Peter Markus - We Make Mud

We see Girl. We see Girl standing knee deep in the river washing her girl hair in the river’s muddy water. Girl, we holler up. Hey Girl, we say, and we run ourselves up to get us brothers a closer look. Girl turns back around toward the sound of our boy voices, but she does not stop her in-the-river washing. Rivers river down from Girl’s rivery hair, rivering down the rivery banks of her rivery girl body. Boys, she says to us brothers, and she drops down on her girl knees. Come close, Girl says to this. Listen. When Girl tells us brothers to come close, come listen, us brothers, we always listen. Hear it, Girl says again, and she lifts us brothers up, and holds us brothers up against her heart. We listen, and we listen some more, but there is no sound, there is no beating there, for us brothers to hear. So we lean our ears back away from that soundless place on Girl’s body where Girl’s heart is supposed to be beating. It used to be there — that beating sound — beating beneath that place on Girl’s body, there where there is a freckle right there shaped like a star. Dig here is what our ears used to always hear the heartbeat of Girl whispering to us. But now, us brothers, we don’t say a thing to Girl about the quiet we now hear. What we do is we do this: we reach inside with our dirty boy hands, into Girl’s made-out-of-mud body, and we take hold of Girl’s heart. Girl’s heart, we know, because we made it so, it is made out of mud. But the mud, we see now, it has turned to dirt. Girl’s heart, it is so hard it is hard for us brothers to touch it. But still, us brothers, we touch it. We touch it, and then we do more than touch it. We take it, Girl’s heart, into our dirty boy hands. And what we do then is we pull, and we pull. We give Girl’s heart our best boy tug. Yes, Girl’s heart, when we tug it like this, it pops loose like a tooth with no roots to it. Girl doesn’t wince, or flinch with her girl body, or make with her girl mouth the sound of a sister crying out. Good, Sister, we say to Girl. What we do then is we take Girl’s heart and we lower it down into the river. We hold it down underneath the river until the dirt of it turns back to mud. When Girl’s heart is back to being mud, we take it, Girl’s heart, and we shape it, with our hands, so that it is shaped into the shape of a heart. But no, that’s not right, Brother points this out. Girl’s heart, it was never shaped the shape of a heart. Brother is right. Good, Brother, I say. And so, like this, us brothers, we make it right. We take our boy hands, we take Girl’s heart into our muddy brother hands, and we make it into the moon. The moon, it is Girl’s heart, I say. I say this to the sky. Then Girl tells us brothers take a look inside. We do. We look inside. Inside of Girl’s moon heart, inside her made-out-of-mud heart, there are two sisters. One for each of us brothers. Us brothers, we look and we look and then we dive inside. When we do, this moon, it shatters into a billion pieces. Each broken piece becomes a star.

One day Boy, that boy born without a tongue on the inside of his boy mouth, he walked up to us brothers, down by the river where us brothers we were standing doing us our fishing, and he held out to us brothers his boy hand closed up like it was to make itself into a fist. For you, Brothers, Boy mouthed these three words out, and then he opened up his closed-up fist. In Boy’s hand, Boy held out to us brothers what looked like to us to be Boy’s tongue. He held it, like this, in his hand, like you would a fish out of water, Boy held it out, like this, out for us to see it like this, the way you might hold a fish too small to keep. That’s what Boy’s tongue, sitting there in the palm of his boy hand, that’s what it, Boy’s tongue, looked like to us brothers: like a fish too small to keep. But what would us brothers do when a fish too small to keep had died in our boy hands, had breathed its last breath with one of our silvery fishing hooks hooked deep down into the insides of its fish belly? Sometimes what us brothers would do to a not big enough fish like this, we’d walk with it, in our hands, out into the river, and we’d hold it, like this, in the river, like this, until the river’s muddy waters brought the fish back into its own life. It was the river that taught us brothers this: that nothing ever really dies. So, us brothers, we walked, like this, with Boy’s tongue, in our hands, out into the river’s muddy waters. We held it, this fish, us brothers, like this, into the river, under the river’s muddy water, and we stood there like this, we watched Boy’s tongue, like this, it just laid there, like this, songless, in our hands, our hands with the river flowing between them, until all of the fish that live and swim in the river, they swam up to it, this dead fish of a tongue, and what they did then, these fish of the river, these fish that were still very much alive, they opened up with their fish mouths and, no, they did not start to sing, though it’s true that us brothers, this is what we wanted them to start to do: no, what they did, then, these fish, was, these fish, they opened up their mouths and started to eat. These fish nibbled with their fish mouths on the tip of Boy’s dead fish of a tongue as if it was a fish left there for them, given to them like this, by the river for them to eat it — this, to keep this dead fish in some way alive. There were fish lined up upriver from where, us brothers, we were standing, out there in the middle of the river, all the way up to where the steel mill, it was sitting all quietly shipwrecked in the riverbank’s rivermade mud. By the time the moon rose, it was just barely rising up out of the river, there was nothing more left of Boy’s tongue for us brothers to hold onto. Us brothers, when Boy’s tongue, when there was nothing left of it for us to hold onto it with, we walked back out of the river and we headed ourselves back to the back of our backyard. We were on our way back to the back of our backyard, with our buckets half empty of fish, when we heard a sound, it was calling us brothers, Go back, brothers, go back and to the river go. When we turned back toward that sound and walked ourselves back to where the river was, we could see that this sound, it was the fish in the river making these go to the river sounds. Boy walked up to us then, again, and he stopped and he stood in front of us brothers, his face facing away from the river, and then, like this, Boy opened up his mouth at us brothers to speak. Boy’s mouth, that hole in his face that he fed food into, that hole where sometimes some mouthy sounds might come grunting out, in that hole, when Boy opened it up at us brothers, like this, inside of it, us brothers, we could see what we knew it, it was a fish, there on the inside of Boy’s mouth, right in there where a tongue, a tongue there ought to be. When Boy opened up his mouth like this at us brothers, Boy and the fish on the inside of his boy mouth, they started to sing, the both of them, like this, Boy and Boy’s fish tongue, they were singing into the faces of us brothers. Us brothers, standing there like this, we gave each other a look. There was this look that us brothers, we sometimes liked to look at each other with this look. This look, it was the kind of a look that actually hurt the eyes of the brother who was doing the looking. Imagine that look. This boy here, Brother said, looking at me with this look. This fish here, Brother said to me. They’re a couple of keepers, Brother said. If you say so, I said to Brother. And then I fished out my fishing knife from inside my trouser pocket, and I cut off this boy’s head.

We are down by the river, just the two of us brothers, standing down by the river’s muddy edge, us brothers every once in a while reaching down with our boy hands to pick up some rock up from the riverbank’s mud, to skip these rocks out into the river’s muddy water, when out of somewhere comes this man — Man, us brothers, we will come to call this man — this man comes walking up from behind us brothers, and this man Man, in his man hands, he has two fishing poles sticking out from his big man hands. Man stops in his walking up to us brothers and he stops and stands in front of us brothers, and then Man turns his man back to the river to face off his face with the both of us boys. For you, Boys, Man says, and he holds out from in his man hands these two fishing poles toward us brothers. Go on, take them, this man tells us. They’re yours. But why? and then, What for? are the questions that us brothers ask of this man. To fish with is what this man says to this. We know this, we say, but why would you think to give two fishing poles to us? Man, this man, he gives us two brothers this look at us brothers like he is the man who made us brothers us. Sons, Man says to us. Let me tell you a thing or two about rivers, this man says. A river, Man tells us, when you’re down by a river, Man says, you’ve got to be doing more than just standing there, down by the river, watching the river go on by. Us brothers, us who know this, we give this man a look. You think you can show up one day and tell us brothers what a river is for? is what we are looking at this man with this look. We’ll tell you a thing or two, we want to tell this man, we’ll show you a thing or two, we wish to say, about what a river is to be used for: we think all of this but we do not say it. Fish is what this man says to us brothers next. To fish with, and this man, he unhooks the silvery hooks hooked to the eyes of these two sticking out from his hands fishing poles and these hooks dangle and hang there looking back at us as if us brothers are a couple of fish. The poles’ silver hooks shine out at us brothers with the shimmery light of something never before seen. Let’s just say, this man says, that I handed you boys a fish, and with this Man digs down with his big man’s hand into his jacket pocket and he fishes out from inside of it a fish. This fish, with its fish eyes looking out at us brothers, it gives us brothers a look. This fish’s open mouth, it is with its fish mouth telling us brothers what to do with this man Man. You boys, this man goes on moving with his mouth, you boys could take this fish from out of my hand and take it home right now to fry it up and eat it. Us brothers, us nodding our boy heads yes, we know that this much is true, what this man Man is saying to us, but we look up at this man, with our eyes widening into moons, as if this is all something brand new to us. But what about tomorrow? is what this man says to us brothers next. And what about the day after tomorrow? Man stands there, like this, with this fish held up in his one hand, waiting for us brothers to say what about the day after tomorrow. Us brothers, we don’t say anything to this man to what about the day after tomorrow. Us brothers, we don’t like to think too much about tomorrow. Us brothers, we are brothers who live in the today. Us brothers, we are brothers who like to wait for tomorrow to come before we start to think at all about it. Man looks his man look down at us brothers and then he gets his mouth ready again to speak. But if I were to give you boys each one of you boys a fishing pole and not just a fish, if I were to teach you boys how to fish, you boys can fish for and you boys can catch fish and eat fish everyday for the rest of your boy lives. Us brothers, the both of us brothers, we nod yes with our boy heads to the picture, to the possibility, of this: we are licking our lips to the thought of this. That sure is a long time is what Brother then says to this. When Brothers says this, this man, Man, with these two fishing poles in his hands, with that fish that he fished out from the inside of his jacket pocket gripped by its gills in one of his hands, this man, he shakes his man head to Brother saying this. Man looks his man eyes down at Brother and he says to us brothers, That’s what you think is what this man says. Before you boys know it, this man says, you two boys will be old just like me. Us brothers, we cannot picture this and so we know that this, it is not true. There will be boys, Man says, who will walk up to you and call you Mister. Man says, There will be little girls who will tug on your sleeve and say, Sir, would you like to buy a box of cookies? To this, to even just the thought of this, we set this man straight. Man, this man who we call Man, he doesn’t know what he’s saying. This man Man, this man doesn’t know who he’s talking to when he’s talking like this to us brothers. Man, this man, he doesn’t realize that the two boys who he is right now talking to are the two of us brothers. This man thinks that we are just boys who will one of these days, like Man said that we would, grow up to be grown-up men. This man, Man, he doesn’t know the first thing about what it means to be a brother. And so, us brothers, we go ahead and we tell him this. That’s what you think is what we go ahead and we tell this to this here man. You don’t know who you are right now talking to, we say. Us brothers, we give each other this look. There is this look that us brothers, we like to look at each other with this look. It is the kind of a look that actually hurts the eyes of the brother who is doing the looking. Imagine that look. Brother looks this look away from us looking this look and then he says, to the river, to the fish, to the mud that holds this dirty river in its dirty river place: Brother says, to all of this: This man here, Brother says. He’s a keeper, Brother says. If you say so, I say to this. And then just like this, us brothers, we fish with our boy hands down into our front trouser pockets, we fish out from deep inside of this place the knives that we know are down there waiting. And then, together like this, us brothers, we raise our boy hands up to be closer to sky, we cut the moon that is always so full into two half-moon pieces, we look this man Man right in his man’s eye, and then we chop off his man head.