PhD Candidate Faustus

15: mephistopheles, for love of thee

Mephistopheles

Thanksgiving week passes in a soft haze. We have dinners and lunches around the pool, swim when we like, and wander about generally in and out of the big house, welcome as the breeze, followed always by the two huge dogs. Helen and I race down to the end of the pier then back. Faustus makes me carry him on a hike down the beach and I don't know why he doesn't expect to be thrown in the water at some point 'cause clearly that's gonna happen.
Either it's the change in scene or my own paranoia, but I have worse nightmares than I've had since I got to Rose and Swan. Old dreams of old terrors, my father's voice clear as the last time I heard it, him and mother, lurking on the edge of modern scenes playing out in my head. Terrible nights on the street, all still haunting me. I sleep little, tossing and turning and waking only to fall into another fitful sleep. Eventually I get up and go and watch the waves until dawn comes.
For the holiday Mr. and Mrs. W take us shopping, and then enlist us in food preparation. Now, my Thanksgiving experiences of late have been homeless shelter and soup kitchen affairs, if that. Sometimes, if I was working, somebody had ordered food so I'd get that. Prior to all that, when I was little, my grandmother would make a bit of turkey for just the two of us, as well easy frozen biscuits and things, but she was sick for most of what I remember so it was always something I could mostly do myself.
Food preparation in general is foreign to me, again that's a soup kitchen based knowledge, as well as what I can heat up in a microwave somewhere think instant noodles or something basic along those lines.
Nothing like this.
Of course, like everything else, Fausty has an in depth knowledge of cooking and so he is vital in the kitchen. Helen has been learning because she lives with these guys, but Mrs. and Mr. W don't seem to mind my general ineptitude, giving me precise directions and things to chop and cut up, while Helen and I both keep Faustus away from anything involving open flame, you know, just so as not to tempt him. Also, he spends so much time around chemicals honestly we kind of worry he'll just combust.
"Do I want to know how you know the difference between these very identical knives?" I ask Faustus, as I'm meant to be chopping onions.
"When I was in the hospital for my leg I watched cooking shows," he says, curtly.
"Ah," I nod, "They didn't think that would be tempting what with the open flame—?"
"You know what—no? It was very insensitive with my new disability and being removed from my one creature comfort, my work shop."
"Was your workshop standing—?"
"No, that's what was insensitive about it! Thank you so much for noticing!"
At this point everyone has pretty much given up on keeping up with our endless side conversations, and let us have it, more amused than anything.
Dinner is fantastic, not only because of the amount of food but also the atmosphere. I steal one of Fausty's black turtle necks to wear with my jeans, and he's wearing a red sweater, and Helen puts on an orange dress for the occasion. By now, I'm comfortable making easy conversation, and I'm shocked how none of it is fake. Both the Ws have read several of the books in our classes, so I'm able to hold a decent conversation about those. Huh, maybe I am learning something from literature and philosophy, it makes good conversation, anyway. Mr. W was a mechanical engineer so soon he and Fausty are wrapped up in an eager discussion about math and things. Helen and I have not heard Taylor Swift's new album so Mrs. W is telling us about her favorite tracks. We laugh and talk. Fausty calls me demon at least twice and nobody even notices. My gut is full, I'm in a warm house, and finally the panic at the edges of my brain is fading. I'm safe here. This is a home. I am in it. The night mares come in the dark but they also fade away. Faster and faster. Just as Helen said they would. And I have more friends than I did last year this time. If I could invoke my grandmother's spirit I would to see me now. Just glimpse this. See that I made it. That I'm at a table laughing and talking with these kind people, and that I'm okay.
Mrs. W lets us all have a glass of wine, Fausty refuses as he doesn't like the stuff. Helen and I both accept. I'm more than used to much more alcohol than this, and much worse alcohol, but even I can tell it's good stuff. I force myself to sip it, quietly looking around as I listen to the cacophony of conversation around me, enjoying the peace.
It's dark out when dinner is over, and I surprise Mrs. W by volunteering for clean up. Fausty and Helen go out to walk the dogs for the last time and Mr. W goes about clearing the table and bringing us plates.
Dishwasher is the easiest job to get in most any city. Usually, they'd kick me out when they figured out I was 'homeless' or 'stealing food' or ' prostituting myself to customers' or 'having sex with customers in the pantry' and the like. However. I'm a hell of a dishwasher.
"Whoever taught you to scrub like that?" Mrs. W laughs, as I hand her a perfectly clean plate, hands soapy.
"My grandmother—she had arthritis, later cancer, anyway I did a lot around the house when I was little. She had full custody of me," I explain. That's all true of course. And it feels good to say it. "She passed when I was nine."
"I'm very sorry," she says.
"Nine good years, more than some people get," I shrug.
"I'm sure she would be proud of you."
"You know what? Maybe," I say, smiling a little. Because that's also the truth.
When we get done with the dishes, Mr. W announces his intent to go out for a smoke. He smokes a pipe now and again, and I try to catch the side stream smoke of it. Helen and Fausty, drowsy from the wine and meal, already headed off to shower and get to bed.
"Mind if I join you? I'm trying to finish a book," I ask Mr. W.
"Not at all."
I get my book from my room, peel off a nicotine patch and stick it to my arm, and join him on the back porch. He's already settled in a deck chair. I pick one down wind, inhaling the oaky smell of the pipe smoke. I only have a few pages left on the book so that takes me a solid twenty minutes. Don't look at me like that. I'm fucking stupid and I can't read well we've been over that.
I finish the book. So Mr. Sly does get to live to teach another semester. All right. I smile and set it down, then, carefully, pull out my phone. I have two people to text.
To Ember: Happy Thanksgiving. This is corny but, thanks for being my friend?
Ember: this is corny but thanks for being my friend too! How are you doing?
Me: I'm okay. I think I know what you meant now. And I think I'm closer than I was to sorting myself out. And I'd still like you to be in that. Not because I deserve it but because I want to.
Ember: I want to be in it too
Me: I guess I'll see you around sometime after break?
Ember: you'd better
Then one more person to thank. Still just a blank number in my phone
Me: thanks for trusting me when I probably didn't deserve it. Anyway. Hope you found what you were looking for by now.
The reply is quick: I have, thank you. And have you found what you were looking for?
Me: let's go with I'm on my way
Him: enjoy the journey then
I smile, sliding the phone back into my pocket.
"How was your book?" Mr. W grunts.
"Oh, um—good, I'd never read it," I say, holding up the Odyssey, "Unlike apparently everyone did in middle school."
"I'm quite sure that's just your friend," he says, puffing on the pipe.
"Well, then," I shrug.
"What did you think?"
"Good um, my ah, literature teacher, gave it to me, well, told me to read it, because I wasn't a fan of the Iliad, he thought I'd like the Odyssey better," I say.
"Was he right?"
"Yeah um—it's—it kind of reminds me of you and Mrs. W, you know?" I ask.
"Why?" He chuckles, amused, "I'm not a hero, I've never fought any sea monsters."
"That's the point, Odysseus doesn't want to be a hero, ever. He wants to go home, to his wife and kid. Who he loves, and he just—horrible stuff keeps happening to him. He's not on some great quest to get revenge or get glory or kill all the bad guys. Literally he wants to go home and be with the people he cares about, and people get pissed off at him because that's all he wants like they want him to be Batman or whoever cause it's not that he can't he's smart enough but he wants his home. He wants peace," I say, "And after all this time you think his wife is going to want something different, but they're exactly the same, they're on the same wavelength always, she wants him back as well. And it's just—sweet I guess. And the story ends and he's finally at home, safe, the bad guys are gone everything trying to stop him failed and—how do you know?" I ask, looking over at him.
"What do you mean?"
"How do you know who the right person is to share that peace with? I can be alone, but I don't want to be. When I'm alone monsters come out and the thing is—if she'd been anyone else, if Penelope had been anyone but her, then she'd have failed, then Odysseus wouldn't have the happy ending, nobody but her could have tricked those horrible squatters all that time or figured out it was Odysseus and come up with the contest thing—so how did he know she was the one who could go through it all for him? Like, it was hard you couldn't blame someone else for failing but in the end he really needed her not to fail him. So, you've lived—bit longer than me, how do you know someone is that person who won't fail you when you're busy with your own monsters?" I ask, "Because that's it—that's the thing I have never been able to put my finger on, I don't trust anyone, not to stay, not for me, not forever. So how did you know?"
"You can't ever know anything for certain, but, when you're having your worst day, your darkest night, the person who makes it all better, instead of all worse, the person who you don't you feel like you have to be better for that you want to be better for, that's how you know," he says, smiling over at me in the moonlight.
"That sounds complicated when I don't tend to trust people," or let them in.
"It is complicated. Think about the poem. Odysseus didn't know either. He didn't know if she'd stayed true to him, all those years, did he? Not until he got back, and saw her again."
"So what does that tell me?" I ask.
"That tells you that you have to trust yourself to know it when you see it. The world is awfully big. And while it might not feel it you're very young. You've got a lot of living to do, and a lot of people to meet, some good some bad. But you'll find your way," he says, nodding.
"I think I'm getting there," I say, nodding.
"I think you are too."
"Thanks for the talk. And the sidestream smoke," I say, picking up my book.
He laughs, "Anytime, boy."
I go back inside, mounting the stairs slowly up to my room. I drop the book on my bed, sighing a little.
Then I kick off my shoes, and walk quietly to the next room.
"You up?" I ask, slipping in Faustus' door. He's lying in bed reading with a flashlight on his head, as is his cute little (read: annoying) habit when other people are trying to sleep and if they make a noise he looks and shines the light directly in their face.
"Yes, what is it?" He asks.
"Nothing, move over," I say, crawling into the thin twin bed behind him.
"What are you doing?" Not moving over at all, also not protesting.
"Just read your damn book," I say, pressing my face into his clean smelling hair, "Don't mind me."
"Fine," he mutters, shifting the smallest bit so I can curl up next to him. I drape an arm across his chest, nestling against him in the dark.
He tugs a blanket over us both and then goes back to his book, tipping the light at the page.
"And if I wake up, or move or something—could you—just start talking about whatever it is comes to your mind?" I ask, quietly.
"That'll probably be explosives."
"Yeah, I know."
"Okay, sure, if you want."
"Yeah."
A long silence, then, "Mephistopheles, are you having nightmares?"
"What's it to you?" I mutter, sighing a little.
"About hell?" He asks, really gently.
"Yeah, about hell," I sigh.
"So why do I help?" He asks, quietly.
"Because you're not from hell," I say, tracing the curve of a lock of hair on his cheek, just past his ear. He tugs off his headlight and sets down the book, a bit confused:
"That's it?"
"I don't know. I'm finding out."
He rolls over a little bit so he faces me, sweatshirt shifting soft against the cotton sheets. He tips his forehead against mine to look into my eyes, placing his fingers on my cheeks, "I like these eyes best."
"Good," I say, almost smiling, "They're real."
"You're not real though," he says, really quietly, fingers still on my cheeks.
"Yeah I am," I sigh, quietly, can't you see I'm a broken boy, not so different from you?
"That can't be true."
"Why can't it? Why can't I be real?" I ask, softly, "I could exist. Maybe I'm not a demon, or a devil. Maybe I'm just a boy. Who's very very lost."
"You can't be."
"Why not?" I sigh.
"You wouldn't stay otherwise. Nobody ever does. When I blew off my leg the first night in the hospital I heard my mother crying. She told the nurses she was going home. She couldn't deal with me anymore. They could call her if I got worse. My father was at home dealing with the damage from the fire. And nobody stayed. Nobody's ever stayed. Or cared about me. So you can't be real. You must be something else. Because I'm horrible to you, I'm mean and I'm completely me and I don't even try to hide it. And you're still here," he says, softly.
"That's—," the saddest thing I've ever heard. He genuinely does not believe that a real living person would choose to spend time with him. "Okay, well, whatever I am. I'm very real. And I'm not leaving you."
He kisses my lips, like I'm his secret drug. He digs his hands into the back of my head, cold fingers on my skull. When he realizes I'm not kissing him back he stops, just pressing his face against mine.
"What?" He asks, frowning.
"Nothing, that was all I needed," I say, rubbing his cheek with my thumb. Then I kiss him back softly, he accepts like being given forbidden fruit, he wants it yet he dares not. But he does anyway, giving in to my strong arms as they tug him to me.
"I'm broken," he mutters.
"I'm fucking shattered. But we don't care," I say, pressing my face into his neck. "I promise you, whatever it is I am, I'm here. And I'm not going anywhere."
"Okay," he says.
"Do you believe me?"
"I think I have to."
"Okay," I say, petting his hair out of my face, "Let me sleep here, yeah?"
"Yeah, do you care if I read my book?"
"No, I like that you read your book."
He rolls back over in the dark, sorting for his headlamp and his book. I shift back to lying in line with him, an arm draped around his chest and my face nestled in his hair. I close my eyes against the light of his headlamp, listening to the steady sound of his breathing and the roar of the ocean outside. And slowly I drop into a peaceful sleep.