Chapter 3, Pause
Austin and I have some pointless banter for a few minutes after we make it to the chemistry class. We're still talking about stupid crap up till the minute the class starts.
After the bell rings, we both go silent to listen to the sound of the bell.
When it's finished, he looks at me and I look at him in silence. He breaks the silence by calling me a prick, with no context whatsoever.
"you too," I say, knowing full well it makes no sense to say that.
The teacher walks in about a minute later, fumbling a few papers in his hand after entering the classroom.
He's a man who looks like he's in his early 30''s or late 20's. He's got a full black beard, speckled with white hairs going from ear to ear. It looks like it's hiding a strong jawline. Behind the thick lenses of glasses lie electric blue eyes. He may have almost dropped his papers, but he looks ecstatic just to be here. He smiles at all the students with a warm parental-type smile and greets them all by name. His tone of voice is cheery and deep.
He's wearing a grey coat that goes just above his knees with three large buttons on it, there is a white dress shirt and a striped tie underneath.
A bit warm for the summer, don't you think?
Well, Mom does say you just get colder as you age. It's none of my business what he wears.
He eventually greets me and Austin who are sitting at the back of the class. When we can, we usually sit in the back, which gives us more leeway to talk during class. It's like we're always trying to be just out of earshot of the teachers.
As people are still talking, he interrupts them by raising his voice just a few pitches lower than a shout.
"Alright, students." He exclaims.
After everyone pays attention to him and shuts up, he begins the lesson.
"So, today I was going to have you write a bunch of boring and stupid notes. But you know what? How about we start today off with an experiment." This piques the interest of the students.
"So, today we're going to make something called a super-saturated solution. Does anyone know what that is?" the class goes silent.
There's a red-headed girl in the front row who raises her hand.
"Is that like an acid solution Mr. Radek?" she says quietly before coughing and looking down.
"No, but that's a good guess Emma, thank you." He adjusts his classes.
"Basically, a supersaturated solution is a solution that contains more than the maximum amount of solvent or solute that would be allowed at normal temperatures." He calls to one of the students to grab him two beakers from the glass cabinet in the corner of the classroom while he grabs some chemicals from a locked cabinet in the front of the class.
While he's getting everything ready, Austin shows me a meme on his phone and says, "Looks like you." The meme is of an old emo man. I mean, that's the best way to explain it. Some old dude with long hair covering one eye and taking a selfie in a mirror.
"That looks like your uncle after your aunt left him," I say back.
"Ay man, we don't joke about that." He says while pretending to be serious and putting his phone in his pocket. He's always feigning being angry as his form of humor, if you didn't know him like I do you'd think he's always serious.
Mr. Radek begins talking after gathering everything together at the front of the class.
"So, here we have our regular distilled water and what's called sodium acetate."
"The experiment is relatively simple, we're going to heat up our solvent AKA the distilled water, and then we're going to add Sodium Acetate to the solvent." He says while laughing.
I like the fancy science-y words, maybe I'll be a scientist if I ever grow up, I think to myself.
"First, let's get our measurements correct. We're going to add 150 grams of sodium acetate to this beaker, and 30 grams of distilled water to this one." He begins pouring his ingredients, is that even the right term? Maybe cooking is akin to chemistry? Probably.
"Now, can anyone guess what the next step will be?" There are a few seconds of silence before I blurt out "Mix 'em' together!"
I gotta yell since we were in the back of the class, but my voice cracked as I said that.
"That's right, Danny. We're going to mix them together." He says while his eyes are focused on the experiment.
Austin nudges me with his elbow and says, "Drop your balls already." Before chuckling at me.
I look back at him and say quietly "Man you gotta put a diaper on your mouth, all you ever do is talk shit." I feel good about that insult before he retorts.
"I seen you in diapers till you were seven bro, don't talk nothing about diapers to me. Remember when you pissed yourself at my place during that sleepover? I'm like an elephant bro, I don't forget." We both know it's not true, but the people who can hear us talking know we've been friends forever and giggle thinking he's telling the truth.
Well, in small cities like this, you basically grow up with your friends from kindergarten all through high school. We've basically been stuck with each other since we were just wee lads.
I just shake my head at him, and he says to me "Okay, pay attention you're distracting me."
Mr. Radek's already mixed the two chemicals together.
He lifts a white solution that looks like, I don't know, clumpy sand. And shows the class.
"Now we can see that the solution mostly retained the look of sodium acetate, but just a little wet."
I haven't even grabbed my binder out of my bag yet, I'm gonna do that and take out my notes. Maybe I'll have to write this down.
"So, to make this a supersaturated solution, we're going to need to add heat to it." He plops the solution down on a burner that he already preheated before starting the experiment.
"Now, as we wait for the solution to heat up, let me explain the mechanisms that are taking place here. First of all,..."
My focus on what he's talking about begins to dissolve like the solution.
My gaze is absorbed in the solution heating up. Watching the breakdown of the chemicals that seep into the distilled water, my mouth begins to generate saliva. I reach into my pocket to clutch the lighter I borrowed from Vanessa this morning. Completely enthralled by the experiment, the sound of the teacher and students talking seems to dissipate from the world. I begin flicking the lighter in my pocket to hear the scraping of the flint against the metal spark wheel. It's slightly muffled by my pants, so I begin to take it out of my pocket. But just as quickly as my attention was disrupted by the class, it's back as Austin again nudges my shoulder.
And it's like the sounds of the world begin to vibrate in my eardrums again.
I turn to him, while my eyes are still a bit widened from looking at the experiment from across the room.
He leans in close to me and says:
"You can't just play pocket pool in class bro." whispered into my ear.
He's still by my ear and whispering.
"At least wait until you get home to rub one out bro, I don't wanna be associated with an exhibitionist." He says while laughing and sitting back in his seat, his wide smile goes across his face, and he tries to silence his laughter by putting his forearm over his mouth while staring away from me.
I laugh a bit too.
"I'm not jaying off in class you freak," I say while taking my hand out of my pocket and showing him my lighter.
"I was just wondering how this got into my pants." A little white lie on my part, I know why it's there.
"I've been losing my focus all morning bro, I don't even know where I got this from." Hoping that'll shut him up.
"Liar, I mean nothing wrong with having these sorts of thoughts. You are a growing boy." He says while moving his books slightly away from me and nudging his chair also slightly away.
"Just don't do it here bro." why am I friends with him again?
I just laugh with him to not make it weird.
The teacher's already done notes he put up on the blackboard about what's happening to the solution.
He takes the beaker off the heat and sets it aside, later in the class he makes a demonstration of the crystallization process. He adds a tiny sprinkle of sodium acetate to the now clear solution, and it immediately begins to crystallize the entire beaker in Sodium Acetate crystals. I thought it looked cool as hell, and so did everyone else.
I got distracted by Austin and didn't write as many notes as I should've, and when the bell rings for lunch I ask him if he finished writing notes down.
Of course, he didn't, he gestured to his head and said the only notes I need are all up in here.
Well, I'm at fault too. I was staring out the windows towards the front of the school for a few minutes, just trying to figure out why I feel so out of wits today.
We begin to stand up and walk toward the front of the class, I'm still walking behind Austin. Passing by the desks I look down and see some relatively fresh defacing of the desk that says "Fuck off" in pen. The depth of the pen ink looks like it caused the desk to be engraved with the words.
I don't know who was sitting here, but damn. Dude's got problems.
As we're walking out of the class, I can smell some perfume. Or maybe cologne, it seems to be coming from the teacher.
Mr. Radek looks up from his notes just as Austin's made his way out of the class and turns to face me and says, "Hey Danny, it's good to see you in class." Before giving me a warm smile and says see you tomorrow. I try my best to return the gesture, I'm not very good at it though.
I think I said, "You too." Again, like I did to Austin before class started.
Turning away from him, I run to catch up to Austin and ask him what class we have next.
"I got History bro; I don't know what class you got." He says while gliding his hands across the lockers in the hallways.
Austin turns to me and says:
"Fucking... catch up bro. you're stressing me out with how confused you're acting today. You're usually more on the ball." As we start walking downstairs, he begins walking towards the exit down the halls.
There's the loud thudding of the school body walking through the halls and talking to each other, as I'm following Austin, I look up to see a few dead lights on the ceiling and the exit sign flickering on and off as though it's on its last legs.
The halls are a bit overstimulating.
Since we're pretty idle right now, I'm gonna check my phone which I've neglected.
I pull out my brick of a phone and see that there are 19 new text notifications and 3 missed calls. Damn. I don't even wanna open those. I'll deal with it later; I think to myself and place my phone back into the depths of my pocket.
I start patting my pockets, they feel a bit lighter. I mean my lighter is in there, but I feel like there's something else missing.
I pat them some more and dig through them when it dons on me that I don't have my keys. Fuuuuuuck-
Mom is gonna be pissed if I lose my keys again.
"Again?".
"Yeah, I usually lose things, Don't I..."
Whatever, I'm naturally bad at keeping track of my stuff. I'll retrace my steps and look for them that way.