Chapter 9: The Science Fair

Shelley showed her father what we had concocted and asked about something to hold a cigarette in. He scratched his head for a moment, and then pulled a pack of cigarettes, Marlboros, out of his pocket. He lit it up and took a drag on it, and then put the filter end into the end of our filter. “Turn it on,” he ordered.

I reached across the table and flipped the switch on the pump. It started chugging away, and the cigarette was pulled firmly into the small pipe on the end of the adapter we were using as a filter cap. The coal glowed brightly and began to quickly march down the length of the cigarette, to ultimately go out when it hit the filter. I turned off the pump. We all looked at each other, and Mr. Talbot said, “That cockamamie gizmo actually works. Nice going, kids.”

I stared at it again. “Yeah, I guess it does.” Holy shit, this thing actually worked!

Mr. Talbot lit up another Marlboro and put it in place and I flipped the switch again, and we watched it smoke another cigarette. “Well, now what? What exactly are you planning on doing?” He asked it of his daughter and lit up another cigarette. This one he started smoking himself.

Shelley stumbled a little explaining it, but I refrained from taking over. This was her moment, and I didn’t want to ruin it. At the end she turned to me and asked, “Did I say that right?”

I smiled. “Pretty much. By the end of this, we’re going to have to pretty it all up, but you got it right. We’re going to smoke a bunch of cigarettes through it, collect the tar, and measure it all.”

“Going to prove I shouldn’t be smoking these things, huh?” he said with a grunt.

“Daddy, it’s not like that!”

“Yeah, it is, honey. That’s exactly what it is. Don’t worry about it. If somebody had done this forty years ago, maybe they wouldn’t be killing me now,” he replied.

“Daddy?” she asked, suddenly fearful.

He coughed and smiled. “Not just yet, baby, but one of these days. I’ve still got a few years left. Just don’t you grow up as stupid as your mother and me. You, neither, young man,” he said to me.

“No thanks, sir. My father smokes L&Ms and I have no interest in it either,” I responded.

He just nodded at that. “Just how many cigarettes are we talking about, anyway?”

I looked a little sheepish at that. It was a big number. “Uh, I figure we’re going to need about five cartons per batch, and probably two or three batches.”

He stared at me and gave a quiet ‘oof’ sound. “That’s a lot of cigarettes. You got any preferences on brands?”

I shrugged. “More a matter of what they aren’t. We don’t want menthols, because they add a chemical to the tobacco which will just complicate things. And they shouldn’t be filter tips, just tobacco.”

“Why not?” he asked curiously.

“Well, we just built a filter. We don’t want any of the tar stopping at the cigarette, but only in the big filter.”

“Makes sense. Camel has a non-filter brand. You could try that, I suppose.”

“Uh, would you be able to buy some for us? I mean, we’ll pay, but no way is anybody going to sell us five cartons of cigarettes. We’re only fourteen!” I said.

He looked at me for a minute, and then lit up another Marlboro. “You already bought all these parts yourself, didn’t you?” He waved a finger towards the various filter parts.

I nodded. “Yes, sir.”

He nodded in understanding. “Tell you what, I’ll take care of the smokes. You and your parents can take care of the rest of the expenses. Agreed?”

“Yes, sir, that would be fine.” I stuck out my hand. What that meant was that I would pay my half of the bills. My folks would happily donate their time but wouldn’t cough up one red cent.

We shook hands and went upstairs. He offered to drive me over to my house, and today Shelley decided to come with us. She got into the back seat, so I did too, and she sat close to me. It was a move that caught her father’s eye, and while he didn’t say anything, he looked at us curiously when I got out. I refrained from kissing her good-bye, the better part of valor being discretion, and all that sort of thing.

I couldn’t get back over to Shelley’s to work on the project until the following Tuesday. She had to go out of town for the weekend and I had plenty to do to keep busy. Over the summer I had increased my training sessions at the dojo to three a week, but once school started, I was back down to two. I still needed to work out and run in the morning. Unfortunately, now that I was growing, my reactions and timing were totally screwed up. Exercises and katas and workout routines that should have been quick and easy were now the work of a drunken spastic. Mr. Miyagi said that this was normal in students of my age, and as I stabilized at a new height and weight, I would quickly get back to normal. I had already moved up one belt color, or kyu, to yellow, and was now working towards orange. Curiously, in official Japanese based aikido, everyone is white, until they graduate from kyu status to dan status, where everyone is black belt. The multicolored belt system is an American innovation.

I also got Dad to trade in our family’s Royal manual for a used IBM Selectric, and amazingly got him to cough up half the difference in price. Typing homework became much faster. Hamilton didn’t like that I could use a typewriter, but he had pushed his luck too far lately and he was afraid of fucking with it, on fear of Dad’s anger.

Tuesday afternoon I rode on the bus over to Shelley’s house, and she held my hand on the bus, which generated more than a few stares from some of the other kids. We walked hand in hand up to her house. Once inside, I held up our hands and said, “Thanks, I think.”

She gave me an exasperated look and took back her hand. “Carl, I don’t know what it is you think of me, but I’m not as shallow or as stupid as you seem to think I am.”

I gave her a bleak look. “Yeah, I mean, no, you’re not.” I shook my head at the import of what I was saying as she gave me a disgusted look. “That didn’t come out right.”

“Carl, what is your problem with me?”

I sat down on the living room couch and rubbed my face. “I don’t know, Shelley. Maybe the problem is with me, not you.”

She sat down next to me. “Huh?”

“I don’t know Shelley, maybe I’m just being a jerk. I mean, a year ago, or even just last spring, you wouldn’t have given me the time of day. Then this year, out of the blue, you ask to partner with me and we’re suddenly boyfriend-girlfriend. What happens the day after the Science Fair is over? I get kicked to the curb again?”

“That’s a pretty ugly picture of me, Carl, you know?” She did not look happy.

“I know.” I looked at her and shrugged. “Or am I just the most cynical and pessimistic bastard you’ve ever met?”

She smiled at that. “Maybe it’s a little of both,” she replied. I eyed her curiously. “Listen, before this year, you weren’t anything to write home about. Don’t get me wrong, Carl, but I at least would like a guy to be as big as I am!”

I laughed at that. “God knows that’s the truth.”

“And this year,”, she continued, “Well, maybe I did start out just looking for your help on the project, but I also got to know you. You’re nowhere near as scary as I thought you would be.”

I had to stare at her. “Scary? What in the world are you talking about?” The very concept that anybody could be impressed by me was ludicrous on its face. Scary?

“Well, jeez, Carl, everybody knows you. Come on, you’re only the smartest guy in the entire school. You kicked the shit out of three guys twice your size last year. You got arrested and then sweet talked your way out of it, and then you got the three guys arrested and thrown out of school! Everybody sees you out running and working out every morning, and everyone knows you’re, like, a black belt in karate or something. You take classes at Towson High and know professors at Towson State - I mean, half the school wants to know why you aren’t going to college!”

I stared at her in disbelief. “Are you shitting me?” I just shook my head.

“No, I’m not!”

“Jesus!” I looked over at her and smiled. “Listen, I ain’t nobody special. I’m just trying to get by, like everyone else. I’m the same asshole I’ve always been. All that stuff is just stuff. I don’t go looking for trouble.”

“Oh, yeah? So, let me ask you, seriously, how come you’re still at Towsontown then, and not in high school or college? You’re the smartest guy I’ve ever heard of, like our very own Einstein or something.”

I had a good laugh at that. I may well have been the smartest guy in the school, but I know the difference between that and Einstein. “Here’s the question for you. Maybe I could get into college. Maybe I am that smart. Why would I want to?”