Peter Markus: The Fish and the Not Fish

One of these days, Dead Dog, he will be a dog who will come at a run back to us boys. He will run back to us boys from down the road that runs its way out to where town used to be, or else he will run back to us boys from where the woods is.

That one of these days, it is the day that it is right now.

Hey, Dead Dog, we say when we see Dead Dog come back from where this dog has gone off to.

Dead Dog runs up to us boys and he licks at us on our face.

Then Dead Dog sits down and he licks and licks at his butt.

We wipe at the spot on our face where Dead Dog has just licked and licked twice.

Dead Dog, we say.

Get.

Get out.

Go.

Run, we say.

We raise our hands up to make them to be four fists.

Dead Dog looks up at us boys and then he gets, he goes, he runs.

He runs out back and back to where the dirt turns to woods.

We don’t see his dog face back for days and days.

When he comes back, Dead Dog goes and he lays down where the dirt kicks up with dust.

Dead Dog, we say.

Come, we say.

When he hears this, Dead Dog, he comes.

He comes with his head turned down to where what he sees is the dirt of the earth.

Dead Dog, we see, walks with a limp in one of his front legs.

We see that it’s Dead Dog’s right front leg that is the leg that is the one that makes Dead Dog walk like he is a dog that has walked with his paws through glass.

There is blood, we see, on his right paw.

Us boys, we set to fix it up right.

We pour some of Man’s booze that we can see through out of the jug that Man likes to lift up to his lips.

Us boys, we like to watch Man lick his lips when he lifts this up to his lips.

It makes us think of when Dead Dog leans back and licks at his own butt.

If Man could, too, he would, too, one of us boys likes to be the one of us who says this.

The boy who does not say this can’t help but laugh and laugh out loud.

When we laugh out loud like this, Dead Dog likes to bark.

Hush up, Dead Dog, us boys hiss.

Man looks out from our house from right to left.

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.

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.