Date: Wed, 15 Dec 2004 20:13:47 -0600 From: Karla Schulz Subject: Carrots and Celery Part Three Chapter Thirty The horn of Helm Hammerhand shall sound in the Deep one last time! --- If this were a movie and not my life, the story would have ended there. But this is, for better or for worse, not a movie with all the convenience of fading to black and the soothing melody of some too perfect love song. All moments end, and so was the fate of the one you just recently witnessed. After my tears were washed away by Celery's gentle words and grounding touches the sun was making its presence known and we were still in his bed in Calgary, it was the last day of my visit, and we still had lives outside that room. And as much as I want him to come with me, reality is sinking in. I start to force myself to doff the last remnants of this peace I've been lulled into, and begin shifting against him, but Celery stops my movements with a pleading hand. "Don't." He whispers. "Don't what?" "Don't wake up. If we keep our eyes closed we can stay here forever." I press my face against the crook of his neck and try to believe it's true. "I have to go..." Already I don't know what I'm going to do about all the school I've missed, a problem so late in the year, and just the beginning of all the things I have to sort through when I get home. My ineffectual worry for the twins and the way I didn't even tell Colin that I was leaving. "I'm coming with you." Despite the fact that I was present in the conversation we had that involved me mentally begging him to come home with me, that was Fantasy Land Carrots. This is Realty Carrots. "You can't... you have to finish school. I know I... and you ARE coming home, just not yet. You have to finish school first." Reality Carrots understands the virtue of a high school diploma. Isn't he practical? "You're more important than that." I have to laugh at this, because even though I can't allow him to actually do that, I've been waiting for him to say it. "Celery, no." "I'm not risking us again Carrots. I can't even lose a second with you baby, everything else is secondary after that." I kiss him, my lips already shaking slightly from held back tears. "I won't deny that I needed to hear that, but hearing it I believe it, and that's enough for me. I like grand sweeping romantic gestures, and I think along with some further scheduled groveling you could fit a few of them in, but this can't be one of them. This fucking year Celery... all we've suffered for it... if you don't even finish school, then the whole thing is a waste, a bust. I can't get out of this barely alive without anything to show for it." "Carrots," He says slowly, carefully. "Haven't you noticed that I haven't been going to any classes all this week?" Now that you mention, yes, I did notice that. "I sort of just assumed you were skipping, like I am. Is that not... am I wrong?" "Well no... or yes." I raise my eye brows, silently requesting him to vague that up a little. He frowns a sigh. "In the first months that I got here the not talking to anyone really lent well to working ridiculously hard in school. I sort of lost myself in it, you know?" I recall doing to same. "Anyway, I took a bunch of extra courses, and they were mostly just the one semester long, but I took a double load, so I finished a whole years worth of electives in January. The core subjects – Applied math and English – run all year, so I'm still technically taking them, but I'm done my term papers and all that's really left to do in Math as well as English are the Provincial Exams at the end of May. I could come back for those, and still come home now." I process as this for a moment, head bowed. "This just occurred to you now?" "Well..." And there's the anger, "Cause, I tell you... I'm finding it extremely interesting that you're saying all this now, seeing as when you came during your Mythical Calgary Spring Break you gave me no indication you were ready to come home even if it was possible, which I recall receiving the distinct impression that it was not." The apology in his eyes begs for a chance to explain, "When I got back I fell back into everything as if I'd never left. And nobody questioned me about it. I thought they were just giving me time but the truth was they didn't notice. I care about them and they care right back but it isn't ME they love. I'm not John Snider mall employee and snow boarder extraordinaire. I'm not the guy who's okay on his own and doesn't mind that he's totally alone. I bleed when I'm away from you and I feel it every second. I realized all that I knew that it was time to make a change. So I talked to my teachers and stopped sleeping for awhile to finish the year end projects. My academic brilliance and heart felt sob story won out over bureaucratic red tape and murmurs about special treatment," He shrugs. "Actually, I think mostly it was my association with Saul that did it. He's their shining star – probably going to the States for University – I believe Princeton is already sniffing around." He meets the disbelieving look in my eyes with pleading in his. "I wanted to come home the second I knew it was possible, but I wasn't brave enough to assume I was welcome – at least not without giving some warning first. I e-mailed you about it," He shakes a little. "I'm guessing it was about an hour after you guys got on the road to come here." I shut my eyes, and let the heartbreak and bafflement fall over me. And when my body starts to shake and the wetness starts blinking out of my eyes, I let him hold me. Anger returns following this release, and I shove him away. "Why didn't you tell me any of this before now? What the hell have we been doing this week Celery?" "I didn't want... I wanted to try to earn some of the forgiveness you seemed to be offering just by showing up. I felt like telling you about the e-mail and everything would be like..." He shrugs. "Cheating." I laugh hoarsely. "Cheating?" His awareness concerning the lunacy of this is expressed in a grimace. "Also, I was afraid." "That I wouldn't want you?" The Molotov cocktail of disgust and disbelief. "That I'd changed too much to be what you wanted anymore. That I was fooling myself into believing I'd ever been anything but John or ever could be again." After another wave of held back tears that's not entirely successful, I shake my head. "God I'm so sick of crying," Wiping my eyes furiously. "We should really start to do something else." He notes in affirmation. "Like what?" "I don't know... random acts of violence?" I chuckle a bit through my remaining tears. "Can't we just stop doing stuff to each other that causes the need in the first place?" He comes over and takes me in his arms. "I'm all for it baby. I'm just not entirely sure how to go about it." "I think we're back to my goats plan again." He kisses my forehead. "It was a good plan." I lean in to his touch. "Or we could just do a lot more of this," I sigh shakily. "I want my life to have this again Celery – I want it to be me and you again. I need us to be okay. I need to laugh with you and talk with you and wake up beside you and I need to trust that I'll always have that." My face in his hands, I'm kissed again, on my lips this time. Firmly and full of promises of forever. "I'm coming with you. We're going to pack my bags and call Jonas and Kyle to let them know to expect an extra passenger for the journey home and then I'm coming with you." "Celery..." "What?" "Don't play with me, please." "I'm not. I'm coming with you. Why don't you believe me?" Searching for the sources of my distress so he can attend to them, so much like old times. "You left saying you couldn't stay. Saying that if you did it would just mean us falling back into old patterns of supposed badness and all that. You LEFT. And now suddenly I'm supposed to believe you're ready to turn around, forget everything you've previously said about the need to see your time here through, and come back with me?" "Yes." And the way he says it, I almost do. "What about your friends, your job, Saul and his mother. You have a life here that was important enough to you to run away from me for... you expect me to just readily accept you're willing to just give all that up?" Because doubt is so easy to cling to. "I guess what I hope if not expect is that I haven't damaged what we have to such an extent that you no longer believe that I'd happily give anything and everything up if it means keeping or even just pleasing you." His voice is subtly pleading. "I don't want us to..." I shake my head. "I want us to be better people than we've been, I want to be able to stop demanding that caring about me the most means you kind of don't care even a little bit about anyone else when the chips are down. And vice versa. If it was just your pals from work it would be easy but Saul – as much as I want to throttle the guy every time I see him..." "I'm not planning on giving him up," Celery says, picking his words with care. "He matters to me, outside of you I'm not sure I've ever gotten so close to someone so fast... maybe not even Jonas. But, Saul knows everything I did, he knows my coming back was just me freaking out and needing to regroup." "Have you talked to HIM about any of this lately?" Cause in no way did I get the impression that Saul is going to passively accept Celery leaving. He smiles wryly. "He told me he calculated the chances of winning a campaign to get me to stay longer or forever and decided it wasn't worth the output of energy." "So what the hell has he been playing at with me?" Baffled. "Macho head games?" Celery laughs. "I think that was his way of testing you – trying to protect me." "Terrific." I mutter. "Baby, we attract the crazies. And frankly, I think that's more your influence than mine, so really, it's all your fault." I shake my head. "Uh-uh. There's no way you're pinning this one on me. I've never liked math – that's all your doing." "Can we at least agree he's no worse than Colin?" I raise my eye brows, "Saying his name without spitting blood – that's a major accomplishment for you. Would you like a cookie?" "Do I have to remind you that YOU'RE the one who drew actual blood?" I wish he hadn't been serious about me never living that one down. "A plague on both your houses." "I'm pretty sure you live in at least one of them." He reminds me. "Don't get fresh." We banter somewhat carefully with each other for awhile, and then Celery employs the wildly successful "kiss him whenever he starts to frown" strategy while performing the necessary (and suspiciously few) activities required to enable him to leave Calgary this very day. This also works well at quelling my `hey wait a minute – when did we even decide I wasn't mad at you anymore and that you were coming back?' rants. It keeps us busy in between all the phone calls and packing and all that good stuff. I find myself again pondering the wonders if ambivalence as it exists in its current form inside me, allowing me to feel fully the blind near hysteric and surely euphoric joy accompanying the phrase "he's coming home!" as it repeats on a continuous loop in my brain, while at the same time in no way silencing or diminishing the feelings of cold panic along with the remaining and approaching habitual stab of anger, this time due to the obvious planning ahead of this venture and the secrets required to make it so. Cheating indeed. But the immeasurable joy remains in harmonious conflict with those feelings and I spend as much time with a dumb smile on my face as I do attempting to form protests and then getting kissed for it. Helping things along is the shortness of time required for all necessary arrangements to be made and belongings to be packed. Most of his stuff will be left here, agreement found easily according to what the reality of the Le Baron's hauling capabilities dictates. We emerge from his room with only my duffle bag and one stuffed with the essentials for him, and naturally Celery's skateboard. Saul, almost as inevitably, is waiting outside for us and looks unfazed by the presence of extra baggage and our obvious intentions. I stare at him unnoticed as he and Celery express things to each other that are necessary and unspoken. As I do this, I wonder how I ever thought him to be a gawky, shy and awkward pre-teen with glasses and probably a stutter. My initial impressions of the boy as they came to me by way of short descriptions and anecdotes over the phone seem ludicrously far removed from the confident and ferocious young man who stands before me. And now I understand that there was never really any possibility of him being short of spectacular, brilliant and dazzling. And that this is quite possibly true for anyone Celery has taken into his heart. Although we can safely consider me left out of that aggregate. The point is that with the perspective gained only from the safety of the sidelines of victory, I possess the generosity to recognize that this remarkable and infuriating human being served as the glue my most treasured companion so desperately required to be held together these past months. I'm able to see him finally as a compatriot in the ongoing struggle to keep Celery happy and sane instead of as an adversary. It's in the spirit of this new perspective that I'm reminded of something I set out to do a long time ago and I take a breath before raising my eyes to face him. "This might seem like smug victorious bastardry, but I honestly don't mean for it to be. This is just something I promised myself I'd do along time ago and whatever issues I have with you now, I still really appreciate how you took care of him and well," I psyche myself up with a sharp inhale and then hug Saul, quickly but firmly. Once I've let him go and we've facing each other again, Saul keeps his face impassive, but nods slightly, and I feel like maybe we're finally on our way to making peace with each other. Kind of inevitable I suppose, seeing as how we're apparently doomed to be apart of each others lives. Celery ducks his head and tries not to beam at this exchange, and we roll our eyes in tandem. I smile slightly. I'm beginning to think of the eye rolling as our thing. A moment later I hear the faint and familiar sound of the Le Baron's pathetic excuse for a horn and I break away from Celery and Saul to open the door. Kyle is already jogging up the walk and Jonas is following him closely. I wave automatically, but they've already stopped short, ignoring me completely, choosing instead to stare past me at Celery. I turn back to see what all the fuss is about, and seeing him as they are, I understand. At his feet sits Celery's bugling duffle bag, his backpack is slung over his shoulder and in his opposite hand, he's gripping the nose of his skateboard, holding it firm against his leg. The orange hat is sitting comfortably on his head, looking as if it'd never left. They continue to stare and blink. Calling Kyle about the extra passenger is the one call Celery never got around to making. "You got room for one more?" He says eventually, his ludicrously out of place casual tone breaking the tension of this moment. "Why not?" Kyle's tones matching his, and he adds an unconcerned shrug. "I figured it was no big deal, since we're all going to the same way anyway." I add with infinite blasι. Jonas looks like he wants to say something about cursed Vasskez insanity but Kyle flashes momentary puppy dog eyes, which doesn't fails to melt Jonas into a willing puddle, but does make him laugh, so it's a victory all the same. Time is taken then for Saul and Celery's more extended good byes, which Kyle, Jonas and I leave them to, the excuse being that we want to start packing the car, and have to rearrange some stuff to make room for Celery. The ride home goes something like this: Jonas and Celery (the only one who can still stand to play with him) have a travel Yatzee tournament while Kyle and I engage in another Lord of the Rings quote-off. We plan ahead for the day when we will speak only in Lord of the Rings quotes for an entire day, and Jonas and Celery (who have failed to get quite as obsessed we us) protest loudly. I tell them Gondor has no King, and that Gondor needs no King, and this shuts them up. When it starts getting super warm and we try to turn off the heat, we discover it's broken in the sense that we can't, so we open the windows and stop for Slurpee's every time we pass a likely looking gas station. At one point Celery ponders taking off his shirt, but Kyle takes advantage of his veto power as owner of the vehicle to 86 the idea, stating that doing so would only lead to badness of a variety too heinous to even speak of. We serenade each other with off-key renditions of the sappiest love songs and then tease each other about knowing the words. My personal favourite is when Kyle does an impersonation of Jonas singing the theme from the Bodyguard and then Celery does an impersonation of his impersonation. I've recently decided that impersonations of impersonations are the funniest thing to ever happen. Celery dozes and I poke him sporadically to keep myself entertained. We spend an hour telling one of those round-robin one word a turn stories, which ends up being primarily about the impossible love between a penguin and a llama, with a few oblique references to the fear we all have of ostriches. They could kill a man! We have a long and serious discussion about how no one should ever wink, EVER. Kyle, Celery and Jonas all take turns driving and I narrate along to each of their driving styles whenever I get bored. This happens quite often. Celery and I have a contest to see which one of us can quote more consecutive pieces of dialog from Clone High (a show we only recently discovered we both love) and I pout extravagantly when Celery wins. This gets me kissed, and I promptly pronounce myself the true champaign. We hear more about a week in Calgary from Jonas and Kyle's point of view, which, oddly enough, involves a thorough and intensive bashing of the movie Ladyhawk, which Kyle and Jonas claim to have been tricked into watching in their hotel room by deceptive childhood memories suggesting they had loved it as lads. I also recall watching it in my youth, and remember this fondly, but Kyle assures me it's a big lie. "No no! You only think that it's good, but it's NOT. It's awful. I mean, not funny awful either. Well, the music is damn hilarious, cause it's entirely dated and stuck in the 80's—" "And like, who doesn't love the unnecessary busting out of a synthesizer during battle scenes?" Jonas pipes up. "Also, Matthew Broderick had a few choices lines—" "Oh Louie, I see you're brought your crossbow!" More from Jonas. "And he lies a lot, for no apparent reason, but really, that was it." "I tell ya, it still sounds pretty good." "It wasn't, trust me on this one. It was mildly interesting, but then it was late, and it just didn't stop. Like, for a REALLY long time." "Yeah." I glance over at Celery. He's smirking slightly, and it doesn't take me long to figure out why. "So that was basically the low point of your week? An only mildly entertaining movie that went on too long?" They consult briefly with mouth quirks and eyebrow raises, and then nod. "Apart from that fun stuff about Jonas's parents? Yeah, that was about it." Kyle confirms. Celery and I high five. "Still the champs." Jonas spends an hour talking only in NADSAT, until Kyle threatens to throw him out of the car, using perfect NADSAT himself. Banished to the back of the car with me following this event, Jonas challenges me to a rock-paper-scissors death match and our respective victory chants lead Celery to crank the volume of the country station he diabolically turned to until we shut up. We conspire quietly, formulating our revenge, and put salt and vinegar in both Celery and Kyle's drinks the next time we stop for food. Kyle protests loudly about having no part in the country and being made to suffer for it anyway, but we simply give each other pounds and tell Kyle to quit bitching in our ears. Jonas sleeps. We take turns giving each other super powers and super hero personas, and after eliminating the possibility of making me a crime fighting vegetable with the ability to make people see better, the car unanimously votes to make me a super onion with the ability to make others cry on command. In an uncharacteristic flash of seriousness, we discuss summer jobs and what we soon to be high school graduates might take in University in the upcoming year, but stay a safe distance away from the logistics and reasons for Celery's return. Jonas talks vaguely about moving into his own apartment when he starts University, and I manage to not have a panic attack when Kyle makes noises about living there with him. Celery's hand gently squeezing my knee helps me in this endeavor. Taking a break for some quality time at the side of the road, Kyle and Jonas abandon us in favor of pie while Celery and I opt to simply sit on the curb outside of the diner within which they will attempt to procure said pie. "Remember when we were little?" "No." It's sarcasm with half the effort. "When I was sad or frightened – even when I thought I was doing a good job at hiding it – you'd know and you'd hug me and I remember thinking – other than, you know `I'm 7!' – `it's better now'. And it always was. Because as long as I was close to you I felt strong enough to face any challenge and meet any obstacle. It was so simple back then." I sigh. "Why can't it be like that anymore?" He kisses my head. "That rhetorical?" "No. Practical. I still feel that way, except I'm not seven anymore so now I've got this 18-year-old brain telling me it's absurd." "Well, I remember you being a very mature seven." He says this like its comfort, while a smirk teases the corners of his lips. "Oh god, I was such a brat." He laughs. "I loved it though. You were always running your mouth off and I got to sweep in and save the day." "Yeah, you never really got over that did you?" He smiles ruefully. "No, I really didn't." "I love you for it though, same as I did back then." He looks away. "Sometimes I think it's done you more harm than good." I catch his chin and force Celery to look at me. "We've hurt each other, it's true. Being together has shaped up both in not universally positive ways – but I shudder to think of the way I'd be without you. You taught me the part about embracing the capacity for total unconditional love – not the selfish possessive parts. That's human weakness stuff I think. There have to be some drawbacks to loving this strongly, and for us it's that we get blind to anything and everyone else sometimes. But I would never want to change a thing if it would mean knowing you a fraction less well, and no hurt will ever change how lucky I know I am to be yours." His eyes meet mine and I know we've returned, finally, to a time where simple actions are enough, because he smiles softly, and holds out his arms. Back on the road Jonas and Kyle prove that IS in fact possible to talk about the virtues of pie for over half an hour without once being kidding while Celery and I demonstrate the effects of this on those who are subjected to such an in-depth discussion by banging heads against our windows. Kyle sleeps. Most of the journey through Saskatchewan consists of an extremely long game of Identify that Farm Crop, which no one wins, cause none of us are ever actually sure who's getting things wrong or right. Jonas slips on the floor in the latest roadside dinner we visit, but Kyle catches his arm and steadies him before he falls. Though Jonas is perfectly unhurt and unaffected by this event, Kyle takes a minute to freak out (I'm guessing for reasons that have more to do with the recent history that any imagined implications of falling on the floor of a strange diner somewhere near the Saskatchewan/Manitoba border) and press his face into the dreads Jonas has now vowed not to cut. When Jonas laughs and says, "I'm fine dude", he gets kissed soundly and we have to quickly exit the dinner to avoid the fun staring by the local patrons and truckers. All in all, a find moment in roadside history. Taking a break from the array of death cab, Weakerthans and other sad bastard music I've helpfully provided, we listen to the radio and hum along to Complete Me by Serial Joe without irony and silently agree not to make fun of each other for it later. I get my lounge on in the back seat, my legs sprawling over an unresisting Celery, and Jonas complains that when they were sitting in the back Kyle didn't let him do the same. Kyle points out that the reverse is also true and Jonas responds by hitting Kyle in the arm. That's what he gets for attempting to use logic in an argument, I say. We discuss the many virtues of saying `eeevil' over simply `evil' and also argue the logistics of only ever finishing a sentence with `as it were'. Kyle and I spend a good 20 minutes outlying the many pieces of evidence indicating that Legolas and Aragorn are clearly shagging each other blind while Jonas looks on with mild horror and at one point mutters something to Celery about distinctly remembering that Kyle was a lot more manly before they started getting down. Which, yeah, I didn't need to hear about. Upon hearing Kyle's and my worries about the twins Celery joins us in pumping Jonas for information, which he is largely unwilling to give. All he'll tell us is that they're `okay, mostly' and that we should really ask them if we want to know more. Which we're told we should, and he follows this with a pointed look that works nicely at making us all feel guilty. We round back onto lighter topics with another rousing round of "these are the Dave's I know", which is a game I suppose you really have to be Canadian and kind of weird to know about, but pretty much all the cool people I know are weird and Canadian, so that's all I care about. We all verbally stone Jonas when he tries to read The Iliad in the back instead of joining us in a round robin verbal rock paper scissors tournament, but when he starts reading passages like, "Menelaus of the great war cry", aloud our resolve weakens and the tournament eventually falls apart in favour of a little Story Time with Jonas. Not long after this, the road starts to stretch out before us in a way that seems more daunting and endless than it has before, and when the Mogwai starts to play and I'm tired and worn in the backseat of the Le Baron, Celery's shoulder is there for me to lean on. When we pull up into the driveway, I can almost convince myself that this is just us, the four brothers, returning home on a Sunday evening like any other. I can imagine away the cramped legs and luggage and pretend that we've come from a movie for a BDI run instead of hundreds of kilometers away. I can act as if there was never a time when Celery's hand on my knee would be unexpected or in doubt and I can push away all the strangeness of the uncertainty coloring his eyes. I can sit under the canopy of spring leaves with the boy I've always known and the man I love and embrace this moment, everything that it is and everything we've left behind along the way. I can take what's been saved and treasure it, and I can find places in my heart for what is new. I can fight and scratch and yell and still know that this will be mine for the rest of my life. This hand in mine, this person beside me, these feelings wondrous and terrifying coursing through me. We stare at each other for awhile, there in the back seat of the Le Baron, long after Jonas and Kyle sprung from the car, desperate for fresh air and leg room, until a slow smile begins to form on Celery's lips, and mine are all to eager to follow. "Well," He says with a peaceful sigh, "I'm back." The end That's right. I'm ripping off the Lord of the Rings and everything. Where's the shame? There's no shame. I'll be ripping off LOTR in other fun ways as well. Mostly in the 'hey, the real ending is hidden in a series of ridiculous appendices!' way. So STAY TUNED! Also stay tuned for such exciting sequels and spinoffs as: Carrots and Celery: The College Years Carrots and Celery: Down Under Carrots and Celery: The New Class Carrots and Celery: European Vacation Carrots and Celery: Mid-life Crisis Carrots and Celery: LIVE! Carrots and Celery: Choose your own adventure Not Carrots and Not Celery: Colin's Big Aventure in the Big City Jon and Dave: you forgot who we were, didn't you? DIDN'T YOU?! Quasi-gay: The Story of Jonas and Kyle AND MUCH MORE!!! (is she joking????)