Tim Pratt - Sympathy for the Devil

Mephisto: This is no game, Faustus.

Faustus: It isn’t? I thought it was the alembic games.

Mephisto: Worry not about Helen, magister. If she disobeys you, I’ll cull thee out the wildest Frauleins in the north of Europe.

Faustus: The cull of the wild, eh? Sounds like a bunch of dogs to me. And who’s going to clean up after them, tell me that. If I gave you half a chance you’d wreck this happy home.

Faustus whips out a book of raffle tickets and proffers them.

Faustus: How about half a chance? Cost you ten marks.

Mephsito (aside): An eon up to his chin in boiling manure. (to Faustus) Just now I don’t feel lucky.

Faustus: So? Never mind that, pick a card.

Mephistopheles begins to beat his head against the table.

Faustus: Hey, watch that finish! Okay, look, just keep an eye on Wagner for me, then. He wants to examine Helen’s thesis. Can you imagine the consequences if she managed to seduce that boy? Why, she’s been dead for two thousand years! What would his mother say? What would I say?

Mephisto: What would you say?

Faustus: Is it true that you wash your hair in clam broth?

Mephisto (aside): A codpiece of burning iron.

MEPHISTO’S SONG:

I was once an angel bright, lived by heaven’s wall

Never had no problems, never took on city hall

Then Lucifer sought out my help in his election bid

To revolutionize God’s government; don’t ask me how we did.

Then I was proud to be a demon, didn’t care if I was damned

Frolicked in the brimstone pools, surfed the Styx ’s strand

A sophisticated soul from Dante’s seventh circle down

Until the day I found myself working for this clown.

Now I’m Faustus’s fool

There’s not a thing I can do

My fate’s intolerably cruel

Each day it hits me anew

(If I were alive I would kill myself.)

Smuggled off to Rome to swipe the Papal second course

Riding on a bale of hay changed into a horse

Lighting his cigars, cleaning up his mess

Playing tricks on ostlers, IQs forty-three or less

Scaring up a bowl of grapes on January first

Mixing up a stupid drink to quench a stupid thirst

Chasing down new girls for him to catechise unsightly

Doing stupid card tricks watching stupid card tricks nightly.

I’m only Faustus’s tool

There’s no one that I can sue

Stuck in this backwater school

Feeling so battered and blue.

(Please sir, may I have another Tylenol?)

There’s no kind of man I haven’t tempted in my days

I’ve hung with every ex-seraphim this side of Hades

Sent Alexander a mosquito, taught Cleopatra how to kiss

Told Lao Tzu to quit his job, and now I’m down to this.

They say the Lord of Heaven’s ways work quite mysteriously

Pal, I’m here to tell you what they say they say it justly.

Just one thought has kept me sane for twenty-seven years

That’s at the stroke midnight I’ll be drying all my tears

For now I’m Faustus’s fool

Trapped within his arena

Doing hops through his hoops

I ain’t seen nothing obscener.

(Bet your dog can’t dance like this.)

Clock: You think you’ve got it bad, let’s switch jobs awhile, Sam

At least you get to walk around, I’m frozen on this stand

What’s more I can’t remember why he strapped me to this block

I must have pissed him off some way. Bong! It’s five o’clock.

Mephisto: Five o’clock! That means he’s only seven hours away

From a certain course of exercise I’m planning from this day

I’ll whip him into shape, I’ll take a pound of flesh or more

He’ll be twice the man he is today and I’ll be half as sore.

No longer Faustus’s fool

There’ll be some things I can do

I’ll be intolerably cruel

He’ll end up scholarly stew.

(Wizard guts-they’re not just for breakfast anymore!)

While Faustus and Mephisto banter in the study, the door to Faustus’s apartments opens silently and Wagner sneaks in. He goes to the study door, listens, hears their voices, music. Sniffs the air. As Faustus comes to open the door he rushes across the common room into the bedroom, looks around frantically, then hides in the closet, where he trips over some shoes and bumps into Helen. The closet is cut away, so we can view the inside. Dim light. Hanging robes. Heaps of shoes, boots. Helen, bored.

Wagner: Mmmph! Who is it?

Helen (helping him up): It is I, Helen.

Wagner: Helen! Just who I’ve been looking for. I must see you.

Helen: And here I am without a candle.

Wagner: No one can hold a candle to you! I need you, Helen. You cannot know the torture I’ve been through imagining what Faustus has been doing with you.

Helen: Is that why you came into the closet?

Wagner: Faustus sent me on a fool’s errand, but now that I’m with you I’ll never play the fool again. He expects me to find an imp he lost. I snuck in to search his books for a spell to help me. I don’t know why he can’t do it himself.

Helen: He knows how to do it himself. But sometimes he’d rather not. Look at me.

Faustus and Mephistopheles enter the bedroom. Fausts makes Mephistopheles go down on all fours and begins to use him as a card table, laying out a solitaire hand with his tarot deck. Steam begins to rise from Mephisto’s collar.

Wagner: I wish I could. Say, do you smell burning sulfur?

Helen: You should never eat radishes.

Wagner: Who can he have out there with him?

Helen: Some visiting scholar, surely. I’m so glad you found me. I didn’t even suspect you knew of my existence. I’ve been so bored, cooped up in here. It’s worse than life with Menelaus ever was. And Sparta was heaven compared to this! I’m still a young woman. I want to sing, I want to dance, I want to enjoy every particle of life! Can you help me, dear student?

She kisses him passionately. Steam begins to rise from Wagner’s collar, too. Outside in the bedroom, Faustus is coughing from the gathering smoke in the room; he gathers up his cards, waves the billowing clouds of smoke away and retreats to the common room. Mephisto rises and follows.

Wagner: I’ll do my best. You have to realize I’m not very experienced at…

Helen: Don’t worry. Troy wasn’t ruined in a day. But now you must go.

Wagner: Go? But I just got here.

Helen: Nevertheless. If Faustus found you here his jealously would know no bounds. Come back later, fair student. Tonight! Faustus will be gone until midnight. Return at eleven, and I will show you arts of which I alone am mistress. Until then you must do his bidding.

Wagner: Eleven? How can I wait that long, thinking of you?

Helen: Troilus recommended strenuous exercise and cold baths. Until eleven, my love!

She propels him out the door.

In the Boar’s Bollocks Inn. Albergus sits at a table with Bateman plotting Faustus’s destruction. A buxom barmaid serves their beers. Albergus is indifferent, but Bateman inspects her avidly.

Albergus: A half-witted student merely looks into that book and is able to conjure up an imp! Can you imagine the power that volume must contain?

Bateman: A guy could have a hot time with that book.

Albergus: It is all a matter of knowing the right words. Faustus’s book must contain the language of UrCreation.

Bateman (watching waitress): Or even the language of procreation?

Albergus: You see, Bateman, most language is just empty words. You’ve sat outside on a splendid fall afternoon, and the sun warmed your limbs, the sweet breeze caressed your cheek, you lay back and watched the skies, the bullocks, the squirrels?

Bateman:-the thighs, the buttocks, the girls-

Albergus:-it’s a total sensory experience-