The Fish and the Not Fish

by Peter Markus

  Do not ask what kind of blue the sky was.

  The sky was blue.

  The sky was blue.

  But still you do ask.

  And so I’ll tell you.

  The sky was sky blue.

  The sky that was blue was a sea.

  See the sky.

  That’s what the bird says when it caws that sound and that word: who, who, who.

  Jane is who.

  Him is who.

  You is who.

  And Girl?

  Girl is Girl is who.

  And You Know Who?

  You Know Who is just a girl who looked just like the girl who is known to us all as Girl.

  Where is she now, this You Know Who?

  Who knows.

  Does You Know Who know where it is that she is or where it is she has been?

  Who knows.

  So where to now?

  Or: where do we go from here?

  You and Him and the girl named Jane will go, they will get took, to where it is that Girl will with her take them.

  Let’s go, Girl said.

  She turned, this girl.

  She walked.

  They watched her back.

  Then they got back on their bikes.

  Their bikes are blue.

  Jane got too on the back of You’s bike.

  They biked.

  Him and You moved the wheels with their feet.

  The wheels spun, round and round.

  Round and round these four wheels go. They went.

  Watch them as they go, as they went: these two boys on their bikes.

  Down that road that was made out of dirt.

  Up a hill they climbed and climbed.

  At the top they took a look.

  This was what they saw.

  Trees, the woods, dirt where there once used to be a creek.

  A sky that was the blue of the sea.

  A house not theirs to live in.

  A roof, a door, both black.

  A bird that was blue in a tree.

  Look there.

  Girl stuck her arm up and out from where it touched the top of her knee.

  They looked there to where her hand said to look.

  They saw the sky, the trees, the dirt.

  But this was not what Girl’s hand said for them to see.

  What her hand could not tell them to see was what this all used to be.

  This used to be a lake was what Girl told them to see. Here where we stand it used to not be this that we now see.

  How would you know? was the thing that Jane asked to be told.

  I read it in a book was what Girl said to this. And once I saw it now I see it at night when I shut my eyes to go to sleep. I dream this, each night, this lake that used to be here in this place. At night in my boat where I sit and rock in my chair to go to sleep I float out on that lake and like this I fish for fish in this lake, I talk to fish in this lake, the fish in this lake at night when I sleep, these fish talk back to me, the fish when I sleep and when I dream them like this they sing songs for me to sing. Out on this lake, at night, when I sleep, when I float here on my boat, I look down and I count these stars that I see that shine up from the sky that is this lake.

  Your boat, Jane said, has a hole in its side so big it was like a door for us to walk in.

  There’s a hole in the sky, I’m sure you have seen it, it’s a hole that is called the moon.

  When she said what she said, Girl looked, with her head, at the blue where the moon, in the blue of the day’s sky, it was the ghost of a fish, it was full and like a fish eye it looked down on her. A hole, Girl laughed, a soft sort of laugh, in the side of a boat, it won’t sink that boat, not as long as the moon in the sky won’t let it.

  What do we do now?

  Like this they waited.

  Like this they did do.

  This then they did.

  They watched.

  The sky that was blue turned black.

  The moon in the sky moved from one side to the next.

  When the sun took its place the moon did not say a word.

  When the sun rose so did the lake.

  It was, the lake, the ghost of a dead man.

  It rose from its dirt grave.

  Like this the lake lived.

  The lake took the place of the dirt and of the grass and the trees. It took its lake shape as it found its new place in this place that it used to be. It did not take no from the dirt when the dirt said to it, No, you can’t, or when the trees tried to tell it, You don’t live here, we do.

  The moon, though no one here could see it, they all knew it was there, that it hid like a fish in the new day blue of the lake that rose up to meet and eat the sky.

  At night they watched it, the moon, lift up in and be with the lake. Like a stone. Or a fish. It sang its new moon song. The stars did not move or dance, or at least not all at once.

  One by one, the stars, all but one, burned out.

  The one that was left, it did not fall. It stayed where it was.

  It fell in love with what was left.

  THE DARK AND THE NOT DARK

  It starts in the dark and ends in the not dark. In the dark, when it starts, the sky is black. Though the sky is black, the stars stick out from the dark as if they too are a part of and come from the not dark. In the not dark, the stars take leave with the dark. The sun in the not dark lifts up out of the dark and shines its not dark light on all that it sees and all that sees it shine. The sky, in the not dark, is blue. There is no word to say what I see when I say those words, The sky, in the not dark, is blue. This blue that I say that I see in the sky, it is not just blue, it is not just light blue, it is not just what is by some called sky blue. There has got to be a word out there in the world to say what the sky is when I say that it is blue, but if there is such word, out where in the world, I don’t know where, I don’t know of it, this word, or where it could be. What is, in the not dark, it is not what it is in the dark. In the not dark, the not dark makes what takes place in the dark and makes it not seem to be what it was, or what it is, once the not dark comes to take its place. This is what takes place in the not dark when no one else is there to see what it is. In the dark, I want you to see, there is the man and there is the not man. The not man sleeps in her bed where the man is not in it and when the not man is not there to be a man in that bed. Where the man is when he is not in this bed is he is in some man place where men like to be. Such a place as this is the place where the man likes to go to drink the drinks he likes to drink. Most nights it is beer that the man likes to drink when he goes off to a place such as this, but some nights he comes home with a smell of what the not man knows is a thing called gin that is the smell of his breath. When the man comes home with the smell of beer and of smoke and of gin on his breath, the not man knows not to wake up. She’ll lie in the dark with her eyes shut to the dark and hope that the man will go, will get, will go back out. Out where? The not man does not care where. Back to that man place for all the not man could care. Or just out in the dark where the air is cold and the smell of his man breath can be breathed out in the dark and be smelled by just the moon and the stars and a sky that, when the moon and stars are not to be seen up in it, it is hard on nights like these to see it: to see where the dark ends and where the sky starts and it’s hard to tell, in the dark, which is which. The not man knows this: that the man’s bad breath can touch the dark but that it will not reach the sky. She is sure of this. She is as sure of this as she is sure that the sun at dawn means that there is where the east is. East is where the sky’s first not dark takes the place of the dark. East too is where the sky’s first dark takes the place of the not dark. The not man’s eyes take note of this on those days when the man is gone and these are the days when the not man has time to stop and look and watch the world go by and the world that is dark and the world that is not dark takes both its dark and its not dark shape. The trees in the dark are not the same trees that they are in the
not dark. In the not dark the trees get in the way of the sky’s sky blue. In the dark the trees are a part of the sky that is there in and is what it is in the dark. And then there are those days when the man is not gone and the man in there in the house with the not man and in with the dark that ends when the not dark starts seems not to leave from its place. The man in the not dark is dark. The man that is in the dark is the same as the man that is there in the not dark. In the not dark the not man can see more than just the shape of the face of the man who is there in the not dark. In the not dark the man has eyes that are small and a nose that is long and thin and a mouth with lips that are pulled tight to make like the line of a scar. In the dark this scar is used by the man as a kind of a knife to cut through to the place where the not man’s skin, it is a hole through which words are fed in through to. In this dark the not man eats of these man sounds that come to her through the dark and she takes them in her and makes them to be a ball of string for her to knit with. In the not dark the not man wakes to a sky that is blue and sits in a chair that is faced out to face the trees that are there in the not dark. Like this she sits and moves her fists and rocks back and forth till in her hands the strings in her hands are made to be a rope. This rope, this not man, she takes this rope and in the room where the man is in that place where he has gone to sleep, the not man takes this rope and twists it and ties it so that it is a rope that is a loop round this man’s neck. She waits like this in the not dark of this room for the man and his man eyes to wake up. When his eyes look to see what is to be seen here in this room of the not dark, the not man will pull back tight with her not man hands till the rope goes tight and till the man’s man face turns as blue as the not dark’s sky.

  I.

  DEAD DOG SLEEPS

  Dead Dog is not dead.

  Dead Dog just makes like he is dead.

  Don’t let this dog fool you like he once fooled the both of us.

  Look here.

  Dead Dog sleeps.

  Dead Dog sleeps by the side of the road.

  Dead Dog could sleep on the road, or in the road, if on the road was where Dead Dog would want to sleep the sleep of sleep.

  It has been days since we saw this road we walk down with a car that drove down on it.

  Come on, Dead Dog, we say, but this dog does not lift his dog head.

  Dead who? asks Boy.

  Boy is not one of us.

  Boy is just this kid who likes to walk where we like to walk, who likes to go where us boys like to go.

  Us boys, we don’t like to go home.

  We don’t like to go home to where our house is, to where it is we live with that man that we like to call Man.

  Do not think that this man who we like to call Man is the man who gave us boys our name.

  This man is not that man.

  This man is just the man who took us in when the man who was the man who gave us our name told us that he had to get, that he had to go, and then he left and we have not seen or heard from that man not once since.

  Us boys, we were both of us six back then, that day, back when that man who gave us our names up and left.

  Now we are six more than that.

  That makes twelve.

  That man who up and left us, that man who went, who said he had to get, we think he is a man who is dead.

  Or at least he is a man who is dead to us.

  Us boys, we don’t like to look back.

  We don’t say or ask the sky why did this man who gave us our name turn his back and leave us.

  That was then is all we say.

  We are big boys now.

  Us boys, watch us walk down this made out of dirt road and watch us as we kick at the dirt of the road and watch us as we watch the puffs of road dust rise up from our worn through to the toes boots.

  For us to walk down the road like this is what we like to do for kicks.

  Dust, us boys, is what we like to kick up.

  Dirt, us boys, we like to take the dirt up in our hands and rub the dirt on and in our skin.

  This man that we call Man does not mind it much what we like to do with our dirt.

  This man has got his own things to keep his mind mad on like the wife that he took in who does not like to cook or keep clean the house.

  Man’s wife, we do not call her Mam or Ma.

  Man’s wife is not so old to be a mam or a ma to us.

  This wife of Man’s, she is more of a girl to boys like us.

  Which is why us boys we like to call Man’s wife Girl.

  Girl, we say, to Man’s wife. Want to come with us boys for a walk out through the woods?

  The woods is where us boys most of the time like to go to when we get it in us to get up and go.

  We go to the woods.

  In the woods there are birds for us boys to throw rocks at, there are trees for us boys to up and climb.

  Up at the tops of our climbed up trees we can see all the way up to where town is, to where town used to be.

  Town is just this turn in the dirt road where the dust in this road turns west.

  When we go to town, we like to take this turn and walk off toward the sun.

  One time, us boys, we walked and we walked and we did not stop our gone to town walk till the sun left us to be boys who did not fear the dark that was, we knew, the night’s night black sky.

  When it got to be dark, the stars shined down a light down on our heads and we stood and we stood and we looked and that whole night long, that was all that we did for all of that night’s long.

  We looked up and we looked up and we looked up.

  Each star, that night, in the sky that we saw as we looked up and looked up, us boys, we gave each star a name.

  Not one of these stars did we give the name Jim or John, which is what is us boys’ real names.

  Jim and John are not the names that we like to say when we need to say hey, look, or hey, bro, let’s go.

  We like it best when we call out to each of us boys the word Kid.

  Kid is the word Man likes to call out to us boys when he calls out to us to come here.

  But we did not do it is what us boys all the time like to say to Man when we hear him call out to us this word Kid.

  Man likes for us boys to hold tight the things that he can’t hold when both of his man hands are tied up and full.

  Hold this nail, Man likes to tell us.

  Hold for me like this this here piece of wood.

  We watch Man smack the wood good.

  Good, no, Man, he won’t say to us that we have held it or have done a thing good.

  All he’ll say is, when we are done is, you boys can go now.

  And so, us boys, we get up and we go.

  Go is what us boys like to do best.

  We like to go to where the road goes, though the road does not take us as far as we would like it to go from that place in the woods that we don’t like to call home.

  Home is where the dust is and dust, when you see us walk on down this dust kicked up road, it is dust that is what rises up from our dust skinned skins.

  It was on a night like this when the sun rose up at dawn the next day that we saw for the first time that dog Dead Dog dead on the side of the road.

  When we first saw Dead Dog, there on the side of the road, the dog that we saw, we thought that it was a dog dead.

  Dead Dog did not make a move, or turn his dog head, or make with his dog mouth a sound when we stuck the toes of our boots up in Dead Dog’s nose.

  That dog’s dead, one of us boys said.

  Us boys, we left Dead Dog there for dead, there on the side of the road, and kept on with our walk to where we did not know where us boys would go to.

  Not to home was all that we knew.

  We walked.

  We walked some more.

  The sun, it seemed, seemed to walk its walk up the sky with us.

  The sun, it seemed, it was one of us.

  When we turned and went back the way to where home w
as for us boys back in the house where we lived in with Man, this was when we saw Dead Dog and we saw it, then, with both of our boy eyes, that this dog, it was not dead.

  This dog that we thought it was dead, it sat up on the side of the road and it looked up at us boys like it, this dog, it was one of us.

  What those dog eyes said to us boys, when they looked up at us up from the side of the road was, Would you please give this dog a home?

  Home, us boys knew, our house, it was no place for a dog to be took to since we had no food or bones for us to feed it but for the dirt that we might scrape up for it and say to it that this dirt used to be bone.

  But Dead Dog did not seem to mind it that dirt was all that he would get to eat if he came with us to that house at the edge of the woods that was for us boys what we were told was for us our home.

  When we brought Dead Dog home with us to meet Man, we told Man that when we first walked by this dog there on the side of the road we thought that this dog was dead.

  Oh yeah, Man said to this. You think that just cause some dog sits up like this dog did sit up that this don’t mean that this dog ain’t dead?

  Us boys, we did not know what to say to this.

  So we did not say yes or no.

  You boys deaf, Man said to us next, or do you both just got dirt stuck up in your ears?

  Us boys both stuck our thumbs in our ears and said, No, sir, there’s no dirt in here that we can feel.

  Can we keep him? we said so to Man, and we all three of us looked down at Dead Dog as this dog licked at his own rear.

  Man looked down at this dog as this dog did what he could do with his tongue and what Man said then was, What could a dog like this hurt, and that you boys could use a dog like this to keep us out of his way.

  We said our thanks to what Man said when he said it, though we did not say this with a hug.

  Us boys took Dead Dog with us to bed that night and we have since that night watched this dog sleep each of these nights, there at the foot of our bed, the sleep that makes you think that this dog is dead.

  But dead, this dog, he is not.