Monica came back in from lunch, her hair wetted down in a way Phil thought made her look like she'd just gotten out of the shower. He tried not to look at her blouse. "It's come a big one out there, Phil," she said.
Mercy the jokes Rufus might have made there.
"Have you heard anything about Club Road and tow-truck drivers? How they won't give people rides because of that?" Phil asked.
"Really? Should I look into that? I'm dry, right now. For stories I mean."
Phil winced.
"Oh, that was a bad one, though, wasn't it. I'm sorry. But I need to find something to write about. There's no meetings tonight, and I need something to put in tomorrow morning's paper or I'll just be sitting here playing Klotski again."
"You do that, too?" Phil said.
"Don't you wish we could compete? I'm sure there's a way. Just see who gets the block out in less moves? Wouldn't that pass the time?"
Phil shook his head. "Maybe you better work on the Club Road thing. It's nothing really. Just a rumor I heard."
"All right." Monica looked down at her blouse as she went to her desk, thinking, "Typical how boys are always scared to compete with us in anything mental. At least now it's just Klotski and not reporting or school or voting." Monica sat down at the computer and shook some drops from her near-brown, nearer red hair. Where was Club Road anyway?
She got out a map of the town. Club Road poked out from the other city streets like a loose thread you wanted to pull off. It even went out of the city limits, crossing several creeks. Monica had been on that road several times, on her way between garage sales. She remembered she bought a food processor and a hair dryer from a moving sale near where it left town. You could live in luxury off garage sales.
Monica picked up the phone and dialed the police chief's number, which she had memorized. "Hello, sir. Monica here."
"Oh, hi. How are you, girl?"
"Rained on." Monica was careful never to tell a man she was wet.
"Oh. You gotta stay out of this. We've got a tornado watch on right now. Just called it ten minutes ago."
"Really? Do they think it's going to get bad here?"
"Just a precaution. If you hear the sirens, though, you better get in the darkroom, there. You've got glass all over the place in the newsroom."
"Oh right. Right. I called about another thing, though. Did you know the tow-truck drivers won't give people rides?"
"Yeah. Yeah. I guess you could say that."
"Why is that exactly?"
"Oh. Well, I'd have to check the reports way back there to be sure, which I can do if you'll make me. But I'd rather not right now, you know. I've got spotters to coordinate by radio."
"Okay."
"But we'll be back in touch on this thing. I'll be fully cooperative."
"I appreciate your time, sir."
"Anytime, Miss Monica."
Monica hung up. Was Rufus Mr. Rufus? Was Phil Mr. Phil?
She stood and walked to the big picture windows. "Chief just said there's a tornado watch."
"Huh?" Phil said, engrossed in the microfilm projector.
"Tornado watch." Monica turned and squinted to read half a headline, beige in the speckled darkness of the negative image. China to Re-arm Pat . . . . "What are you reading, there?"
"Just looking for the account of a tow-truck driver killer." Phil paused dramatically. "From 1934."
"Thirty-four?"
"Yeah. Tornado watch, eh? How come the newspaper is always the last to know?"
With a sound of sweeping rain and wind, Rufus came back into the offices. "Geez, I hate politics. The guy would not shut up about welfare. Welfare is a drain from the budget. Welfare is a subsidy for the merchants. Welfare is draining our moral compass," Rufus cried.
"Mixed metaphor," Phil said.
"It was him, not me. The guy's campaign slogan is 'Did you get screwed? I'll tell you who did it.'"
Monica turned from the window involuntarily, trying to be sure she didn't catch his eyes. She failed, and when he looked at her, she felt an ache around her pupils, and began blinking as though to clear out the contaminant of Rufus' gaze.
"So did you see any funnel clouds," Phil asked quietly.
"I wasn't lookin' for no goddamn funnel clouds," Rufus said. "I'm hating every second of this and I'm about to pawn off my college ring. If there's a funnel cloud, you're looking at him."
Monica shook her head. With this guy everything was part two of a Danielle Steele miniseries, with no commercial breaks. She predicted early first heart attack for Rufus. Thirty-eight. Maybe forty-two on the outside.
"Where's Vickie Lou anyway," Rufus said. "Home watching the Bold and the Beautiful?"
Monica crossed her arms and practically wheeled on him. Here was her chance to demonstrate that minute bit of eye-contact had been an accident, an unfortunate one. "I think that was a slur. That was a slur against women. If she were a man, you'd say he was out fishing, wouldn't you?"
Rufus wanted no part of it. "I'm turning up the scanner to hear the spotters."
He stepped toward the editor's chair and turned up the police scanner that rested above it on a white shelf, sharing space with a fake flower bed and a propped up bachelor's degree from East Texas State. The room suddenly took on an erratic charge as bolts of cop talk shot out from the scanner speaker.
"--54B, 54A on repeater?"
"--Four B SO county-wide."
"I just now got to my truck. What's the traffic?"
The dispatcher, whom Monica recognized as Dana, the one who always had to rifle through the entire station for the offense reports, answered in a reedy voice.
"County has been placed under a tornado warning, tornado warning till three-twenty."
"Ten-four. Do we have any traffic on-site, direction of travel, location? I'm West bound on Pine at this time."
Monica worked her jaw, thinking of the scenes in Twister when the cows floated helplessly, but their moos were in a relatively normal tone of voice. Was that inside the tornado or just outside of it? Could you really survive by hanging onto plumbing?
Phil stood, flicking off the microfilm viewer. "I'll be in the dark room."
"Fifty-four B, fifty four A."
"Yeah, Fifty-four B?"
"Okay, now I just got to the truck."
"'Okay, just get out on the interstate, bout the 69 mile marker and watch for anything. One has not been sighted in Clayton County, but one has been sighted in Williams County, and we're taking all precautions."
Rufus shook his head. "Save your energy, Phil. Don't you know the old Indian legend about this place?"
"Huh?"
"A tornado will never hit where two rivers meet."
"Two rivers."
"You've got the Quapaw and the Taquin. Both Indian names. That ought to add something to it."
"So you're willing to stand here and let the glass shred you like Velveeta just because of some stereotype about native-Americans knowing more about nature than the rest of us?" Monica said.
"Well, they did start the Boy Scouts."
"And you're a history major? So tell me why there aren't any native American meteorologists?"
Rufus missed not one beat. "If I could make it rain by dancing, would I need the Doppler radar? Possibly not."
Again, the crackled voices of police peeled from the small speaker.
"I've made it to the interstate now. I'll be westbound on the 69."
"--four."
"Fifty-one, fifty-four A."
"Go ahead."
"Bout two minutes ago we had roofing coming out of the clouds, falling in Okatona."
Phil stood up again. "That's not good," he said. "Shingles don't normally fall from the sky."
Rufus put his finger up to his lip, even though the radio could be heard above all speech.
"I'm at the horse farm on 53. It's so dark I can't hardly see. So I've got something coming through right here."
"That's about fifteen minutes away," Phil said. "I pass that every morning on my commute. Let's get into the darkroom."
"You can get into the darkroom, Phil." Rufus said.
Monica looked at Phil, pointed toward the darkroom and began heading there, afraid to look behind her at the trees she had already seen begin waving like the crowd at a rock concert, trying to get the act onstage to swan dive onto them.
Before she opened the door, she heard what nearly sounded like a dog howl, but was too far away and too loud. "It's the siren, Rufus. You going to stand there and watch--?" But she saw Rufus was on the phone. He waved her to get in. "Hey, Chip? Rufus. You still got that camcorder?'"
Phil gestured toward the door, and Monica went in. "What now?" he said.
"I'm turning the radio on. Let's get down against the wall. Didn't you have storm drill in school?"
"Oh, yeah." Phil said and obediently got down on the floor, scrunched like a bean, with his hands on the back of his head. "We just wait for the second bell to ring, now, right?"
Monica turned the radio on. No news. Just Ace of Base. "I saw the sign. It opened up my eyes. Life is demanding without understanding."
"God, I hate that. The 90s Abba. That would be the last music I'd hear before the apocalypse."
The door suddenly blasted out and hit the side of the wall. Monica bit her own tongue and turned. It was Rufus.
"Shit! You scared the hell--
Rufus grabbed her shoulders. "I heard it. I heard it. We gotta get down."
Monica felt herself hardening, strengthening at Rufus' show of panic. "What? What did you hear?" she demanded.
"The train noise. The train noise everybody talks about," Rufus said, his hands in his back pockets. "I'm getting down."
He found a spot to Phil's right. Phil scooted aside to make space for him. Monica put her hand over her mouth, but her snickers could still be heard, despite the swell of rain noise against the roof. "Finally, you two are bowing down to me," she said. "Just like I always wanted."
Neither man moved. Rufus coughed.
"I don't know whether to savor this or save my neck," Monica said.
"If you'll notice," Rufus said toward the floor. "Our asses are pointed toward you, not our heads."
Phil exhaled a slight laugh through his nose.
"Pigs even in a tornado," Monica muttered as she at last got down with them on the floor. She put her forehead down, but arranged her hair so it cushioned her skin from the cold tiling. "And I think you . . . "
"Shut-up."
"Wha--"
It was the siren again, fainter this time because of the rain and the radio, now playing "C'est La Vie." From two rooms away, Monica could also hear police frantically reporting through the scanner. It sounded like a competition of excited auctioneers, none letting any of the others finish a sale.
"I did a story on the warning system few months ago. If the thing has hit town, they'll leave it on until they get an all-clear or the power goes out," Rufus said.
"Wouldn't we be hit if--?" began Monica.
"Probably not, if it's all the way across town, like where they said it was headed."
"Oh," Monica said. She hated how suddenly Rufus knew everything. A minute ago, he was needing to be slapped, now he knew exactly what was going on and why. She wanted to question his sudden expertise in as withering a way as was possible short of viciousness, but there was too much else to think about. Or was there anything at all to think about? What could you do anyway? Twelve years of public school. Untold hours in extra-curricular activities. Half a dozen scholarships. A four-year degree with honors, and here you were crouched on a dirty darkroom floor listening for the sound of doom. How could you win?
The siren went off, and so did the radio and so did the red light.
Monica listened to the wind blowing the rain. She heard thunder from the southeast, behaving unlike thunder, getting louder, like a recording of a low piano chord in reverse.
"That would be our big boy," Rufus said.
"I'll just bet," Monica said. But she began to pray silently. "Lord, please be with all the people around the storm tonight. Offer them your strength. Please watch over my family and friends." She noticed her lip was trembling. "And lend ME your strength too. I don't know what to do."
Didn't God cause tornadoes? Wouldn't he be able to stop them?
"In Jesus name, I pray. Amen."
The roar ceased suddenly. In seconds it was replaced with the sudden noise of police cars and ambulances converging from all directions with sirens blaring.
Rufus stood. "That's my cue," he said.
Monica stood too. "You would have a Mike Hammer line like that to say in a time like this, wouldn't you?"
"I think you should stay here, Monica. Come with me, Phil."
Phil's Night-Glo watch rose to his chin. "I'm about to get off," he said.
"Why him? I'm the other reporter here?" Monica said.
Rufus opened the darkroom door and they could see everything take on an eerie green hue. "I have to see this. Suit yourselves."
Monica followed him out, wondering whether now was the time to get mad or to just let it go. Phil passed between them and went to the phone. Monica said in a measured, deliberate tone, "If he's going, I guess I have to stay for when Vickie gets back. But I resent what you just said there."
"I was going to give him a ride home! The guy's car broke down" Rufus said, almost wheeling at her.
Phil put the phone down. "Dead," he said. "But it doesn't matter. Dad said he'd be picking me up anyway. I shouldn't have to remind him."
Monica fixed a stare on Rufus.
"Please," he said. "We've got a lot of work to do. Let me get on the road," he said. "And let's work together please."
"Meaning I stay here and wait."
"I'm the one with the experience," Rufus said. "Fine."
Rufus grabbed his bag of gear, his umbrella, which he'd thrown, still open, on the floor near his desk, and went out. "Oh, dear God, " he kept saying to himself. "Oh God." He'd said that after seeing a 19-year-old boy sentenced to 45 years in prison because he shot another boy in the spine. Rufus had had to pass the convict's parents on his way out of the courthouse. "Oh, God," he'd said.
Rufus got in his car and turned on the radio, trying to find the local station amid the ferocious static, a station he hardly ever listened to. Those imitation George Joneses with long, curly locks hanging from under their $600 Stetsons grated on his last nerves. He hit a button. It was Alan Jackson, in full stereo.
He hit the off button, and drove toward where he'd heard that bowling alley noise. As he was curled up on the floor, he thought he heard some giant rolling a gutter ball to the west. He turned onto Walnut Street, fumbling at his camera pack.