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Sulfur

James Bates

    Dennis hurried into my lab trailing cigarette smoke. I smelled it from out in the hall before he entered. “Hey,” I turned to him, “no smoking in here, remember?”
    I heard him crush out the Pall Mall in his fingers and toss the butt in my wastepaper basket. “Sorry,” he said. I could feel his eyes watching as I went back to dripping some sulfuric acid into a beaker. It was tricky. I squinted through my thick glasses. The clear liquid turned bright orange indicating the oxygen level in the water was within the acceptable range. “Wow,” he said, genuinely awed.
    “I never get tired of seeing that.” I grinned at him. “The best part is it shows that we’ve got this place running the way it’s supposed to run.”
    “That’s what I pay you for,” he said and slapped me on my back. “Now, let’s go.”
    “Go?” I was perplexed. It was mid-afternoon at the sewage treatment plant where I worked doing water quality testing, and I still had lots to do. “Go where?”
    “The City Council is holding an emergency session,” he looked at his watch, “in about half an hour. They want me to present our findings.” He chuckled, “I mean, your findings.”
    “What?” I exclaimed. “I can’t stand up and talk in front of a bunch of people.”
    “You won’t have to.” He showed me a packet of papers. “I put together your results. I just want you there to answer any questions I can’t.” He grinned. “Come on. It’ll be fun.” He clapped me on the back again. Oh, I thought to myself. If it’s going to be fun.
    So, I went. Most people think that it’s odd a guy like me, who’d lost his vision as an eleven-year-old kid during an unfortunate experiment with my chemistry kit, a chunk of sulfur, and some hydrogen peroxide would become a chemist. But what can I say? I like proving people’s expectations of me wrong. Plus, I like chemistry. A lot. Dennis was the head of operations for the city of Oakwood Heights, a well-to-do suburb on the western fringes of Chicago. The city was being sued by the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency for falsifying their water quality tests, a job held by the guy I’d replaced.
    Dennis told me all of this when he first interviewed me. “There are a lot of big egos in this town and they are pissed off. The job’s yours if you want it, Mike. Just don’t screw up. If you do, you’ll be the sacrificial lamb and I’ll have to let you go. But if you get the EPA off our backs, you’ll be a hero.”
    I’d done water testing while earning my degree in Environmental Science from a college in northern Minnesota. I knew the procedures, but did I want to get involved in this kind of a thing? I thought about it for maybe five seconds. “Sure,” I said to him, thinking that it’d be a chance to prove myself. “Why not?” Plus, you know, I kind of liked the idea of being a hero.
    Dennis happily let out a yelp, grabbed my hand, and shook it. “Welcome aboard.” That had been sixteen weeks ago. I’d gotten the testing procedures down and set up a scrupulous record-keeping system. Now came ‘show time’ as Dennis called it. Time to present our findings.
    At the meeting, I waited patiently in the back of the room as he went over our results. His job was on the line, but he did a terrific presentation, not nervous at all like I would have been. Only a few people asked questions which he easily answered.
    The mayor wrapped things up by asking, “So we can send your findings on to the state?” Dennis didn’t hesitate. He raised his voice and asked me, “Mike, what do you think?”
    Oh, oh. I collected myself. “The tests are accurate and solid,” I told him. “Reliable. They follow EPA guidelines. They’re good,” I said. Whew, my voice didn’t even shake.
    Dennis said to the mayor, “You heard him. We stand behind our findings.”
    “Okay, then.” the major said, “We’ll send them priority mail tonight.” Then he moved on to the next order of business.
    Later, I could actually feel Dennis grinning as we walked from the building. He lit up a Pall Mall. “Good job, Mike,” he said. “We’re off the hook.”
    I felt a wonderful sense of elation; a sense of accomplishment. “Thanks,” I said. “Now I should get back to the lab. I’ve got some more work to do.”
    Dennis ignored me. “I think I can get a raise for you based on this.”
    “That’d be good, but I really just did it to prove to myself that I could.”
    “Why is that?”
    “Well, you know.” I pointed to my eyes. I’d been functionally blind since the accident.”
    Dennis laughed, “You know I sometimes forget.”
    I joked, “Me, too.”
    But in actuality, I didn’t. The glasses helped a lot, but my world was still all fuzzy outlines and indistinct surfaces, a state of existence hard to ignore. Thank goodness my sense of touch was good. “I really do need to get back to work,” I said. “I’ve got lots to do.”
    “I’ll drive,” Dennis laughed, joking some more.
    I laughed with him, relieved that I might be able to live a productive life after all. It felt good, both the laughter and the life part of it.
    A few months later we heard that the EPA was happy with our results, and I was seen by the city as kind of a hero. But like I told Dennis that day, that’s not why I did it.
    I’m still working for Oakwood Heights and have no desire to go anywhere else looking for work. Why would I? Even though I can’t see for beans, I can look into the future and see that it’s the best job I’ll ever have. I’m sure of it.

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