"Into Happiness" by Phantogram: watch?v=YLkptNStRzc
Often he felt there were two of him. His body is the first thing, carrying with him a child brain that would stare impolitely at things and asked too many questions. This child brain guilted him, told him he was wrong, told him to apologize, start over. Get better. Be better.
Cartman beat that child down every time he opened his little (now bruised) mouth and told him things Cartman didn't want to hear. "You're a kid, what do you know?" He called this child dumb, useless. There are secret, layers to everything that you don't see. You can't call out black and white because you don't recognize the gray yet.
They argued inside his skull while he folded towels. He had his own table in the corner. The other inmates that were brave enough to say 'hello' to him, now looked at his sallow, chalky skin and only muttered in his direction with their heads down. There was a rumor that Cartman contracted some sort of terminal illness. How they didn't know, so they made it up. Maybe the kitchen workers poisoned him, maybe he shared a needle with someone, another inmate, a guard, possibly? The prison doctors didn't know what was wrong, and they weren't keen on finding out. This was fine with him. Let them speculate or not speculate as much as they want. It would all be over soon.
He crept behind the dryer to add the latest to his stash. Harmless at first, but deadly with time- he had been stuffing extra lint behind the dryer. It was taking a while. He only took small amounts from each load to avoid suspicion. It was an industrial dryer, and he knew that with patience, the pay off would be worth it. Soon. Very soon, the place would be ablaze.
Maybe he would let his child brain enjoy the pretty flames. Maybe, as he's running away, leaving everyone else to burn, he'll turn his head and see the orange and red in the distance, and smile.
...
June 28, 2017
10:40 am- Kyle: I got a lead part lmao
10:41 am- Kenny: Congrats! I'm not surprised tho. You're dramatic af
10:43 am- Kyle: How dare you
You right tho
10:45 am- Kenny: What part?
10:47 am- Kyle: Saturninus Andronicus
10:49 am- Kenny: w h a t
10:54 am- Kyle: He's the king. Weak, sad. Easily manipulated. They said I have the 'energy' for him. I'm concerned about what that means lol
11:00 am- Kenny: Just because you have the energy, doesn't mean you ARE weak and sad. Maybe there was just something about your voice or body language that they thought fit the character.
11:02 am- Kyle: Yeah, makes sense. Don't get attached to my character btw. I die at the end
11:05 am- Kenny: Doesn't everyone die in Shakespeare?
11:07 am- Kyle: Not always
...
July 13, 2017
He wasn't a criminal. But standing on the marble steps of the Park County Court House with a suit on, two cups of coffee and half a bagel in his stomach, he felt like one. Sheila, Gerald, Ike, Randy, Sharon, and Kenny surrounded him, murmuring amongst themselves, talking about everything except the situation at hand: the weather, the Colorado Rockies versus the Detroit Tigers, the new candidate for the Mayor of South Park (his head looks like a shrunken apple!), the sale of strawberries at Whole Foods.. Ike was fussing with his tie still. Kyle leaned down and unraveled it, "Here. Pull through the side and over, around, and back under again. Then over and through."
Kenny watched Kyle's eyes, how calm and focused they were. Absentmindedly, he traced his bottom lip with his finger. For a moment, Kyle glanced up and caught him staring, and smiled.
Kyle stepped back after he was done. "Looks pretty dapper."
"Looks nice, Ike," added Kenny.
"Thanks," they continued walking up the steps, "Maybe there'll be some girl here whose parents are divorcing and I can get an easy girlfriend."
"Ike!" Sheila screeched, "That's not a nice way to get a girlfriend."
Kyle laughed. He opened the large glass door for the others, "Don't worry, Ma. I think he likes Karen anyway."
"No, I don't!"
"You gave her your skateboard, dude."
"So?"
Randy chimed in: "So? What else are we supposed to think?"
He must miss being a teasing dad, Kenny thought with a frown.
Ike rolled his eyes, scowling, followed the others into the building, "It was your skateboard anyway."
"That's fine. I wasn't using it."
"Yeah, 'cause you stopped riding skateboards and started riding dick-"
"IKE."
On the way in, they were searched by security. Kyle left his audition sonnet in his pocket by accident, and it was now crisp from the dryer. Randy turned up a bottle of hot sauce he forgot about, and they confiscated a pocket knife from Kenny. Sheila rifled through her purse for her ID at some point, thinking she would need it. Instead, she pulled out three CVS receipts, a Blockbuster card, Mary Kay lipstick, and finally her license that she didn't need. On the way in to the waiting room, Kyle whispered to Kenny, "You look nice too."
"Thanks. My tie is a clip-on though."
"Clip-on's are underrated. Still looks good."
"If you keep flirting with me, I might explode."
"I'm not flirting with you," Kyle reached over and tugged on the tie, "I just want this tie."
"You mean you want the tie off. That's going to lead to other things coming off-"
Gerald slipped by them, adjusting his cuffs. Looking at them for a second, he said, "I guess no one wastes time anymore."
Kyle flushed pale, immediately letting go of Kenny's tie. Kenny glared after Gerald, who was joining the others at the end of the hallway. He gently touched Kyle's elbow. "Hey, it's okay. Don't listen to him." He tucked a red curl behind Kyle's ear.
Kyle took a deep breath, "I just wish he wasn't here today. This situation is already fucked up as it is."
"I know, I know," he gave Kyle's shoulder a squeeze. "But this will all be over with before you know it."
Kyle nodded. He grabbed the hand that was on his shoulder and lightly squeezed back. "Are you okay with this?"
"Whatever makes you happy, makes me happy."
Quickly, Kyle pulled on Kenny's hand and kissed his fingers before they continued down the copper and beige hall.
When they were herded into a waiting room, Kyle realized he didn't know what to tell the judge. How he could put into a short statement something that takes over 70,000 words to explain?
He had nothing. Not a goddamn thing.
"Are you okay, bubbeh?" Sheila asked softly, "You're grinding your teeth."
With a palpitating heart, he answered. "I don't know what I'm going to say. What if they don't take me seriously?"
"Just speak from here," she held her hand over her heart, "God will help you find the words."
Sharon walked around slowly, hands folded in front of her waist, staring at the different gold-framed paintings.
"I need to go to the bathroom," Kyle suddenly stood.
Kenny looked up at the back of his head, "Do you need me to come with you?"
"No, it's fine. I'll be right back."
Kyle walked away, leaving an empty chair for Ike to sit down next to Kenny. Before Kenny could utter a greeting, Ike spoke: "I just want you to know that I think it's okay."
Kenny almost asked, "what's okay?" But he knew better. It was easy to tell.
"I'm glad that you think so," he murmured.
"Even if I didn't, it doesn't matter. You really love my brother. That's all that matters. You're good for each other. Anyone with eyeballs can see that. I mean, except for my dad. But he sucks so his opinion isn't valid."
"Well… thank you."
"You don't need to thank me. When you're right, you're right," he slouched forward, elbows in his lap. "There are other things to be upset about. A couple of guys being dudes isn't one of them."
Kenny wondered how much the adults could hear them,
(oh wait im an adult too i guess but not really)
Sheila and the rest all tucked away in the corner now. It was a small room, and Ike didn't seem to notice the ups and downs of volume in his voice.
"What's there to be upset about?" he leaned forward too.
"There's something off about this town lately."
"Just lately? You were probably too young to remember, but your brother and I have been through-"
"-I remember some. I also know that you guys have seen… them."
"Them?"
"That crazy cult that met in Mackleroy's basement."
"Yeah. But Ike, you don't have to worry. It's been ages. They're not around anymore."
"I've been doing some research, and that wasn't the only cult incident here."
"That doesn't surprise me."
"I figured," Ike looked around the room. A few strangers watched them. He lowered his voice, "The first settlers of South Park were a cult. They came here to be in isolation."
"Satanic?"
"The opposite. It was like, Christian, but not what I would expect Christianity to be."
"People get radical sometimes."
"Well, the leader, Edward something, I don't remember, was seriously fucked up. If you even so much as yawned in front of him, or looked at him in a weird way, he'd have you buried alive. There's this whole fucking tunnel system underground just filled with corpses… I guess it would be just bones at this point. Like the catacombs in France. The remaining members got fed up and used the tunnels to go undetected, dig up into his tent, and kill him in his sleep."
"I thought the tunnels were for smuggling alcohol."
"Dude, we've been lied to," his whisper was piercing. Kenny nervously glanced over at Sharon, who looked at them from across the room, hands still folded in front of her waist. "I… here, look at the notes on my phone."
He flipped over his phone. A message from Karen glowed on the screen that read "Hey :)." Ike quickly swiped it away.
"You're texting my sister?"
"You're dating my brother."
Kenny's cheeks burned, his tight lips peeled back showing an overbite that he hated anyone seeing. This time, he didn't care.
"Never thought you'd hear me say that, eh?" Ike asked.
"No. Never."
Ike opened up his notes:
These people FUCKED up…
Leader, Connor dies 1892
Remaining members get violently sick and die, mainly intestinal. Journals are unclear as to what exactly the sickness was. Black bile. Throwing up a lot. Maybe an infection? Or curse.
Everyone in settlement DIES
"Wait, sickness?" Kenny asked, thinking back to Kyle's repeated bouts of vomiting. The dirt. Worms. Bile.
Ike nodded.
"Ike… what are you trying to connect here?" he pressed, though he had an idea of what he was about to explain.
"This place is cursed. And I don't mean like hashtag cursed. I mean actually cursed. I'm not superstitious, but something isn't right here dude. When I talk about Edward Connor, who does it remind you of?"
"A majority of cult leaders."
"Yeah, but… come on. What's the first face that popped into your head?"
...
Today was the day that he would try it.
Cartman pressed his fingers into the cinderblock and closed his eyes. Who did he hate the most here? He didn't know enough about anyone here to hate them. He could make up reasons.
It might be better if it were random. Not let emotions get in the way.
He thought harder and harder until screaming was heard down the hall. In his mind he could see vein ruptures, teeth falling, eyes bleeding, stomachs churning. I did that. I'm doing this. Remembering the day he shoved Kyle into the lockers, giving him a concussion, making his nose bleed. I did that. I made Kyle bleed.
Panicked footfalls of other inmates brushed past him swarming to Officer Chakwas, who crawled across the floor, though the top of his head was puss, finger bones jutting through the skin.
...
Sometimes when I look at you, I see a piano in the front yard of a tilted house stuffed with blood-red carnations spilling on the sides and over keys in some small town.
Maybe ours.
Skinless, he was fucking skinless.
Kyle glared at himself in the mirror, thumbs on the lip of the sink, hunched over, much like how he had found Stan in the bathroom during the Bar Mitzvah reception.
(are you ok ?)
(am i ok?)
That morning before leaving to court, Kyle sat on the front porch and watched a crow pick wet leaves from the gutter, beaded eyes watching him with hesitance every time it pulled its head up and twitched its face around. After a few wormless bites, it flew away.
In the dark, while Stan softly snored, Kyle would trace the outlines of his face, the plushness of his lips, the slick hair of his eyebrows under his thumb. Holding his face was like holding the world.
If anyone should be searching for sustenance in a wet gutter and turn up with nothing but dirt in his beak, Kyle believed it was him. Hands gripped onto the porcelain, craning over the drain, his elongated reflection in the faucet, the memory of how Stan stood on his tip-toes and kissed him for the first time. Confusion and excitement, the menagerie of their clashing hormones.
He had read before that when two people fall in love, their heartbeats synchronize.
In the dark, his hand would fall down Stan's body and he would hear his own heart in Stan's chest.
He puts two fingers on his neck now and feels nothing.
The thing he feels churns in his stomach and he realizes it's happening again. His esophagus burns and his eyes water and sting as he throws up mud into the sink. Vision clouded with pink, one eye travels downward, the white part filling with blood like a fishbowl; he pulls on his hair and whispers "No, no, no, stop doing this to me…" until he rips some out. Scalp dancing with fire, he stares at the auburn curls in his hands.
Kyle, I'm confused. Why do I see this with you? I wish you would just say something so I don't have to.
This hurts.
...
October 30, 2015
"I am going to kill God," Stan had this to Kyle early in the morning while pulling himself into Kyle's Jeep.
"Um, what?" Kyle couldn't help but laugh. It was such a striking statement for 7am.
"I went to make some toaster strudel and my dad fucking ate all the fucking icing and left the god damn strudel," he pulled down the visor and ruffled his hair in the mirror. It had just been cut the day before and it looked too neat for Stan. His hair had been growing into mullet formation and didn't mix well with his new obsession of wearing jean jackets. Sharon and Randy nearly hog-tied him and threw him in a trunk to be hauled off to Great Clips.
"Yikes," Kyle was still chuckling. "I mean, toaster strudel is still pretty good without the icing."
"That's a fucked up thing to say, Kyle."
Kyle sat at this desk, cheek in palm, staring out the window waiting for class to start. Snowflakes stuck to the glass for crumbles of a moment and melted, leaving delicate small, cold ghosts. A little snow wouldn't stop trick or treaters the next day, he knew, they could be vicious. For the next night, he planned on staying home and helping his mother pass out Kit-Kats and Mike and Ike's on the front porch. He would see Stan next door doing the same thing. They often talked about how they would do Halloween at their own house one day. Questionable-looking scarecrow hanging from the front tree? Yes. Blood drip decal on the front door? Absolutely. A bowl of candy corn? Stan might pour them down the garbage disposal when Kyle isn't looking.
Speaking of Stan, he interrupted the conversation with himself, looking toward the hall. The warning bell rang. Other students giggled and gossiped. They looked up when Stan tumbled in, wheezing, his eyes red and puffy, his face thin.
He sat next to Kyle and squeezed his thigh.
"Are you okay? Did you run here?"
"Yeah," Stan ducked down and whispered, "I was on the toilet and looking at memes but I lost track of time. Then I tried to get up and my legs were asleep, so I like, almost fell back into the bowl."
Kyle snorted, putting his hand over his mouth, "Are you fucking serious?" His voice was muffled by his palm.
"Yes!"
The class bell rang.
Mr. Dzuik, a tan and bald middle-aged man with arms so muscled he couldn't hold the phone up to his ear, rose from his computer in the corner and pulled down the projector screen in front of the whiteboard. Their English class was moving into contemporary literature, a genre that Stan lived in- especially poetry and science fiction. Kyle had seen the yellowed pages of The Puppet Masters more than once clasped in his hands.
But today was extra important for Stan. Mr. Dzuik pulled up the first slide, featuring a photo of Syliva Plath and a quote from one of her poems, "Cut":
What a thrill-
My thumb instead of an onion
The top quite gone
Except for a sort of hinge.
Of skin,
A flap like a hat,
Dead white.
Then that red plush.
Kyle wasn't sure what exactly set Stan off during the lecture, possibly around when Mr. Dzuik mentioned that she was "messed up," sometimes wore "too much make-up." When he said he "probably would have dated her," Stan whispered, "No one cares."
"What was that, Stanley Marsh?"
Kyle rubbed his palms on his jeans. He knew Stan was about to go off. He could feel him. But he wasn't about to stop him. Stan was right, and Stan should have been the one teaching if he could.
"I said: no one cares." Stan looked up at his teacher, "You haven't said an actual word about the things she wrote. She's, like, a pioneer of confessional poetry and all you've talked about is her face and her depression."
Mr. Dzuik cast a look at Kyle as if to say can you calm him, please?
Kyle avoided his eyes, giving his full, silent attention to Stan.
"This is my class. If you have criticisms, we can talk about it after the bell."
"Seriously?"
"Absolutely, you're being disrespectful."
"I'm being disrespectful? Look at you! You're the one being a fucking sexist," he was becoming more shrill with every word.
Clyde tapped Kyle on the shoulder and whispered, "Dude, put your dog on a leash. He's going to get us all in trouble."
"Fuck you," Kyle retorted, but he went to gently take Stan's hand, "Baby-"
Stan twisted away from him.
"Excuse you?" Kyle scoffed.
Stan gave him an apologetic face before driving back into his argument. "I just think you're honing in on the wrong things." Stan had suddenly switched his tone. He was calm, evenly breathing.
"You need to know her backstory before we start with the material."
"Why can't we let the poems speak for themselves?"
"That's not how the curriculum is laid out."
"Well maybe the curriculum needs to be changed."
Kyle bit his lip, reaching for Stan's hand again. This time he let Kyle take it.
"Nobody cares about her make-up," Stan continued, "People focus on her suicide too much. And it overshadows everything else." He was turning quieter, almost a whisper. Turning pale, he pressed on, "It's like anything she's ever done will always be tainted by the fact that she took her own life."
Kyle flattened his palm under Stan's. It felt wet. He prayed it was just sweat.
"Maybe you should sit in the office for awhile if talking about it bothers you," Mr. Dzuik countered.
"I can handle it."
"Stan…" Kyle touched up under his jacket sleeve. From the side, he saw Stan wince. He pulled his hand out, blood spread over the pads of his fingers, sinking into the lines of his skin.
...
Partial Transcript from Kyle Broflovski Case:
July 13, 2017. 2:27 pm.
Judge: Please state your full legal name for the record.
Kyle: Kyle David Broflovski.
Judge: Can you spell out your last name please?
Kyle: B-R-O-F-L-O-V-S-K-I.
Judge: Thank you. Your case description says that you've filed an appeal to change your last name. After hearing you spell it out, I don't blame you for wanting to change it.
Kyle: Well, there's definitely a lot more to it than that, Your Honor.
Judge: What is the last name you're changing to?
Kyle: Marsh, Your Honor.
Judge: Spell that out, please.
Kyle: M-A-R-S-H.
Judge: And you have a statement prepared?
Kyle: I… It was my boyfriend's surname. He passed away this spring.
Judge: So you were intending to get married?
Kyle: No. Yes. It's complicated.
Judge: Can you elaborate?
Kyle: No one would believe me…
Judge: Pardon?
Kyle: Who will believe my verse in time to come, if it were filled with your most high deserts? Though yet heaven knows it is but as a tomb. Which hides your life, and shows not half your parts. If I could write the beauty of your eyes, and in fresh numbers number all your graces, the age to come would say 'this poet lies, such heavenly touches ne'er touched earthly faces.' So should my papers, yellowed with their age, be scorned, like old men of less truth than tongue, and your true rights be termed a poet's rage, and stretched metre of an antique song: But were some child of yours alive that time, you should live twice, in it, and in my rhyme.
Your Honor.
Judge: That was very moving, but I need a personal testimony. Not Shakespeare's.
Kyle: I was just warming up, Your Honor.
Stan was my best friend, my first lover, and the person who kept me together any time I was falling apart. One of the worst things about all of this, is that we still had so much life to live. I still fantasize about what our lives would have been like if we had moved away from South Park, went to school, got married and have our family. I'll always wonder, if he lived, how it would it be to watch him follow his dreams.
All I have are the things he wrote to me, and memories. The things that he wrote are painful for me to read, and remind me of his death. And as I grow into an old man, the memories will fade.
If I take his name, I'll at least die knowing he died with me, instead of before his time. Everytime I hear, or see my name in the future, I'll have this flicker of a moment where I remember him- if it's his eyes or his smile, or something he said- I'll remember that those parts of him are in me. I'll carry them with me, always. And I hope… I hope to God that this will help him forgive me.
...
There was still much work to be done. He would need a new social security card, debit card, driver's license. All little things, but clustered together, felt like a lot.
He felt happy. It was a small twinge, but he latched on and swallowed it like an apple seed.
Maybe he said too much, overshared even- but it got him what he needed.
Right now, all he wanted to do was sit on the back porch and read. He thought about going over his lines again even though he was already almost off-book. Every Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday night and every Saturday morning they rehearsed. He didn't realize how fast the production time would be, and he came home tired and hungry. Sometimes, in his sleep, he would speak his lines, and friends or family that made cameos in those dreams were in Renaissance gowns.
Kenny was showing up a lot. Sometimes he was on stage as well, or underneath. Once in a while, he'd hang from the lights like a silent, observant bird, eyes focused on Kyle even when others were speaking.
Everything changed so fast, yet time was as languid as a slug.
He reached up and touched his hair. Not enough was ripped out for others to notice, except Kenny, of course, who notices everything. With a look, Kyle was able to tell him: I'm sick again.
...
STARE WITH ME INTO THE ABYSS
Kyle almost begged Randy to have those lyrics etched into Stan's headstone. Sharon thought they were too dark, picturing Stan standing on the edge of a cliff, looking down into a blackness that housed monsters with several eyes. But Kyle insisted that's what he would have wanted. All Phantogram lyrics were dark, that's why Stan loved them so much.
Gray marble with an oil slick reflect and his name, 1999-2017, "Beloved Son", and at the bottom: little music notes with "Stare With Me Into the Abyss." Some people had left flowers.
Kyle sat in front of it, knees up to his chin, holding his legs, wondering what it would be like to be of those people who set flowers on graves of people he didn't know. In Stan's case, it could have been anyone in South Park since everyone knew everyone else. Still, those flower-giving types of strangers existed in the world.
It rained the night before, and the bottoms of his cargo shorts sunk into the damp earth. He didn't care. The petrichor of the cemetery, the woods around it was too enticing to not be completely enveloped.
"Hey, Stan," he said finally, after several minutes of only staring and thinking. "I miss you. I think about you all the time."
Beyond the cemetery, behind the church, the echoes of the river rose up past the edge of the cliff. South Park was almost surrounded by a goliath moat at this point.
"You know when people haven't seen each other in a while and they'll say something like 'I miss your face?' Well, I really miss your face, Stan. I miss looking out my bedroom window and see your shadows. I miss how you always smelled like orange peels. I miss hearing you ramble about whatever it is you're obsessed with that week."
Church bells rang out, signaling the time- 12 pm. Other people were out and about: sitting in cafes having sandwiches with their mothers, fishing on the pier, window shopping at the mall, walking their dogs. He could stay right here forever.
"It's taken all these weeks of missing you- first the denial that you left. Then the denial that you were gone. The anger, the bargaining, the depression. I'm still working on acceptance. I feel like such a cookie-cutter person, a cardboard pop-up, never present. Now you're gone and I've realized how un-involved I was with our own lives.
Something is wrong with me, Stan. I've been so sick. Kenny can only do so much. Sometimes it helps. Sometimes it doesn't. He made himself go back to work and now I'm alone to deal with everything. I'm scared, Stan. I'm really scared."