“If the meteorological parameters don’t fall into place, we may have to delay,” he cautioned. “But Metcalf and his cinematographers will be here by Saturday and probably rarin’ to go.”
Finally, he called Ty and explained that the weather conditions appeared ready to come together. “Looks like great tornado-hunting weather next week, son,” he said. “Are you ready to go?”
“Careful how you toss that word around.”
Chuck didn’t understand. “What word?”
“Son,” Ty snapped.
The barb drove deep into Chuck’s being.
“Look, can we raise a white flag for a while . . . Ty? See if we can attain a modicum of civility for at least a couple of weeks?”
“You mean like never existed when we lived under the same roof?”
Chuck counted silently to ten before answering. “Yes. Like that.”
“Yeah, fine. I can suck it up for a while. The big question is, Can you?”
Chuck let the comment pass. “I’ll purchase an electronic ticket for you. Best you fly in on Saturday. What’s the nearest airport to you?”
“Portland. I live outside the city in a small town called McMinnville. You didn’t know that, of course.”
Again, Chuck didn’t respond to the needle. “I’ll need an email address, too,” he said.
Ty gave it to him.
“I’ll pick you up at Will Rogers,” Chuck said.
Ty gave a sharp, derisive laugh. “How will you recognize me?”
Eight years. It had been eight years since he’d seen his son. A teenager then. Now a man. It was a fair question.
Chuck stumbled over the answer. “I . . . I don’t—”
“Not to worry,” Ty said, “the disembarking flaming fairy shouldn’t be hard to spot, right? The guy levitating in his loafers? Giving a limp-wristed wave.”
“Stop it, Ty.”
“Tell you what. I won’t squeeze your nuts any more than I already have. I’ll find you. Easier that way. See you Saturday in Oklahoma City.”
After they hung up, Chuck reflected on the call and the one a week prior. What bothered him most was not Ty’s antagonism or sarcasm or bitterness. Perhaps he’d earned that, although it certainly was a two-way street. No, what bothered him most was that not once had his son referred to him as Dad or Pop or Father.
For the first time, a tiny acorn of doubt about the wisdom of inviting Ty on the expedition rattled around somewhere in the back of Chuck’s brain.
SATURDAY, APRIL 27
ON SATURDAY, Chuck drove the Expedition to Will Rogers World Airport on the southwest edge of Oklahoma City. He parked, then waited for Ty’s flight from Portland to land.
After the arrival was posted, Chuck paced the lower level of the terminal, keeping watch on the area around baggage carousel number four, where Ty would claim his luggage. He attempted to picture what his son might look like now, but couldn’t conjure up an image. Ty had been only 19 when he’d last seen him, an unkempt, withdrawn boy trying to beat his way out of the thick underbrush of adolescence. Now he was a man, well into his 20s, creeping up on 30. At least in appearance, he would be a different person
In hindsight, it was easy to see that Ty had borne a heavier psychological backpack than most teenagers. Not only had he had to deal with the normal angst of growing up, but with his homosexuality, the loss of financial means to attend college and a disintegrating family.
Chuck had always harbored the hope that Ty would change his sexual orientation, perhaps through counseling or religion, and abandon his deviant lifestyle. Or maybe just realize that being what he was, was abhorrent; he could think of no other way to put it. But Ty had already shot down that hope a week and a half earlier when he’d warned Chuck in their phone conversation: “I am who I am. Don’t expect somebody different, somebody changed.”
Passengers from Ty’s flight began to descend the stairs and escalator connecting the upper level of the terminal to the baggage claim area. A harried-looking young mother with three small kids in uneven, rapid orbit around her led the pack. Following her came a handful of men, a few in business suits, others decked out in cowboy hats and Western boots. None seemed interested in searching for someone waiting for them.
Next down the escalator, a girls’ sports team of some sort, probably golf, judging by the proliferation of golf bags littering the carousel.
After a brief break, a crowd of young men and women in military camo uniforms flooded into the lower terminal and spilled toward the baggage carousel as duffel bags began to appear. They probably were bound for sprawling Tinker Air Force Base, 12 miles east.
Tinker Air Force Base. Chuck’s thoughts drifted from Ty for a moment. He wondered how many people were aware of the role Tinker had played in the birth of tornado forecasting. In 1948, in the wake of a devastating twister that smashed into the base, two young Air Force officers tackled the virtually impossible task, as it was then deemed, of predicting tornadoes.
Against overwhelming odds, a second twister thundered over Tinker just five days later. This time, however, a warning—based on the officers’ hurried research—was issued, and the feasibility of tornado forecasting, however crude at the time, thus validated.
Chuck paid homage to that forecast. Decades later, at the Storm Prediction Center, the modern-day legacy of the “Tinker warning,” he’d earned his spurs in severe weather forecasting.
But today he was spurless . . . and clueless: looking for a son he might not, it had been suggested, recognize.
A light tap on the back of his shoulder caused him to turn abruptly. He found himself staring into a vaguely familiar face, freckled and round but not fleshy, slightly sunburned, unsmiling. Ty? But no. It couldn’t be. This individual had an almost military bearing and appearance with a hard, muscular body and short, brush-cut hair. Yet . . .
“Ty?” Chuck failed to hide his surprise.
“I’ll grab my bag,” his son responded. No salutation. No handshake. No hug. Ty merely wheeled and strode toward the luggage carousel.
He returned shortly with a large polycarbonate spinner in tow. “Lead on,” he said.
They took the escalator to the terminal’s main level. “I’m in short-term parking,” Chuck said. He pointed outside, across the curving multi-laned roadway and plaza that fronted the terminal.
“Let’s go.” Ty headed out.
As they walked, Chuck attempted to initiate a conversation. “When I first saw you in there, I thought I was looking at a soldier.”
“Yeah. A year ago, you would have been. I spent seven years in the army. Out now, though.”
“And doing what?”
“Taking college courses on-line.”
“Working toward a degree?”
“Yeah.”
“In?”
“Criminal justice. My partner is a cop.”
“Oh.”
“A little too much info?”
“No . . . it’s just that . . . I don’t know.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll try not to embarrass you. You know, like running around with my flopper hanging out or leering at young boys.”
“I didn’t think that would be a problem,” Chuck responded, his voice a bit more acidic than he’d intended.
They reached the Expedition and Ty tossed his bag into the rear.
Their conversation, such as it was, remained strained as Chuck drove back to Norman. Small talk. Trite questions. Clipped answers. “How’s Mom and Arlene?” “Good.” “What school are you taking courses from?” “Western Oregon University.” “Do you work?” “Part time. Construction.” “How’s it feel to be back in Oklahoma?” “Awkward.”
LATER, THEY SAT in silence as they waited for their dinners at the Cowboy Corral. The silence, however, was only between
them. The restaurant was otherwise filled with country music, laughter, the clatter of dinnerware and shouted exchanges between the wait staff and kitchen workers. A bustling Saturday night. Daisy, apparently sensing the tension between Chuck and Ty, kept her distance and busied herself with other customers.
Chuck agonized over how to begin reparation with his son, how to reach him after so many years of animus, how to reconnect after such an extended period of dissociation. He came up with no good solutions, so merely launched into another attempt at initiating a conversation.
“Ty, it’s good to see you. It really is.”
Ty nodded without saying anything. He reached for one of the cheese biscuits Daisy had provided.
Chuck continued. “I’m proud of what you’ve accomplished. I mean, seven years in the army. Wow, who would have thought. And now working on a degree in Criminal Justice. I’m impressed.”
Ty took a bite of the biscuit. He swallowed, then forced a wan smile.
“In the army, what did you do?” Chuck asked, attempting to draw his son into an exchange of some sort. He studied Ty more closely now than when they’d met at the airport. His son was no longer the spindly, pimply teenager he’d known. Far from it. He’d grown into a mature adult—red hair like his mother’s, green eyes like his father’s. And in those eyes—this was surprising—there seemed a hint of merriment despite the hostility that emanated from him.
“Special Operations,” Ty said.
“You mean like the Green Berets?”
“Not like. I was a Green Beret. In Afghanistan.”
The answer prompted Chuck to look more analytically into his son’s eyes, and he saw something else, something beyond the subdued sparkle of buoyancy he’d first noticed: the gaze of a keen observer, a thoughtful examiner, an experienced soldier.
“Surprised?” Ty asked
“Well—”
“I mean, a gay Green Beret. Doesn’t quite fit the mold, does it?” Ty took a drink of water.
“No.”
“Don’t ask, don’t tell. At least that’s the way it was then. Life goes on.”
“I suppose. But I guess that gets us to the crux of the matter.”
“Which is?”
Chuck wished he’d ordered a whiskey when Daisy had first come to their table. Now she was nowhere to be seen.
“Your lifestyle,” Chuck said, swallowing hard, “I couldn’t accept your lifestyle, your refusal to change.”
“Lifestyle? How is what you are a lifestyle? Is your heterosexuality a lifestyle? When did you choose to be straight?” Ty fixed his father in a piercing stare.
“I . . . I never chose to be straight. I just . . . was.”
Ty thumped the table with his forefinger. “That’s my point. You just were. Do you think it was any different for me?”
“I think you could have changed if you’d wanted.”
Ty leaned across the table and spoke in sharp, low tones, almost a hiss. “But of course, I didn’t want to. I was much more comfortable choosing a way of life in which I would be reviled, scorned, taunted, and bullied. Much more at ease with a decision that would lead me to be rejected by my own father. Happy to lead a life in the closet, hiding what I was, pretending to be what I wasn’t. It’s just Mayberry RFD for us gays every day, Dad.” The last word he pronounced with particular contempt.
Chuck remained silent, unable to formulate a response, stunned by the vehemence of his son’s words, yet realizing they represented a controlled explosion of pent-up emotion and long-considered introspection. He sorted through Ty’s mini-diatribe, actually finding some validity in his arguments. Yet so many questions remained, particularly those springing from the Bible’s vilification of homosexuality.
He pondered again the wisdom of inviting Ty on the chase. Would he and Ty find some common ground, mutual respect, a modicum of understanding that would allow a father to find his son; a son, his father? Or would their time together ratchet up the tension that already existed between them to the point it would fracture into an abyss so wide and deep it could never be bridged?
Chuck hoped for the former, wished for the former, but feared the latter.
Chapter Seven
SUNDAY, APRIL 28
EARLY SUNDAY morning, Chuck met Ty at the motel where he’d stayed overnight. Ty merely nodded to his father—no “good morning” or “great day, huh?”—as he approached the Expedition, tossed his suitcase into the rear and climbed into the passenger seat.
Stormy, from the back seat, stretched forward and rested a paw on Ty’s shoulder in greeting. Ty turned and petted her. “Hey, boy,” he said.
“Girl,” Chuck corrected.
“My mistake,” Ty said. “But that was always my problem, wasn’t it? Not having an eye for the ladies.”
Chuck gritted his teeth and held his gaze straight ahead, through the windshield. From that point on, except for strained, mumbled, one-sentence exchanges, they rode in silence to the assembly location for the chase team, the parking lot of a suburban shopping mall on the south side of Oklahoma City. Since the mall didn’t open until noon, the team had the lot to itself. An unusually warm wind for late April gusted in fits and starts over the nearly deserted asphalt. The vague odors of breakfast, probably from a nearby Denny’s or Waffle House, rode the breeze.
Metcalf was there already, dressed as he had been when Chuck first met him: hiking boots, cargo shorts, white shirt, and a Greek fisherman’s cap. He stood near his Lincoln Navigator chatting with members of what Chuck presumed was his crew.
Behind the Lincoln, the slanting rays of the rising sun glinted off two more vehicles, one silver, one white. Chuck studied them closely, suddenly impressed by the little expedition he was tasked to lead. The vehicles, moderate-sized crew-cab flatbed trucks, sported exoskeletons of metal scaffolding and platforms. Large compartments snugged flush against the rear of each cab housed what appeared to be high-amperage electric generators. Tarps, firmly secured, obscured whatever the beds of the trucks carried.
The trucks seemed a hybrid of what a commercial painter might drive to ferry his ladders and scaffoldings around, and something Mel Gibson might have raced about in one his old Mad Max movies.
“Hey, Chaz, great to see ya,” Metcalf boomed as Chuck, Ty trailing, walked toward him. “Who’s your best boy?”
“My what?”
“Movie lingo. Best boy—like an apprentice or helper. Who’s the dude behind you? Long-lost son I’ll bet.”
Chuck didn’t care for Metcalf’s public proclamation, but realized it was just the man’s uninhibited nature. He turned to introduce Ty. “This is Tyler—Ty—Rittenberg. He, as you say, is my ‘best boy.’ Ty, this is Jerry Metcalf from Global-American Cinema.”
Metcalf and Ty shook hands. Ty inclined his head toward the trucks. “Impressive rigs you’ve got there.”
“Camera trucks,” Metcalf answered. “There’s a retractable 15-foot crane in the bed of the white truck, a 22-footer in the silver one. We can hang a Panavision camera on the end of a crane, extend it, then operate the camera with a joystick. Pretty neat. Gives us nice elevation and great panning capabilities.” He turned to Chuck. “Let me introduce my crew.”
One by one the team, four men and two women, stepped forward and shook hands with Chuck and Ty as Metcalf rattled off their names and titles. Chuck knew he wouldn’t remember, at least immediately, all of the names—Ziggy, Nosher, and Boomie were in the mix—but counted three cinematographers, a key grip, a best boy, and a second-unit director.
Willie Weston, the second-unit director, Metcalf pointed out, would be looking for shots not only of tornadoes—”the big, nasty ones,” Metcalf reminded Chuck—but scenery and landscape footage as well. “Find us some good stuff, Chuckie,” Metcalf said.
Chuckie? Chuck shook his head.
At th
e far end of the parking lot, a Chevy Camaro appeared and drove toward the group. The car stopped next to Chuck’s Expedition. Gabi exited the Camaro and strode toward the gathering. In white shorts and a lightweight khaki blouse, fit and tanned, she looked good—not at all like an FBI agent, Chuck noted.
Metcalf nudged Chuck and said in a stage whisper, “You dog you. Back in the game again. Who’s the chick?”
Chuck answered according to an agreement he and Gabi had reached earlier. “She’s a feature writer for a local magazine. She wanted to do an article on storm chasing, so I invited her along.”
Metcalf stroked his beard and held his gaze on her. “She probably didn’t miss the redemption angle either. Good story there: Down and out storm chaser gets a chance to rebuild his life.”
“That, too,” Chuck said.
“Well, she won’t get in the way, will she?”
“She knows how to take care of herself.”
Gabi reached the assemblage and introduced herself. “Hi, I’m Gabi Mederios from The Sooner, the Better magazine. Gosh, this should be so fun. Going on a tornado chase with a movie company. Our readers will absolutely devour it. Neat, neat, neat.”
Chuck marveled at Gabi’s ability to transform herself from an FBI Special Agent to a slightly ditzy magazine writer. The men in the group certainly bought into her act, although Metcalf gave Chuck a quick glance from beneath a furrowed brow that suggested he sensed there was something just a bit off kilter about Gabi’s story. But he welcomed her with a hearty handshake and a bear hug that seemed to last just a second too long.
“Ohhh,” Gabi squealed. “You’re strong!”
Chuck almost laughed. Gabi could probably flip the guy upside down and stuff him into a bag if she wanted to.
Instead he said, “Okay, listen up folks. Let’s get started.” He pulled three cell phones from his pocket and handed them to Metcalf. “One for you and one for each of your trucks. They have Direct Connect or what most people call walkie-talkie capability. That’s how we’ll communicate when we’re on the road.” He explained how to use the feature.
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