E D D I E   B I T T E L M A N

By F. John Sharp

or Eddie Bittelman, it all began with hormones.

Eddie's science fair project, 'Can Animals Feel Electromagnetic Waves?,' had one purpose: win the heart of Angela McAllister. Angela was the smartest girl in school, but that's not why he liked her. She was exactly his height, regular sixth grade height, and she was cute with her red hair curled down to her shoulders and her ice blue eyes sparkling when she smiled, but that's not why he liked her either. Eddie thought he liked Angela because she liked to do boy things like fish and play ball and touch bugs. But she made Eddie feel all weird inside when she was near him. Eddie didn't know it really was her red hair and her blue eyes and the way she looked when she smiled that made him like her. He didn't yet know about hormones. But hormones knew about him.

Hormones also knew about Mr. Leonard, the school custodian, but unlike Eddie, he was fully acquainted with his. And on this day Mr. Leonard and his hormones had spent much time thinking together about his big evening to come.

At Eddie's school the science fair was a big deal. You didn't need to win to be celebrated; participating was enough. Every entrant presented his project to the entire school, grades two through six, in the gym. Eddie thought of it as the gym, but it was one of those old schools where a hardwood floor with lines and two basketball hoops was sandwiched between a stage and a section of tiered seats. The room doubled as an auditorium when folding chairs were set up on the playing surface, one of a long list of tedious jobs performed gladlessly by the impatient Mr. Leonard.

Mr. Leonard had already retreated to his "den" in the boiler room, drumming his fingers on his workbench until the "whiny little snots" were gone. Mr. Leonard had a date. The fact that he was married wasn't a deterrent to him having standing plans to meet his girlfriend of several weeks on his wife's night to play bridge. His plans hinged on being able to get out of work on time. "Some stupid science fair isn't going to stand in my way," were the words he had muttered to himself while unfolding the two hundred and seventy five chairs needed to fill the gym floor.

The science fair projects were set up behind closed curtains on a stage already too crowded with phys-ed equipment, theater props, and rolling racks of custodial supplies. From left to right Eddie's was second to last, with Angela's project on dragonfly husbandry at the end. In all there were seven tables, covered with paper tablecloths and full of projects, each filled with all sorts of experimental apparatus, and surrounded by posters and signs and lab journals and bound reports. This preponderance of paper was later found to be a "contributing factor." The presenters were in front of the curtain, being praised by Principal Gauntner, when everything started.

Fire officials believe the blaze began with a synergy of the science projects of Gary Plimpton, whose grandfather had shown him how to make moonshine from corn, and Patrice Winston, whose idea for a project on the different heat conducting properties of metals had been plagiarized nearly word for word from her cousin Kate.

Gary's moonshine experiment —he titled it 'Alcohol Distillation Using Locally Grown Natural Resources'—was busy producing alcohol vapors as Principal Gauntner was telling everyone how proud she was of the budding scientists. During the speech Eddie shifted from side to side in front of the curtain, simultaneously happy and nervous about standing next to Angela. Patrice, before going out front, had test-lit her portable Bunsen burner to avoid the embarrassment of a recalcitrant flame. She had been careful to turn it off, but not so careful as to turn it all the way off. The nearly invisible flame that remained was enough to lick the volatile vapors and send a fiery trail to its source, where the beaker of pure distillate erupted with a 'whomp.'

Oblivious to the impending disaster, Eddie was busy stealing glances at Angela out of the corner of his eye. Possessing an awkwardness born of a homemade haircut, hand-me-down clothes, and a mother who liked things 'just so,' he had always been too shy to do more than hover in Angela's periphery. Dressed in the white shirt and clip-on tie his mother made him wear, he scratched an itchy nose with his cuff, then quickly threw the arm to his side, aware that Angela might think he was "snotting all over his sleeve."

The eruption on the stage caused alcohol to splatter all over the first six tables and flames danced behind. Posters and signs and journals and reports were ablaze, as was the back of the curtain. The noise attracted the attention of a teacher; within seconds the fire bell announced its alarm.

Life-changing moments often require the help of an unwitting accomplice. So as not to be late, Mr. Leonard had done as many of his tasks ahead of time as he could, but only two were instrumental in making Eddie a hero. Mr. Leonard had chained shut the exterior doors before the assembly; and he moved a rolling shelf full of painting supplies—including mineral spirits and a case of WD-40 — from the freshly painted hallway outside the gym to the stage next to Angela's table. "Every minute saved was a minute more in heaven," his hormones had told him more than once.

The fire alarm sounded and the gym grew perfectly still; everyone was trying to figure out why there was a fire drill on science fair day. When smoke rolled from under the curtain, the puzzlement turned to panic and the gym exploded in screams.

The once neatly organized rows of attentive children gave way to a tangle of scared school kids. The teeming mass dissolved in the center and grew thick at the edges as a doughnut of children pressed toward the perimeter. As each chained door was discovered, the screaming escalated anew. Soon nearly three hundred people realized there was only one small portal through which they could squeeze to safety. Like trying to pour peas from a pop bottle, it was only a matter of patience and time, but the bottleneck grew quickly and levelheaded teachers were no match for the mass of grade schoolers that choked the open doorway. Terrified boys and girls packed toward the door but couldn't get out fast enough, so they did the one thing they had always done in an emergency: they screamed even louder. It had become clear to many of the teachers that one exit may not be enough.

To Eddie and his hormones, this was a disaster. He couldn't allow his project—his big chance to score points with Angela—to perish. He ducked behind the curtain while the science fair participants were ushered off stage. The first five tables were engulfed in flame and his was half ablaze. Grabbing a fire extinguisher, he let loose a blast at his project but it was too late. Seeing his display already ruined, all that was left was to save Angela's, which he realized would be even better. He aimed a blast at Angela's table, quenching the fire for a moment. The fire attacked again and again and Eddie turned it back again and again until the extinguisher was dry. He looked for another extinguisher but the curtain opened wide and the strong hand of Principal Gauntner grabbed his shirt collar, and dragged him to safety as the last of the students were shouldering their way to safety.

The explosion blew out a window near the stage only thirty seconds after Eddie regained sole possession of his shirt collar. Fire officials speculate that the flames from the science projects touched off a leaky bottle of mineral spirits which generated enough heat to make the bottles of WD-40 explode, sending flammable liquids shooting in all directions. Tentacles of flame traced arcs behind them and lit upon seats once held by second graders. The recently varnished gym floor soon caught fire and in the end the gym became a total loss.

Eddie found Angela in the crowd and sidled up behind her, waiting for a moment when her friends were otherwise occupied. "I tried to save your project," he said.

Angela looked over her shoulder at him. "What?"

"I tried to save your project. But the fire extinguisher ran out and your stuff was almost on fire and I was going to get another but Principal Gauntner grabbed me and pulled me out of there and ... " Eddie stopped for a breath ... "I'm sorry."

Angela looked Eddie up and down, with his clothes covered in extinguisher dust and his light brown hair full of paper ash, his freckled cheeks wet with sweat and his puppy dog eyes begging for a pat on the head. "Don't you know you could have been killed, Eddie Bittelman?" she said in a tone much like his mother would use later that day. Eddie almost whimpered as he backed away and disappeared into the crowd.

Angela and his mother notwithstanding, it didn't take long for everyone else to name Eddie a hero. "For courage in the face of danger," read the Mayor, "and for saving the lives of countless children, we award this Medal of Bravery to Eddie Bittelman." Eddie was, at first, embarrassed by the award. He knew he was no hero. But the legend grew that Eddie Bittelman had single-handedly fought a raging inferno, buying just enough time for the salvation of every last child from a death sentence issued by a careless, and soon-to-be jobless and divorced, janitor Leonard. And with the rewards that followed, who was he to argue?

At the grocery store, Eddie never again paid for another candy bar or bottle of pop as the Wilkins' way of thanking him for saving their Lydia. At the barber, all Eddie's haircuts were on the house for saving Nathan. At the drugstore, Eddie had his pick of comic books, at no charge, for having saved Clarissa. And the gas tank was always filled gratis whenever he rode with his dad to the Nowak's filling station, where their son Roger still lived and breathed and washed windshields because of the town hero. Eddie quickly learned that being a hero had an upside, which he hoped one day would win him Angela. In the meantime he had Angela's parents on his side; they started a college fund for him at the Savings and Loan, to which nearly everyone in town contributed over the years until Eddie went to college.

"Eddie, dear, you're going to be late."

The century old stairs creaked as Eddie descended. "It's okay, Mom, I've got time."

"You need to make a good impression."

"I can make a good impression."

"I know you make a good first impression dear but you have to make a good second and third impression too."

As she watched him tie his necktie she was surprised at how tall he had become. This surprised her nearly every day, and she enjoyed this exercise in newness. "So do you think the newspaper business is something you'll like?"

"I don't know. I'll have to see." Eddie finished straightening the red paisley tie in the mirror and adjusted the lapel of the suit that Nick Genaro of The Men's Place all but gave him two years ago when he returned from college. Nick Jr's science fair project on the day of the fire had been about turbulence.

"I just need to find my niche, that's all, Mom."

His mom smiled patiently at that word 'niche' as she picked lint from his shoulder. She'd heard that word a lot lately. "What do you envision your niche as being?"

"I don't know, I like all kinds of stuff."

'I think a niche has to be narrower than that."

"But I won't know until I find it."

"You're running out of places to try."

"Naw. I still have lots of friends."

'Maybe so." She fixed the back of his collar. "But I wonder how long you can get by on ... " She snapped shut her mouth.

"On what, Mom?"

She chose her words. "Folks owe you a lot, but it won't last forever."

"Oh Mom, that's not why they hire me. They like me. Everyone always says I'm the nicest boy in town."

"That was a good thing to be when you were fourteen, but at twenty you need to be something more." She smoothed down a stray hair. "All I'm saying is you need to pick something and stick with it. You need to pull your weight. That's all I'm saying."

Eddie nodded at himself in the mirror. "I will, Mom, as soon as I find my niche."

Eddie's mother found herself wishing she could have a word with the person who taught Eddie the word 'niche.'

"Eddie, let me ask you a question," said George Tasker, Chief Editor of the Daily Leader. "What are you doing here?"

"Well, Mr. Tasker, sir, I'm trying to start a career." Eddie was bright and chirpy.

"Why the newspaper business?" George was leaning back in his chair with his hands clasped behind his head.

"Well, I got good grades in English and I ... "

"No, Eddie," George interrupted, "I don't want to know what you think your qualifications are. I want you to tell me why you chose the newspaper business."

Eddie's eyes widened and his nervous feet stopped tapping. "I don't know what you mean, Mr. Tasker."

George sat forward and leaned across his desk. "What I mean, Eddie, is this. You came home from college after only one year. You worked at the granary for what, three months? Then you worked at the car dealer for ... two months was it? Then the dry cleaner for four, the hotel for one, the golf course for six—you must have really liked that one. The boarding kennel for three. Have I missed any?"

Eddie's shoulders sank. "The landscaper."

"Yes. Mike Overman. How could I forget. He had twins at that school. You could probably apply there again."

"I don't think landscaping's my niche," said Eddie.

"Your niche," George laughed as he leaned back in his chair again. "Searching for your niche are you?"

"Yes sir."

"I think you found your niche the day they pinned that medal on you Eddie."

"I don't understand."

"Why did you leave the granary?"

"Because it wasn't for me."

"And what about the car dealer?"

"That wasn't really for me either."

"And the golf course and the dry cleaner and all the others weren't for you either, I take it?"

Eddie hung his head. "When you put it like that, it doesn't sound so good."

"No, it doesn't."

"Maybe I shouldn't have come here, Mr. Tasker."

"Why not, Eddie?"

"Because ... maybe this isn't for me either."

"Then why did you come here?"

"Because ... because my ... my mom set it up."

"Yes, your mother's a good friend of my wife's and I did her a favor. But do you know the problem you have with me, Eddie?"

"You don't hire friends of your wife?"

"No, Eddie. The problem is that I don't have any children who were saved by Eddie Bittelman, Town Hero. I don't owe you anything."

Eddie shrunk into his chair, hoping to disappear. He had never been talked to this way, at least not since the fire.

"You've been living off that one good deed and you haven't done a thing for yourself. You can't hold a job. Everyone keeps hiring you hoping that you'll at least be useful but you don't give it any effort. Everyone likes you, Eddie, but we simply can't find anything for you to do that you won't screw up. There aren't many jobs whose main requirement is being likeable. There are no awards for Mr. Congeniality in the working world, I'm afraid."

Eddie slowly got up to leave.

"Eddie," George said in a kindly tone, "I'm sorry to lay this on you like that. But someone has to say it. There's hardly a person in town who didn't have someone in that school that day. Folks here will never forget."

Eddie stood still with his head down, listening and trying not to cry.

"Damn, Eddie, I feel bad for you. But you have to figure out what you want to do — not pretend to do. If you could show folks that you're willing to work at something you really want to do, they'd move heaven and earth to help you do it. Hell, at this point they'd be happy just to find you something useful. "

Eddie plopped back into the chair. "Mr. Tasker?" he said, "how can I figure out what I want to do?"

George sighed and put his hands behind his head again. He started to speak, but found he had no answer.

"Did you hear that Angela McAllister is moving back to town?"

Eddie blanched.

"Seems her husband cheated on her and she's moving back to run her parents' store. Didn't you date her?"

"Yeah. For a while." Eddie wanted to leave, to run home, to run past home and far away so Angela wouldn't see him yet. Clearly he wasn't ready. But he just sat, hoping George Tasker would give to him the secret of success.

Eddie took the long way home, so as to avoid both McAllister's hardware store and the McAllister home. But his route took him past the school complex--first the middle school where Eddie first began to wear down Angela's defenses, then the high school where he finally won, then soon lost her affections.

He stopped and stared at the buildings where adolescent boys and girls perform the rituals of winning a mate. He could see in his mind the seventh grade home room where he sat directly behind Angela, cracking jokes and making her laugh.

He could see their tenth grade lockers, side by side, where his awkward attempts at chivalry —"Can I carry your books?" "Need someone to walk you home?"—were met at first with annoyance then later with smiles.

He saw the twelfth grade gym, decorated with balloons and streamers for the homecoming dance, where he and Angela had their first real date.

And he saw the letter taped to his locker the next February, full of sentences like, "You haven't changed a bit since sixth grade," and "you need to grow up." He couldn't know that it tore her up to do that to him, that all she wanted was to feel that they had a future, that Eddie was even trying. He couldn't know that when she thought about their future, Eddie always looked twelve years old.

The town had always seemed plenty big to Eddie, but it got considerably smaller when you were trying to avoid someone. Angela finally spotted him at the bank.

"Eddie," she called across the parking lot.

He knew the voice but was too close to pretend he didn't hear. "Oh, hi, Angela. I heard you were back in town."

"How come you didn't stop by?"

"I wasn't sure you wanted me to."

"Don't be silly," she said, touching him on the arm. "How have you been?"

"Fine. I've been fine." He fidgeted with his feet. "I'm sorry about your marriage."

Angela just looked away.

"So, anyway," he said, "you're going to help run the store?"

"Yeah, it's growing and I've always loved that store."

"I thought about working there but I never asked."

"A hardware store's a lot of work."

"I guess."

They nodded together.

"So why didn't you?" Angela asked.

Eddie looked around for some help but none was forthcoming. "I don't know," he said, "I guess I didn't want to be there unless you were there too."

"Aw, Eddie," she said, touching his arm again, "you were always so sweet."

Eddie's wounded puppy dog eyes met Angela's. "But not too sweet to dump."

"You know perfectly well why it didn't work out, Eddie Bittelman."

"But I didn't ... I didn't know then. I knew what you said was the reason, but I never really understood." Eddie looked back down at his fidgeting feet. "At least not until today."

"I had to, Eddie. I couldn't stand it anymore. I liked you, I liked you a lot, but you never grew up. It's like you were stuck in reruns of yourself. We were seniors for God's sake, and you were still trying to base a relationship on making me laugh and carrying my books. You had no plans for us, no plans for yourself. You just existed for the sole purpose of being liked."

Eddie stood stunned by another iteration of a recent theme. "Maybe," he finally said, "I was just being dependable. There's a lot to be said for dependable."

Angela's eyes teared as she stared through Eddie and into her recent past. "Yes, she said, "there's something to be said for dependable."

He put his hand gently on her shoulder. "Ang, I'm sorry." He was too close. He could smell the herbal shampoo she still used on that long red hair. He could feel the warmth from her body which he had always thought felt like love itself. He could almost taste her lips. Almost.

"I have to go," she said and pulled away, not looking back. "I'll see you around."

"Yeah," Eddie said, "see ya." Eddie's hormones announced themselves again, and he found himself wishing he had better news for them. But Angela was right, he hadn't changed. And Mr. Tasker was right, he didn't try at anything. Not since sixth grade had he tried. Not since the science fair. Eddie's hormones were telling him that he had let them down, that the rest of Eddie wasn't doing its fair share, and Eddie was listening. 

The town was filled with noise and lights, which is bad news for a small town in the middle of the night. Eddie was just about the only person in town who didn't go see the fire. He stayed home because he thought he might run into Angela again. He would have too, because she lived only down the street from the mayor, whose house was burning to the ground.

"Eddie," his mother called up the stairs when she got home, "you should have been there, dear. It was awful. Mayor Mifflin and his wife are both gone."

Eddie had been awake and came down. "They're dead?"

"It was the worst thing you ever saw."

Eddie sat at the kitchen table while his mother fixed an early breakfast. "He was the one who gave me my medal. I always liked him."

"They're going to need a new mayor now," his mother said in a suggestive way.

"I wonder who they'll pick," Eddie asked.

"Nobody picks," said his mother. "Town by-laws say we have to elect a new one soon as possible. I asked Councilman Nagy at the fire."

Eddie buttered his toast thoughtfully. "What's the mayor do, anyway?"

"I don't think our mayor does much at all, dear," his mother replied. "It's not like this is Cleveland or anything."

"Hmmp," Eddie said with a mouthful of bacon. He was talking to his mother, but he was addressing his hormones.

Eddie showed Mr. Tasker to his living room.

"Eddie, Clara at the Board of Elections called me with some news."

Eddie fidgeted with his fingers.

"Seems someone by the name of Eddie Bittelman put in the paperwork to run for mayor. Do you suppose there are two Eddie Bittelmans in town?"

Eddie wished just then that there were. "No," he said.

"So you think this is your niche, being mayor?"

"Maybe."

George let a moment pass. "I have to cover it you know. I have to tell the story and ask hard questions. Are you ready for hard questions, Eddie?"

"You mean like why I'm such a failure? Like why I've wasted every opportunity I've been given? Like why I squeezed every ounce of good will out of that one stupid fire that I wish never happened?"

George shrugged. "People are going to want to know why they should vote for you."

"A few days ago I would have said they should vote for me because I'm Eddie Bittelman. Now I'm not so sure." Eddie noticed there was no notebook. "Aren't you going to take notes or something?"

"No, not today. I'll put on my reporter's hat another time."

Eddie thought about that for a moment. "I guess I need to see if people still like me enough to give me one more chance."

They both sat for a while thinking about all that was to come.

"And you know the worst part? I wasn't even trying to save anyone; I was just trying to rescue Angela's project, that's all, just so she'd like me. After that it was all so easy, everything was so easy, and I liked it. I like being liked and I liked feeling important and nothing I did in college or in any of those other jobs made me feel that way. I could have gone on being that Eddie Bittelman forever, except ... "

"Except?" said George.

"Except that it won't get me the things I want." Eddie sighed and got up. "So what does a likeable person with no discernable skills do in this town?"

George let out a laugh. "He runs for mayor." George got up to leave, "And you know, Eddie," he said, " Council here pretty much runs things. The mayor is more or less a figurehead."

Eddie nodded distantly.

"So you may have found your niche after all."

Eddie dared look George in the eye for the first time since George had told him he was a failure. Eddie smiled a confident and knowing smile, as if that moment separated the old Eddie from the new one, as if Eddie's niche had suddenly found him.

"And now that you're running for mayor, you can come out of hiding. I'm sure Angela wouldn't mind seeing a little more of you."

Eddie blushed, but he didn't respond. He was imagining whether Angela would like being the wife of the mayor. He was hoping she would.

Copyright © 2000 F. John Sharp