Casting Shadows Everywhere

by L. T. Vargus

  She pushed the gooey egg clumps around in the pan with the fork. I almost told her she shouldn’t use the fork like that because it wrecks the non-stick coating on the pan (at least this is what my mom always shrieks at me), but I stopped myself.

  “Everybody wants to feel special and loved. But you sort of need to feel like you’ve earned it.”

  * * *

  My parents got divorced when I was five. I visited my dad every two weeks for a couple years. That deteriorated to every six or eights weeks for a couple years, and I haven’t seen him at all since I was ten. I guess that’s how Nick became the guy I looked up to most so early on. Like my role model or whatever. I mean, Nick was there.

  But I know enough now to know that Nick is not the ideal role model at all. It’s like he has this missing piece that makes him not all the way human. And that is what makes him so impervious to pain, you know? Like no one can hurt him, but I think it also means that he can never really connect to other people, not in the way that normal people do. He can’t let his guard down and let someone else see the vulnerable pieces underneath, because there is only guard and nothing else. The vulnerable pieces don’t exist for him.

  Like I already said, Nick gets with lots of girls, but when I think about the idea of Nick being in love with one of them, it makes me laugh. It’s just not possible. That piece of him is gone, gone, gone.

  Sometimes I think the closest Nick gets to connecting with another person is with me. I mean, he wants to help me, you know. Wants to protect me and teach me to protect myself. I’ve never seen him do anything like that before. Anything remotely nurturing. I think I am the only one that he can see himself in a little bit. The only person he can identify with in a way.

  So I started to think that maybe we could wind up helping each other. Like he could toughen me up, but I could teach him something, too.

  Christ. What have I been thinking? If I journey into Nick’s world, maybe I can never come back. I can never undo how it changes me. And what happens if I come out of there with missing pieces of my own?

  So the debate rages on.

  I was thinking about Nick as my sort of male role model and how fucked up that would be. But then I kind of reviewed the other options in my mind:

  My Dad — Don’t really know this guy. Obviously he’s not super loyal. Additionally, he kind of seemed like a pussy from what I remember. He possesses neither the can-do spirit nor the stick-to-it-iveness that I look for in the rugged individual I wish to look up to.

  Uncle Ray — My uncle Ray works construction. He is 43 and has never been in a serious relationship. His house is full of vintage pornography of all kinds that he desperately tries to conceal whenever my mom and I stop by his place. His primary hobby is making intricate birdhouses and selling them at flea markets and booths at county fairs. His secondary hobby is getting black-out drunk every night.

  Terry — Terry is one of those unofficial uncles who is really just a family friend. He has been divorced twice. He wears cargo shorts and denim shirts all the time as though he is going on a safari instead of going to Wal-Mart. He does not strike me as a reader. One time he said “infimite wisdom” instead of infinite wisdom. He got shards of glass in his eyes somehow a long time ago, so he is on disability and hasn’t had a real job since about 1997.

  In comparison, Nick doesn’t seem so bad. He does whatever he wants to do all the time.

  * * *

  Somehow I slept through my alarm this morning. Usually I mix up a huge coffee with tons of milk and sugar in it. Like Big Gulp sized in one of those travel coffee mugs that is basically a stainless steel pitcher. But I didn’t have time for that, so I was late to school and still half asleep.

  Luckily I’m at JCC on Tuesday mornings. I trod in a good fifteen minutes late, and the professor didn’t even look at me.

  “So the conditioned reflex, in this case, is that the dogs salivate when Pavlov rings the bell,” he said.

  I guess I didn’t fully explain this before — I’m taking this college class, Psychology 100, at Jefferson Community College on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Really, sophomores aren’t supposed to be allowed to dual enroll and take college classes for high school credit. Only honor roll seniors.

  But I realized that one of the guidance counselors, Mr. Pinkett, essentially doesn’t give a shit anymore. If you fill out the paperwork, he will sign it. No questions asked. (That’s also how I got into Beth’s art class.) Mr. Pinkett mentioned that his wife “walked out on” him “out of the blue after twenty years of beautiful marriage” a couple of times, so I assume that pushed him over the edge and into this radical state of apathy and possibly even drinking on the job (total speculation, but he always has this big thermos with him).

  “You’re now more likely to hear this referred to as classical conditioning,” the professor said.

  He pinched a tiny piece of chalk in his fingers and scrawled the words on the blackboard in sloppy cursive letters.

  “Pavlov’s experiment became the backbone of behaviorism, which was the dominant school of thought in psychology until the cognitive revolution later on in the 20th century, but I suppose that’s for later in the semester. I’ll try not to get ahead of myself.”

  Classes at the community college are way laid back compared to the confrontational air of high school classrooms. Anything goes.

  For example, there’s this short pale guy who sits in front of me. He’s probably at least 35 years old judging by the salt and pepper stubble. He always sports the same beanie, Detroit Pistons shorts and Adidas sandals and eats a bag of either Munchos or Funyuns every class. (I’d say it’s Funyuns two out of three times so far.)

  Anyway, it’s rad. It makes all the stuff in high school about no hats and no food or drinks seem like utter bullshit.

  Sir Funyuns raised his hand.

  “How come Pavlov loved messin’ with these dogs so much?”

  He stuck a Funyun in his mouth before he was even done asking the question.

  The professor just chuckled.

  He’s pretty interesting, too. Mr. Sanderson.

  “You bring up an interesting point. Something that all scientists have to consider when they’re conducting an experiment.”

  He pulled at his wispy white beard, turned his stooped shoulders to the black board and hesitated a moment before chalking out “ETHICS” in all caps.

  He apparently used to do behavioral psychology lab experiments at various universities around the country. He made sure to overtly imply that, while at one such research engagement, he banged the lady who wrote our textbook. That’s kind of funny, but I imagine the same quality of character that led him to brag to a bunch of college (and high school) kids about sex stuff landed him at a community college, while she pens textbooks for major publishers.

  “One of my colleagues when I was doing research at the University of Maryland made a major behavioral psych breakthrough, and earned himself considerable acclaim, in an experiment that involved flash freezing a rat’s brain.”

  His forehead turned into a pile of wrinkles with two puffy white caterpillars of eyebrows climbing toward his hairline.

  “A live rat’s brain,” he said, wiggling the chalk in the air for emphasis.

  He paused a moment, letting the silence in the room creep toward something awkward for dramatic effect.

  “That’s certainly something PETA and the like would find unethical, yes?”

  In any case, it turns out that psychology is awesome. It’s by far my best class. Some of the theory part reads a little dry, but the science of the brain rocks.

  Everything that we do wires pathways in our brains. So every time you practice a song on a guitar, you are wiring that into your brain, and each time you practice it, the wiring grows more intricate, more precise. That’s why you improve over time. That’s why repetition and practice lead to success in all things. Eventually the wiring perfects itself and your fingers just know where to go. You don’t think about it anymore. I
t becomes a part of you.

  I can’t believe I’ve gone through my life not knowing this.

  * * *

  Robert hit with me a real doozy today. The gym teacher had us doing laps around the basketball court to get warmed up before we played dodgeball. Robert and I stuck together toward the back of the pack like we usually do.

  “Hey Jake, I’ve got a question,” Robert said.

  “Go for it.”

  “What’s butt chugging?”

  Wow. I had no goddamn idea how to respond.

  “Where’d you hear that?” I said.

  “On TV. The news. This kid got in trouble for butt chugging at college, and everyone is mad at him and stuff, but I don’t even know what butt chugging is.”

  We were silent for a quarter of a lap with only the sounds of tennis shoes clattering on hardwood echoing all around us.

  “Is it like…” he said before trailing off.

  I couldn’t fathom the idea of him trying to imagine what the words “butt chugging” might mean, so I interrupted his thoughts. Not that the reality is much better in this case, I guess.

  “Well, you know how people — some people — drink alcohol, like beer and whiskey and stuff, to get drunk?”

  He nodded.

  “My Dad drinks Heineken,” he said. “You know Heineken? In the green bottles? I tried it once, but… It tasted real bad. I like Vernors.”

  “Yeah. Vernors. That’s good stuff,” I said. “But yeah, some people figured out that you can kind of drink beer through your ass. That’s butt chugging. It makes them get drunk really fast or something.”

  I paused a second to let that sink in.

  “It’s really dumb and dangerous, though, so I’m never going to do that, and you’re never going to do that, right?” I said.

  Robert didn’t say anything for a long time. We finished our laps and stood in a line along the bleachers to await further gym instruction.

  “But why do they do it?” he finally said.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “They just want to get drunk really fast.”

  He picked at the strap on his goggles, so I could tell he was getting upset.

  “Only like really dumb people do it,” I said. “It’s not cool. At all.”

  Robert slowly started shaking his head. His lips puckered into a frown like he’d tasted something sour.

  He was definitely a little rattled, but I still think it made more sense to just tell him the truth. I really can’t protect him from the world. No one can protect him all the time, you know? All this crazy shit exists out there, and he’s going to pick up on these weird bits and pieces and try to figure out how they fit into the way he sees the universe. All I can do is try my best to help him understand.

  * * *

  My dad sent me an email about eight months ago out of nowhere. After no contact for five years or however long. He talked about missing me, and how he’s a bad father, and how he could understand if I don’t want anything to do with him. He rattled off a bunch of happy memories about us, I guess he was getting pretty sentimental, but all of the events he mentioned happened before I was five. So they mean nothing to me, you know? I literally don’t remember them... most of them, at least.

  And I kind of realized that his pain is real or whatever, but his pain isn’t over the loss of me as an individual. It’s over the loss of the role of a son. He doesn’t know me, so none of it connects to me. It’s a loss in his imagination, you know? Like all of the ideals and hopes people project onto their children? He lost all that. But that’s not me.

  I don’t know. Maybe to someone else, these things sound weepy or bitter or angry. But I don’t mean them that way.

  Anyway, I didn’t write back, but it got me thinking. At this point I have probably spent more time in my life watching McDonald’s and Wal-Mart commercials than I’ve spent talking to my own father. Kinda weird, you know?

  Like I am this super specific genetic material. My DNA is unique and could only come from my precise mom and dad. Out of the billions of years the Earth has existed and the billions of people on the planet currently, I am here now and I come directly from these two people. And even so I have spent more time being told to “watch out for falling prices” at Wal-Mart and heard “I’m loving it” from Ronald McDonald and his minions than I have conversing with this person who I came from.

  I actually read about McDonald’s advertising strategies in some book. Their goal is to seem like a “trusted friend.” That kinda creeps me out.

  After reading it, I immediately remembered this particular commercial where a young couple is eating at McDonald’s, and the girlfriend asks some awkward question. The boyfriend hesitates. He’s stumped. A voice-over voice chimes in to reassure the boyfriend by saying, “You got this.” The boyfriend throws out an answer and takes a big bite of a burger. The girlfriend seems appeased. She eats a fry. The voice congratulates the boyfriend by saying, “Well played.”

  So I guess that disembodied voice is the voice of McDonald’s comforting this guy. Because McDonald’s is his trusted friend. And if we’re watching the commercial, they must be our trusted friend, too.

  And over the course of my life, they’ve concocted thousands of these scenarios to indirectly communicate this message to me over and over and over again. They beat that idea into my brain starting with the commercials for Happy Meals when I watched cartoons as a toddler. As I got older, they used more sophisticated ads to reach me regarding Big Macs and McNuggets when I watched shows geared for the 13-34 demographic.

  They were always there for me. In good times and bad. Always looking for new ways to teach that fundamental message to me. To wire themselves into the fabric of my identity.

  So I guess in a certain way, it’s like McDonald’s took the place of my dad.

  Well played.

  Chapter 6

  I DREAMED OF ZOMBIES FRICKIN’ everywhere last night. Pretty cliché, actually. The dead stalked the streets, wanting nothing more than to eat the hell out of some brains. I somehow knew that I had to sneak into the Horne home, grab a sleeping Beth by the hand and lead her away from a couple of zombie cops in hot brain pursuit.

  We weaved through the mess of ravaged cars cluttering the streets. Horns blared from the corpses resting on various steering wheels. Blinkers blinked all around.

  Zombies clambered over cars to close in on us, but they kept losing their footing and doing hilarious Home Alone style falls onto the pavement.

  When we got downtown, the mall burned, and all the zombies around there were on fire and screaming. Endless screaming. And really pained and shrill. Not the usual zombie moan that can be a bit passionless. Thick black smoke everywhere.

  The next thing I knew, the smoke cleared, and we were racing down stone steps into this castle basement with one of those huge metal doors like a walk-in fridge in a grocery store meat department. I turned a crank to seal the door and even fastened a padlock onto a latch for good measure.

  Zombies banged at the door and moaned, but we were safe. And then Beth wrapped her arms around me, and she didn’t say anything, but I knew that she loved me because I saved her and everything, and I felt all warm and tingly.

  When I woke up, I was really disappointed that it wasn’t real. Reality is the only true nightmare.

  * * *

  I’m not really into all that sexy stuff. Don’t get me wrong. I am a heterosexual adolescent male with a fully functional set of testicles pumping out testosterone and matching penis pumping out jizz. And sometimes when I see a hot girl I get so excited that my balls quiver on the brink of explosion. So it’s not like I’m some kind of prude or what have you.

  But say today in the hall, I was minding my own business. This farmer kid, Chris Redd, walked next to me. Out of nowhere, he visibly recoiled. Like a spasm traveled up his body and stopped him dead in his tracks. He gasped. I followed his gaze to the end of the hall where Renee McElwee bent over to pick up her books. Her skirt rode up and turquoise
underwear peeked out of the bottom. Chris Redd turned to me and said:

  “Jesus! Is that Renee McElwee?! God, dude. I would rip those panties off and pound that shit.”

  My initial reaction was, “Uh... Is this guy talking to me?” I looked around. No one else lurked nearby, so I guess he was. I didn’t know what to say, so I just said:

  “Yeah.”

  I don’t know. I guess I don’t get that level of aggression over sex stuff. I mean, first of all, this guy chose to share this information with a stranger. That’s a weird lack of impulse control. Second, what’s with the violent language, you know? Way more ripping and pounding going on than I’m comfortable with, to be frank.

  When she finally gathered up her books, and she took her time in my opinion, he smiled and slapped me on the back like we’d just shared something together. Like we bonded over this girl’s ass, and we’d forever exchange knowing glances over the time that Renee bent over in the hallway.

  Dude. Gross. I don’t know what goes on in farm country, but in my neighborhood we keep our creepy leering to ourselves and don’t do group high fives every time there’s cleavage in the vicinity. Sheesh.

  * * *

  It’s decided. I said I wanted to change, right? Well, here we go.

  Friday I will go to Nick’s apartment after school. I will put in a formal request for another lesson. (Doubt he has a syllabus or I would ask for that.) This could be the dumbest choice I’ve made in my fifteen years, but I don’t know. I feel desperate maybe. Frustrated. It’s time to act.

  So I will dive headfirst into something new. I will sit on my hands no longer. I will reach out, grab the world by the shoulders, wrestle it to the goddamn ground, and I will do... something.

  I will do something. I will do anything. ’Cause take it from me: Anything is better than nothing. Nothing is a bottomless black hole of bad times, dude.

  It’s weird. I had my doubts, but I am excited now. It feels like anything is possible. It feels like there’s a reason to get up in the morning. It feels like I’m finally awake after sleepwalking for so long.