is grimacing or smiling. Aleks is nowhere to be seen. Jimmy joins Solomon and soon Crawford's face is unrecognisable. ‘Wrong place at the wrong time buddy,' one of them says. ‘They teach you 'bout that at university?' Holding him by his collar, Jimmy looks up and sees the bouncer standing in the doorway. He nods at them. They turn back to their task and continue to punch, now crouched over him, thrashing him against the bloodsprent cement. Crawford has not made a sound and is soon so disfigured that he couldn't even if he wanted to.

Solomon and Jimmy look up and the bouncer is no longer in the doorway.

9

Hand tatts

There are five men in the studio,

each one bigger than the next.

A woman walks in confidently

and says,

‘Who's Wil?'

‘Me.'

‘Sweet. Over here.'

I scan the walls.

Thousands of tattoo designs –

pin-up girls, Southern Crosses, skulls.

The tattoo artist has dark hair.

She moves to the CD player

and puts on a David Dallas album.

The man called Wil reclines in the seat

and she points to his neck.

‘Right here?'

‘Yeah.'

‘Too easy.'

She starts to tattoo

the postcode of the Town

onto his neck.

His face is emotionless.

She is mumbling along to the song –

Delicate with the needle,

efficiently wiping away blood and ink

with a paper towel,

she is finished quickly.

‘And now?'

‘A joker. Right here.'

‘On your hand?'

‘Yeh.'

‘Can you prove you've got a job that lets you have a hand tatt?'

‘Ah . . . What?'

‘I don't do face or hand tatts if you can't prove you're not gonna lose your job if you get one.'

‘Nah. I mean, I can pay.'

‘I'm sure you can, babe. I just don't do it. Sebastien should have told you.'

‘Orright.'

He sits back down with his mates. They talk among themselves.

‘It says Johnno's next.'

‘How much longer till me?'

‘You Solomon?'

‘Yeh.'

‘Ah, shouldn't be long. Maybe twenty minutes. Sorry, babe, Seb called in sick. Probably hungover. Fucked everything up.'

‘No worries. I'll be back.'

A joint

I duck out the back and roll up a joint.

This weed is wet.

That dodgy fucker Grunt

Gotta be careful.

The main street is changing.

It even has a coffee shop. With a barista.

I think of some mad lines from a Horrorshow song:

Change is a nest of white ants in the wall,

Sudden or slow,

Today's heat like a fillet blade,

taking strips off me.

I blow smoke,

mouth tasting ashy but the weed working nicely.

Someone joins me. It's the tatt artist.

She has a smooth, pale throat.

‘Finished already?'

‘Yeh. Those fellas chucked a tantrum cos I wouldn't do hand tatts.'

‘Ah.'

‘Idiots. I'm not gonna take responsibility if they wanna fuck their lives up.'

‘You gave that guy a neck tatt, though. What's the difference?'

‘Dunno. Gotta draw the line somewhere, I guess.'

‘You want some of this?'

‘Don't smoke. Thanks, though. Come in, babe.'

Skin

I point at an elephant in an art book I brought with me.

It's stylised, with swirling designs on its hide.

An Albanian king had it on his chest,

supposedly.

‘Nice piece. Why this one?' she says.

‘My mum's favourite animal.'

‘Aww, a mama's boy.'

She looks up, her eyes a startling green. ‘I like that.'

‘Yeh. It's in the Qur'an. I think.'

‘You Muslim?'

‘Once upon a time.'

‘Well, it's nice. Problem with most hip hop guys is that they all think their mum's a queen but every other woman's a whore.'

‘True.'

‘And you?'

‘I got a girlfriend.'

‘And?' Her cat eyes shine.

‘I treat her very well, thank you very much. You worked here long?'

‘A while. Moved from Auckland a few years back. Hey, you've got nice skin. You must eat well.'

‘Dunno.'

‘You get all types. If you're lucky, it's lovely and buttery. You should thank your parents.' She wipes some ink and blood away.

‘I'll try to remember.'

‘You a coconut?'

‘Samoan.'

‘
Afakasi
?'

‘I'm Samoan.'

‘Woah. Calm down. Just asking. When was the last time you went?'

‘Never been.'

‘Well, I like those,' she gestures at my sleeve tatts.

‘Cheers.'

‘What do they represent?'

‘Oh, you know. Power, money, respect,' I say nonchalantly, trying to throw her off the scent.

She looks up again. ‘Tatts like that are a pretty modern thing. Based on
tapa
designs.'

‘Ah, okay.' I didn't know that.

The
zzzzz
of the tattoo machine.

After a while she says, ‘Sometimes you get skin that's coarse and dotted with pores as big as bullet holes. People who've been eating chips and gravy every day since they were ten. Two-minute noodles and toast. Drinking beer and smoking bongs twenty-four seven, getting psoriasis. But whatever the case, skin's the best canvas. Bleeds, fights, fucks. Skin tells a story like nothing else.'

‘But not the whole story,' I say, thinking of Jimmy.

She doesn't reply. The outline is nearly complete.

‘You got a boyfriend?' I ask.

‘Used to. Now I date women. Mostly.'

‘Sweet. We got something in common then.'

She laughs, showing very white teeth.

She's the least-inked tattoo artist

I've ever seen.

Her skin is perfectly bare

but for one teardrop

tatted under her right eye.

She has messy black hair piled on her head

and is wearing a loose white singlet

with a black bra visible from the side.

‘What's your name?'

‘Scarlett.'

‘Scarlett what?'

‘Planning to look me up?'

‘Nah, just wondering.'

‘Snow. Scarlett Snow.'

‘Really?'

‘Yeh, yeh, I know. Sounds like a porn name. Or a metal band.'

‘Nah, I think it's cool. It's . . . evocative. You should thank your parents.'

She laughs again.

When I leave, I call Georgie

but she doesn't answer.

Broke as, now

At the paint shop looking at Beltons and Montanas.

Can't afford em, but.

I momentarily think of racking them

but there are people everywhere.

Racking paint

The rush of theft

turned into a part-time occupation,

Stash the tins in an anorak.

Wheel a bin full of paint

out the back of a hardware store.

Jimmy, Aleks and me kept our spots secret,

It was like a game to see who

could get the best paints.

Back then,

Bunnings was good for Dulux and Wattyl.

Autobahn for Krylon.

Magnet Mart for PlastiKote.

Shoe stores for Tuxan.

Horse saddle places for raven oil to make stainer.

Art stores always

cottoned on quickly

and stopped stocking cans.

Fuck those were good times.

There is one thing I could do

I walk to the basketball courts with Mercury Fire on a leash.

I chain him up and he stands stock-still,

a muscle in his shoulder twitching.

The afternoon's cooling down at last,

the sky as pink as a cat's mouth,

spires of smoke on the hills.

I do some lazy stretches and

my hamstrings scream.

I almost feel like crying at the pain.

Mercury starts barking

at a bunch of colourful parrots sitting in the bending fennel.

Dad used to say Aussie birds reminded him

of fish in the reef near his village,

This court's been here ages,

Beneath the hoop is a hopscotch grid in yellow chalk.

Common's ‘Be' playing from my phone.

I pound the ball on the ground a few times,

the ring alien at first,

but soon I'm sweating,

getting my range back.

I take my shirt off to feel the dying sun,

being careful of the cling wrap over my new tatt.

Bounce, bounce,

Bounce, bounce,

Bounce, bounce,

the flick of the wrist,

the release,

Just like before the injury.

A scar the size of a caterpillar

Now I'm in the rhythm,

counting my shots:

That word floats into my head.

I keep shooting, angry and imprecise,

until the rhythm calms me down again.

My knees and ankles ache after minutes

and I take a long draught of water,

squinting at the sun,

His name is Fred,

a small Filipino dude with a transatlantic accent

He's excited to have made a new friend.

As he shoots wildly,

he explains that he just moved from Perth.

He's shirtless as well,

lean and muscled,

which makes me feel self-conscious.

‘First to five?' he says.

I'm worried about the new tatt,

but I nod.

He starts quickly,

feinting to the right then throwing up an improbable shot,

which banks hard off the backboard and in.

1–0

He has no technique,

but makes up for it with quick feet and floaty,

He's difficult to read.

I land awkwardly

and there's a dull toll in the back of my head.

Everything swollen and tight already.

I try to focus.

This time, this time I'll get him.

I stretch out my arms in a defensive stance,

showing off my wingspan

Fred trips forward,

suddenly unsure,

apologises when he steps on my foot,

then runs in circles around the three-point line before I get an easy

strip.

I face him and it takes only a flicker

I jab step to the left.

He bites, so I drive hard to the right

I wipe sweat away with my forearm,

then begin dribbling from the three-point line.

I drive right,

cross him up with my left hand,

the Shammgod move leaving him stranded.

I finger roll the ball in smoothly.

He looks at me in awe. ‘Did you used to play? Properly, I mean?'

‘Nah. Just messing around.'

‘Damn. You should join a team, bro.'

I don't reply.

The next points don't come for several minutes.

I shake beads of sweat off my dreds,

lungs small as a baby's fist.

My Achilles white hot.

I try to rearrange my features into the mask I used to wear,

but I'm breathing so heavily it's difficult to.

Fred seems to notice the change in atmosphere

and has fear on his mug.

He hadn't anticipated being drawn into a battle of this kind.

The sound of the ball on the asphalt

I post him up,

use my size against him

and back him down,

slowly, slowly,

facing away from the basket,

slowly, slowly, wearing him down.

It's ugly but effective,

not the fancy moves I once prided myself on.

I pivot and my hook shot drops in.

One more to win.

I summon my fury and focus it into my body.

I drive for a fadeaway,