PhD Candidate Faustus

6: why, this is hell, nor am I out of it

Mephistopheles

Dinner is luxuriously long and I get properly sick from stuffing my stupid mouth with cake. By the end and with Fausty a bit sleepy I am more than ready to go to sleep myself.  However, we still have to run by uniforms. Well, I do but for no real reason Fausty thinks he needs to follow me, and so he does. They do in fact just give me uniforms that are mostly in my size, only asking for me to sign for them. I put down Jay Lightborn's signature rather convincingly, and then with a couple of sets of clothes we head back to Dover house.
It's the first night and our hall is fairly lively. If I didn't know better I'd say a hall wide pillow fight is going on upstairs, set to Panic at the Disco, and involving a large dog, however I could be wrong. On the second floor however we are primarily quiet. I take Faustus back to our room, instruct him to change, and hang up my borrowed uniforms, before steeling myself to go meet with the good Father.
He'll surely not have found my file by now? What will I say? Some mistake? Then leave in the night? I don't want it to happen so I don't want to consider the possibilities, however of course I always must have a way to run.
I make my way down the hall. Most of the boys have their doors open, and are rowdily playing football and blasting music or videos. For a brief moment it reminds me of one of the better youth shelters. Teenage boys only vary so much in merriment, it seems. I smile and duck as a football rushes by me, trying to push any resentment from my mind. I'll probably be out on my ear in the hour. These boys will go to bed knowing that they have a hot breakfast awaiting them.
"You wanted to see me, Father?" I ask, standing on the edge of the dayroom. The priest is working on a laptop.
"Yes, come on in Jay," he says, nicely, "I wasn't able to find a schedule drawn up for you so for the present I've drafted one, but I would like your input."
"Oh I'm sure that's fine," thank god, he's stupid, he's just going with it. He's not about to guess to the truth.  "Um—can I be in classes with my roommate? I'm kind of—ah, helping him out— he's a family friend."
"Yes of course, you can share most classes, I've put you in literature and philosophy, and I put you in basic mathematics and chemistry, as I didn't know your previous course load—,"
"No that's um, fine, I'm rotten at math," I'm rotten at all of this.
"So am I," he smiles, kindly, then looks back at the computer, "You do need a sport, however."
"Um—whatever my roommate, Faustus, is in," I say, quickly. I've never played a sport in my life. I can dance all right that's about it.
"He's in fencing, Coach Marlowe is always short on people for that, so he won't mind," he says, tapping on the keys.
"I don't—," does that require gear and such? "I am not sporty— I didn't realize—my parents didn't realize I'm sure—,"
"Oh it's for fun. They can lend you things if you don't have any," he says, dismissively, getting up to go to a printer.
"Oh. Good," this feels a bit too easy or am I just this not used to things going my way? Definitely the second one.
"There you are," he hands me a paper copy of my schedule, "If you have any questions let us know."
"No this is—this is fine," advanced literature, foundations of philosophy, chemistry, intro to German, psychology of teenagers, and practical math?
To be clear, I dropped out of school in like the sixth grade and haven't looked back.
I can read, but that's about it. I'm fucking stupid. I'm never, ever, going to be able to keep up with all of this. I'm going to be found out within the week. This will never, ever work.
But the food is good. And it's going to be good while it lasts. Just like I told Fausty. I've got to try living.
"Thank you, I'll um—thanks," I nod.
"Lights out at ten, I should check on that actually," he stands as there is a definitely crash of a furniture from the upper floor, "Come find any house father if you need anything. First night is always a bit rough."
"Thank you," I have a fucking bed to go to, with a pillow, and blankets, in a warm safe room. I'm going to be just fine.
I retreat back to the room, schedule clutched in my hand. This is fine. This is fine. I can handle this. Maybe I can fake my way through the classes. I won't say anything. Yeah. That'll work. I mean probably not but it's all I have going for me.
When I get to the room Faustus is sitting on his bed surrounded by countless books, still dressed from dinner. I wordlessly lock the door and go into the bathroom. It's small, but clean. I have only a few travel size toiletries that I've shop lifted and I'm guessing those will be out of place. Also, they are buried in my bag. I fetch my backpack, fish out my only razor, scissors, and my make up not that I'll get to wear that.
I strip and then go to work on my hair. The ends were getting damaged anyway. I have no relaxer or anything, so I make do with trimming out the darkest red, and then bleaching all of it with peroxide. I'm counting on that being enough to destroy the tell tale curls. The end result isn't great, but it's going to have to do. I look in the mirror and I'm sufficiently foreign. That's all I require.
Then I change and shower.
It's a little stall, and I keep knocking my elbows, but I'm far from complaining. It's not the Y or some stranger's apartment.
I'm not used to changing before sleeping for comfort. Sometimes I would fall asleep in a John's apartment but then I'd just wear whatever I had on or nothing, and that was usually drunk or high. In a shelter or at the Y I'd just be in street clothes.
I settle for no shirt, and a pair of too large track pants. That will have to do. There's a laundry room at the end of the hall. I need to do laundry, but I'm not on the schedule till Friday. Let's hope Fausty isn't that observant.  On which note, I take out my contacts. It's better not to sleep with them in if I can manage, and he already thinks I'm the devil, so.
When I get out, I find my tortured roommate has also changed for bed. He has silk black pajamas and looks like he's auditioning for a production of the Adventures of Teenage Ebenezer Scrooge.
"Are you laughing at me?" He asks, a little pathetically.
"Nope, laughing at me," I say, crawling into bed, "Don't worry your pretty head about it, Fausty."
He grunts and mutters something, not really looking up from his books. I elect not to care. I'm way too tired to worry about his mood right now. And this bed is soft, the pillow is thick, and the sheets are warm cotton. I curl up in them, feeling weird not to be sleeping on top of my duffel bag. But it's safely stowed under my bed, and my backpack is at the foot of the bed. I'm safe here. Tonight. If only for tonight, I'm safe.
And with that I sleep.
I get woken up at three am by my cell phone going off, and immediately get a prosthetic leg launched at my head. Incidentally, that is not how I recommend finding out your roommate has a prosthetic limb.
"Sorry, sorry," I say, turning off the phone while Faustus swears. One of my former clients. Most of them just text and I was loath to take my ads down, but this one is a regular, she will call me. She's not a bad person so I debate picking up for half a moment then just turn off the phone. I have absolutely no excuse and nothing to say. I don't know where I am or what I'm doing either.
She was kind though. She'd let me have whatever I wanted to eat or once or twice she'd already ordered pizza. Sometimes I didn't have other jobs to go to so I'd stay the night with her. She didn't like the dark, or being alone. We'd watch TV, and I'd slip off at dawn before she was up for work. She took to labeling things in the fridge for me so if she was asleep when I left then I could know what it was okay to take, be it leftovers she wasn't going to eat or food she took from a work potluck. She was twenty five. I told her I was nineteen. I like to think she didn't know I was fifteen when we met. Anyway. She's more than likely calling just because I don't usually go offline this long and she got the idea I didn't have stable housing. And people in my profession are not prone to long lifespans.
Former profession.
I wish. As if that's not a stain on my ledger. A black mark forever on my record. Like I'll ever be able to pass for a functioning, moral member of society with that pulsing underneath my skin. As if I could ever have a long term partner and not tell them what I've done or what I am. And then they would forever imagine me that way. And I wonder why this boy cried devil the minute I walked in? Perhaps he's not as mad as we all think. Maybe he just saw the truth.
I lie in my bed, my bed. They called it mine. They can rip it away in an instant, but I have tonight. I log on to the various servers, deleting my ads. My regulars will still have my number, and I leave my Instagram account active, but I delete all of my more explicit profiles.  I want no more texts, no more calls. I want to be normal.
Even if I know it won't last.
Getting ready in the morning is a surreal haze. Fausty swears greatly while trying to find the proper prosthetic leg before he finds me asleep holding it. I'm used to holding my backpack as I sleep that's my excuse. I expect him to smack me over the head with it, but no he just starts crying.
"That's mine! Give it back! I command you! You're a horrible demon."
"I'll have you know I'm a great demon. I'm really sexy, like really fucking sexy," I say, rolling over sleepily. He uses the bathroom first, which gives me time to sort through my bag for necessary make up and contacts. We don't really turn on a light and I relax when I see his eyes aren't fully open.
We get dressed in our matching uniforms, burgundy coats, mustard yellow ties, white shirts, black slacks. He has nice dress shoes, even one for his prosthetic foot. I have my worn black boots that I got at a Goodwill a few months ago. Those will have to do.
I know how to tie a tie. Fausty's hands keep shaking so I do it for him.
"I never wear these at Wittenberg," he mumbles, in explanation.
"Not my usual style but," I shrug, "There you are, not bad eh?"I turn him around to look in the mirror.
"Except my face," He mutters, rubbing it with one hand, "Even when the most beautiful woman in the world does come you're going to have to make her fall in love with me."
"Ah, no, you'll do fine. We just might need to make some changes," like get you a whole new personality, "But let's go, it's time for breakfast, an army marches on its stomach and all."
"I usually just drink coffee."
"So do I that's why I want breakfast," I mutter. Most fast food restaurants have coffee for a quarter, if sometimes I knew the staff they'd just give me a hot cup and let me sit there and warm up.
So I'm not a fan of coffee.
I am a fan of full English breakfasts, which this appears to be. I'm momentarily distracted by the fact that it would appear girls are to wear knee length pleated black skirts and that's completely unfair. I want to wear a skirt.
Skirts are dead comfortable.
Skirts show off my knees I have great knees.
Skirts do the little swish thing when you spin around.
Skirts are fantastic, the Scots or Irish or whatever pasty white people had the right idea with the kilts thing, when did that go out of style? And why? Wait, this kid says he's the smartest person ever.
"How come kilts aren't a thing?" I ask, as I heap my plate. It's hard not to make myself sick on the rich food. I keep reminding myself that there will be more at lunch, and dinner. I'm not starving here. Nobody even asked for an ID or anything. I should have conned my way into a boarding school a long time ago.
"Kilts are still traditional dress for Scottish people, the different fabric is referred to as Tartan and the different patterns symbolize the different clans, why do you ask?" He asks, frowning.
"Curious? I'm stupid?" I ask.
"Oh," he lowers his head a little, "I thought you were going to make fun of me."
"No, you and me, we're a team. We're BFFs. Mates. Bros before hoes, riches before bitches. Do you know what that means?"
"I can say with 100% certainty I have no idea what you just said."
"That means we don't make fun of each other. What do we do instead? You got it! Judge other people. It's really fun, I'll start, Mr. Ambrose our house father? I think he looks like an escapee from the set of a angsty biopic about a closeted dock worker, there your turn," I say, encouragingly, shoveling scrambled eggs in my mouth.
"I know so many words, but I can't understand any of them when they come out of your mouth," he says, his face in his hands.