Work Text:
May 1983.
Kenny McCormick sits against his van in the desert, knees to his chin, playing with a piece of frayed string that hangs from his ripped jeans. It’s three in the morning. He’s been driving for the better part of three days and listening to the drivel of everyone sitting on the shag carpeting behind him. The carpet smells like piss. He pissed in the van when he was a kid and his dad beat him good for it. Kenny thought it would be funny. Urine washes right out anyway, right? Turns out, it lingers.
But to be truthful, all of them stunk, ripe with sweat, tongues swollen of booze, brains puffed with weed. The people in the back, his friends, he supposed, made no mention of the piss smell, or the rusted doors and taped up passenger window, and the bumper sticker that reads “GET OFF MY ASS” in all black lettering with a white background. Token Black, Butters Scotch, and Kyle Broflovski would sit cross-legged, on a tapestry bought by Token’s father in a Mexican flea market (the thing was endowed by the Virgin Mary’s porcelain face and hooded eyes), and talked about the girls they were seeing, the Soviet Union (Kyle said he heard places fly low over his house while he lay in bed, trying to sleep, and thought for sure, they’re finally coming to bomb our asses ). Butters piped up that the event they were just at, the US Festival (said like us, not U.S.) was broadcasted directly via satellite to the Soviet Union.
Maybe this way, they’ll see Americans aren’t so bad, Butters mused. They’ll see that we just like to have a good time, you know?
Token shook his head. Your optimism makes me sick, Stotch.
There’s a lot of political sexual tension, Kyle said so confidently. Indubitably a young man of culture, someone who has accrued several thousand frequent flyer miles at the library would feel comfortable saying such a thing. When you know enough about something, so much so that it makes you sick, you can make jokes. Or rather, if you fear something so much out of your control, you can only make jokes. Judging by what he said earlier about low-flying planes, Kenny gathered in a millisecond that Kyle’s worst fear was seeing and feeling the skin melt off his bones in an explosion.
They spoke about the universe. Area 51. Aliens. Kenny chimed into this one.
Kenny lived on the poor side of the train tracks, where street lights didn’t exist (the only lighting at night were the occasional red and blue flashing ones), and the sky oozed with stars and bright planets. Kenny swore up and down while keeping an eye on the road but also making sure to glance and their slack faces in the rearview mirror, that he had seen UFOs. Perhaps they were scouting the area to make cornfield art.
They also talked about the “good old days” of high school, though they graduated only a year before. Token and Kyle went away to Harvard and Cornell, respectively. Butters went to Colorado State. None of them, except for Kyle, asked Kenny what he’d been up to the past year. They had to figure he didn’t do much apart from lug furniture for department stores. High-class women, clad in massive hoop earrings, layered pearls, and enough Aquanet to fumigate Hell itself, would gawk at him and his feathered, blonde mullet and sleeveless tee-shirts, fan themselves and ask the salesman if the delivery boy was included with the furniture. At least he had that going for him.
No, they didn’t ask about any of that. It stayed in his head. No, they came home for the summer and asked Kenny to take his father’s van to see this damn festival with the English Beat, the Divinyls, INXS, the Clash. This damn festival where the stage was painted as the world and her green continents, with a gigantic pastel rainbow hovering over them all. White gloved hands clenched the electric “‘83” in the center. A woman with Bettie Page bangs introduced Wall of Voodoo and her baby sucked on the microphone.
And the whole time, between sets in a haze of 95-degree weather and crowd claustrophobia, Kenny noticed that 1983 Kyle was very different than 1982 Kyle. In high school, Kyle was nice enough (he never told Kenny that he smelled of rats burning on a woodpile as other kids did), but he was preppy. Not a day went by where he didn’t wear a different-colored Lacoste polo with the tiny embroidered crocodile and his collar popped. He played varsity tennis in the spring and basketball in the winter. Kenny was pretty sure Kyle was on a sports scholarship. And if he wasn’t, it was definitely academic. Maybe he had one for both. Kyle had auburn shaggy hair and a beautiful smile, never had pimples, never looked tired.
Now, his mouth had taken on a red, sore, pouty form, his eyes puffy with black eyeliner. He was deep in the new wave fashion with checkered Vans, dark skinny jeans, and a gray button-up with a thin, black necktie. He turned wild. Straight feral, even. What the hell happened at college?
On the way back from San Bernandino (if Kenny’s dad ever found out he drove all the way to California, he’d kill him - not that his dad would be sober enough to notice he was gone in the first place), all they could talk about was how hot Chrissy Amphlett from the Divinyls is.
That schoolgirl outfit she had on, god damn. She could fuck me up in that and I wouldn’t complain, Token said, lying on his back, arms behind his head, wobbling just slightly with every bump in the road. She could have the mustache ride.
You mean that fuzzy, black caterpillar Magnum P.I. nightmare on your face? Kyle was blitzed out of his mind, laughing hysterically.
Butters broke into the chorus of “Boys in Town,” and they all joined, trying to sound as sexy as possible. Kenny thought they sounded like dying dogs, but they were having fun, so who cares?
The spoke giddily of Oingo Boingo, the Stray Cats, and their sexy saxophones. Kyle went on for quite some time about the Clash, how his heart exploded hearing “Rock the Casbah,” live for the first time, and he could die a happy man now.
Even if the Soviets killed you right now, you’d be happy? Kenny asked.
Kyle looked him dead in the eyes, through the rearview mirror, and said in a low tone: They could sodomize me with a curling iron and I’d still die happy because I got to see THE MOTHERFUCKING CLASH, then burst into a raw cacophony of laughter.
Now, here’s Kenny McCormick, a little after three in the morning, leaned up against the van, thinking about what just happened.
Butters and Token were asleep. Kyle had only a few moments ago crawled into the back of the van to lay next to them. They left the back doors open. The van was stuffy.
Cacti leered at him in the darkness. They saw everything. At least they wouldn’t tell.
The boys had stopped to sleep for a while, and Kenny stepped out to smoke. Kyle joined him. The hype of the concerts was still very buoyant within Kyle - Kenny could tell by how fast, how breathlessly he spoke of the music, all with grand, swooping hand gestures, he lit cherry end of his cigarette bobbing in the dark.
So, what’s Cornell like, man? Kenny asked.
It’s indescribable, dude. Kyle crossed his ankles, tapped ashes into the sand. I’m meeting so many different kinds of people. Like, I never thought I’d meet anyone from India or the UK, but I did, and they’re my roommates, and they’re so cool…
Kenny listened. Kyle never used to drabble on like this. He was never totally reserved either, but it would be considered “uncool” for him to go on and on this way.
What happened to you?
Huh? Kyle finally took a breath, then a breath from the cigarette.
You’re so different now. Even your clothes. Kenny flicked Kyle’s shirt.
I’m trying new things.
Like what?
Kyle turned his eyes away. Well, Kenny thought he did. He really couldn’t see his eyes.
I wanted to thank you again, Ken. For driving us. We wouldn’t have made it if it weren’t for you. It was so life-changing, and I…
You’re welcome. I had fun.
A long pause ensued here.
So, what new things? Kenny pressed.
Oh, nevermind. Just forget it, please.
You know… I like to try new things.
Are you saying what I think you’re saying?
Kyle threw the cigarette on the ground and smashed it with the toe of his shoe. You don’t know what you’re talking about, Kenny.
Kenny had no reason to be doing this now, he knew it. But he knew that Kyle knew what he knew, and he liked the squirming. I saw the way you looked at dude butts today.
There were a ton of butts in the way, it doesn’t mean shit.
Kenny inched closer. Come on, Kyle. I won’t tell anyone. I just want to know what it’s like. If not for you, I may never know. And I really want to.
Kyle sniffed, looking over his shoulder. Token and Butters were fast asleep, snoring and muttering. A jackrabbit bounded across them, a whoosh of air and sand sprayed their legs.
Holy shit-
Kyle-
Kenny dropped his cigarette and pushed his hands into Kyle’s cheeks. They stayed like this, kissing with shy mouths, all the senses of that day being tasted again. Kyle’s mouth was wet. Has it always looked wet?
Kyle pulled away, breath hitched. This never happened. I’m drunk.
I know. Kenny grazed a thumb over his bottom lip.
I mean it.
Yeah, I got it.
Kyle backed up, then clumsily climbed into the van. Kenny slid down and felt him curl up in the passenger seat.
It wasn’t hot anymore. He could lay against the van without burning his back. Soon, the sun would rise again, it would be hot again, and they would be teenage chatterboxes once more, and Kenny would have to pretend he wasn’t kissed by this new-fangled, college Kyle.
For now, he tapped his foot and whistled Divinyls into the desert night sky.