Frankly, I didn't care what his reason was for canceling our plans at the last minute and leaving me abandoned. I could imagine, however. Oh, I'm sure, he'd had the intention of spending our Saturday night together... at some point. A vivid image popped into my head of his phone ringing; the begging voice of his relentless girlfriend whining about them not spending enough time together. I can also imagine him pulling up in his shiny black car his parents had bought him for his 17th birthday, while his girlfriend, too scantily clad for a town like South Park, batted her long eyelashes, climbed into the passenger's seat, and proceeded to go deep-sea diving in his spit. After coming up for air, he pulled out his cell phone, dialed my number and quickly breathed his excuse;
"Uh… sorry, dude… can't go out tonight… maybe next time?" except I didn't have to imagine that part; it had happened not ten minutes ago. I threw my cell phone down angrily on the couch, and kicked my legs up on the coffee table; folding my arms like a petulant five year old. Who gives a rat's ass about Stanly freaking Marsh?
It was about that time that my little brother walked into the room, his left hand jammed full of pretzels, and a glass of coke in the other. He looked surprised – if not disappointed – to see me sitting on his couch, where he had undoubtedly planned on spending his night.
"Oh – Kyle…" He said, glancing toward the TV remote in front of me. "I thought you were gonna… go hang out with Stan…. or something."
"Or something," I said bitterly, consciously taking out my anger on my innocent brother.
"Yeah… well… mom and dad aren't home." He said, still standing dumbly, his eyes still glancing at the remote. Our parents had left earlier to, ironically, have dinner with the Marshes. Knowing our fathers, they wouldn't be back until late.
"I know," I said in the same tone, adding the obvious hint of 'duh' in the mix. Ike obviously understood the venom in my voice was meant for Stan, so he ignored my rudeness, and continued staring at the remote.
"Oh, well…" He was looking at me with caution. We were close, so it wasn't like he'd usually have a problem with tearing the remote from the coffee table, shoving me off the couch and wolfing down pretzels, but the fact that he still hadn't attempted this feat, was because I was pissed off, and my brother knew better than to do anything that would redirect my rage towards him. "…I was gonna watch the hockey game." he finished slowly.
I snatched the remote, threw it to him, and stood up. "Yeah, do whatever, Ike." He took my vacant seat in the middle of the couch, but then rethought it and moved over a couple inches.
"Hey, we could watch it together, Kyle," he suggested, smiling nervously. He'd obviously been planning to have the house all to himself, and though, I was an unexpected snag in his plan, his brother was feeling bad, so he mine as well invite him in on his plans. Great - pity from a seventh grader, just what I needed.
"Uh… that's okay. I think I'm gonna call Kenny…" Ike shrugged, finally eating some of the pretzels he'd been carrying. He tried, so his conscious was clear if he watched the game. I scooped up my cell phone from the couch, and as I was rounding the corner into the kitchen, I could hear the sounds of the announcers. I sat myself at the kitchen table – glancing at the clock on the wall. Eight o'clock on a Saturday night and I had absolutely nothing to do. I drummed my fingers on the table a couple times, thinking that there must be something a single, seventeen year old boy could be doing with his time. Actually, I could think of plenty of things – none which were worth the horrible rage and bitching of my mother if she found out. When the clock read 8:15 in it's glowing red letters, I finally decided to do what I told Ike I was going to; I called Kenny.
Kenny didn't have a cell phone, but calling his house was almost a lose-lose situation. Scenario one, Kenny wasn't home, so you'd either have to call someone you thought he was with, drive to his house, or give up. Most of the time I just gave up. Scenario two, Kenny was home, but you'd end up talking to Mrs. McCormick, who, after asking about my mother, school, and even stopping mid sentence to scream at her 'worthless husband', would probably inform me that Kenny was grounded, or couldn't come to the phone. Tonight, luck was obviously on my side, because Ken McCormick himself picked up the phone (a very rare occurrence).
"Yeah?" his voiced echoed through the earpiece of my cell phone. I was pretty taken aback by Kenny actually taking the time to answer the phone, that I hesitated in answering the blonde's demanding voice. However, before I could open my mouth to return his greeting, Kenny's voice became ever angrier.
"DAMMIT, if you frickin' VAGINAS prank call my house ONE MORE TIME, I swear to GOD I'll come over there and kick all of your –"
"Uh, Kenny?" I interjected, holding my phone a few feet away from my face. Kenny's string of obscenities halted, but his voice still sounded suspicious.
"Who's this?" He demanded, a bit quieter than his previous threat.
"It's Kyle, dude." I said slowly, coming to the conclusion that Kenny was in no mood to hang out with anyone.
"Oh… hey Kyle," he said, a lot more cheerily. "What's up, dude?" It always amazed me how Kenny could change moods so fast, possibly because I hold grudges for days at a time. His new sunny disposition, however, didn't stop my curiosity as to why Kenny had been in a rage minutes ago.
"What was that, Kenny?" I asked, ignoring the screeching Mr. and Mrs. McCormick in the background.
"The stupid dicks my brothers call friends. They've been prank calling this house the last 20 minutes! I'm tired of the damn telephone ringing ever 5 seconds!" His voice was steadily increasing in volume, even though that could be due to the fact that Kenny's mother was now throwing breakable items at her husband.
"That's pretty annoying…" I was glad that Ike's friends didn't call or come over often, due to the fact they all hated being around my controlling mother. "So, I was wondering if you wanted to hang out tonight?" I asked, trying not to sound too pathetic.
"Sure, dude, I thought you were hanging out with Stan tonight, though." Kenny replied casually, reminding me, and once again aggravating my temper.
"No, he had other things to do" I said, bitter with my renewed hatred for Stan's abandonment.
"Hah, like Wendy Testaburger?" he laughed, drowned out by his fathers booming voice. "What do you wanna do?" I hadn't actually thought about what'd I do with Kenny, considering I'd never actually planned on getting a hold of him anyway. I had expected him to be off with some random cheerleader, on a Saturday night.
"Ike kind've wants the house to himself –" and, as if on cue, a loud noise could be heard from the living room; a combination of the announcers ecstatic GOAAAAAAAL, along with Ike's shouts of 'YES! YES!' However, that'd be better than the heated arguments between Mr. and Mrs. McCormick as a background noise, and I was hoping Kenny wouldn't suggest it.
"How about a movie then? You're 17, you could buy some tickets to that new zombie movie." Kenny suggested, while I crossed my kitchen to find the paper with showtimes for the 'R-Rated' film.
"It's on at nine fifteen," I read, looking over at the clock again, which informed me it was nearing '8:30'. "Want me to come pick you up, I could probably borrow my dad's car."
"Yeah, sure, I'll be here." He replied, clicking off the phone without saying bye. I grabbed a handful of pretzels that Ike had left lying out, and swiped my dad's keys off the kitchen counter. When I walked into the living room, Ike was completely absorbed into his game, the glass of half empty coke still clutched in his hands.
"Ike, if I'm not home when Ma and Dad are, tell them I've off with Kenny okay?" Ike nodded, but gave little other recognition that he'd heard me. "Ike!"
"Yeah, Kyle, I heard you!" he shouted, his eyes still glued to the screen.
"Alright, tell Dad I took his car, okay?" I added, pulling on my heavy winter coat and my worn green hat. I waited until my brother nodded one last time, before stepping out into the cold mountain air.
The moment the icy wind hit my face, I buried it deeper into the safety of my grey coat. I hated the weather in this town. Once that delicate age where making snowmen, snowball fights, and building snow forts is a primary source of entertainment passes, you wake up and realize you really, really hate the cold. As if to add to my contempt toward the weather; my father's car was covered in a few inches of snow, and a sleek layer of ice. I tried brushing it off quickly with my ungloved hand, but soon gave up and grudgingly pulled the ice scraper from the trunk, cursing and moaning the whole time.
By the time I finally pulled out of the driveway, wet, cold and in a foul mood, I no longer was excited for the film. The roads were slippery from the accumulated ice, and I drove incredibly slow; ending up in a ditch was not how I wanted to spend the night. I dodged a few stray cats and I pulled slowly onto Kenny's unpaved driveway. The blonde appeared in the doorway only a few seconds after I parked the car, saving me the trouble of having to go in and get him. He was dressed in a thin orange jacket, with a black scarf wrapped tightly around his neck and face.
"Mnm mnnm mnn mnmn mnn mnmn!" He mumbled cheerily, jumping into the passenger's seat and slamming the door.
"Take off the scarf, dude. I can't understand you." I suggested, throwing my hat in the backseat of the car. When we were kids, I could easily understand Kenny through his thick parka; however, I had unfortunately lost that skill. Kenny hadn't worn heavily hooded clothing since freshman year. Kenny pulled the scarf off from around his neck, revealing his huge smile. Snowflakes hung in his messy hair; contrasting flecks of silver on the golden strands. I was sure that the combination of the two was one of the reasons that Kenny was never without a girl. I envied him in that area; I hadn't been able to keep a girlfriend for more that a couple weeks.
"I said, I heard this movie's really bloody," He said with a wicked grin, "Sure you can handle it?"
"I guess," I shrugged, I wasn't a big fan of zombie movies, but it wasn't like the incredibly fake CG creatures scared me. "But why do you wanna see a movie about death, Kenny? I mean, haven't you already had enough experience with it already?" Kenny just shrugged, throwing his scarf back next to my hat. We chatted about school, TV, and cute sophomore girls. I wasn't surprised when after half the names listed, Kenny replied with a smile or even a comment about having already done her. We finally turned into the movie theater about ten minutes before the movie started.
The South Park Theater, though it had been given an upgrade when we were in 7th grade, was still one of the worst in the area. It only had two screens, and the seats were tightly packed. Tonight was "Blood Massacre 5: Darkest before the Dawn", the movie we'd be seeing, and in the next "Love in the Mountains", a mushy, romantic, nauseating, chick flick. I quickly shoved the money into the employees hand, nodded my head when he inquired if we were going to see the zombie movie. With a quick 'enjoy your time' he turned to help the next customer. We stopped momentarily in the concession line to buy a large popcorn, which Kenny insisted we could share, and found seats just before the lights began to dim.
The previews passed quickly; most of which consisted of romantic comedy films which I didn't express any interest in seeing. When the screen finally faded to black, indicating the beginning of the film, Kenny propped his feet up on the chair in front of us, and promptly began shoveling handfuls of popcorn into his mouth.
He was absolutely right when he said this movie was gonna be bloody. Not even 15 minutes into the film, a teenage boy had already been decapitated, and his friend had been stabbed several times in the throat, gushing gallons and gallons of fake blood. The film was almost comically unrealistic, and easily predictable, but Kenny seemed to be enjoying it. About an hour in, however, his true intentions of seeing this movie had been revealed. Two young lovers had been enjoying some 'quality time' together in a deserted cabin, when the zombies had shown up, killing the unfortunate boyfriend, and chasing the frightened girl… completely topless, through the woods. Kenny was smiling from ear to ear.
Forty-Five minutes of senseless killing later, the credits rolled, and Kenny happily tossed the empty popcorn bucket away.
"Great movie, huh, dude?" He laughed, winking at an older blonde girl exiting the theatre at the same time.
"Wow, Kenny, you sure know how to pick 'em—" Out of the corner of my eye I saw a couple walking out of "Love in the Mountains", holding hands and laughing with each other. At first I thought it was nothing, but after glancing back, both of them became very familiar. I felt my face grow hot, as I realized who it was.
"Hey asshole!" I shouted loudly, my voice full of bitterness. I was surprised at the amount of people who actually did answer to that, but not at all surprised when the boy in front of me turned, revealing the confused face of Stan Marsh. The moment he laid eyes on me, his face darkened.
"What's wrong with you, Kyle?" He asked angrily, letting go of Wendy's hand. My mind raced for some witty comment to say to him, but all I could come up with was,
"Busy, huh?" I said dumbly. I mentally kicked myself for the lame reply.
"Geez, Kyle, don't be a pussy. I just wanted to spend time with Wendy, okay? We hang out every weekend." His glare was incredibly icy, and his accusing tone just fueled my temper.
"Really? We do? Because somehow I recall the last seven or eight times we had plans, you suddenly became sick, or had something important to do. What exactly was that important thing, Stan? Sucking face with your girlfriend?" I shouted, pointing my finger in Wendy's direction. Stan stepped forward defensively.
"At least I have a girlfriend, dude." He growled.
"Yeah, mature, Stan. I could pick up a whore too if I wante—" I never got to finish my sentence, because the next thing I knew, Stan was on top of me with his fist in my face. Wendy screamed loudly as I jabbed my knee into his stomach, knocking the wind out of him. I also took this opportunity to land a punch on the side of his head, knocking him over. After blinking, and holding his head, he returned to his feet, taking another swing at me. I wasn't off guard this time, so I stepped sideways to dodge it. However, before I could try to get another punch in, Kenny stepped between us.
"Hey! Asswipes, knock it off!" He yelled putting his hand on my chest and holding his other in front of Stan. It was weird; I would have taken Kenny as the kind of guy who loves to watch fights. Stan looked livid, and he was holding his face where I had hit him. Wendy was still sobbing.
"Jesus, Kyle." He spat, pushing Kenny's hand away from him. I just stood there, red faced, and feeling angrier than I'd ever had in my life. "You stay the hell away from me." And with that, he grabbed Wendy by the hand and turned to leave. Kenny dropped his arm, and turned to stand behind me as I watched my former super best friend disappear into the snow storm.