PhD Candidate Faustus

18: i leapt out of a lion's mouth

Faustus

Florescent lights. A plastic table. Change the clock and the mirror and I might as well be taking a test. I'm good at tests.
Simple. Paper, pen, you and your mind is all the exists and all that you need to get out, to win, to escape, you already have in your mind.
It's everything else that isn't paper, ink, leather, little glue— books. Everything else that isn't books. That's what's always fallen away. I can rely on books on stories  there you can always find your way to a happy ending. Not out here. And you can run any number of trials stack the odds work your equations make every formula test every statistic. And humans. People will still fail you.
Every single time.
They always let you down. No matter what.
And what is worst is I can no longer hope. I can't believe it anymore. I lack any reason to believe, there is no empirical evidence existing to show, that he'll be waiting for me when they let me out of here.
That's all I want. I know it's stupid. I know someone will drive me home, I know they'll send a car. It's idiotic. I know.
But it's me.
I hate this place. I don't like talking to people. It's late and I'm tired and I want to be curled up with my trusted books.
And I know it's selfish and immature and stupid. But I want him. Out there. Right now. Waiting. Being there for me to hold onto. That is all I want.
But my heart is already breaking because I know I can't even begin to hope that. He's a devil, a demon. He's the least trustworthy spirit I could have summoned he himself says he's fifteen types of trouble.
I wouldn't even fault him for going back, taking the girls back, getting us food, anything. That would be perfectly logical. He'd have every right to do that.
But I don't want him to.
I want him here, right here, waiting for me.
But I no longer have the strength to hope anymore. That's all gone. I can't even want what I desire because I know it won't happen.
Why, you ask? Why Faustus do you have so little trust? In your friend who has been by your side loyally for this entire tale?
Well, as it happens, I've already run a conclusive test to find out if people will care about me. Or be there when I need them. I ran the ultimate test. I'm a good scientist. I've done my research, gathered my data. Done clinical trials. I've done everything possible and come up empty. There is not a shred of evidence to support anyone, ever loving me.
Let me tell you of my final trial. My last test. The ultimate one. I didn't want to believe what I was seeing was true. I wanted my evidence to be wrong. It was not.
The morning, of my twelfth birthday.
I got up as usual, before my father was to leave for work. My mother was traveling, out of town for work. I checked my phone. She had not messaged me.
I got dressed, and headed downstairs.
"I ordered some books, are they not here?" I asked. I'd special ordered some books. On Dijinn. I wanted to know about the evidence, if such a companion was possible. Later of course I would turn to Satanism, in my desperation.
"No, sir," the butler said, "Your father had them returned."
"Father," I walked into the kitchen. He was already half ready to go. The servants had set out my breakfast. Eggs and toast. All I asked for. No matter the day. "Did you take some books that were for me?"
"You have your book to worry about, not other people's," he said, dismissively.
"They were a present, for me, for my birthday," I said, looking down at my hands.
"You're far too young to be getting yourself presents. It's my money," he laughed, patting my head, "Eat your breakfast, don't you have a presentation later?"
"Yeah, you were going to come—come we we were gonna have dinner after—afterwards," for my birthday, I wanted to add but I was already stuttering. I could not.
"Oh, no I've got a client flying in at ten. You'll do fine, you always do."
"That's not—not, not the point," I mutter.
"They don't care if you stutter. Anyway, work on your book, that relaxes you."
"It came out last week—I sent it to you, have you not looked?" I dedicated it to him and my mother. The agent said not to, but I wanted to and I did.
"You know I can't understand all that stuff," he laughed, "I'm sure it's great."
"What did the inscription say?" I asked.
"I don't remember right now. I did read it. It was good. It's always good you're really smart. Now. I have to go to work. Don't wait up tonight all right?" He asked, getting his coat.
"So you're not—not—,"
"I'm not coming this afternoon, no. You'll do fine."
"I don't want to do fine," I muttered, as he left.
I was angry, and too sick to my stomach to even eat. I contemplated calling my mother. I was angry with both of them. It was my birthday; it was supposed to be about me. And they didn't even have the time of day. The presentation made me nervous. I hate public speaking. And I wrote a wonderful book and he hadn't even read it? Or looked at it? It's not hard to understand that's the point.
I called my mother she hasn't wished me happy birthday yet. She didn't answer. I called one. Two. Three. Four times. It went to voicemail.
By then I was in my lab, pacing. My lab was outside, in a repurposed garden shed. Because my chemicals smelled. I'd been toying with greek fire then, but not a lot. Mostly my usual research.
Finally, forty five minutes later, she texted me.
My mother: I'm teaching a class, your dad should be around if you need anything
Me: did you read my book?
Her: yes it's lovely we'll talk tonight
I called her.
She finally answered.
"What did—what did—what did—," my face grew red.
"Look, I'm really busy text me whatever I'll look later all right? We'll do something when I get back in town, no I didn't forget it's your birthday," she sighed.
"That's what, what what you said last year! We didn't do anything," I cried, tears running down my face.
"Look, I don't know why you're acting like this— did your dad get mad at you or something?"
"No, I want to—did you—did you did you read my book?" I asked, cramming my hand into my face to get myself to talk right.
"It's lovely I looked at it, I did, I'm really busy at the moment, I'll read it of course, now stop it. I can hear you, you know. Don't you get enough attention? Why do you do this and call and try to make me feel bad when I'm working?"
"Sorry," I said, tears running down my face.
"You're just like your father, I'm tired of both of you putting this on me when I'm not the one causing problems. Now you have your schedule, someone will drive you."
"But you're going to come?" I asked, my voice full of tears.
"This weekend, or maybe next I don't have my schedule in front of me. I wasn't expecting the inquisition. Now look, I've got to go, Johan."
She sighed, hanging up.
I stared at the phone. I tried to call her back but it went to voicemail.
Then I tried to call my dad and it went to voice mail.
Tears streamed down my face. They didn't care. They hadn't read it. They hadn't even looked. Did they even care about me?
They did really care, deep down didn't they? But they didn't show it.
I sat on my stool in the lab, staring down at my feet in scuffed up tennis shoes.
Staring down at my feet.
My parents must care deep inside. They just thought I was okay. Well, I'd called them they didn't answer. Surely if someone else called them about me, they'd answer. They'd come. They'd show they really did care and they were sorry we'd spend more time together.
If I was, say, hurt, they'd be worried. They'd realize how much they cared.
It was a simple enough formula. I already well knew my way around explosives and the amount needed. I didn't, of course, want to kill myself. I wasn't suicidal. It made perfect sense at the time.
I had two good legs. And I didn't like walking anyway.
If I was maimed they'd forever remember that the day they didn't take my calls the next call they got was from the hospital. They'd come and rush to my bedside. It was like a magic potion. The moment I set off the explosion well then, I'd pass out, and wake up, and they'd be there telling me loved me. Just like a magic trick. All I had to do was set off the smallest of explosions. I was scared that if I just burned myself badly or something, they wouldn't come. If I blew off the foot entirely, well then, they'd have to show up. They'd be so worried and it would prove once and for all that they really did love me.
I carefully prepared my formula, pouring it into a petri dish. Then I filled a test-tube with another compound. When the two mixed, a small explosion would occur. All I had to do was drop the test tube, into the petri dish.
I set the dish by my left leg, not to close, and spaced my right leg well away. Then I held up the test tube, directly above the dish.
"Happy Birthday, Johan," I whispered, and I dropped it.
The bang deafened me immediately, and I flew back, my head cracking the metal table. Then I fell to the ground, my leg in searing pane, fire licking its way along the floor towards my tables.
I screamed I suppose. I was dizzy from my head hitting the table then the floor then the pain. I blacked out.
When I woke there was smoke everywhere and I couldn't breath. I crawled, trying to get my phone I thought I saw it on the floor. Then I blacked out again.
When I woke I was in the hospital, strapped to a bed.
No one was there.
"It's all right, love," a nurse was hooking up something to my face.
I was out again.
I woke again, this time in a room alone.
When I slept and woke again it was dark out. I could hear my mother's voice and for a moment I thought it had worked.
"I can't—I can't deal with him right now. Just, call me if he changed or anything okay? If he asks say we're coming. I just can't right now," my mother was saying to the nurses.
"Yes, of course. The operation went fine. He'll sleep till morning."
"Okay, okay good, I didn't—I didn't know he had that stuff, that could do that."
"No, of course not, don't feel bad. You need your rest. It's been a long couple of days."
"Yeah, it has."
And then she was gone. I lay there in the dark, tears streaming down my cheeks, sobbing my heart out. Because I'd blown my leg off. And no one was there.
When the nurses came they tried to dry my tears. I told them not to touch me. They thought I was crying because I lost my leg.
"I can get a new leg," I snarled. I knew already I couldn't get love. Human interaction. A bond. Somebody who would come to the hospital and stay there with me when I'd blown myself apart.
So, what, let me ask you, is it worth keeping together for?
I might as well shatter.
If they couldn't love me, no one surely ever will.
And so that is why I know that hope is lost. There's something, in my fates, in the stars, that stops people from caring about me, I don't know what. But they won't be there. And so I'm very alone, and very lonely, and very sad. But there isn't anything to be done. That's why it doesn't matter, I've sold my soul to Satan. It doesn't matter what heaven was there for me anyway? At least in hell I'll have Mephistopheles.
"Why were you arguing with that boy?" The cop is standing in front of me. I don't look at him, I look down at the table.
"I want to speak to an attorney," I say, calmly.
"You're not in trouble."
"Then you'll have no issue with my speaking to legal counsel," I say, calmly.
"You can call an attorney after you tell us how the fight started."
"I want to speak to an attorney now."
They get me my attorney. It takes about an hour, for my mother's legal team to come through. I don't call her, mind. I call the legal team directly. Wouldn't want to interfere or be a burden or anything.
My attorney looks relieved it's just a fight and not something more sinister, coming in in a crisp suit, despite having clearly rolled out of bed given its three in the morning.
"How did the fight start?" He asks.
"The boy in question was talking with the girl I was with at the dance. She no longer wished to talk to him and tried to leave. He continued bothering her. She was visibly upset. I approached and asked that he leave, he refused, causing the altercation. I said chants in Latin and cut my arm to intimidate him. Clearly it worked," I say, smoothly, leaning back in the chair.
"Why didn't the girl want to talk to him?" He asks.
"I don't know."
"You didn't ask?"
"I didn't need to. If the person I am with is uncomfortable in a situation then I help them get out of it. I may be shit with social cues, but I understand how empathy's intended to work," I say.
"But you didn't ask her for a reason?"
"She doesn't need to give me one. She didn't want to talk to him, she came there with me, ergo I offered to remove her from the situation. Had I read it wrong and she did want to talk to him she could have said, she did not, she indicated that she did want to leave with me, he prevented us, again, I said what I did to intimidate him. I have bruises on my neck from where he grabbed me. Thankfully, my roommate came and helped," I say, coolly.
"You're collected."
"My leg blew up once. Also, it's been six hours. Novelty wears off, and it's not the worst thing that's happened to me," I scoff, "That's the time I was stuck on the tarmac for seven hours in O'Hare airport."
"Not the time your leg blew up?"
"It was a small plane."
"All right, they may have more questions, but I'll have you out of here."
"Don't hurry," I don't care. Going out there to the empty waiting room will be worse than anticipating it, I think. I'm so far behind hope the bits of me that dream are all smoldering at the edges now. I am going to be alone, as always.
The cops come back in and have me write up a statement. They take pictures of my neck where the bruises are. At some point during this Father Thomas makes his way in to check on me.
"Did everyone else go home?" I ask, trying to stop the sadness from rising in my voice.
"Mostly, the Coaches are driving them back in stages. I'm here to check on you," he says, diplomatically.
"I'm fine," I smile thinly at him.
The cops come and ask the same questions again. Apparently Lorrain lawyered up too. Our lawyers are probably going to collectively decide to drop it. My lawyer wants to know if I'm pressing charges.
"I don't know, I need a good nights sleep and I've not had it, once I have, you'll be the first to know," I want to ask Helen if she's still upset about whatever happened. Then I'll decide if I'm pressing charges or not. I don't care for me, but she might. Hopefully she went home by now to go to sleep. It's four in the morning they still can't be questioning her can they? I hope not.
"Ready to get out of here?" Coach is sent to fetch me, and he unceremoniously leans in, smelling of cigarette smoke, still sticky with fire extinguisher fluid.
"More than," I say, standing up, painfully. My artificial leg hurts after all this time.
"Come on, before your entourage gets arrested."
"My what?" I genuinely don't get what he means until Mephisto has his arms about my neck. He rushes to me the moment I'm free of the double doors, in his ruined tux, curls sticking to his face, smiling broadly despite the rivet down his cheek.
"All right, let's blow this town," he says, kissing my temple and swinging on me like a child, "Helen's waiting in the bus—are you okay? Why is he crying? Who hurt him?"
"Nobody, who knows, we can talk in the car," Coach scoffs.
"Are you all right?" Mephisto asks, holding me up as I collapse against him.
"You waited," I whisper, clinging to his shirt. "It's four in the fucking morning and you fucking hate cops and you waited."
"Of course I did. Wild horses, man, that's what we do," he says, holding me up, "He's fine, he's fine, let's just go."
We go out to the parking lot. A school van is idling there waiting for us. Helen is lying on the seats, looking like she was trying to sleep.
"You both waited for me," I whisper, still holding onto Mephisto.
"Sure," Helen says, sitting up.
"Look, I'm going to be honest with you people, if we go back now you're gonna sleep through breakfast and I'm not gonna get to have a cigarette because I have to call Faustus' and Williams' parents and explain why you are the way you are—,"
"Break it down, I'm stupid, are you gonna give us an option including us getting cigarettes and breakfast?" Mephisto asks.
"Yep,"
"We want that one!" We all say.
He takes us to a drive through coffee place and gets us breakfast burritos and coffee with as many espressos as I request, while he and Mephisto smoke. I lie down in the seat, my leg in Mephisto's lap. I take off the artificial one because it's been hurting, and I lie with my head against the rough blue seats.
We drive back to campus, and I watch the sunrise streak through the bus' tinted windows. It casts rays across Mephisto's soft face, his bent nose, throwing shadows on his scar, as he talks animatedly, arguing with Coach and Helen about the fight last night and the merits of whatever point system the middle schoolers assigned it, soon getting Helen laughing.
The cigarette dangles from his lips, and he occasionally takes it out to gesture with. The smoke drifts from his lips and the rolled paper, curving through the morning air, in sharp contrast to his stern features, the smoke and his hair are soft curled, smooth as ash. It's lying there, that I realize that I would rather be nowhere else than here, watching him smoking, a smile on his cocky lips as he curves them to hold the cigarette.
There should be a concerto, a musical piece, boy with a cigarette, smiling in the morning sun. Beautiful boy, smoking at sunrise. I'd listen to that forever. For when my eyes close I want to absorb this feeling right here of wonderment at such a simple, raw beauty that lives in the lines of his face and the tip of his hand, the lines on his fingers, as he brings the cigarette back to his lips.
When we get back to campus I move to put on my leg.
"You can get on my back if you like," Mephisto says, shrugging, "You look half asleep."
"Really?"
"Really," he says, swinging me onto his back easily. I seal my arms around his neck.
Coach walks Helen to her dorm, after instructing us to go to ours. I don't know why he acts like we'd go someplace else. I don't know; he's paranoid. Anyway. We make our way back to Dover house. Most everyone else is just rising.
Mephisto lays me in bed, and tugs the cover over me. I roll into my pillow, too tired to move or argue.
"You'll be here when I wake up?" I mumble.
"Should be, or I'm getting us coffee, go to sleep," he says, reaching out and putting a hand through my hair. His hand smells like nicotine. He always smells of nicotine. Perhaps I am addicted to nicotine. That or him. No, definitely him.