Casting Shadows Everywhere

by L. T. Vargus

  I was sitting in biology when I had my epiphany.

  Mrs. Francis droned on and on about how mitochondria are the powerhouses of the cell. To call her a bore would somehow fail to capture the spirit of what she does with her lectures. Violently boring. She attacks us with it. Swings it with the intent to bludgeon. Biology taught via blunt force trauma.

  Anyway, I guess I zoned out somewhere in there, let my thoughts drift out into the emptiness.

  Or maybe not. Maybe I stopped thinking at all. Staunched this flow of words that endlessly leaks into my head.

  Yes. Maybe it’s only when you stop thinking, when you reach some place of total stillness, that you can even experience something like this.

  When the epiphany hit, it made me suck in a breath, pulled all of my skin taut and sent strange tingles over my shoulders and down my spine.

  It wasn’t an idea so much as an instinct, something emotional, something primal. I just knew these things as though they were beamed into my head. Felt them more than thought them.

  I want to change.

  I want to transform.

  Need to evolve, to morph, to start a revolution in my head.

  I need to become something new. Need to.

  I didn’t think theses words so much as simply know all of these things on some spiritual or religious level, feel them somewhere deep in my body, maybe deeper than my body. All the way down to the core of my being, of whatever I am.

  I have to change now. Change myself. I don’t know how yet, but I know it’s true. I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.

  And suddenly this euphoria came over me. I felt outside myself, outside of this classroom, outside of this group of students learning about the basics of biology.

  I could observe them all as an outsider. All those impassive faces. Blank. Here but not really here, not really in the moment.

  I could see the mundane reality of all of this written on those faces. See how this moment was something small. Something meaningless. Something all of us would forget soon.

  And still, I felt light and giddy. Exhilarated and alive. The only brain stirring in this place, maybe. The only one awake.

  I started laughing then. First it came out as silent little puffs, but soon it built to something I can only call an “insane giggle.” I don’t know why it was funny, but it was.

  And all of those heads turned to look at me, puzzled faces occupying the place where the blankness had been.

  I put my own head down, buried it in my arms, that shadow closing in around me. But I couldn’t stop laughing.

  * * *

  I tried to tell Nick about the bullies. About Troy and all the rest, and how I couldn’t figure out what it meant about me. But I don’t think I did a very good job explaining it.

  He didn’t say anything for a long time. In fairness, he was immersed in a Playstation shootout.

  Blue smoke pirouetted off the end of his cigarette and slowly drifted up into the drop ceiling. Like all light colored items in the apartment, the textured white tiles of fire retardant mineral fiber overhead were slowly but surely being stained nicotine yellow.

  He paused the game to shove a handful of off-brand Honey BBQ Fritos into his mouth.

  “Did you think about doin’ anything?”

  His words broke me out of a trance. I looked away from the ceiling.

  “What?”

  “When the guy knocked you down. I know you didn’t do nothin’, but did you think about it? Or were you just scared?”

  I sipped at my Mountain Dew and thought about it.

  “I did think about going for him... for a split second. But Troy is... I mean, nobody messes with Troy, you know?”

  Nick turned back to the TV and unpaused the game.

  “I’d be pissin’ in his mouth after I knocked him out.”

  Nick says a lot of stuff like that. Like his whole life is an action movie. I didn’t know what to say, but he went on.

  “Look, it don’t matter. Not really. It don’t actually mean nothin’ about you.”

  He said all this through a mouthful of barbecue flavored corn chips.

  “Yeah?”

  “Well, what he done to you is a fact. It is what it is. But what it means is just an idea. You can’t change a fact, but you can always change an idea.”

  Not sure if that’s really advice. He looked far away, and when he spoke again it was a mutter. I didn’t feel like he was talking to me anymore.

  “None of it means nothin’, really.”

  We just sat for a while. He shot a guy in the face with a machine gun. In the video game, I mean. Then he lit another cigarette.

  * * *

  The ladies love Nick. Have I not mentioned that before? I guess I don’t really get it. I mean, he has a big square chin like a damn cowboy, so I can see like a handsomeness or whatever there, but he also has gapped yellow teeth, bad skin and perpetually greasy dark hair hanging down in his eyes. He has a big shiny forehead. We’re talking bulbous, dude. He can be pretty mean, too. Jesus, I know he’s my cousin, but he’s kind of a dirtbag.

  I think he must have some of that “animal magnetism” they talk about on TV or something, though. ’Cause these girls... they’re all over him, man. I definitely don’t have that. Animal magnetism, I mean.

  His current girlfriend is Tammie, whom always seems to have a medicated feel about her. A slow warmth. She’s too skinny, bleaches her hair, wears a shit ton of eyeliner and has bad teeth, but she is nice. I’m guessing she’s a stripper, though I never really thought about that before and have no direct knowledge of such activities. I guess she just seems like the kind of person who would take off her clothes for money on a regular basis.

  * * *

  Nick found me after school. Kinda weird. He was waiting about a half of a block down the street, smoking a cig.

  “You wanna walk with me to the gas station?” he said.

  “Sure.”

  The sky spat sprinkles of rain. We walked through the grass along the side of the road ’cause there were no sidewalks this way, and I slipped a couple times on the wet grass but managed to catch myself. No falls. No problems.

  Nick slapped his hand along a row of mailboxes outside of a trailer park for senior citizens. It sounded like someone clapping, but you could hear the wet to it.

  “I been thinkin’ about what you were sayin’,” he said. “About that kid knockin’ you over.”

  “Yeah?”

  He nodded.

  “I think I can help you,” he said. “Teach you.”

  “What, like fighting lessons?”

  “Not exactly.”

  He wouldn’t really go into detail, but my first lesson is supposed to be on Friday.

  Weird how that works, huh? I put that want out into the universe — wanting to change — and look what happens?

  * * *

  I am friends with this kid, Robert. Well, I mean, we’re friends in gym class. Not friends outside of school type friends, you know? Yeah. Well, he’s mildly autistic. Anyway, gym is the one class a day he has outside of Special Ed.

  Today we were partners on one basketball hoop doing this George Mikan drill, which is gym teacher jargon for “shooting layups.” Robert was talking about rappers that he likes.

  “I like Lil’ Wayne and Drake and Tupac Shakur,” he said, pronouncing it correctly. “And two pack.”

  He really stressed the pronunciation of pack this time as in a pack of cigarettes.

  I dribbled and shot the ball. It banked off the backboard, teetered on the rim and fell through the net. I passed the ball to Robert.

  “Pretty sure those are the same guy,” I said. “And they’re both pronounced the same.”

  He shook his head. He always sports thick stubble and wears these goggles in gym. He’s actually pretty intelligent on the whole, but he maintains a childlike understanding of the universe that somehow captures my imagination.

  “One is spelled T-U-P-A-C and the other is the
number 2-P-A-C. They’re different. 2-pack-alypse now.”

  “He just changed the spelling, Robert. Like for artistic reasons.”

  He wrinkled his nose up and thought about it, squeezing the ball a second before he went back to firing up layups.

  “No. I think they’re different. Tupac Shakur and Two-pack.”

  “Maybe you’re right,” I said. I didn’t even want to get into the whole Makaveli thing.

  He is so much more curious about the world around him than the other kids I know. And, like, enthusiastic. He exudes none of the ironic detachment or whatever you want to call it that all these jerkoffs do. He is not “too cool” to connect with the world. He attempts to do so in earnest. Constantly.

  I tried a more elaborate underhand scoop style layup and missed.

  “What church do you go to?” Robert said.

  He is a fan of abrupt changes in the topic of conversation.

  “I don’t go to church.”

  He recoiled, letting the ball bounce away from us. He jogged after it and squinted at me on the way back. One of those accusatory squints people usually save for someone who stole something from them.

  “Jake. Are you a Christian?”

  The truth is that I’m not. I’m not one of those militantly ball-busting atheist kids or anything. It’s not even something I give much thought, really. I figure I’m never going to know, so what’s the point in thinking about it?

  I sensed that I couldn’t tell Robert this, though.

  “Well, yeah,” I said. “Not all Christians go to church, you know? What really matters is your relationship with God.”

  Robert looked up at the gym ceiling hanging above us, and then made eye contact with me for a second before nodding his approval.

  Chapter 3

  FIRST LESSON TODAY. PRETTY INTENSE. I went to Nick’s after school. Donnie was getting ready for work, and by “getting ready for work” I mean he was rolling a bunch of cigarettes.

  He perched on the edge of one of the recliners with a bag of tobacco balanced on one knee and a bag of empty cigarette tubes on the other.

  Donnie packed a wad of tobacco in one side of this little gray and blue plastic thing and pushed this lever on top, and the machine jammed a load of tobacco into each tube. I use the term “machine” somewhat loosely as this baby was powered solely by elbow grease.

  He looked up and noticed me watching.

  “They kinda taste like ass, but it works out to like one third of the price of Camels,” he said.

  After Donnie took off, I pestered Nick about my first lesson.

  “So what’s the plan?” I asked.

  He didn’t respond.

  He was reading this book about the Hare Krishnas. He only reads non-fiction. Also, he’s like insanely good at ignoring me when he wants to. So I just sat there.

  There’s this big crack in the painted over wallpaper running down one of their walls, with like a tributary of smaller cracks branching off of it. It’s white paint over this green and gold wallpaper, which you can see bits of through the crack. I think it must be water damage related ’cause there are all of these little bubbled up spots along it. Anyway, Nick took his sweet time reading so I got a real good look at that wall. Rest assured that it was much more boring than what I have captured here.

  Eventually he put the damn book down and stood up. He did this stretching move with his back and it made a series of disgusting sounding cracks.

  He walked to the door and opened it and then stared at me, like I was just supposed to know we were leaving.

  I sprang off the couch and followed him out the door.

  “So where are we going, then?” I said. I was excited but kind of nervous, too.

  “You’ll see.”

  That’s all he would say.

  We climbed into his car, a purple Chevy Malibu. Or maybe really dark blue, I guess. We rolled down through town, and...

  You know what? I’m going to go ahead and just definitively state that the car is, in fact, dark blue. Can’t really picture Nick with a purple car now that I think about it.

  Anyway, we rolled through town, and I was kind of expecting that we’d maybe stop at a park or something. See, I was still totally hung up on the fight training idea. I mean, I kind of knew it wouldn’t be that, but I guess I couldn’t think of what else it would be.

  I think somewhere in my imagination I had a montage rolling where I’d drink a couple of raw eggs, run up a bunch of steps, work the heavy bag a bit, and I’d be ready to knock some damn teeth out.

  We just kept going, though. All the way through town on Carelton and out toward the country. And the only thing out that way is Wal-Mart.

  Shit. My mom is calling me. Hang on.

  * * *

  Hm... So I took out the garbage last night and ended up watching TV.

  So yeah... let me finish this first lesson story.

  We pulled into the back of the Wal-Mart parking lot. I got the feeling that Nick wanted to park far enough back to be out of everyone’s way, but not so far as to potentially arouse suspicion. He got all quiet again.

  We just sat in the Malibu. Across the aisle, a college girl in green sweatpants packed her groceries into the back of her Volvo and drove away.

  After that, I undid my seat belt and swung my shoulders to face toward the front door of the building.

  The people by the door looked small from this far away. Lines of them marched in and out of the store like ants, pushing carts and carrying shopping bags to and from the sprawling rows of cars.

  Minivans and station wagons drove in and out at a rhythmic pace, like the parking lot was inhaling and exhaling soccer moms.

  “Promise me you’ll do what I tell you today,” Nick said.

  I swung back around to face him.

  “What?”

  “Look, I just mean... After this you can quit if you want. I’d understand. I’d have no problem with that. But today... If you want my help, you gotta go through with this, all right?”

  “Uh... yeah, I guess.”

  “Say ‘Nick, I want your help, and I promise I’ll do what you say,’ then.”

  “What the hell? What’s with all this promising stuff? You’re freaking me out.”

  “I know that you won’t want to do it, so I want you to promise ahead of time.”

  “But doesn’t telling me that kind of defeat the whole purpose of... Oh, whatever. Nick, I promise to do whatever you say.”

  He rubbed at the stubble on his chin and smiled.

  “Good. Now go in there and steal somethin’.”

  “But...”

  The Earth opened up. Stars collided. Cities burned. There were rolling blackouts up and down the Eastern seaboard.

  But in the Malibu? Only silence.

  So maybe my Mom was right about the whole bad influence thing after all.

  “I told you that you wouldn’t want to do it. But you promised. Look, I know it don’t make much sense at the moment. Think of this like a football coach pushin’ his players ‘til they want to puke. They hate him. He’s askin’ too much, and they don’t want to do it. But ain’t that the whole point? They push themselves harder and farther than they believed possible. They come out of it lean and hard, and I’m talkin’ mentally as much as physically, and they ultimately respect the coach like a father figure for gettin’ the most out of them.”

  “I didn’t realize that you were Mike Ditka now. Wait. Don’t you hate sports?”

  “This is what I’m sayin’: Doin’ stuff you’s scared to do and succeeding builds confidence like nothin’ else.”

  “OK, Dr. Phil. What about doing things you’re scared to do and getting arrested for shoplifting?”

  Nick reached around his seat and dug out a warm can of Monster from somewhere on the floor. He cracked the can open. He is the only adult I know who drinks energy drinks. The car filled with that artificial, almost bubble-gummy Monster smell. He took a big slurp and shrugged.

  “Don�
�t get caught.”

  “Great advice. So what should I steal?”

  “Don’t matter.”

  “Right. Yeah... OK.”

  “Don’t over think it. Just walk in there, snatch something, shove that shit in your pocket and walk out. Fortune favors the motherfuckin’ bold, Jake. The more brazen you is about doin’ it, the better.”

  I stepped out of the Malibu and stretched to stall for a few seconds before I closed the door. Arching my back, I stared into the gray clouds of dusk above. One of the massive parking lot lights glowed down on me, and the bravest of the local insects swarmed around the lamp like a hundred little Icarus copy-cats trying their best to fly into the sun.

  Finally striding toward the store, I started to get all of those little nervous feelings: sweaty palms, churning butterfly stomach and the bloat of what felt like explosive diarrhea swelling just below that. Panic rolled over me in waves.

  But when I looked around, no one in the lot was paying any attention to me, even with my eyes probably shifting around like crazy. No one cared.

  I reached up to brush at my eyebrow, and the coldness of my fingers startled me. Adrenaline. I remember learning on an episode of Law & Order or some other cop show that when you get a rush of adrenaline, the temperature in your hands can drop 10 or 15 degrees in a matter of seconds. It’s apparently a good way to tell if someone is lying.

  The door slid open in front of me, and as I crossed the threshold a little old man with an oxygen tank said, “Good evening, folks.” I guess he thought I was with the Hispanic family entering in front of me. I didn’t make eye contact with the greeter, even though I thought that might seem more suspicious.

  Have I not mentioned that I’m a huge pussy? ’Cause yeah. I could hear my heartbeat in my ears slamming as fast as the super clicky kick drum in a Cradle of Filth song. I guess it goes without saying that I’ve never stolen anything.

  The first actual product I laid eyes on? DVDs. A big display of cheap DVDs just inside the door with a variety of Steve Martin movies and buns and Tae Bo related exercise videos. I knew I couldn’t steal one of those, though. DVD cases have that magnetic strip that sets off the alarm by the door. Plus my buns are already in top condition, so it would be unnecessary. (OK, not really.)