by Peter Markus
So what they liked to do was, some nights, some days too, when there was not much else for boys like Him and You to do in a town like this town, they would act out the words that their dad liked to tell them when he told them of that day, way back when it was to them, when Old Man Mans ran out of his house at their dad with a gun stuck out in his hand. Him and You would take turns and flip a coin to see who’d get to be the old man who liked to kick at and spit at his dog, who got to run out of the house and yell and curse at the boy who played like he was their dad who had stepped just one foot of his on the grass in the front of this old man’s house. To be Old Man Mans was the thing to be since he was the one who got to yell and curse and scream and run out from the back of the house at Him or You or who it was who had to be the son who got to make like he was the dad back when he was a boy of nine. The boy who got to be the old man who liked to spit at and kick at his dog got to make his hand in the shape of a gun and got to go bang and then bang with his mouth and got to say bad words that he could not say when his dad was close by to hear.
There were times too when Jane was with them when she would say, How come I can’t play a part too? Him and You would look back and forth and back and forth two more times and then they’d turn their looks back at Jane. Well who do you want to be? is what Him and You would say to Jane. And to this, what Jane liked to say to this was, I’d like to be the old man’s wife. But this old man, he did not have a wife was what Him and You would have to tell her. Well, he’s got a wife now, Jane would say, and then she’d kiss the boy who got to be, on this day, the old man who had a dog but not a wife to spit at or kick.
It was Jane too who was the one who thought of it to ask it, one day as Him and You and Jane played at this game that they liked to call it ‘The Day that Old Man Mans Pulled a Gun Out On Our Dad,” that what they did not have with them to play the game right was a boy or girl to be the old man’s dog. Dog, both of the boys said, with a shake of their boy heads. There’s no one here to be the dog. And that was the day when You Know Who walked by with an ice cream cone in her hand. Want to play? Jane had said to this girl who would soon come to be known as You Know Who who they did not yet know who she was. In fact, they had not, not a once, not Him or You or not Jane too, seen this girl walk through this town, or walk out near the edge of this town, which is where this house was that used to be the white house made out of wood of the man who liked to spit at and kick at his dog. Play what? was what the girl You Know asked this girl Jane who stood in front of these two boys. It was You who said it, to You Know Who, You get to be the dog. You Know Who was not the type of a girl who would say back to this, But what if I don’t want to be the dog? You Know Who’s mouth did not make such sounds as this. What she did do was, this You Know Who, and when she did this she did not tell them what was her name, she dropped down, in the dirt, on her hands and knees, and she barked a loud bark at these two boys. It’s true: she barked like a dog likes to bark, and then she looked up at Jane, she looked up from the dirt, and she stuck out her tongue out from her girl mouth. And You Know Who’s tongue, when she stuck it out like this, Him and You and Jane too, they saw that this tongue, it too, just like Jane’s, just like the tongue in Him’s and You’s mouth, it was a tongue that was pink.
And so they took You Know Who in, as a dog, they made of this girl a dog that they would play with. Him and You took turns, they each got to be the old man who liked to spit at and kick at his dog, and Jane got to be the old man’s wife and You Know Who got to be the dog. This is how it went till one day You Know Who got it in her girl head to come up with a new game for them to play. I’ve got a new game that we should play is how You Know Who said what she said. It’s called Two Dogs Who Like To Be One. Him and You and Jane, they all three gave You Know Who a look and it was the kind of a look that said, with no words to say it, tell us more. So You Know Who told Him and You and Jane that in this game that she liked to call Two Dogs Who Like To Be One two of us drop down on our hands and knees and make like we are dogs. One of the two has to be one of you boys, You Know Who went on, and one has to be one of us girls. When Him and You asked why this was so You Know Who just said that this was the way the game was made to be played. Says who? said Jane. Says me is who, You Know Who said back. I’m the one who knows how to play it. Jane stared with her hard as stone eyes in through the eyes that were You Know Who’s eyes and You Know Who stared hard right and straight back as if her eyes were made out of wood. Who gets to go first? is what Jane said next since You Know Who did not look like a girl who was a girl on the way to back down. So You Know Who said that Jane could go first if to go first was how Jane would like it to be. Jane said yes, thank you, that she would like to go first, and so she dropped, just like You Know Who said that she should, down on her hands and knees down to get down in the dirt. Him and You looked down at Jane who looked up at them both like a dog who looks up when it wants to be fed and they both said, Which of us boys gets to be a dog first? You, You Know Who said, to Him. And you, she said, to You, you get to be a dog next with me. When Him saw that You did not seem to mind which of them got to be a dog first, he dropped down on his hands and knees down in the dirt next to Jane’s place in the dirt. Now, You Know Who told them, and she faced them off so that their faces faced off face to face in the dirt. Now it’s time, she said, to make like you’re two dogs who live out in the woods. So they did like You Know Who said they should do. They barked. They howled. They growled. They bared their fanged teeth. They pawed at the dirt with their hands. Good, You Know Who told them and she set her hand on the top of Him’s head. Now you, You Know Who said to Him, get back to the back of Jane’s back and stay there like a dog who’s told to stay. Him did like he was told. He crawled on his hands and knees to get to the back of Jane’s back. Him sat. Him stuck out his tongue and breathed. Jane turned her head back to see. What she could not see was when You Know Who shoved Him so hard that he came up and fell back down with his head on the back of Jane’s back. Him held on tight with his arms to the part of Jane that his hands could reach out and take hold of. Jane fell down face down in the dirt. As if to break her fall, Him’s face was there in the dirt by Jane’s ear. Jane could feel and hear Him’s warm breath come like a June wind in her ear. Him held Jane like this till Jane raised back up with her back. This was how the game was played. When it was You Know Who’s turn to fall face first down in the dirt with You pressed down on top of her back, You Know Who turned her face up quick so that her back hit the dirt first and she gazed up face to face with You’s face. If two dogs had lips and not just tongues to kiss with, this is what it, a dog’s kiss, would look like.
All this took its turn in June. Him and You, Jane and the girl known as You Know Who, they played these boy girl make like dog games when no one else was near to see them. They each took their turns, Him with Jane, Jane with You, You with You Know Who, You Know Who with Him, till June stretched thin and then turned to months that weren’t June. A year of not Junes yawned by. Then it was a month of June once more. The sky once more was the kind of a blue of a month of June kind of a sky. But then that June took You Know Who with it. Who knew where You Know Who had gone to. Not Him or You or Jane knew where the girl known as You Know Who had gone. She was just gone is all. Like a cloud that was there in the blue of the sky and then one day it was not. So then it was just the three of them now, just Jane with Him and You, which is how Jane liked it to be in the first place. That was how it was, with Him and You on their blue bikes, with Jane on the back of one blue bike, till the day they saw a girl who looked too much like You Know Who for this girl that they saw not to be her. But when they called out to this girl, Hey, You Know Who, it’s us, this girl who looked like You Know Who, this girl, she did not turn her girl head to these sounds. Hey, you, they all three called out to her twice more with a shout, till this girl said back to them Who and then What? Him and You pulled up with puffs of dust that rose up from the backs of their bikes. Where have you been? Him asked who he th
ought it was the girl they called You Know Who. I’m not who you think I am is what this girl said back. I don’t know who you three are. Jane said her name. My name is Jane is how Jane said it. And the girl said back, as if she’d not heard of this name till just now, Jane? I’m a Jane too. Jane? Could it be that there could be two Janes in our world? is what Him and You both at the same time thought. Him and You both said this name out loud in the dust that had now gone back to be with the dirt and like this they looked back and forth at these two girls. The Jane who had been the one Jane that Him and You till now had known said to this new Jane, We can’t both of us be Jane. So we’ll have to call you a name that is not Jane, Jane told her. I think we’ll call you what you look like to us. To us you look like a You Know Who Two. This You Know Who Two, as Jane had just named her, said to this new name, What’s in a name? She looked up at a tree. A tree is a tree, is what she then said. Call me what you want. We don’t name the sky. We don’t say the dirt is but the dirt. We just call it what it is. Him and You looked at the dirt and it was You who stepped up and said, to this new You Know Who Two, You know what? You’re right, You said. And so what I’d like to call you is Girl. Girl, since a girl is what you are. And so Him and You bobbed up and down their heads and Girl is what this new girl was named. But Jane said Wait, aren’t I a girl too? If she’s Girl what does that make me? You’re Jane, You said. That’s what you look like to us is how You put more of his own words to this. Jane gave this girl Girl a look. It was the kind of a look that said more than words said out of one girl mouth could say. What this look said was, You think you won. But I’m still here. We are not done with this game.
When Him asked Girl where it was she lived, Girl said in a boat is where she lived. On a boat, Jane said back. Not on, was what Girl said back to this. I said I lived in a boat. A boat where? was what Jane stepped in to say next to all of this. There’s no place in this town for a boat to be a boat on, no pond or lake to float a boat. The boat, Girl said to this, that I live on, Girl said, is just as much dirt as it is boat. It’s a boat up on land, is what this girl said. Hey, do you three want to go see it?
Him and You and Jane all three of them said all three at the same time, Yes, yes, yes we’d like to see it. We like boats, You said, me and him, You said, we do, when in truth not once had these boys set a foot on a boat. Him did not say a word to this, though with a nod of his head he too said: I like boats too.
What Jane said to this was, Fools, there’s no boat in a town where there’s no place for a boat to be a boat on.
Oh yeah, Girl said, then come see and I’ll show you how a boat don’t need a lake or pond for it to be what it is.
Girl took them, Him and You, by the hands and she led them on a path in the woods out on the edge of this town to where her boat was the place where she lived.
This path, through these woods, these two boys, Him and You, with the girl named Jane who kept two steps in back of these three, this path, in this town, not a one of them had set foot on. She called it, this path, this girl who led them on this path through the woods they now walked on, she told them, it was called, the dead man’s trail.
Why’s it called that? was the thing that You asked.
Why do you think? Jane said from the back, so that Girl would not have to, a man died here on this trail.
Wrong, Girl said. It was a boy, is what she said when she said it. It was a boy who drowned in the lake.
What lake? Him said. There’s no lake in this town.
But there was, Girl said back. Where these woods are we see, there was a lake here, Girl told them, where now all we see are trees.
How could what used to be a lake be what it is we see here as woods and trees? is what Jane said she’d like to be told.
It just did is what Girl told her. The lake, it dried up and the dirt and weeds rose up to take its place.
And the fish? Him asked. Where did all the fish go? was what Him said this to all of this. And when he said what he said a bird, it was blue, it flew down, out of the blue of the sky, as if to say, to what Him had just said, My old man, he was a fish.
He was a boy, the truth is, is what Girl then just said, and she did not mean the bird that had dived from the sky. He was just a boy, she went on, but that was all a long time back when he was just a boy who walked out in the lake and he did not come back.
Why don’t they call it, You said he’d like this to know, the dead man’s trail and not the dead boy’s?
What Girl said to this was this: that it’s not called the dead boy’s trail where this boy walked and this is why: that the dead boy’s ghost has all grown up now to be a dead old man with long white hair that sticks out on his old man head and on his face.
That ghost of an old man, Girl then said, he is the one who haunts this here trail that we’re on.
At night, she went on, in a voice like a bell whose sound you can’t help but turn to try to see it, if you stand here real still, you can hear his feet walk on this dirt that used to be, way back when, the mud that was the floor of a lake.
What you just said, Jane said back to this, is what it is how God looks, Jane said. This girl, Jane said, thinks God is a ghost.
God is a ghost, Girl said this to this. He lives in the trees. He’s the sound a tree makes when the wind blows to let us know look up and then like this you will see.
You can’t see the wind, Jane said to all of this.
See, Girl said. Look up.
And when she did, yes, the wind made the trees shake and the leafs that fell to the dirt at their boy and girl feet, these leaves, each one, each leaf took the shape of a fish.
The boat that Girl took them to, the boat that she said was the house that she lived in, it looked like a boat that had sunk. This boat in these woods that looked like it had sunk, it had a hole in its side so big you could walk through it, and so walk through it and in it, this big hole in its side, was what Girl did when she came up to it.
In it, this boat, there was a wood chair to rock back in and some rope that hung from its back and a steel pail for you to spit in but that was it that was in this boat. Jane sat down in the chair and rocked back and forth in it and asked Girl if the pail was for her to piss in. Girl did not say a word to this, but when Him asked what was the rope for Girl turned and she told him it was a rope to hang all of her dreams from.
Last night I had a dream, Him said to this. I dreamed, Him said, that I was a fish.
A fish, Jane said from the chair where she rocked. In a town with no lake or pond for a fish to live in.
What’s that mean? You said. To be a fish in a dream in a town with no lake or pond in it?
What it means, Jane said, is that what you want is to be in a town that is not the place where you live.
It means, Girl said, to all of this, that you dreamed you were a fish. That is it.
If I was a fish, Jane said. I’d not want to be here in a boat. A fish in a boat, Jane made it a point for her to make, is a fish that is soon to be dead.
Is soon to be dead such a bad thing to be?
Him and You and the girl named Jane all looked at Girl who was the one to say this.
It is, Jane said, if you want to grow up to be more than just a boy or a girl.
But what if what you want is to be a boy or a girl who does not grow up to be old?
Jane stood up from where she sat in Girl’s chair. Who would want that? was what she then said to this.
Girl raised up her hand to say that she would want that. And then the hands of Him and You said and did the same.
Jane’s hands stayed where they were, hung down like hooks by the sides of her young girl legs. The light hairs there raised up as if to reach out to be touched, to be felt, to be smoothed back down.
I have to get back home now, Jane now said.
Since when? Him then said.
Since you know when is when, Jane said.
Don’t you mean You Know Who?
No, Jane said. I said you know when, no
t you know who.
Who, Girl said then, is You Know Who? You is who, You said.
What?
You are who, you do, said Jane. You look like this You Know Who. That is who you do.
Says who?
Says me.
And you are who?
I am Jane is who.
Jane who?
I am Jane who wants to be more than just a girl is who.
Girl looked at this Jane who said that she was a girl who wants to be more than just a girl.
Girl shook her girl head at this girl whose name she said was Jane.
What Jane said to this is what a rock might say when a rock looks up to see a tree.
But how?
And then:
Why you?
And in the sky a bird flew through the too blue blue and it too, like the sky that it was blue like, it cawed: who, who, who.