Troublemaker

I lounged listlessly on the canopy swing at the edge of the pool while Sammy, hanging on to the edge, spoke to me out of the water. I had already gone for a swim, dried off and changed. Now my hair was drying while I supervised Sammy. Not that he needed supervision – he had made the junior swim team – but there was no one else home and little else to do on this hundred-degree day. He was telling me of school escapades and friends and childish rumors. I nodded and hmm’d along, gradually losing awareness as the thick heat swaddled me and became almost impenetrable. The bubble broke when I heard my name.

“Rae!” I snapped back to attention and focused on Sammy, who repeated the question I had not heard. “What does that word mean?”

“What word?”

“Are you even listening? The word that starts like ‘fun’ but instead of the N it ends with C-K-I-N-G.”

“Oh, that word. It’s a bad word. You shouldn’t say it.” Yikes. There goes little innocent Sammy.

“Yeah, I know that, but what does it mean?”

“It can mean different things—depends on how you use it in a sentence. Where’d you hear it?”

“I just told you, Ryan said it.”

“Ryan on our block?” Go F-U-C-K yourself, Ryan, I thought. No one corrupts my little brother but me.

“Yeah.”

I was expecting Sammy to press me for further answers regarding the new word, but to my surprise, he seemed satisfied. Or perhaps he tired of having a conversation with a half-comatose ball of putty. I felt a pang of guilt; I really ought to have been participating more actively in what was to be one of my last one-on-ones with Sammy before my departure. We would call each other, of course, but it would be a long time before we could hang out again like this…before we would ride bikes together or shoot hoops in front of the house again. I was trying, I really was. It was just this damn heat…

“I’m going to get us some ice pops,” I decided. “You want one?”

“Sure.” He pushed off from the wall and disappeared underwater as I unstuck my back and thighs from the canopy swing. I shuffled across the backyard to the house, feeling the midday sun assault me now that there was no covering over my head. It was a relief to pull open the sliding door and step into cooler air.

From the kitchen, I could see through to the front hall, where my suitcases and boxes stood ready for move-in day. Somewhere among them were elements of classic dorm décor that Mom had insisted I should have: a photo garland, a wall tapestry that I didn’t have the heart to tell her I would never hang, and a color-coordinated bed set, among other things. Two packages stood out: one, a bundle consisting of a bunch of variously sized tubes—my band posters—held together chaotically with rubber bands; the other, my acoustic in its sturdy case.

The summer I first picked up a guitar was the last summer without Sammy in this world, for he was born the following August. I would play him to sleep with simple chord progressions at first, then gradually more complex riffs and fingered melodies as I dabbled more in classical guitar. I wondered now where I would be if there had been no Sammy, if I had been effectively on my own for the last five years. Definitely not better off. Possibly worse. And probably not making the same decision I was making today.

My parents didn’t know it yet, but only a few of these pieces of luggage would be going with me. One by one, I took them out to the front yard. The two suitcases, the guitar, and a single cardboard box filled with the few items I truly treasured, including, embarrassingly, the cheesy photo garland.

I pictured one of my favorite photos from it and my heart sank as I remembered it was almost August 31^st—Sammy’s birthday. Sammy hated us with a passion for this, but within the family we called him the Last Rose of Summer. Not only did his birthday fall on the last day of meteorological summer, but it was also the last summer birthday of the three siblings – me in June and Tyler in July. One year, Dad had put on his best impression of an operatic voice and belted out the classical version of “The Last Rose of Summer” instead of the Happy Birthday song as he brought out the cake, to Sammy’s great dismay. Mom and I had joined in, and Tyler with his baritone too, while Sammy closed his ears and added his loud “la-la-la-la” to the chorus. We only got through two verses so as not to tip Sammy into a full-on tantrum.

It was that very scene which Mom had captured in the photo. That also happened to be the last time Tyler was around for a family birthday celebration before he announced he wasn’t going back to school and moved away. What a shame I would not be there for this one. That was probably the only thing that truly pained me about leaving.

With these thoughts I returned to the kitchen, took two homemade ice pops out of the mold in the freezer, and headed back into the blazing backyard. Sammy gobbled his up in seconds and jumped back into the pool while I sucked on mine slowly, contemplating why it was that I had never suffered brain freeze as a kid, but had suddenly seemed to develop it. We spent some more time out there—I lost track of how much. Sammy shot a ball into a plastic hoop at the edge of the pool and I retrieved it for him every now and then, when it overshot the water.

Eventually, my phone buzzed. OUTSIDE IN 5. That was my signal. There would be no waiting, I had been warned of that expressly. For a second I almost wished the buzz hadn’t come, but there was no going back now. I took a deep breath.

“Sammy!” He was on the other end of the pool. “Come here a minute, quick.”

He swam over to me skillfully and hung once more on the wall.

“What?”

I wanted to hesitate, so he could see this was difficult for me, but there was no time.

“Sammy, listen. I’m not going to college. I’m going out west to live with Tyler. He’s coming to pick me up in a few minutes. I’m sorry to drop this on you so last minute, but Mom and Dad would’ve flipped. I couldn’t do this in front of them. It’s better this way.”

And that was that. There was no explosion. I was spared the fallout that would have followed me long out the door had I made this revelation in front of our parents. Yes, innocent little Sammy was beginning to fade away, but with that he was growing into maturity, and I had never been more thankful for it. A voice in my head muttered that perhaps it was the opposite: he wasn’t yet mature enough to fully understand the magnitude of the decision. I told that voice firmly to fuck off.

Sammy seemed to contemplate for a few moments, then nodded with a very adult grimness and simply said, “When did you decide?”

I told him the truth because there was no reason for me to tell him anything different.

“You know how Tyler and I have been talking more often…well, we talked about this a lot. He went to two different colleges and he told me all about it, and I was considering not going ever since I started my applications, but I think I decided a hundred percent after I got accepted.” It felt good to get it off my chest without explosive consequences.

“But that was a long time ago. You were lying about going this whole time?” His face was visibly hurt, but at the same time his voice began to take on a rising, almost excited tone of “ooh, you are in so much trouble.”

“I just…I couldn’t bring myself do this to Mom and Dad,” I said apologetically. “After they kind of already went through it once.”

Sammy thought silently for another moment. Then he asked, “So, like, what are you going to do then?”

“I’ll work for Tyler for a while, probably help out at the construction sites. And then, don’t forget, I have my guitar.” I winked at him. “Once I save up enough money, I’ll pay Mom and Dad back what they already spent on college for me, and then…I’ll do whatever. Live my life, I guess.”

“Well, that’s nice of you.” Then he seemed to remember something. “All your stuff is packed,” he said sadly, as if it was the effort wasted on packing that upset him most about the whole thing.

“I’m taking only what I need. And Sammy, I might have to stay with Tyler for a while, but I won’t stay there forever. I’ll visit.” A lyric came to me from that distant birthday: I’ll not leave thee, thou lone one, to pine on the stem.

“You better,” said Sammy. I was glad he was too young to remember that Tyler had promised to visit, too.

I glanced at my phone. I had about two minutes. It was time to move.

“Sammy, he’ll be here any second. I gotta go, OK? Do you want to come say hi? It’s fine if you don’t.”

With an aggressive splash, Sammy leapt out of the pool and followed on my heels as I hurried to the house, not noticing the heat this time. Through the house we went, his wet feet slapping after me and leaving a trail of water from the tile floor of the kitchen to the hardwood of the front hall. I tried to leave some parting remarks along the way, but all that came out of my mouth was, “Make sure you wipe that floor before Mom and Dad get home, and lock the doors. Don’t stay outside by yourself.” But Sammy wasn’t listening anyway. He was throwing more breathless questions at my back.

“What am I supposed to tell them? They’re still going to flip when they find out, even if you’re not here to see it.”

“Tell it like it is,” I told him. “They’re going to flip on me, not on you. I’m the troublemaker here,” I said, pointing to myself even though he couldn’t see.

Then, “Tyler’s coming here? Doesn’t he live, like, six hours away?”

“More like seven.”

We rushed out the front door and stood there a bit awkwardly, neither of us knowing what else to say. Sammy looked particularly pitiful with his hair plastered to his head and bony body dripping with water. Then the bright blue truck pulled up with unerring punctuality. Tyler sat with his characteristic scowl peeking out from underneath his baseball cap. I realized how much I’d missed him, but we both knew he wasn’t the type to get out of the truck for a hug.

“Hey,” I said, “thanks for doing this.”

“Whatever, just get your stuff in,” he grunted. “Hey, kiddo! Long time no see,” he said to Sammy, and stuck out a fist through the passenger window. Sammy tentatively bumped it while I tossed my suitcases in the cargo bed. They weren’t quite strangers; there were calls and FaceTimes here and there, but whenever our parents participated, the calls invariably took on a strained tone, touched with a barely perceptible air of disapproval. I wondered if Sammy had noticed it. In any case, it must have been weird for him to see his brother in person after so much time.

Sammy watched as I loaded my guitar, then suddenly said, “Rae, are you sure you don’t wanna go? You’d learn a lot in college.”

Uh-oh. I had hoped to avoid this.

My five minutes were up, but I glanced urgently at Tyler and he gave me the smallest of nods, though I could see his scowl deepen.

I squatted down so we were at eye level.

“Sammy, let me tell you what college really is. And listen close, I might as well teach you something.” Here I chose my words carefully, placing emphasis where required for Sammy’s sake. “You pay a fuckload of money to fuck around for four years, listening to lots of fuckheads who will try to fuck with your mind, and call it learning. Only to realize at the end of it all that you’re completely fucked because you spent so much money and time and didn’t actually learn the important stuff that you need to kick ass in life. You know ‘ass’ already, right?”

Sammy glared at me. “Yes, I know ‘ass’. But Rae, Mom and Dad always said—”

“Yeah, well, Mom and Dad aren’t always fucking right,” Tyler interrupted impatiently from the driver’s seat. He had evidently caught on to the game, but played a destructive card right on his first turn.

Sammy fell silent. A vocabulary lesson was one thing, but hearing his parents spoken about that way must have dealt a harsh blow. I shot Tyler a look that said, did you really have to? But I realized, uncomfortably, that I was making no attempt to argue his statement.

“Sammy, Mom and Dad want the best for us. I want you to always know that. But sometimes you need to…well, not give a fuck what other people want for you, if you know in your heart it’s not the right thing. Understand?”

I looked into his eyes and could see he was trying very hard to understand. I hoped he would, eventually. Maybe when his reasoning was no longer clouded by the shock of my sudden flight. It might take days or it might take years; I just hoped that it would not take personal experience. What I wanted least of all was for Sammy to go through the same dissonance that Tyler went through, that I was now going through. That reminded me of something I had said to him earlier.

“Tyler and I, we’re the troublemakers,” I echoed my prior words. “You still have a chance at being the good kid who finally makes Mom and Dad happy.” I said this with the best playful expression I could muster through the reigning mood of the situation.

“College might be right for you, kiddo. Nothing wrong with that,” added Tyler, although it sounded unconvincing after the tirade I had just given.

“Yeah. You certainly enjoy school enough,” I smirked.

Sammy rolled his eyes. “OK, I get the point. All the pressure is on me now. Just go already. I need to dry off.”

I turned to Tyler dramatically. “Are you hearing this?! This is how our dear brother says goodbye. Young man,” I said sternly to Sammy, “if you thought I was leaving without giving you your birthday present, you are sorely mistaken. I reached into the cardboard box that was still on the lawn and pulled out a CD.

“Happy early birthday. You can sing along to these since we won’t get a chance to sing together for a while.” He took the CD with its simple handwritten label that read RACHEL – FOR SAMMY. His eyes lit up despite himself.

“You recorded this? What’s on here?”

“Just a few of your favorites. Including your all-time favorite—” I began humming “The Last Rose of Summer.”

“Aw, fuck you.”

This elicited a collective guffaw, even from Tyler.

“Nice one, kid!” he shouted gleefully.

I smiled as I loaded the box and got into the truck. Somehow, with that fuck you, I knew I was forgiven. What a versatile word indeed.