Chapter Track: Baptized by Fire – Spinnerette
The first three days had been the worst. Kenny hated everybody, and though he'd have liked to keep to himself, he was forced to share a room with three other teenaged dudes, all of whom annoyed the living shit out of him. The guy on the bunk on top of his was Angel Gutierrez, a really, really irritating Hispanic kid whose height topped out at about five foot one. In the other bunk, there was some constantly shaking ginger kid, Teddy, and one of those silent-and-terrifying types, Jess.
And thus, he was stuck, despite getting a daily dosage of methadone, getting sweats, shivers, fits, and all other varieties of humiliating symptoms of withdrawal. Mostly, he just sat in his bed, on the flat, not-entirely-comfortable mattress, glowering. Except when – Christ help him—they forced to participate in activities. This happened far more often than Kenny would have liked. He hated it here. He fucking loathed motherfucking Coyote Ridge Ranch.
Eight AM: The entire institution was woken via intercom and dragged to breakfast, which was a buffet of crappy, ill-cooked food. Actually, Kenny didn't so much mind the food as he did being forced out of bed at such an ungodly hour of the day. He thought of how much Kyle would hate breakfast, though. They only had margarine for the toast. Kyle was a strictly real butter only kind of a guy. It also annoyed Kenny that he knew that.
Ten AM: Group therapy. Kenny despised this, for obvious reasons. He refused to speak during group.
Eleven AM: Music class. Music fucking class. Just another thing that Kenny was excellent at failing. The worst part? He had been late for his first music class, leaving one instrument.
A banjo.
A goddamned banjo.
He found this degrading. As if he couldn't get any more hick-ass white trash than he already was.
The worst part was that he'd been discovered by the other patients at the center—a long, long time ago, when Kenny had been like ten or some shit, he'd sort of learned how to play the banjo. In fifth grade music class, he'd picked the instrument up as a joke and pretended to play for the amusement of Cartman. Kenny had unearthed a horrifying knack for playing the banjo that day.
Fucking Angel fucking Gutierrez had even clapped and told Kenny to play some more.
It was like God said, "Let me make a really stupid kid, with a poor, crappy family, and make him good at two things: Sex, and playing the banjo. And then let's laugh at him. Because that will be really fucking funny."
At this thought, Kenny glared skywards.
Twelve PM: Lunch. More ill-cooked food.
One Thirty PM: One on one therapy. He refused to speak during this as well. His preferred tactic was to slouch on his therapists couch, cross his arms, and scowl more.
Two Thirty PM: Free time. Kenny used this time to shower, and then sit in his bed and continue to scowl.
Five PM: Dinner. Fucking pasta every goddamn night.
Six PM: Medication.
Six Thirty PM: Arts and crafts. Yes, arts and effing crafts. It was supposed to be therapeutic, or something. At least this gave him a mild distraction from being so miserable and spending his time jonesing for heroin. He usually drew stick figures in A) varying sexual positions, or B) killing each other, utilizing the most creative and gory method of murder possible. He'd recently been accused of drying out all the red Crayola markers.
Seven Thirty PM: Free time. Since at this point Kenny had probably already showered, he sat in his bed more, and scowled even more.
Nine PM: Bedtime. That early. Thus far, Kenny hadn't really been able to sleep. Instead, he would fight off the shakes, get up to hurl into the toilet, or watch the red numbers on the alarm clock next to Teddy's bed change. Sometime around three in the morning, he'd finally give into a fitful sleep, which would last up to a few hours. From there, he would fade in and out until it was time to get up again.
o.o.o.o
"We should form a band," suggested Angel, looking hopefully over at Kenny, who was sitting in his assigned plastic chair glumly, with the banjo sitting in his lap.
"No."
"Why not?" Angel pressed.
"No."
"Aww, c'mon McCormick," he whined.
Day Five, Kenny thought, I still hate absolutely everything, and now the short kid wants to form a band with me.
"No!" Kenny exclaimed.
"J-Jesus, dude," Teddy said, "You're a giant d-dickhead."
Kenny responded to this accusation with his middle finger. To discourage anybody else from talking to him, he began strumming on the banjo he held. His fingers were clumsier than he remembered, probably because of the constant shaking. Well, that, and he'd only actually played the banjo for like a year and half. He'd gotten lazy in the sixth grade and just stopped going to his lessons. It was kind of nice that Mr. Mackey had found him a teacher willing to school him gratis, though.
Oh, Jesus. Now he was recognizing people's good deeds.
Fuck rehab.
He hated feelings.
Still he kept on, concentrating on the twanging instrument instead of his irritating companions. His roommates were the only ones that tried talking to him. The rest of the population of Coyote Ridge Ranch had learned quickly that Kenny did not want to be bothered. He put one-word sentences into play, and if that didn't work, he swore at them, or shouted. Those usually worked, but not with his fucking assholes of roommates. Okay, more just Angel and Teddy. Jess never said anything. He just stared at Kenny sometimes, in an off-putting sort of manner. Why did nobody badger that guy about talking to them? Jess spoke even less than Kenny did, and Kenny was striving his damnedest to never have to open his mouth.
"Dammmn, bro," Angel let out a low whistle as he watched Kenny play (sort of), "You're good man. Why can't we form a band?"
"Because I fucking hate you," Kenny provided.
"I'm impossible to hate," Angel retorted, "I've got so much charisma it shines out my ass, man."
Kenny snorted.
Later, after Kenny had glowered his way successfully through another session of one-on-one therapy, he stepped into the showers. The showers made some of the other guys uncomfortable. They were communal, with the bare minimum of privacy: a tiled half-wall between each showerhead. Concrete floors made up the entire room. He'd discovered that each guy assigned to the same shower room had a specific time that he liked to bathe, and used the information to have a precious seven minutes to himself.
He'd been using that seven minutes to cry.
Nobody could tell unless they stared really closely. Kenny turned his shower water to scalding so it looked like he'd just turned his face pink with the heat.
He didn't know the exact reason why he felt the need to cry. Sometimes he wasn't upset or having cravings or anything at all. Sometimes he just wanted to. Occasionally, he'd indulge himself and throw a private temper tantrum. Yesterday he'd kicked the tiled shower wall so hard that he'd managed to rip of the toenail on his big toe, and start gushing blood everywhere. This included the floor of the bedroom, which he had bled all over when he'd stalked in cursing up a storm.
To be fair, the bedroom floor already had a fair share of curious-looking stains in the cheap carpeting.
Kenny had been lucky that the only one of his roommates in at the time had been Jess, who was reading some book from the mini-library. Kenny had yet to see the guy without a book in his hand, or at least nearby. Sometimes it seemed like new books magically appeared in Jess' hands. Jess hadn't even glanced up from reading when Kenny swore his way into the bedroom, wearing nothing but a towel and an expression of absolute fury.
Today he felt less inclined to throw a fit, mostly because his toe still stung underneath its bandage. But he did cry again. Very quietly. He didn't really like hearing himself cry. It made him feel like some stupid pussy that couldn't keep his shit together.
…Which he couldn't. But it was the concept.
About halfway through his third day at Coyote Ridge Ranch, he'd started to miss his old life. Maybe miss wasn't the right word, though. Missing something doesn't typically cause one to cry as subtly as possible in the shower. It was like—he struggled for the right word—it was like he yearned for his old life. That was a fancy fucking word, there. Something Kyle would use. And it was the right word, too.
Kenny wanted his friends. He wanted to thank Stan for putting up with his bullshit. Stan was a good best friend. He'd kind of overlooked that.
And Kyle.
Jesus fucking Christ.
Kyle wouldn't get out of his fucking head. The guy was permanently damn stuck in Kenny's mind.
This was probably what kept making Kenny cry in his seven minutes of his privacy. Nobody had given much of a damn about Kenny, until Kyle. Except Stan, of course, but the damn that Stan gave about Kenny was a different kind of damn than Kyle gave. Or had given. Whatever. It seemed to Kenny that Kyle had gotten over…whatever the thing was that they'd shared. As well Kyle should, he supposed. Kenny was a giant shithead and didn't exactly deserve the friends he had. He knew that.
Kenny switched off the shower water. He wrapped one of the stiff, standard-issue white towels provided by Coyote Ridge Ranch around his narrow waist and splashed his way across the puddles in dips in the concrete floor, to the sinks and the vaguely foggy mirror. He rinsed his hot face off with cold water.
Kenny used the heel of his hand to wipe part of the fogged mirror clean. He looked like shit. It was to be expected. But he looked as though he was getting a little better. That was nice.
He returned to the bedroom. Thank God, Angel was not present, but Teddy and Jess were. Teddy was listening to some of his pussy indie music (It's Bon Iver, asslicker. You just don't appreciate good music") and air acoustic guitaring on his bed. Jess, unsurprisingly, had a book in his clutch. He raised his eyes briefly and gave Kenny a nod.
Kenny lifted a brow. Jess didn't usually take the time to acknowledge his existence.
Kenny tossed his towel aside and dressed in Stan's castoffs. He felt out of place in Stan's clothes. What was weird, though, was that he felt like the Jess kid knew that the clothing didn't belong to him. It was the way that the dude stared. He just seemed too perceptive for Kenny's liking.
"You should try reading."
Kenny swiveled around.
Jess was looking at him.
"I fucking hate reading," Kenny said, because he was too stunned by the fact that Jess had spoken actual words to continue his one-word sentence streak.
"I could change your mind," stated Jess. That was all he said, though, before he returned to the book. His eyes darted across the page at an impressive speed.
Kenny found himself wondering what Jess was even in rehab for.
However, Kenny did not bother asking this, and he did not bother continuing the conversation. He laid back on his bed, which, while uncomfortable, was better than any place he'd slept in over a year. Cardboard and pavement were less than ideal places to find oneself spending the night.
His mind drifted back to South Park. Back to his friends back home. Back to Stan, and definitely back to Kyle. He had to remember to thank Stan. And he'd prove that he was grateful by getting through this rehab shit. He'd do something with his miserable life. Even if that thing was just working at a fast food joint and coming home to a crappy apartment, he'd live his life. He hated feelings, but some of them felt nice. Like how a bittersweet twist made his chest contract, when he thought of Kyle Broflovski.
The feeling sucked and felt perfect all at once.
Kyle had bathed him, that once.
And when Kenny had asked for sex, he'd said no.
No, he had said. Because Kenny wasn't in his right mind.
Nobody had ever done that before. Everybody he'd ever slept with didn't care what shit he was on or how much he'd drunk, they just cared that they were getting laid. And he hadn't cared either. But Kyle had, the weird motherfucker.
"W-whatcha thinking about, dude?" asked Teddy, who was still listening to his stupid music.
Without thinking first, Kenny answered, "Love."
Both boys turned their heads to him then.
"What?" he shrugged, "Don't tell me you don't know what that is."
"I didn't think you did," was Teddy's response.
"I didn't think I did either," said Kenny.
It was the truth. But he did know what it was.
And Christ, that sucked.
o.o.o.o
Weeeellll, since I love you guys, here is another for today. A round of applause for my reviewers: MariePierre, TheAwesome15, and this beautiful anon that keeps leaving me lovely messages. You guys are the shit, really. REALLY. Suggestions/comments/questions? Let me know! And don't be shy about telling me what you'd like to see. :)