Peter Markus: The Fish and the Not Fish

Bird’s last name was Bird but it was spelled Byrd with a y and not with an i.

Jim Byrd was his real name.

But we just called him Bird.

Bird Byrd was what this boy was to us.

Or just plain Bird.

No one knew where Bird’s real mom and dad were or why Bird did not live in a house with a mom and dad who were his own.

Most of us lived in a house with a mom and dad who were our own.

But some of us lived in a house with just a mom or with just a dad and then some of us lived in a house with a mom and that mom’s mom and dad who lived in the house with us too.

None of us lived in a house with just a dad or with just a dad and that dad’s mom and dad.

I don’t know why none of us did.

One of us boys said that there were no more Byrds, that Bird was the last to live in our town.

I don’t know for sure if this was true.

Though I don’t know why it’d be the kind of a thing a boy like one of us would make up.

Look up.

See Bird.

Bird built a nest. In a tree. Made out of dirt and mud and twigs. At night he slept like a bird.

When the sun rose up in the sky, Bird sang like a bird glad to see the sun.

Hear his song.

The sky is blue by day, Bird sings.

At night the sky turns black.

There was a time when Bird was a boy just like all the rest of us.

There was a time when Bird, just like all the rest of us, was a boy who had to go to school.

The man who was there to teach us things would call out to us Bird’s real name.

Byrd, James.

Bird, just like the rest of us in this room, should have known what to do when he heard his name called out like this: last name first, first name last.

Bird should have raised up with his hand.

But Bird did not do what the rest of us in this room knew was the right thing for us to do.

So the man who was there in this room with us called out Bird’s name one more time.

Raise your hand, was what we told him.

But Bird did not do what we told.

The man who was there in this room to teach us things we did not need to know, he stood up from where he sat in back of his desk and he walked to where Bird in his own desk sat.

Aren’t you Byrd, James, was what this man asked Bird what he was.

Bird shook his head.

Then who are you? was what this man asked of Bird next. And what’s your name?

Jim, was what Bird said. James, Bird said, was the name of my dad.

The man who was there in this room to teach us things we did not need to know, we were taught to call him Sir.

Sir took Bird by the bone of his arm and pulled Bird up from his seat. Sir led Bird by the bone of his arm up to the front of our room where we got taught things we did not need to know.

We watched Sir try and teach a thing or two to Bird on this, the third day of school.

Turn to face the rest of the boys, Sir told Bird to do.

Bird did like he was told.

Bird looked his face at the rest of us in this room.

The look on Bird’s face was the look of a boy who did not look like the rest of us.

We watched the look on Sir’s face look.

The look on Sir’s face was the look of a man who did not like to look at us.

Sir took this look and he looked this look back at his desk.

In Sir’s desk there was a flat hunk of wood stashed back there that used to be used to row a boat with.

Sir held this wood up for all of us to see.

Bird did not see it, but he knew it was there.

Touch your toes, Sir told Bird what to do next.

Bird did.

When Bird did what Sir just told, Sir did with this wood what Sir liked to do best with this wood.

He hit.

And he hit.

And then Sir hit some more.

Bird did not wince, or flinch with his face, or make with his mouth a sound that most of us boys would make.

When Sir was done with this wood, Sir told Bird to stay where he stood.

Bird did.

Bird stayed and stood where he stood.

Pull out your books, Sir told the rest of us in this room.

We did.

We read what our books said.

The words made as much sense to us then as a broke piece of wood did to Bird.

Most of us boys would walk with a limp if Sir had done to us what he’d done to Bird.

But not Bird.

Bird walked the walk that he walked.

We watched him walk.

We watched him walk to where the train tracks in our town ran through the town that was ours.

The tracks in our town had all gone to rust.

There was a time when trains once ran through this town that was ours.

We all once saw trains run through our town on the way to some town that was not ours.

But not the past few years.

The past few years no trains had run through this town with the tracks all gone to rust.

Bird’s house was built so close to these tracks, Bird could throw a stone and hit a train on its way through our town on its way to a town that was not ours.

No train runs through town these days, but if they did Bird could show you, Bird would tell you if he could tell you, it’s true when I said it to you that Bird could take a stone and throw this stone at a train, his house was built that close to these gone to rust tracks.

When Bird walked up to these tracks, he did not cross them.

He stopped.

Then he sat down on them.

Bird looked down at the ground. Picked up a rock that he saw there. Held it like this in his fist.

When we walked up to where Bird was, what we asked Bird was, What are you up to?

Bird did not look up.

Bird did not say a word.

Not for a while.

But then he did.

He looked up.

In our faces.

What he said was, I see I must have missed the train.

Bird stood up.

He walked.

He walked in the tracks.

He walked like he was a train in these tracks.

We watched.

Then we walked like how he walked in these tracks.

No one said a word.

We walked like this till there was no more track to walk in. When the track stopped, we stopped where we stood in these tracks.

We stopped and we stood like this to see what Bird would do next.

Bird looked at the end of the tracks.

Then he looked up.

The sky was blue on one side, but one side of it had gone gray.

The side of the sky that was black, who of us could see it?

Bird’s who.

Bird could see it.

Bird knew that night was on its way.

He sat down.

The rock in his hand was still in there in his fist.

There was no way he would drop it.

That night, we watched Bird look up when the night sky got dark.

There was a moon and the stars for us to see that made the sky not seem so black.

Bird looked up.

We watched him look up.

Bird found a tree.

He walked up to it. Stood with his face faced to it.

But Bird did not climb up it.

That was not how Bird got up in this tree.

What Bird did was, how Bird did what he did was, to get up and up in this tree, Bird flew was what Bird did and how he did it.

Bird took flight.

He raised up with his head. Raised up with his arms out by his sides. And to this tree, Bird, he rose up.

Up in this tree the moon, when it rose up, it looked like Bird could reach out with his hand and touch it.

Bird did not touch it.

Bird just watched it with his bird eyes.

The moon, in the night, it glowed.

In Bird’s eyes, in the night, in the black of night, the moon, it glowed right back.

Up here, at night, as Bird watched the moon at night glow, the wind blew through the leaves of Bird’s tree.

Up here in the tree where Bird rose up to sit in this tree, Bird said to us one day that the wind in the tree, when it moved through the leaves of the tree, when it made the leaves of the tree move in the wind, that’s when he said he could feel it.