When I was young I loved to fish. In my hometown, there was a reservoir. It was Indianapolis’s water supply. All through grade school and middle school, I fished along its banks as often as I could. Every once and a while, my stepdad took me out in his skiff, and we’d fish the little inlets along the north end of the reservoir. This was before they started building lake houses and people started claiming ownership of the shoreline.
We’d also run trout lines, but often, especially after my stepdad’s drinking got out of control, he’d forget to check them. Wizening up to his erratic behavior, I preferred to fish alone, especially as I got older and could ride my bike to the water.
During the summer between my freshman and sophomore years, David, my stepbrother came to live with us. He and I fished together. By then, though, I was beginning to ‘outgrow’ fishing. I was antsy to do other things and not spend days sitting along the bank. David loved it, maybe because it was new to him. I went along to please him and because my experience gave me a sense authority I seldom had with peers.
David came to us when his mom kicked him out of her house. Before that summer, we had only seen each other in school. We seldom talked, although we shared a surname, grandparents, and father-figure. David was born a Worthman; I was adopted into the family. He had lived less than a year among them. I had lived with them since I was a five. His father was my stepdad, and it was into his and my stepmom’s house David moved.
When not fishing, David and I frequently fought. We were different in so many ways it was clear to anyone who knew us that we were related in name only. He was gregarious; I was shy. He was brusque; I lacked confidence; He was good-natured but easy to anger and always willing to fight; I was moody and generally mad at the world. Everyone knew David was going to grow up to be a real man. With me, among real men, there were doubts.
David and I got in a brawl when our father—my stepfather—was pouring cement for a basketball court. I was on my hands and knees with a finishing trowel smoothing out the cement. David poured sand down the back of my shirt. I dove into him, inadvertently kicking up wet cement. We rolled back onto the cement, grabbing at each other’s head and swinging wildly, our bodies pressed together. We only stopped when our father started smacking us on the side and back with his trowel. We sat up, still holding a fistful of each other’s shirt, and saw we had taken out about an eight-foot diameter of freshly smoothed cement. Much of it was now caked on our bodies. Our father stood over us, shaking his head. With a swift kick at what cement was still on the ground, he told us to fix it, or he’d kick both our asses.
We did, silently but cooperatively. Realizing the damage was reparable, we were snickering about it by the time we were done.
With five boys already living in a small three-bedroom and one-bath house, a sixth proved too much, especially when the two oldest were at each other’s throats. David moved in with our grandparents at the end of the summer. We had spent enough time together that summer to bond in our war against the world even as we continued the war between us.
During a physical education basketball game late in our sophomore year, David chased me down the court as I went for a fast break layup. He caught me as I jumped, a knee raised at a right angle and an arm extended toward the basket. With a last-second shove, David sent me flying into the bleachers a few feet from the basket. The basketball bounced hard off the rim. I landed two rows up in the stands. I stood up, wrist broken. The smile disappeared from David’s face, and he looked scared to death. What would have warranted a good laugh only the summer before, now created regret in David and forgiveness in me.
Once past our fighting stage, David was as gregarious with me as with anyone else, maybe more so. I was always a bit jealous of him. He seemed to have more friends than me and more fun. When I jumped at the chance to take his after-school job in a small grocery store after he got fired, he just laughed and said he was happy to get fired so I could have the job. When he saw me stealing beer from the store, he congratulated me and showed me where I could hide it behind the store until closing time.
On June 9, 2017, David killed himself. When my half-brother called to tell me, for a minute I had no idea how to respond. I had been so disconnected and so far removed for so long from David’s life, from my hometown, I didn’t know what to think or do. I stood in the middle of my kitchen, my stepbrother asking if I heard him, if I was still there.
The David I knew was a kid, he was not the man who would have turned 56 a month or so after he killed himself
I hadn’t seen him since we were twenty or so. He was getting married. I made it to the rehearsal dinner but not the wedding. Already, I felt like an outsider among my family.
The night I learned he died and for weeks later I thought about the good things I knew about David and the good person I remember him being. I thought about how our lives diverged. David stayed in our small town; I left. He kept his demons close; I ran from mine. I thought about how things could have been different, for me, for him, but I’m not sure how different they could have been or what would was even possible. The David I knew would have shrugged off these thoughts and said, “Just stop thinking about it, Chris. Let’s go fishing.”