Date: Mon, 20 Oct 2003 15:33:13 -0500 From: Karla Schulz Subject: Carrots and Celery Part Three Chapter Part Eight Sacrifice yoursevles for abandoned family values and canned yams. --- "Colin." The morning break, sitting in Law class with the quality dude I just addressed. "Yeah, Asparagus?" "I need to ask you something." "Fire away." "It's something I've noticed you doing a lot lately, and I've tried to wait patiently for you to explain yourself, but it seems more and more obvious that you're not going to do that, so I'm just going to have to ask you directly." He puts down his book and goes eye to eye with me. "What's up?" Serious and even a little concerned. I just barely manage to keep my delighted and quite evil grin to myself. "Why do you call me Asparagus?" He rolls his eyes, realizing he's been had. "Nice job." I grin. "Thank-you. But I'd still like you to answer." He shrugs. "Rolls off the tongue." "It rolls off the tongue?" "It sure does. It's also extremely fun to say. Give it another go." "Asparagus." Well damn. "Okay, so it is a little fun to say. That still doesn't explain why you call me that." "Sure it does. Fun to say. Guy who likes things that are fun to say. I think it makes perfect sense." Well, maybe on your planet. "Your logic does not resemble our earth logic." He grins at my Buffy quote. I grin back, pleased that he caught it. Which is more than can be said for you. "So you just came up with it out of nowhere?" "Mostly," with a non-committal nod. "See, originally, I figured, okay, he's Carrots, the other one's Celery... all these vegetable names going around – why not me too? And then I thought, alright, if you were a vegetable, which vegetable would you be? I soon realized that this was a pointless exercise as I am NOT a vegetable nor do I ever hope to be, but that all in all, Asparagus is my favourite vegetable name. I then came to the tragic conclusion that YOU would never endorse a nickname you hadn't come up with yourself, and also decided coming up with a nickname for one's self is rather lame. However, I wasn't quite ready to let go of my dream to make the word Asparagus a part of my daily routine, and thus, I turned the name over to you." "You're pretty much completely insane." "That's right." "But you obviously put a lot of thought into this, and for that I salute you. I proudly wear the new nickname Asparagus." "Not like I'd stop calling you it anyway." I smirk. "Quite." During the next break of the day (that'd be the one in the afternoon) I run into Kaleb at the water fountain. "Fancy meeting you here," he kids, pulling his now alarmingly long hair away from his face and bending down for a drink. And okay, don't get pissed at me, but damn that looked hot. I'm still sort of ogling when he straightens up after his drink. "Problem?" I shake my head jerkily. "No." He laughs. "You too, huh." What? Me too? "I think I'll take the safe `huh?' response here." "The long hair? It's a thing for you, right? I should have guessed after Celery." I don't think I've got any credible denial to stand on after my ogling. "I'm going to avoid looking at you for the next little while to keep from blushing," I inform him while staring at my finger nails. "I usually wear it back, that's probably why you didn't notice it before." Like this is somehow supposed to comfort me. Right. "That and I'm not an altogether observant guy." Something in Kaleb's face changes and his tone grows more serious. "No. One way or another, you're usually pretty focused on one person." I snap my eyes away from their oh-so fascinating exploration of my finger nails to stare at Kaleb. He smiles a bit sadly, like he's a little sorry he's brought it up. I sigh. "Man, I'm sorry I've been like." "Ignoring pretty much everyone?" The self-depreciating laugh. "Yeah. But especially you. You're my pal. And we haven't hung out in forever. Let's do something about that though. What're you doing this afternoon?" He shrugs. "Not much. Shane's coming over, but not until like eight. He has to work." "So what do you think? I come over, we bond, listen to some of those beloved TAPES of yours. We can catch up." He smiles. "Sure. That'd be cool I guess. Want to just walk together right after school?" I nod. "Sounds like a plan." The bell's going to ring any second. "Meet you at your locker after the last bell?" "Yeah, see you then." And we do the separate ways to separate classes thing. After school bonding with Kaleb proves to be an excellent time. Obviously, interactions with different people are going to be different, and I sort of forgot how well Kaleb and I go together in our own certain half-joke-flirty palish way. Like, Colin is my ultra-straight, just totally insane talks to me about bad pop music and calls me Asparagus top of the line friend. Jonas and Kyle are my best friends and my brothers. Celery is my best friend slash love of my life guy. I have my school friends, the closer ones like Alex and Brian, but then there's Kaleb here, the dude I've shared some pretty weird experiences with, and miraculously ended up still getting along with. So it's fun. And it's relaxing. And we're going to do it again soon. Home and Kyle's walking out of the kitchen into the hallway. "There's a weird message for you," he says as he starts up the stairs. "Um okay, thanks." He nods and keeps going. I let the desire to check my message distract me from the weirdness of Kyle's behavior. So I go and I enter the voicemail code and do all the pressing 1-1 or whatever that's needed, and listen to my message, which goes, "Hey Krame it's Sein," and that's all. This causes laughter. Because it's a Seinfeld thing (message taped straight off the show even), and I love Seinfeld. And thus, laughter. I head up to my room, and call Celery, 'cause like, who else would leave me such a message? The phone rings for like ever before he picks up. "Hey." "Hey Carrots," he sounds bit out of breath. "Give me a second would you? I just like seriously got in two seconds ago, I need to take off my clothes." "I'm all for that." He laughs. "From practice, I didn't shower there. And I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I will be putting other clothes ON. Hang on, okay?" "Yeah man, sure." I twiddle my thumbs, try not to think too hard about how bummed it makes me I'm not even there to enjoy him getting all naked and everything. "Okay, I'm back," his voice returns all husky and deep. Do you think he knows what he's doing to me? Yeah. Me too. The bastard. "Hey again. But wait," 'cause here's this thing I'm confused about, "How could you just have gotten home? You left a message for me like an hour ago...?" "Uh, no I didn't." Watch as my confusion grows. "Huh?" "Pretty much my thoughts. What are you talking about?" "Well there was a message--" Oh! Colin. "Carrots?" "Um, never mind. It doesn't matter. It was someone else. But I'd rather talk to you anyway." "That's comforting." "What can I say? I love you." "Of course you do." "I'd be insane not to. But anyway, how was practice or whatever?" "Or whatever?" "Yep. Whatever you want. Tell me whatever you want. Talk to me about you and your day and what clothes you're wearing, and the way you combed your hair..." "Basically just drone on while you zone out?" "Celery! I will not zone out." "But this is a talk to me about whatever – mostly what I care about is hearing your voice – call, right?" He's still so fucking smart. I could kick him. "It's both that and an I love you and want to hear about your life call. So talk." "Okay baby. Let me think. There's not much new to report. I got a 25 cent raise at work." "Score." He chuckles. "It's better than nothing. Anyway, I like working there. As long as it's enough for all these calls and everything, I'm happy." "And everything?" "Sure." "No, that question was my way of requesting that you elaborate." "Check you out, minute detail boy. But alright. Hmmm.... well there's my bus pass to get to work and school, and like awhile ago I bought Saul a present for his birthday--" "What'd you get him?" "What? Just this book he wanted. An old university textbook actually. Microbiology or whatever. He's into that stuff." "You have weird friends." "Sure. Look at you," which is what I wanted him to say. I grin. "Exactly. So, what else?" "My only other expense type thing would be my pass for the hill, and my snowboard, but I got good discounts on all that stuff." "See? That was so much more fun than 'and everything'." "I'm sure you found it fascinating." "It was about you," I say in all seriousness. "Every once in awhile I almost forget how incredible you are." He's getting a little choked up himself. "I hope you never forget how much I love you," I don't even want to think about that. I don't want to live in a world where that's a possibility. "No, just like I never forget how much I love you back," when these words reach me, I start to breathe again. "Good." This is something that just seems to happen. One way or another, we always get back to the distance and how much it hurts. We'll start off just totally casual, two best pals on the phone catching up, but by the end, we're always two lovesick dudes missing each other like demons. "But everything's going okay?" 'Cause I need a break to get a hold of myself. "Yeah pretty much. I'm really looking forward to Spring Break," the mention of that throws me into another tailspin of emotion, but the good kind this time. He still knows exactly what to say. "God, me too. I'm not sure I'll be able to stand letting you leave when the week's over though." I think I can hear him smiling. "Yeah. Those wild horses are going to have quite a time dragging me away." We talk for a little while longer, but keep it pretty short. I guess mostly it was because we were worried the bad emotions stuff would float up again if we left it too long. So it was just a few minutes more of talk and then we said goodnight. I take my 15 minutes of just lying on the bed, breathing and thinking calming thoughts like I always need to after a talk with Celery (good or bad) and then I call Colin. "Hey Asparagus," he sounds relaxed, cheerful. "Hey." "Kaleb went long?" His way of asking why I'm so late getting back to him. "Not really, I called Celery first. I thought the message was from him," I wasn't going to tell him that. Weird how it just slipped out. "Really? That's kind of weird. He's into that whole Seinfeld thing too?" "Yeah, some." "How's he doing?" "Fine, keeping busy." "You always like this when you get done talking to him?" There's a touch of amusement in his voice. "Like what?" "Talking in little fragments, all muted and withdrawn?" "That's what I'm being?" "Can you hear yourself?" I chuckle. "Sorry." "Hey it's no problem. I think I can understand. Anyway, I just called you to say don't forget to watch the Becoming Avril Lavigne tonight," this is maybe the 100th time he's reminded me today. "Oh right! I totally forgot." "I know that a lot of people may find your sarcasm cute, but I'm not one of them." I laugh. "Whatever, dude. I'll talk to you tomorrow." "Rock on Rock on." "Peace out, Avril," I complete my portion of our farewell, and hang up. My next trip is to Kyle's place. I need to find out what was up with that guy earlier today. You remember. When he was acting all distant, weird, and me-like. I knock, and hear mumbling, which I assume is my cue to come in. Kyle, I find, is sitting on his couch, with some books open around him, but he's staring blankly into space. "Kyle, are you okay, man?" "Yeah, sure." But there's no conviction there. "Kyle man, don't lie to me." He sighs. "It's nothing. Just a stupid fight with Jonas." I sit down beside him and offer him an arm around the shoulders as my attempt at comfort. "What happened?" He shrugs slightly. "Nothing much. Like I said, it was stupid. Only," another sigh, heavier this time, "we seem to be having a lot of those lately." "Why do you think that is?" Another shrug, this one a little more definite. An 'I don't want to try think about it' shrug. Like he knows he could probably come up with the reason, but isn't too sure he wants to. "I don't know. I guess maybe," sigh, "It's like, got something to do with his parents. I mean, even when that's not what we're arguing about, it's like, always there. Causing tension, setting one of us off and we'll get all pissed for no reason." "What was the lack of reason this time?" "It's a huge nothing," he's not exhibiting eagerness to share details. "Come on Kyle, give." "Like I said, it was nothing. He said he needed to go home for dinner, I wanted him to stay, one thing led to another." "One thing led to another?" I'm not just asking because I'm a nosy bastard, I also really don't know what he means. Going out with Celery isn't really great arguing experience. "Well, first I got frustrated, and then he got defensive, and slowly voices got louder and there may have been hand waving, and possibly some swearing." Kyle tells me these things patiently, because he knows I'm new to this stuff. "That doesn't sound very fun." "No. It's not." Kyle grins. "Making up can be though," I make a face. "Don't gross me out, dude." "A thousand apologies." "But that's it?" "That's it." "Except that that's not it, right? Not really?" It's time for a big sigh. Not a little sigh, a big fat one. "Not even close." "What are you going to do about it?" Even more sigh action. "Not sure. Send his parents an anonymous letter and some revealing photos?" I'm about to go, 'you wouldn't' when the like, last part of what he said sinks in. I immediately throw my hands up over my face. "Oh ga, dude! Don't tell me there are actually pictures!" Kyle laughs. "So what if there are?" I can't even look at him. Or anything. I'm too afraid to open my eyes. Eventually, he has pity on me. "Relax, Care, I was kidding. There are no pictures. You can open your eyes now." And I do, but slowly, cautiously. You know, just to be on the safe side. "Getting back to the point you've so expertly managed to keep distracting me from," I say pointedly. "Um, yeah. That was like, my best plan so far, and obviously that's saying something. See, the reason most of our fights end up being about other stuff is, I don't really feel comfortable pushing him too much about his parents. Not since I found out about why he's so afraid to upset them and everything. You know, like his sister and everything." I get that. I wouldn't know what to do either. But I'm not the one who needs to figure it out. "Maybe I'll leave you do to the deep thoughts thing for awhile?" Kyle's face is sort of 'huh?' for a second, but then comes understanding. "Yeah bro, sure. Thanks for the talk though. I feel marginally better now." I smile. "Then I'm marginally proud of myself." He shakes his head, obviously deciding he doesn't need to bother saying 'too lame' or something of that nature. "Hit the road, C1." "Night man."