We Make Mud

Boy’s Tongue

One night, us brothers, we are down by the river that rivers its way through this dirty river town, fishing for the river’s dirty river fish, when up to us brothers walks that boy who, us brothers, we call this boy Boy — boy born without a tongue on the inside of his boy mouth, that boy Boy, he walks right up to us brothers and in his boy mouth, that hole in his face where Boy used to feed food into, that place where no words, only boy grunts, used to come grunting out of that grunty space, and down there, us brothers, we can see, when Boy opens up that hole of his opened wide open at us brothers, we see a tongue down there in the place where no tongue used to be. What’s that? Brother says. Where’d you get that? is what the both of us brothers want to be told. How, we say. When, we ask him. Who’d you get a tongue from? us brothers, with our mouths, we push with our own tongues this mouthful of words out. Like this, the both of us brothers, we poke around with our boy tongues down and around inside our own boy mouths, just to make sure that Boy did not take out our tongues from the insides of our mouths. I got it, Boy tells us, I took it, Boy says, and here he is a boy grinning back at us brothers with a big boy kind of a fish-kissing grin. I took it, I got it, I cut it out, Boy tells us, from the mouth, Boy says it, of a fish. A fish, us brothers say this fish word back down at Boy. What kind of a fish? is what we want to be told. Boy holds out his hands out in front of us brothers to show us what kind of a fish this fish was. It was a big fish is what Boy says to us brothers next. It was big, Boy says, and it was silver shining, he tells us, and when I held this fish up in my boy hands the scales from this fish stuck to and glittered back sparkly in my hands. Boy holds his hands up close to us brothers so we can see that his hands, it’s true, Boy’s hands: they look like they’ve been dipped in stars. Look with us at Boy. Us brothers, we have this look that we sometimes like to look at each other with. It’s the kind of a look that actually hurts the eyes of the brother who is doing the looking. Imagine that look. Come closer, us brothers, we say these words to Boy. Open up, we tell him. Let us take a look inside: to get us brothers a better look at that fish tongue down on the inside of your mouth. Just like this, to us brothers saying for Boy to do so, Boy does what he is told. This boy we call Boy, he takes two steps up closer to us brothers and then he opens up his boy mouth for us brothers to see inside. What we see, when we take this look close into Boy’s opened up mouth, we see a tongue down there inside of there that is moving around down there, it is flopping around in there, yes, just like a fish. Open wider now is what us brothers say next to this boy. Then, we say, wider, we say. Open up wide, we say, as wide as you can make your mouth go, we tell him. Here again, Boy does what he is told. Good, Boy, we say to Boy. Boy’s mouth, that hole in his face that he used to feed food into, that place where no words used to come mouthing out, it is opened up so wide now, for us brothers to see down inside it, that it is a hole that is swallowing up whole the head that is this boy’s whole boy head. Boy’s head, it is more of a hole right now than it is a head right now, and Boy, this boy with his mouth opened up wide, he is making sounds come out of this hole in his face, this space with that fish’s tongue flopping around down inside it, and this sound, us brothers realize then, it is the sound of a fish that is a fish that it, this fish, it can sing. This fish’s fish tongue down inside of Boy’s opened up mouth, it is the tongue of a singing fish, and this boy Boy, he is now no longer just a boy, but he is a boy who can sing. Sing, this boy, he is a singing boy, this boy is. And us brothers, hearing these singing sounds coming out from Boy’s wide open mouth, we look at each other with that look. There is that look that us brothers sometimes like to look at each other with. It is that look that actually hurts the eyes of the brother who is doing the looking. Look at us brothers looking with this look. This fish here, Brother says, looking at me with this look. It’s a keeper, Brother says. If you say so, I say back to what Brother has just said. And just like this, us brothers, with our boy hands fishing down, up to our wrists, down into the insides of Boy’s mouth, us brothers, together like this, we pull, we tug, we yank, we rip, this fish, this tongue, this song, out from the insides of Boy’s mouth. When Boy sees what us brothers have to him just done, when he sees his fish tongue held out, like a fish, out in the space between us brothers, Boy opens up his mouth to speak, to say to us brothers, What have you just done? and Why would you want to do it? but nothing, nothing but a grunt, that is, comes out at us brothers grunting out. Boy grunts and he grunts and he keeps on grunting at us brothers, until us brothers, we know there is nothing else for us to do. We reach with our hands down inside our front trouser pockets, to fish out the knives that are down there waiting for us brothers to fish them like this up and out, and then, just like this, with these knives raised up above our own boy heads, we cut, we slice, we chop and we chop, until we chop off this boy’s head. Boy’s head, down in the mud down here by the river, it is sitting there, down in the mud, the way that only a cut-off head can sit in the mud down by a muddy river’s muddy shore. The eyes in Boy’s head, they are looking up at us brothers, and Boy’s mouth, that hole in his face where Boy used to feed food into, where no mouthy sounds could once upon a time ago come out at us mouthing out, this boy mouth, it is as quiet now as any hole is dark and quiet and making not a sound when it is a hole filled up with mud.