Here Come the Dogs (14 page)

7

She,

a twist of pale smoke

She,

all hips and legs and curves,

Me,

but soon, fuck it,

to her controlled explosions of movement.

Heaps of kids

What kind of shit is that?

There used to be more solidarity between the elements,

‘I miss b-girling.'

‘Yeah. The atmosphere. The smell,' says Solomon.

‘Deep Heat?'

‘Yeah. Someone working their arse off on a move and then nailing it at a battle.'

We're at a Thundamentals concert.

She wanted to go,

She went along the line and eventually wrangled two tickets,

She matches me drink for drink at the bar.

‘Pool? I'll kick your arse. I'm a real tomboy.'

Afterwards,

I tell her that I let her win.

She wants to talk about the race riots,

but that'll bring the mood down.

Word is that

Still unclear what happened –

seemed like a free-for-all.

Scarlett guides me through the door

with one hand on the small of my back.

‘Oi. Loverboy.'

Jimmy is in a new polo.

Rather than looking hurt,

he seems chilled as.

Scarlett seems to cautiously like Jimmy.

He shouts to be heard over the music.

I haven't seen him so excited since the last Wu Tang album dropped.

They rib me about not looking after Mercury properly

and I laugh and buy a round.

A young black guy called Remi is warming up the stage

with a DJ and a drummer

and while it's sampled beats,

they sound fresh,

unlike anything else at the moment.

Rarely see a black dude in Aussie hip hop.

Scarlett notices, too.

It's her first time to an Aussie hip hop gig

and she is looking around between sips.

‘So many white people here. Not like this in Auckland.'

‘Yeah. Aussie hip hop is pretty bloody white. There's more women than

there used to be, but,' I say, a bit defensively.

‘Not on stage.'

She once told me

that NZ has problems with racism, too,

but they can always point at Australia

and say, ‘At least we're not as bad as them.'

When the dude finishes his set,

there is just the drunken chatter of the crowd.

Scarlett tells Jimmy a dirty joke

She has a bold, open-mouthed laugh

that shows her white teeth.

and she notices and whispers,

These Thundamental dudes put on a hectic live show,

bobbing and weaving

Haven't seen them perform in ages.

Tuka has a skater/hippie swag,

bouncing one-footed

off speakers into the air.

Morgs is mean on the cuts.

Jeswon floats at the back of the stage,

coming forward for his verses,

attacking the beat with vicious sixteens.

Something in the water up in the Blue Mountains, ay?

The soundman is fucking the levels

but it doesn't matter.

They do their big love song, ‘Smiles Don't Lie'

and as the crowd sings along,

‘Are we cheesy or what?' she says.

‘Yep,' I reply.

Jimmy waits for Scarlett to go to the toilet

then leans over.

‘Oi. Guess who I bumped into?'

‘Who?'

‘My old man.'

I suddenly feel sober. ‘Bullshit.'

‘Serious.'

‘The fuck he want?'

‘All right, I didn't talk to him. I saw him outside work, sitting in the back of a ute.'

‘The back of a ute?'

‘I think he wants to talk.'

‘The fuck for?'

‘Dunno. I reckon he wants to make amends.'

I know that look. Somehow wounded, somehow excited by the danger.

‘It doesn't make any sense. No one's seen the bloke in years,' I say.

‘I know.'

‘
Pssh.
If it is, we should beat the cunt senseless,' I say.

‘Yeah. That's what I reckon.'

‘Let's do it. I'll come with ya.'

‘Nah, nah. I just wanna see what he says. I got it under control.'

I wrinkle my nose. ‘Just be careful, James.'

I can't concentrate on the rest of the show.

Scarlett's place doesn't have air-con.

Against the doorframe,

she takes my dick out of my jeans.

She squeezes it between thumb and forefinger

and a droplet appears.

She teases it with the tip of her tongue.

I try to hold her head but she keeps unfastening

my fingers from her hair,

undressing me with one hand.

Her back is covered with purple tatts,

stars and swordfish and coral reefs.

On her legs are scars,

razor marks at perfect intervals,

twelve per leg,

moon coloured.

She climbs on top of me

and guides me in.

She's not very wet.

We begin to move slowly

and she parts her legs to accept me deeper.

This room is so hot.

I touch her nipples,

long and dark and pierced.

With her right hand she holds my throat

and with the other she slowly begins

to slap me on the right cheek,

once every few seconds.

We're moving faster now and she's wetter.

She tightens her grip on my throat.

The slaps become harder

and more painful,

but with the same regularity –

Something anchored deep in me rising.

My face is scalding.

Her teardrop tattoo becomes liquid,

runs down her face in a single trail,

falls onto my chest

and evaporates with a sizzle.

I'm losing my breath.

Now the pain on my cheeks

blade-sharp and my skin unbearably hot.

I'm holding her breasts tight.

When I come it is painful and explosive

and I lose breath completely.

Her eyes have been closed the whole time.

We're lying in bed,

not touching.

And something's wrong.

‘Why did you buy the greyhound in the first place, Solomon?'

‘Dunno.' What's she driving at? ‘To be honest, I wanted to show the boys that I could be responsible for something, look after something. Fucked it up.'

‘Ah, yeh. The boys.' She's staring straight up. I suddenly crave a cigarette and think about getting up when she speaks again. ‘Do you have any female friends?'

‘Course.'

‘Ones you haven't slept with?'

‘. . .'

‘Your group of mates is a cock forest, Solomon. Admit it.'

‘It's not that bad. They've been my mates forever, what do you want me to do?'

We lie in silence.

Unlike with Georgie, I don't want to argue.

Then she says, ‘Don't you hate people who are all style over substance?'

She's been dropping shit like that all night since the concert.

‘I'm serious. If you don't contribute anything, anything at all, what's the point?'

I realise she's for real. ‘Why do you keep seeing me, then?'

‘Because you're a good fuck.'

‘Jesus.' Whatever she's doing, it's working. I've never been more angry or turned on.

‘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,

‘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.'

I leave,

thinking about Georgie,

lovely and safe and dependable.

8

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.'

9

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

He stands and begins to run.

Mercury Fire keeps pace with him,

running towards a body of water

With each step Jimmy can feel himself getting stronger

and he wonders if he is taking on

The dog is saying,

When he reaches the water's edge,

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

He swims through a doorway

and finds himself standing at the back of a crowd,

Run DMC is performing

and through the drift of dry ice

he sees Jam Master Jay's gold ring

as he scratches on vinyl

Jimmy pushes through the crowd to the front

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

Jimmy is hauled onstage

and joined by Rakim, Ghostface Killah,

who pours him a tall glass of Hennessy,

and a young Jay-Z,

Jimmy faces the crowd;

He starts rapping,

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,

He goes offstage

and is ushered down a hallway to a door

He opens the door

and it takes a moment

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

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

Blonde hair falls in a wave around him,

and her lips become as big as the night

and swallow him whole

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.

‘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.

He buys a piece of felt

and keeps it in his pocket

as he answers calls,

to remind himself of Mercury Fire's ears.

As he walks from work

to the bus interchange,

he sees a protest in the centre of the City.

There are signs with Damien Crawford's

A handsome Aboriginal man in a suit

Jimmy walks past.

As he leaves the City on his bus,

he sees a man sitting on top of a street sign,

dressed immaculately with a scarf

around the lower part of his face,