So, that really is exactly what he looks like. The facial expression is even more exact than the rest of the picture.
Caleb is six foot three, all legs, and terribly thin, with hair somewhere between blonde and brown, and a practically translucent complexion. His eyes are a bright, startling green: easily his most distinctive feature if the scar on his neck; a jagged, raised, red line; is disregarded. He received the scar in an extremely traumatic way, which left him phobic of crowds and closed-in places.
“Caleb? Are you all right?”
“Then let’s leave.”
“I don’t know if I can.” His eyes finally yielded the the pressure bearing on them, shutting out the world with little hope of reopening. “I don’t think I can.”
I stood and threw on both our packs. “We’re leaving.”
“I can’t move.” His fingers were white around the table. “They’re trampling me already. I can’t move at all.”
“Yes you can,” I whispered back, taking and squeezing his arms from behind. “You just need to stand up.”
“This won’t stop. Not until they’re gone.” He clenched his teeth, desperate to hide his suffering. “That’s why I never come in here. They’re never gone.”
Further circumstances of his young childhood make eating difficult and sleeping nearly impossible. Evan’s friendship tremendously lessens his anxieties, but still he is haunted by wickedly, truly tangible memories, mostly that of his scar's origin.
He edged the smooth black oval under his chin. At that time he couldn’t even wear a collar, but a violin’s delicate, red-gold arc pressed into his neck like the quieting fingers of a friend. Although this particular instrument knew nothing and couldn’t be as careful--but when he flinched it understood, and molded itself to soothe him. The bow and string met with a shiver.
“Don’t make me play.”
The girl hushed him, running her hand along his bowing arm. Then she began to hum. By the second note he was safe at home, with closed eyes and comfortable smile. The lullaby came so easily that I didn’t begin hearing it until halfway through; then I turned to see the little clerk on his toes with the music, and Sabella swaying lightly back and forth. I cannot write of music. To learn the notes and write them down would be meaningless. Caleb’s music isn’t made of notes. It’s made of himself and his loves and his fears and a young woman’s touch and a great foggy city and a seagull’s cry and a pair of weeping eyes hidden behind his own.
When Caleb was eleven he had a rather well-to-do foster family. Their daughter took violin lessons, and when she practiced Caleb did anything he could to hear her. However, the daughter did not care for her own playing, and decided to quit lessons. Caleb was utterly heartbroken, and had visible tears in his eyes for two straight days. The family was kind and generous, and secure enough to charitably part with the violin. They gave it to him for his twelfth birthday.
While living in dorms at SF State he never played. That is, of course, he never played until Evan began kidnapping him and his instrument and driving out to various hidden corners of the city. He only had a couple months of instruction before changing families, and never learned to read music. For this reason he believes that he is not a real musician.
“My playing isn’t good,” Caleb half-whispered.
“He plays brilliantly,” Sabella said.
The clerk shuffled into a closet, wrenched out a case and began to unhinge it. My friend looked to my eyes. “Thank you,” I said to the man. “He’s supposed to perform whenever he criticizes himself. This is the perfect venue.” That was probably the closest Caleb ever came to hating me.
Caleb somehow manages to be both highly coordinated and terribly awkward. He has a tendency to constrict his shoulders into an uncomfortable knot, clench his jaw, walk as if encased in plaster, and stare at the ground. When walking through crowds he'll often watch Evan's feet. When still in a crowd he may look quite hard into Evan's face, if not always into his eyes.
At SF State Caleb studies accounting, because "it's quiet and has jobs."
I was currently in my second year of grad school and just months away from earning my Master’s, while Caleb had left school after the basic four years. Although accounting jobs were always available, finding one that only required a Bachelor’s Degree had proved quite challenging. Once he found one he didn’t lose it, performing every task flawlessly, but the firm paid him in bottle caps and treated him like a packhorse. I’d visited him once when my composition teacher unexpectedly cancelled class, and though glad to see me he could hardly acknowledge my presence. He was a young man at Telson’s: locked away from the sunlight so he would age faster. He looked pale and sick in there, just as he looked pale and sick in all cold, heartless places. He looked alone, a look I rarely saw now. He brought take-out home with him that night, trying to assure me that he was happy and unhurt.
However, Evan maintains that his friend should have gone to medical school. One day Caleb and Evan come across a poll just begging to be jumped over. Caleb easily clears it, but Evan does not. He barely squeaks over and manages to get a nasty metal sliver in his thumb. This annoys him into a sour mood. They wind up in a coffeehouse (Ugh!!! I forgot to mention in Evan's post that he is a coffee addict. He drinks at least three cups of the motor oil variety each day, and has done so since the tenth grade. Caffeine now has little effect on him. Going to an actual coffeehouse is a treat.). Caleb starts messing with Evan's hand and further annoys him, but manages to eventually get him talking. After a bit of time Evan glances down to see the shard on the table and his thumb neatly wrapped in a napkin.
“Maybe I will be a doctor; I’m not old.”
“You’re studying to be an accountant.”
“I’m not smart enough for med. school.”
I didn’t favor that comment with an answer.
He nodded to my compliment, then leant back in his chair and stretched out his legs. “I can barely handle a classroom.”
“But you wouldn’t be in school forever.”
“It’s not the school, it’s that a doctor’s job is to be around people.”
“You’re excellent with hurt people.”
“Not really. She just needed anyone to care for her a little.”
“You’re always doctoring me.”
“You always manage to hurt yourself. And you don’t count, anyway.” He sighed. “I wouldn’t worry about patients too much, at least I don’t think. It’s the other people: other doctors, nurses, secretaries, families.” He shook his head. “And doctors rarely see their patients, they have so many. I probably would’ve been a good doctor 150 years ago.”
“Caleb the country doctor?”
“Exactly.” Caleb can be closely observant. He isn't of everything, but if he tries to observe or truly cares about what he's observing he can interpret it. This has made the academic portion of school incredibly easy for him. It makes him a perfect violinist. It also makes his analysis of Evan even better than Evan's analysis of him.
I'll end with a scene which, though wanting revision, shows some of my favorites of Caleb's and Evan's qualities. They're visiting Evan's parents for Thanksgiving, and these said parents annoy and anger their son so that he consciously decides to intoxicate himself so as to stop caring. But he has a high alcohol tolerance (which he knows, by the way), and winds up just giving himself a killer headache.
When at last my parents tiptoed off to bed he collapsed onto the couch. “Are you all right?” I asked.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
“I think I’ll walk outside a bit.”
I nodded, then left to take a shower. When I came back the front door was locked and my door was just slightly ajar. I had one of those bunk bed sets which had a full bed on the bottom and twin on the top. Tiffany had her own room, but the bunks had always been useful when friends stayed the night. Caleb’s shoes were tucked beneath the sloped ladder; he’d slunk up before I claimed the less comfortable bed. I stumbled beneath the covers, groaned my head onto the pillow.
“Caleb?” I mumbled after some moments.
“Hmm?”
“You are allowed to move.”
“I’m fine.”
“That bunk creaks with breathing. You’re not moving at all.”
He turned over stiffly.
“We don’t have to stay,” I said. “We can leave now.”
“Nothing’s wrong here. It’s only me.”
“Don’t be stupid.”
He leant over the railing so I saw strands of light hair in silhouette against the window. “Say something else.”
“Hello, Caleb Mithun.”
“I am stupid.” He hastened down the ladder in two strides. “You have a terrible headache and I didn’t even notice.”
“It’s my fault.”
“Before tonight I’d never drunk anything. How am I not sick?”
“You had enough water, and do remember that I made your sunrise.”
“I didn’t think tequila was that sweet. You drank my dose.”
“I drank it three times over.”
He left the room, then, soon returning with an aspirin and glass of water. After I ingested both these offerings he bid me lay back with closed eyes, then began to massage my temples with the pads of his fingers.
“All right?” he asked. I replied with a sort of hum because he helped immediately and immensely. “Is anyone coming over tomorrow?”
“My dad’s mother and sister, and her three kids.” My stomach churned audibly. “Can’t wait for dinner.”
“Morning coffee should help. And a walk.”
“Good luck dragging me on a walk.”
“Are there any coffee shops here?”
“A million downtown.”
“Are any a walkable distance away?”
“That depends. But we should go even if we drive.” His hands curled around my head so that their thumbs rubbed where my neck and skull met. Apparently I tensed up a bit, because he softly told me to relax.
“You’re good at that,” I said.
“One of us has to sleep.”
“Maybe we should switch off.”
He laughed a little. “Sounds fine. Tomorrow you get the orange juice.”
I was reluctantly falling asleep now, forsaking my friend’s soothing hands for the rough coddling which accompanies holidays. “You’re welcome to play, if you like.”
“Too loud. And my violin is in the car.”
“It’s under the bed.”
A thrill caught him to the fingertips. “No it’s not.”
“I tossed my coat over it and carried it in. Couldn’t stay outside all night.”
“Really Evan?”
“Of course.”
At the time I thought the tremble in his voice a shiver. “That was good of you,” he said. “I can’t play, but I’ll have it near me.”
That’s the last I remember him saying, though he insists more came after. All I knew was lapping of dreams I pledged to keep, engulfing and beautiful swells and my friend healing me quietly.
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