13

It's been sixteen years
And it don't seem more than sixteen days
As the years roll by, does the time really fly
Did I lose my way?
~
Don't pass me by
Don't pass me by
Where does it go? Where does the time go?
Where did it go? Where did the time go?
(Dan McCafferty, Pete Agnew)

If this was Kyle's house, it was in a neighborhood more rundown and dangerous-looking than the one Kenny had grown up in.

Stan parked in the weed-filled front yard since there was no driveway and walked up to the front door. After a long hesitation he raised his knuckles to the peeling paint of the door and knocked.

He waited, knocked again and was about to leave when the door was opened by a disheveled-looking man in a dirty wife beater and torn jeans. He rubbed at his eyes, obviously having just woken up. Stan's heart sank as he realized that this unshaved human wreck with bloodshot eyes was Kyle, and from the blank look in Kyle's eyes, he didn't recognize Stan.

Recognition dawned in his eyes a moment later though, but Stan's relief was short lived. Recognition went to murderous fury in about two seconds, and Kyle stepped onto the front porch menacingly.

"You!" Kyle said angrily, advancing on Stan. "What…what the fuck are you doing here?"

Stan took an alarmed step backward, certain he was about to be punched. "Kyle?" He had seen Kyle angry countless times, but he had never seen him with this much hatred and rage in his eyes.

"WHAT?" At least he had stopped advancing. "What the fuck do you want?"

"I—I need to talk to you—"

"Oh, hell no! Get the fuck out of here Stan, or I swear I'll go back inside and get my gun and shoot you."

Stan's insides were on fire. "Kyle, please! Give me…give me five minutes, okay? I really need to talk to you." If I have all this money, why is he living here like this? And why does he hate me enough to want to kill me?

Kyle glared at him, seeming to consider what Stan had said. Stan hoped he didn't offend him when he added, "Just give me five minutes, okay? I'll…I'll pay you."

"Oh! The rich man wants to pay me for my time?" He leaned his back against the house and folded his arms, suddenly interested. "I can't imagine how my time could be worth anything, but what the hell. How much are we talking about here?"

Stan raised his arms in an I don't know gesture. "Um…five thousand dollars?"

That seemed to get Kyle's attention. He nodded slowly, not quite succeeding in keeping his face impassive. "Five thousand dollars, for five minutes." It wasn't a question. "Okay, sure. Start talking."

Stan wasn't sure where to begin. "Ah…why are you so mad at me?"

This seemed to set Kyle off all over again. "Are you fucking kidding me? Wha…why am I so mad at you? Jesus Christ—"

"Kyle, please!"

Kyle exhaled long and loud. "Did all that lottery money buy you enough drugs to fry every brain cell in your head?" he asked sarcastically. Stan kept silent, waiting. "Fine. You're paying me for this, so whatever. I'm so mad at you, Stan, because you fucking knew, just like you knew the shuttle was going to blow up, that Ike and my mother were going to get killed and you LET IT HAPPEN! You could have stopped it! You—"

"Kyle!" Stan said loudly. "I swear to you, I…" He fumbled for words. "I don't remember what happened! I…I was walking over to your house the day after the Challenger blew up, and I was going to tell you what was going to happen so we could figure out a way to prevent it. Kyle, I…" Christ! "Before I got to your house, I got sent back here, to this time. I just got here an hour ago Kyle. I swear to you, I don't remember anything about my life, from that day until…" He sighed and finished lamely, "an hour ago."

Kyle was watching him, his eyes narrowed down to slits. The moment dragged on, and Stan thought they were finished talking now and that he needed to leave. Kyle abruptly straightened up, unfolded his arms and turned toward his door. "Come on in."

Oh, thank god. Stan followed Kyle into his house. The inside of Kyle's home was much nicer than the outside, furnished with obviously secondhand furniture, but there were pictures on the wall and toys scattered across the living room floor. Kyle led him through the living room into a kitchen that also betrayed evidence of poverty, yet the room was clean and well-kept. From the boxes of kid's cereal on top of the refrigerator and the cereal bowl with Bugs Bunny characters adorning it resting upside down in the dish drainer, Stan concluded that Kyle had at least one child who was probably in school right now.

Kyle dragged one of the chairs back from the kitchen table. "Sit." He walked over to the refrigerator. "You want a beer? You look like you could use one."

Stan sat down and folded his arms on the table. "Yeah. Thanks."

Kyle pulled two cans from the 'fridge and sat down across from Stan, opening his own can (Pabst…yuck) and setting the other one in the middle of the table. Stan reached for it, opened it, and tried not to wince at the taste.

"All right, so," Kyle began. "You're telling me that the day after the shuttle blew up, you got yanked back here to this time again, and don't remember anything about your life." It wasn't a question; Kyle sounded like he was trying to process new information.

Stan nodded. "That's it, Kyle. I was walking to your house, imagining this whole wonderful future we were going to have where Ike and your mom weren't in that accident, we bought all the right stocks at the right time and I won the lottery and we got rich, and I got to live my childhood all over again. Instead…here I am."

Kyle sighed. "Well, you have your work cut out for you trying to figure it out. I don't know how much help I'm going to be able to be. You're not exactly my favorite person in the world."

Stan looked down at his hands. "I can understand that. Kyle…I know there's no way I can make up for what happened to your mom and Ike; but can I try at least? Starting with this house…I'd like to help you."

Kyle scowled. "Look: I've never wanted your help before, not after what happened when we were twelve. I don't know if I want to change that or not." He looked at the clock on the wall over the kitchen sink. "And I have to go pick my son up from daycare in a few minutes. So…you need to leave now. You had your five minutes and more, but I have things I have to do." He fumbled a cigarette from the pack on the table and lit it with shaking hands. "Ah…call me in a few days, and we'll talk some more. But I just can't right now."

Stan nodded. "All right…" he almost said dude and amended himself at the last second. "Kyle. I'll get that check to you, and…I'll call you, okay?"

Kyle nodded, making no move to stand up. Stan rose and offered his hand, which Kyle shook after an awkward moment when Stan thought he wasn't going to.

Stan drove around town aimlessly, finally deciding his next stop should be at the South Park branch of the First National Bank of Denver. He wasn't sure if the answers he sought would be there, but at least it was a place to start. He realized he should have expected the reception he got when he walked inside, considering he was probably one of this bank's largest depositors.

"Good morning, Mr. Marsh!" One of the bank's employees called from behind the row of teller windows. Stan had barely stepped into the lobby. Another one similarly greeted him, and from the corner of his eye he saw someone stand up from a desk behind a glass walled office and step into the lobby. Stan rolled his eyes when he recognized Craig Tucker, standing next to a sign on the glass reading 'C. Tucker, Branch President'.

"Stan! Hello! Come on back." He took a step backward into his office in obvious invitation, and Stan crossed the lobby, sitting down in a plush leather chair in front of Craig's desk a moment later.

"What can we do for you today?" This was not the Craig Stan remembered from school; he was extremely well-groomed and professional, and was treating Stan with the utmost courtesy. Thirty million bucks must buy a lot of respect. "Would you like some coffee?"

"No, thanks. I, ah, have a couple of questions. And I want to send a pretty large check to someone." He hoped this was a fairly routine request.

Craig seemed to take it in stride, picking up a pen and waving its tip over a legal pad. "Sure. How much do you want it to be for?"

He thought about the amount he'd promised Kyle and decided to add a zero, and that this would only be the beginning. "Fifty thousand dollars."

Craig didn't even blink as he wrote the number down. "And…who do you want it payable to?"

"Kyle Broflovski."

Craig began to write down the name, then stopped. "Kyle…there's a name I haven't heard in a long while. How's he doing?"

"Um…he's okay." Or he's going to be, if I have anything to say about it.

"He kind of dropped off the radar years ago," Craig said, looking up and losing his professionalism for a moment. "You guys were best friends when you were kids."

"Yeah. I guess life happens, you know?"

Craig nodded and lowered his eyes back to the legal pad. "Pretty small check for one of your friends. Guess you two are just getting reacquainted or something, huh?" He looked up again, his eyes narrowing. "That probably wasn't really appropriate; I'm sorry about that."

"What do you mean?"

Craig sat back, obviously worried he'd offended Stan. "Ah…"

"Hey, Craig…don't worry about it, okay? But I'm, well, sort of dealing with a lot of shit right now, and if you could answer one question for me, it would really help."

"I'll try, Stan."

"It's a pretty simple question, really. What happened when I came in here after I won that money in the lottery?"

Craig toyed with his pen. Stan realized the question probably made him sound insane, but he didn't care.

"Well, that day you came in here you wanted us to cut a bunch of checks for a quarter of a million dollars each, remember? You wanted something like twenty checks for the same amount sent to different people…including me, which surprised the shit out of me. You said you wanted everyone you were going to give money to to get the same amount, so no one would be jealous of anyone else. You don't remember this?"

"Just humor me, okay? Do you remember who some of those people were?"

"Well, yeah, a few. You gave half a million apiece to your parents, and the quarter million checks went to, ah, Kenny McCormick, Wendy Testaburger…Eric Cartman. We had a good laugh about that one, remember?" Stan smiled and nodded, pretending to enjoy a memory that simply wasn't there. Craig continued, "Token, Tweek, Clyde, uh… Bebe Stephens, Butters Stotch—"

"Wait," Stan said, leaning forward. "I sent a check to Butters? When was this again?"

"One year ago last August tenth," Craig replied immediately. "It was the biggest day this bank ever had in money transfers." He laid his pen down on the desk. "Stan…are you all right?"

Stan sat back, not sure what to think. Sheila and Ike had died, but Butters was still alive. How?

"I'm fine, Craig, thanks." He took a deep breath and smiled. "In fact, you've helped me more than you know. Ah…where do I get that check?"

"We can mail it for you if you'd like," Craig replied. "I'll take it to the post office personally and mail it overnight with the usual tracking information and he'll have it tomorrow." He cocked his head. "That is…unless you want to take it to him yourself?"

"No, that'll be fine." Stan used this opportunity to stand up. "And thanks, Craig." He held out his hand and Craig shook it. "You've actually helped me quite a bit."

He left the bank and drove around aimlessly for an hour pondering his next move. He was considering driving back to his 'house' (he really couldn't think of that enormous mansion as 'his' yet) when he spotted a sign above a business in a small strip mall.

Tweek's Coffeehause

He smiled as an insane idea suddenly came to him. He parked underneath the sign and walked up to the front door. The windows of Tweek's 'coffeehause' were adorned with drawings of dozens of coffee cups on merry-go-rounds, painted in a technicolor caricature style. It looked like the art Tweek used to doodle in his notebooks.

There were about a dozen people in small groups scattered throughout the brightly lit café where there was room for fifty. Stan made his way to an empty table near the counter and as far away as possible from the other customers. One of the baristas—a teenaged girl wearing a smock decorated like the windows—caught his eye and started to walk around the counter to take his order when Tweek stood up beside her and caught her arm.

"The usual, Stan?" Tweek called out, and Stan nodded, curious what his 'usual' order here was. He hoped it was a large black coffee with sugar.

Tweek brought Stan's coffee along with a second cup for himself and sat down across from him. Stan raised his cup (heavy ceramic, also hand-painted like the windows) and took a sip: black with sugar. His eyes reflected back at him in the steaming liquid.

"What brings you in today Stan?" Tweek asked. Stan was taken aback by Tweek's appearance; he looked like an old hippy in a young body, his hair falling over the shoulders of a bright purple tee shirt with his coffee shop's logo on the front. He had an air of easy-going confidence about him as he sipped from his own cup, regarding Stan curiously.

"Well," Stan leaned across the table, closing some of the gap separating them and said quietly. "I was hoping to maybe get something you don't normally serve to most of your customers."

Stan hoped his request wouldn't anger Tweek and possibly get him kicked out. But Tweek just smiled softly and replied, "Sure, Stan." He looked around. "Maybe we should go back to my office and talk about that though, okay?"

Stan nodded, and Tweek stood, leading the way behind the counter and through the kitchen where a couple of teenagers were washing dishes; neither of them seemed the least alarmed at the sudden appearance of their boss. Tweek led Stan down a short hall on the other side of the kitchen and into a small dark room that Stan thought for a moment was a closet until Tweek flipped a wall switch and the lights came on.

He was inside the most bizarre office he had ever seen. Tweek sat behind a large desk with no less than three computer monitors arranged on it, gesturing to the chair in front of it. The walls and ceiling were painted in the same style as the front windows, only some of the cups had faces and were driving clown cars while other walked small coffee cup shaped dogs on leashes.

"So, Stan." Tweek's eyes were piercing as he gazed at Stan, studying him. There was no sign of the nervous, twitchy kid that Stan had once known; this Tweek had an air of confidence about him that Stan had only seen in a few people. "You went on a nice trip the other night, huh." It was a statement, not a question. "Maybe took a little trip through time?"

Stan's expression was all the answer Tweek needed.

"Yeah…I thought so. I saw it in your eyes the moment you walked in here." Stan felt the blood rushing from his head.

"How…how did you know that?"

"Like I said: I could see it in your eyes," Tweek answered immediately. "You have kind of a thousand yard stare thing happening." He opened a desk drawer and pulled out a small plastic baggie and set it on the desk. "So tell me: When did you end up? What happened?"

When did I end up? "Ah…" Stan replied carefully. "Back in January of 1986? I was in the seventh grade…and, uh…"

Tweek laughed. "I'm sorry! I should have been clearer. What I meant to ask was what big historical event happened around the time you went back?"

Stan closed his eyes, feeling dizzy. "Ah…" How did he know about this? "Okay…the space shuttle disaster."

"Which one?" Tweek asked immediately, then appeared to think about his own question. "You said 1986, so you mean the Challenger disaster?"

"Yeah," Stan replied. Which one? What? "How did you know?"

Tweek smiled. "I'll tell you in a minute, okay? But let me guess: You went back in time, tried to change some things from your past, and found your reluctant way back here again before you could. And you have no memory of how you got here this time."

Stan leaned forward, fighting a sudden wave of nausea. Apparently Tweek knew the answers to every question Stan had, and would give them to him in his own good time. The nausea passed and Stan opened his eyes and sat up. "Yes. Please tell me how—"

"Because I've done it, too; and so have eight other people that I'm aware of, from all over the world. You're the first one I've ever met in person though."

"Oh, Jesus…Tweek how…?"

"None of us know. Millions of people all over the world trip on psilocybin mushroom, but only ten of us have ever traveled through time while doing it. Something about us makes it possible, but we haven't figured out what it is."

"I thought I was going to get to live my whole life over," Stan said sadly. "And everything would be wonderful, and I'd pay more attention and enjoy every moment of it. But it only lasted three days!"

"I know," Tweek replied sympathetically. "That's what just about everyone else I've talked to about it says."

"When you went back…how long did you get to stay?"

"Ah, Stan. This isn't going to be easy for you to hear. I…came back ten years ago, and never went back again; and I was 82 years old and dying when someone gave me some of the 'shrooms and told me to think about the happiest time of my life when I was starting to trip. As far as I can tell, I'm here permanently."

Stan's eyes widened, and he felt more than just a touch of jealousy. "What…why did you get to stay?"

"It seems to have something do to with the desire to change things from our past. Of those eight other people I've spoken to that have gone back, only three of them have managed to stay, and those were the ones who didn't try to make big changes because of what they knew about the future. I'm guessing you wanted to save Kyle's mom and brother, right?"

Stan nodded miserably.

"Apparently, however this thing works, we're not allowed to make large changes, especially ones that involve other peoples' lives. It seems more forgiving of small changes though—"

"But I won the lottery, because I knew what the winning numbers were going to be!" Stan cried. "That's a huge change!"

"Not really, when you think about it. All you did was fill in a different number on a lottery play slip. The universe doesn't seem to care about us shifting large sums of money around, which is what you did." He laughed. "Which is a good thing, or else I probably wouldn't be here. But preventing the deaths of two people who were destined to die in an accident in a few days? That's the kind of thing that seems to upset the process. And it's probably what brought you back to this time."

"So I couldn't have saved Sheila and Ike, even if I tried—"

"I didn't say that. I said you couldn't make large changes…at least not without consequences. If you had had weeks or months to work on it, you might have been able to."

"Wait…then how did I save Butters?"

Tweek smiled. "Who says you did?"

Stan blinked. "Huh?"

"Stan…I came back ten years ago, and became 19 again. We don't get a choice of when we get to arrive, it just always seems to be near the time of a big historic event. We don't know why, but anyway. It was much too late for me to do anything about Sheila and Ike. But Leo was a different story. We became friends…and eventually we became more than just friends. Leo's one of the sweetest, kindest men you can ever hope to meet, and I'm lucky to be able to share my life with him. All I did was take him to London for his 22nd birthday, so he was 5,000 miles away from where that party was that he overdosed the first time around."

Stan nodded. It all made sense now, at least as much sense as this bizarre situation could possibly make. "I want to try again…has anyone ever gone back twice?"

"Not that I know of; but I guess there could be a first time for everything." He picked the baggie up from his desk and handed it to Stan. "Just don't be too disappointed if it doesn't go right this time either…that is, if it even works at all."

"I have to try, Tweek."

Tweek nodded. "I know. Listen…if it doesn't work out, come see me again. I, ah, can't tell you too much about what happens in the next sixty years because I want to stay here in this time; but let's just say things get pretty ugly in the next couple of decades. I might have some… suggestions for you to make the rest of your life a little better."

Stan studied the plastic baggie in his hands, already dreading the awful taste of the dried fungus. "Thanks, man. I will. Um…do I owe you anything for this?"

Tweek laughed. "Ordinarily that would be fifty bucks. But call it a gift, okay? I really hope things work out for you, Stan. I just hope you understand when I say I don't think they will though." He stood up. "I should get back to the shop."

Stan rose and they shook hands. "Thanks again, Tweek."

Stan drove home, eating some of the foul-tasting contents of the baggie a minute before he pulled into his driveway, choking the horrible tasting mass down with gulps from the large coffee Tweek had sent him home with.

He went inside, put on some music and sat down on his couch. Half an hour later, he was tripping again, and the world once again disappeared into an impossibly bright and pure white light.

"Kyle…" he whispered as his living room slowly faded away. He thought he should be standing for this, and so he stood and locked his knees so he wouldn't fall this time, and as the light flowed around him and through him, he looked down at the carpet and