EXOTHERMIC
REACTION Definition: A chemical reaction that produces heat.
Another Coming of Age Confession by Tragic Rabbit
[Disclaimer:
This is another TR true story. All
persons and places existed, once upon a time when I was fifteen. No names have
been changed though some have been forgotten. The story, in all its parts,
belongs solely to TR but the memories are now yours to share. Enjoy and drop me
a line if, in fact, you do: tr@tragicrabbit.org]
EXOTHERMIC REACTION
The
teacher is up front, talking notes at us; something about this afternoon’s
experiment (or maybe more crap about
Biorhythms,
Mancuso is a nut).
The overheads are harsh; I really hate fluorescents. They make it so hard to hide my zits.
Today is Wednesday, lab day, and you can feel the room zinging with teen
energy; invisible forces lancing off the walls and lighting up our bodies. Reactants and reaction.
Why? Because Dr. Mancuso
really is a nutball; he always, and I mean always, goes off and leaves us alone for
lab. God knows why, and only God knows
what he does when he’s gone. Lab Rule #1: Perform laboratory work only
when your teacher is present. Unauthorized or unsupervised laboratory
experimenting is not allowed. The principal would fire Mancuso if he ever
found out; if any student was stupid enough to tell. Not a chance in hell of
that. What could be sweeter sugar to a pack of fifteen-year-olds than the
proximity of their peers and…privacy?
Not
a goddam thing, trust me.
So,
once a week, for labs, we kiss our crazy professor goodbye (metaphorically
speaking; he’s at least sixty, though undeniably a lech), and commence our
chemical combustions. Oh, we do the assigned work, more or less, or enough of
us do it that the rest can vamp, share notes, copy results. This is Honors Chem
Class; it’s not like we’re hurting for brains in the room. They leak out all
over, oozing from ears.
You
know, it’s funny but there’s just nobody lazier than a bunch of genius kids.
What we can get away with, we do get away with, and then all we’ve
done is raise the bar of indolence. Put us together and we can solve world
hunger, that is, if we can be pried from our distractions. Television, our
complexions, the latest styles, our stereos, our complexions, our music, what
movies came out last week, our complexions, who was mad at whom and what this
other person had to say about it.
But
the triumphal distraction is the end-all and be-all, the rising and setting of
our sophomore suns, the reason for
style, for cleverness, the reason we get out of bed in the morning (no small feat when you’re fifteen), and why
privacy is the grail we seek without ceasing; that little three-letter word
that’ll smite you down faster than any (other) Act of God:
S-E-X.
Sex, the touching and glancing and
frisson and fullness and…
SEX.
Shit, is he/she looking? At me? Oh, God!
SEX.
Yay-es! Can I get an ‘Amen’, brothers
and sisters?
Halleluiah.
Bless Dr. Nutso Mancuso and his independent lab assignments. May he live to be a thousand and die in the
company of ninety-nine nubile virgins. Allah be
praised and God damn his detractors.
Those rambling lectures, those freaky tangents on weird shit like
Biorhythms and the colors of our psychic energies, all are a small price to pay
for Heaven once a week—a lab to ourselves and two whole hours of time. Thanks to him, our suffering has surcease, if only once a week. Privacy with peers, a
roomful of thirty throbbing, clever, canny, crafty kids, and one single
assignment. No, not the one Dr.
Wackuso gives us but the other one, the mandate from our carnal medulla; our
animal corpus and its craving for touch.
It’s hard to concentrate, when your body is a traitor.
Case in point.
As Mancuso tells our lab work: a
fingertip, nothing more, one tiny fingertip traces against the skin of my neck,
just above my collar. I am resolute; I
refuse to turn. From the seat behind me, that single fingertip makes patterns.
I hold still, face forward, eyes front. I can feel that small patch of flesh
lighting up like those colorful, heat-sensitive plastic squares: swirls of
bright green, iridescent blue, violet and shocked yellow. The hair at the nape
of my neck is standing to attention, shivering in the wind. Other things salute, as well.
Damn,
damn, damn. Oh, God in heaven.
I
am looking at the teacher but could not, even to save my own precious life,
tell you what it was that he just said.
Or what that question was that the bitchy tall girl (who looks exactly
like Tennille, sans Captain) just asked. All my concentration is directed
backwards to that one spot, that point of contact, and
nothing else is real. I try to will my
mind towards the teacher, to the words, to the classroom itself, but it’s no
good. I can’t. I really can’t. I’m
helpless, drowning in sensation. Sense datum overload.
My ears are ringing; all outward sounds are far away. That fingertip slides, veeery slowly, along
the edges of my collar and, adding injury, sways tendrils of my longish hair
back and forth with each small motion; exciting my scalp in a shivering
sideshow. Yes, yes, I know whose finger it is. I ought to
know, this isn’t the first time.
I hate you, Terry.
And
that’s what really rankles. I do hate
him, or, at least, I don’t much like him, but even so, even so…
My
body is a traitor. My body is in
bliss. Inside my head, I scream: in
anger, in anguish. I really do hate you, Terry. I hope I have better taste.
Honestly, I do. But it’s as if my
head and heart have no vote in this; in this, in these little moments that
stretch into timelessness; his little experiments, his search for something,
and this, this exothermic reaction
that I can’t suppress. I’d love to hit him. Slap him; smash him.
Avoid unnecessary
movement and talk in the laboratory.
But
I don’t want him to take away that finger, to break that circuit. I couldn’t
bear it. I’ll die if he does, I’ll melt into the floor like a bad witch. I may do that anyway. Everything I am is
funneled down into that one, single, overwhelming sensory input. I close my eyes, giving up my battle to hear
Mancuso. Touch over teach. Touch over
taste. Touch over…and over. My body’s
casing of skin is alive with feeling; a crawling, gnawing feeling, and a throbbing
lower down that threatens my sanity.
Your concern for safety should begin even before the first
activity. Always read and think about each laboratory assignment before
starting.
My
lab partner, Gregg, that adorable hippy boy who thrilled me in August when he
insisted on being my lab partner
despite the plethora of mentats and socials and otherwise superior beings in
our honors Chem class, is shaking my arm. Apparently our Prof has made good his
escape; quod erat demonstrandum,
once again, that grownups are
inexplicable. He has left us alone; a
roomful of bright boys and girls, all seething and simmering. Some few are
setting up their lab work, pairing off and putting out (utensils of science,
don’t be crass!). Gregg would like my cooperation; he’s got the idea, God
forbid, that I’m the smart one. Either
way, it’s time to work. Without once
looking back at Terry, aloof but hoisting my Chem notebook
like a shield, I follow Gregg into the main lab area that adjoins our
lecture room.
The
door to the storage room is open.
Now,
see, this is where Mancuso really is taking his life into his hands, not to
mention his livelihood. It is absolutely not allowed to give the Keys to
Chemicals to us kids but, yes, he does it anyway, weekly, on Wednesdays. Unlocks the door and disappears to whatever
weird rewards are worth his paychecks. Trusting us not to set
things on fire or cause explosions.
Actually, we’ve done both. Jerry regularly makes things explode, but as
it’s usually on purpose, Wackuso looks the other way. And Kevin keeps an interesting beaker into
which he pours a tiny portion of each week’s potion, curious about what random
results might come from these combinations.
Now and then, as I say, things ignite.
Wear a laboratory
coat or apron and protective glasses or goggles for all laboratory work. Wear
shoes (rather than sandals) and tie back loose hair.
Once
we blew out the back of the lab but that was (technically) before term started,
and so doesn’t count. And, as it happens, no one told that affected Bio teacher
how events transpired. We all feigned
great ignorance, as did our erstwhile hero, the mendacious Mancuso. He is not
beloved by members of faculty; perhaps they, too, grow tired of Biorhythms,
numerology and other, weirder, Science.
Or maybe he’s put the moves on some of them as well. I can’t count the times he’s placed a
fatherly hand upon my knee, to tell me what a prodigious prodigy I was, and how
he looked to me, to us all, for wondrous things in future. In past, all I can say is that I’d declined, demurred, deflected; mainly by playing dumb. Amazing how dumb a smart kid can be, when he
wants to. Or…when he doesn’t.
Exhibit
A:
Terry.
Who is now following me
into the storage room, where Gregg and Wurtz
reaction have sent me. My cup runneth over. My list is in my hand. Check chemical labels twice to make sure you have the
correct substance. Some chemical formulas and names differ by only a letter or
number. Pay attention to the hazard classifications shown on the label. My
eyes are on the shelves: bottles, jars and beakers, all neatly ordered, tidily
tagged. Terry speaks my name but I’m
busy with titration calculation. No one
else is in the storeroom. He sidles up, crabwise, to stand behind me. My body, not fully recovered from his last
assault (dry Chem notes and Gregg notwithstanding) reacts unwisely. I am sure my shudder is a secret. I reread my
list, forgetting my sequence of events. To wit, I am distracted.
Allow
me to explain.
Terry
is not precisely unattractive. Terry is
slim, about my size and height, his brown hair is long and his skin is pale. He
has a vagueness to him that is disconcerting, a dreamy
look to his deep green eyes. He wears
tight blue jeans, day after day, year after year, varying only his tee shirt
slogans. He has a thong around his neck
from which dangles a twisty little golden shape that, he says, is a symbol of
masculine fertility. He has my phone
number but has never called, or perhaps he has and Mother hasn’t told me.
In
any case, to say that we were friends would be stretching definitions, but to
say that we were enemies would be nothing but a lie. We’re simply classmates;
class after class over year after year; row upon row of desks where we’ve
glanced at each other (and away) so many times. But a strange thing happened;
something changed over this past summer; some way, somehow, this fall has
become another wild world of teenage wonder. Hormones have blossomed like
hothouse orchids, seething in fertile soil. Hallways, lockerrooms,
and other proximities have doubled their torments. Something new is in the air;
I’ve sniffed it elsewhere but it’s nowhere so evident, so annoying, so
inescapable, as when Terry stands (as he so often does) within my private,
personal space.
I
am lifting down labeled lab jars. Terry
is…sniffing at my neck.
I
freeze, motionless. His breath tickles the hairs at the base of my
neck. If you are instructed to smell
something, do so by fanning some of the vapor toward your nose. Do not place
your nose near the opening of the container. Delicately, daintily, he moves his nose along
my flesh, scenting at me, smelling of me.
I swallow hard, and carefully set down the container I am holding. He
inhales deeply, drinking me in, and makes a near-inaudible noise low in his
throat. I am acutely, achingly, aware
that we are alone in the storeroom.
I
close my eyes, clench my hand and crumple the damn list. I hate
you, Terry. I hate you, but…
His
lips touch my skin and I gasp, exhaling all my anger. I feel the heat of him behind me, a triboluminescence, as he leans,
carefully, very slightly (but very definitely) onto and up against my body. Contact. I moan,
softly. Thermodynamics in action. All
boards are go.
I
turn (unwilling; completely willing) and, as I do, I open my eyes. I say
nothing. This boy, I have spent hours and years ignoring him but right now, I
can’t. The glint in his eyes says he knows it. He reaches out to either side of
me to grasp the wooden shelves, netting his prize between two arms. I look at
him; his eyes are so near; now transmuted to a deeper sea green. He stares into my own eyes and, again, he
says my name. This time my shudder is
more evident.
The
kinetic energy of a particle is equal to 1/2 multiplied by its mass multiplied
by the square of its velocity.
I
know I’m breathing fast, but it doesn’t matter. My skin has electricity racing
across it, a St. Elmo’s fire waking up each cell and lifting up each tiny
hair. His face is inches from mine and
still, magically, no one else has come into the storeroom. Not that there would
be objections, Chem lab has but one known purpose. Still, to be caught like
this…
But
caught, I am. He moves his arms closer,
reeling me in.
“Terry, stop.”
Did
I say that? Did it come out of my mouth? Apparently not,
because he doesn’t. Stop, I mean. He leans in closer, as if examining
the lids of my eyes, the number of my eyelashes. He’s breathing hard, too, a
slight consolation. I see only his green
eyes, my catalyst; feel nothing but his body so close to, but not entirely
against, my own. Pheromones; thermal indices. In case
of emergency, break glass. I back up, flat against the
shelves behind me that seem so solid. Whatever I felt about him, thought about
him, before (yesterday, this morning, a thousand years ago) disappears within
the circle of this closeness. I know
that I don’t (really) hate Terry, but I hate that he can (and does), so
casually, make me…
Theoretical Yield: the
quantity of a product obtained from the complete conversion of the limiting
reactant in a chemical reaction.
His lips touch mine and I yield entirely. He covers my mouth with his and I exhale into
that moist cavern, making some sounds I can’t account for. A tongue in my mouth and it’s not mine. I
suck on it, greedy. No, I can’t account for any of this; I’ve lost all capacity
for thought. He presses his hardness up
against me; I groan.
I am trapped between the shelves (poking sharp into
my back at fourteen-inch intervals) and the deep sea devil of his eyes; his
mouth on mine, his body grinding. We’re
both panting, it’s very hot in here. I push myself
against him, too, and make a few more noises.
He growls down in his throat, through the kiss, as if to eat me, devour
me, swallow me whole.
Each motion creates more motion, ripples and rings
of movement, and all centered at our groins.
A throbbing, painful, aching, leaking, need. I wrap my arms around his waist, then
slip hands lower; grasp and pull us closer.
I feel him, like an iron bar, through the denim. I move against him, an automatic response, a sublime heat.
Heat of sublimation: the
change in enthalpy for the conversion of 1 mole or 1 gram of a solid to a gas,
at constant pressure and temperature.
The
pressure between us, inside us, threatens to spill outward. A
lab accident, a small emergency.
Not so small, from what I can feel; neither, either, both
pressing, pushing, feeling, thrusting mindless and moaning into each
others’ mouths.
His
hands are on my rear, cupping me, mashing me closer, kneading
my flesh. His fingers, those proven dangerous digits, slip downward, between
and in and against: strumming, seeking, stroking.
And
that-
is it for me and I writhe and wriggle; his
mouth eating up my noises as my solid reaches liquid state.
He
pulls back, apart from me, panting like a racehorse, and looks. I’m trying to still my heart rate and slow my
breathing. He looks me up and down and then, slowly, he smiles. The front of his pants are
full (but not damp) and he still manages to look…amused. His smile is cat-like, canary-wise;
infuriating. He takes another step back,
as if to emphasize his own control. He crosses his arms across his chest and
he…smiles. I grit my teeth. His gold fertility charm
gleams in the overhead light.
Any laboratory accident,
however small, should be reported immediately to your teacher.
I
have just now remembered that I hate
him.
I
turn back to the shelves and, with every scrap of dignity I can scrape up off
the floor, I pick up Gregg’s list and look up the nearest shelf. I don’t speak;
I will not speak. I am reorganizing my dislikes, realigning my wishes. I wish Terry were on fire (and why isn’t he?) just so I could refuse to
piss on him. I remember every single,
solitary time he’s pestered me since junior high. Nothing good about him comes to mind just
now. I visualize Terry combusting; a spontaneous miracle. I finally hear him leave the storeroom but,
just before he exits, I hear him say, very softly, my name. Like a prayer; like
a promise.
He’s
gone.
And
here I am with my list and my wet spot and my humiliation. Any minute now, I’ll have to walk out of this
storeroom and finish up the Chem class. A lab to do, a grade
to make, a partner to placate.
Not that my hippy-trippy Gregg will hassle, he’s always sweet to me. Before leaving the laboratory, ensure that gas lines and
water faucets are shut off.
The
school is right; this storeroom is a goddam dangerous place for sophomores.
Fuck
you, Mancuso, what the hell were you thinking?
[THE END]
Disclaimer:
Exothermic Reaction is based on events in TR’s life; all persons and places
existed, once upon a time when I was fifteen. No names have been changed though
some may have been forgotten. The story, in all its parts, belongs solely to TR
but the memories are now yours to share. Enjoy and drop me a line if, in fact,
you do: tr@tragicrabbit.org
Read
other TR work at www.tragicrabbit.org
or join the reader email list at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TragicRabbit/
See, Terry, I do remember you!