Chaos, Inc.
Butters, the other South Park characters, and South Park itself belong to Trey Parker and Matt Stone.
Chapter 2: Unavoidably Detained
It hurts to sit on your hands.
It hurts even more when you're big-boned, and still more when you're wearing plastic handcuffs, and when the seat you're sitting on is made of hard molded plastic.
They didn't have to cuff him, goddamnit, he was going to come along quietly. What, did they think he was going to get into some kind of gunfight right there in the Congressional Office Building? He wasn't that stupid. No, they just wanted their exciting-looking perp walk to make the six o clock news.
"Congressman! Congressman! Over here!" Flash flash flash.
He wasn't that stupid, either. He wasn't stupid enough to say anything. He just looked straight ahead with as much dignity as he could muster. Inside his head, it was a different story. Oh, fuckity fuck fuck fuck.
No, what really worried him was that he'd only had one phone call, and he'd used it up to call Butters. Was he insane? What was he thinking?
The police car slammed on the brakes and Cartman braced himself against the painful body hit that resulted from sliding across the slick plastic. Who knew that Mrs. Crabtree's driving would have prepared him for something useful?
Not so insane after all, he thought. He didn't need to call his lawyer. His lawyer knew to contact him. Butters was the only one who had the whole picture, and his lawyer didn't have Butter's phone number: this was exactly the kind of thing the red phone was for. Still, it was a shame that he couldn't call Wendy, too.
On the other hand, maybe not, Cartman thought. He had the feeling she was going to be really pissed off about her fiancé getting arrested on tax evasion, graft and espionage charges, and she wasn't going to assume he was innocent. She knew him pretty well.
She was going to be, well. . . miffed.
What it all came down to, he thought, was exactly how big an offence missing your own wedding on account of being in jail actually was. Was it the kind that involved a lot of screaming? Was it the not-answering-her-phone-for-four-days kind? Were we talking groveling, flowers, a trip to the Adriatic? Because he would do it, whatever it was.
Eric Cartman's strategy with Wendy Testaburger was pretty simple. It was his own Mehm's strategy with him: just give the lady what she wants. And the communication rules were simple, too, downright primitive, in fact. Bare knuckles, no holds barred, go for the big k.o. Figuratively speaking.
She told him right to his face that he was a fat greedy bastard with no ethics; he told her right to hers that she was an idealistic goddam hippie with no more idea of how the real world worked than a stuffed bunny rabbit. Almost every single vote he cast in the House pissed her off royally. They screamed and yelled and got in each other's face. Everyone thought it was nuts, but that was how they liked it.
The make-up sex was fantastic, too.
Still, this one might be different. This one was personal. He might annoy the hell out of her by keeping nothing but beer, Snacky Smores, and Cheesy Poofs in the kitchen of his place. As he pointed out on many occasions, she knew exactly what she was getting when she started dating him. They might mix it up on politics and values, but he had never actually personally offended her. He might scream and call her a bitch a dozen times a day, but he did not forget birthdays or anniversaries, he did not sit somewhere with her and look over her shoulder for approaching blondes, and he had never, ever, ever stood her up or kept her waiting. And this might be a pretty long wait.
The police car stopped in front of the Alexandria City Jail. The officers came around to haul him out. A man wearing a press pass jogged up to him.
"Congressman Cartman?"
Cartman gave the man the same expressionless look he'd used back at the Capitol. "No comment," he said.
"No," the journalist said quickly, "no, I wasn't asking for a comment, I'm here covering the Islamic extremist detainee story. I'm from NPR."
NPR! National Public Radio. Wendy worked for NPR. Of course.
"I've got a letter for you from a colleague of mine," he said, and held out an envelope addressed in Wendy's handwriting.
"I'm sorry, Congressman," said one of the officers, "I can't allow you to open this."
Cartman gave him an evil glance. "Right now I can't open it," adding "dumbass" under his breath, and indicating the plastic cuffs.
"Oh, yes. Sorry."
"Look. This is from my fiancée. I'm not a violent criminal, I'm a Congressman, for God's sake. Just cut off the cuffs and let me read the letter."
"Actually, that's true," put in the man from NPR. "He is engaged to one of our correspondents, and that letter's from her."
"And it might," added Cartman pointedly, "be a demonstration of how humane you all are."
The officer sighed sadly and cut through Cartman's cuffs. He rubbed his wrists and took the envelope from the NPR guy. He ripped it open. What would it say? He knew what he hoped it would say—something like, Darling Eric, it breaks my heart to see you in the hands of the police. I know in my heart that you must be innocent and I will wait for you eternally, Yours, Wendy.
Nah. He knew she wasn't going to write anything like that. He unfolded the papers inside. There was no writing, no personal note, just an article.
"What the hell is this?" he said. His eye fell on a few paragraphs.
It may be very hard for you to deal with belonging to somebody else and having to substitute for a girl and satisfy a guy sexually, but at least you only have to do it with one guy or a small number, rather than anybody who can catch you. Your risk of infection with the AIDS virus is greatly reduced, often to zero. . . You don't have to fight at all and can avoid physical injury, and it is some comfort knowing that a dead punk is of no value to anybody. . . .
Hooking up means you have definitely become a punk and will be considered a punk for as long as you stay in the joint, so if you decide to hook up, you might as well get used to that status.
"What the hell is this?" Cartman repeated. The NPR guy looked over his shoulder.
"Oh," he said, "I've seen that before. It's by the guy who founded Stop Prisoner Rape. It's about becoming a punk--how hooking up with a big scary guy can protect you a little bit." Cartman froze in horror. "But I wouldn't do it," he added, shaking his head. "It can be really dangerous. Besides, you won't have to worry about that," he assured Cartman. "This jail is full of Muslim extremists, New York Times reporters. . . it's a very safe place, really. You'll be ok."
Cartman frowned and looked at the article again. What the hell did this mean? Was she so mad at him that she was trying to pimp him out, for God's sake? Was she trying to protect him? Was she furious? Was she scared? Were they still engaged? He couldn't tell.
He sighed as they led him into the jail. Whatever it was, he thought, she was not taking this well at all.