Peter Markus - Bob, or Man on Boat

He spits into the river.

He spits into the river for luck.

I’ll take whatever good luck I can get.

The lake is big.

On the lake, after Ohio, comes New York.

Below New York, on the lake, is Pennsylvania.

Bob could be anywhere or he could be nowhere in between.

I go in my boat back to where my looking for Bob began.

I head back to where Bob is a man who lives in a boat on a river.

On a river, in a boat, fished a man.

Call us Bob.

It rains.

It rained.

It is raining.

Rain, and then more rain.

When it rains, it rains a river.

In the rain, the river becomes more than a river.

The river, in the rain, becomes a lake.

In the rain, on the lake, it is hard for me to see.

In the sky there is a star that sailors use to find which way is north.

I don’t know which star is which.

I do not know which way is north or which way is south.

I get lost.

I end up running out of gas.

I drift until night turns to day.

There are more stars than there are heartbeats.

I tell myself, This is what heaven must be like.

I don’t know why I think this but I do.

That night, in the rain, with my boat drifting on an easterly drift, I drift off to sleep.

I dream about Bob.

In this dream, Bob pulls up to my boat in his boat.

Bob tells me to come aboard.

I do as Bob says.

When I come aboard Bob’s boat, Bob’s boat, it starts to sink.

We are up to our knees sinking.

Bob, I say to Bob.

Abandon ship.

I do as I say.

I swim over to where my boat is.

My boat, it is a boat that is not sinking.

I climb up into my boat.

Over here, I say to Bob.

I throw Bob a rope.

In my hands, the rope turns to light.

Bob lets the rope go past him.

Then Bob waves and walks away.

Across the river, Bob walks.

On top of the water, I watch Bob walk.

Like this, Bob is walking.

Back to the other side.

Bob walks and he walks and he keeps on walking.

Bob keeps on walking until Bob is nothing but a sound.

Bob is nothing but the sound that the river sometimes makes when a stone is skipped across it.

I go home because I don’t know where else to go.

I haven’t been home in days, in nights.

I’ve been out on the river, these days and nights, looking for Bob.

I tell this to my son who asks me where have I been.

My son says he thought his daddy was dead.

He says that his mother told him that the river took Daddy away.

Just like the river took Bob, I say, to myself.

I’m not gone, I say so to my son.

I say, Daddy’s right here.

Don’t go back on the river, my boy says to me then.

I tell my boy I won’t.

This, I can tell you, is a lie.

In the morning, first thing, I go out on the river.

I go out looking for Bob.

Let me tell you too.

This is a fish story that does not end.

This is the story of Bob.

Remember his hands.

His knuckles are rivers.

The skin on his hands, fish-scale covered, it looks like they’ve been dipped in stars.