The Return of Faith +1

Faith +1 rises out of the ashes. Recording sessions, release parties, touring, and a lot of discoveries about relationships. Wendy/Cartman, and I think we're heading for very mild Kyle/Stan.

Disclaimer: Faith +1 belongs to Eric Cartman, Butters Stotch, and Token Black, who in turn belong to Matt Stone and Trey Parker, along with all the other character from South Park.

Chapter One: Lame-Ass Field Trip

"Aw, crap! This is the lamest field trip ever, dude!"

Stan had to agree with his friend Kyle. This probably was the lamest field trip ever. It was only 8:45 and the entire class already had bruises from being slammed around on the bus, as it bounced over ruts in the road. Still . . .

"You sure?'

"Yeah," said Kyle, shaking his head so hard that his green hat slipped and revealed some of his bright red Jewfro.

"Worse than the veal ranch?"

"Yeah."

"Worse than the plane'arium?"

"Mmphm," commented Kenny, who was sitting in the seat across the aisle, orange parka tied tightly around his face.

"He's got a point, dude," Stan said, turning to Kyle and trying not to slam into him as they hit another pothole. "The plane'arium sucked ass."

A heavy pair of red-jacketed arms leaned over the seat behind them, squishing them further.

"Hehhehhehheh, you got brainwashed at the plane'arium and I didn't, neneneneneh."

"Shut up, Cartman!" Kyle turned to yell at their festively plump friend, who had sprayed Cheesy Poof crumbs down the collar of his coat, which were now getting down the back of his neck.

"Serioushleh, Kyle—I don't know what crawled up your ass and died on such a lovely day. It's a day out of school, Jew-tard. If it's crappy, you just go somewhere else. That's how I made my first break in show business." Cartman leaned back again smugly.

"Yeah, dressed up like a cheesy poof and on for about a half a second."

"Whatever, it's still TV. How can anything be worse than Mrs. Garrison telling us about the love life of Holly Robinson Peete? Teaching everything wrong, shoving small animals up his assistant's ass. . . . it's a day out of school."

"That's another thing I don't get," mused Stan. "How come we're stuck with Mrs. Garrison for another grade? We had him in third, then we had him in fourth, then we had her in fourth, and now we've got her again in eighth. I'm about Garrisoned out by now."

"I don't care," Kyle insisted stubbornly. "I still just hate this field trip. Why are we going to the Focus on the American Family Institute? It's a huge fundamentalist place, and I thought this was a public school."

A pretty black haired girl sitting just behind Kenny spoke up. "Kyle is right. This goes over the line. I mean, I don't want to be oversensitive or intolerant . . . "

"Oh, nooooo, we wouldn't want thaaat, that would never happen," muttered Cartman, rolling his eyes. Wendy Testaburger sailed right on. She was exceptionally skilled at tuning Cartman out by now.

". . . but I don't think a religious site makes a very good field trip for a public school," she finished.

Kyle sighed. "Well, I just hope my Mom doesn't find out," he said. "I don't think she'd be very happy about it."

"Ho-HO! What a bitchfest that would be!"

"You shut up about my Mom, Cartman!"

"Bitchapalooza. We could sell tickets, even."

"Cartman, I'm warning you!" shouted Kyle, who had turned around and was getting red in the face.

"Weeeeell, Kyle's Mom's a bitch, she's a big fat witch,

She's the biggest bitch in the whole wide world

She's a stupid bitch, if there ever were a bitch,

She's a bitch to all the boys and girls . . . " Cartman sang. Some other kids in the bus had begun clapping their hands.

"Cartman!" This time it was Wendy who was shouting. "Cut it out! I hate that stupid song!" Cartman paused, surprised.

"What? You don't like polkas?"

"It's not the tune, you fatstard, it's the words! You leave Kyle's mom alone!"

"Yeah, dude, " Stan said, nodding, "I mean, sure, rip on Kyle if you've gotta, but let's leave Moms out of it for now. I mean, Jesus Christ, dude, your Mom's a crack whore. . ."

"EY! You leave my Mom out of this, you faggy poofball wearer!"

"Whatever," Stan shrugged, "I'm just saying you're gonna lose any 'yo' Mama' contest around here, Cartman, and it's going to be a long day, so you might as well quit it."

"And you should apologize," added Wendy.

Everyone turned to look at her incredulously. "Apologize, " she said firmly, looking Cartman dead in the eye.

Cartman opened his mouth, then closed it, then opened it again. "Kyle. . . I'm sorry your Mom is such a big fat fucking Jewish bitch queen. Happy now?" he added, eyeballing Wendy right back.

Wendy did not look happy, but Kyle intervened. "Thanks, Wendy, that's ok. For a racist asshole like Cartman, that's really pretty good." He turned around to see Cartman writing something on the palm of his hand. "What's that for, fatass?"

"Official. . . count. . . .of people . . .with . . . stuff that crawled up their butt and died . . . two . . .and. . . rising. . . " he muttered.

"Hmmmmmphhmm."

"Kenny's right," agreed Stan. "You're forgetting Mr. Slave."

Cartman looked impatient. "I'm only counting people on the bus."

Kyle gasped. "That's what this is all about! That's why Mrs. Garrison chose this place for our field trip!" He looked around at his friends' blank faces. "Focus on the American Family Institute! They're like all behind that anti-gay marriage stuff, dude! Remember, Stan?"

Stan did remember. There had been the infamous eggs-periment, where they had to look after an egg for a week to show their parenting skills. Kyle had been paired up with Wendy, and Stan had been beside himself. Then Kyle had been paired up with Stan, and Stan had still been beside himself for some reason he still didn't really understand. He didn't like thinking about it: their friendship had almost gone into tiny little chunks over that. It wasn't going to happen again, not if Stan could help it.

Meanwhile, Wendy said "Kyle, you're right! This is all about Mrs. Garrison still being jealous of Mr. Slave and Big Gay Al! She did everything she could to try to make it look like gay marriage isn't real marriage and that gay people can't raise kids. She even hired an assassin! She must still be on it—trying to get us all against it; maybe she's even trying to meet with them while we're on some kind of tour."

"She's got to freakin' let it go, man," said Stan.

"Mmm-HHMM!" agreed Kenny.

"Serioushleh. Any woman wanted to come after my ass after I was already done with her and married to someone else, I'd be like, 'EY, bitch! Quit lusting after my hot body and get the fuck over it!' "

"Don't worry, Cartman," Kyle assured him, "it's never gonna happen."

Cartman didn't say anything else for the entire hour and a half ride. It was a very nice change of pace.

The bus finally stopped in a parking lot near an immense building.

"Whoa, dude," said Clyde, "look at the size of this place."

"I must say, it's rather spiffing," agreed Pip.

"Spiffing" didn't begin to describe it. It was an entire campus, with trees and an immaculate lawn, and several beautiful brand new buildings. Stan shrugged.

"What's the surprise? You know religion can bring in a lot of money. Look at those Scientologists who wanted me to be their leader."

Mrs. Garrison cleared her throat. "Now, I want you to all line up, children, and we're going to enter the Welcome building. Eric, there's nowhere worth wandering off to, so if I catch you at it, I'm going to break your fat freakin' little fing—oh, hi there!"

Standing behind Mrs. Garrison was a pretty, fresh-scrubbed blond woman. "Well hello! You must be Mrs. Garrison from South Park."

"Sure am," agreed Mrs. Garrison, shaking hands.

"And this must be your class! Hello, children! Welcome to Focus on the American Family Institute!" she burbled.

"Weak," muttered Cartman, and for once the class agreed with him.

"I hope you'll be learning something today, but I also hope you'll have fun. We have videos. . ."

"Yeah."

"And a media center, and a playhouse with a three story slide. . ."

"Wu-wow! Didja hear that, Eric? A su-slide! Whoopee!" Butters jumped up and down, but most of the kids still looked a little dubious, if somewhat shaken.

"And a full-size B-17 bomber. . ."

"B-b-bomber?" Usually it was Butters or Jimmy who stammered, not Cartman. The other boys looked around at each other, thinking the same thing. A bomber? Wow.

"And an ice-cream parlor."

Cartman looked as though he'd died and gone to heaven and was about to ask for his $10,000 cash. The other kids looked similarly excited and happy—who would have thought Mrs. Garrison would take them somewhere cool? Stan noticed that only Wendy and Kyle looked uncomfortable.

"What is it?" whispered Stan, as they all headed for the Welcome building, Cartman and Butters well in front of the pack.

"I dunno, dude. There's just something about this place that creeps me out."

"Livin' a lah," agreed Timmy, powering up behind them.

"I'm gonna get those kids out of the clubhouse. . . if it freakin'. . . kills me," muttered Mrs. Garrison. It wasn't going to be easy. Token, Craig, and Clyde were clustered near some interactive computer displays and pushing each other away to click more buttons. Butters had been going down the giant slide for two hours, running back up again, sliding down, pausing to barf, and then running back up. Cartman, Stan, and Kenny had taken over the B-17 bomber and pretended to be flying low over Malibu and blowing up Jennifer Lopez until Cartman had gotten bored and trailed off to the ice-cream parlor. Kyle had gotten over his misgivings and was having as much fun as anyone else. "Come on, you little bastards! It's time to take a tour of the Administration building, Goddamnit!" Several people stared in shock.

"AW," the class moaned.

"DO YOU WANT TO HAVE DETENTION FOR THE REST OF THE YEAR?"

"No."

"Then get over here!"

There was no way "Administration Building" sounded fun, thought Stan, but it wasn't as though they could do much about it. They walked over to the other building and were greeted by another tour guide, this time a young man.

"Hi there, kids! Are we having fun today?"

"We were," said Stan honestly, "but we're not now." The man just smiled.

"Well, we'll try hard not to bore you. Come on, let me show you our Media Center."

The class poured through another area full of screens and speakers. Only Kyle was reading the signs posted on the walls and cases, and he seemed bothered by something.

"Look, dude," he said, pulling on Stan's arm. "It says over here that Spongebob Squarepants and the Teletubbies are gay."

"They are totally gay," said Cartman, who had overheard them.

"Nuh-uh."

"Yuh-HUH," insisted Cartman, "those shows are the gayest thing ever, serioushleh."

"No, dumbass, they don't mean gay lame, they mean gay gay, like Big Gay Al kind of gay. And they want them off the air because they think watching them will turn kids gay."

"Well, that's fine!"

"No, it's not," said Kyle. "Ike loves Spongebob. I think it's kind of dumb, but he says it makes a nice change from the Newshour with Jim Lehrer."

Stan tried to pull Kyle away. The last thing they needed was another one of those stupid arguments about what show should be pulled off the air, and he was beginning to feel uncomfortable with the whole "gay" conversation, too.

"They hate Terrance and Philip, too," Kyle added. Stan paused.

"They do?"

"Yeah, dude. See, over here. Bad language and farting. And there's some other show—some cartoon that makes fun of religion—they say that oughta be pulled."

"Told you Family Guy was a piece of crap."

Kyle shook his head. "It's not Family Guy."

The man who had welcomed them cleared his throat.

"Allright, kids, it looks as though you're enjoying the exhibits, but I'd like to move you along to the broadcasting area. As you can see, the Focus on the American Family Institute produces television, video, CDs, radio shows, books, all to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ. We sell them to churches, to bookstores, over the Internet, and to schools. Yes, little girl?" he added, as Wendy put up her hand.

"Excuse me—but can you do that? I mean, you can't send a video that promotes a specific religion to a public school, can you?"

"Unfortunately, no. We edit those bits out if we're sending them to schools. But we have plenty of radio shows and videos and books you kids can enjoy at home with your families. Any other questions?" There weren't any, and the class was free to look around again.

"Looky here, Token," said Butters. "Says they p-produce millions and millions of CDs a year! Guess wu-we coulda made a lotta money, huh?"

Cartman, who had been sneaking out of the room, froze. Token made a face.

"Yeah, but who wants to? I hated that stupid band. Cartman is such a racist asshole."

"I know he said some bad stuff," said Butters, patting Token's shoulder, "an-an' I know he really hurt your feelins', Token. An-an' that ain't right. I know. But he was right about you—playin' bass, I mean. I thought you were awful good."

Token smiled. "You weren't bad yourself, Butters. It's too bad Cartman had to ruin it."

"Lunch time!" announced Mrs. Garrison. "C'mon, kids. It's time to head over to the Chapel-teria."

"You're kidding," Kyle and Stan said together.

Author's note: The Focus on the American Family Institute really exists, under another name, in Colorado. The giant slide, B-17 bomber, and ice-cream parlor are all real.