by Cai Emmons
“It’s hard to explain exactly. It’s a matter of concentration . . .” His attention on her is avid, unswerving; she is the force of the moment, the tornado passing over his radar screen. Enlivened by his focus, she gestures, spreading arms and hands. “I corral a lot of energy and then it’s almost as if I leave my body and become the weather myself—”
He holds up a palm. “Wait a sec. I want some other people to hear this.” He pokes his intercom. “Cathy, can you send Rob and Earl in here. Thanks, hon.” He sits back, shaking his head. “Astounding.”
Finally she is talking to the right person, someone who understands these forces, someone who watches them daily as she does. She wants to tell him about the river, the wedding, about her sense of attunement and power, but this is all so personal and private, she’d really rather explain without anyone else present.
“Can’t I just tell you?”
“But it’s so damn interesting.”
A young guy is already standing in the doorway, someone Bronwyn saw on the set. His eyebrows are stuck in the raised arc of a genuflector. “You wanted me?” he says.
“Yeah, yeah, Rob, have a seat.”
Next a bulbous head appears around the door frame. It floats, seemingly unattached to a body, sporting thick rimless glasses and a lazy, glistening lower lip.
Vince beckons flamboyantly, impatiently. “Hey, Earl. Come in. You gotta hear this.”
Earl’s full body comes into view and fills the door frame. He stands well over six feet, and he wears a clerical collar, baseball cap, and green Converse sneakers.
“I’ll get another chair,” Vince says.
“No, no. I’m good,” Earl says. He occupies a position against a bookshelf behind Rob.
Vince lays both palms on his desk. “Okay. Earl, Rob—this woman here, Ms.—what did you say your name was?”
“Artair. Bronwyn Artair.”
“Guys, this is something big here. Ms. Artair says—well, go ahead sweetheart, you tell them.”
Bronwyn winces at sweetheart, but decides not to make a point of it now. Vince sits back, keeping his gaze on her as if she is his prized student. Bronwyn hesitates. “Go on,” Vince urges. She recrosses her legs and clears her throat.
“I’ve always been really interested in weather—since I was a kid. I used to study atmospheric sciences at MIT, but now I’m a meteorologist at a station in New Hampshire. And recently I’ve come to realize that I have the capacity to, well, alter the weather—you know, stop storms and so forth.” She pauses to let them absorb what she’s said, examining their faces but finding no visible reaction other than a slight widening of Rob’s eyes.
“She stopped a thunder storm on Mount Washington. Isn’t that something, Rob?” Vince says.
Rob’s gaze flicks from Vince to Bronwyn to Vince again. “Yeah, I guess it is.”
“You guess? You guess?! Come on, Rob, grow some balls. This is big news, right Earl?”
Earl’s placid lake of a face remains untouched, and Vince does not press his point.
“We had something like this happen once before,” Vince says. “Remember that Native American gal? Real short and wrinkled. White hair. From the Kiowa tribe—or the Kickapoo, I don’t remember. She was one of the elders anyway. She said she could get her spirits to call off the tornadoes if we agreed to stop using our cell phones. Not just here at the station, but all over Oklahoma.” He rolls his eyes. “Yeah right, that was really going to happen. But this is different, right Ms. Artair? No strings attached here.”
Bronwyn nods. Vince seems to want her to speak, but only so much.
“You and I could be a terrific team,” he continues. “I spot the tornadoes developing and you zap them. The old one-two punch. What do you think, Earl?”
Earl pulls in his lower lip, but holds to his poker face. Perhaps her efforts offend his religion.
“You know what I think?” Vince says. “I think this is big enough that we should get on the horn to the President. You think so, Rob?”
“Sure.”
“We need to let him know we have a huge resource at the station here. A national resource.”
“Wait,” Bronwyn says. Things are happening way too fast. What president does he mean exactly—surely not the U.S. President? She came here thinking this meeting would be private and under the radar, but she’s lost ownership somewhere along the way. “I don’t really want—”
Vince is already on the intercom, this time speaking through the receiver. “Cathy, can you get the President on the line for me? . . . Of course the President of the United States. Who did you think? The President of Estonia?” He returns the receiver to its cradle.
Bronwyn, panicked, looks at the other two men for help. Rob is staring into his lap where his interlaced hands form a fist. Earl wears an expression of ambiguous consternation. Vince relaxes back in his chair again. How long does it take to get the President on the phone? Maybe the call won’t go through. Vince catches Earl’s eye and winks. He turns back to Bronwyn with a smile that does not look exactly team-building. Bronwyn has rarely felt so uncomfortable. If only she could control social situations as she controls the weather.
“Do you talk to the President often?” Bronwyn asks. What a lame question, possibly even insulting.
Vince’s smile beams on.
“Vince,” Earl says.
“Shut up, Earl. See, I can say that to Earl because we go way back. High school buddies, Earl and me. Right, Earl?”
“Vince,” Earl says again.
“Ms. Artair, every time I see a supercell building on that radar screen I think how great it would be if I could stop that sucker. I have that wish at least once a week during tornado season. No—more, much more. Hell, almost every day I wish I could control the weather. Who wouldn’t want that? A perfect day for the beach—bingo! Snow for skiing, bring it on! Everyone wants that kind of power. If I could order up the right weather I’d be raking in the bucks. Heck, I’d rule the world.”
He pauses, reveling in his contemplation of world power. “But guess what?” He leans forward again so his chest is almost lying on the desk. “I can’t do that, and that Native American gal couldn’t do it with her spirits, and you, Ms. Artair, you sure as hell can’t do it either . . . Oh, wait, let’s not assume anything. Surely you know we’re going to be slammed by another bad storm system in twenty-four hours, give or take. Why don’t you call off that system right now?”
He sits back in his chair again, chuckling a little, sure he’s called her bluff. “Come on—we all know you can’t do this stuff, so stop wasting my time.” He reaches for the intercom again, not bothering with the receiver. “Cathy, it’s time to escort Ms. Artair out.” He shakes his head dolefully at Earl and consults his cell phone. “Nut job,” he mutters.
Wind whooshes in her eardrums. He never put in a call to the President. Why was she so slow to see he was mocking her? Earl saw, and probably Rob did too. All these years she’s admired this terrible, mean-spirited, close-minded man. The swanky, white-clad receptionist has materialized beside her. “Okay. Time to go.” As if Bronwyn would resist.
For a cloud to form, particles must exist on which vapor can condense. Soot, salt, bacteria, a variety of particles encourage condensation. Anger, too, needs a surface on which to perch and grow, its own version of hygroscopic particles. She exits the station quietly swearing, anger at Vince curling around the residue of her former worship. She was stupid to have pinned her hopes on him. They have nothing in common. And he is not a nice man. He isn’t even polite.
She takes a few anger-fueled steps and stops. The Oklahoma City skyline wavers in the heat, as if the buildings feel the earth speaking. Cumulonimbus clouds are beginning to group, curdling like sour milk, but so surreptitiously it is possible no one else sees. What now? She should have considered this possibility, but she was so taken with her own grandiose plan she acted impulsively. Why would Vince believe her? Why would anyone? Assume disbelief unless there’s a solid reason
for thinking otherwise. She is a victim now of her own poor judgment and planning. Her failed imagination. She does not read people as well as she reads the Earth.
She resumes walking, humiliation congealed into anger. It’s one thing to have Stuart thinking she’s a little off, but to have Vince Carmichael call her a nut job is completely different. The anger deliquesces into the indignation of a scolded child. She tries not to cry. She needs to get inside, out of the excoriating heat.
The coffee shop she enters is only a few doors down from Vince’s station. The place is pleasantly cool and mobbed with a lunchtime crowd eating burgers and sandwiches, surprisingly animated given the outside heat. She pushes her way to the back to a single empty stool at the counter where she orders coffee and watches the cream making serpentine spirals as it sinks into the black liquid. How could she have misread Vince so profoundly? She pictures herself bringing on a terrible storm in his presence, for no other reason than spite—she wouldn’t work with him now for anything. He didn’t even ask her why she made such a claim. He is one of those people who possesses not a single mote of curiosity or imagination—and she is beginning to think there are probably far more people like him in the world than she ever would have guessed. The ready believers like Nicole and Lanny, they’re the rare exceptions, not the rule.
Maybe she should change her flight and go home. Forget fighting tornadoes, find other venues in which to make her mark. It might have been overreaching to think she could do such a thing in the first place. But if she gives up, she’ll arrive home chiding herself for failure. She came here to use her gift for something worthwhile, to help out, to save lives. She still could, though the logistics are unclear. Where should she position herself? Does she know enough about the propensities of tornadoes to intercede in a meaningful way? Or is she like those people who try to ‘save’ ghetto-dwellers and third world people, and proceed so shortsightedly they only catalyze more problems?
The coffee is acrid; it must have been made hours ago. After a few sips she puts it down, pushes it away. Why has this burden landed on her? She never asked for this, never wanted it, never sought to be exceptional. Well, of course she’s always wanted to be good at what she does, maybe even very good, but no more than most people. Melancholy carps in her throat and nasal passages, threatens to emerge as tears. She squeezes her nostrils with one hand, brushes some crumbs—not hers—from the counter, wishing she were home where she wouldn’t have to be making decisions. “Miss, you ready to order?” She shakes her head without looking up. If the waitress wants her gone, she’ll have to say so directly.
She is dimly aware of a large man two stools down rising and changing places with the person beside her. After a few seconds she sees it’s Earl. She looks away, wondering if she’s been recognized. Of course she has been. The problem with red hair is that people tend to remember you.
He casts a long shadow. They sit in silence, he perusing his menu, she pretending to find interest in the linoleum countertop. Several minutes transpire this way, and the more time that passes, the more they become an island of two. When she asks for her check he speaks.
“I should have stopped him earlier, I’m sorry. He was terribly rude. But he was gobsmacked by you, too, in case you didn’t know. You got under his skin.”
She turns, finds him grinning.
“I haven’t often seen him undone like that. Maybe never. And I’ve known him a long time.” He laughs. “Not too many people get Vince as riled as you did. Consider it an accomplishment.”
She nods, unsure where he’s taking the conversation.
“He’s an unusual man, Vince is. When it comes to weather, he’s a hundred percent reliable, but about other things he can be a bit of a loose cannon.”
She nods. “I saw that.”
Facing forward, they speak as if riding in adjacent seats on a train. “Ham and cheese,” he tells the waitress. “You sure you won’t have something?” he asks Bronwyn. “It’s on me.” His eyebrows rise over the thick bifocal lenses of his rimless glasses.
“Ice cream,” she says suddenly. “A scoop of coffee ice cream. But you don’t have to pay.”
“I do though, because I’m keeping you here. And I want your company.”
“Did Vince tell you to follow me?”
“Oh dear me, no. Happy accident to find you here.”
His coffee arrives and he floods it to near whiteness with cream.
“You know Vince is not religious at all, but he has a very superstitious streak. During tornado season he gets pretty riled and he calls me in to bless him. It’s funny—I don’t really do a thing, but he seems to need it.”
“That’s why you were here?”
Earl nods. “He’s worried about what’s going to happen when the next front comes through. It’s been such a bad year, you know.” He inserts his fat lower lip under the cup’s rim so the cup seems to perch there, then slurps with concentration, as if trying hard not to spill. He is massive, and he makes her feel smaller than usual, and he emanates a great moist heat. Sometimes large men have scared her—Reed had a law school friend who threw his body around so recklessly she was always careful to stay out of his path—but this Earl does not scare her that way. Perhaps his size is mitigated by his clerical collar. She tries to imagine him blessing Vince—is a blessing actions or words, she isn’t sure. She feels gleeful to think Vince needs a blessing. Even Vince knows that Vince is not invincible.
Earl swivels on his tiny seat to look at her, twisting shoulders and waist, slow as a dirigible. She stills herself in the shade of his regard. What does he see? The waitress has laid her ice cream on the counter. The creamy brown mound is shape-shifting, oblivious to the café’s air-conditioning. She waits, communing with the ice cream.
“To have a little thing like you challenging him . . .”
“I didn’t mean to be challenging him. I was just telling him the truth. And he was trying to make me look like a nut, but I’m not.”
“I’m sure you’re not. Vince just likes to be in control. He doesn’t want anyone else sharing his limelight.” Earl takes a handkerchief from his jacket pocket, removes his glasses and mops his face. “This heat. If I weren’t so gosh darn big. You probably don’t feel it so much, tiny as you are.”
Earl’s sandwich has arrived, oozing cheese and grease, and he dives into it with singular focus. She spoons up the soup of her ice cream, curling her tongue to cradle it. Beyond the café windows the day has dimmed noticeably. There is no sky available for inspection, but the charged atmosphere trembles. Earl notices too. He lays down his sandwich and his gaze follows hers to the window.
“The nasty light of evil,” he says.
“Evil? I don’t ascribe intent to natural forces.”
“Oh my, if you lived here you would. Once you’ve seen a tornado like the ones we’ve been having here. It’s been a terrible year. In our little town alone, just over the border in Kansas, we lost seventy people—and our whole population is only twelve hundred. Just terrible.” He shakes his head. “They’re not random, believe me.”
“I’m not religious.”
“What I’m saying has nothing to do with religion. It’s about people having ill will. All that negative energy has to go someplace.” He turns back to his sandwich. “If I could do something I would.”
As they eat they become an island of silence again in the café’s clamor. Earl could ask questions, but he doesn’t, and she is puzzled by this. She’s used to being pummeled with questions, not just recently, but all her life, all through school, question after question, each one a quill. But Earl seems to navigate not knowing by holding back and waiting for things to disclose themselves.
A bumper sticker on Earl’s black Ford Explorer says: It’s Not Religion, It’s a Relationship. It gives her pause, but only momentarily. He wants to show her the tornado damage in his town, and why not—though it’s almost a two-hour drive, she has no other claims on her time. They speed north, back along the same stre
tch of road Bronwyn drove yesterday. Earl grew up just outside Oklahoma City, he says. He loves this countryside, its flat fields of wheat, sorghum, soy beans; its gentle hills; its beneficent skies; its modest people. Vince, modest?
“We may fry in the heat here someday, but I’ll still be here. A big old sweaty, greasy Earl-burger.”
Minister of what he calls a “come-hither-come-all” church, Earl holds services in his own home. He refuses to name his church. “In my experience names don’t do people much good. In fact, they often get people fighting. So I don’t like to get hung up that way.”
The air conditioner in the Explorer is broken and they both sweat copiously despite the rush of wind through the open windows. The day is unsettled. Thunder grumbles in the distance. The sky does appear bedeviled.
Earl’s town, Jobsville, a few miles off the highway, is a snapshot of tragedy straight from the evening news. Hardware store, grocery store, beauty parlor, café—everything demolished. They park and get out. Mountainous piles of rubble spill across the road in such random disarray that Earl has trouble remembering how things used to be. The air is acrid with the smell of rubber and gasoline, with ruin and despair, with the mephitic smell of death.
They get back in the car. Bronwyn can’t relax. The clouds are long arms striating the sky, churning and bilious, black beneath and flocked with icy white on top. The fields that yesterday looked golden are now a dull brown. Earl lives a few miles away. He has invited her to his house before they head back to Oklahoma City. She should have brought her rental car to save him all this driving.
There is a feeling haunting her all the time now: that she should be elsewhere, doing something other than what she is presently doing. But she can never identify what that other thing is. “Don’t you feel lonely here?” she asks. “So few houses and people and all this sky and grassland?”
“Lonely is an inside thing. A state of mind. You think there aren’t lonely people in New York City? Thousands, believe you me.” He turns from the wheel. “You are either a very young soul or a very old one, I can’t tell which.”