Supercell

by H W Buzz Bernard

“Don’t let the bastards get you down,” she whispered to Chuck.

  “Too late,” he said. He needed a victory, a smash-mouth tornado, to fill the hollow spots that Metcalf and Ty, and even himself, had carved out of his psyche.

  “Wall cloud,” Boomie called from the camera rig.

  Chuck looked to where he pointed. “Yeah, you got it. Track it.” Black scud raced beneath the angry-looking cloud rotating a mere step-ladder’s reach above the rolling fields. Darkness enveloped the land as if a burial shroud had been drawn over it, or a vengeful pagan god had swallowed the sun. The wind howled, filling the air with loess of glacial ages past.

  Boomie panned the Genesis with a steady hand as the spinning bulwark of clouds approached. Still, no funnel appeared.

  “There!” Metcalf yelled from his position atop the truck’s cab. “Tornado!”

  Dirt exploded from a field across the road, filling the gap between earth and cloud. It expanded, yanking a wheeled pivot-irrigation rig into the air. Metcalf’s cap flew off, disappearing into the airborne whirlpool. The twister, in an eardrum-shattering roar, churned across the road in front of the parked caravan.

  Chuck and Gabi struggled to remain upright in the wind. Stormy, issuing throaty growls, paced a nervous circle around their feet.

  Boomie continued to follow the tornado with the boom-mounted camera while Ziggy operated the hydraulic lift for the crane.

  Metcalf called out to Chuck, but Chuck couldn’t make out the words over the bellow of the wind. He, Gabi, and Stormy crouched near the hood of the Expedition, watching the twister. Ty remained with the cinematography team, huddled near the camera rig.

  Then, as quickly as the tornado had materialized, it disappeared, retreating into the parent wall cloud as if lifted by an unseen hand. An alien snatched home by a mothership. For a few brief moments, the only evidence it had existed was a thin ebony tail hanging from the sky. Shortly, even that was gone.

  Chuck and Gabi stood.

  “Well?” she said.

  He shook his head. “Not good enough. Damn. Nowhere near even a four.” A long, low-decibel rumble of thunder bounced across the plain.

  Metcalf appeared beside them. “Nice try, Chuckie. But it looks like the old farmer guy bested you in that round. ‘Not a big one,’ he said. It wasn’t, was it?”

  “No.”

  “Must feel good to have a Nebraska redneck shit all over your CV.”

  “Maybe you should’ve hired a farmer,” Chuck snapped.

  “Maybe. But somebody told me you were the best. Lesson learned: don’t believe everything you hear.”

  “You knew going in there were no guarantees. That the odds were against us finding a violent tornado from the get-go.”

  “I’m from Hollywood. I believe in magic. Movie magic. I just didn’t know I was going to end up with Dumbo.”

  “Dumbo could fly,” Gabi interjected.

  “Yeah, I know,” Metcalf responded. “But my Dumbo crashes and burns. He needs flying lessons.” Metcalf patted the top of his head. “You don’t suppose I can find a Greek fisherman’s cap in Nebraska, do you?”

  Chuck inhaled slowly, deeply, and watched the departing supercell. After a moment, he stuck his head into the SUV and studied the radar imagery. “The storm’s collapsing,” he announced. “And I don’t see anything else worth pursuing.” A glint of sunshine broke through the clouds to the west.

  Metcalf, arms folded across his chest, focused his gaze on Chuck. “Well, at least you found us a tornado today. My hat’s off to you for that.” He paused, as though waiting for a chuckle. None came.

  He shrugged and continued. “But I still want, Godzilla . . . I still need Godzilla—an on-screen twister that’s so damn terrifying theaters will have to offer movie goers new underwear and deodorant after they’ve viewed it. That’s why I’m dangling that million-dollar carrot in front of you. Giddy-up, Chuckie.”

  “Yeah, giddy-up,” he responded, knowing full well that the hopelessness he harbored within himself resonated in his voice. Regardless of the fact there was almost a week of contractual time remaining, the opportunity clock, for all practical purposes, was one tick from midnight.

  Tomorrow would be the make or break day.

  Chapter Seventeen

  TUESDAY, MAY 7

  THE TEAM overnighted near Lincoln again. But sleep eluded Chuck. He finally surrendered to his insomnia and arose shortly after 4 a.m. Stormy lifted her head from where she slept at the foot of the bed, stared briefly at Chuck, then plopped her head back on the floor and closed her eyes.

  Chuck flipped open his laptop computer and went to work studying the meteorological setup for the day’s chase. The Storm Prediction Center has posted another moderate risk for severe storms, similar to yesterday, but this time for the eastern Dakotas and western Minnesota. The discussion from SPC even suggested the possibility of a long-track tornado or two. Chuck examined the forecast parameters and concurred with that assessment.

  A long-lived supercell was what he needed: a thermodynamic brute that could be pursued for miles across the open prairies of the Great Plains. A storm whose very nature would dictate it would eventually spit out a twister, maybe two or three or a dozen, over its life span. Not only that, but such cells were often the ones that ended up harboring the most violent of tornadoes, the EF-4s and -5s.

  He hadn’t been chasing during that awful year of 2011, but he remembered well the tales of those stalking what became known later as the Joplin Supercell. The storm blew up over southeast Kansas. For three hours, chasers tracked it toward Joplin, until it finally dropped a twister along the Kansas-Missouri border just southwest of the city. Within five minutes, the tornado had morphed into a killer, a coal-black, mile-wide wedge devouring both buildings and people.

  More than a few chasers broke traffic laws that day, running red lights and making illegal U-turns over traffic medians, to escape the violence that was in the process of leveling a modern American city. Others, as though tracking the bloody spoor of a wounded animal, followed in its wake, pulling wounded souls from debris, tallying the dead and breaking down in tears of emotion. They had become part and parcel of the single deadliest tornado in over half a century.

  Earlier that year, a multi-day tornado outbreak claimed more lives than any siege since the 1930s as swarms of twisters raked through the South. One supercell, Chuck recalled, traveled over 400 miles from Mississippi to western North Carolina. During its eight-hour search-and- destroy life span, it spit out at least a half-dozen tornadoes. One of them, a massive EF-4, churned through both Tuscaloosa and Birmingham on an 80-mile-long blitzkrieg.

  He didn’t wish death and destruction on anyone, but he needed to corner a supercell with the DNA of the beast that had churned through the Deep South. But he wanted it to be on the Great Plains in a non-target-rich environment.

  Chuck stood, walked to the window and pulled back the curtains. Still dark outside. Dense fog hung in the air, creating fuzzy yellow-orange coronae around the security lights in the parking lot. He shuffled into the bathroom, read the instructions on the Keurig coffeemaker, and brewed himself a cup of Paul Newman Something or Other. Cup in hand, he sat back down at the table and noodled on the laptop, letting his thoughts run.

  There was, of course, the notion of scoring a million bucks. At the outset, it had seemed remotely possible. The pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. But, like rainbows in nature, his retreated with each step he seemed to draw nearer to it. Now, it had almost faded away. A sunshine daydream. Somehow, it never had seemed real. And he found solace in the notion you can’t lose what you never had.

  The opportunity he dreaded losing even more—even more than raking in the chips for a once-in-a-lifetime payday—was being able to poke a hole in that Hindenburg of a gasbag from Hollywood, Jerry Metcalf. Just to be able stuff a sock in the guy�
�s mouth if they were able to actually film an EF-4 or -5 would be worth a million dollars.

  Well, not really. But at least metaphorically.

  And then there was Ty. Nothing on this expedition appeared to be working out like Chuck, had envisioned. He had to admit, though, his visions were probably Pollyannaish. The troubled waters between him and his son were wider and deeper than he’d imagined. A Bridge Over Troubled Waters? So far he’d been unable to erect even the piers for a bridge, let alone the superstructure of one. In truth, he probably shouldn’t even be thinking of a bridge. He’d likely be better off planning some sort of sneaky, amphibious assault, just to establish a beachhead in Ty’s life, recapture a tiny bit of lost territory. He hadn’t a clue how to do that, however. Why does everything have to be so fucking difficult?

  He tipped the coffee cup to his lips, hoping to drain the last quarter-inch of Paul Newman from it. Instead of channeling into his mouth, however, the now-lukewarm coffee dribbled onto his laptop. “Shit!”

  Stormy bounced up, whimpered, looked around.

  “Sorry, girl,” Chuck said. He wiped the computer dry with a T-shirt. “Let me get dressed and I’ll take you out.”

  Stormy, stiff legged and stretching, made her way to the door and sat and waited.

  GABI, YAWNING, found a pot of fresh coffee in the motel lobby. She filled a cup and walked outside. Mist blanketed the dawning day. At the far end of the parking lot she spotted a figure walking a dog along a grassy fringe. Chuck and Stormy, more than likely.

  She moved toward them. The dog stopped, raised its head and yipped as she approached, a friendly greeting.

  “Hey, Storms, what’s up?” she said.

  Chuck turned toward her and spotted the coffee in her hand. “Oh, hi. I thought maybe you were room service come to the rescue,” he said. His lightheartedness seemed forced.

  “I can get you a cup if you’d like.” She petted Stormy with her free hand.

  “Already brewed some in my room.”

  “So, are you always an early riser, or just worried about today?”

  “Among other things, there’s a million dollars at stake.”

  “And you really think this will be your last hurrah?”

  A diesel engine rattled to life somewhere in the morning murk.

  “Not only mine,” Chuck said, “yours, too. If we don’t find our dragon today, then we’ve both lost. There won’t be another major threat until early next week. After that, the game is over.”

  There seemed a note of resignation in his voice, as though a shutout were a fait accompli.

  “Don’t worry about me,” she said, “my hunt isn’t on the clock. Look, enough of this oh-woe-is-me shit. You did a good job getting us in position yesterday. It wasn’t the big score we needed, but you did your part—”

  “That’s the problem. I can do just so much, then it’s up to luck. And I haven’t exactly been walking through fields of four-leaf clovers lately.”

  Gabi drew a deep breath, drawing in the moisture-laden air, the faint odor of pancakes on a griddle somewhere nearby, the smell of damp earth. She stepped closer to Chuck. “Luck, someone wise once said, is the residue of design.”

  “I’ll bet it wasn’t Wile E. Coyote.”

  “Will you stop it,” Gabi said, maybe a bit too sharply. She immediately regretted her tone.

  “Can’t help it. I’ve had too many damn Acme safes fall on my head.”

  She grabbed Chuck’s wrist, a move that surprised herself. “Well BFD. So have a lot of people. I know you’ve had a ton of shit dumped on you. I know you’ve been beat down. I know the chase got off to a rocky start. But what the hell, Chuck, it isn’t over. And in case you’ve forgotten, you weren’t picked for this job because you’re a loser.”

  They stood face to face, inches apart. He merely stared at her, not responding, not offering a defense. Her heart hammered. She’d overstepped her bounds. Gotten too personal. But there was something about him, beyond his maddening passivity, that incited her to challenge him—to, in cruder terms, jam a firecracker up his ass. Why? For a fleeting moment, she was terrified. Not of Chuck. Of herself, of what she’d let happen. Of what she was afraid to admit. That she saw within him a decent man who’d been trampled by life, who deep down was strong, who at his core possessed integrity. In other words, a man worth making a commitment to. She released his wrist.

  Neither, however, backed away from the other. His gaze remained fixed on hers. She attempted to read what lay behind his eyes—what he thought, what his emotions were . . . how he felt about her. Her breathing became slightly spastic. Did he notice?

  She stepped back. “Sorry,” she mumbled. “That was out of line.” She looked away from him, into the fog.

  He remained silent.

  Stormy sat at their feet, her gaze moving from Chuck to Gabi, from Gabi to Chuck.

  Well, this is awkward. “So,” she asked, electing to alter the course of the conversation, or at least her monologue, “have you ever played ‘what if’ with the million dollars? I mean, thought about what would you do with it if you actually got it?”

  Chuck cleared his throat. “No, not really.” He paused. “Well, some obvious things. Get a car. Upgrade my digs.” Again, he paused. “Help Ty.”

  The morning had brightened, the mist morphing from a wooly gray to burnished platinum. Gabi and Chuck headed back toward the motel.

  “What happened between you two,” she asked, “between you and your son?” Careful, she admonished herself.

  He walked several steps before answering. “I guess we just view the world differently.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “Let’s not go there. It’s something between me and him.”

  “It might help to talk about it. Air some things out. I’m a good listener. Maybe I could find some common—”

  “You can’t,” he snapped. “What’s with this camp counselor routine anyhow? First you’re giving me the ‘old college try’ pep talk. Then you come up with some cockamamie notion you can fix a relationship that’s not just broken, it’s been shattered by a head-on collision.”

  “I didn’t say I could fix anything. All I said was it might help to talk about it.” The words came out snippy, like she meant them to.

  “It hasn’t helped yet.”

  She looked away from Chuck and rolled her eyes. “That’s because you’re talking directly to each other. You need a mediator. A neutral party.”

  “No, I need a son who will admit he’s wrong. Who will change his act.” A sheen of anger coated his voice.

  “What act?”

  “Jesus. Let it go.” They reached the entrance to the motel. He opened the door for her. “How about some breakfast?”

  “No,” she said. “What time do we push off?”

  “Ten.”

  “See you at ten.” She walked toward the elevator, then stopped and pivoted. “You want Ty to, as you put, change his act. He pisses you off. I understand that. Yet at the same time, you feel you owe him something. I don’t get it.” The elevator door slid open. Gabi stepped in. The door began to shut. She extended her arm to stop it. “I don’t think you do, either.”

  METCALF, STANDING beside his SUV with Chuck and Gabi, took stock of the surrounding landscape. “This is flatter than fu—friggin’— Kansas,” he said, then grinned sheepishly at Gabi. “Where in the hell are we?”

  “About 50 miles northwest of Yankton,” Chuck said.

  “Jesus. We’re in Canada?”

  “South Dakota.”

  “Wherever. At least it still looks like Oklahoma. Without trees.”

  “There’re trees,” Gabi said.

  “They look like accidents,” Metcalf countered.

  “Let’s get moving,” Chuck said. He pointed
at a towering mass of clouds, a burgeoning supercell, to the north. “We’re going after that.”

  Metcalf looked around. Another huge supercell, its cauliflowered top anviled out toward Minnesota, bubbled skyward to their southwest. “What about that one?” he asked.

  “I checked them both,” Chuck said. “The one to the north is showing better rotation right now. And it’s moving into an environment that’s rich in helicity, CAPE and—”

  “Mumbo jumbo,” Metcalf interrupted. “It’s all witchcraft to me. But I gotta trust ya, Chaz.” He motioned for the camera truck to start up. “Okay, the native beaters are ready, let’s go.”

  With the country roads partitioning the ironing-board-flat farmland into neat squares, staying out in front of the supercell proved easy. Chuck led the short caravan on a zig-zag course, east then north, east then north, repeated over and over as the storm churned toward the northeast. The team shared the roads with at least a dozen other chase vehicles in pursuit of the same cell.

  Metcalf called Chuck on his cell phone. “Gettin’ crowded out here,” Metcalf said.

  “Everybody thinks this is the Big Kahuna.”

  “Yeah, but is it gonna drop a tornado?”

  Chuck wouldn’t admit it to Metcalf, but he was beginning to harbor doubts. The wall cloud had spun out a couple of nice-looking funnels, but nothing touching the ground. Meanwhile, the southern cell appeared to be growing healthier, at least on the radar returns. “Let’s stick with it,” Chuck said. “It’s still got a lot going for it.”

  “Yo da boss-man,” Metcalf responded, and killed the call.

  Several of the other chasers suddenly raced past Chuck’s contingent, heading in the opposite direction, toward the southern supercell.

  “Where are they going?” Gabi asked.

  “They’ve thrown in the towel on this one,” Chuck answered. “They’re betting on the big boy down south now.”

  “So what are you gonna do, fearless leader?” Ty asked from the back seat.

  Another chase vehicle sped by, barreling south.

  Chuck slowed the Expedition, pulled to the side of the road. He studied the radar imagery of the two storms. The northern supercell still showed good rotation, but the southern one now seemed on the verge of developing a hook, the classic radar signature of a tornado. He ran the pros and cons in his mind. They were on the northern cell, glued to it like a Pointer on a pheasant. He hated to abandon it, knowing if he did, Murphy’s Law would undoubtedly come into play.