Meanwhile in the McCormick household, Carol was digging around her bedroom for her other shoes, wondering if flip flops would be a good substitute to complete her 'Sunday best' outfit while her husband went out to the yard to put oil and water into the old pickup truck to make sure it would make it all the way to the wedding. Kenny decided to use this opportunity to put his newly acquired reading material in a safe spot. Compared to his close friends' bedrooms the sleeping area of Kenny McCormick was quite modest like the rest of his house. But what it lacked in comfort it made up for having the best wall decorations. Of course Kenny's mother had a strict 'no nudity on the walls' rule. One of the few enforced in the McCormick household and probably the only one Kenny respected, if only until his little sister reached 3rd grade. 3rd grade was when all the crazy shit started to happen to you. Kenny's mother never said anything about the inside of his closet though. Closets were pretty sacred in Kenny's house. Kenny's parents kept what they called their 'grown up science lab' in theirs and Kenny now knew never to touch it, the fatal burns he suffered were a particularly slow and painful way to go. Karen slept in her closet, explaining that she felt safest in there and Kenny had no clue about the contents of his brother's closet but assumed or really hoped it was somewhat similar to his own, only Kenny's had the better porn collection.
The top shelf held most of Kenny's Playboy's, Zoo's and even a very rare and very prized few copies of Hustler. Open a Playboy and then a Hustler side by side to know why Kenny found those more interesting. The old shelf had been getting quite filled up over the years and Kenny balanced on a chair to put the magazines on the very top. Happily he jumped down but Kenny unlucky as ever happened to be standing under the shelf right as it decided to give in to the weight of years and years of titty magazines and collapse right on top of him. Kenny probably would call this death one for the record books. He had taken to recording his deaths in a little red notebook after the realization that no one remembered his dying other than him, if only to prove to himself that he wasn't completely crazy. This might have been a better one, crushed by a huge stack of his favorite magazines but sadly it was the metal closet rod going with the rest of the shelf and right into his eye is what did him in, and got blood all over his nice blue suit as well. At least it was a quick death.
Carol had given up on the missing shoe search and stood in front of her bathroom mirror curling her hair when she felt the familiar and almost daily pain in her stomach. So as not to stain or ruin her good outfit she hiked up her skirt and squatted down in the bathtub. Fuckin-a, these home births were getting annoying…but so much cheaper and time saving than going to the hospital each time. After a while another Kenny was born, Stuart came in right after.
"I found your other shoe in the car- OH WHAT THE HELL! AGAIN?"
"I know, stupid cult meeting. Well clean him up and put him in his bed. I gotta clean up if we're still gonna make it to the wedding. I need a drink after this. At least it's one less kid to watch while at there."
Stuart obeyed, leaving the high heeled shoe on the bathroom sink. He and his wife could argue about pretty much anything under the sun but when ever this happened he knew just obey and do what he could. The guilt of first getting a twelve year old girl pregnant and then after a cult meeting, dooming her to repeatedly give birth to their middle child will do that to you. He went to clean off the newborn in the kitchen sink, neither Kevin nor Karen batting an eye: the entire family was already used to all this. After putting a fresh diaper on the baby that was kept in the pantry, Stuart went to Kenny's bedroom to put the new Kenny in his bed. But with the mess the collapsed closet shelf the orange hoodie that always magically appeared there was buried under a mess of…HIS MAGAZINES! So that's where all the good ones went, the little bastard. Maybe he did deserve to die almost every day if he was a goddamn thief! The McCormick's were always behind on their bills but Stuart always made sure his titty magazine subscriptions stayed up to date on payment. Priorities. Stuart left baby Kenny wrapped in a dirty paisley throw rug and looked over the mess, taking back a few magazines for himself just as Carol appeared in the doorway, skirt straightened and fancy shoes on. The other two children were quickly loaded into the truck, which sputtered and coughed its way down the street as Stan entered from the opposite direction.
Stan and his friends never spent that much time at Kenny's house, but Stan could see his own house from the view in Kenny's front yard. Did that make his own family poor? Stan sure hoped not, the train tracks did separate him from the poor side of town but maybe that was just about it. Stan stood at the front door and knocked. He waited and knocked again. No response at all.
"Hello! Kenny!" He pounded on the door, still nothing. His good hand went for the door knob and it opened easily, much to Stan's surprise. He wondered why the McCormick's didn't need to lock their doors. But he figured what did they possibly have that people would want to steal? It was really mean to say but also really hilarious. Either way, Stan entered the living room and called for his friend again. The house was dead silent except for the scraping of what were probably mice in the walls. Stan's eyes fell onto the spilled stack of Playboys all over the living room floor. As much as Kenny cherished these magazines Stan had never really looked at one himself. Not that he wasn't interested in looking at attractive and naked women in print; he just never did because he always thought it would severely piss off Wendy if she knew he was doing that stuff. But hey he didn't give a fuck about her anymore, right? Right!
"Hey Kenny come out now or I'm gonna look at one of your magazines!"
He looked over the mess on the floor and selected one. October of last year: that was his birth month after all. He held it out and placed his thumb between the pages, hesitating. If a girl he used to like attempting to kiss him would make him throw up what would this do?
"I'm gonna do it Kenny! Kenny?"
What the hell, did he decide to go to the lame ass wedding after all? Stan took a deep breath and opened the magazine to be met with…a page of text, about golf apparently. He sighed and was about to try and psych himself up to try another page when the piercing wail of a baby crying startled him, making him drop the magazine in shock.
The noise was coming from Kenny's room and Stan pushed the door in and discovered the baby on the bed screaming its head off. Did Kenny have another sibling all of a sudden? Stan wouldn't have been surprised, seeing as Kenny had his four year old sister appear practically out of nowhere. Stan knew what to do though, or at least he hoped he did. Stan wanted to believe all last week's lesson was ACTUALLY beneficial to his education but sadly he was pretty sure the entire thing was made up just to screw with him personally for Garrison's own twisted amusement. Stan sat at the edge of the bed and gingerly tried to rock the baby back and forth and trying to shush it.
"Shh! Shh, little guy, it's okay."
Stan was trying to remember what babies liked, and was suddenly hit with the realization that the entire time he was partnered with Kyle, Kyle had been the one to take care of the egg. Bathing it and everything like a fag. Well…that fagginess had earned both of them an A. When Stan thought he was in charge of the egg he had it broken in his hand, he was grateful when he knew Kyle had switched because he was untrustworthy. But when he was partnered with Bebe, she told Wendy how terrible he was with the egg while he was busy not caring and trying to eavesdrop on every word of their conversation. Fuck, the stupid egg ended up with Sparky because he liked to chew on stuff. Stan raked his brain, he certainly knew what dogs liked and a baby can't be that much different. Babies sucked on bottles and pacifiers. He got up and looked around the room for some kind of rubbery toy to give to the baby.
The crying of the baby was starting to grate on Stan's nerves as he quickly scanned Kenny's bedroom for something suitable for it. A baby wouldn't have any use for titty magazines, other than food porn he assumed. Stan went out to the bathroom, pulling our drawers and looking in the cabinet for anything the baby could suck on. Still nothing, as a last resort Stan checked out Kenny's little sister's room, maybe she had rubber toys or doll pacifiers. Bedroom was a generous term, more like Karen slept in a small alcove with a double door coat closet. The 'bedroom' of Karen McCormick was bare though. With the baby still shrieking, Stan yanked open the closet with some difficulty. Still nothing, except for what was blocking the closet from opening; a little rusty red wagon filled with pillows and blankets. Stan assumed it was some kind of fort, in reality this was Karen's bed. Stan decided if he put the baby in the wagon and pulled it up the street to his house; he could give it Sparky's rubber bone if that would shut it up. If Kenny's little brother was abandoned, Stan would have to watch it until Kenny's parents got home; it was the right thing to do.
Stan pulled the little wagon back into Kenny's room and set it next to the bed and the very loudly crying baby. He again tried to rock the baby back and forth and when that didn't work he unwrapped the baby from the carpet and slid his hands under its armpits trying to lift it up. A crying, wriggling baby was a bit hard for a nine year old boy to pick up correctly with a sprained elbow and Stan ended up half rolling half scooting the baby into the wagon. The baby cried harder at this so Stan tried his best to tuck the baby under the blankets and soothe him. When that failed to work he grabbed the handle with his good hand and with some difficulty pulled the wagon out of the house and onto the porch. He made sure to lock the McCormick's front door behind him.
The neighborhood looked pretty deserted for a snowy Saturday afternoon but still Stan thought it was awfully suspicious for a nine year old boy to be pulling a crying baby in a wagon, even if he did live just up the street. Wendy's words from earlier that day came back to him. Good father? She thought that he was even as good as Kyle was with the egg? All Stan could remember was making sure Kyle wrote that on their report, that he was a protective father, in case it got back to Wendy somehow. Maybe it had? At the thought of this Stan made sure to carefully cross the train tracks as gently as possible as not to agitate the baby further.
He pulled the wagon up on the porch and quickly unlocked the front door bringing the baby inside. Leaving the wagon in the living room and went out back, even in the back of the house he could still hear the baby screaming. When Sparky wasn't digging up dead bodies or putting on fabulous, rhinestone-encrusted accessories he spent most of his time asleep in his pink dog house. The dog immediately jumped up when Stan entered the back yard and started sniffing and then humping his master's leg. Stan pushed his dog off him, already quite used to this and grabbed a rubber chew bone off the snowy ground, noting Sparky was low on water.
Stan returned to the living room and held out the rubber bone to the crying baby. He shook it and squeezed it a few times and when that didn't work he shoved the end of the bone into the baby's mouth. The baby grabbed the bone with his hands and started to suck on it. Silence at last.
"Finally, dude, you were staring to worry me." Stan said breathing a sigh of relief.
Stan pulled the wagon over to the couch and again one handedly rolled and scooted the baby over until he was lying next to him on the couch. Stan then turned on the TV to that one station that always played 70's shows that he oddly seemed to like. It was rare when he got to enjoy Sanford and Son alone in the living room by himself. But it was hard to concentrate when Stan's eyes kept going to the baby. He was kind of cute actually. Stan always had a thing for animals but a human baby was kind of cute in its own different way. Kenny's little brother had blond messy hair and light blue eyes slowly closing for a nap. Was this what being a good parent was all about? Stan felt more like big brother protectiveness over the infant. He wondered if Shelly ever felt like this towards him, when he was small, before she decided to dedicate her life to beating him up on a daily basis and making his life generally shitty. He never liked seeing baby animals suffer and looking over at the sleeping baby, this shouldn't be any different. His sister was just a sociopath, he guessed.
"I guess you need something for me to call you, temporary name for now."
When his family had first gotten him a dog, they'd called him Sparky as a temporary name but eventually it stuck, seeing as the dog was already responding to that name and Stan decided to accept his dog the way that he was, pink bandana and all. But really if it had been up to Stan to name the family pet he would have came up with something more creative. A name that no one else would think of. He had been fond of Gorak but ended up using that name for the prehistoric ice man that he mutually agreed both he and Kyle found at the same time. Stan tucked the blanket a little more secretly around the baby and pondered a new creative temporary name. The McCormick family did give all their kids names starting with a K. Stan rolled over the possibilities in his mind.
"Korath?"
The baby opened one eye at the sound of this, but then lazily shut it again. Stan touched the baby's hair; it was so soft.
"I guess you like your temporary name Korath."
The sound of Sparky jumping at the back door reminded Stan that he still had to give the dog water and left the baby on the couch. He was one handedly filling up the dog's water bowl at the kitchen sink and thinking taking care of a baby wasn't that different than taking care of his dog, when he heard Korath scream bloody murder again.
Dropping the dog's water bowl on top of some already dirty dishes, he ran back to the living room to see the baby had rolled over and fallen on the floor next to the wagon. Stan rushed over and tried to pick up the baby again but with his bad arm it was useless. Stan sat down on the floor next to the baby and wanted to cry himself at the shitty job he was doing taking care of it. Instead of crying though, his eye went to his school backpack lying abandoned by the front door. He crawled over to it and pulled out his school notebook to that page he needed. Kyle was gone and he had one option left, he grabbed the living room phone and found the page Bebe Stevens had written her phone number on.