The Fish and the Not Fish (9 page)

We watch Man smack the wood good.

Good, no, Man, he won't say to us that we have held it or have done a thing good.

All he'll say is, when we are done is, you boys can go now.

And so, us boys, we get up and we go.

Go is what us boys like to do best.

We like to go to where the road goes, though the road does not take us as far as we would like it to go from that place in the woods that we don't like to call home.

Home is where the dust is and dust, when you see us walk on down this dust kicked up road, it is dust that is what rises up from our dust skinned skins.

It was on a night like this when the sun rose up at dawn the next day that we saw for the first time that dog Dead Dog dead on the side of the road.

When we first saw Dead Dog, there on the side of the road, the dog that we saw, we thought that it was a dog dead.

Dead Dog did not make a move, or turn his dog head, or make with his dog mouth a sound when we stuck the toes of our boots up in Dead Dog's nose.

That dog's dead, one of us boys said.

Us boys, we left Dead Dog there for dead, there on the side of the road, and kept on with our walk to where we did not know where us boys would go to.

Not to home was all that we knew.

We walked.

We walked some more.

The sun, it seemed, seemed to walk its walk up the sky with us.

The sun, it seemed, it was one of us.

When we turned and went back the way to where home was for us boys back in the house where we lived in with Man, this was when we saw Dead Dog and we saw it, then, with both of our boy eyes, that this dog, it was not dead.

This dog that we thought it was dead, it sat up on the side of the road and it looked up at us boys like it, this dog, it was one of us.

What those dog eyes said to us boys, when they looked up at us up from the side of the road was, Would you please give this dog a home?

Home, us boys knew, our house, it was no place for a dog to be took to since we had no food or bones for us to feed it but for the dirt that we might scrape up for it and say to it that this dirt used to be bone.

But Dead Dog did not seem to mind it that dirt was all that he would get to eat if he came with us to that house at the edge of the woods that was for us boys what we were told was for us our home.

When we brought Dead Dog home with us to meet Man, we told Man that when we first walked by this dog there on the side of the road we thought that this dog was dead.

Oh yeah, Man said to this. You think that just cause some dog sits up like this dog did sit up that this don't mean that this dog ain't dead?

Us boys, we did not know what to say to this.

So we did not say yes or no.

You boys deaf, Man said to us next, or do you both just got dirt stuck up in your ears?

Us boys both stuck our thumbs in our ears and said, No, sir, there's no dirt in here that we can feel.

Can we keep him? we said so to Man, and we all three of us looked down at Dead Dog as this dog licked at his own rear.

Man looked down at this dog as this dog did what he could do with his tongue and what Man said then was, What could a dog like this hurt, and that you boys could use a dog like this to keep us out of his way.

We said our thanks to what Man said when he said it, though we did not say this with a hug.

Us boys took Dead Dog with us to bed that night and we have since that night watched this dog sleep each of these nights, there at the foot of our bed, the sleep that makes you think that this dog is dead.

But dead, this dog, he is not.

Dead Dog just likes to make it look like he is dead.

But this dog is a dog that lives.

At night, Dead Dog barks.

Dead Dog is a dog that barks at things in the night that Dead Dog hears but can't see.

We think that what Dead Dog thinks he hears at night are skunks and coons and dogs not named Dead Dog who hunt at night and like to paw through the cans out back where we put out our trash.

But the truth of it is, there are no cans out back where we put out our trash.

Our trash, Man digs holes in the dirt out back near the woods and down in there we put our trash and put the dirt back on top the way that Dead Dog does with his bones.

But one night when we hear Dead Dog bark and bark and when we hear that his Dead Dog bark is not the kind of a bark that will stop, us boys, we go out to see what it is that Dead Dog thinks that he sees.

This is what we see.

We see a night that is so pitch black dark that we can't see the trees that we know are out there. We can't see the moon or the stars that we know are out there up there too. We can't see where we set our feet when we walk like this out in this at night dark.

Out here, in this dark, Dead Dog is just a sound whose mouth can't, by us, be found.

Us boys, we reach through the dark.

Dead Dog, we hiss. Hush up.

You know what you're in for, we warn this dog not dead, if you wake Man up from his sleep.

Man is the kind of man who does not think twice when he lifts up his foot to kick a dog in its face.

Once, how could Dead Dog not think of this, Man took up a rock as big as a dog's head and he brought it back down on the top of this dog's head.

When we saw this rock, when we saw this rock come back down to hit this dog on top of its dog head, the both of us boys thought that Dead Dog was sure to be dead.

We knew it was not in us boys to get a man like Man to stop this.

We stood back and tried not to watch.

But how could we not see when we heard what we heard?

We heard Dead Dog make a sound with his mouth that made it sound like Dead Dog was dead.

We flinched and winced and made sounds with our mouths that did our best to tell Man to stop.

When Man put down this rock, this rock, it was a dark dark red against the light dust brown of the dirt.

But through all of this, Dead Dog was a dog that lived.

Dead Dog lived through a rock to his dog head.

It's true that Dead Dog limped to where we could not see him to that space where the ground and the house make like a cave down there where snakes like to go and lay their eggs and on hot hot days they like to go down there to get out from the sun.

Dead Dog did not come out for three straight days from where he limped to where it is a like a cave down in there where the house sits up on blocks up above the dirt of the ground.

When on the third day Dead Dog crawled forth from out of that dark place and barked at the stars in the night's sky to say that Dead Dog was a dog that was back for good, that no man with a rock in his hand can keep a dog like Dead Dog down for long, us boys, we gave Dead Dog our hands to smell and lick to see that we were good.

Dead Dog's eyes were shot with blood and the lump on his head was like a rock that had grown roots in his brain, but for the most part Dead Dog looked to us like he was glad to be back.

And the bark that was Dead Dog's, it did not stop.

At night, when Dead Dog thinks he hears what he hears, he barks like he wants us to know what sound it is that his dog ears can hear that us boys do not turn our heads to.

Out here in this night, the dark, we think, is like a thing we can grab hold of, but when we try, us boys, we look like, we think, if we could see us, like Man looks when he is drunk.

There is nothing for us to grab hold of but the hands of each of us.

But us boys, we do not hold hands.

We both just stick out both of our hands to see and feel the dark.

We are like this with our hands stuck out in this dark when we hear Dead Dog bark twice.

When Dead Dog barks, Dead Dog's mouth snaps back down hard like a trap used to kill mice.

When we hear Dead Dog bark out like this, we pull back our boy hands.

But one of our hands does not come back when we tell it to come back.

That hand is in the grip of this dog's mouth.

When we do pull that hand back free from this dog's mouth, it is now a hand that has no thumb.

This we can feel.

But it is too dark for us to see where the thumb is. All we do know is that it is not where the thumb used to be.

We drop down on our hands and knees to see if we can find it but our hands come up with rocks and twigs and dirt.

The one of us boys whose thumbs are both where they are meant to be says let's look for it when it is light out.

The one of us boys whose thumb is not where it used to be says but I can't go to bed with no thumb.

What, this boy says, will I suck to get me to go to sleep?

You've got two thumbs, don't you, dumb dumb? A thumb is a thumb is it not?

So the one of us boys whose thumb is not where it used to be, that one of us goes to bed that night with just one thumb to put in his boy mouth to help him to go to sleep.

That boy, that night, he does not sleep.

At dawn, when the sun comes up to light the dirt and the trees and the sky, we go out to look for that thumb.

It does not take us long to find that thumb, or what is left of it.

This thumb is a bone in Dead Dog's mouth.

This thumb, it has been gnawed down to a nub of what this thumb used to be.

Give us back that thumb, one of us boys says when we see that nub of a thumb, like a tooth it sticks out from the side of Dead Dog's mouth.

Dead Dog looks up at us and barks and when he does the thumb slips down the back of his dog throat.

We watch Dead Dog's mouth come to a close to make sure that the bone, it does not get stuck.

Dead Dog licks his lips when he knows that the bone is down to stay.

Who needs two thumbs when all you need is one? the boy of us who has two thumbs says to the boy who has just the one.

Just then Boy walks up to us to see with us what's up.

Look at Boy.

Boy lives in the woods.

Boys looks like a boy who is made out of dirt.

Boy was born with a full head of hair but with no tongue in his boy mouth.

If Boy can live with no tongue in his mouth, don't you think that a boy like one of us can live with just one thumb on his hand?

To this, the both of us boys nod our boy heads.

But the next time we see Boy, we ask Boy to hold out his hand.

Us boys, we hold out our hands to show Boy how to hold it.

We hold out our hands so that they are shaped like stars.

Boy does like he is told.

Good, Boy, we tell this boy.

This is when one of us boys goes out back to the back of our house and then comes back with a knife.

This might sting, we say to Boy, and then we take turns with this knife till we cut through the bone that holds Boy's thumb to his one hand.

Boy does not wince, or flinch with his arm, or make with his boy mouth the sound of a boy who might cry out.

Good, Boy, we say this once more to this boy we call Boy.

We start to take our knife to Boy's left hand thumb when Man comes out back to take a piss.

What are you boys up to?

Man's piss makes the dirt turn to mud.

Boy does not grunt or say a word.

Us boys, we tell Man that we are on our way to go to town.

Man turns and tucks his self back in and turns to go back to the house.

So, us boys, we go back to Boy's hand.

We cut and we cut till this thumb drops from Boy's hand loose.

It falls to the ground.

In the dirt, Boy's thumb, it blends in with the dirt.

Come, we call to Dead Dog to come.

Dead Dog comes.

When Dead Dog sees what he sees in the dirt, he looks up at us boys as if to say, Is this here bone for me?

We both of us boys nod our boy heads to say it that this bone is for you.

Dead Dog barks a bark that says to us boys thank you.

Then this dog drops down his dog head and starts to eat.

Dead Dog likes to dig holes.

Dead Dog digs holes by the side of the road.

Us boys watch Dead Dog dig.

There is dirt piled high by the side of this road where Dead Dog has dug his holes.

See Dead Dog dig.

Dead Dog digs with his two front paws.

Dead Dog digs like he is a dog that knows there is a thing down there that is worth a dog to dig for.

Hey, Dead Dog, we say.

Dead Dog does not look up from his hole.

Where, we say, do these dug in the ground holes go down to?

Dead Dog digs and digs.

Dead Dog digs down and down.

In a while, Dead Dog is down in the down there of that hole. The top of his head is all of Dead Dog that us boys can see.

Dead Dog does not stop.

Dead Dog digs some more and more.

Dead Dog digs and digs and when Dead Dog stops is when Dead Dog gets down to where there is a bone down there for Dead Dog to chew on.

There is more than just one bone down in this hole for Dead Dog to chew on.

There are bones and there are more bones.

There are more bones down in this hole than Dead Dog would know what to do with.

These bones that Dead Dog has just dug up, they are not the kind of bones that might be bones from some pig or cow that us boys might eat or might have one day ate for lunch and then when we were done with our lunch we might have thrown these bones off to the side of the road so that some dog like Dead Dog or some dog not like Dead Dog might find them, these bones, and then have some bone to chew on what bits of meat, pig, or cow, that us boys might have left on them.

Those bones, us boys, we both think, these are the bones that could be the bones in the arm or in the leg of a boy who looks like the both of us.

Then Dead Dog digs up a bone that we see is the head bone, a bone with black holes where eyes used to be, the bone of a boy that could be one of us.

When Dead Dog digs up this bone with the teeth still in it, Dead Dog looks up at us boys as we look down at him down in his dug in the dirt hole.