Peter Markus - We Make Mud

There are, in this dirty river town, with this dirty river running through it, fishering men and fishering women who like to fish from boats. But us brothers, unlike all of them, we do our fishing standing on the river’s muddy shore. These boats that we see, out on the river, with these fishering people standing up inside them, we see them all day long going up and down the river looking for fish. Sometimes we see these boats and it looks like to us brothers that they are, all of the time, just running up and down the river looking for fish and not ever doing any actual fishing. Us brothers, we could never get it into our heads why a fishering man or fishering woman would need a boat for them to fish with. We always figured let the fish come to us. Which is what the fish usually did. But there was a time, one summer, when it seemed like to us brothers that the fish in our river had gone off to be fish in some other river other than ours. Us brothers, we couldn’t imagine a river other than ours. We couldn’t picture a fish that would want to be a fish in some other river other than our river. Our river was a dirty river, it was a good river, us brothers believed, for dirty river fish like ours to be fish in. Us brothers, we loved this dirty river town with this dirty river running through it where we could always run down to it to fish. But there was that summer. That summer, those dirty river fish of ours that we always used to fish from out of this dirty river that runs its way through this dirty river town, it was as if these fish had gone away to be fish in some other dirty river town other than ours. How could they? was what us brothers wanted to know. We didn’t want to believe that our fish might be that kind of fish. In the end, about all this, it was wrong for us brothers to think this about these fish. Our fish, they hadn’t left our dirty river, our dirty river town. What happened to our fish was this. It was hot, that summer, and the sky, that summer, it never seemed to turn gray with the promise of rain. A river, us brothers, we soon discovered, it needs rain for it to be a river. Just like a fish needs a river for it to be a fish. By midsummer, that summer, when us brothers made our way down to the dirty river where we always ran ourselves down to its muddy banks to fish for our dirty river fish, there was more mud, down there, that summer, than there was river down there. It looked like to us brothers, to our boy eyes, that the river, too, just like our fish, like it too had gone, it was going, away. The river, it was true, it had gotten thinner along its usual muddy banks. And along the banks of this dirty river, there was more dirt, that summer, than there was mud made by the river’s water. But the river, us brothers, we believed in this, deep in our muddy brother hearts, it would always be the river to us. No one or no thing could take the river away from us. And the fish, too, us brothers, we believed this: the fish were somewhere out in the river too. Where the fish were, that summer, out in the river, us brothers, we couldn’t get ourselves out to. The fish, we found this out, the fish were out in the river’s channels, and out farther too out where the river turns east to become the lake. To the river’s channels and out into the lake was where our fish had gone off too: not to some other river, but to this other place in the river and out in that other place too — the lake — that the river flowed out to, though both of these places, us brothers, we could not get out to, not without a boat. Us brothers, we didn’t have us brothers a boat for us to go out fishing for these fish in, out where the fish were out there in the river’s deeper down waters, out where the river’s bottom was deeper down, down there in the river where there was more river for the fish to be fish in. We need us a boat, Brother one night, that summer, he pointed this out. Brother was the brother of us brothers who was always saying what the both of us brothers already were thinking. Brother was that kind of a brother. We’d been for the past few nights the both of us brothers both of us thinking this thought, though this was the first time one of us said it out loud outside our own boy heads. It was at night when Brother said what he said about us brothers needing us a boat. Up in the sky, that night, the moon was, as it always seemed to be for us brothers, big and shining white. The river, in the moon’s light, it was laid out for us brothers like a silver shimmering fish. Us brothers, we needed us a boat. You can say that again was what I said to Brother. And when I said what I said, when I said these words to Brother, that’s when it happened. Out there in the river’s moonlit night, out there out on the river, there in the river’s dark, out of the corners of us brothers’ eyes, we saw it: a boat. There was a boat out there out on the river slowly floating down the river. This was a boat floating slowly down the river without any lights on it to light the river’s way. Us brothers, we ran ourselves down to the river to see who it was who was out on this boat, to see who it was who was out on the river, at night, in a boat without any lights. But us brothers, even though the moon was big and white, we couldn’t see anyone, no fishering man or fishering woman, standing up or sitting down on the inside of this boat. We even called out to it, this boat, Hey, your lights! Both of us brothers hollered out, Turn on your lights! But only the rivery echoes of our own boy voices returned to us from the river’s dark. So what us brothers did then was this. We walked out, into the river, across the river’s sparkling dark, out to where this dark boat was darkly drifting, out to where this boat without any lights on it was floating down the river on the river’s downriver flow. Careful, Brother, Brother said, as the river crept up around our necks, our heads floating, or looking like they were floating, like a couple of chopped off fish heads. Don’t drown, Brother said. When Brother said what was in his boy head, I turned to face Brother in his face. Half of his brother face was lit up in the moon’s lighthouse light. What I said to Brother then was this: Fish don’t drown, Brother, I said. To a fish the river is its home. When I said this to Brother, Brother gave me this look. There was this look that us brothers we sometimes liked to look at each other with 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. Brother’s mouth opened up wide like a fish drinking in water. Let’s keep on walking then, Brother said to this. And so, us brothers, out into the muddy river, out across the river’s water, we walked, and walked, and kept on walking, walking through muddy water, walking out to where this boat, it was floating and floating away. When the river reached up above our boy eyes, above our fishy heads, that’s when the both of us brothers took in a deep breath. Like this, like fish, us brothers, with the river’s muddy water covering us brothers up, us brothers, our mouths opening up, like this we began to breathe.

We are down by the river, fishing for fish, when we see what it is that we see. What we see is there is a man, walking across the muddy river’s muddy water, this man, he is walking right up to us brothers. Boys, this man says. Brothers, he adds. I’m looking for my boat. Have you seen it, my boat? is what this man with his man’s mouth says. This man, his mouth, it is a hole in his face with a fish sticking its fish head out of it. When he sees us looking at him like this, like he is a man with a fish sticking out of his mouth, he spits this fish out into the river. This fish, when it hits the river, into the river it swims away. We see lots of boats is what us brothers say next to this man. There are lots of boats running up and down up and down this river with people inside them fishing for the river’s fish. But us brothers, we say to this man, we do our fishing standing right here on the river’s muddy shore. Us brothers don’t need us a boat. Must be lots of fish in this river if there’s lots of boats fishing this river for fish is what this man says to this. It wouldn’t be a river without the fish that make the river what it is, is what us brothers say then to this. Brother adds, What’s your boat look like? That might help us to tell you if we think we’ve seen it. If one of you brothers stood on the other brother’s shoulders, you’d need two more brothers of you to be as big as my boat is big, this man says. That’s big, Brother says to this. It’s big enough is what this man says then to this. What else? Brother asks. What else do we need to know? My boat, this man tells us, it’s made out of steel. Steel, us brothers say. A boat made out of steel? Us brothers, we give each other this look. There is this look that us brothers sometimes like to look at each other with. It’s the kind of a look that actually hurts the eyes of the brother who is doing the looking. Imagine that look. Maybe, we say, to this man, it sank, we say, to this man. This man, when we say this to this man, he looks down at us brothers with eyes that are made out of steel. What makes you say that? is what this man says to us brothers then, looking at us with this cold steel look looking out from his cold steel eyes. Steel sinks is what us brothers say to this. Like stones, we tell him, and we reach down to the river’s muddy bank and pick up from the mud into our boy fists two fist-sized stones that we throw out into the river. Both of these stones, when they hit the river’s muddy water, these stones turn into fish. Us brothers, we don’t say anything to this man about this. What we do say, though, is this. Mister, we say. Maybe you should look with your look beginning at the bottom of the river. Start looking there is what we tell him. This man, he looks the look in his cold steel eyes down upon us brothers, us standing down by this muddy river’s muddy shore, then he looks his look up into the sky above the river where the sun is somewhere shining. This man, he is nodding with his man head as he searches the above-the-river sky, looking there, into the clouds, so it looks like to us, for his boat made out of steel, then he turns and walks out into the river from which, he just a little while ago, came walking out across it, like a stone that somebody skipped. The river, this time, it does not hold this walking man up. The river, this time, it is a fish’s big fish mouth opening up and swallowing down inside of it a fish as small as a man’s last breath.