Read Online Here Come the Dogs by Omar Musa - Free Book Online Page B

asking. When was the last time you went?’
    â€˜Never been.’
    â€˜Well, I like those,’ she gestures at my sleeve tatts.
    â€˜Cheers.’
    â€˜What do they represent?’
    â€˜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.’
    â€˜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.’
    â€˜But not the whole story,’ I say, thinking of Jimmy.
    She doesn’t reply. The outline is nearly complete.
    â€˜You got a boyfriend?’ I ask.
    â€˜Used to. Now I date women. Mostly.’
    â€˜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.

    â€˜What’s your name?’
    â€˜Scarlett.’
    â€˜Scarlett what?’
    â€˜Planning to look me up?’
    â€˜Nah, just wondering.’
    â€˜Snow. Scarlett Snow.’
    â€˜Really?’
    â€˜Yeh, yeh, I know. Sounds like a porn name. Or a metal band.’
    â€˜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.
    Good paints.
    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,
    back in the day.

    Stash the tins in an anorak.
    Wheel a bin full of paint
    out the back of a hardware store.
    Whatever.

    Jimmy, Aleks and me kept our spots secret,
    guarded them
viciously.
    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,
    staring far off,
    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.
    I let him off the leash,
    and they twitter and fly away,
    points
    in a
    moving constellation.

    Dad used to say Aussie birds reminded him
    of fish in the reef near his village,
    Free, multicoloured, dreamlike.

    This court’s been here ages,
    blacktop crumbling around the edges.
    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,
    fingertips, rhythm,
    limbs turn to fire,
    Bounce, bounce,
    my body an instrument
    of knowing,
    of knowledge,
    of concentration,
    Bounce, bounce,
    the