Come on, Dead Dog, we say, but this dog does not lift his dog head.
Dead who? asks Boy.
Boy is not one of us.
Boy is just this kid who likes to walk where we like to walk, who likes to go where us boys like to go.
Us boys, we don’t like to go home.
We don’t like to go home to where our house is, to where it is we live with that man that we like to call Man.
Do not think that this man who we like to call Man 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 kicked up road, it is dust that is what rises up from our dust skinned skins.
It was on a night like this when the sun rose up at dawn the next day that we saw for the first time that dog Dead Dog dead on the side of the road.
When we first saw Dead Dog, there on the side of the road, the dog that we saw, we thought that it was a dog dead.
Dead Dog did not make a move, or turn his dog head, or make with his dog mouth a sound when we stuck the toes of our boots up in Dead Dog’s nose.
That dog’s dead, one of us boys said.
Us boys, we left Dead Dog there for dead, there on the side of the road, and kept on with our walk to where we did not know where us boys would go to.
Not to home was all that we knew.
We walked.
We walked some more.
The sun, it seemed, seemed to walk its walk up the sky with us.
The sun, it seemed, it was one of us.
When we turned and went back the way to where home was for us boys back in the house where we lived in with Man, this was when we saw Dead Dog and we saw it, then, with both of our boy eyes, that this dog, it was not dead.
This dog that we thought it was dead, it sat up on the side of the road and it looked up at us boys like it, this dog, it was one of us.
What those dog eyes said to us boys, when they looked up at us up from the side of the road was, Would you please give this dog a home?
Home, us boys knew, our house, it was no place for a dog to be took to since we had no food or bones for us to feed it but for the dirt that we might scrape up for it and say to it that this dirt used to be bone.
But Dead Dog did not seem to mind it that dirt was all that he would get to eat if he came with us to that house at the edge of the woods that was for us boys what we were told was for us our home.
When we brought Dead Dog home with us to meet Man, we told Man that when we first walked by this dog there on the side of the road we thought that this dog was dead.
Oh yeah, Man said to this. You think that just cause some dog sits up like this dog did sit up that this don’t mean that this dog ain’t dead?
Us boys, we did not know what to say to this.
So we did not say yes or no.
You boys deaf, Man said to us next, or do you both just got dirt stuck up in your ears?
Us boys both stuck our thumbs in our ears and said, No, sir, there’s no dirt in here that we can feel.
Can we keep him? we said so to Man, and we all three of us looked down at Dead Dog as this dog licked at his own rear.
Man looked down at this dog as this dog did what he could do with his tongue and what Man said then was, What could a dog like this hurt, and that you boys could use a dog like this to keep us out of his way.
We said our thanks to what Man said when he said it, though we did not say this with a hug.
Us boys took Dead Dog with us to bed that night and we have since that night watched this dog sleep each of these nights, there at the foot of our bed, the sleep that makes you think that this dog is dead.
But dead, this dog, he is not.
Dead Dog just likes to make it look like he is dead.
But this dog is a dog that lives.