Here Come the Dogs by Omar Musa

working alongside other Macos in a steel factory in Port Kembla. He soon got a second job to help keep the family afloat, meaning he went years without learning a working use of English.
    The Macedonian news then changes to some footage of Bitola in the summer. Petar turns to Aleks, grinning. ‘Bitola girls – good for the circulation.’
    â€˜I heard that,’ calls Biljana from the kitchen.
    â€˜I don’t know how women put up with us,’ says Aleks.
    â€˜So, you know Nicko has bought his parents a new house?’ says Biljana, setting down two cups of coffee in front of the men.
    â€˜Really? Good for him,’ says Aleks, bristling. He loves his cousin, but Nicko always seems to be two steps ahead. ‘I’ll do that for you, soon. Just have to handle my business, that’s all,’ he says, patting his mother’s hand.
    â€˜Oh, yeah? How?’
    â€˜Got a big job coming up. Real big.’

    * * *

    Once home, Aleks dreams of the blue bead on his neck.

    The blue bead is obsession and power –
    a frozen well,
    a bullet.

    He dreams it is a blue galaxy,
    each gold fleck a planet.
    On each planet, tableaux of moments in his life
    are frozen in place like a Nativity scene.

    He floats among them.
    His father playing chess with Ulysses Amosa here.
    His sister Jana crouched over a girl with a bloody face there.

    In his dream,
    he alights on the centre of one of the gold planets.

    Running around him,
    endlessly,
    is a greyhound.

    This blue bead,
    forged in a time so ancient,
    a workshop in Venice, by men
    who were nothing but dusty whispers now,
    had once been worth the soul of a man.

    Isn’t that what she’d said,
    all those years ago?
    Before . . .
    Before the moment everything changed.

    â€˜Aleks. Aleks. Jimmy’s here.’ Sonya is shaking him softly in the darkness.
    â€˜Fuck. Forgot about that. Let him in.’
    Jimmy’s watching TV in the lounge room already and rises to embrace Aleks.
    â€˜You hungry, brother?’ Aleks asks.
    â€˜Starving,’ says Jimmy.
    Sonya is already sprinkling salt and pepper on some chicken breasts on the marble kitchen top that overlooks the large lounge room. Aleks leaps up. ‘You leave that, baby. Go and sit with Jimmy.
Fala.
I’ll handle that.’ Aleks rubs her neck, kisses her behind the ear, then guides her to the couch. Massaging her with one hand, he flicks through channels, fussing over finding the right program. He decides on
Chopper,
a movie he and Jimmy have watched numerous times and quote endlessly. Once back in the kitchen, he knows what he is doing. As the chicken breasts fry in a pan, he throws together a salty salad. ‘Helps with a hangover, this one,’ he says, slicing cucumbers. ‘
Rakia
?’
    â€˜Fuck yeh.’
    â€˜May you walk naked in the house of your enemies, brother.’ They drain shots and Aleks smacks his lips, then exclaims, ‘Good grief!’
    Jimmy laughs. Aleks has a hotchpotch vernacular, pieced together out of rap music, woggy slang, movies and Aussie colloquialisms, but Jimmy’s favourite is when he uses old-fashioned expressions, something you might hear a grandma saying – ‘dearo me’ or ‘goodness gracious’. He says it whenever he’s about to do something dangerous or bad for his health. Aleks pours another
rakia.
    â€˜What’d you do today?’ Jimmy says, eyeing him keenly. Aleks knows what Jimmy is up to. He loves to feel in touch with the criminal world without having to partake in any of it. Aleks once enjoyed telling him, but now throws him red herrings – close to but never the complete truth. Betrayal is in the kiss.
    Today he doesn’t feel like talking about crime. It’ll bring down his delicately balanced mood. ‘Ah, just painted a house on the other side of town, brother. Nothing too much. The couple were happy with it.’ He keeps his eye on the television but can see