Percival Everett - Half an Inch of Water - Stories

“Just how did Rachel die?” Daniel asked.

“She drowned,” his mother said.

“How did she drown?”

“I’m afraid she had been drinking.”

“Why was she out there? Why had she been drinking?”

Daniel’s father cleared his throat. “It seems your sister had a problem with alcohol. She was an alcoholic. We didn’t know. We didn’t see it. We should have seen it.”

Daniel stabbed at the meat on his plate a few times. “Are you an alcoholic?” Daniel asked his father.

The man breathed deeply.

Daniel’s mother put her hand on his father’s arm.

“You drink. Are you an alcoholic?”

“I do drink, son, but I’m not an alcoholic.”

Daniel nodded.

“I drank more after your sister died,” the man said.

Daniel looked through the window at the dusk turning to night. “I remember that Rachel would scream a lot.”

“Rachel had some problems,” Daniel’s mother said.

“Are you saying she killed herself?”

“No, of course not,” she said. “It was an accident.”

Daniel looked at them, one then the other. He looked down at his hardly touched food. “I’m going to camp out tonight.”

“What?”

“It’s freezing out there.”

“I’ll be all right. I need to think.”

“Where are you going to camp?” his father asked.

“Not far. I just want to be outside. I just want to listen to the creek while I sleep.”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“I want to do it.”

His parents looked at each other.

“If you need to, do it,” his father said. “But we need to know where you’ll be.”

“By the big cottonwood.”

Daniel watched his parents exchange terrified glances. His father lifted his water glass and then set it down without drinking.

“Why there?” the man asked.

“I’ll be there tonight.”

“I don’t understand,” his mother said. “It’s too cold to camp out.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“I won’t allow it,” his father said.

Daniel just stared at the man. He wasn’t angry. He wasn’t frustrated or excited. But neither was he calm. “That’s where I’ll be.”

“Maybe I should call your doctor,” his mother said. “You should talk to her first, before you do anything.”

“She’s an idiot.”

“Can we just talk about this?” his mother asked.

“No.”

Daniel’s father looked out the window at the darkness and said nothing. He slowly squared himself to the table again and began eating.

Puker was unhappy at being taken away from his feed and saddled in the dark. The gelding complained but relaxed under the currycomb. Daniel didn’t have much gear, just a one-person tent, his sleeping bag, and his fishing gear. He took his father’s fly-tying kit with him as well.

He built a fire at streamside to warm up. That gave him enough light to set up his tent. He stared at the yellow-and-green structure in the firelight. Daniel had considered sleeping out in his bag without it, but he’d never been comfortable like that. Somehow the cocoon of a tent made him feel safe, even though he knew it afforded protection from only wind, rain, and snow. He recalled a joke he’d heard: What does a bear call a man in a tent? A burrito. Whether it was true or not he imagined that the bears were up high and hibernating. Burrito or no, he crawled into his tortilla and tried to sleep. As long as his horse wasn’t screaming, he figured all was well. He managed to get warm in his bag and did drift off.

The rustling was faint at first. Then near. He thought he heard sniffing at the base of his tent. He imagined a coyote, maybe a wolf. He took a peek out into the dawn and mist and saw a cow moose drinking from the creek. He relaxed a bit and then realized that there was a bull with her, standing knee deep in the water. He didn’t like bull moose. No one did. Bull moose were dangerous. They were not the Bullwinkles that city people imagined. Daniel wanted to wait them out, but he needed to relieve himself. He found a twig at the mouth of his tent and snapped it. The bull raised his head. Daniel froze. The bull seemed to look straight at him. He didn’t know what he might do if the animal charged.

The stillness was disturbed by a loud splash. Then another. Bull and cow ran away, upstream and then across through the willows. Daniel pulled himself out and stared at the water, saw the flash of a big trout’s belly. He fell and began to feel the frigid air. He hopped around slapping his arms while he got the fire going. He ate his bologna sandwich and studied the creek.

He watched the big fish make rise after rise for no apparent food. It was still so cold that no insects were available. Daniel imagined or perhaps hoped that there would be a few mayflies later, after the sun had warmed things up a bit. But there would certainly be gnats. There were always gnats.

Daniel considered giving Puker a good brushing, as he hadn’t done it when arriving in the night, but he did not. He gave him some grain that he’d brought and tied him out to graze.

Daniel fed the fire, made it big and hot and enjoyed the brisk cold on his back while he toasted his arms and face. An eagle flew by far overhead. After that a few chatty ravens flew past as if to steal a good look at him. He was apparently not all that interesting. He didn’t need ravens to tell him that.

He heard Puker stir, then whinny. He’d been sitting for a couple of hours, warm now, lost in something like thought. He listened and could hear the creaking of a truck bouncing across the rough part of the track just after the fjord. He got up to settle the horse while the vehicle arrived. As he expected, it was his parents, but wedged in between them on the bench of the pickup was his therapist, Dr. Feller.

The three sat, framed behind the windshield, seemingly frozen, as he must have seemed to them. They looked alarmingly alike behind the glass. Daniel released the horse’s halter and the animal returned to grazing. The trio spilled out of the truck and approached him in wandering paths, his mother taking the most direct one. His father wandered away from the stream, pretending, at least, to survey the hills and the clouds gathering far off. His doctor, as she liked to be known, veered toward the stream, staring at it as if she’d never seen one before. She was the first to speak.

“I see you’re camping out.”

Daniel nodded. He looked at his mother. “I’ll be home directly.”

“I don’t like you being out here like this,” his father said.

“I’m just thinking,” Daniel said.

“What are you thinking about?” his therapist asked.

“Things.” Daniel was curt, perhaps dismissive, but he didn’t think he was being rude. Not that he cared. “Stuff fourteen-year-old boys think about.”

“Oh,” Dr. Feller said.

“I haven’t masturbated yet,” he said. That was rude.

He looked at his mother. She appeared to have been slapped. “Well, I haven’t.”

His father cleared his throat. “I’ve had about enough of this.”

“I’ll be home soon,” Daniel said again.

His therapist walked closer to him but kept stealing glances back at the pool. “You know, it’s all right to be angry.”

“So I’ve been told. I’ll give that some thought. Three o’clock. I’ll get angry at three. Will that work for you?”

“Daniel,” his mother said. “Dr. Feller is just trying to help.”

“I don’t need any help,” he said. “I’m only fourteen, but I can see that this therapy crap is for you two. I was eight. The only feeling I ever had about any of this is confusion. I don’t want to know anything. I don’t want to figure out anything. I just want you to know that I’m not out here to drown myself.”