The Fish and the Not Fish

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It starts in the dark and ends in the not dark. In the dark, when it starts, the sky is black. Though the sky is black, the stars stick out from the dark as if they too are a part of and come from the not dark. In the not dark, the stars take leave with the dark. The sun in the not dark lifts up out of the dark and shines its not dark light on all that it sees and all that sees it shine. The sky, in the not dark, is blue. There is no word to say what I see when I say those words, The sky, in the not dark, is blue. This blue that I say that I see in the sky, it is not just blue, it is not just light blue, it is not just what is by some called sky blue. There has got to be a word out there in the world to say what the sky is when I say that it is blue, but if there is such word, out where in the world, I don’t know where, I don’t know of it, this word, or where it could be. What is, in the not dark, it is not what it is in the dark. In the not dark, the not dark makes what takes place in the dark and makes it not seem to be what it was, or what it is, once the not dark comes to take its place. This is what takes place in the not dark when no one else is there to see what it is. In the dark, I want you to see, there is the man and there is the not man. The not man sleeps in her bed where the man is not in it and when the not man is not there to be a man in that bed. Where the man is when he is not in this bed is he is in some man place where men like to be. Such a place as this is the place where the man likes to go to drink the drinks he likes to drink. Most nights it is beer that the man likes to drink when he goes off to a place such as this, but some nights he comes home with a smell of what the not man knows is a thing called gin that is the smell of his breath. When the man comes home with the smell of beer and of smoke and of gin on his breath, the not man knows not to wake up. She’ll lie in the dark with her eyes shut to the dark and hope that the man will go, will get, will go back out. Out where? The not man does not care where. Back to that man place for all the not man could care. Or just out in the dark where the air is cold and the smell of his man breath can be breathed out in the dark and be smelled by just the moon and the stars and a sky that, when the moon and stars are not to be seen up in it, it is hard on nights like these to see it: to see where the dark ends and where the sky starts and it’s hard to tell, in the dark, which is which. The not man knows this: that the man’s bad breath can touch the dark but that it will not reach the sky. She is sure of this. She is as sure of this as she is sure that the sun at dawn means that there is where the east is. East is where the sky’s first not dark takes the place of the dark. East too is where the sky’s first dark takes the place of the not dark. The not man’s eyes take note of this on those days when the man is gone and these are the days when the not man has time to stop and look and watch the world go by and the world that is dark and the world that is not dark takes both its dark and its not dark shape. The trees in the dark are not the same trees that they are in the not dark. In the not dark the trees get in the way of the sky’s sky blue. In the dark the trees are a part of the sky that is there in and is what it is in the dark. And then there are those days when the man is not gone and the man in there in the house with the not man and in with the dark that ends when the not dark starts seems not to leave from its place. The man in the not dark is dark. The man that is in the dark is the same as the man that is there in the not dark. In the not dark the not man can see more than just the shape of the face of the man who is there in the not dark. In the not dark the man has eyes that are small and a nose that is long and thin and a mouth with lips that are pulled tight to make like the line of a scar. In the dark this scar is used by the man as a kind of a knife to cut through to the place where the not man’s skin, it is a hole through which words are fed in through to. In this dark the not man eats of these man sounds that come to her through the dark and she takes them in her and makes them to be a ball of string for her to knit with. In the not dark the not man wakes to a sky that is blue and sits in a chair that is faced out to face the trees that are there in the not dark. Like this she sits and moves her fists and rocks back and forth till in her hands the strings in her hands are made to be a rope. This rope, this not man, she takes this rope and in the room where the man is in that place where he has gone to sleep, the not man takes this rope and twists it and ties it so that it is a rope that is a loop round this man’s neck. She waits like this in the not dark of this room for the man and his man eyes to wake up. When his eyes look to see what is to be seen here in this room of the not dark, the not man will pull back tight with her not man hands till the rope goes tight and till the man’s man face turns as blue as the not dark’s sky.

I. DEAD DOG SLEEPS

Dead Dog is not dead.

Dead Dog just makes like he is dead.

Don’t let this dog fool you like he once fooled the both of us.

Look here.

Dead Dog sleeps.

Dead Dog sleeps by the side of the road.

Dead Dog could sleep on the road, or in the road, if on the road was where Dead Dog would want to sleep the sleep of sleep.

It has been days since we saw this road we walk down with a car that drove down on it.

Come on, Dead Dog, we say, but this dog does not lift his dog head.

Dead who? asks Boy.

Boy is not one of us.

Boy is just this kid who likes to walk where we like to walk, who likes to go where us boys like to go.

Us boys, we don’t like to go home.

We don’t like to go home to where our house is, to where it is we live with that man that we like to call Man.

Do not think that this man who we like to call Man is the man who gave us boys our name.

This man is not that man.

This man is just the man who took us in when the man who was the man who gave us our name told us that he had to get, that he had to go, and then he left and we have not seen or heard from that man not once since.

Us boys, we were both of us six back then, that day, back when that man who gave us our names up and left.

Now we are six more than that.

That makes twelve.

That man who up and left us, that man who went, who said he had to get, we think he is a man who is dead.

Or at least he is a man who is dead to us.

Us boys, we don’t like to look back.

We don’t say or ask the sky why did this man who gave us our name turn his back and leave us.

That was then is all we say.

We are big boys now.

Us boys, watch us walk down this made out of dirt road and watch us as we kick at the dirt of the road and watch us as we watch the puffs of road dust rise up from our worn through to the toes boots.

For us to walk down the road like this is what we like to do for kicks.

Dust, us boys, is what we like to kick up.

Dirt, us boys, we like to take the dirt up in our hands and rub the dirt on and in our skin.

This man that we call Man does not mind it much what we like to do with our dirt.

This man has got his own things to keep his mind mad on like the wife that he took in who does not like to cook or keep clean the house.

Man’s wife, we do not call her Mam or Ma.

Man’s wife is not so old to be a mam or a ma to us.

This wife of Man’s, she is more of a girl to boys like us.

Which is why us boys we like to call Man’s wife Girl.

Girl, we say, to Man’s wife. Want to come with us boys for a walk out through the woods?

The woods is where us boys most of the time like to go to when we get it in us to get up and go.

We go to the woods.

In the woods there are birds for us boys to throw rocks at, there are trees for us boys to up and climb.

Up at the tops of our climbed up trees we can see all the way up to where town is, to where town used to be.

Town is just this turn in the dirt road where the dust in this road turns west.

When we go to town, we like to take this turn and walk off toward the sun.

One time, us boys, we walked and we walked and we did not stop our gone to town walk till the sun left us to be boys who did not fear the dark that was, we knew, the night’s night black sky.

When it got to be dark, the stars shined down a light down on our heads and we stood and we stood and we looked and that whole night long, that was all that we did for all of that night’s long.

We looked up and we looked up and we looked up.

Each star, that night, in the sky that we saw as we looked up and looked up, us boys, we gave each star a name.

Not one of these stars did we give the name Jim or John, which is what is us boys’ real names.

Jim and John are not the names that we like to say when we need to say hey, look, or hey, bro, let’s go.

We like it best when we call out to each of us boys the word Kid.

Kid is the word Man likes to call out to us boys when he calls out to us to come here.

But we did not do it is what us boys all the time like to say to Man when we hear him call out to us this word Kid.

Man likes for us boys to hold tight the things that he can’t hold when both of his man hands are tied up and full.

Hold this nail, Man likes to tell us.

Hold for me like this this here piece of wood.

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.

II. DEAD DOG BARKS

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.

III. DEAD DOG EATS

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.

Us boys, we look down at this bone that used to be some boy’s head.

Dead Dog’s tongue, Dead Dog sticks it out at the both of us.

Dead Dog gives us boys both a look that looks like to us that what this look says to the both of us is that Dead Dog has just looked at us like he would like to eat us.

We look back at Dead Dog and we cross our eyes down at this dog to say to Dead Dog, Dead Dog, you best take back that look.

What Dead Dog does when we look at Dead Dog with this look is, Dead Dog starts to bark.

Don’t you bark at us, Dog, we say.

Hush, Dog, we both of us hiss.

We gave you a home, we tell him.

If Boy was here, we say, but we do not say what we know Boy would do.

If Man was here, we say, but we do not say what we know Man would do.

Our hands, we do know this, they are balled up to make us four fists.

But Dead Dog, us boys, no, we do not with our fists hit.

Us boys, we are not boys that like to hit or kick dogs.

There are boys, we know, who are boys who do like to hit and kick dogs.

Boy is one of those boys.

A boy that likes to hit a dog when he is a boy grows up, we know, to be a man like Man is.

Us boys, we do not want to grow up to be the kind of man that Man is.

So what we do then so that we don’t have to hit Dead Dog for the look and the bark that he has looked and barked at us with is, we take hold of one of those bones from down in Dead Dog’s hole and we give it a throw and tell Dead Dog to go fetch.

Dead Dog does like he is told.

Dead Dog, he is a good dog.

When Dead Dog goes to go fetch the bone that we have just thrown for him to go fetch, us boys, we jump down in this hole that Dead Dog has just dug and one of us boys takes in his hand the bone that we know is the head bone.

The skull, Boy might call it.

One of us boys then takes it up in his hand a bone that looks like it must be a leg bone.

This bone that looks like it must be a leg bone, it is as long as the legs of the both of us.

This bone that looks like it must be a leg bone, when the one of us boys takes it up in his hands, it feels like the kind of a a thing that when you hold it in your hands, this thing, it is a thing meant to hit with.

When Dead Dog comes back with this bone that us boys have thrown him, a bone that looks like a big tooth that it sticks out from the sides of his mouth, we tell Dead Dog to sit.

Dead Dog does what we tell him.

Dead Dog sits.

Dead Dog sits and Dead Dog waits for us boys to tell him what to do for us next.

Dead Dog, we know, has hopes that us boys will throw him a bone for him to fetch it.

This is what we do.

We throw it, this bone, as hard as a boy like us can throw a bone like this at the sky.

Dead Dog, we say. Go fetch it.

Like this, Dead Dog is a dog that goes go fetch.

Then, like this, one of us boys says for one of us to hit this, and we throw up the head bone up in the air.

One of us boys takes the bone that is the bone that is meant, it feels like to us, like it is made for us to hit with, and he hits at this bone that is pitched up like this up in the air.

This bone that is the head, it floats there in the sky that is a mix of blue and brown, sky and dirt, and it waits for us to hit it.

When bone hits bone, both of these bones break the way that dirt breaks up and then it turns to dust.

In a cloud of dust made from the dirt, Dead Dog comes back at a run back to where we are both of us.

Stop, we say to Dead Dog.

Drop it, we say.

Dead Dog does what we say.

Dead Dog stops and Dead Dog drops the bone that sticks out like a tooth from the sides of his dog mouth.

Then this dog gives us this look.

It is the kind of a look that says to us boys, What should I do next?

Us boys, we do not say to this dog a word of what to do next.

What we do do is this.

We drop down on our hands and knees, down in the dirt, and like this, us boys, with Dead Dog in the dirt with us, we drop down with our heads and start to eat.

IV. DEAD DOG RUNS

Dead Dog likes to run.

When Dead Dog is not a dog that likes to sleep, or a dog that likes to dig holes by the side of the road, Dead Dog runs.

Dead Dog runs from the hands of us boys.

He runs out to and through the back of the yard where the back of the yard turns to woods and then he runs out to and through the woods to where town used to be a town.

These days, town is just this bend in the road where, us boys, we walk right through it.

There are days when Dead Dog does not stop when he starts to run this run that is Dead Dog’s.

There are days when we don’t see Dead Dog for days, he has run so far out to and through the woods and out to where the woods that he runs through takes him.

Have you seen Dead Dog? one of us boys will ask.

We both of us shake our boy heads.

What day is it?

The boy in us boys does not know the name of the day it is.

All we do know is this: Dead Dog will be back.

One of these days, Dead Dog, he will be a dog who will come at a run back to us boys. He will run back to us boys from down the road that runs its way out to where town used to be, or else he will run back to us boys from where the woods is.

That one of these days, it is the day that it is right now.

Hey, Dead Dog, we say when we see Dead Dog come back from where this dog has gone off to.

Dead Dog runs up to us boys and he licks at us on our face.

Then Dead Dog sits down and he licks and licks at his butt.

We wipe at the spot on our face where Dead Dog has just licked and licked twice.

Dead Dog, we say.

Get.

Get out.

Go.

Run, we say.

We raise our hands up to make them to be four fists.

Dead Dog looks up at us boys and then he gets, he goes, he runs.

He runs out back and back to where the dirt turns to woods.

We don’t see his dog face back for days and days.

When he comes back, Dead Dog goes and he lays down where the dirt kicks up with dust.

Dead Dog, we say.

Come, we say.

When he hears this, Dead Dog, he comes.

He comes with his head turned down to where what he sees is the dirt of the earth.

Dead Dog, we see, walks with a limp in one of his front legs.

We see that it’s Dead Dog’s right front leg that is the leg that is the one that makes Dead Dog walk like he is a dog that has walked with his paws through glass.

There is blood, we see, on his right paw.

Us boys, we set to fix it up right.

We pour some of Man’s booze that we can see through out of the jug that Man likes to lift up to his lips.

Us boys, we like to watch Man lick his lips when he lifts this up to his lips.

It makes us think of when Dead Dog leans back and licks at his own butt.

If Man could, too, he would, too, one of us boys likes to be the one of us who says this.

The boy who does not say this can’t help but laugh and laugh out loud.

When we laugh out loud like this, Dead Dog likes to bark.

Hush up, Dead Dog, us boys hiss.

Man looks out from our house from right to left.

Who’s there? the man that he is says this.

Just us, we tell him.

Don’t you boys got things to do? he says. Don’t you boys got some place to go?

So we go.

We go take Dead Dog for a dog’s walk.

Come on, Dead Dog, we say.

We tell this dog, It’s time to go.

Dead Dog looks up at us boys as if to say that he’s just gone. Bones, we say to this look. Let’s go look for some bones.

When Dead Dog hears this, he runs with no limp in his front leg to be with the both of us.

His dog tongue hangs from his dog mouth like the wing of a bird that is too dead for it to fly.

We walk to where the woods is.

We walk in and through the woods.

There are trees here in these woods that are dead.

There are trees here in these woods that are like drums when you hit them with your fists.

These trees make a sound.

There are some trees here that make us think of ghosts.

There are some trees here that make us think of bones.

We find bones to things that have, for a long long time now, been a long time dead.

Deer and coon, dog and bird.

We find more bones than Dead Dog could, in his whole dead dog life, chew and chew and then dig a hole down in the dirt to put all of these bones down in.

Where’d all these bones come from? one of us boys will ask the boy who is slow to ask this.

We look up at the sky as if to check the gray for rain.

There’s been no rain round here for days, weeks, years.

Once, so we have heard it said, there was a lake out here where now there is just dirt and stones.

Looks like it rained down bones, is all we can say to what we see.

Dead Dog, we then say.

We call these words out, Look here.

We lick our boy lips.

Dead Dog lifts his head to howl.

Dead Dog howls.

Hear this dog sound.

Then look it here.

See us boys bend down to touch the dirt of the ground. We do more than just touch it.

We bring up bones up to touch our lips and we all three of us, like this, we start to eat.

We eat and we eat and we do not stop till these bones in our hands turn to dust.

V. DEAD DOG SLEEPS

Dead Dog has got bugs.

Up and down his back and down and up his dead dog tail, Dead Dog is all bit up.

Bugs, Man says when we tell him that Dead Dog’s got this itch.

Ticks is what he tells us.

Fleas is one of the words that Man says to this.

Dead Dog gnaws at these bugs and he nicks with his teeth at these ticks and these fleas in his Dead Dog sleep.

Dead Dog can’t sleep.

The itch and the bite of the fleas and ticks up and down the back of Dead Dog’s back keeps Dead Dog up at night and all through the night.

At night, and all night long, us boys, we hear Dead Dog itch.

There is a sound that Dead Dog makes when he turns back his dog head and with his teeth and tongue Dead Dog does what he can to get these bugs to go live on some dog that is not Dead Dog.

But us boys, we don’t know of a dog in these woods or in this town that is a dog that is not Dead Dog.

Dead Dog is the one dog for miles and miles for bugs like these bugs to live on and live off of.

This is not good news for Dead Dog.

Some nights, when we can’t sleep, we get up and we give Dead Dog a bath.

We wet Dead Dog up and down with pails that we dip out back in the creek that runs out back of our house and then, with our boy hands thick with mud, we scrub.

We scrub and we scrub and we do not stop till the bugs on Dead Dog’s back have been scrubbed and run off free.

The creek that runs out back of our house that us boys dip our pails in and the pails that we dump and wash Dead Dog’s back and head with, it is the cold of this creek that makes Dead Dog shake.

But just as soon as Dead Dog is shook all dry, Dead Dog starts in with his teeth and with the nails on his back paws to claw at the bugs that are back to make him itch.

The soap and the suds and the creek, we see, it did not do what we wished it would do to the bugs that live and itch on this dog’s back.

So we do next what Man told us to do with this dog when we told Man that Dead Dog has got this itch.

Dirt is what this man said.

We take up in our hands and we fill them up to the wrists of us with dirt.

Us boys, we take hold of Dead Dog by the fur that is not yet dry and we rub him up and down and down to his bit up skin till Dead Dog looks like a dog that is made out of dirt.

Just the whites of Dead Dog’s dead dog eyes shine out from all of this dirt and from out of the dust that this dirt likes to make.

Us boys, we cough with our mouths and we rub with our thumbs at our eyes, this air is so thick with dust.

In the dust we stand and wait and watch to see if the dirt has worked the way that the soap and its suds did not.

Dead Dog just stands there with us on all four of his dirt caked legs and we see that he does not turn back with his dog head and reach back with his nails to scratch and bite and claw at the bugs that have bit him all up and down his tail and back.

Dirt, one of us boys points out.

We say this word twice.

Us boys, we look back and forth at the each of us and we both make like we are dogs.

We drop down on our hands and knees down in the dirt and we roll our boy selves round and round in the dirt.

We are boys, we are dogs, at one like this with the dirt.

In this dirt, and with Dead Dog with us, we all three of us lift our eyes up to the sun in the sky, this sun that makes dirt out of mud.

Dirt, one of us says.

Sun, one of us says.

Dead Dog does not itch.

Like this, with our faces turned back to face the earth, us boys, at long last, we go, we fall, we curl up our knees, with Dead Dog stretched out in the dirt with us. Like this, we sleep the sleep that would make a bird up in the sky think that all three of us were, like this, face down in the dirt like this, you too, to you, you would think this too, that the three of us face down in the dirt like we are, that what we are is dead.

But we are not dead.

We live.

We live to kiss the earth.

VI. DEAD DOG WALKS

Look here.

Dead Dog is not dead.

Us boys, we are not dead too.

We live.

We get up on our knees and we get up on our feet and like this we start to walk.

We walk.

And then we walk.

In the dust and the sun and through the woods to get to where town used to be, us boys, with Dead Dog on all fours with us, we walk.

The earth we walk on is made of rock and dirt.

The road we walk on to get to where town is, it too is made of rock and dirt and dust.

Us boys, we make dust when we, like this, with Dead Dog on all fours with us, walk.

The dust and the road and the sun in the sky, they walk with us to where town is.

We walk to where town is so that we can see a face that is not ours.

When we get to where town is, to where town used to be, there is not a face for us to see that is not ours.

There is not a boy face or a dog face that is not Dead Dog’s for us to see.

The only face we see is Death’s.

The face of Death.

Death’s face.

Death was a man who lived in the town where the road took us to when it took us from where we lived, out in the woods, to where town was, to where town used to be.

It was Dead Dog who was the one of us who took us to the house where Death lived.

Death lived.

Death was not dead.

Death lived in a house that was made out of wood, with a roof and with floors and with smoke that rose up from the hole in the roof where there was a fire that Death liked to sit in front of and with his hands and with his breath he would stoke it.

What Death’s house did not have was a door.

Where a door should have been there was just this hole in the wall for us to walk on through it.

Death lived in this house with no door on it with no one else but his dead self to live with.

Death was fat.

Death was so fat that had a door been on the front of this house Death would not have fit through it.

Death was that fat.

Death was a fat man with a gut full of death fat.

He looked like he just ate, like he just ate a whole cow, or a whole barn, or a whole town.

That’s how fat Death was.

When us boys, with Dead Dog on all fours, walked in through the hole that was the door to Death’s house, the first thing Death asked us was did we think he was fat.

We shook our heads.

Death took his big fat gut in his fat hands and held it as if to keep it so that the fat of him would not fall off it.

Then Death told us boys to sit.

We did what Death told.

We sat.

Death sat down with us too.

We sat down in chairs that looked like they would have a hard time if Death sat down in them.

Dead Dog sat down with us too.

Good Dog, we said to Dead Dog.

It had been a long walk from the woods to the town to get to Death’s house.

So we all three of us sat down to face Death.

We did not fear Death.

So what if we were in the house of Death?

We lived, we spent our nights with Man.

We were used to what could take place when our eyes were closed up tight to shut out the dark.

We looked at Death’s face.

Death’s face looked like it was made out of mud, or like a lump of raw dough that had not been baked to make bread.

The face of Death was all fat.

It was hard for us to see Death’s dead eyes.

Death’s nose was more of a flap in the fat of Death’s fat face.

Death’s mouth was a dark hole in his head where Death liked to shove in food through.

Death tried to stand up.

He took hold of his gut and tried to push up.

But he could not get his dead self up.

So us boys, we each of us gave Death a hand up.

Death took hold of us by our boy hands and Death stood up.

Death thanked us for this.

Then Death tried to eat us.

We let go of Death’s hands and we ran.

We ran out through the front hole in Death’s house and then we ran back to and through the woods.

Just once we both of us stopped and we both of us looked back.

It looked to us like Death was stuck in the hole that was the door to Death’s house.

Death raised up his right hand.

You boys come back real soon, you hear, Death called out. Us boys, we did not say that we would not. We both knew that we would. So what if Death tried to eat us?

He’d have to catch us first.

Death would have to come to our house in the woods at night for him to eat us up.

Death, it looked like to us, was a cork stuck in the door that was a hole in the front of Death’s own house of death.

VII. DEAD DOG SITS

When Death tried to eat us, Dead Dog did not get up like us and run.

Dead Dog stayed right where he was.

Dead Dog sat where he sat when Death told us all to sit.

So we get it in us to get back up and go and run back to go back to Death’s house.

To get us Dead Dog back.

When we get to Death’s house, Dead Dog sits up when he sees us.

Dead Dog, we see, is not a dog that is dead.

Dead Dog is not a dog that Death ate up.

We feared this in our heads that this was what Death would do to Dead Dog when Dead Dog did not like us get up and run.

I’m so glad to see that you boys came back is what Death says to us when he sees that we are back.

Give us back our dog, we say.

Take him, Death tells us.

Death says, This dog’s a free to go dog.

Come, Dead Dog, we say.

We say, It’s time to go back home.

But Dead Dog does not come when we call him.

Dead Dog sits right where he is next to Death.

When Dead Dog sits and does not get up to go, the fat on Death’s face flips and rolls with what us boys know is a smile.

Would you boys care to join me for lunch? Death asks us.

We ate, we say, though this is not true.

I can hear what is in us, what is in our own guts, what is not in there, it growls when Death says the word lunch.

It’s been three days since us boys have put food in our mouths that is not made of bone or dirt.

There is a smell here in Death’s house that smells like feet.

We look at Death’s face.

We watch him lick his lips.

It’s your loss, Death says.

Death says to us, It’s your choice.

If you change your minds, Death tells us.

We take hold of Dead Dog by the scruff of fur on the back of Dead Dog’s neck.

We give Dead Dog a pull for the hole that is the door to Death’s house.

Dead Dog turns his head and takes a snap at the hand that he knows that this hand, it is not the hand that feeds him.

Dead Dog looks like the kind of a dog that is fed food spooned out of a tin can.

Death’s house, it seems to us, has been good to Dead Dog.

Dead Dog’s fur shines black like the back of a bird’s black wing.

Hey, Dog, we say to Dead Dog.

We say, Don’t you know who we are?

We lift up our hands.

Our hands curl up to make four fists.

We tell this dog of ours, No.

No bite.

Dead Dog growls at us boys to step back.

We take two steps back.

Good dog, Death says to Dead Dog.

Sit, Death says.

Dead Dog sits.

Us boys, we look back at Death.

At Death’s face.

Fat face, one of us says so that it is just us who can hear it.

We’ll be back, we say.

I’m sure you boys will, Death tells us.

We turn to leave.

We make our way for the hole in the wall that is the door to Death’s house.

Death says, with the fat on his fat death face rolled up to form a grin, Don’t let the door hit you on your way out.

VIII. DEAD DOG SLEEPS

That night, we go back to the house of Death.

To go and get Dead Dog back.

To go and save Dead Dog from Death.

We go up slow on the tips of our boot toes to look in through the hole that is the door to the house that is Death’s.

We see that Dead Dog is curled up at the foot of Death’s bed.

Here, Dead Dog sleeps.

The fat on Death’s fat face puffs up and it puffs out when Death in his dead man’s sleep breathes in and then breathes back out the breath that is the breath of Death.

The breath of Death smells like feet do when you take off your boots to let your feet breathe at night.

It is night right now and all we can see is a dark that makes us boys think of death.

Of things that are dead in the night.

There are ghosts in these woods that at night make sounds that some folks say are the sounds that trees make when the wind blows through their leaves.

Us boys know that these sounds that we hear in the woods at night are not the sounds that trees make when they are blown here and there and back and forth in the night’s breeze.

We have seen, at night, and with our own boy eyes, what us boys know are ghosts.

But we don’t call these things that we see ghosts.

We call them Death.

There are nights when Death walks through these woods on the look out for things like us to eat.

When we sleep, on nights like this, we sleep with our arms crossed on top of our chests.

We can feel the beat of our hearts beat and beat hard with our wrists.

When Dead Dog used to sleep by the foot of our beds, there was no need for us to not sleep.

If Death walked in our room, Dead Dog would have been sure to wake us.

Dead Dog would take a big bite out of Death’s big butt.

But that was then.

And now is now.

Now Dead Dog sleeps by the foot of Death’s bed.

What are boys like us to do?

Us boys, let us tell you what boys like us are to do.

We have got to go and get back Dead Dog from Death.

We have got to go back to town to where Death’s house is and we’ve got to steal back Dead Dog from Death.

Which is why us boys are here right now like we are at the door to the house of Death.

Dead Dog, we hiss, through this hole in the wall in this house where Death lives with no dog that is his own to keep watch with.

To this hiss, Dead Dog does not lift up his head.

Dead Dog looks like he is dead.

Us boys, we know that this dog is not dead.

Don’t let this dog fool you like he once fooled the both of us.

One of us boys picks up a rock with his hand and throws it so that it hits Dead Dog right in his dog head.

One of Dead Dog’s eyes lifts up.

One of Dead Dog’s eyes stays shut.

The eye that sees us, we can see that it sees it is us.

Then it shuts back up.

So one of us boys picks up a rock that is twice as big as the first rock was and we throw it so that it hits Dead Dog right in his gut.

The bones in Dead Dog’s gut stick out like the bones that you see in things that sit on the side of the road dead.

But like we’ve said, this dog is not dead.

When this rock hits Dead Dog right in his gut, Dead Dog makes a sound with his mouth that is a yelp.

Or like this sound is a cry from the mouth of Dead Dog for Death to come help.

Death just sits there like a lump of dirt in this chair that looks like this is the day it is now to break.

Don’t break, we say to this chair.

Don’t wake up Death.

This chair does what we tell it.

It holds up all of that fat that is this man that we call Death.

On the tips of our toes, us boys, we walk past Death.

When we walk past Death, Death makes a sound with his mouth that makes it known that the sleep that he sleeps is deep.

This is the kind of sleep that we call the sleep of death.

Or so we think.

Death is up and is up on his feet when we make our way back past him.

You boys back for some more of Death, Death says to us, and his lips flick up to form a grin.

We’re just here to take back our dog, we say to Death.

Who’s here to stop you? Death says to us back.

When Death says these words to us, Death shrugs so that his head shrinks back up in the skin that is Death’s neck.

Not me, says Death.

You can see that there’s no leash round this dog’s neck.

Death is right.

Dead Dog is not the kind of a dog that you have to leash.

Death knows that dogs like Dead Dog have got no need to be chained up on a leash.

Dead Dog is a dog that comes when he is called.

But Dead Dog does not come for us now.

Not till Death says to Dead Dog, Go, dog, go home, get.

Dead Dog gets up and then like this he came.

We take Dead Dog home.

We walk with Dead Dog down the road through town and back through to where the road through town turns to woods.

We do not see a face that is not the face of one of us.

The sky we look up at is dark.

The stars we see do not shine.

There is no moon for the clouds to hide in.

All that we see as we walk through town is the dark that we know is Death.

IX. THE KISS OF DEATH

When we got back to our house, Man and Girl were both in their beds dead.

Us boys, we both knew what to do with Man now that Man was dead.

With Man, we would dig a big hole out back of the house to put him in and then we’d put the dirt back up on top of him till our eyes could not see the face that was the face of Man.

It was a face we would not miss.

But Girl, the way that she looked all dead in her bed, it made us boys want to kiss her.

We knew we would miss her so much.

So we kissed her.

When we kissed her, her girl eyes, both eyes at the same time, they looked up.

Girl sat up in her bed.

I had a bad dream, Girl said.

I dreamt I was dead, she said.

Well, you’re not dead now, we told her.

Who’s he? Girl said, and she wiped at her eyes when she saw the dead man in the bed next to hers.

He’s dead, we said.

We did not need to say a thing more about Man that that. Man was just a dead man now.

Girl got up and walked from the back part of the house up to the front.

It was not for her a far walk.

Girl walked slow.

She walked on the tips of her toes.

It was like she walked this way so she would not wake Man up.

We let her go.

We watched Girl light a fire in the place in the house where fires were lit to burn wood, to cook food, to boil things to drink.

Girl took up two stones in her hands and made a fire spark from where the two stones hit.

Us boys, we took Man by his feet and hands and we dragged him out back to the woods.

Out here, us boys, we dug Man a big hole.

This hole, it was so big that when us boys jumped down in it, we could not see out.

We climbed out and then we rolled Man down in it.

Man fell, face down, down in the dirt.

The moon in the sky, from this day on, Man would not see the moon eye to eye.

Us boys, we would see to this.

We filled in this hole with dirt.

When we were done, there was more dirt left than there was a hole to fill it in with.

There was a hump in the earth where Man was laid, face down, down in the dirt.

Us boys, we sat down right on top of this hump in the earth and we watched the sun come up.

Girl came out, to see us, to be with us, with two cups held in her girl hands.

Steam rose up from these two cups and curled up round Girl’s face.

For you, Girl told us.

Drink, she said, and she held out to us her two hands.

We each of us took from Girl’s hands a cup and raised it up to our lips.

What is this? one of us asked.

One of us said, It smells like death.

It is, Girl said.

And just like this, Girl turned back to be Death.

You tricked us, we hissed at Death.

We spit back out what was in our mouths.

You’re the ones who kissed me, Death said to this.

When Death said this to us, Death crinched up his dead lips.

Why don’t you boys give old Death here one more kiss?

Death shut his dead eyes tight and leaned in close to kiss us.

When he did, us boys, we ran back to our house.

Girl was back in her bed.

She was dead.

We kissed Girl right on her girl lips but she just stayed right where she was.

We did not want to dig a hole in the ground to have to put Girl down in it.

So what we did with Girl was this.

We let Girl lay dead in her bed.

Then we went to where the fire was and we took two sticks and stuck them in the fire till the fire lit up both of these sticks.

Then we went round the house and we touched these two sticks to the things in this house — the wood of the walls, the hay of our beds — that we both of us knew would burn good.

The bed that Girl lay dead in, this bed burned best of all.

We stood in the house and watched the fire rise up to take Girl in it till the smoke got too thick for us to see.

We walked out through the fire, with our hands on our eyes, and we walked back out to the woods.

The sun was up and on the rise now.

The moon was gone in the new day’s light.

We heard a bird, though we could not see it, sing out twice.

We heard too the hiss of fire.

We turned back one last time to take a last look back at our house as it got burned up.

When we looked back, what we saw was Death.

Death stood out back in the back of our house with a grin on his fat death face.

The fat on Death’s fat face made Death’s eyes look like two holes filled up with smoke.

There was a fire that burned in Death’s dead head.

There was a fire that burned in Death’s big fat gut.

Death held his big fat gut with his big fat hands and he laughed the laugh of Death.

The laugh of Death was like the sound that a dog makes when you take it by its tail and pull back on it hard to get it to come.

Death’s fat face got twice as fat when Death’s mouth cracked in half with the sound of this death laugh.

Then Death walked in, through the fire, in through the house, and ate up all that was left.