It falls to the ground.
In the dirt, Boy’s thumb, it blends in with the dirt.
Come, we call to Dead Dog to come.
Dead Dog comes.
When Dead Dog sees what he sees in the dirt, he looks up at us boys as if to say, Is this here bone for me?
We both of us boys nod our boy heads to say it that this bone is for you.
Dead Dog barks a bark that says to us boys thank you.
Then this dog drops down his dog head and starts to eat.
III. DEAD DOG EATS
Dead Dog likes to dig holes.
Dead Dog digs holes by the side of the road.
Us boys watch Dead Dog dig.
There is dirt piled high by the side of this road where Dead Dog has dug his holes.
See Dead Dog dig.
Dead Dog digs with his two front paws.
Dead Dog digs like he is a dog that knows there is a thing down there that is worth a dog to dig for.
Hey, Dead Dog, we say.
Dead Dog does not look up from his hole.
Where, we say, do these dug in the ground holes go down to?
Dead Dog digs and digs.
Dead Dog digs down and down.
In a while, Dead Dog is down in the down there of that hole. The top of his head is all of Dead Dog that us boys can see.
Dead Dog does not stop.
Dead Dog digs some more and more.
Dead Dog digs and digs and when Dead Dog stops is when Dead Dog gets down to where there is a bone down there for Dead Dog to chew on.
There is more than just one bone down in this hole for Dead Dog to chew on.
There are bones and there are more bones.
There are more bones down in this hole than Dead Dog would know what to do with.
These bones that Dead Dog has just dug up, they are not the kind of bones that might be bones from some pig or cow that us boys might eat or might have one day ate for lunch and then when we were done with our lunch we might have thrown these bones off to the side of the road so that some dog like Dead Dog or some dog not like Dead Dog might find them, these bones, and then have some bone to chew on what bits of meat, pig, or cow, that us boys might have left on them.
Those bones, us boys, we both think, these are the bones that could be the bones in the arm or in the leg of a boy who looks like the both of us.
Then Dead Dog digs up a bone that we see is the head bone, a bone with black holes where eyes used to be, the bone of a boy that could be one of us.
When Dead Dog digs up this bone with the teeth still in it, Dead Dog looks up at us boys as we look down at him down in his dug in the dirt hole.
Us boys, we look down at this bone that used to be some boy’s head.
Dead Dog’s tongue, Dead Dog sticks it out at the both of us.
Dead Dog gives us boys both a look that looks like to us that what this look says to the both of us is that Dead Dog has just looked at us like he would like to eat us.
We look back at Dead Dog and we cross our eyes down at this dog to say to Dead Dog, Dead Dog, you best take back that look.
What Dead Dog does when we look at Dead Dog with this look is, Dead Dog starts to bark.
Don’t you bark at us, Dog, we say.
Hush, Dog, we both of us hiss.
We gave you a home, we tell him.
If Boy was here, we say, but we do not say what we know Boy would do.
If Man was here, we say, but we do not say what we know Man would do.
Our hands, we do know this, they are balled up to make us four fists.
But Dead Dog, us boys, no, we do not with our fists hit.
Us boys, we are not boys that like to hit or kick dogs.
There are boys, we know, who are boys who do like to hit and kick dogs.
Boy is one of those boys.
A boy that likes to hit a dog when he is a boy grows up, we know, to be a man like Man is.
Us boys, we do not want to grow up to be the kind of man that Man is.
So what we do then so that we don’t have to hit Dead Dog for the look and the bark that he has looked and barked at us with is, we take hold of one of those bones from down in Dead Dog’s hole and we give it a throw and tell Dead Dog to go fetch.
Dead Dog does like he is told.
Dead Dog, he is a good dog.
When Dead Dog goes to go fetch the bone that we have just thrown for him to go fetch, us boys, we jump down in this hole that Dead Dog has just dug and one of us boys takes in his hand the bone that we know is the head bone.
The skull, Boy might call it.
One of us boys then takes it up in his hand a bone that looks like it must be a leg bone.
This bone that looks like it must be a leg bone, it is as long as the legs of the both of us.
This bone that looks like it must be a leg bone, when the one of us boys takes it up in his hands, it feels like the kind of a a thing that when you hold it in your hands, this thing, it is a thing meant to hit with.
When Dead Dog comes back with this bone that us boys have thrown him, a bone that looks like a big tooth that it sticks out from the sides of his mouth, we tell Dead Dog to sit.
Dead Dog does what we tell him.
Dead Dog sits.
Dead Dog sits and Dead Dog waits for us boys to tell him what to do for us next.
Dead Dog, we know, has hopes that us boys will throw him a bone for him to fetch it.
This is what we do.
We throw it, this bone, as hard as a boy like us can throw a bone like this at the sky.
Dead Dog, we say. Go fetch it.
Like this, Dead Dog is a dog that goes go fetch.
Then, like this, one of us boys says for one of us to hit this, and we throw up the head bone up in the air.
One of us boys takes the bone that is the bone that is meant, it feels like to us, like it is made for us to hit with, and he hits at this bone that is pitched up like this up in the air.
This bone that is the head, it floats there in the sky that is a mix of blue and brown, sky and dirt, and it waits for us to hit it.
When bone hits bone, both of these bones break the way that dirt breaks up and then it turns to dust.
In a cloud of dust made from the dirt, Dead Dog comes back at a run back to where we are both of us.
Stop, we say to Dead Dog.
Drop it, we say.
Dead Dog does what we say.
Dead Dog stops and Dead Dog drops the bone that sticks out like a tooth from the sides of his dog mouth.
Then this dog gives us this look.
It is the kind of a look that says to us boys, What should I do next?
Us boys, we do not say to this dog a word of what to do next.
What we do do is this.
We drop down on our hands and knees, down in the dirt, and like this, us boys, with Dead Dog in the dirt with us, we drop down with our heads and start to eat.
IV. DEAD DOG RUNS
Dead Dog likes to run.
When Dead Dog is not a dog that likes to sleep, or a dog that likes to dig holes by the side of the road, Dead Dog runs.
Dead Dog runs from the hands of us boys.
He runs out to and through the back of the yard where the back of the yard turns to woods and then he runs out to and through the woods to where town used to be a town.
These days, town is just this bend in the road where, us boys, we walk right through it.
There are days when Dead Dog does not stop when he starts to run this run that is Dead Dog’s.
There are days when we don’t see Dead Dog for days, he has run so far out to and through the woods and out to where the woods that he runs through takes him.
Have you seen Dead Dog? one of us boys will ask.
We both of us shake our boy heads.
What day is it?
The boy in us boys does not know the name of the day it is.