Free The Fish and the Not Fish by Peter Markus

is the man who gave us boys our name.
    This man is not that man.
    This man is just the man who took us in when the man who was the man who gave us our name told us that he had to get, that he had to go, and then he left and we have not seen or heard from that man not once since.
    Us boys, we were both of us six back then, that day, back when that man who gave us our names up and left.
    Now we are six more than that.
    That makes twelve.
    That man who up and left us, that man who went, who said he had to get, we think he is a man who is dead.
    Or at least he is a man who is dead to us.
    Us boys, we don’t like to look back.
    We don’t say or ask the sky why did this man who gave us our name turn his back and leave us.
    That was then is all we say.
    We are big boys now.
    Us boys, watch us walk down this made out of dirt road and watch us as we kick at the dirt of the road and watch us as we watch the puffs of road dust rise up from our worn through to the toes boots.
    For us to walk down the road like this is what we like to do for kicks.
    Dust, us boys, is what we like to kick up.
    Dirt, us boys, we like to take the dirt up in our hands and rub the dirt on and in our skin.
    This man that we call Man does not mind it much what we like to do with our dirt.
    This man has got his own things to keep his mind mad on like the wife that he took in who does not like to cook or keep clean the house.
    Man’s wife, we do not call her Mam or Ma.
    Man’s wife is not so old to be a mam or a ma to us.
    This wife of Man’s, she is more of a girl to boys like us.
    Which is why us boys we like to call Man’s wife Girl.
    Girl, we say, to Man’s wife. Want to come with us boys for a walk out through the woods?
    The woods is where us boys most of the time like to go to when we get it in us to get up and go.
    We go to the woods.
    In the woods there are birds for us boys to throw rocks at, there are trees for us boys to up and climb.
    Up at the tops of our climbed up trees we can see all the way up to where town is, to where town used to be.
    Town is just this turn in the dirt road where the dust in this road turns west.
    When we go to town, we like to take this turn and walk off toward the sun.
    One time, us boys, we walked and we walked and we did not stop our gone to town walk till the sun left us to be boys who did not fear the dark that was, we knew, the night’s night black sky.
    When it got to be dark, the stars shined down a light down on our heads and we stood and we stood and we looked and that whole night long, that was all that we did for all of that night’s long.
    We looked up and we looked up and we looked up.
    Each star, that night, in the sky that we saw as we looked up and looked up, us boys, we gave each star a name.
    Not one of these stars did we give the name Jim or John, which is what is us boys’ real names.
    Jim and John are not the names that we like to say when we need to say hey, look, or hey, bro, let’s go.
    We like it best when we call out to each of us boys the word Kid.
    Kid is the word Man likes to call out to us boys when he calls out to us to come here.
    But we did not do it is what us boys all the time like to say to Man when we hear him call out to us this word Kid.
    Man likes for us boys to hold tight the things that he can’t hold when both of his man hands are tied up and full.
    Hold this nail, Man likes to tell us.
    Hold for me like this this here piece of wood.
    We watch Man smack the wood good.
    Good, no, Man, he won’t say to us that we have held it or have done a thing good.
    All he’ll say is, when we are done is, you boys can go now.
    And so, us boys, we get up and we go.
    Go is what us boys like to do best.
    We like to go to where the road goes, though the road does not take us as far as we would like it to go from that place in the woods that we don’t like to call home.
    Home is where the dust is and dust, when you see us walk on down this dust