We’d been recording our personal stories all morning as Charles suggested in one of his emails. He wanted everyone to tell a short tale of how they got into chasing and about their first encounter with a tornado.
“I didn’t have a driver’s license at fifteen and biked to school every day. I roared out of there, uncaring that we had a storm moving in. I couldn’t go home, and since everyone in town knows me by name, I couldn’t hit the local library or a coffeeshop, either. Someone would snitch that I wasn’t in class, or they would call my mother.”
“That would have been more disastrous,” Vern said from behind Noah, where he monitored the interview.
“Let him tell it,” Noah admonished.
“I’m only pissed he didn’t drag me out of class with him. Some best friend you are.”
Noah cast daggers over his shoulder at Vern, who made a point of zipping his lips.
I’d volunteered to go first for the interviews. Apart from Vern, the others busied themselves as they waited their turns. We were camped out in Lex’s garage, as was usual. Elliott sat at the desk, monitoring a growing storm system in Kansas. Lex had the bug’s hood up, forever tinkering with her guts, and Vern played director, much to Noah’s annoyance.
“I ended up on a county road outside of town. I don’t know why I thought that was a good idea.” I chuckled, remembering it. “When the sirens wailed, I was two or three miles from town. I remember it was eerily calm, as if Mother Nature was holding her breath. The sky churned, the color of poison. In the east, I saw what looked like a wall of rain coming toward me. I stopped my bike and watched. I had no sense of what I was looking at. I wouldn’t have recognized an updraft at fifteen if I was standing in it.
“I didn’t see the ground rotation or any signs of vortices because I didn’t know what to look for. After a few minutes, what I did see was a massive funnel growing out of the swirling clouds overhead, and I thought, oh fuck.”
Noah chuckled.
“I didn’t hop on my bike and race off.”
“Because you have a death wish,” Vern muttered.
“No, I stood there as that sucker developed and touched down. Full-blown fucking tornado. Right there in front of me. Thatstupid fifteen-year-old kid had no idea the freaking luck he had, witnessing something that beautiful.”
“Most people wouldn’t call that luck, Oz.”
“Would you shut up,” Noah barked at Vern. “It’s his story. Not yours.”
“Oh boy,” I continued. “Then, there was wind. It came up out of nowhere. The tornado was probably three or so miles away, not nearly as close as we get nowadays, but I was more excited than scared.”
“What did you do?” Noah prompted.
“I pounded my chest like a Neanderthal and howled at it.”
Vern snorted. “You still do shit like that.”
I demonstrated, calling everyone’s attention.
Noah laughed. “We really need to get your head examined.”
“It only lasted a few minutes. Must have been a pretty weak one, but the surge of adrenaline I got… Fuck drugs. This was a thousand times better than any high. Man, I can’t describe it. For weeks after, I buzzed with energy and harassed Vern, retelling it over and over.”
“He did. My god, it was annoying.”
Noah swung the camera around to film Vern, prompting him to go ahead and speak for a change.
“Those stories got more and more convoluted every time he told them until he wanted me to believe him and his bike had been lifted off the ground temporarily like someWizard of Ozbullshit.”
I laughed. “It could have happened.”
Noah pivoted, returning the camera’s focus to me. “And that started your obsession with tornadoes?”
“Yep. I chased that high like a heroin addict. Still do. I studied everything about them. Learned about weather patterns and what to look for. I wanted that moment back. That adrenaline rush. I wanted to be closer. Feed off its energy. Vern became mywilling accomplice. The following spring, we went on our first official chase. We were sixteen. Vern had his license and a car, and we both had no shits to give.”
“It was my dad’s old Buick,” Vern said. “Remember that piece of shit?”
“A real clunker.”
