Here Come the Dogs by Omar Musa

have a lot of product in their possession. Cheap. Good quality. Direct from Afghanistan.’
    â€˜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?’
    â€˜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.’
    â€˜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.’
    â€˜Then why shouldn’t I go straight to them myself?’ the bikie says.
    â€˜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?’
    â€˜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.
    â€˜Me? I work for myself. Just a little extra cream will do me fine. A sip from the bubbler, like I said.’
    â€˜A bit of a rogue then, ay?’
    â€˜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.

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:

    â€˜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,
    a V shape.
    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.
    A change.

    Even before all that,
    luck had played a huge part in me life.

    I was always a street fighter,
    a