The Fish and the Not Fish

by Peter Markus

Who’s there? the man that he is says this.

  Just us, we tell him.

  Don’t you boys got things to do? he says. Don’t you boys got some place to go?

  So we go.

  We go take Dead Dog for a dog’s walk.

  Come on, Dead Dog, we say.

  We tell this dog, It’s time to go.

  Dead Dog looks up at us boys as if to say that he’s just gone. Bones, we say to this look. Let’s go look for some bones.

  When Dead Dog hears this, he runs with no limp in his front leg to be with the both of us.

  His dog tongue hangs from his dog mouth like the wing of a bird that is too dead for it to fly.

  We walk to where the woods is.

  We walk in and through the woods.

  There are trees here in these woods that are dead.

  There are trees here in these woods that are like drums when you hit them with your fists.

  These trees make a sound.

  There are some trees here that make us think of ghosts.

  There are some trees here that make us think of bones.

  We find bones to things that have, for a long long time now, been a long time dead.

  Deer and coon, dog and bird.

  We find more bones than Dead Dog could, in his whole dead dog life, chew and chew and then dig a hole down in the dirt to put all of these bones down in.

  Where’d all these bones come from? one of us boys will ask the boy who is slow to ask this.

  We look up at the sky as if to check the gray for rain.

  There’s been no rain round here for days, weeks, years.

  Once, so we have heard it said, there was a lake out here where now there is just dirt and stones.

  Looks like it rained down bones, is all we can say to what we see.

  Dead Dog, we then say.

  We call these words out, Look here.

  We lick our boy lips.

  Dead Dog lifts his head to howl.

  Dead Dog howls.

  Hear this dog sound.

  Then look it here.

  See us boys bend down to touch the dirt of the ground. We do more than just touch it.

  We bring up bones up to touch our lips and we all three of us, like this, we start to eat.

  We eat and we eat and we do not stop till these bones in our hands turn to dust.

  V.

  DEAD DOG SLEEPS

  Dead Dog has got bugs.

  Up and down his back and down and up his dead dog tail, Dead Dog is all bit up.

  Bugs, Man says when we tell him that Dead Dog’s got this itch.

  Ticks is what he tells us.

  Fleas is one of the words that Man says to this.

  Dead Dog gnaws at these bugs and he nicks with his teeth at these ticks and these fleas in his Dead Dog sleep.

  Dead Dog can’t sleep.

  The itch and the bite of the fleas and ticks up and down the back of Dead Dog’s back keeps Dead Dog up at night and all through the night.

  At night, and all night long, us boys, we hear Dead Dog itch.

  There is a sound that Dead Dog makes when he turns back his dog head and with his teeth and tongue Dead Dog does what he can to get these bugs to go live on some dog that is not Dead Dog.

  But us boys, we don’t know of a dog in these woods or in this town that is a dog that is not Dead Dog.

  Dead Dog is the one dog for miles and miles for bugs like these bugs to live on and live off of.

  This is not good news for Dead Dog.

  Some nights, when we can’t sleep, we get up and we give Dead Dog a bath.

  We wet Dead Dog up and down with pails that we dip out back in the creek that runs out back of our house and then, with our boy hands thick with mud, we scrub.

  We scrub and we scrub and we do not stop till the bugs on Dead Dog’s back have been scrubbed and run off free.

  The creek that runs out back of our house that us boys dip our pails in and the pails that we dump and wash Dead Dog’s back and head with, it is the cold of this creek that makes Dead Dog shake.

  But just as soon as Dead Dog is shook all dry, Dead Dog starts in with his teeth and with the nails on his back paws to claw at the bugs that are back to make him itch.

  The soap and the suds and the creek, we see, it did not do what we wished it would do to the bugs that live and itch on this dog’s back.

  So we do next what Man told us to do with this dog when we told Man that Dead Dog has got this itch.

  Dirt is what this man said.

  We take up in our hands and we fill them up to the wrists of us with dirt.

  Us boys, we take hold of Dead Dog by the fur that is not yet dry and we rub him up and down and down to his bit up skin till Dead Dog looks like a dog that is made out of dirt.

  Just the whites of Dead Dog’s dead dog eyes shine out from all of this dirt and from out of the dust that this dirt likes to make.

  Us boys, we cough with our mouths and we rub with our thumbs at our eyes, this air is so thick with dust.

  In the dust we stand and wait and watch to see if the dirt has worked the way that the soap and its suds did not.

  Dead Dog just stands there with us on all four of his dirt caked legs and we see that he does not turn back with his dog head and reach back with his nails to scratch and bite and claw at the bugs that have bit him all up and down his tail and back.

  Dirt, one of us boys points out.

  We say this word twice.

  Us boys, we look back and forth at the each of us and we both make like we are dogs.

  We drop down on our hands and knees down in the dirt and we roll our boy selves round and round in the dirt.

  We are boys, we are dogs, at one like this with the dirt.

  In this dirt, and with Dead Dog with us, we all three of us lift our eyes up to the sun in the sky, this sun that makes dirt out of mud.

  Dirt, one of us says.

  Sun, one of us says.

  Dead Dog does not itch.

  Like this, with our faces turned back to face the earth, us boys, at long last, we go, we fall, we curl up our knees, with Dead Dog stretched out in the dirt with us. Like this, we sleep the sleep that would make a bird up in the sky think that all three of us were, like this, face down in the dirt like this, you too, to you, you would think this too, that the three of us face down in the dirt like we are, that what we are is dead.

  But we are not dead.

  We live.

  We live to kiss the earth.

  VI.

  DEAD DOG WALKS

  Look here.

  Dead Dog is not dead.

  Us boys, we are not dead too.

  We live.

  We get up on our knees and we get up on our feet and like this we start to walk.

  We walk.

  And then we walk.

  In the dust and the sun and through the woods to get to where town used to be, us boys, with Dead Dog on all fours with us, we walk.

  The earth we walk on is made of rock and dirt.

  The road we walk on to get to where town is, it too is made of rock and dirt and dust.

  Us boys, we make dust when we, like this, with Dead Dog on all fours with us, walk.

  The dust and the road and the sun in the sky, they walk with us to where town is.

  We walk to where town is so that we can see a face that is not ours.

  When we get to where town is, to where town used to be, there is not a face for us to see that is not ours.

  There is not a boy face or a dog face that is not Dead Dog’s for us to see.

  The only face we see is Death’s.

  The face of Death.

  Death’s face.

  Death was a man who lived in the town where the road took us to when it took us from where we lived, out in the woods, to where town was, to where town used to be.

  It was Dead Dog who was the one of us who took us to the house where Death lived.

  Death lived.

  Death was not dead.


  Death lived in a house that was made out of wood, with a roof and with floors and with smoke that rose up from the hole in the roof where there was a fire that Death liked to sit in front of and with his hands and with his breath he would stoke it.

  What Death’s house did not have was a door.

  Where a door should have been there was just this hole in the wall for us to walk on through it.

  Death lived in this house with no door on it with no one else but his dead self to live with.

  Death was fat.

  Death was so fat that had a door been on the front of this house Death would not have fit through it.

  Death was that fat.

  Death was a fat man with a gut full of death fat.

  He looked like he just ate, like he just ate a whole cow, or a whole barn, or a whole town.

  That’s how fat Death was.

  When us boys, with Dead Dog on all fours, walked in through the hole that was the door to Death’s house, the first thing Death asked us was did we think he was fat.

  We shook our heads.

  Death took his big fat gut in his fat hands and held it as if to keep it so that the fat of him would not fall off it.

  Then Death told us boys to sit.

  We did what Death told.

  We sat.

  Death sat down with us too.

  We sat down in chairs that looked like they would have a hard time if Death sat down in them.

  Dead Dog sat down with us too.

  Good Dog, we said to Dead Dog.

  It had been a long walk from the woods to the town to get to Death’s house.

  So we all three of us sat down to face Death.

  We did not fear Death.

  So what if we were in the house of Death?

  We lived, we spent our nights with Man.

  We were used to what could take place when our eyes were closed up tight to shut out the dark.

  We looked at Death’s face.

  Death’s face looked like it was made out of mud, or like a lump of raw dough that had not been baked to make bread.

  The face of Death was all fat.

  It was hard for us to see Death’s dead eyes.

  Death’s nose was more of a flap in the fat of Death’s fat face.

  Death’s mouth was a dark hole in his head where Death liked to shove in food through.

  Death tried to stand up.

  He took hold of his gut and tried to push up.

  But he could not get his dead self up.

  So us boys, we each of us gave Death a hand up.

  Death took hold of us by our boy hands and Death stood up.

  Death thanked us for this.

  Then Death tried to eat us.

  We let go of Death’s hands and we ran.

  We ran out through the front hole in Death’s house and then we ran back to and through the woods.

  Just once we both of us stopped and we both of us looked back.

  It looked to us like Death was stuck in the hole that was the door to Death’s house.

  Death raised up his right hand.

  You boys come back real soon, you hear, Death called out. Us boys, we did not say that we would not. We both knew that we would. So what if Death tried to eat us?

  He’d have to catch us first.

  Death would have to come to our house in the woods at night for him to eat us up.

  Death, it looked like to us, was a cork stuck in the door that was a hole in the front of Death’s own house of death.

  VII.

  DEAD DOG SITS

  When Death tried to eat us, Dead Dog did not get up like us and run.

  Dead Dog stayed right where he was.

  Dead Dog sat where he sat when Death told us all to sit.

  So we get it in us to get back up and go and run back to go back to Death’s house.

  To get us Dead Dog back.

  When we get to Death’s house, Dead Dog sits up when he sees us.

  Dead Dog, we see, is not a dog that is dead.

  Dead Dog is not a dog that Death ate up.

  We feared this in our heads that this was what Death would do to Dead Dog when Dead Dog did not like us get up and run.

  I’m so glad to see that you boys came back is what Death says to us when he sees that we are back.

  Give us back our dog, we say.

  Take him, Death tells us.

  Death says, This dog’s a free to go dog.

  Come, Dead Dog, we say.

  We say, It’s time to go back home.

  But Dead Dog does not come when we call him.

  Dead Dog sits right where he is next to Death.

  When Dead Dog sits and does not get up to go, the fat on Death’s face flips and rolls with what us boys know is a smile.

  Would you boys care to join me for lunch? Death asks us.

  We ate, we say, though this is not true.

  I can hear what is in us, what is in our own guts, what is not in there, it growls when Death says the word lunch.

  It’s been three days since us boys have put food in our mouths that is not made of bone or dirt.

  There is a smell here in Death’s house that smells like feet.

  We look at Death’s face.

  We watch him lick his lips.

  It’s your loss, Death says.

  Death says to us, It’s your choice.

  If you change your minds, Death tells us.

  We take hold of Dead Dog by the scruff of fur on the back of Dead Dog’s neck.

  We give Dead Dog a pull for the hole that is the door to Death’s house.

  Dead Dog turns his head and takes a snap at the hand that he knows that this hand, it is not the hand that feeds him.

  Dead Dog looks like the kind of a dog that is fed food spooned out of a tin can.

  Death’s house, it seems to us, has been good to Dead Dog.

  Dead Dog’s fur shines black like the back of a bird’s black wing.

  Hey, Dog, we say to Dead Dog.

  We say, Don’t you know who we are?

  We lift up our hands.

  Our hands curl up to make four fists.

  We tell this dog of ours, No.

  No bite.

  Dead Dog growls at us boys to step back.

  We take two steps back.

  Good dog, Death says to Dead Dog.

  Sit, Death says.

  Dead Dog sits.

  Us boys, we look back at Death.

  At Death’s face.

  Fat face, one of us says so that it is just us who can hear it.

  We’ll be back, we say.

  I’m sure you boys will, Death tells us.

  We turn to leave.

  We make our way for the hole in the wall that is the door to Death’s house.

  Death says, with the fat on his fat death face rolled up to form a grin, Don’t let the door hit you on your way out.

  VIII.

  DEAD DOG SLEEPS

  That night, we go back to the house of Death.

  To go and get Dead Dog back.

  To go and save Dead Dog from Death.

  We go up slow on the tips of our boot toes to look in through the hole that is the door to the house that is Death’s.

  We see that Dead Dog is curled up at the foot of Death’s bed.

  Here, Dead Dog sleeps.

  The fat on Death’s fat face puffs up and it puffs out when Death in his dead man’s sleep breathes in and then breathes back out the breath that is the breath of Death.

  The breath of Death smells like feet do when you take off your boots to let your feet breathe at night.

  It is night right now and all we can see is a dark that makes us boys think of death.

  Of things that are dead in the night.

  There are ghosts in these woods that at night make sounds that some folks say are the sounds that trees make when the wind blows through their leaves.

  Us boys know that these sounds that we hear in the woods at night are not the sounds that t
rees make when they are blown here and there and back and forth in the night’s breeze.

  We have seen, at night, and with our own boy eyes, what us boys know are ghosts.

  But we don’t call these things that we see ghosts.

  We call them Death.

  There are nights when Death walks through these woods on the look out for things like us to eat.

  When we sleep, on nights like this, we sleep with our arms crossed on top of our chests.

  We can feel the beat of our hearts beat and beat hard with our wrists.

  When Dead Dog used to sleep by the foot of our beds, there was no need for us to not sleep.

  If Death walked in our room, Dead Dog would have been sure to wake us.

  Dead Dog would take a big bite out of Death’s big butt.

  But that was then.

  And now is now.

  Now Dead Dog sleeps by the foot of Death’s bed.

  What are boys like us to do?

  Us boys, let us tell you what boys like us are to do.

  We have got to go and get back Dead Dog from Death.

  We have got to go back to town to where Death’s house is and we’ve got to steal back Dead Dog from Death.

  Which is why us boys are here right now like we are at the door to the house of Death.

  Dead Dog, we hiss, through this hole in the wall in this house where Death lives with no dog that is his own to keep watch with.

  To this hiss, Dead Dog does not lift up his head.

  Dead Dog looks like he is dead.

  Us boys, we know that this dog is not dead.

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

  One of us boys picks up a rock with his hand and throws it so that it hits Dead Dog right in his dog head.

  One of Dead Dog’s eyes lifts up.

  One of Dead Dog’s eyes stays shut.

  The eye that sees us, we can see that it sees it is us.

  Then it shuts back up.

  So one of us boys picks up a rock that is twice as big as the first rock was and we throw it so that it hits Dead Dog right in his gut.

  The bones in Dead Dog’s gut stick out like the bones that you see in things that sit on the side of the road dead.

  But like we’ve said, this dog is not dead.

  When this rock hits Dead Dog right in his gut, Dead Dog makes a sound with his mouth that is a yelp.

  Or like this sound is a cry from the mouth of Dead Dog for Death to come help.