Broken Shadows

by Tim Waggoner

  Cherie dropped the doll in a plastic bag and held it out for the man to take. She hadn’t seen him reach into his pocket and take out his wallet, but a five dollar bill and some coins now lay on the top of the counter. Without even checking, Cherie somehow knew the coins would add up exactly to ninety-five cents.

  The man didn’t reach out to take his purchase from Cherie.

  “You know, Cherry, I’m something of an authority on anarchy. It’s my…calling, I suppose you could say. You don’t really understand it, do you? Not intimately. Oh, perhaps you did once upon a time, but not anymore. You’ve forgotten what you learned, and if you’re going to work here and wear a shirt like that, it’s high time you were reminded, don’t you think?” Clear fluid continued trickling down the man’s chin, gathering in drops that fell onto his red polo and made dark wet splotches that looked too much like blood.

  Cherie didn’t like the way he stressed the word intimately. There were a lot of norm guys who thought a streak of magenta in the hair, a nose stud, and a black rose tattoo on the upper bicep meant a girl was an easy lay.

  She wiggled the plastic bag to draw his attention to it, and in her most formal shop girl manner said, “Your purchase, sir.”

  Mr. Polo nodded, as if agreeing with a point she hadn’t made—or as if he’d come to a decision.

  “Tell you what, I’ve got a few things to do. Would you mind holding on to the doll for me? Thanks.” The man started to turn away.

  “Wait, we don’t do that kind of thing…” But it was too late. The man was heading out of the store and back into the mall, moving as swiftly as a speed-walker, and Cherie really didn’t feel like chasing after him. She tucked the bag with Decomposing Dora on a shelf under the counter and let out a shaky, relieved sigh, hoping she’d fulfilled her whack-job quota for the day. And hoping that, despite his promise, the man wouldn’t come back.

  * * *

  “It was the weirdest damn thing.”

  Heather had returned from lunch twelve minutes late, but Cherie was so glad to have her back that she decided not to make an issue of it.

  “What was?” Heather was applying a shade of polish to her nails called Grave Mold. It looked like plain old gray to Cherie.

  “That guy…the one I just finished telling you about?” Cherie couldn’t keep the exasperation she felt out of her voice. Heather could be a bit of a ditz sometimes, but she usually wasn’t this spacey.

  Heather was a goth goddess: tall, thin, pale, with bony shoulders and stringy blond hair that always looked stylishly unwashed. She dressed in the requisite black, and favored dark colors for her lips, eyes, and nails. She had no piercings, though. Cherie remembered what Heather had said when she’d asked her about it.

  What if I get something pierced and change my mind afterward? It’ll be too late then, right? I think I’ll just stick with the holes I was born with, thank you very much.

  Whatever.

  “The guy in the red polo shirt with the weird shit dribbling down his chin, like he had a couple popped blisters or something? Remember?”

  Heather finished her last nail and examined her hands in the store’s fluorescent light. “Yeah, he sounds bizarre all right.”

  From the distracted tone of her voice, Cherie could tell that Heather still wasn’t paying any real attention. She sighed and decided to give up on the subject.

  “Before I went to lunch, you were telling me the latest about you and Kirk. So…what’s up?”

  It was Cherie’s turn to go to lunch, but she wasn’t really hungry. Besides, she didn’t feel like being alone right now—especially out in the mall, where Mr. Polo might still be wandering around.

  I’ve got a few things to do. Would you mind holding on to the doll for me?

  She thought of Decomposing Dora waiting under the counter for him and shivered.

  “Well, like I was saying, Kirk keeps talking big about putting a band together, but he doesn’t play an instrument. Oh, he fucks around on an old guitar he stole from his older brother, but it’s not like he can really play it.” An image flashed through her mind: her grabbing the guitar by the neck, swinging it high, bringing it crashing down on Kirk’s head, hearing the hollow ka-thunk of his numb skull caving in. She banished the image and tried to suppress the wave of guilt that followed it. After all, it wasn’t as if she’d actually ever do anything like that. “I told the doofus that if he was serious about being a musician, he needed to…”

  Cherie trailed off. Heather had dipped the brush back into the bottle of Grave Mold nail polish and was now using it to coat her tongue with long, slow, even strokes.

  “That shit’s not edible. You know that, right?”

  Heather stopped and frowned at her. “What are you talking about?” She licked her lips and smeared polish on them.

  Cherie felt a twist of nausea in her gut. “You’ve got to be shitting me.”

  “You’re acting weird. Is your blood sugar too low? You know how you get when you don’t eat regular.” Heather dipped the brush back into the bottle, raised it up to her face, and began applying polish to her right eyeball. “You should probably take your lunch break.” The polish mixed with the fluid in her eye, and a trail of watery Grave Mold color began running down her face like a sludgy gray tear.

  The nausea had given way to a fluttery, panicky feeling in her stomach. “Yeah…okay. Sure.”

  As Cherie walked out from behind the counter, Heather started working on her other eye.

  * * *

  Cherie headed for the food court. Her entire body was trembling, and she couldn’t make herself stop. She was terrified that she might encounter Mr. Polo again—she definitely couldn’t handle a return engagement of that whacked-out fuck, not after seeing Heather lose it like that—so she kept her gaze fixed straight ahead, and acted as if she had on a pair of psychic blinders. She reached the food court and grabbed a chair at an empty table. She didn’t bother getting anything to eat. She didn’t think she’d be able to keep anything down right now.

  She tried to tell herself that Heather had just been playing some sort of joke on her, that she hadn’t really been using nail polish. It was some kind of new product IM was going to start carrying, something Cherie wasn’t familiar with yet. But she knew she was bullshitting herself. She’d seen the Grave Mold polish before and had recognized the container. What’s more, she’d smelled the acrid chemical stink of the nail polish. There was no way Heather could’ve faked that.

  Cherie wondered if Heather had lost it, if maybe she was on drugs or something. And if that had been real nail polish, it could mess up her eyes, couldn’t it? She should go back to the store, see if Heather was all right, maybe call an ambulance. Cherie knew that’s what she should do, but she couldn’t bring herself to get up from her chair, let alone head back to IM. She just couldn’t.

  She remembered something Mr. Polo had said to her before he left.

  You know, Cherry, I’m something of an authority on anarchy. It’s my…calling, I suppose you could say. You don’t really understand it, do you? Not intimately. Oh, perhaps you did once upon a time, but not anymore. You’ve forgotten what you learned, and if you’re going to work here and wear a shirt like that, it’s high time you were reminded, don’t you think?

  It was almost as if he’d been making some kind of promise to her, as if he’d been planning to show her something. To teach her.

  So what was she saying? That Mr. Polo had done something to make Heather paint her eyeballs with nail polish? That was crazy!

  Almost as crazy as what Heather had actually done.

  But Mr. Polo had been wrong. Cherie did understand anarchy, or at least craziness. She’d understood it for a long time.

  * * *

  Cherie held two crayons—a blue and a red. She was trying to decide which would be the best color for the clown’s face. Unable to choose, she decided they’d both look good. She gripped the crayons in her tiny right fist, placed the tips onto the paper print-out that Mrs.
Galston had given the class, and began coloring in the face of the clown. She had the face halfway finished and was contemplating what colors would look good for the long, skinny, curly balloon the clown was blowing up, when a thick, fleshy hand grabbed her wrist.

  Startled, she looked up to see Mrs. Galston glaring down at her. Some of the kids at Kindergarten Town called her Mrs. Gall Stone, and though Cherie understood that was supposed to be a funny name, she wasn’t sure why. The woman didn’t look much like a stone to her; more like a butter squash that had been left out in the sun too long and was beginning to go soft. Mrs. Galston’s face had a yellowish tinge to it, and her puffy flesh sagged, as if she herself was a balloon badly in need of re-inflating. She wore a too-tight, too-old dress covered with a faded sunflower design. Cherie wondered why an art teacher would wear something with such ucky colors.

  Cherie had once heard Mrs. Rothchild, her everyday teacher, talking to the librarian about how sick Mrs. Galston had been for the last few months. At the time, Cherie thought it might be something like the flu or strep throat. But Mrs. Rothchild had said the words brain tumor, and while Cherie didn’t know exactly what that was, she was sure it was something really bad.

  “What do you think you’re doing, young lady?” Mrs. Galston’s voice was high-pitched, with an accompanying rattle that made it sound as if she had plastic buttons caught in her throat.

  Cherie tried to answer Mrs. Galston, knew she would only get in more trouble by not saying anything, but she couldn’t make herself talk. Mrs. Galston terrified her, and she wished art period was over and she was back in Mrs. Rothchild’s class. Mrs. Rothchild was nice, and she never yelled or grabbed, not ever.

  Mrs. Galston tightened her grip on Cherie’s wrist until it began to hurt. But even though there was a whimper of pain somewhere inside Cherie, it refused to come out. The art teacher’s doughy-slack features wrinkled into a scowl, and she leaned down closer to Cherie’s face, as if she thought the girl might be deaf.

  “Look at what you’ve done.”

  The teacher’s breath smelled like rotten eggs and cough syrup, and Cherie thought she might gag. At first she didn’t know what Mrs. Galston was talking about, but then she saw that the woman’s gaze was fixed on the picture Cherie had been coloring. Cherie examined the picture to see what was wrong with it. It wasn’t finished, of course—she’d only just started when Mrs. Galston had come over—but otherwise she couldn’t see anything wrong with it.

  She turned back to Mrs. Galston, and though she still couldn’t bring herself to speak, her confusion must’ve shown on her face, for the teacher said, “The colors are all wrong. A clown’s face should not be both red and blue…and what’s worse, you’ve gone outside the lines.” Mrs. Galston said this last part as if she were naming one of the worst crimes imaginable, like stealing cookies or fibbing to your mother.

  Cherie turned her attention back to her picture. She had gone outside the clown’s face, but only a little. She couldn’t see what the big deal was. Besides, she kind of liked the way the red and blue squiggly lines didn’t quite stay inside the clown’s face. It was like he was growing red-and-blue whiskers.

  Cherie was trying to work up the courage to ask Mrs. Galston to please let go of her wrist, ‘cause it was really, really, really hurting now. She imagined the art teacher releasing her, then saw herself taking the two crayons she’d been using—the red and the blue—and shoving them up Mrs. Gall Stone’s nose…shoving them so far up that the tips poked into her brain and burst through the tumor that was growing inside her.

  But despite her fear and anger, Cherie wasn’t able to get her words out. It didn’t matter, though, for Mrs. Galston finally released her grip without Cherie having to say a word.

  “Clumsy-fingered little tramp…Inside the lines, inside! Or are you too slooooow to know the difference between ‘inside’ and ‘outside’? Would you like me to show you the difference, Cherie? Would you?”

  Cherie didn’t dare look away from Mrs. Galston, but she sensed the other children in the class watching her. She could feel their fear as well as their cruel joy at watching someone other than themselves get in trouble.

  Cherie finally managed to croak out a single word. “Please…”

  “So you do want me to show you? All right.” Mrs. Galston stood, walked briskly over to her desk, and snatched up a pair of scissors. Not safety scissors, but grown-up scissors—black metal handles and long sharp silver blades. The teacher hurried back over to the table where Cherie was sitting. Tears were starting to run down Cherie’s face, but Mrs. Galston gave no sign that she noticed. When she spoke next, she sounded calm and reasonable, as if she were teaching a lesson.

  “Right now, Cherie, my blood is on the inside of my body.” Mrs. Galston opened the scissors, placed one blade against her left wrist, and drew it across her skin with a single, swift stroke. Blood sprayed from the newly opened wound, splattering onto Cherie and stippling her partially finished clown picture.

  Mrs. Galston smiled serenely at Cherie. “And now it’s on the outside.”

  As blood continued to spurt like a fountain from Mrs. Galston’s wrist, Cherie found her voice at last and screamed.

  * * *

  “Hey. Heather said I’d find you here.”

  Cherie’s head jerked up with a start. Kirk stood there smiling, a slightly bemused expression on his face. He pulled a chair away from an empty table, put it down opposite Cherie, and sat. Normally, that was the sort of casual, offhand rudeness that irritated her about Kirk. He didn’t ask if it was okay if he joined her, didn’t ask if she felt like company. He just sat the hell down. But right now she’d never been so glad to see anyone in her life—until he spoke, that is.

  “So, what’s the problem? Heather said you were acting really weird.”

  Kirk was shorter than Cherie, and a little on the beefy side. He used to shave his head, but now his scalp was covered with fine brown stubble. He claimed he was re-growing his hair so that he could go for the 80’s “big-hair rocker” look. Cherie didn’t know if he was kidding or not, but she sure as hell hoped so. He wore black pants, boots, and an old Ramones T-shirt. Like his guitar, he’d stolen the shirt from his older brother. Cherie didn’t know if Kirk had ever actually listened to the Ramones, but she doubted it. He sported a scraggly goatee that refused to fill in, large metal “studs” in both ears (he refused to call them earrings), and thick, black jagged line tattoos that encircled both wrists. Seeing them made Cherie think of Mrs. Galston slicing open her wrist with the scissors blade, and she felt hot bile splash against the back of her throat. She swallowed and then, fairly confident she wasn’t going to barf, started talking in a rush.

  “She said I was acting weird? You should’ve seen what she was doing when I left! Wait a minute, if you talked to her, then you know. You saw her, right?”

  Before Kirk could answer, an Asian woman approached their table. She was in her early thirties, Cherie guessed, and wore the uniform of a Wok This Way employee. She carried a brown plastic tray on which sat a small Chinese take-out container.

  “Excuse me, but would either of you like a free sample?” the woman asked, a hint of an accent in her voice.

  Cherie wanted to tell her to fuck off, but Kirk had never met a food that he didn’t like—especially when it was free. He stood up and peered into the open container.

  “What do you got?”

  “Today’s special is pierce my nipple with a toothpick,” the woman said with a cheery smile.

  Cherie couldn’t believe she’d heard right, but Kirk reacted as if the woman hadn’t said anything out of the ordinary. “Sounds good!” He reached into the take-out container and removed a wooden toothpick. The woman put the tray down on the table in front of Cherie, and Cherie could see that the container held nothing but toothpicks. Dozens of them. With deft, sure motions, the woman unbuttoned her uniform blouse to reveal small breasts with erect brown nipples.

  “Would you like right or left, sir?”
the woman asked, still smiling.

  Kirk thought about it a moment. “I don’t know. Which would you suggest?”

  “Left,” the woman said. “The nipple’s a bit bigger there. You’ll have a larger target.”

  “Sounds good.”

  Cherie watched in numb fascination as Kirk pinched the woman’s left aureole and with a single swift motion, as if he were baiting a hook or threading a needle, jammed the sharp toothpick through the nipple. Blood spurted, and the woman took in a hissing breath that was a sound half of pleasure and half of pain.

  Kirk stared at the blood dribbling from the wound he’d just created. “That was fun.” He turned to Cherie. “You want to do the other one?”

  Just like all those years ago with Mrs. Galston, Cherie couldn’t make her voice work. She stood and backed away from the table, shaking her head.

  Kirk shrugged. “Your loss.” He reached for another toothpick, and as Cherie turned to run, she heard the woman draw in another ecstatic hiss of air.

  * * *

  Fuck. This. Shit.

  Cherie didn’t know if the world was going crazy or she was, and she really didn’t care. All she wanted was to get the hell out of the mall as fast as possible. Once outside, she’d run and keep running until either her legs gave out or her heart burst. Right now either would be fine with her, just so long as she was away from here.