It's a Cartman Thing
Chapter One
He had been here before; he had been here when the Mexican treated him like a dog, literally walking him outside on a leash because he had become an it. How did he get from there to thinking he was God, a manipulative and intolerant sociopath who had a lot to atone for? And he'd thought he'd see the eternal bliss, but now he was here.
It was genius, Cartman thought, because he had been in this exact situation before when Kenny had died. Well, Kenny died all the time, but specifically when he had left him his Sony PSP. He remembered him saying, You have no ability to feel, and you are going to die alone and miserable.
That's when he realized he could take the possessions from his mother. His mother wouldn't come back, either, and she wouldn't take the things she left for him.
For Eric Cartman, it wasn't about love. Love faded away; love was for the weak-minded. It was about the things, and that's why Cartman had a kitchen knife in his hand. The door cracked open and light entered the room, nostalgia hitting him to the very core but he wouldn't let his conscience get the best of him. No, he couldn't take the humiliation and degradation with her rules. It was no wonder Kyle and Stan looked at him funny when he told them his mother dressed him up like a mailman.
She was going to have him committed. He didn't want to be locked away inside a mental hospital like Scott had been.
There was a silhouette of Cartman as the sharp object rose from the floor. He walked in with a roll of paper towels in his left hand and a large kitchen knife in his right hand. He climbed the bed and stood over here.
"Why couldn't you just have loved me as a son? Why'd you have to bribe me with powdered doughnut pancake surprise and Mega Rangers and awesome birthday parties so those other guys will like me because you couldn't give me the real love that Stan and Kahl got? How long do I have to pretend you don't have sex with some guy I don't even know on my dad's bed? Why couldn't you have told me who my dad was so I didn't feed him to my half-brother? It's time for this madness to end." He moved the knife to a stabbing position, his face smiling evilly down at Liane's face. "Goodbye, Mother."
He trembled for a few seconds, but didn't let his conscience get a hold of him. With his mother gone, he'd be able to live the way that he wanted. He delivered the fatal stab.
…
Carrying his mother in a carcass, he approached the tombstone with a shovel, kneeling to the grave. He began shoveling dirt out of the way, the sky crackling with thunder and lighting. He kept digging a hole in order to bury her.
What a brilliant scheme he had planned.
….
Kyle was in bed, his window curtains drawn shut. Outside in the bushes and soaking wet from the soaking rain, Cartman headed toward the sliding door of Kyle's room. He moved up along the outer wall of his window, stepping onto his bed. He walked over to Kyle's face. That's when Kyle stirred and woke up, sitting up on his bed to face Cartman.
"C—Cartman?" His voice was thick with sleep, making it deeper and rustier than usual as he blinked his tired eyes. "Dude, get away from me! How did you even—No, I'm not even surprised because you do this shit all the time. You better not be giving me anything close to AIDS again or I swear to God, I'll smash—"
Cartman had his head dropped down, his hair soaking wet under the beanie that was wrinkling. Kyle watched his eyes, only barely visible in the darkness of his bedroom.
He shook him to his senses. "Well say something, dammit! Don't make me call the cops on you because you flag poled some poor kid's ankle to the flagpole again."
When he wasn't saying anything, Kyle turned on the bedside lamp. Something looked wrong with him.
Cartman said nothing for a few seconds, then, "My mom just died."
Empty and hollow. Those were the words that stuck to Cartman when Stan told him what it would be like without Kyle around, but he was always that way. He had a cold calculating mind.
Kyle looked shocked at the accusation. "What? What happened to her, dude?"
Cartman sat on the edge of Kyle's bed and hunched his shoulders.
"An aneurysm. I don't…my mom's done so many things — smoking crack in her bedroom and being the same dirty slut who'd been — S'cuse me. I don't remember now."
"Have you figured out the funeral?" Kyle asked, trying to stay present and composed because that's the kind of person Kyle Broflovski was and would be to anybody who needed him—even Eric Cartman.
Cartman appeared grief-stricken. "I didn't think you'd come unless you'd get five dollars."
"That's not the right way to look at it, Cartman. It was a funeral for a stuffed animal. I would've been there for your mother, dude. You can see why…I wouldn't for, well, a stuffed animal."
"Clyde frog wasn't just a stuffed animal, Kahl! He was the best damn friend I've ever had. You and Stan were butt budies and I didn't have anybody. Don't you understand? There's nothing left for me anymore. And…and you know what I'm gonna miss the most? How she was the best mom in the world, better than any mom. I had the greatest mom in the world. Now I'm gonna have to go to a foster home…seriously."
Whatever happened from here would happen, there was no avoiding what would come to be, Kyle knew that.
"Anyway," he went on, "I have to stay cool. That's what Peter Panda told me after he died in that fire."
"I know, fatass. I was there. We shouldn't have told you to grow up."
"Kahl, I never meant to make you feel like you didn't matter at all to me. I know we argue all the time, but I don't want to give anybody crap anymore."
Cartman made Kyle blink in surprise. "You…you really want to be a better person? I've been waiting for you to say that all along, Cartman."
Maybe this was the last of it, Kyle thought, the final battle of who he used to be. He could see this as being that—the final spiking of karma at last about to break. What would it be like, he wondered, to wake up one morning and get a break from all those Jew jokes.
"Yeah, I do, man."
"So does this mean you're not going to belittle my people anymore?"
"No, I'm still going to belittle your people and rip on you…just not all the time. How about I apologize every few years so I can start fresh again?"
"I guess so, dude. I miss the significance of an apology. You know, that new Cartman got lame when you 'got back' from fat camp. It bothered the hell out of me, actually, so I don't want you to go Mormon on us or anything or else I'll kick your ass."
"I'd like to see you try, Jew boy, but could you really see me as a Mormon?"
"I guess not. I'd probably puke, like, as much as Stan pukes whenever he's around Wendy."
"Damn, brah, he still does that?"
"He never stopped loving her," Kyle explained simply to him. Fag and love were the same thing to Cartman. "Anyway, Cartman," he continued as his face remained completely serious, "you do know this is the last time I'm going to believe you. It's like how you gave me strikes for my heritage…for being a Jew, a ginger and from Jersey. I can't help that, but you can change if you want to. So you'll have your strikes and I'll have mine."
"Yeah, yeah that's cool, Kahl. I just…" He looked down and sighed. "I don't want to take things for granted anymore—especially my mom. I've already admitted that mistake." He faced Kyle. "So…what should I do? Should I start handing out fruit baskets?"
"You're going to have to think bigger than fruit baskets, but I'm here to help you. Even if you have been a dick to me. I feel like I have to try."
"I wanna make things right, Kahl. I've always been taking things for granted, and it's like God thinks it's fucking funny—"
"Dude, calm down. We both kind of need each other, I think, and we did make a pretty good team when I was with Cartmanburger." He cringed when he thought of what Cartman did to them. "Even if you did stick them up your ass."
"I told you the flavor enhancer had to be a secret."
"You were right with that."
They smiled at each other for a moment, and then Cartman asked, "Listen, is it cool if I crash at your place tonight? My house is just a nightmare right now."
He looked at him sympathetically. "Of course, man. It's cool."
"Thanks, man. I'll be gone in the morning."
"There's one rule."
"Sure. Whatever."
"Don't call my mom a bitch."
"Oh, hell no. I won't even acknowledge her and your little brother definitely isn't a dildo. So what do you say, Kyle? Should we call ourselves truce?"
"Truce."