Chapter Text
An hour after the carnival, Scott Tenorman found himself at his house.
He’d insisted, of course, that his friends stay with him. Dylan and Nathan had walked by Scott’s side as he sobbed pathetically all the way home. He had hated for them to see him like that, but anything was better than coming home to silence.
They had done their best to comfort him. At least, Scott had thought so. They weren’t very good at it but he couldn’t really blame them. What do you even say to someone who was just tricked into eating their own parents? Not even Scott knew what he wanted to hear. He just wanted them to stay.
It actually took another hour for Scott to finally stop crying. It wasn’t that he had stopped feeling the shock, the grief. He had simply grown tired. The traces of chili and vomit had begun to fade from his tastebuds. Nathan was hugging him. Scott couldn’t speak. Part of that was due to the shock and exhaustion, but he had to admit to himself, he feared that if he spoke, he would just start crying again. He had already made a fool of himself in front of the entire town - and his favourite band! Nobody would ever see him the same way again. For the rest of his life, he would be known as the boy who’d eaten his parents. The cannibal kid. The orphan.
Dylan, who hadn’t been himself for the past two hours, was beginning to fidget. In the silence, any awkward teenage boy was bound to grow bored, even in the midst of processing an extreme shock. Scott caught onto this and looked over at Dylan before he began to speak.
“Uh, hey, man,” Dylan said slowly. “It really sucks what happened to you. That’s fucked up. But… Do you maybe want to watch a movie or something? It might help you feel better.”
“Yeah, yeah,” croaked Scott, stifling a laugh that was trying to force its way up his throat. He didn’t know why he wanted to laugh. Nothing was funny. “There are DVDs over there. Just pick one and we’ll watch it.”
Dylan still looked sad and embarrassed, but he went over to where the DVDs were anyway. Scott didn’t care if the desire to watch a movie was based on boredom, sympathy, or both. He was just glad his friends were there. Dylan held up a Fight Club DVD, to which Scott nodded slightly; Dylan inserted the disc and the movie began.
They sat together in near-silence before Scott spoke again: “Would- Would anyone like a beer?”
It was an age-old tradition among the trio that when they went over to Scott’s house, they would nick his dad’s beer when they hung out sometimes. It was something that they bonded over, and yes, they did it whilst watching movies while Scott’s parents were away. Occasionally his dad would catch onto it and reprimand Scott for drinking. Of course, Scott didn’t have a dad anymore, so he no longer needed to worry about that. Just the thought of his father turned Scott towards the fridge before either of his friends could respond.
He pulled out a 12-pack from the fridge and placed it on the coffee table. Dylan and Nathan took one each and slowly opened their cans. It was then that Scott noticed that despite his fatigue, he was trembling. He opened a can and chugged it, trying his best to focus on the movie and not think about his parents.
The rest of the day was a bit of a blur after that.
The morning after the carnival, Scott awoke to an empty house.
Dylan and Nathan had left the night before, insisting that they had to go to bed. Scott had begged them not to leave him alone, but that had only made things worse. At least, that was what Scott guessed had happened. He had only fragmented memories of the day before, so there wasn’t really much to work with. He wasn’t sure how much he had drunk, but all of the cans on the coffee table were empty. It was no wonder his head was throbbing. All it took was the memory of the chili for a stream of bile to leave his mouth and soak into the carpet.
This was all Eric Cartman’s fault. That fat little sociopath. That insane piece of shit. He was going to kill that boy! Scott fired a punch at the door so hard his knuckles bled a bit, which brought him back to the present. Shit. He hadn’t meant to hit a corner.
But in all of this, Scott knew he had to accept his own responsibility for his parents’ fate. He was the one who had messed with the psycho kid, and who was the one who had eaten his own parents? Sure, he hadn’t known what was in the chili, but Scott had sure as hell provoked Cartman to do what he did. An inescapable wave of shame washed over him, not just for the way he had treated Cartman, but for how he had been mocked by his favourite band, and the undignified way he had handled his grief the day before. He collapsed to the floor, and for a few moments all he could do was lie there, nursing his bleeding knuckles and aching head. He wanted to cry. He wanted to scream. He wanted to beat that fat little shit to a bloody pulp, but for the moment, he couldn’t do any of those things. He could only laugh at the absurdity of it all.
Twenty-four hours after the carnival, there was a knock at Scott’s door.
He had been lying there on the carpet for hours, quietly laughing to himself. For a split-second he hoped that it was his mom and dad. It wasn’t.
In the doorway stood a tall, curly-haired man with thick glasses. He smelled strongly of coffee. The scent made Scott wonder if he himself smelled like beer and vomit, but the man didn’t say anything about that.
“Is this the Tenorman household?” he questioned. Scott nodded silently.
The man introduced himself as Glen Bozo, a name that Scott probably would have made fun of if he were in a better mood. Glen was a social service worker. Scott welcomed him in and they sat together on the couch. Glen glanced at the empty beer cans scattered across the coffee table before catching sight of the puke. He still did not say anything.
Glen began by offering his sympathy to Scott: I can’t imagine how you must feel, I’m so sorry about what happened to your parents, I hope you have someone to talk to. All of that dull and meaningless stuff that people said just to be polite. He then moved onto the legal implications of what had happened. Since Scott was a minor, he had to live under the roof of at least one adult, so he was being moved into the home of his closest living relatives: his paternal grandparents.
It wasn’t all bad, Scott supposed. Grandma and Grandpa were sweet, doting old people who gave him whatever he wanted. Better than living with Aunt Ophelia or Uncle Dave. Still, it wouldn’t feel the same. Nothing would ever feel the same again.
Scott packed his bags and before he knew it, he was at the home of his grandparents. They welcomed him with love and sympathy; it felt different to how it was with Glen, because now it was real. Grandma and Grandpa’s eyes were ringed red with tears over the loss of their son. As he got pulled into their embrace, Scott couldn’t cry, but he felt safe in their warmth and their lavender scent.
Everything in his grandparents’ house smelled of lavender. Lavender air freshener, lavender perfume, even lavender-scented teddies. Poor little Grandma couldn’t resist it. Her hair was white and fluffy, and quite often, even her clothes were lavender-coloured. Scott wanted to carry all his bags to his new room by himself, but Grandma insisted on helping him.
Scott’s new room already came with a bed and wardrobe. The walls were painted with little cars and sports equipment. It had once been the room of his father, Jack Tenorman. He had lived in this house as a child, surrounded by love and comfort and lavender. Now, Scott had to live there, not as a son, but as an orphan.
Scott asked to be left alone as he unpacked, but what he really wanted was to cry alone. He wasn’t like his grandparents: he didn’t want to cry in front of anyone, ever. The day before had been different. Gradually, his silent tears grew to sobs, but his grandparents knew not to intrude. Good. Scott needed time alone.
Dinner time approached quickly. Scott hadn’t eaten a thing since the carnival; he didn’t want to. Even as his stomach growled, he had refused even the tiniest amount of food. In his grandparents’ house, however, he could not refuse. Grandma cared too much to let him starve. Scott ate the carrot slices, but the second he bit into the veal, everything came back up. The meat was too similar to what he had eaten the day before. For a moment, Scott wondered if he would ever be able to eat meat again.
Two weeks after the carnival, Scott felt ready to go back to school.
He had hoped that by going back, he would feel normal, but that was not what happened. All of the other kids knew what had happened. Some had witnessed Scott’s humiliation firsthand at the carnival, while others had only heard the rumours that were circulating. Everywhere he went, he could not escape their looks of pity and disgust. Dylan remarked that he had thought Scott was dead, due to not hearing from him for two weeks. Scott updated his friends on everything that had happened.
Months passed. For a while Scott thought he was beginning to feel better, only for him to spiral into a manic episode. He was plagued by nightmares of the incident every night, but he didn’t really feel tired anymore, ever. He just slept because Grandma and Grandpa said he had to. He couldn’t eat meat or anything spicy, because when he did, he would find himself in that chair again, discovering what had happened to his parents.
After a short while, Scott, Dylan and Nathan started hanging out with the sixth graders. They were much less judgemental of Scott, knowing that he had never meant to eat his parents. It felt weird to be friends with kids so much younger than him, but he brushed those feelings aside in favour of his sense of belonging. Perhaps one day, he would move out of South Park, to a place where no-one knew him or what had happened to him. A place where he would simply be known as Scott instead of the cannibal kid.
One day, he visited his parents’ graves. He was still working on his willingness to cry in front of others, especially since he’d been mocked by Radiohead. Little crybaby, they’d called him. Now, every time he cried, that phrase sounded in the back of his head.
The cemetery was empty that day, so Scott went ahead and let the tears flow. He wished that they would come back, even if only for a minute, even if only for a second. But they didn’t. They never would. Scott sat there crying for a good half-hour before he was interrupted by Eric Cartman and a boy with blond hair.
There he was, the little bastard. The boy who had ruined Scott’s life. Nobody was around, it would be so easy to knock him out, to strangle him, and the little blond boy looked too weak to fight back. But Scott didn’t strike, mostly because he was totally stunned.
Eric Cartman came bearing a basket of gifts. What was this? An apology? Scott was taken aback. He could never forgive Cartman, ever, but this basket of gifts was an acknowledgement of sorts, a sign that he knew he had done wrong and he was sorry. Grateful for the little bit of closure he had received that day, Scott accepted the gifts and watched Cartman and his blond friend walk away.
A couple of days passed and Scott swore he was feeling better. He was beaming with joy and everyone around him commented on how much fun he was to be around now. He looked out at the world and saw how beautiful it really was, and thought that maybe, just maybe, everyone had the potential to change and be forgiven. Maybe even Eric Cartman.
During the day he felt delighted, but at night he was erratic. Once Scott was alone, memories of the carnival would resurface and tears would refuse to flow. And when Scott couldn’t cry, he could only laugh. He laughed and laughed at the tragedy, the insanity, the surreal shock of everything he had been through, and then he painted over the walls of his room to get rid of all traces of his father. He had no memory of what happened afterwards, but he woke up the next morning in the woods with a scratched-up face and could only laugh at the hilarity of his circumstances.
Then he passed out.