Life and Other Inconveniences

by Higgins, Kristan

  “Dad! Watch me!” Sheppard said, and he ducked underwater and was gone. Dad smiled, but Clark felt fear run through his bones, and he clutched Dad a little tighter, feeling his father’s water-slick skin slide against his legs and belly.

  Where was Sheppard?

  Then Shep’s blond head popped up, way, way out in the lake. “Pretty far, huh?” he called, laughing.

  “Great job!” Daddy called.

  “I can swim underwater, too,” Clark said.

  “Can you? Let’s see, then!”

  Daddy let him go, and Clark tried with all his might to get his head underwater, but it wasn’t like Sheppard. He couldn’t get his body to go under all the way. Still, he got his face in, and that was a lot.

  “Good boy! Excellent,” Daddy said.

  “You have to kick harder,” Sheppard said, demonstrating. “You’re too floaty.”

  He tried, but it was more Sheppard showing off than teaching him how to do it right. After a few tries, he paddled to where his feet could touch the slimy bottom. Daddy and Sheppard did all sorts of tricks that Clark wanted so much to do. Shep stood on Dad’s shoulders and dived into the lake. Swam between their father’s legs. Did a somersault in the water, like a dolphin.

  He was better at everything. No wonder Mama liked him best.

  Clark looked at his pruney fingers and went back to shore and pretended to shiver, waiting for them to notice. But they didn’t. They played for way too long. He tried making roads in the sand again, but it wasn’t as fun.

  Then, finally, they came in.

  “I have to pee,” Clark said. His father should’ve known that.

  “Go behind a tree,” Sheppard said. “Or in the lake.” He laughed, and so did Dad, and it didn’t feel good, being left out like this.

  “Go ahead, Clark,” Dad said. “Behind a tree. Sheppard’s right. Right there, buddy. You can see us the whole time.”

  He wanted to go to the bathroom. A real bathroom. His bathroom, which still had toys in the bathtub, even though Sheppard said they were for babies and he should get rid of them. But then, how would bath time be fun? Floating his boats in the tub, making Elmer Fudd and Bugs Bunny fly through the air and dive into the water . . . he didn’t want to get rid of them. Sheppard was too bossy and know-it-all.

  He trudged away from the shore, wishing Daddy would come with him.

  The truth was, Clark didn’t like the woods. Sheppard loved the outside, loved going to the spooky spots at home, out by the water where the pine trees sounded like people whispering scary things. But Clark hated it. Once, Sheppard had told him a story about the Tree People, and how they ate children who wandered off, and kept their teeth for a necklace, and he’d only stopped telling the story when Clark started to cry. Sheppard hugged him then, and said he was sorry, it was just a story, and please don’t tell. So Clark didn’t. But the scary feeling stayed.

  He pulled his bathing suit down. What if there was someone watching? What if someone saw his butt? The pee wouldn’t come. His stomach hurt with holding it in, but it wouldn’t come.

  Then there were footsteps, and the pee shot out in terror without his permission.

  It was just Dad. “You doing okay, honey?” he asked.

  “I peed on my trunks,” Clark said, feeling close to tears.

  “We’ll just rinse them out,” Daddy said. “Here. Step out.”

  So Clark went naked back to the car, feeling somehow ashamed, and pulled on his other clothes. Sheppard was getting dressed, too, and he was so quick and sure and skinny. It made Clark feel slow and big, but Daddy said he’d be a great football player someday. So there. No one ever said that about Sheppard.

  After that, it was a little better. They ate lunch, and even if Sheppard called him Piggy, he ruffled his hair and didn’t say it in a mean way. They fished, Daddy putting on the lures and the corn and the worms. Clark caught sunnies, and it was horrible to see them gasping as Daddy took the fish off the hook and let them go. They disappeared into the deep water, flashing before they were gone. Clark hoped they swam far, far away and didn’t come back for more worms. Stupid fish.

  One fish didn’t swim away. It seemed dead. It was floating, white and spooky, in the water. Clark hated it.

  Sheppard caught the biggest fish. Of course.

  “We’ll cook that up for supper,” Daddy said. “Let me take a picture of you first. Mother will be so proud. Get in there, Clark, honey. She’ll be proud of you, too, with all your sunnies!”

  They didn’t seem to notice the dead fish.

  Sheppard and Daddy went swimming again, but Clark didn’t want to get near that dead fish. Besides, he was cold and bored and sleepy. He didn’t like being dirty. He had sap on his hand that lake water wouldn’t wash off. There was sand in his butt crack. He didn’t want to camp. He wanted to go home.

  The woods were getting dark, and he wished Daddy and Shep would come out of the lake.

  What if there were spies out in the woods? Mama and Daddy had been watching the news one night and Clark heard the TV man talking about spies from far away who hated Americans. What if they were watching him? What if they’d seen him when he was changing? What if the Tree People were real?

  “Daddy, I’m scared,” he called.

  “Don’t be a chicken,” Sheppard called, and that was that. Clark started to cry. He could cry pretty easily, and before long, he was gulping in sobs.

  “What’s wrong, honey?” Dad asked, coming out of the water (finally).

  “I want to go home! I don’t feel good,” he sobbed. Daddy picked him up and held him close, but over his shoulder, Clark could see Sheppard’s mean face on.

  “Don’t ruin this, Clark,” his father said.

  “My tummy hurts,” Clark said to his father.

  “You think you just have to poop?”

  “No. I want to go home.”

  Dad sighed, so Clark kept crying and hugged Daddy tighter. “It hurts a lot, Daddy,” he lied. “Like a sword.”

  “Okay, sweetheart,” he said. “Let’s pack up, Sheppard.”

  “Just bring him home! Let him stay with Mother if he’s such a baby. I’ll stay here and wait for you, Dad.”

  “Sheppard. Your brother is sick. I’m not leaving you here in the woods.”

  “Then we can bring him home and come back,” Shep pleaded.

  Dad hesitated. “He seems really sick, son,” and Clark cried harder to prove it. “We can come back next weekend. No, no, don’t talk back. Start packing up.” He set Clark in the front seat of the car, and Clark couldn’t help a small, triumphant smile.

  “He’s faking!” Shep said, and his voice was mean.

  “Sheppard! Stop it.” Dad’s voice was sharp. “Clark, can you hang in there while we pack up?”

  “I think so.” He made sure fat tears still rolled down his cheeks.

  “Good boy.”

  They took down the tent and packed up the fishing stuff, Sheppard cutting him resentful glances. Clark didn’t care. He’d take a bath at home with Elmer Fudd and Bugs Bunny. He wouldn’t be sandy and dirty and sticky. He’d smell nice and sleep in his bed and be away from the stupid woods.

  Dad was tying the canoe to the roof of the car, tugging on the straps.

  Where was Sheppard? Was he swimming again? That would be just like him, doing something so Clark would have to wait.

  Or maybe he had found something. Sheppard always found neat stuff . . . the robin egg shells, the Indian arrowhead, a five-dollar bill. What if he had found something now? He wouldn’t share it, not when he was mad at Clark.

  Dad was packing up the picnic stuff now. Without saying anything, Clark slipped out of the car and went to find Sheppard. If he was swimming, he could tattle on him. His brother wasn’t in sight, though. Clark climbed around the point of their little cove, and there was Sheppard, stand
ing way up high on an outcropping of rock that looked like it would tumble into the lake at any second. Sheppard was brave, going up there.

  “What are you doing?” Clark asked.

  “I found something really neat,” Sheppard said.

  He knew it. “What is it?

  “Come up and see for yourself.”

  Clark climbed up, too, but at the top, the reach was too far. “Help me,” he said.

  “Help yourself, chicken. Why’d you have to ask to go home? You’re not sick. You ruined everything.”

  “No, I didn’t. I want to go home. I don’t feel good.”

  “You’re a liar.”

  Clark was slipping. He grabbed the rock and tried to pull himself to the top, but he wasn’t quite strong enough, and his foot slipped. Pain shot up his shin. “I’m falling!” he said, and then Sheppard, stupid Sheppard, did grab him and pull him up.

  “I’m bleeding,” Clark said, looking at his shin.

  “It’s just a scrape. Don’t be a baby. Come on. Look at what I found.”

  It was a huge feather, dark gray with a small patch of white at the base. “This is from a bald eagle,” Sheppard said.

  “It is?”

  “Yep. See how big it is? Almost as long as your arm. And it cuts in up here, see? That’s because it’s a raptor.” Sheppard knew so much. He read all the time.

  “Can I have it?” Clark asked.

  “No. It’s mine.”

  “Can we share it?”

  Sheppard tipped his head to one side. “You know what? I would’ve shared it, but you ruined our camp-out because you’re a big baby. So no. It’s just mine.”

  “Mommy thinks you’re so nice, but you’re mean.”

  “Mommy thinks you’re so nice, but you’re mean,” Sheppard echoed in the baby voice he used when he was mad at Clark.

  “Shut up!”

  “Ooh, I’m telling,” Sheppard said. “Mother says we’re never supposed to say that. You’re a baby, Clark. You can hardly swim and you’re afraid of being eaten by Tree People. You’re not sick. You’re just poor wittle Clarkie, scaredy-cat of the woods who wants his mama.”

  Clark shoved him. He was a big boy and strong and would be a good football player someday, and Sheppard was surprisingly light. For a second, Sheppard’s arms waved in the air, and he was just . . . gone. There was a thud.

  Uh-oh. Clark was going to get in big trouble. He stood there a minute, waiting for Sheppard to yell at him or call for Dad.

  He didn’t. There was no noise at all. Not one sound.

  Clark felt like he’d been dipped in ice water all of a sudden. Inch by inch, he went to the edge and looked over.

  Sheppard was lying on the rock, the eagle feather next to his head.

  “Sheppard?” he whispered. His brother didn’t answer.

  Clark didn’t remember getting down to him.

  But he did remember that when he got to his brother, Sheppard’s eyes were a little bit open but not blinking. Clark nudged him with his foot, hoping Sheppard would jump and say, “Boo! Got you!”

  But he didn’t. His almost-closed eyes didn’t flicker.

  Clark remembered the bird that had flown into the window last week, then fallen to the grass right when they were eating breakfast.

  “Poor thing broke its neck,” Daddy had said. Its eyes had been the same way.

  His breath hitched out of him. He couldn’t tell on himself. He was very cold now. Very cold.

  Maybe the water would revive Sheppard. Maybe he had fainted, or bumped his head really hard. It was easy to roll him into the water. Clark was a big boy and strong. He would make a great football player.

  Sheppard sank, his white skin shining in the water like the belly of the dead sunfish. The water was deep.

  Clark waited, but Sheppard didn’t come up again.

  Then he went back to the car. His shin hurt. The rest of him was somewhere else. He was shivering harder now.

  “Where were you?” Daddy said as he came to the car. “Did you go poop?”

  Clark shook his head. He couldn’t speak.

  “Get in the car, honey. You’re shaking! We’re on our way home, don’t worry. Here, put this towel around you. It’s dry. Sheppard! Come on, son! Time to go!”

  Things went gray after that. He heard his father’s voice drift in and out of his head, sometimes loud, sometimes not, getting more and more afraid. When Daddy jumped in the car and beeped the horn, Clark didn’t twitch. When he ran up and down the path, Clark just sat there. When Daddy drove like a maniac, as Mama said, down the dirt road to the nearest house, Clark didn’t say a word. When the police came, when Mama came, when Daddy finally remembered that Clark was sick and a policeman put him in the car, and more and more people came to the lake, he still never said a word.

  At some point, he fell asleep. He woke up in his own bed, but he was still gritty and sticky from the lake. It was morning now. He listened from the top of the stairs.

  Sheppard was gone. No one could find him.

  Clark knew that he’d get in trouble if he told. Mama would hate him. Even Daddy would hate him.

  He padded back to his room and took a bath. He didn’t play with Elmer Fudd and Bugs Bunny, and when the bath was over, he took the big scissors from his desk and cut off their heads and put them in the trash.

  Later that day, when the police asked where he last saw his brother, he said, “Packing up the car,” and added, “with Daddy.”

  They asked if he’d seen anyone in the woods, and he said he’d been scared, but he hadn’t seen anyone. But maybe he had heard someone. He asked if there were Tree People out there who ate children, and meaningful glances were exchanged. “Why do you think there are Tree People?” the policeman asked, and Clark shook his head.

  They asked if he knew where Sheppard had gone, and he said no. Then he started to cry, and his crying got out of control so he couldn’t breathe, and his mother told the police to stop asking him things. A doctor had to give Clark a shot, and he went right to sleep.

  He had nightmares that Sheppard came out of the lake, accusing and furious, his eyes missing because the fish had eaten them. He woke up screaming. He dreamed that Sheppard was sitting on his bed, smiling, saying it was okay, he’d swum to shore, did Clark want to play?

  He knew they were looking in the lake for his brother. He wanted them to find him. He prayed they wouldn’t.

  As the days passed, and then the weeks, Clark missed his brother so much. Was this really how life was going to be now? Was Sheppard gone forever? Had Clark really done this bad, bad thing? It was so hard not to tell Daddy, because Daddy was still nice to him. Instead, he cried against Daddy’s chest, and Daddy cried, too, and told him he was a good boy, and how could Clark say anything then?

  Mama didn’t seem to be herself anymore. She was here, but not here. People talked a lot about how nice Sheppard was, how perfect, how smart and kind, and eventually, a resentment started to grow in Clark. He remembered how Sheppard showed off that day. How he called him a baby and Piggy and didn’t help him on the rock when he was slipping. How he wouldn’t share the feather. What if Clark had been the one to fall? He almost had, and . . .

  . . . and Sheppard had helped him.

  No. Clark could never tell. What everyone said was right. Sheppard was better, and Clark was just . . . leftover.

  People told Clark to be brave. They told him he was a good boy, and a good brother. He must miss Sheppard a lot, they said.

  As the months trickled past, Clark got tired of how things were now. His parents didn’t get happy again. They cried and whispered a lot, and it was always Sheppard they talked about. Everything was about Sheppard, even more than it had been before. Finding Sheppard. Looking for Sheppard. Remembering Sheppard. It was as if Clark had gone away, too, except when his father tried to be nice
, and even then, his father was forgetful and sad and not fun anymore.

  This was really Sheppard’s fault. If Sheppard had been nicer, Clark wouldn’t have shoved him. If Sheppard had cared more about his stomachache—and he had had a stomachache, sort of—he wouldn’t be dead. If Sheppard hadn’t told him the story of the Tree People, Clark maybe would’ve loved camping. Maybe, just maybe, Sheppard deserved that shove. Not to go away forever, but to be shoved. Clark hadn’t meant for his brother to disappear. He’d just wanted him to shut up.

  When Daddy died and everyone said it was from a broken heart, Clark knew he could never tell, ever, because then he would have killed Dad, too, and Dad was the only one he loved anymore.

  Sheppard had become perfect in death, whereas Clark just was. His mother started that company, abandoning him almost completely, and before long, he didn’t even care. He knew how to get what he wanted. He knew she didn’t love him the way she’d loved Sheppard, or Dad. He knew he’d spend the rest of his life in the shadow of his dead brother.

  Sheppard’s body was never found. Maybe the divers hadn’t searched that area. Maybe the muck at the bottom had swallowed him. Maybe there really were Tree People who ate children.

  Over the years, he learned to banish that day from his thoughts. He wrapped himself in self-interest, because who else would care about him? He learned to take what he could get and not expect anything else. He taught himself how to have fun—drink, get high, sleep around. He decided he deserved everything he wanted, because Sheppard should’ve been nicer, and his parents should’ve cared about their other son more. So he took everything without question, because he deserved it.

  Later, when his wife died, when Hope was born, and cracks appeared in that armor, he did what he’d learned to do, been taught to do—pretend it didn’t happen. It almost didn’t happen, really. A childhood accident, no big deal. Shit happened. Christ, he’d stuck up for himself! He’d been five. It wasn’t like he was a murderer.