We Make Mud

Fish Heads

It was a good day of us brothers fishing. It was always a good day of us brothers fishing whenever us brothers went down to the river to go do us our fishing. It was a good day of us brothers going down to the river to go do us our fishing even when us brothers didn’t catch us many or any of those dirty river fish that live in the dirty river that runs through this dirty river town. But this day was not one of those days of us brothers not catching us many or even any fish. This day, us brothers, we fished out of the dirty river that runs through this dirty river town more fish than us brothers, with our mother and our father both sitting down at the table with us brothers, we caught us brothers more fish this day than the four of us in our house could in one sitting sit down and eat. It was one of those kinds of fishing days, that day, down at the river that day. Our buckets, that day, they couldn’t hold down inside of them all of our dirty river fish. Us brothers, we had to twice run down, with our buckets, back down to the dirty river that runs through this dirty river town for us brothers to bring back up to the back of our backyard all of that day’s dirty river catch. But the trouble, that day, with all of this was this: that when we got back to the back of our backyard that day with our buckets twice filled up to their muddy brims with fish, us brothers, we couldn’t find where our fish-cutting knives were that we used to gut and to cut off the heads off of our fish. Our fish-cutting, fish-gutting knives, they were nowhere to be, by us brothers, found. Us brothers, we usually kept these knives that were ours down inside the front pockets of the muddy-kneed trousers that us brothers always pulled on us in the morning. But when we fished our boy hands down inside of our trouser’s pockets, all we fished back up into our fists was the lint at the bottoms of these pockets. There was enough lint between us brothers, in our fists, that day, for us brothers to fly a kite with. But us brothers, we didn’t want us to fly us a kite that day. What us brothers wanted to do, that day, was we wanted to do with our fish what we always did with our fish. Us brothers, once we fished these fish that were ours out of the dirty river that runs through this dirty river town, we liked to take these fish out back to the back of our backyard, out back to where there was a telephone pole back there, back behind our father’s shed, that was studded with the chopped off heads of fish. Each fish, each fish head, us brothers, we gave each one a name. Not one was named Jimmy or John. Jimmy and John was mine and my brother’s name. We called each other Brother. Brother, Brother said, when we both of us looked and saw that both of us could not find inside of our trouser’s pockets our fish-cutting knives. What are we going to do? Brother said. How, was what Brother wanted to know, are we going to gut and cut off the heads off of our fish? When Brother said what he said, about our knives and our fish, I gave Brother a look. There was this look that us brothers, we sometimes liked to look at each other with this kind of a look. It was the kind of a look that actually hurt the eyes of the brother who was doing the looking. Imagine that look. Look, I told Brother this. Brother, look inside. Brother turned, then, when he heard what I said, and he went inside our house, in through the back door, and into our mother’s kitchen, to go looking inside there to see if he could find us our fish-gutting, fish-head-cutting knives. When Brother came back outside, a little while later, Brother was holding in both of his boy hands the kind of a knife that you use to butter your bread with. Brother, I said to Brother. Hold out your hands, I told him. Hand me over those knives. Brother did just like I told. We were brothers. We were each other’s voice inside our own heads. And so I took those knives out from Brother’s held-out hands, and then I threw them, hard and down, so that both of these knives stuck themselves down into the ground’s not-so-hard dirt. You can’t cut off a fish’s head, I said to Brother, with this kind of a knife, I said. That would take us all day was what I told him. Brother looked, then, and said to this, then, Brother, what’s the hurry? I looked back at Brother, once again, with our look. I looked him all over with this look. Brother, I said to Brother. Come with me, I said. And I walked my brother out back to the backest part of our backyard, out back to where our fish, our fish heads, they were with their open mouths, their open eyes, they were singing to us brothers. Brother, I said to Brother. Open up your mouth, I told Brother. Brother did like I told. We were brothers, remember. We were each other’s voice inside our own heads. Now, close your eyes shut, I told Brother this. And here again, Brother did what he was told. Good, Brother, I said. Brother did not, with his eyes closed shut like this and with his mouth opened up wide, see me reach my hand into one of our buckets and fish me out one of our fish. I held this fish, fish-head first, out toward my brother. Then I stuck that fish into Brother’s open mouth. Like this, fish after fish, opening and closing his mouth like this, Brother, us brothers, we chopped off these fishes’ heads.