After lunch, Kyle was in a much better mood. For some reason, channeling his frustrations into being angry at Wendy for being such a presumptive bitch was somehow incredibly … well, satisfying. How dare she essentially come onto him like that? Oh, how he longed to see Cartman crushed, defeated, agonized with humiliation. And yet, he was beyond needing Wendy’s help for that. He was thinking these things during the tail end of his moping in the library, and on the way to his locker. While he was digging around for some kind of material he could sheepishly bring to Latin class — because he wasn’t in possession of his notes or his flashcards or even his copy of the Aeneid — he thought he saw Stan and Kenny rushing somewhere together. He tried to think about it. He wanted to think about Stan, with his attractively unkempt hair. But his mind kept turning back to Wendy. How dare she? He kept repeating this to himself, mantra-like. This was, of course, until he was sitting in his usual desk in Latin class, sans books or backpack.

 

Then Cartman came in, and squeezed his skinny jeans-clad ass into a desk. Across the classroom, Cartman gave him a seductive little wave and mouthed something, although Kyle couldn’t tell what. Glaring back, Kyle began thinking about Cartman. If only he knew his un-girlfriend was begging him to help plot the behemoth’s downfall. As soon as he’d had this thought, he latched into it.

 

All through Latin class, he rattled off half-baked, textbook-less answers. He had never found Dido and Aeneas all that fascinating — until today. “But I don’t understand how you can leave a person you love,” he said conclusively, shaking his head in conclusion at one of his stupid responses.

 

“But, Broflovski,” his teacher sighed. “We’re not … trying to get at Aeneas’ emotions here. His overall goal was a divine mission. Think about the gods, Broflovski. Some things are bigger than we are, or love is.”

 

“How can you think that?” Kyle replied. “Nothing is more important than love.”

 

“Of course.” The Latin teacher tapped his desk thoughtfully. “To you, because you’re a 21^st-century American boy—”

 

Kyle was sure he saw Cartman mouth the word ‘fag’ across the room, which caused him to scowl.

 

“—but if you were a Roman, I think your reading would be a bit different.” The teacher paused. “That is, if you even did your reading.”

 

“I read all about Dido. And … and, well, I … I just think she got screwed over. I mean, she loved Aeneas! He seduced her! How is that fair? I just think—”

 

But whatever Kyle just thought, he didn’t get to say it, because Cartman’s hand slammed on his desk in interruption. “It’s got nothing to do with fairness!” he cried out, startling the boy sitting to his left, who visibly jumped. “Bitches gotta get over this shit. You get dumped, you get dumped. In case you forgot, Kyle, Rome’s more important that some PMSing ho’s feelings. I don’t know about you guys, but some of us have stuff going on. She’s a tragedy of conquest.” Cartman sniffed. “So you can sit there crying about it, or you can stop being a pussy fa—I mean, I’m sorry, I just can’t sit here and listen to Kyle defend that dramatic little bitch anymore. Bitches gotta realize Rome needs to get founded. And stuff. You know?” He cleared his throat.

 

“That’s excellent, Mr. Cartman,” the teacher stated very calmly. “But I would recommend not using the term ‘bitches’ on the final exam. Or ho. Or pussy.” He paused. “Or PMSing.”

 

“Right, whatever,” Cartman agreed hastily.

 

Kyle scoffed, and looked down at his desk. He thought about how weird it was that the fake wood laminate looked so much like a real dead tree. Then he looked back up and stared at Cartman. Catching his eye, Cartman blew him a kiss, and then went back to taking notes on meter.

 

Well, their teacher was right — missions begged for completion. With a renewed sense of optimism, Kyle’s day went on.

 

~

 

Kyle knew Wendy. Not that well, and not that recently, but there were some things you just picked up about people you’d been in school with since a young age. That was why she’d been able to find him in the library before, and it was why Kyle was now able to track her down. Unremarkably, she was also in the library, a place where Kyle was loathe to go after school, because he liked to go home. But as long as he was no longer following his patterns, he might as well do this.

 

She was surprised to see him.

 

“I just have to ask you a question,” he explained, shuffling his feet. “I mean, about Cartman.”

 

“All right,” she agreed, tucking her pen behind her ear. “If I can answer it, I will.”

 

“All right.”

 

“Do you want to sit down?” she asked, indicating the chair across from her at the table with her index finger.

 

“What? Oh, um, sure.”

 

She shut the text book she’d been studying from. “So,” she said cautiously. “What do you want to know?”

 

“I need to know what the fuck Cartman is doing with Frank Granger,” he said without hesitation. “I mean, what the fuck is he getting out of it? Do you have any idea? Because I don’t fucking know.”

 

Wendy gave a little laugh. “That’s easy,” she said, shaking her head. “What doesn’t he get out of it? Someone is devoting all of his attention to Eric. He’s buying him food, eating up all of his bullshit with a spoon. More than anything, you know, he likes getting a reaction. He just likes people’s energies to be focused on him. So, you know, just look at how pissed off he’s made you, and me. Look at how wound up he’s got Butters — you know, not that I care, I’m just saying.” She paused. “That’s all,” she added quietly.

 

“That’s the most retarded thing I’ve ever heard! You think you know him better than anyone, and you can’t think of a reason he’s fucking around with another asshole?”

 

Wendy narrowed her eyes uncharacteristically. “I just told you, assholes feed off of one another. Besides. If you think there is any use to determining patterns in his behavior, think again. He’s just … ugh, I find it very frustrating.”

 

“But apparently he gives good head, so let’s not take that into consideration.”

 

“Excuse me!” Wendy snapped. “How would you like it if we sat here and evaluated your reasons for—”

 

The ring of Kyle’s phone interrupted her.

 

“Excuse me.” Drearily, he glanced at the screen on his phone. “Fuck,” he seethed, catching sight of his mother’s name. He wanted to ignore it, but something told him he should pick it up anyhow.

 

“Hello?” was his cautious greeting.

 

“Kyle!” He had been hoping she would be subdued, Sheila’s alarmed shrieking was never anything but. “Where the hell have you been? This isn’t like you! Where are you?”

 

She certainly wasn’t happy. Kyle swallowed. “School,” he answered slowly.

 

“Oh, like I believe that!”

 

“No, really. I’m in the library.” He paused. “With Wendy Testaburger.”

 

Seemingly, she wasn’t expecting that, so her words caught for a moment. “Well…” she stuttered, tripping over her words. “Well, that’s … that’s certainly no excuse! Where the hell were you last night?”

 

“Kenny’s house?”

 

“Are you asking me, or telling me?

 

“Telling?”

 

“I want you to come home right now.”

 

Kyle sighed. “Sure.”

 

“Half an hour, Kyle,” Sheila demanded. “I want to see you home in half an hour.”

 

“Whatever you—” he began, but she’d audibly shut her phone.

 

“So.” Wendy coughed awkwardly, coquettishly. “You and Kenny?”

 

Kyle’s face reddened — out of anger, not embarrassment. “No,” he growled. “Just … just no.”

 

“Oh, okay,” she said agreeably. “I just heard you were there last night…”

 

“Passed out,” he informed her. “Very much unable to copulate, provided I’m a human being, and not a necrophiliac.”

 

“Well, what does that have to do with it?”

 

Rolling his eyes, Kyle sighed. “You wouldn’t understand. Kenny, he’s … well. He’s, like…” He saw Wendy staring at him in anticipation, and this pissed him off. How dare she expect anything from him, answers or otherwise? “Don’t concern yourself with Kenny,” he snapped. “If you think I don’t understand Cartman, you sure as hell don’t understand Kenny, because if I can tell you one thing about him, it’s that I fucking can’t. So now, I have to go. My mother is going to ream me.”

 

But instead of walking away, he looked at her oddly. “What?” she asked. “What can I do for you?”

 

“Oh.” Kyle looked around. “Do you think you can give me a ride home from school?”

 

Wendy shrugged. “I guess so. What happened to your filthy white car?”

 

“I didn’t drive it today,” Kyle under-explained.

 

She began shoving things into her backpack. “Don’t Jews tend to boycott German cars?”

 

“Why would we do that?” Kyle asked. Wendy rolled her eyes. “Oh, right. Well, like everyone, Jews are hypocrites. My parents’ taste in cars has always been trendy. Apparently chic people in cities are driving Volkswagens, don’t ask me why.”

 

She stood and slipped on her jacket. “Well, you won’t be impressed with my 13-year-old Subaru, I assume.”

 

“If it drives, it’s fine.”

 

“It’s slow,” she warned him. “It drives like shit here. Old tires, not great on wet pavement.”

 

“It’s fine,” Kyle sighed, looking behind them as they walked out of the library. “More time to discuss our plan.” 

 

When they got to the doors, she paused for a second, waiting for Kyle to open them for her. He didn’t, though, so she held one them open for him, and without thanking her, he strode through it. For a moment she got the ingenious idea to let the door go and to let it smack him in the ass — she wondered if he would even feel it. But she decided not to, and realized that she was grinning.

 

~

 

In general, Stan played football after school.

 

Stan knew he wasn’t good at football. He was fine, sure, good enough for the pathetic little regional league’s county team. This wasn’t going to be his ticket into college, or his future, and he knew it. He didn’t know what was going to turn out to be his calling, but if he was sure of anything, he was sure that it wasn’t football. The thing with football was, he just liked playing it. It wasn’t something he had to think about. He didn’t have to care about any of the other guys who played it with him, and that included Eric Cartman. All he had to do was squat and throw and run, and then repeat that series of actions until he won or lost.

 

This kind of simplicity was rare in life. He didn’t consider himself profound, but he was deeply aware of this.

 

Usually, Cartman gave him rides to football. Stan did not spend an outsize amount of time dwelling on Cartman, but he was perfectly well aware that despite whatever other shortcomings, Cartman was a very, very good football player. Stan also knew that tackling wasn’t exactly rocket science, and that it wasn’t as if he’d studied this not-so-subtle art; he just followed Stan to try-outs (which were anything but, considering the no-cut policy, but someone decided to call them that anyway) and was duly given an applied use for his bulk. At the time, Stan really did wish Kyle could have been there, to have seen the amazed — frankly, dumbfounded — look on Cartman’s face when he discovered he was actually harboring a natural talent. It was like he couldn’t believe, was frankly shocked, and then, in his best, most shit-eating Eric Cartman voice, sort of started blathering, “Yes, well, I’ve always known I’d be good at this,” like he had any fucking idea there was some use for all that fat and muscle and gristle strapped to his torso.

 

Today, when Cartman called Stan to ask where the fuck he was, Stan took one glance at his phone and groaned.

 

“Who’s that?” Kenny asked, fiddling with the radio. The way Kenny drove with only one hand usually flipped Stan out, but for some reason, today all he cared about was that Kenny wasn’t driving with no hands. Could a person drive handlessly? Stan sighed, and tossed his phone into his backpack.

 

“No one,” he said innocently. Kenny rolled his eyes, all while cutting off a pickup truck. “I mean, it was Cartman, he’s practically no one. I sort of, kind of ... blew him off without telling him.”

 

“That’s so sad.” With a glance, Kenny surveyed the cup holders for a pack of cigarettes. “Well, what are you going to do, it’s not like he’s never done anything rude before. Do you have any smokes?”

 

“What?” Stan shrugged. “No, I don’t tend to carry those.”

 

Kenny grunted in dismay. “Let me give you some advice.” Stan rolled his eyes. Kenny’s advice was beginning to grate on him, and he was already nervous. “When you talk to him, be very appealing, you know, very … reverent. He likes that sort of thing, doesn’t he? And when you have problems with people, but you want something from them, the last thing you need to be is condescending.”

 

“I’m not condescending.”

 

“Maybe not on purpose.”

 

“All right, fine, I can be condescending. Don’t I deserve to be? Look at all the shit I have to deal with. Look at all the shit he’s put me through!”

 

“Yeah,” Kenny sighed, breaking in front of Stan’s house. “But you need him now, and he can be petty, really petty. I mean, even I know that. I’ve known the guy for practically as long as you have.”

 

Stan gathered up his backpack, and cracked the door open. The air outside was sort of moist, sort of springy. “I hope this works, I really do.”

 

“I hope it does, too. I hate to think that I’m wasting my time, here.”

 

“Thanks for the vote of confidence, Kenny,” Stan sighed, popping out of his seat.

 

“Good luck!” Kenny called after him. Stan turned, smiled widely, and gave him the finger. Laughing, Kenny leaned over, and spotted a pack of cigarettes in the passenger-side door. Before reaching over for them, he waved at Stan — or rather, Stan’s ass — as it disappeared through the front door.

 

~

 

If it was a weekday, and it was after 4 p.m., Stan’s mother was in the kitchen. In his mind, she was always in the kitchen, although he was very cognizant of the fact that she wasn’t a particularly good cook. She was, however, a firm believer in the family dinner. Stan had been hoping beyond hope that when his sister went to college, she’d give up, but she never did — she kept on dishing out mediocre casseroles and dry chicken legs to her son and husband, the former usually sitting there silently, glowering, making eye contact with no one. His mother liked to try to make conversation with him, and it was usually less than successful. “How was football today?” she would ask, and he would shrug.

 

“Did you tackle anyone?” his father would chime in.

 

“Quarterbacks don’t tackle,” Stan would growl. It constantly amazed him that his father, who had been watching football with great interest for years, always seemed to forget the basic rules of the game any time Stan’s involvement in the sport came up. He wasn’t stupid, but his intelligence nearly always evaporated where Stan was involved. Dealing with this had become intolerable years ago. Stan hated them, both of them. His mother less so, but he knew that it was all her fault, that she was the enabler who created this situation.

 

That was how their meals usually went. Kyle often asked him why he continued to even go through the motions of sitting down for dinner. What Kyle didn’t understand was that Stan was hungry. Kyle was basically anorexic — not for any psychological reason; he just wasn’t moved by food. He ate enough, but that was the bare minimum. Stan burned calories. He wanted dinner.

 

So stumbling into the kitchen, Stan was hardly surprised to find his mother there, chopping onions, the radio tuned to adult contemporary in the background. She sliced them very evenly, which Stan was surprised by, but he shouldn’t have been, because perfect cubes of onion were a recurring part of his childhood. She was very involved in this thing she’d done a million times before. He sniffed, trying to find out what she was making. He thought he smelled cumin. He was slightly ashamed that he knew the scent of cumin. Scent identification wasn’t really a guy-thing. Maybe she was making chili? It wasn’t going to be great no matter what it was. He cleared his throat.

 

“Oh,” she said, looking up from the onions. The kitchen counter was immaculate, and she was chopping directly on top of it without a cutting board. She put her knife to the side, but not before running a dishrag over it. “What are you doing here?”

 

“I live here.” Stan said this like it was the most obvious thing in the world, which in his defense, it was true and all.

 

“That’s not what I meant.” Sharon neatly folded the dishrag she’d just used to clean the onion juice off her knife. “Shouldn’t you be at football?”

 

Stan glared at her uneasily. Why did she have to ask questions? “Football doesn’t own me,” he said defensively. “I don’t have to go.”

 

“But the team—”

 

He interrupted her. “Cut the crap, Sharon. I’m not here to talk about football. Where is he?”

 

Sharon put her hands on her hips. “Where is who? Where is your father? I don’t know, he’s probably in the basement, he’s the only he I know of around here who’s not you.”

 

“Yeah, him,” Stan confirmed. “He’s downstairs, you say?”

 

“Last time I checked…” She tilted her head toward a basket of unfolded laundry sitting on the kitchen table. Stan didn’t move. She sighed. “Is there … something I can help you with?”

 

“No,” he said slowly, like he was still thinking things out. “That’s okay.”

 

She gave him an odd look, and he shrugged. She heaved her shoulders and shook her head and grabbed the knife again. If only for a moment, he wondered if she ever thought about knife-throwing, or self-mutilation. He sometimes wanted to know if parents had those thoughts. Then he remembered what he was doing, and left. The radio station and the resumption of the blade on the countertop provided an excellent exit soundtrack.

 

So it was spring now, but the basement was always pretty cold. In general, you kept your heat on in South Park seven months out of the year, from October to the start of May, but it wasn’t quite the start of May yet. There was usually a lull on either side of the heating season when you left the system off entirely and let the house heat itself and the static temperature balance out whatever wasn’t quite right. But the basement didn’t get heat at all, or maybe it was underground enough for the heat to escape out the raw foundation. Stan didn’t know. He didn’t hang out down here.

 

Sure enough, a prostrate form was wrapped in a fleece blanket on the couch. Stan also didn’t know why they kept a couch down here. It began when they got a new couch for the living room when he was in seventh grade, and he clearly remembered his father saying something like, “You never know when you’re gonna need a couch in the basement.” Stan remembered the Saturday afternoon that Gerald Broflovski and Butters’ dad came over and helped him move it down the stairs. Actually, Kenny was over, and the couch fell on Kenny. He’d never thought about why the couch didn’t have an enormous browning bloodstain soaked through one end, because it should, but then, thinking about the practical aspects of these situations was unpleasant for him. Stan knew when they were going to need a couch in the basement — precisely never — but his father used it, so maybe he was wrong. He knew the guy came down here for the beer his mother wouldn’t let him keep in the kitchen refrigerator and also, if he ever had a particularly destructive project in mind, this was where Sharon sent him to carry it out.

 

All right, so he was downstairs. He poked at his father, who just mumbled something in his sleep. Stan kicked a beer bottle over; now they were all on their sides, all six or eight of them. He didn’t count. There was so much alcohol in the basement that he never had any problem taking whatever he wanted and carrying it off — up to his room, over to Kyle’s, to Token’s to play videogames, wherever. It didn’t matter. “Dad?” he asked nervously. The man didn’t wake up, or at any rate, didn’t get up.

 

“Dad!” Stan shouted louder. He felt like this might have been easier if his father hadn’t been curled, fetal-style, away from him. For a moment, Stan wondered if other guys had these situations, fathers sleeping on useless basement couches after obviously doing a half-day of work and spending the afternoon on a bender.

 

“Randy!” he shouted.

 

This was effective. Stan’s father began to stir, and he sat up, letting the blanket fall to reveal, pretty plainly, that he was just wearing briefs.

 

“Stan?” he asked in disbelief.

 

“Uh.” Stan rolled his eyes. His hands were slack at his sides. “Yeah.”

 

“Stan,” Randy said kindly. He pushed himself off the couch, stumbled through some clanking of tipped-over beer bottles, and grabbed his son by his upper arms. “Stan!” he said joyously. If there was any reason for Stan to hate the sound of his own name, this was it. “What can I do for you, son?” Perfectly innocent words, but spoken with immediacy, like the children’s hospital was on fire and all the little leukemia victims had to be evacuated.

 

Stan seized up, but managed to get the man’s hands off of his person. “Don’t … don’t touch me.”

 

“Oh, sure.”

 

For a moment, neither of them said anything to the other one. Things were tense, but Stan swallowed, and tried to form words. His father kept looking at him curiously; it might have been the first time he’d voluntarily approached Randy in … well, he doubted it had been as long as he’d been in high school. A year, maybe? This was all very odd for him.

 

“I need your help with someone. I mean, something.” Stan cringed. “I mean, I need your help because there’s … someone.” He coughed, and felt incredibly stupid.

 

Randy grinned. “Of course, son,” he said. Stan could feel his father’s joy, and it was weirding him out. “What can I do for you?”

 

“Do you still have that LP dubbing deck?”

 

“Yes, I think so.”

 

“And, um … you still have all your old records?”

 

“Of course. I wouldn’t dream of throwing those babies away.”

 

“Well.” Stan tried to recall Kenny’s advice: Act as humble as possible. Be kind. Was that what he’d been saying? Close enough, if it wasn’t. “Can you, um … show me how to use it?”

 

“Anything for you, Stan.” Randy patted his son on the back, and it took all of Stan’s self control to avoid shuddering. He shuffled off, toward the stairs, and Stan could still hear him muttering, “Anything for you.”