First Day of School

School registration day was around the corner, and Billy signed up to be an actor. “An actor,” his father said, “was one that could take on any job in the world and be successful for they had more confidence than the President and more perseverance than the Army soldier down the road to not give up in the face of rejection.” Billy thought his Dad to be like an actor, though truth, he didn’t really know what he did for a living, but he thought the same of him.

Billy had a one-on-one meeting with his school advising councilor over the topic of what made Princeton, Princeton. An Ivy league school that trained astronauts in law and trained gunners of the war to think right. A trait he admired. He would sit down and talk about his plans for the future- an actor of the highest degree. Not only one that performed on screen, but also performed in the real world… abroad in foreign nationalist at a dinner party for Flag and Birth Right.

He had previously attended an all American high school, received a medal for helping a cat up a tree in Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, though it was really for building homes for the homeless, and received a letter from the state Congressman for his political endeavor over the summer. Senator Chambers became the first woman of the state to represent the Democratic Republic.

When the time finally came to sit down with the councilor, he threw up prior to his Spring Semester class selection. He was seventeen and had graduated a semester early to attend. He received straight A’s in all his classes except for Physical Education. The irony being the his father was the PE coach. He received a A- for attendance. He snogged Emily Bartholomeus one too many times beforehand and his father thought equal treatment for equal pay, or rather grade in his case.

His first class of the week was acting 101- a verbatim lesson in how to perform in front of others on stage and for the screen. “The first class is always the hardest,” his councilor said. “The biggest struggle is attending.” He thought he was merely being told what he failed at in high school and that she wasn’t very good at her job. Calculus II, World Languages, and English Rhetoric rounded out his schedule for the semester. Princeton's finest is what they called him. He thought the Marines would have been finer, but his father said no to enlisting that day he brought it up.

“Pilot officer or nothing,” he said.

“I’ll guess I’ll go act then,” Billy said.

“Fine trade,” he said. “The peace corps after will deliver you to where you want to go.” He always did know the options, just not necessarily which was best for him. Maybe they were all the best.

The Just ask me session came next. Billy sat down with other students from around the world and got to know them. The idea being that each child had a story to tell before leaving teenage years behind. Unfortunate truth, a Marine veteran dresses in his service uniform sat ready with a clipboard and pen. He wrote everything down and when asked what his favorite food was he said, “The Marine Corps didn’t issue me a favorite meal, ma’am.” Billy was immediately lost for thought about what that could mean. He loved the uniform though and thought what it must be like to be an astronaut in the Marines.

Sally Goldberg from Indiana was a transfer student from Notre Dame. She reached around the table and poured herself a cup of coffee and when asked by the councilor what her mission in life was, she stirred the coffee with an imaginary wooden stick, held it up to her face to feel the heat rise, and took a sip before pulling away rapidly as if she was burnt then shook her head putting it down. She said, “to do what I just did a million time over.”

Grant McMillian said, “What? Get burnt a million times?”

She replied, “No, mystery man. Make you believe I got burnt a million times.” She had acted and the whole room believed her including Billy.

Once the roundtable ended, the matter of tuition became a priority. The council stood and passed out a loose-leaf paper with details about how tuition worked and how the financial aid office was no longer around. President Trump in his second term removed it. Yet, the councilor said, “Only four easy payments on an on-going basis will secure your spot in class each semester. January 1st, your bill will be available.

January 1st. There was no delay in the school earning their funds though those who couldn’t afford to pay for school had to take out private loans. Billy thought no doubt from President Trump’s bank on the shores of America while he worked on his tan. Billy paid attention like the good sport he was and when it was finally time to wrap up the session, the council thanked each one of them for their courage in becoming part of the elite. She reminded them that tution was due on the 1st of February. Billy thought of his dad and how he would pay for it- then remembered he said to push money from his mind.

“Your mom and I have worked hard to make sure you don’t have to. We want the American Dream just as bad as you do, son, and we’re more than happy to help at each step. We’ll be there at graduation and you’ll be ready to lead. We love you.” He gave him a kiss on the top of the head and a hug.

The first day of classes came quicker than he had hoped. January 21st at 8AM – Acting 101. When he arrived, he saw Sally Goldberg sitting in the front row behind the theater stage. He walked around the chairs and sat next to her without saying a word. He had developed a crush on her, but like his dad was to be, he thought, sit next to the prettiest girl, like I did with your mom. You’ll be married within a week at heart. She smelled of Paris purfume in the Autumn. Her hair shimmered like gold. He dress rised above her knee. She was everything he wanted and more. He wondered if even now she was acting. He didn’t know.

When the professor arrived at 8:00 on the dot, he felt the Princeton prestige arrive. He wore a dapper jacket, laced golfing shoes, and wore a backpack with both straps around his arms. He placed the bag down and walked to the center podium. He stopped, scanned the room, and then addressed the class.

“Good morning, class,” he said in a drawled out Southern accent, then changed to an uptown Boston accent. “I’m Professor Milton. I’ll be your professor for the next semester and if you happen to pass then I’ll be your cohort professor for the foreseeable future for once we graduate we become alum and once we become alum we become friends and once we become friends we become enemies and like my second wife, once we become enemies we become lovers for life and cheat on our exes with our fallen foes.” Billy like him immediately.

“Today we will not be discussing the idea of what it means to be an actor, but we will begin acting- that is developing our sense of self through a future truth and a present lie. We no longer worry about what our parents taught us about lying for on the stage we tell the truth to the audience and in this room we tell the truth to each other through use of lies. We lie and we tell the truth, then we tell the truth and then we lie is the method of a great actor in the world. I do not mean an actor who only recites lines like a parakeet, but an actor who will go into the world as someone entirely new, whether that be proactive seductress who gets labeled a rake or a fashionable chap from England while really from California. We train you here to be formidable advisories in the art of acting and the acting art of performing. Performing beyond the scope of television while remembering even those who perform on television say they are who they are and in a round about way tell us the truthful lie of yesterday for our entertainment or for our propaganda that we and our country spout out.”

Billy thought the professor was bold and aired on the arrogant side for no ones sake. Although, between the rising line of Sally’s skirt line and the professor long winded antidote about acting, he felt no greater thrill and no higher calling than to be where he was at the precise moment in time. He liked to think God arranged the meeting that day, though foolishly thought and less than respectful for he said a prayer that would one day surly haunt him, Dear God, please let me fuck Sally Goldberg and get an A. I’d kill for it. Opps… he said the one word that he wished he could take back. Kill.

By the time that Billy came to from imagining his oral sex from Sally after a dinner party of murder mystery where they all acted as foreign dignitaries from around the world, the professor had split up the class into groups of 5. Sally was not with Billy, though that didn’t stop either one of them from giving the occasional glance to one another. They were to create personas together and then split up into the different groups to introduce their new selves. Who they really wanted to be. Billy could think of no other than his father, William Krasky, the son of an Archduke heir of Austria who followed the line of succession from the Hapsburgs and ruled over the Holy Roman Empire from the 15th to 20th century.

The professor then called out to end the brainstorming session and begin their new lives. Billy immediately walked over to the group were Sally Goldberg and 4 other students were discussing their new identity. He stood tall and introduced himself to her.

“Hello, I’m Mr. William Krasky, heir to the von Hapsburg throne.”

“Mr. Krasky, I’m sorry but right now is not the time for peaceful transition of power to me, you see I’m in the middle of a very serious debate over the world threat of communism rearising and I just need your opinion on the matter.” Billy was stunned. He had never met a woman his age that was so bold and so determined to see her persona shine. She continued, “you see, I’ve studied the literature like our parents and their parents before us, and communism doesn’t exist. I mean it simply does not exist. It’s more like a thought process for the anti-establishment movement that are categorized together for the sake of the US Government like fascisms or left-wing ideology.”

“I thought hedonisms, but yes I can see your point,” Billy countered without fully grasping the intellectual play at process.

“Well go on tell me your thoughts on the educational process,” she said.

The moment struck Billy that he had nothing to say. He words had simply hypnotized him and he thought her true to her self. She really did wish to make everyone believe that she was burnt of coffee in each and every moment. When enough time had passed, he could only think of Runescape and how leveling was like life. And so, he ran with it.

“Education is like a cityscape landscape that prides itself in only ever being half-way there. By the time that we graduate high school, we are only halfway through our education. By the time that we graduate from our under graduate, we are again only halfway thorough. Then again, when we graduate from graduate school our parents tell us that we are lifelong learners and we are only halfway through. Perhaps it’s like communism in the sense that we umbrella the term education to meet the goals of some high minded individual who is still only halfway through on his death bed.” And then he let it slip. “We are only ever level 92 of level 99 in life with education. We level ourselves up to the point of believing we are almost there, but then realize that those who came before us set the bar so high that we are still halfway through being schooled by our predecessors. And like my inheritance to be of the Habsburg family, I too, am only ever halfway through.”

Sally smiled and attempted to cover it up by biting her lip. She blushed in the cheeks and thought highly of him. “Well said, Mr. Krasky. Well said.”

Just then the professor joined the class.

“Now! I’m sure we’ve at least spoken with the group about our identities and who we wish we were. Let us regroup.”

The group that Billy and Sally were a part of simply stared at one another and then at the two of them.

“What?” they both said in unison and then sat down together.

Sally then did what Billy would have only thought possible in dreams. She hiked her skirt up to above her middle thigh, grabbed his hand, placed it squarely on hers, and placed one hand over his then the other, and made a humph noise. She had chosen him, and he had a hard on.