Hi there!

It seems that Kyle has become my new muse. I wasn't originally intending to write three stories in a row that focus on him, but it's okay because Kyle is awesome. This serial will focus on his coming of age, and I will use the Jewish aspects of his identity as a backdrop and framing device for the story. This chapter is relatively short, as it is just a prologue; the real "meat" of the story will begin in the next installment.

Happy readings!

TEPR

Thirteen years, and it's finally happening: I am a man. Or, rather, I will be in a little while. I'm not nervous. I swear.

I mean, there is kind of a lot of pressure on me right now. What if I let my parents down? Or my little brother? What if I become the worst Jew ever? How could I live with myself?!

I should tell you: today is no ordinary Shabbat. It is my special day, my bar mitzvah. Don't get me wrong: my birthday was awesome. I got lots of cool shit, as always, and my friends are definitely more into that than they are the Jewish stuff, but I can't deny who I am. This is the part that means more to my family, and I have to honor that. As a Jew, this is an important time for me. It's more than just "becoming a man". Now I am responsible for my own actions to myself, to my family, and to God. I have reached the point in my life where I now have to answer for the deeds that I commit and the thoughts that I think.

My friends don't understand. Cartman just makes stupid, immature jokes about me being a Jew (some things never change), and Kenny doesn't bother to care. Not even Stan, my best friend in the whole world, understands how important this is to me. He said he might come to my bar mitzvah if he could make it but that he wasn't sure because "he might have plans" with Wendy. Might? Might?! I mean, what the fuck? It's like, I've told you how important this is to me. How do you not get it?

Then again, Stan's been weird lately. For the last few months, we haven't hung out as much as we used to. I finally put my foot down and asked him a couple of weeks ago if I had done anything wrong, and he said no. He was so casual about it, I felt crazy even asking—like maybe I was reading too much into it. Something is going on, though. Honestly, I think his girlfriend is the source of all of this. It's like he's distracted all the time. It's always Wendy this or Wendy that. I don't think his brain thinks about anything else! I tried pointing that out to him recently, and he just laughed it off. It's probably his hormones kicking in. I remember learning about it in health class. Stan probably doesn't even remember learning about it because he was too busy thinking about Wendy!

I mean, I guess I wasn't completely paying attention, either. I kept drifting off when the teacher was talking—that normally never happens, I swear!—because I was distracted by some pictures in the textbook. They were… well, I don't know what it was about them. I guess I was just intrigued by some of the words: urethra, vas deferens, testicle, penis. And then I found myself reading some more of the chapter silently in class while the teacher was talking. I remember things like sperm and erection and ejaculation. Before I knew it, the class period was almost over, and I had missed the entire lecture. I wasn't even paying any attention during the part where she talked about the female body. That's going to be important for me to know, right?

Speaking of which… I feel like I need to learn more about that stuff. It's embarrassing that I'm the smartest guy in our friend group, and I am the most clueless about girls and sex and stuff like that. It just seems kind of… gross, I guess. All the other guys are into it, but I'm not yet. Kenny and some of the others joke around, asking why I don't have a girlfriend, and I always laugh about it with them, but the truth is… I don't know. I'm just not interested in girls right now. I don't see in them what the other guys do. I remember how Stan used to blush whenever one of the guys joked and asked why he hadn't had sex with Wendy yet. He would look really embarrassed and then look to me for support because I was the only one who didn't tease him about it. But it's not like that anymore. Something's different about him. Something's changed. I think he does want to have sex with her now, and maybe that's why he doesn't want to hang out with me anymore. And that sucks, dude. I mean, I've been his best friend forever, and she's just some girl!

Sorry… I got sidetracked. I'm supposed to be telling you about me, not Stan and his dumb girlfriend—Stan who probably couldn't even tell you why my bar mitzvah is so important to me. My mom says that's part of the problem with South Park: nobody understands Jewish culture. I mean, I guess there are a few Jewish families around here, but not very many if you think about how big our town is. The only other Jewish kid I know all that well is Ethan Saperstein. He's a couple of years older than I am, so we don't hang out or anything. I do remember once during marching band rehearsal, he took off his shirt because he was sweaty from his soccer practice on the same field. I remember very distinctly that he had a little bit of hair around his belly button. Somehow I had gotten distracted when I saw him and walked right into the person marching in front of me. Now that was embarrassing!

Anyway... back to my story. My bar mitzvah is coming at a special time because my birthday falls not long before the Ten Days of Repentance, or Days of Awe. This is a very important time for my people; it starts with Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and concludes with Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year. Yom Kippur is also called the Day of Atonement, and this will be my first year observing it as a Jewish man: I will fast and pray and do all of the other things that a proper Jewish man does. Unlike my friends, I am ready to handle the responsibilities of adult life. It's time I showed the world that I'm not just some immature kid who spends all day goofing off and thinking about girls. It is time for what I have been waiting for: time for me to become a man.

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed this first chapter, and I welcome all feedback—complimentary and constructive. This is my first attempt writing in first-person POV in years, so I welcome your thoughts on that element of the story especially. Stay tuned for the next installment, in which Kyle comes to terms with something very personal about himself. (Any guesses what it might be?)

Best wishes,

TEPR