Here Come the Dogs by Omar Musa Page B

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.
    â€˜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.
    â€˜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.
    â€˜What we need is compassionate onshore processing,’ says Solomon.
    â€˜And relocation of funds,’ adds Georgie.
    â€˜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.
    â€˜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