The Fish and the Not Fish

WHAT THIS ALL USED TO BE, OR WHERE NOW ALL WE SEE ARE TREES

On blue bikes the two boys rode. At night. Down the street. In the dark. Side by side. Like this these boys made sounds with their mouths that birds like to make at the break of each day. Caw. Caw. Who. Who. It was their song. They sang as they biked, side by side, in the dark, down the street, to go see what they’d sneaked out to see.

See the boys go.

Hear their tune.

Here they come now.

They don’t slow down. Not till they get to that place where they’ve come to go to.

A house.

A girl.

Two boys.

Jane, they call out, in the dark, up to this house. This house is red and made out of brick. Its roof is black. One light burns and shines out at the dark that is the June night.

It is Jane. She stands where she is, in the door, where she looks out through the dark at two boys whose names to her are You and Him.

You and Him live in a blue house with a mom and a dad who call both boys by name.

Jim, they say. John.

Jim and John are twin boys but they don’t look the same.

Jim has blue eyes.

John’s eyes are brown like the dirt.

There is more to how these boys don’t look the same, but for now this is all that you need to see.

Two boys.

Two bikes.

Blue eyes and brown.

A house.

Night.

A girl.

Jane.

Jane lives with an aunt who calls her Sis when she wakes her up to say that it’s time for Jane to wake up.

Jane would like to sleep by day.

By the light of day there is too much for Jane to have to look at.

In the dark of night Jane can look at what she wants her own eyes to see.

Jane, like Jim, has eyes that are blue.

Blue as the blue sky is blue. Blue as the sky’s blue is blue. It is blue too.

That’s how blue Jane’s eyes are blue when Him and You look at them in the blue light of the day.

At night Jane waits for You and Him to ride by her red house on blue bikes that make the dark turn on and off like a blue light.

I’m here, Jane says, though she does not have to say it out loud with these words.

When Jane steps out in the dark, there is a light from her face that this light it shines right out.

It lights its light on these two boys who Jane calls Him and You.

These two boys stand up on their bikes.

Jim and John.

You and Him.

Jane steps up and hops up on the seat of one blue bike.

This night it is Jim’s.

You, Jane says, to Jim.

Jim does not say a word back.

Jim nods.

But Him says with his mouth, First one to the creek gets a kiss.

With this, both boys ride on, and the wheels on both bikes hiss and hum like lips pressed tight in the night.

This night, Him gets to the creek first.

Kiss me, Him says, to Jane, and he stands up from his bike.

Jane jumps off of You’s bike. She runs down to the creek. She jumps in the creek’s dark.

The creek’s dark is made out of dirt.

Dirt like the eyes that are John’s.

There is no creek for Jane to get her feet wet with.

Jane drops down on her hands and knees and Jane takes up in her girl hand a hand full of dirt that she makes like it is creek that she lets splash in and on her girl face.

The boys watch Jane, the girl that she is, play like this in the dirt.

In the dark, dirt rains down on Jane’s look up at the sky girl face.

The moon in the sky makes all of this lit up so that the boys can see it when they look.

They look.

They watch Jane look up.

Kiss me, Jane says, to the boys, to the dirt, to eyes that are both like the dirt of the creek and like the sky that you see by day.

Him jumps in with Jane first. He got to the creek first. What’s fair is fair is a thing that You and Him both know.

Him makes his lips like a fish. Waits for the kiss. Shuts his eyes to the dark.

In the dark Him sees Jane come in close.

She is like a fish on two legs, born from some place on this earth where the sea used to be but now there is just plain dirt.

When they kiss, Him hears a sound in his ear like the sound a shell likes to make when it’s washed up on some shore.

Hmmm, Him thinks, and he makes this word with his mouth, so loud that You too, with his back backed up to some tree, You too can hear it.

We got to go, You calls out. He kicks at the dirt. Kicks at the tree. Looks at the look on Him’s face.

He has seen this look more than once in his life and he wants it back on his own face.

Go where? is what Him wants to know. Him knows he has the look on his face.

To the bridge, You says, and he gets back on his bike. You Know Who said she might be there.

You Know Who is a girl that Him and You know from the time they biked out to the road that runs out of town to the town that is next to the town that is theirs and then it dead ends where there are train tracks that run through this town that is next to the town that Him and You and Jane say this town is ours though these are tracks, more rust than they are steel, that have not seen trains run on them in all the years since Him and You and Jane were born to be two boys and a girl here in this town.

There is in this town a bridge that runs on top of where the creek is and it is here that Him and You and the girl named Jane go to go see if the girl named You Know Who might be there.

You Know Who has a real name and that real name of hers is Sam.

Sam is not short for a name that is more like a girl’s name. It’s the name that Sam’s dad gave her and called her by from the day that he learned that he was soon to be a dad.

Sam’s dad, whose name is Sam too, thought that what was in that girl who was not yet his wife was a boy who would take his name and make him proud to be a Sam.

Sam, Sam’s dad said, and he laid his hand where he thought Sam was, there in that spot where when Sam’s mom laid down in her bed she used to lay flat as a thin sheet of wood.

When Sam was born a girl and not as a boy, Sam’s dad did what most dads do not.

He turned.

He ran.

He did not come back.

All he left Sam was her name.

You Know Who is Sam’s new name in the eyes and mouth of You and Him.

When Sam first told Him and You what her name was, that day when they first saw her out on the road that runs out of town, Him and You, or Jim and John, what they said to Sam was that Sam did not look like what they thought a Sam should look like, and so they said they’d give her a new name to be known by, but they did not know what new name to call her yet, so they have since called her by the name You Know Who. When Him and You say You Know Who, they both know who they mean. The girl who used to be Sam but is now that girl You Know Who.

You Know Who is not where You and Him thought she might be. When they get to the bridge where they thought that You Know Who might be there, all they see is a bridge with no You Know Who by it. So they go. They go on their bikes to a bridge on the cross side of town where You Know Who lives with a mom and a man named Bob who is not You Know Who’s dad.

You Know Who’s house is a green house with a red door that makes it look like a stuck out tongue on a face if you drew a house with paint that looked like a face. It has a white fence out front that is made out of wood. It leans both ways and is a fence that could not keep a dog in its yard if that is why a fence was put up in front of this house back in the first place.

There is no dog that lives in this house or in the back of this yard here at You Know Who’s house. It’s just You Know Who and You Know Who’s mom whose own name is Pam who live here in this house with a man whose own name is Bob.

This man whose own name is Bob, when he was a kid, he liked to fish, but now in this town there is no place for a kid or for a man like Bob to go down to it to fish.

There is just the creek for kids in this town to go down to it to fish though there are no fish that live or swim or would bite a hooked worm here in the creek. There would have to be the flow of a creek in the creek for there to be fish in the creek and where there should be creek in the creek there is just dirt and the dirt is so hard it would be hard to know if there are worms that live down in the dirt that is more like rock when you go at it with your hands if you want to dig it up to see what is down there that lives in this dirt.

When Him and You get to where You Know Who’s house looks back at them with eyes that are black like there are no eyes for this house to look at them with, what they see is a girl on the porch in a chair in front of a door that is red like a stuck out tongue on a face. When You Know Who sees Him and You pull up on their bikes with that girl Jane on the back of Him’s bike, she sticks her own red tongue out at them.

You Know Who’s tongue is more pink than it is red and like most tongues if you look at them close what you’ll see is that most tongues are more pink than they are red.

The same might be said if you took a close up look at Jane. When Him and You take a good look at Jane, they don’t see just plain Jane who is just plain Jane. What they see is Jane the pain and what they like to call her some nights as they bike through this town that is theirs is Jane the Pain, Jane the Pain, they both like to sing out, not just plain Jane since hey, look here: there is more to Jane than just plain Jane might be to eyes that don’t know how to look at Jane up close when the moon’s light or the street’s light is so bright that there is no way else for Him and You to see this girl Jane by. There is just this Jane and in this light she is at times a pain but boys like You and Him would not have it, this Jane, be a way that was not like this.

What is a pain when it comes to Jane is this: Jane likes to play games with boys like You and Him. Jane likes to make boys like Him and You want the same thing, be it a kiss from Jane’s lips or else to have Jane on the back of their bike to ride with her down to the place in this town where the creek is just a dirt path that runs through two banks of trees with stuck out roots and grass that is as brown as dirt is.

Jane is mine is what these boys Him and You like to say to the one who is not the boy with Jane on the back of his bike.

There are nights when You and Him fight.

For Jane.

Nights when Him and You make the blood run down red from the tips of a nose that has just been by a balled up fist hit to say in a way that words just can’t, Jane is just and all mine.

You Know Who jumps on the back of the bike with Jane not on it — on this night this would be Him’s bike that Jane is on — and like this the boys ride through town with the girls with their long girl hair blown back by the wind that the bikes make when Him and You pump their feet back and forth as they bike like this till they stop.

Where and when they stop there is this house at the edge of this town where this town comes to an end and is the start of a new town with a name that is all its own. This house, with no white fence out front in the front of its front yard, it is white and made out of wood. Here in this house there is no one here who lives in it. This house with the glass that is now shut in with wood, it used to have an old man who lived here in it, but it’s been years since this house has had this man who looked out from in it. This man whose name was known by all those in town as Old Man Mans, he has been dead for all of the years since Him and You and You Know Who and that girl named Jane have been boys and girls who call the town that is theirs their own. But still it is well known, by both sets of boys and girls, that this old man, Old Man Mans, he was a mean old man, the kind of a man who liked to spit and kick at his dog. That’s the kind of man that this Old Man Mans was. For some years, more than a few, that old dog that Old Man Mans liked to spit at and kick, it lived on its own, once the old man died, out back in the back of the old man’s house. It, this dog, it had a house of its own, out back in the back of the old man’s house, and this house, that was the dog’s, where the dog it liked to sleep, it too, it was white just like the old man’s house, and it was made out of wood too. It’s true that this dog, it lived on for some years more in the white house out back of the old man’s house. It lived, this dog did, till one night, it’s been told, it ran out to the road that runs out through to where this house sits and it sat out in the road till it got hit by a truck that when it hit it, the man who sat up in the front of this truck, he did not stop or get out or look back once to see what it was that his truck had just hit. It, this truck, it had just hit and it had just killed the dog that once lived in a house of its own out back in the house that used to house in it the man in this town known to most all as the man who liked to spit at and kick at his dog.

So there are times when You and Him walk out back to the back of this old man’s yard to fight. Here, like this, these two boys face off and here, like this, Him and You, they raise up their fists. Come on, they say. Put up your dukes, one of them will say. Come on, boy, take the first punch. Both of these boys will bob with their boy heads. One of the boys will make the first move. One boy will spit at, then kick at, the dirt. One boy will thumb his thumb to his nose. This is the way these boys say, not with their words, I’m tough.

Then, like this, they fight. They throw a punch or three or four and stick a thumb in one boy’s eye. You and Him, they do not wince or flinch or make a sound with their boy mouths when they hit like this with their fists. They fight, they spit, they lick at their lips till one of these two boys says, Give up? Give up? Give up what? one boy will say and he’ll hit his own fists bone to bone. Give up, the boy who says these words will say it, the girl who goes by the name Jane. Jane the Pain is how the boys call her when she is not near to them to hear this said. But still the boys fight. They fight till the girls who are with them tell them to stop. When the two girls, Jane and You Know Who who are with them, tell the boys to stop, the girls then turn with their girl heads and look this sharp, hard look at the girl who has just said what it is she has said, and then they stand and stare with their eyes and they too start to fight. They fight like light in a dark sky fights, all flash and flick of the wrists, no fists need to be made for this to be a fight. They fight with the slap of hands hard to hit at a face. They fight with a grip of fist to take hold of a hand filled with hair. When one girl cries out, Give up, it is not to ask it but to say it, as in I give up. Give up what? is what the girl who has a fist of not her own hair in her hand. To this, the girl who says it, who is bent low to the dirt, she makes it known that it is boys which is what she gives up. Boys, she says. Boys. I give up boys. The two boys, Him and You, when they hear this get said, they turn with their heads to face the stars and the moon, they raise up their fists as if to say You, as if to say Him, as if both wish to say, We are not the boys that she means to say when she says it that boys is what it is she gives up.

Old Man Mans, he was a man well known in this town as an old man who liked to spit at and kick at his dog. He was not not known as a kind kind of man, this old man: not kind to his dog, for sure, or to the kids in this town who at times liked to walk on his yard’s grass. It’s not like this grass was green. This grass, in this old man’s yard, it was dirt brown. It was more dirt, this grass was, than it was grass. Grass like this, it was not the kind of grass that is the kind of grass that is not to be walked on is what I want you to see. But Old Man Mans liked to come and run out of his house with his hands made to be fists and he’d curse and yell at the kids like Him and You who liked to walk on the grass that was the grass that was in the front and the back of his yard. You and Him’s dad liked to tell of the time, way on back when he was just a boy too who lived in this town where out on the edge of it lived Old Man Mans, of the time when he was nine and he stepped with just one foot on this old man’s front yard grass and out of this house, which was white back then too (though the wood was not so old and worn), Old Man Mans who was not so old a man back then, he ran out at him, out at You and Him’s dad, out of his house with a gun held out in his hand. Next time you come round here and set one foot in my yard, the old man yelled out at Him and You’s then just a boy dad, I’ll shoot you off it till you turn dead. Him and You’s dad who was just a boy of nine ran and ran as fast as he could run, he likes to tell it, and boys, he says, I did not stop, he says it like this, and he huffs and he huffs, till he ran and ran and ran so fast that he’d run his boy self out of breath. Him and You’d dad, to Him and You, he was just a dad and not some kid that an old man could get mad at, but they laughed and did what they could to try to see it, in their heads, the man they called dad back when he was a boy like them. They could not see this, in their boy heads, their dad as the kind of a boy who had to run till he ran out of breath just to not get shot the day he stepped one foot on the grass that was the yard of that old man who liked to spit at and kick at his dog.

So what they liked to do was, some nights, some days too, when there was not much else for boys like Him and You to do in a town like this town, they would act out the words that their dad liked to tell them when he told them of that day, way back when it was to them, when Old Man Mans ran out of his house at their dad with a gun stuck out in his hand. Him and You would take turns and flip a coin to see who’d get to be the old man who liked to kick at and spit at his dog, who got to run out of the house and yell and curse at the boy who played like he was their dad who had stepped just one foot of his on the grass in the front of this old man’s house. To be Old Man Mans was the thing to be since he was the one who got to yell and curse and scream and run out from the back of the house at Him or You or who it was who had to be the son who got to make like he was the dad back when he was a boy of nine. The boy who got to be the old man who liked to spit at and kick at his dog got to make his hand in the shape of a gun and got to go bang and then bang with his mouth and got to say bad words that he could not say when his dad was close by to hear.

There were times too when Jane was with them when she would say, How come I can’t play a part too? Him and You would look back and forth and back and forth two more times and then they’d turn their looks back at Jane. Well who do you want to be? is what Him and You would say to Jane. And to this, what Jane liked to say to this was, I’d like to be the old man’s wife. But this old man, he did not have a wife was what Him and You would have to tell her. Well, he’s got a wife now, Jane would say, and then she’d kiss the boy who got to be, on this day, the old man who had a dog but not a wife to spit at or kick.

It was Jane too who was the one who thought of it to ask it, one day as Him and You and Jane played at this game that they liked to call it ‘The Day that Old Man Mans Pulled a Gun Out On Our Dad,” that what they did not have with them to play the game right was a boy or girl to be the old man’s dog. Dog, both of the boys said, with a shake of their boy heads. There’s no one here to be the dog. And that was the day when You Know Who walked by with an ice cream cone in her hand. Want to play? Jane had said to this girl who would soon come to be known as You Know Who who they did not yet know who she was. In fact, they had not, not a once, not Him or You or not Jane too, seen this girl walk through this town, or walk out near the edge of this town, which is where this house was that used to be the white house made out of wood of the man who liked to spit at and kick at his dog. Play what? was what the girl You Know asked this girl Jane who stood in front of these two boys. It was You who said it, to You Know Who, You get to be the dog. You Know Who was not the type of a girl who would say back to this, But what if I don’t want to be the dog? You Know Who’s mouth did not make such sounds as this. What she did do was, this You Know Who, and when she did this she did not tell them what was her name, she dropped down, in the dirt, on her hands and knees, and she barked a loud bark at these two boys. It’s true: she barked like a dog likes to bark, and then she looked up at Jane, she looked up from the dirt, and she stuck out her tongue out from her girl mouth. And You Know Who’s tongue, when she stuck it out like this, Him and You and Jane too, they saw that this tongue, it too, just like Jane’s, just like the tongue in Him’s and You’s mouth, it was a tongue that was pink.

And so they took You Know Who in, as a dog, they made of this girl a dog that they would play with. Him and You took turns, they each got to be the old man who liked to spit at and kick at his dog, and Jane got to be the old man’s wife and You Know Who got to be the dog. This is how it went till one day You Know Who got it in her girl head to come up with a new game for them to play. I’ve got a new game that we should play is how You Know Who said what she said. It’s called Two Dogs Who Like To Be One. Him and You and Jane, they all three gave You Know Who a look and it was the kind of a look that said, with no words to say it, tell us more. So You Know Who told Him and You and Jane that in this game that she liked to call Two Dogs Who Like To Be One two of us drop down on our hands and knees and make like we are dogs. One of the two has to be one of you boys, You Know Who went on, and one has to be one of us girls. When Him and You asked why this was so You Know Who just said that this was the way the game was made to be played. Says who? said Jane. Says me is who, You Know Who said back. I’m the one who knows how to play it. Jane stared with her hard as stone eyes in through the eyes that were You Know Who’s eyes and You Know Who stared hard right and straight back as if her eyes were made out of wood. Who gets to go first? is what Jane said next since You Know Who did not look like a girl who was a girl on the way to back down. So You Know Who said that Jane could go first if to go first was how Jane would like it to be. Jane said yes, thank you, that she would like to go first, and so she dropped, just like You Know Who said that she should, down on her hands and knees down to get down in the dirt. Him and You looked down at Jane who looked up at them both like a dog who looks up when it wants to be fed and they both said, Which of us boys gets to be a dog first? You, You Know Who said, to Him. And you, she said, to You, you get to be a dog next with me. When Him saw that You did not seem to mind which of them got to be a dog first, he dropped down on his hands and knees down in the dirt next to Jane’s place in the dirt. Now, You Know Who told them, and she faced them off so that their faces faced off face to face in the dirt. Now it’s time, she said, to make like you’re two dogs who live out in the woods. So they did like You Know Who said they should do. They barked. They howled. They growled. They bared their fanged teeth. They pawed at the dirt with their hands. Good, You Know Who told them and she set her hand on the top of Him’s head. Now you, You Know Who said to Him, get back to the back of Jane’s back and stay there like a dog who’s told to stay. Him did like he was told. He crawled on his hands and knees to get to the back of Jane’s back. Him sat. Him stuck out his tongue and breathed. Jane turned her head back to see. What she could not see was when You Know Who shoved Him so hard that he came up and fell back down with his head on the back of Jane’s back. Him held on tight with his arms to the part of Jane that his hands could reach out and take hold of. Jane fell down face down in the dirt. As if to break her fall, Him’s face was there in the dirt by Jane’s ear. Jane could feel and hear Him’s warm breath come like a June wind in her ear. Him held Jane like this till Jane raised back up with her back. This was how the game was played. When it was You Know Who’s turn to fall face first down in the dirt with You pressed down on top of her back, You Know Who turned her face up quick so that her back hit the dirt first and she gazed up face to face with You’s face. If two dogs had lips and not just tongues to kiss with, this is what it, a dog’s kiss, would look like.

All this took its turn in June. Him and You, Jane and the girl known as You Know Who, they played these boy girl make like dog games when no one else was near to see them. They each took their turns, Him with Jane, Jane with You, You with You Know Who, You Know Who with Him, till June stretched thin and then turned to months that weren’t June. A year of not Junes yawned by. Then it was a month of June once more. The sky once more was the kind of a blue of a month of June kind of a sky. But then that June took You Know Who with it. Who knew where You Know Who had gone to. Not Him or You or Jane knew where the girl known as You Know Who had gone. She was just gone is all. Like a cloud that was there in the blue of the sky and then one day it was not. So then it was just the three of them now, just Jane with Him and You, which is how Jane liked it to be in the first place. That was how it was, with Him and You on their blue bikes, with Jane on the back of one blue bike, till the day they saw a girl who looked too much like You Know Who for this girl that they saw not to be her. But when they called out to this girl, Hey, You Know Who, it’s us, this girl who looked like You Know Who, this girl, she did not turn her girl head to these sounds. Hey, you, they all three called out to her twice more with a shout, till this girl said back to them Who and then What? Him and You pulled up with puffs of dust that rose up from the backs of their bikes. Where have you been? Him asked who he thought it was the girl they called You Know Who. I’m not who you think I am is what this girl said back. I don’t know who you three are. Jane said her name. My name is Jane is how Jane said it. And the girl said back, as if she’d not heard of this name till just now, Jane? I’m a Jane too. Jane? Could it be that there could be two Janes in our world? is what Him and You both at the same time thought. Him and You both said this name out loud in the dust that had now gone back to be with the dirt and like this they looked back and forth at these two girls. The Jane who had been the one Jane that Him and You till now had known said to this new Jane, We can’t both of us be Jane. So we’ll have to call you a name that is not Jane, Jane told her. I think we’ll call you what you look like to us. To us you look like a You Know Who Two. This You Know Who Two, as Jane had just named her, said to this new name, What’s in a name? She looked up at a tree. A tree is a tree, is what she then said. Call me what you want. We don’t name the sky. We don’t say the dirt is but the dirt. We just call it what it is. Him and You looked at the dirt and it was You who stepped up and said, to this new You Know Who Two, You know what? You’re right, You said. And so what I’d like to call you is Girl. Girl, since a girl is what you are. And so Him and You bobbed up and down their heads and Girl is what this new girl was named. But Jane said Wait, aren’t I a girl too? If she’s Girl what does that make me? You’re Jane, You said. That’s what you look like to us is how You put more of his own words to this. Jane gave this girl Girl a look. It was the kind of a look that said more than words said out of one girl mouth could say. What this look said was, You think you won. But I’m still here. We are not done with this game.

When Him asked Girl where it was she lived, Girl said in a boat is where she lived. On a boat, Jane said back. Not on, was what Girl said back to this. I said I lived in a boat. A boat where? was what Jane stepped in to say next to all of this. There’s no place in this town for a boat to be a boat on, no pond or lake to float a boat. The boat, Girl said to this, that I live on, Girl said, is just as much dirt as it is boat. It’s a boat up on land, is what this girl said. Hey, do you three want to go see it?

Him and You and Jane all three of them said all three at the same time, Yes, yes, yes we’d like to see it. We like boats, You said, me and him, You said, we do, when in truth not once had these boys set a foot on a boat. Him did not say a word to this, though with a nod of his head he too said: I like boats too.

What Jane said to this was, Fools, there’s no boat in a town where there’s no place for a boat to be a boat on.

Oh yeah, Girl said, then come see and I’ll show you how a boat don’t need a lake or pond for it to be what it is.

Girl took them, Him and You, by the hands and she led them on a path in the woods out on the edge of this town to where her boat was the place where she lived.

This path, through these woods, these two boys, Him and You, with the girl named Jane who kept two steps in back of these three, this path, in this town, not a one of them had set foot on. She called it, this path, this girl who led them on this path through the woods they now walked on, she told them, it was called, the dead man’s trail.

Why’s it called that? was the thing that You asked.

Why do you think? Jane said from the back, so that Girl would not have to, a man died here on this trail.

Wrong, Girl said. It was a boy, is what she said when she said it. It was a boy who drowned in the lake.

What lake? Him said. There’s no lake in this town.

But there was, Girl said back. Where these woods are we see, there was a lake here, Girl told them, where now all we see are trees.

How could what used to be a lake be what it is we see here as woods and trees? is what Jane said she’d like to be told.

It just did is what Girl told her. The lake, it dried up and the dirt and weeds rose up to take its place.

And the fish? Him asked. Where did all the fish go? was what Him said this to all of this. And when he said what he said a bird, it was blue, it flew down, out of the blue of the sky, as if to say, to what Him had just said, My old man, he was a fish.

He was a boy, the truth is, is what Girl then just said, and she did not mean the bird that had dived from the sky. He was just a boy, she went on, but that was all a long time back when he was just a boy who walked out in the lake and he did not come back.

Why don’t they call it, You said he’d like this to know, the dead man’s trail and not the dead boy’s?

What Girl said to this was this: that it’s not called the dead boy’s trail where this boy walked and this is why: that the dead boy’s ghost has all grown up now to be a dead old man with long white hair that sticks out on his old man head and on his face.

That ghost of an old man, Girl then said, he is the one who haunts this here trail that we’re on.

At night, she went on, in a voice like a bell whose sound you can’t help but turn to try to see it, if you stand here real still, you can hear his feet walk on this dirt that used to be, way back when, the mud that was the floor of a lake.

What you just said, Jane said back to this, is what it is how God looks, Jane said. This girl, Jane said, thinks God is a ghost.

God is a ghost, Girl said this to this. He lives in the trees. He’s the sound a tree makes when the wind blows to let us know look up and then like this you will see.

You can’t see the wind, Jane said to all of this.

See, Girl said. Look up.

And when she did, yes, the wind made the trees shake and the leafs that fell to the dirt at their boy and girl feet, these leaves, each one, each leaf took the shape of a fish.

The boat that Girl took them to, the boat that she said was the house that she lived in, it looked like a boat that had sunk. This boat in these woods that looked like it had sunk, it had a hole in its side so big you could walk through it, and so walk through it and in it, this big hole in its side, was what Girl did when she came up to it.

In it, this boat, there was a wood chair to rock back in and some rope that hung from its back and a steel pail for you to spit in but that was it that was in this boat. Jane sat down in the chair and rocked back and forth in it and asked Girl if the pail was for her to piss in. Girl did not say a word to this, but when Him asked what was the rope for Girl turned and she told him it was a rope to hang all of her dreams from.

Last night I had a dream, Him said to this. I dreamed, Him said, that I was a fish.

A fish, Jane said from the chair where she rocked. In a town with no lake or pond for a fish to live in.

What’s that mean? You said. To be a fish in a dream in a town with no lake or pond in it?

What it means, Jane said, is that what you want is to be in a town that is not the place where you live.

It means, Girl said, to all of this, that you dreamed you were a fish. That is it.

If I was a fish, Jane said. I’d not want to be here in a boat. A fish in a boat, Jane made it a point for her to make, is a fish that is soon to be dead.

Is soon to be dead such a bad thing to be?

Him and You and the girl named Jane all looked at Girl who was the one to say this.

It is, Jane said, if you want to grow up to be more than just a boy or a girl.

But what if what you want is to be a boy or a girl who does not grow up to be old?

Jane stood up from where she sat in Girl’s chair. Who would want that? was what she then said to this.

Girl raised up her hand to say that she would want that. And then the hands of Him and You said and did the same.

Jane’s hands stayed where they were, hung down like hooks by the sides of her young girl legs. The light hairs there raised up as if to reach out to be touched, to be felt, to be smoothed back down.

I have to get back home now, Jane now said.

Since when? Him then said.

Since you know when is when, Jane said.

Don’t you mean You Know Who?

No, Jane said. I said you know when, not you know who.

Who, Girl said then, is You Know Who? You is who, You said.

What?

You are who, you do, said Jane. You look like this You Know Who. That is who you do.

Says who?

Says me.

And you are who?

I am Jane is who.

Jane who?

I am Jane who wants to be more than just a girl is who.

Girl looked at this Jane who said that she was a girl who wants to be more than just a girl.

Girl shook her girl head at this girl whose name she said was Jane.

What Jane said to this is what a rock might say when a rock looks up to see a tree.

But how?

And then:

Why you?

And in the sky a bird flew through the too blue blue and it too, like the sky that it was blue like, it cawed: who, who, who.

Do not ask what kind of blue the sky was.

The sky was blue.

The sky was blue.

But still you do ask.

And so I’ll tell you.

The sky was sky blue.

The sky that was blue was a sea.

See the sky.

That’s what the bird says when it caws that sound and that word: who, who, who.

Jane is who.

Him is who.

You is who.

And Girl?

Girl is Girl is who.

And You Know Who?

You Know Who is just a girl who looked just like the girl who is known to us all as Girl.

Where is she now, this You Know Who?

Who knows.

Does You Know Who know where it is that she is or where it is she has been?

Who knows.

So where to now?

Or: where do we go from here?

You and Him and the girl named Jane will go, they will get took, to where it is that Girl will with her take them.

Let’s go, Girl said.

She turned, this girl.

She walked.

They watched her back.

Then they got back on their bikes.

Their bikes are blue.

Jane got too on the back of You’s bike.

They biked.

Him and You moved the wheels with their feet.

The wheels spun, round and round.

Round and round these four wheels go. They went.

Watch them as they go, as they went: these two boys on their bikes.

Down that road that was made out of dirt.

Up a hill they climbed and climbed.

At the top they took a look.

This was what they saw.

Trees, the woods, dirt where there once used to be a creek.

A sky that was the blue of the sea.

A house not theirs to live in.

A roof, a door, both black.

A bird that was blue in a tree.

Look there.

Girl stuck her arm up and out from where it touched the top of her knee.

They looked there to where her hand said to look.

They saw the sky, the trees, the dirt.

But this was not what Girl’s hand said for them to see.

What her hand could not tell them to see was what this all used to be.

This used to be a lake was what Girl told them to see. Here where we stand it used to not be this that we now see.

How would you know? was the thing that Jane asked to be told.

I read it in a book was what Girl said to this. And once I saw it now I see it at night when I shut my eyes to go to sleep. I dream this, each night, this lake that used to be here in this place. At night in my boat where I sit and rock in my chair to go to sleep I float out on that lake and like this I fish for fish in this lake, I talk to fish in this lake, the fish in this lake at night when I sleep, these fish talk back to me, the fish when I sleep and when I dream them like this they sing songs for me to sing. Out on this lake, at night, when I sleep, when I float here on my boat, I look down and I count these stars that I see that shine up from the sky that is this lake.

Your boat, Jane said, has a hole in its side so big it was like a door for us to walk in.

There’s a hole in the sky, I’m sure you have seen it, it’s a hole that is called the moon.

When she said what she said, Girl looked, with her head, at the blue where the moon, in the blue of the day’s sky, it was the ghost of a fish, it was full and like a fish eye it looked down on her. A hole, Girl laughed, a soft sort of laugh, in the side of a boat, it won’t sink that boat, not as long as the moon in the sky won’t let it.

What do we do now?

Like this they waited.

Like this they did do.

This then they did.

They watched.

The sky that was blue turned black.

The moon in the sky moved from one side to the next.

When the sun took its place the moon did not say a word.

When the sun rose so did the lake.

It was, the lake, the ghost of a dead man.

It rose from its dirt grave.

Like this the lake lived.

The lake took the place of the dirt and of the grass and the trees. It took its lake shape as it found its new place in this place that it used to be. It did not take no from the dirt when the dirt said to it, No, you can’t, or when the trees tried to tell it, You don’t live here, we do.

The moon, though no one here could see it, they all knew it was there, that it hid like a fish in the new day blue of the lake that rose up to meet and eat the sky.

At night they watched it, the moon, lift up in and be with the lake. Like a stone. Or a fish. It sang its new moon song. The stars did not move or dance, or at least not all at once.

One by one, the stars, all but one, burned out.

The one that was left, it did not fall. It stayed where it was.

It fell in love with what was left.