We Make Mud

Fish Heads: Revisited

Then there was the time, us brothers, we fished a fish out from the dirty river that runs its way through this dirty river town, and this fish, inside of this fish, when we stuck up our knives up inside of this fish, to gut the guts out of this fish, this fish, up inside of this fish, there was a fish head up inside of this fish with a rusty, bent-back nail running through this fish’s eye. This fish head is one of ours, was what I said to this. What Brother said back to this was, How do you know it’s one of ours? The nail, I said, to Brother saying this. How many fish heads in this world have a rusty, bent-back nail running through it? What Brother said back to this was, How many? I took hold of this fish with this fish head stuck up inside of it, and I held it up close for Brother to take a closer look. Look, I said. This here fish head stuck up inside of this here fish with this rusty, bent-back nail running through its eye, this is it, this is the only one, this is the one and only, this fish head, I’m telling you, this fish head, it belongs to us. Brother looked at this fish and then he looked at me back straight in the eye like I was a brother who was lying. Prove it, was what Brother said. Prove it? I said to Brother then. You want me to prove it to you that this fish head is one of ours? Brother nodded his boy head. I took this fish which had this fish head stuck up inside of it and I shook its fish tail in Brother’s face. You want me to prove it? I’ll prove it, I said. I said, to Brother then, Give me your hand, Brother. Brother did like I told. He held out his hand for me to take it. We were brothers. Up until now, we were each other’s voice inside our own heads. Good, Brother, I said. Us brothers, like this, hand in hand, we walked up away from the river back to our up-from-the-river house, then we walked out back into the back of our backyard. Out back in the back of our backyard, back here there was a telephone pole back here studded with the chopped off heads of fish. Look, I said to Brother, and I held his hand up against this fish-headed telephone pole. See that space right up there in the middle of all these other fish heads, I said. You see where that space is. There used to be a fish’s fish head up in there in that empty space. Brother looked but didn’t see what I wanted him to see. How do you know this? Brother said to this. Maybe you just think there used to be a fish’s fish head up there in that empty space. I held onto Brother’s hand then tighter than I’d ever held it before. I know it used to be there, I said, because I nailed it there myself. Just like this. And just like this, I reached back with my hammering hand, I raised back with my hammer, I drove a rusty, bent-back nail through Brother’s hand. Brother didn’t wince, or flinch with his body, or make with his boy mouth the sound of a brother crying out. Good, Brother, I said. I was about to hammer in another nail into Brother’s other hand when our father stepped out into the back of our backyard. Sons, our father called this word out to us. Us, our father’s sons, we turned back our boy heads toward the sound of our father. We waited to hear what words our father was going to say to us brothers next. It was a long few seconds. The sky above the river where the steel mill stood shipwrecked in the river’s mud, it was dark and quiet. Somewhere, I was sure, the sun was shining. You boys remember to clean up out here before you come back in, our father said to us then. Our father turned back his back. Us brothers turned back to face back with each other. I raised back the hammer. I lined up that rusted nail.