The Fish and the Not Fish

by Peter Markus

  THE FISH AND THE NOT FISH

  PETER MARKUS

  5220 Dexter Ann Arbor Rd.

  Ann Arbor, MI 48103

  www.dzancbooks.org

  The Fish and the Not Fish

  Copyright © 2014, text by Peter Markus.

  All rights reserved, except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher: Dzanc Books, 5220 Dexter Ann Arbor Rd. Ann Arbor, MI 48103.

  Published 2014 by Dzanc Books

  ISBN: 978-1938103810

  First edition:

  This project is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts and the MCACA.

  Printed in the United States of America

  The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  for those of you with ears

  for the sound that can be seen

  for the birds and the bees

  for the fish that sleeps

  Beck. Beck. Beck. Beck. Beck.

  Sol. Sol. Sol.

  Sis.

  THE FISH AND THE NOT FISH

  THE FISH AND THE NOT FISH

  First there is the fish and then there is the not fish. The not fish is the fish that used to be. This fish used to live and swim and eat and be a fish in a lake but now the not fish sits in a pan that is hot steel on a stove and it sits here in a pool of lard and the not fish turns brown on one side and then it is turned from side to side so that it does not burn to black. When the not fish is done, the not fish is placed on a plate and the plate is placed on the lap of the man who fished first the fish and now the not fish up and out of the lake. It is like this that the man eats. Like this the man who fished the fish up and out of the lake he eats the not fish slow. His eyes close as he eats and eats with his mouth and his tongue and teeth and his lips slick with lard and not fish. When his eyes close he can’t help but see the not fish turn back to be the fish that it first was when it was a fish that lived and swam and ate and made like a fish makes like when it is a fish that is a fish that you can’t see when it is a fish hid down in the blue that is the blue of the lake. The lake when he sees it like this with this fish hid down in it, it is blue. The sky when he sees the lake like this with the fish down in it, it too is of a kind of blue but it is not the same kind of a blue as is the blue that is the lake. This man in his boat, it is a boat that is a not blue. It is, this boat with this man up in it, it is of a shade that is a dull kind of gray and is made out of a steel that will one day turn to rust. Now, this man, here in his house and not in his boat, this man, he licks at his lips which are slick with the not fish fried in lard. The not fish tastes as good as a fish tastes when a big fish takes a small fish in and eats it with its fish mouth. He eats the not fish down to where the not fish goes to when a man like this forks it up to where his mouth is a hole in his face that he puts food down in. When he is done and the not fish is not on the plate in his lap but is down now in the pit of his gut, he gets up and wipes off this plate that is slick and wet with not fish and lard and then he puts it, the plate, back to where its place is up there where it sits on its shelf. The plate will sit there, up on its shelf, till the next day when more not fish fried crisp and hard in lard will be placed on this same plate so that he can place it on his lap and eat the fish that is now the not fish. Once he eats it, this fish that is now the not fish, now the man can in the not lit night of his house go to his place to fall to sleep at. He sits in his chair and in it like this he, this man, he sinks down low and then like this he sleeps. He dreams, like this, of first the fish and then he dreams of the not fish. When he dreams like this first of the fish, of the fish that is in the lake, it is like this, when he sees it like this, it is a fish that can sing. It can sing, this fish, and it sings its song up out of the lake up to the man who sits like this up on his house that is a boat. The sound that this song makes, it makes the man lean out of his boat so that he can look down to see a stone that floats in the blue that is the blue that is the lake. The man with his right hand takes hold of this stone and when he does it turns from what it was, a stone, a stone that floats, to be not a stone no more but a star from the black of the sky and then from a star this not stone that floats, it turns and it is, in his man hand, not a stone or a star but it is like this a fish. It too is a fish that can sing. Its song is a sound that lulls the man to be with sleep. He sleeps. When he sleeps like this, when he leans out of his boat like this, this man, he falls out of his boat and ends up when he wakes up not a man in the lake but he is now a man in a house who sits in a chair that squeaks when he stands up to get up and go from this place that is just a short walk down to where the lake is blue in the day and black when it is the lake at night. When it is night no more, this man, he stands up in the day’s first light and he gets up and goes from where this house is back down to where the lake is where there are fish that he will fish up to be the fish that are in his boat. These fish fished up to be fish in his boat will soon be not fish once he takes them up in his hands and takes a knife up in his right hand and a fish up in his left hand and when he guts the guts from these fish and once he cuts the heads off of these fish and when he fries these fish up hard in a pan made out of steel with its skin burnt black and slicked wet with lard, this is when the fish are fish no more but are the fish that are known as the not fish.

  BIRD, OR THE BIRD IN BIRD’S MOUTH

  I.

  We called him Bird since that’s what, to us, he looked like to us: a bird. Nose bent at the tip to make like a beak. Eyes like two black seeds, too small, it seemed like to us, for him to see with. But Bird could see, it turned out, what the rest of us could not.

  Bird.

  It’s what he was.

  Bird liked to sit up in trees. Perched up there just like what he looked like to us: a bird.

  Where’s Bird? we’d ask.

  We’d look left and right. Then lift our eyes up. There Bird would be, up, up, in some tree’s top.

  Bird.

  Bird, we’d say. We’d ask him to tell us, What’s it look like from up there?

  Bird would look down. Then look back up. The sky is blue by day, Bird would tell us.

  At night the sky turns black.

  That was Bird’s song.

  Then Bird would say down to us, Come up and come see.

  But the trees that Bird climbed up, they were too tall for boys like to us, us boys who did not look like birds, to climb our way up to.

  These trees were big trees. These big trees did not have limbs down low for us to grab hold of and for us to make our way up.

  The trunks of these big trees were too big for us to hug them with our arms. That’s how big these trees were to us.

  The bark of these trees, we liked to rip off chunks and chew them in our mouths.

  We’d spit out what was left.

  We ate what we could not spit out.

  Bird, like the bird that he was, liked to eat worms. He said, when we asked him what did worms taste like, Bird said to us, Dirt.

  We liked dirt too.

  We liked mud.

  We were boys.

  But we did not like to eat it.

  There were these one boys in our town who liked to eat mud, but they were not one of us.

  One day Bird built a nest way up in some tree. This nest, it was made out of twigs and dirt and mud. Bird sat up in this nest like a bird would sleep and eat and live in a nest just like this.

  Bird would not come down from up in this tree.

  He would not look down when we called up to him his name.

  Bird stayed up in thi
s nest for three straight days.

  And then it rained.

  Then Bird stayed up there in his nest in this rain and he did not come down.

  Bird would not come down.

  Bird had a house and had lived in a house just like all the rest of us.

  Bird’s house was a house made out of wood and brick. He lived in it with a mom and a dad who weren’t Bird’s mom and dad but were the mom and dad of a boy with a last name that was not the same last name as Bird’s.

  Bird’s last name was Bird but it was spelled Byrd with a y and not with an i.

  Jim Byrd was his real name.

  But we just called him Bird.

  Bird Byrd was what this boy was to us.

  Or just plain Bird.

  No one knew where Bird’s real mom and dad were or why Bird did not live in a house with a mom and dad who were his own.

  Most of us lived in a house with a mom and dad who were our own.

  But some of us lived in a house with just a mom or with just a dad and then some of us lived in a house with a mom and that mom’s mom and dad who lived in the house with us too.

  None of us lived in a house with just a dad or with just a dad and that dad’s mom and dad.

  I don’t know why none of us did.

  One of us boys said that there were no more Byrds, that Bird was the last to live in our town.

  I don’t know for sure if this was true.

  Though I don’t know why it’d be the kind of a thing a boy like one of us would make up.

  Look up.

  See Bird.

  Bird built a nest. In a tree. Made out of dirt and mud and twigs. At night he slept like a bird.

  When the sun rose up in the sky, Bird sang like a bird glad to see the sun.

  Hear his song.

  The sky is blue by day, Bird sings.

  At night the sky turns black.

  There was a time when Bird was a boy just like all the rest of us.

  There was a time when Bird, just like all the rest of us, was a boy who had to go to school.

  The man who was there to teach us things would call out to us Bird’s real name.

  Byrd, James.

  Bird, just like the rest of us in this room, should have known what to do when he heard his name called out like this: last name first, first name last.

  Bird should have raised up with his hand.

  But Bird did not do what the rest of us in this room knew was the right thing for us to do.

  So the man who was there in this room with us called out Bird’s name one more time.

  Raise your hand, was what we told him.

  But Bird did not do what we told.

  The man who was there in this room to teach us things we did not need to know, he stood up from where he sat in back of his desk and he walked to where Bird in his own desk sat.

  Aren’t you Byrd, James, was what this man asked Bird what he was.

  Bird shook his head.

  Then who are you? was what this man asked of Bird next. And what’s your name?

  Jim, was what Bird said. James, Bird said, was the name of my dad.

  The man who was there in this room to teach us things we did not need to know, we were taught to call him Sir.

  Sir took Bird by the bone of his arm and pulled Bird up from his seat. Sir led Bird by the bone of his arm up to the front of our room where we got taught things we did not need to know.

  We watched Sir try and teach a thing or two to Bird on this, the third day of school.

  Turn to face the rest of the boys, Sir told Bird to do.

  Bird did like he was told.

  Bird looked his face at the rest of us in this room.

  The look on Bird’s face was the look of a boy who did not look like the rest of us.

  We watched the look on Sir’s face look.

  The look on Sir’s face was the look of a man who did not like to look at us.

  Sir took this look and he looked this look back at his desk.

  In Sir’s desk there was a flat hunk of wood stashed back there that used to be used to row a boat with.

  Sir held this wood up for all of us to see.

  Bird did not see it, but he knew it was there.

  Touch your toes, Sir told Bird what to do next.

  Bird did.

  When Bird did what Sir just told, Sir did with this wood what Sir liked to do best with this wood.

  He hit.

  And he hit.

  And then Sir hit some more.

  Bird did not wince, or flinch with his face, or make with his mouth a sound that most of us boys would make.

  When Sir was done with this wood, Sir told Bird to stay where he stood.

  Bird did.

  Bird stayed and stood where he stood.

  Pull out your books, Sir told the rest of us in this room.

  We did.

  We read what our books said.

  The words made as much sense to us then as a broke piece of wood did to Bird.

  Most of us boys would walk with a limp if Sir had done to us what he’d done to Bird.

  But not Bird.

  Bird walked the walk that he walked.

  We watched him walk.

  We watched him walk to where the train tracks in our town ran through the town that was ours.

  The tracks in our town had all gone to rust.

  There was a time when trains once ran through this town that was ours.

  We all once saw trains run through our town on the way to some town that was not ours.

  But not the past few years.

  The past few years no trains had run through this town with the tracks all gone to rust.

  Bird’s house was built so close to these tracks, Bird could throw a stone and hit a train on its way through our town on its way to a town that was not ours.

  No train runs through town these days, but if they did Bird could show you, Bird would tell you if he could tell you, it’s true when I said it to you that Bird could take a stone and throw this stone at a train, his house was built that close to these gone to rust tracks.

  When Bird walked up to these tracks, he did not cross them.

  He stopped.

  Then he sat down on them.

  Bird looked down at the ground. Picked up a rock that he saw there. Held it like this in his fist.

  When we walked up to where Bird was, what we asked Bird was, What are you up to?

  Bird did not look up.

  Bird did not say a word.

  Not for a while.

  But then he did.

  He looked up.

  In our faces.

  What he said was, I see I must have missed the train.

  Bird stood up.

  He walked.

  He walked in the tracks.

  He walked like he was a train in these tracks.

  We watched.

  Then we walked like how he walked in these tracks.

  No one said a word.

  We walked like this till there was no more track to walk in. When the track stopped, we stopped where we stood in these tracks.

  We stopped and we stood like this to see what Bird would do next.

  Bird looked at the end of the tracks.

  Then he looked up.

  The sky was blue on one side, but one side of it had gone gray.

  The side of the sky that was black, who of us could see it?

  Bird’s who.

  Bird could see it.

  Bird knew that night was on its way.

  He sat down.

  The rock in his hand was still in there in his fist.

  There was no way he would drop it.

  That night, we watched Bird look up when the night sky got dark.

  There was a moon and the stars for us to see that made the sky not seem so black.

  Bird looked up.

  We watched him look up.

  Bird found a tree.

  He walked up to it. Stood with his face faced to it.


  But Bird did not climb up it.

  That was not how Bird got up in this tree.

  What Bird did was, how Bird did what he did was, to get up and up in this tree, Bird flew was what Bird did and how he did it.

  Bird took flight.

  He raised up with his head. Raised up with his arms out by his sides. And to this tree, Bird, he rose up.

  Up in this tree the moon, when it rose up, it looked like Bird could reach out with his hand and touch it.

  Bird did not touch it.

  Bird just watched it with his bird eyes.

  The moon, in the night, it glowed.

  In Bird’s eyes, in the night, in the black of night, the moon, it glowed right back.

  Up here, at night, as Bird watched the moon at night glow, the wind blew through the leaves of Bird’s tree.

  Up here in the tree where Bird rose up to sit in this tree, Bird said to us one day that the wind in the tree, when it moved through the leaves of the tree, when it made the leaves of the tree move in the wind, that’s when he said he could feel it.

  When the wind would blow like this through the leaves of Bird’s tree, the wind that moved through the leaves and made the leaves move in the tree, it made a sound that sounds like the sound that a bird’s wing makes when the wind blows through it.

  Bird said this to us too.

  The sky is blue.

  The sky at noon is blue.

  At noon the sky is blue like a sky that is blue.

  The sky at noon is blue like the blue of a noon sky.

  At night the sky turns black.

  Black like the black steel of the steel mill in our town where steel used to get made.

  Where steel used to be made.

  There was a mill in our town, where the gone to rust train tracks came to an end in the dirt, where steel used to get made.

  Be made.

  The men in our town made steel in this mill till there was no more steel to be made.

  Get made.

  When the mill shut down, when the tracks turned to rust, these men did not know what else to do.

  They worked.

  And worked.