Casting Shadows Everywhere

by L. T. Vargus

  Anyway... I never actually shop at Wal-Mart ’cause they are terrible human beings, so I wasn’t really familiar with the layout.

  I wandered through the women’s clothing section and wound up near pet stuff. Thought about snagging a collar or something, but we don’t have any pets ’cause we’re not allowed to have them in our apartment building, so that seemed pretty pointless.

  Walked through the garden stuff. It’s pretty much impossible, obviously, to conceal a plant on your person, but I did consider, however briefly, trying to shove a Chia Head in my pants. I pictured Nick saying, “Is that a Chia Head in your pants or are you just happy to see me?” which seemed extra funny ’cause he doesn’t joke around very often. I couldn’t help but start laughing.

  So at that point I was aimlessly shuffling around Wal-Mart, giggling to myself like a crazy person and desperately looking for something — anything — to steal. This is what my life has become.

  I speed-walked through the sporting goods section, and just as I got to the end of the aisle with baseball mitts, an enormous blue smocked figure stepped forth to block my path.

  A red-headed giant with a scraggly orange beard like a Viking stood before me. He did a double take, his eyes met mine, and his giant mouth moved to speak. I totally expected him to slam a hockey stick down and scream in my face:

  “You! Shall not! Pass!”

  But he actually said:

  “Y’all need help finding anything?”

  His voice was higher than I expected, but I still almost spontaneously died of fright.

  “I’m good,” I said.

  My voice sounded shaky, so I cleared my throat like I had a cold causing my weakened speech and not a vagina.

  Something about the encounter made the whole thing real again, though. Snapped me out of the shock of this crazy situation. And I knew right then I couldn’t steal anything. I mean, I never do these kinds of things. I can’t. I never have, and I probably never will. Have the stones or whatever.

  I thought about elementary school when Chad Hooper pushed me into the chain link fence over and over, and tears formed in my eyes and my breath heaved through my teeth and my hands squeezed into hard little fists at my sides. And I felt my body going through all the motions of an aggressive response, but I couldn’t do it. I felt disconnected from it. My body wracked into place like a loaded shotgun aimed at his maggoty face, but I couldn’t pull the trigger. And he laughed at me. At my eyes and my breathing and my fists. Laughed in my face and pushed me again.

  The memory sparked something in my imagination, though. It felt like that flash of bad intentions after Troy pushed me down. And for that moment I didn’t care anymore. Maybe when you hate yourself this much, you never have anything to lose.

  I turned a corner near the office crap, and there they were. A pack of Gelly Roll Stardust Bold Galaxy pens. To be honest, I didn’t realize the pens were of the Stardust Bold Galaxy variety at the time, nor was I previously familiar with the Gelly Roll brand of pen. I didn’t get a good look at them, and I guess I wasn’t thinking about much. I remember thinking “Pens!” and I just shoved the pens into my thankfully large back pocket and turned to leave.

  I moved toward the door. I was trying to look bold, since I’m told fortune favors ballsiness above all else, but I’m pretty sure my eyes were twitching in a way that could only be considered “less than bold.” It was like I couldn’t stop blinking or something. I don’t know.

  I tried to walk slow, ’cause I felt like moseying along looked way less sketchy than hightailing it out of there, but my pace kept speeding up, probably trying to match my heartbeat which was now nearing mach speed.

  The final ninety feet took a lifetime. The greeter swiveled his back to me as he turned to help an old lady separate a couple of tangled shopping carts. I accelerated like a running back hitting a seam off tackle and practically ran to daylight. Just as the door slid open, the greeter turned and half-yelled in a gruff voice, “Thank you!”

  My heart shat itself.

  But I was free.

  I won’t lie. Walking back through that parking lot was total euphoria. When I got back in the Malibu, Nick smirked at me.

  “You’ve got the glow of a first time thief, but where’s your haul?”

  I pulled out the pens and dropped them in his lap. His smirk faded.

  “Gelly pens?”

  He picked up the package and turned it over in his hands.

  “Stardust Bold Galaxy?”

  I realized for the first time that the pens were all colors like sea foam green and aqua. Not a single black in the pack.

  “Why’d you steal these?”

  “These are, uh, quality pens.”

  I looked at the price tag.

  “They’re like $10, so...”

  “These are incredibly gay pens, Jake. Are you gay?”

  “No.”

  “Are you sure? ’Cause it ain’t like people get to choose that or whatever. I wouldn’t have a problem with it or anything like that.”

  “I’m not gay. I just grabbed some pens without really looking.”

  “All right.”

  He tossed the pens back to me and started the car.

  “So why do you think I had you do this?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe ’cause it’s a rush.”

  We curved out of the lot and into traffic.

  “Kind of, but it’s more than that. It’s like a lot of shit you’ve been told in your life is a lie. All these rules and all these things you worry about... they ain’t got real meanin’ on their own. The only meanin’ they got is what we give ’em, you know?”

  I nodded, but I only kind of got it. A homeless guy on the side of the road wiggled an orange sign at us to try to get us to buy crappy pizza from Little Caesar’s.

  “So you stole these gay pens from Wal-Mart, and you got away with it. In a way it’s like it didn’t even happen, you know? There ain’t no spiritual or supernatural punishment comin’ for you. It’s over, and all that’s left to show are the pens. As far as Wal-Mart knows, it never happened, and it ain’t exactly like you’re going to be decimated with guilt over stealin’ from the richest company in the goddamn world, either, which I guess is maybe beside the point, but... Do you see what I’m gettin’ at?”

  “I think so.”

  “There ain’t no magic power that makes right and wrong have real meanin’ is all. I mean police and prisons keep order to a degree in a real world way, but on the most basic level, there’s no order in this world like they try to say there is. None. It’s chaos. Now I coulda told you that repeatedly, but I don’t think it really strikes you until you go out and feel it for yourself. You crossed a line today. A boundary or whatever you want to call it. And now you can feel the truth of it in your gut — none of the rules are real. None of ‘em.”

  We were silent for a moment, the sky blackening around us like burnt chicken skin.

  “I want you to take a week and think about this. And if you want to learn more, I can teach more. If not? That’s cool, too.”

  For the record, I still haven’t decided.

  Chapter 4

  I CAN’T BELIEVE I HAVEN’T mentioned her in this journal yet: Beth Horne.

  Yeah.

  Like an idiot I fell for the first blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl who paid attention to me. We’re just friends, of course. To her, anyway. We sit together in art class and history. She is a total achiever. I mean, I get good grades, but she’s popular and everything. A homecoming queen-to-be. The perfect goddamn all-American girl that I have no chance with. So of course I’m in love.

  Balls.

  I don’t mean to give the wrong impression, though. She’s not an airhead like the other popular girls. She’s smart. And she laughs really hard at funny things, which I think is kinda rare for a girl, you know? It seems like a lot of girls don’t let themselves laugh very hard, in my school at least.

  She even says funny stuff. Like today at lunch (she sits wit
h me sometimes) we had the following conversation:

  Beth: “Cats have no butt cheeks.”

  Me: “I can confirm the accuracy of that statement.”

  Beth: “No, I mean, they have nothing there. When a cat sits down, it is putting its actual asshole on the floor.”

  I laughed.

  Me: “So you’ve got this little friend walking around, smearing his anus on your stuff.”

  Beth: “Smearing!”

  The word could barely make it out of her mouth. She laughed so hard I thought Dr. Pepper might come out of her nose.

  It didn’t.

  Oh. Also her boobs are huge, if I didn’t already mention that. So that’s pretty cool, too.

  * * *

  Thinking about Nick’s animal magnetism or whatever again.

  At least Beth doesn’t like him. She always says he’s a creep whenever I bring him up.

  Not that the guys that she likes are any better, I guess. Like today in art class we were talking about how insane it is that some guys wear skinny jeans. We were complaining together about bulges and what not, you know, and everything was going just fine. Then she started talking about how she likes guys that have kind of the skater look — hoodies and kinda baggie jeans or whatever. That’s pretty much how I dress, so I was all like, “Hell yeah!”

  But then she says:

  “I mean say like Troy Summers... what he wears... I like his style.”

  Yeah.

  The whole world crashed to a halt like in a movie trailer for a shitty comedy when there’s the sound of the record needle scratching out of the groove and the music suddenly stops. Exactly like that.

  My instinct was to get all quiet, but I didn’t want her to know that I was upset or whatever, so I had to kind of try to act normal. I had to stay in G-mode. She could tell something was a little off I think, but I don’t think she put it all together. So that’s good.

  How lame is it that the preppiest douche kids totally stole what used to be an “alternative” style, though? All the preppie clothes look a lot like skater clothes. Now the only alternative is skin tight pants that make it look like you’re smuggling plums. Unbelievable. Not that I really give a shit about clothes, but whatever.

  * * *

  Today in English, we talked about turning points. Like in fiction, I mean.

  The story sort of sets you up to expect one thing and then clobbers you with a big ol’ turning point. Moments of change. They happen in a flash, rearrange how you perceive everything that came before, and the real deal turning points change the story in a way that cannot be altered. They’re permanent. Like a chemical reaction, you know? You pour your vinegar into some baking soda, and it froths all over. You can’t separate the elements anymore. Once it’s done, it can’t be undone.

  The teacher, Mr. Chalmers, said every scene turns, at least in something well-written. I never thought of it that way before, but it makes sense. A scene starts in one place and ends in another — sometimes literally, sometimes tonally, sometimes it’s a shift in emotions or values. The author mixes up the chemicals of character and plot, though, and it sets up a chain of reactions, both large and small. Displacement. Combustion. Fire. Explosions.

  And then in the bigger sense, the story itself turns. Like in a TV show, this is super easy to see — there’s usually a cliffhanger just before the commercial break, right? Those are the act breaks and generally the places when the story turns, more often than not. Those are bigger than the scene turning points, too. We’re talking about the seismic shifts, I guess. Those moments when the fault lines open up and the very ground under the character’s feet becomes malleable. Everything changes. “Luke, I’m your father,” and shit like that.

  The point, above all, is for the reader to get a dramatic sense of movement.

  According to Mr. Chalmers, all art boils down to implied movement. The best literature. The best paintings. The best music. It gives a sense of movement, of change we see and hear and feel. Something visceral. Something clear.

  I think I used to think of these moments as “twists,” but turning point is a better term. More specific.

  ’Cause everything hinges on that one little point, doesn’t it? What came before and what came after, they change in a single second.

  Usually the stuff the teachers say in school flees my mind the second the bell rings. I quickly clear that space for video games and such. But this stuck with me all day. I keep tumbling the idea in my head. Turning points.

  The more I think about it, the more it seems plain that real life is filled to the brim with turning points. Like sticking those pens in my pocket. I reached my turning point right then and there.

  I made my choice. I changed my story.

  So what happens next?

  Well, now I’ve got another turning point looming on the horizon. To learn these lessons from Nick or not. I don’t know.

  Part of me wants it. I know that much. Another part of me is maybe scared, though. Do I really want to be like Nick? I’m not sure.

  And is this one of this little turning points? Or will the Earth open up beneath my feet if I make the wrong choice?

  * * *

  I’ve been meaning to make a list of the things I like about Beth. It seems important to remember these things, you know? To record them so you can never forget. Even if things change.

  -I like how she doesn’t wear makeup ever when most girls in school cake their goddamn faces with it like they’re about to go on live television.

  -I like how when she’s excited she talks all fast and even stutters sometimes.

  -I like how she whispers to herself when she thinks no one can hear.

  -I like that she likes horror movies even though they scare the crap out of her.

  -I like how she laughs until she cries sometimes. Literally. Streaming tears and beet red face and everything.

  -I like how she smiles at me when she knows I’m nervous to try to make me feel better.

  -I like how she describes things. Like if we both saw a house, later I’d say it was a brick house, but she would have taken a picture with her mind and described every detail: the chipped paint on the banister, the way the floor of the porch sagged in the middle, the types of flowers and ivy growing along it, the tree branches reaching out over the roof, the way the shadows leaned on the bricks and shutters, the sound of the wind chimes and the smell of the smoke billowing out from under the lid of the grill.

  -I like how when she smiles, there is a dimple on one cheek but not the other.

  -I like how she laughs at things that are actually funny and not at every dumb thing.

  -I like how she doesn’t get all bored or tune out when I start talking about video games, even though I know it’s super boring to listen to someone talk about video games.

  -I like that her fingers are super long like crazy spider hands.

  -I like that she likes watching the same crappy reality TV shows as me.

  -I like that she enjoys discussing said crappy reality shows at length with me.

  -I like her nose.

  -I like the way my world feels whole when she is around.

  -I like knowing that she is out there in the universe when she is not around.

  Chapter 5

  I went back to Nick’s today, but he wasn’t there, so I just hung out with Tammie for a while. She is actually a lot smarter than I thought. We watched Dr. Oz talk about how to eliminate belly bloat, and she kept offering to get me something to eat or drink, but I wasn’t hungry, you know. Eventually an old fashioned conversation broke out.

  “You don’t have a girlfriend, do you?” she said. She picked at the pilled up spots on her pajama pants.

  “No. I like that you can just tell that about me, though. Makes a guy feel real good about himself.”

  She laughed.

  “Nah. I can tell that you’re the shy type, though, so I figured.”

  “The shy, girlfriend-less type. That’s me.”

  “Yo
u just need to show some confidence. That’s what wins girls over.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Girls want to believe they’re getting with a guy who’s going places. A lot of people think that there are a bunch of gold-digging girls out there, but I think girls want to feel like they’re getting on board a ride, you know. Something exciting. Like your life together will be an adventure the two of you will go on. So it’s more about confidence and success than money, at least most of the time.”

  “I guess that makes sense.”

  “It’s kind of a flaw in some ways. Girls always end up getting drawn to the selfish guys instead of the nice guys, you know?”

  “Right.”

  I thought about making a joke about Nick being the most selfish person ever, but she had a troubled look in her eye, so I let it go.

  We played video games after that. She is actually pretty good. I mean, I beat her pretty mercilessly most of the time, but I’ve seen worse.

  * * *

  Tammie turned the stove on and set the frying pan on the burner with a clatter.

  “See, the problem with a lot of guys is they’re too nice,” she said.

  She scooped a blob of margarine out of a yellow tub with a fork and plopped it into the pan. It sizzled as it hit the hot metal.

  I frowned and scratched my eyebrow.

  “So... I should be a dick?”

  Tammie laughed. She always closed her eyes and scrunched up her shoulders when she laughed. It reminded me of the way a little kid would laugh.

  “No, I don’t mean that. Being nice is okay, but there’s too nice.”

  She cracked three eggs into the pan in rapid succession and started stirring them with the fork.

  “It’s like... when you like someone, you want to know everything about them, right?”

  I nodded.

  “Well, the Too Nice Guys, I think they’ve already got this idea in their head of the girls they like. It’s like, their girl is perfect. But nobody’s perfect. So it makes you feel like... like they don’t know you at all, and they never could. They just like this imaginary perfect girl in their head, you know? And if they did figure out what you were really like, then maybe they wouldn’t like it so much. So even though someone thinking you’re perfect may sound good, it’s not.”