Fish Heads
It was a good day of us brothers fishing. It was always a good day of us brothers fishing whenever us brothers went down to the river to go do us our fishing. It was a good day of us brothers going down to the river to go do us our fishing even when us brothers didn’t catch us many or any of those dirty river fish that live in the dirty river that runs through this dirty river town. But this day was not one of those days of us brothers not catching us many or even any fish. This day, us brothers, we fished out of the dirty river that runs through this dirty river town more fish than us brothers, with our mother and our father both sitting down at the table with us brothers, we caught us brothers more fish this day than the four of us in our house could in one sitting sit down and eat. It was one of those kinds of fishing days, that day, down at the river that day. Our buckets, that day, they couldn’t hold down inside of them all of our dirty river fish. Us brothers, we had to twice run down, with our buckets, back down to the dirty river that runs through this dirty river town for us brothers to bring back up to the back of our backyard all of that day’s dirty river catch. But the trouble, that day, with all of this was this: that when we got back to the back of our backyard that day with our buckets twice filled up to their muddy brims with fish, us brothers, we couldn’t find where our fish-cutting knives were that we used to gut and to cut off the heads off of our fish. Our fish-cutting, fish-gutting knives, they were nowhere to be, by us brothers, found. Us brothers, we usually kept these knives that were ours down inside the front pockets of the muddy-kneed trousers that us brothers always pulled on us in the morning. But when we fished our boy hands down inside of our trouser’s pockets, all we fished back up into our fists was the lint at the bottoms of these pockets. There was enough lint between us brothers, in our fists, that day, for us brothers to fly a kite with. But us brothers, we didn’t want us to fly us a kite that day. What us brothers wanted to do, that day, was we wanted to do with our fish what we always did with our fish. Us brothers, once we fished these fish that were ours out of the dirty river that runs through this dirty river town, we liked to take these fish out back to the back of our backyard, out back to where there was a telephone pole back there, back behind our father’s shed, that was studded with the chopped off heads of fish. Each fish, each fish head, us brothers, we gave each one a name. Not one was named Jimmy or John. Jimmy and John was mine and my brother’s name. We called each other Brother. Brother, Brother said, when we both of us looked and saw that both of us could not find inside of our trouser’s pockets our fish-cutting knives. What are we going to do? Brother said. How, was what Brother wanted to know, are we going to gut and cut off the heads off of our fish? When Brother said what he said, about our knives and our fish, I gave Brother a look. There was this look that us brothers, we sometimes liked to look at each other with this kind of a look. It was the kind of a look that actually hurt the eyes of the brother who was doing the looking. Imagine that look. Look, I told Brother this. Brother, look inside. Brother turned, then, when he heard what I said, and he went inside our house, in through the back door, and into our mother’s kitchen, to go looking inside there to see if he could find us our fish-gutting, fish-head-cutting knives. When Brother came back outside, a little while later, Brother was holding in both of his boy hands the kind of a knife that you use to butter your bread with. Brother, I said to Brother. Hold out your hands, I told him. Hand me over those knives. Brother did just like I told. We were brothers. We were each other’s voice inside our own heads. And so I took those knives out from Brother’s held-out hands, and then I threw them, hard and down, so that both of these knives stuck themselves down into the ground’s not-so-hard dirt. You can’t cut off a fish’s head, I said to Brother, with this kind of a knife, I said. That would take us all day was what I told him. Brother looked, then, and said to this, then, Brother, what’s the hurry? I looked back at Brother, once again, with our look. I looked him all over with this look. Brother, I said to Brother. Come with me, I said. And I walked my brother out back to the backest part of our backyard, out back to where our fish, our fish heads, they were with their open mouths, their open eyes, they were singing to us brothers. Brother, I said to Brother. Open up your mouth, I told Brother. Brother did like I told. We were brothers, remember. We were each other’s voice inside our own heads. Now, close your eyes shut, I told Brother this. And here again, Brother did what he was told. Good, Brother, I said. Brother did not, with his eyes closed shut like this and with his mouth opened up wide, see me reach my hand into one of our buckets and fish me out one of our fish. I held this fish, fish-head first, out toward my brother. Then I stuck that fish into Brother’s open mouth. Like this, fish after fish, opening and closing his mouth like this, Brother, us brothers, we chopped off these fishes’ heads.
Fish Heads: Revisited
Then there was the time, us brothers, we fished a fish out from the dirty river that runs its way through this dirty river town, and this fish, inside of this fish, when we stuck up our knives up inside of this fish, to gut the guts out of this fish, this fish, up inside of this fish, there was a fish head up inside of this fish with a rusty, bent-back nail running through this fish’s eye. This fish head is one of ours, was what I said to this. What Brother said back to this was, How do you know it’s one of ours? The nail, I said, to Brother saying this. How many fish heads in this world have a rusty, bent-back nail running through it? What Brother said back to this was, How many? I took hold of this fish with this fish head stuck up inside of it, and I held it up close for Brother to take a closer look. Look, I said. This here fish head stuck up inside of this here fish with this rusty, bent-back nail running through its eye, this is it, this is the only one, this is the one and only, this fish head, I’m telling you, this fish head, it belongs to us. Brother looked at this fish and then he looked at me back straight in the eye like I was a brother who was lying. Prove it, was what Brother said. Prove it? I said to Brother then. You want me to prove it to you that this fish head is one of ours? Brother nodded his boy head. I took this fish which had this fish head stuck up inside of it and I shook its fish tail in Brother’s face. You want me to prove it? I’ll prove it, I said. I said, to Brother then, Give me your hand, Brother. Brother did like I told. He held out his hand for me to take it. We were brothers. Up until now, we were each other’s voice inside our own heads. Good, Brother, I said. Us brothers, like this, hand in hand, we walked up away from the river back to our up-from-the-river house, then we walked out back into the back of our backyard. Out back in the back of our backyard, back here there was a telephone pole back here studded with the chopped off heads of fish. Look, I said to Brother, and I held his hand up against this fish-headed telephone pole. See that space right up there in the middle of all these other fish heads, I said. You see where that space is. There used to be a fish’s fish head up in there in that empty space. Brother looked but didn’t see what I wanted him to see. How do you know this? Brother said to this. Maybe you just think there used to be a fish’s fish head up there in that empty space. I held onto Brother’s hand then tighter than I’d ever held it before. I know it used to be there, I said, because I nailed it there myself. Just like this. And just like this, I reached back with my hammering hand, I raised back with my hammer, I drove a rusty, bent-back nail through Brother’s hand. Brother didn’t wince, or flinch with his body, or make with his boy mouth the sound of a brother crying out. Good, Brother, I said. I was about to hammer in another nail into Brother’s other hand when our father stepped out into the back of our backyard. Sons, our father called this word out to us. Us, our father’s sons, we turned back our boy heads toward the sound of our father. We waited to hear what words our father was going to say to us brothers next. It was a long few seconds. The sky above the river where the steel mill stood shipwrecked in the river’s mud, it was dark and quiet. Somewhere, I was sure, the sun was shining. You boys remember to clean up out here before you come back in, our father said to us then. Our father turned back his back. Us brothers turned back to face back with each other. I raised back the hammer. I lined up that rusted nail.