Forfeit
"Simpsons did it!"
"Shut up Butters," Cartman grumbled.
"So you're actually going to insist on this?" Kyle said, eyebrow arching upwards.
Cartman was jealous of that one eyebrow thing. He'd practiced it in the mirror for years now and never mastered it. Kyle seemed to be able to do it without any effort at all.
"The agreement was the guy who didn't win…"
"I KNOW!" Kyle's anger management sessions with the school counsellor were clearly going swimmingly.
Speaking of swimming…
"Heh heh, I knew it." Cartman sniggered as Kyle shivered in the freezing cold night air.
"It's COLD!" Kyle said, defensively, covering his manhood with his hands as Cartman stood beside him, on the raised bank of Stark's Pond, and kicked off his own pants. "Hurry up, fatass."
"I'm doing it, don't accuse me of Jewing out!" Cartman snapped.
He pulled off his underwear and Kyle shivered and laughed at the same time.
"It's bigger than yours, bitch!" Cartman stated with pride.
"It's wider than it is long, that's nothing to be proud about," Kyle said, actually taking the time to look at his fellow forfeiter's private parts, "and besides, I was laughing at your name."
"What the fuck is funny about my name?"
"Nothing," Kyle said with a shrug and a smile as he looked out over the glassy black mirror that was the still water of the pond, "unless it's sewn into your underwear by your mommy."
Cartman's head jerked down to look at his full name neatly embroidered into the fabric of his waistband. He kicked the offending garment away and grunted away any embarrassment.
"At least I have a mom to do that stuff for me."
Kyle turned to frown at Cartman as if he was more of a moron than usual.
"I have a mom, idiot!"
"I mean a real mom. You're adopted."
"That's fucking Ike!"
"So?"
"So you're stalling. Come on, let's get this over with." Kyle hugged his arms across his narrow chest, teeth chattering now, and a plume of steam erupted from between his lips as he exhaled with impatience.
The two eighteen year olds looked at the water, then at each other, than around for any unwanted spectators.
"Well, go ahead then," Cartman said, gesturing to the pond.
Kyle snorted and shook his head.
"I'm not fucking stupid; I'll jump in once I see you're in there already."
"You'll fuck off and run home, you sneaky Jew!"
"I honour my forfeits!"
"Oh yeah? Suck my balls!" Cartman got right into Kyle's face as he said this.
"Kiss my ass!" Kyle shoved him away with a huff.
"That wasn't a figure of speech, Kyle, that was a reminder. You've dishonoured an agreement with me before and you're not screwing me over now."
"Like I believe you'll go in if I jump first." Kyle had had enough of this and stooped to pick up his jacket and covered himself with it.
"So we'll go together."
"On the count of three?"
"Sure."
"Right."
"Jump on three, I know I will, Jew!"
"I'll be doing it too, lard ass!"
"So three then."
"On three."
"Here we go."
"Ready when you are."
They eyeballed each other for a second and then Kyle swallowed and threw down his jacket again. Cartman winced.
"Ginger pubes, gross," he muttered as he looked away.
"At least I didn't buy my ginger pubes," Kyle said smugly.
"Count it, asshole!" Cartman barked.
"One…" Kyle began, bending his knees.
"Two…" Cartman continued.
"…three!" Kyle swung his arms forward, as did Cartman, he straightened his legs, as did Cartman, he pretended to jump…
…as did Cartman.
"Ay! I KNEW it!" Cartman shouted, furiously.
"I don't see you in the water either, you fat sack of shit!"
"That's because I knew you were gonna pull a dirty trick!"
"I've got honour, I'll fucking do it, but I WON'T do it when I know you'll back out so you first." Kyle was flushed with anger despite the freezing cold.
"Jews don't have honour!"
"Jump in or I'll fucking push you," Kyle threatened.
"That wasn't the forfeit, Kahl! The exact wording of the forfeit was 'The guy who doesn't win has to jump into Starks pond, stark naked, at midnight'. JUMP not GET PUSHED!"
"So, it's past midnight and you haven't jumped. You've forfeited the forfeit!"
"To quote a skinny, daywalking, ginger, sneaky Jew rat," Cartman said, stroking his first of many chins, "I don't see you in the water!"
"I don't trust you to jump at the same time as me," Kyle said, looking away, in much the same way Wendy Testaburger often did to her boyfriend Stan as she uttered the famous words 'well if you don't know what you did wrong I'm not going to tell you'.
"Keep your Jewfro on, bitch!" Cartman held out his large hand. "If we hold onto each other then the other one will get pulled in when we jump in ourselves, no backing down."
Kyle looked at Cartman's hand, then into his eyes, then back down at the hand again.
"Are you fucking kidding me?" He couldn't believe what was being suggested. "Now we're supposed to jump into the pond, naked and holding hands? That's totally gay dude!"
"What's gay about hands? If I said we jump in with a palm full of the other guy's wiener it would have been gay."
"I don't fucking believe this," Kyle said with a shake of the head as he reached out his hand and felt Cartman's fingers digging into his skin around his forearm. "I can barely get my hand half way around you're fat wrist."
"Don't you try to wriggle out of my grip with your pipe-cleaner arm, ya scrawny fuck."
If there were spectators to this event they would have gone home long ago.
"So, the count of three again," Kyle said, "and I'm really jumping this time so you're going in no matter what, ass face."
"Fucking count it, pussy."
"One…two…" Kyle rocked back onto his heels and then pushed forward on the balls of his feet.
"Hurl the Jew!" Cartman had also leaned back and thrust forward. Only he had been putting all his weight behind launching Kyle towards the water and then letting him go.
Kyle had been right, you see? He couldn't get much of a grip on the bulky arm with his small, girlish hands.
The three hundred pound, six foot, Cartman was no match for the five foot two, one hundred and twelve pound Kyle. The lightweight and almost pure white body went flying into the pond like a human discus.
Cartman doubled up with laughter, hands on knees, and howled even louder as the head of drenched dark red ringlets broke the surface of the now disturbed water. Kyle sputtered and then began to tread water. He caught his breath and then bellowed, his voice higher than usual, at the hysterical teen on the raised bank above him.
"You asshole, Cartman!"
"I tricked you Kahl! You totally didn't expect it."
Kyle coughed and gasped another lungful of air as he tried to recover from the shock of the cold water.
"I knew you'd never go through with it, you fat fuck." Kyle spat, furiously.
Cartman began to gloat.
"You should have seen your face. I was like 'into the water, Jew' and you were like 'Nooooooooo!'" Cartman wiped the tears of laughter from his eyes as he began to dress again.
"I'll get you back for this!" Kyle said as he started to swim. "I'm gonna tell everyone in school that YOU backed out."
"We're even for you refusing to suck my balls after I proved leprechauns existed then, aren't we?" Cartman looked smugly over to the apoplectic redhead. "Maybe you can imagine I did it and call the debt settled. You seemed happy enough to let me settle for that after all, right Kahl?"
Cartman wiped another mirth filled tear from the corner of his eye and then looked again to gloat as Kyle struggled towards the shallow water.
"Kyle?"
Only the ripples in the water remained. Cartman leaned forward and looked directly down, then from side to side, and then sighed with an unimpressed smile on his face.
"Oh no," he said with his most insincere tone of voice, "it appears my good friend Kyle has drowned. Whatever will I do?"
He rolled his eyes and waited for his rival to surface again.
"This would have been really worrying if you hadn't lived your whole lifetime bragging about how long you can hold your breath underwater, you stupid Jew!"
Cartman shook his head and waited, impatiently.
"Whatever," he said, showing the whole pond his dismissive hand and stooping to gather Kyle's things from the bank, "I'll just be collecting these and taking them to Goodwill. Or maybe Kenny's family will want them. No wait, nobody in Kenny's family is an anorexic dwarf."
He made a show of turning to walk away with Kyle's clothes and scanned the water for signs of Kyle's re-emergence.
The water was growing still now and Cartman listened carefully, still refusing to buy into the obvious trick.
"Maybe I'll just take them home to your fat Jew mom and she can get to work on your shrine. I'll let her know you died a noble death, as a human Frisbee."
Cartman laughed at his own joke and began to walk away.
He kept his footsteps as light as he could manage, listening for the sound of breaking water or disgruntled swearing from the failure Broflovski as he realised that Eric Cartman didn't give a damn if the Jew rat drowned or not.
"I don't give a Jew rat's ass," Cartman said to himself.
He didn't manage to laugh at his joke this time, just let out an exhalation from his nostrils that sounded something like amusement.
He set the bundle of clothing down on a log and strolled back to the bankside, as nonchalantly as he could. He peered back down at the eerily still dark water. Cartman tried to hazard a guess as to how long this joke had been going on for now. It was still within Kyle Broflovski breath holding range, he told himself. Normal people, not ginger freaks, would have emerged long before now but there was no cause for concern.
"Your mom's a fat bitch," Cartman called down at the pond.
He looked at his watch, tapped it with his finger, and then looked around the edges of the pond as far as he could see.
"I totally know this is a trick and you're trying to make me worried, Kahl." Cartman adopted his most blasé attitude as he turned his back to the pond. "In fact I hope it's true. I hope you die, Kahl."
He folded his arms and glanced over his shoulder back to the water, still listening as carefully as he could.
He waited. He swallowed. He looked at his watch. Then he swore.
"Kyle fucking Broflovski, get back up here or I WILL tell your fat bitch mother you've drowned and then YOU'LL have to explain to her why it's such a funny joke!"
Cartman finished raging at the pond and suddenly felt very scared.
"Shit," he whispered to himself.
Stan was going to kill him. Kenny could literally kill him, he was crazy enough. He had to admit it, despite his build, Kyle's little brother Ike could kick his ass.
"Kyle?" He called down to the water. "Kyle. Hey Kyle. KYLE!" Cartman began fidgeting and toed off his sneakers as he readied himself to dive in.
"It's just like Casa Bonita, exactly the same as Casa Bonita…only deathly cold and it's already swallowed up the best diver I know," Cartman mumbled to himself. "Aw fuck it."
He readied himself to dive in when a single drop of water struck his bare foot.
It startled him. He couldn't believe it.
Was he actually crying because he'd lost his Jew?
This had better not be a joke.
"KYLE!" He called into the water
Another fat droplet struck the ground beside his foot and the most welcome and despised voice calmly answered him from inches away.
"Yeah?"
Cartman turned his head to see the biggest bastard of a grin on the face of the biggest bastard in the world, that big bastard Broflovski. His hair hung in heavy dripping curls around his smug face and Cartman had never hated him quite as intensely as he did at that moment. He seized the smug, nude teen by the upper arms and shook him.
"YOU FUCKING BASTARD!"
Kyle laughed with the kind of childish mirth he hadn't found in himself since the fourth grade. It was as if his younger self had just witnessed Terrence and Philip farting into Cartman's face while Mel Gibson announced he was opening a minorities only waterpark where Jews don't have to wait in line.
Cartman started hitting him in the chest, on the shoulders and arms, attempting to kick him square in the nuts, and his blows landed like kiddie punches on the still laughing Kyle. He dodged the assault on his nether regions and slapped Cartman on the tummy.
"Aww, what's the matter, d'ya miss me?" Kyle teased; knocking away Cartman's pudgy balled up fists as if they were bothersome moths.
"I'm gonna kill you! You're gonna wish you were dead!" Cartman blustered.
Kyle grabbed Cartman by the shoulders, leaned forward to grin into his face, and said three simple words.
"Suck my balls!"
And with that he pushed Cartman into the pond with an almighty splash.
