Promises of Home

was the prettiest of all my friends’ mamas. And the smartest and the funniest. I took great pride in her. She came up behind me, leaning against the back of the wicker chair. She liked Trey, but I didn’t think she was ever fooled by his wiles; he was trouble, pure and simple. “Good afternoon, Trey. I hope y’all’ve got your horses set to weather the storm.” “Yas’m, we do. Daddy and Mr. Quadlander are gonna take good care of them.” “And won’t you be helping them?” Mama asked, her voice wry. It was a practiced game between them-her giving him his chance for a honeyed explanation. Trey posed, the poster child for earnestness, with his cowboy hat held over his innocent heart and a dark cowlick standing at bent attention. “Ah, no, ma’am. See, I’m going to be out courtin’ Miss Althea so she don’t blow any of us away.” He was only a boy, but already he had the sparkling eye of a dedicated flirt. Mama laughed, a sweet musical tinkle that sounded more like a young girl’s than a mother’s. “I’ll certainly sleep better knowing that you’re protecting us all. Jordan, I’m going to make lunch now. Trey, would you like to stay and eat ham sandwiches with us?” “No, thank you, ma’am.” Trey smiled. It was hard to believe the number of cuss words he’d taught me when he put on his proper talk. “I got to go buy Miss Althea some candy and flowers.” Mama laughed, ruffled my hair (knowing full well it would mortify me in front of Trey), and said, “Come eat in a few minutes, Jordan. Trey, if your Miss Althea gives you grief and you and your daddy run short of water or food, y’all come see me, okay?” “Yes, ma’am.” Trey nodded with respect as Mama went back inside. He shook his head. “Jesus, Jordan, your mama sure is pretty.” I smiled that he thought Mama was pretty, but stopped when I saw the wistful look on Trey’s face. He didn’t even have a mama. (“Cancer took her” was the only explanation he ever offered.) “They said on the radio the storm’s hittin’ Corpus right now.” Trey continued his gentle cajole. “That means she’ll be here in a few hours. Look, that tree house has been there for twenty years. It’s as solid as a rock. We’ll meet there at four o’clock, okay?” I hated to disappoint him, but I still wasn’t keen on his plan. “This idea doesn’t sound too swift.” He shook his head. “Stare it in the face, Jordy. You don’t want to be the only chickenshit that doesn’t show up.” And with a smirk, he straightened his black cowboy hat and sauntered down the street. Of course I’d shown up. Boys do foolish things, and my friends and I were determined to be junior achievers in the idiot division. I’d told Mama I was going to wait out the storm at Junebug’s and he’d told his mama he was staying with me. Mama’d fretted, but let me go, trusting me not to be stupid. The others told similar lies, and that’s how I found myself crouching in a shuddering tree house, the illicit taste of smoke in my mouth, staring across the dimness at Trey, the burning ember of the cigarette dangling between his fingers. Rain blew in with increasing force. Davis carefully stashed away his cards, stretched out his long legs (he’d hit his growth spurt first), and fiddled with the transistor radio. “Hey, put on some music,” Trey demanded. “Some Buck Owens, maybe.” “I’m trying to find the station in Bavary, see what they say about the storm,” Davis said. “If their tower’s down, we’re gettin’ the hell out of this tree,” Junebug said, sounding like an old man. Davis played gently with the controls. Garbled static was all he could summon. The Bavary station seemed to have trouble deciding whether or not it’d stay on the air. “When do you think the eye’ll get here?” Little Ed asked quietly. “This is the eye, Little Ed,” Trey teased. “Once that other side of the storm hits, this tree house’ll probably land in Oz.” “Yeah, Little Ed, and you can be a Munchkin.” Clevey laughed. Little Ed frowned. “Yeah, and you can be one of those butt-ugly flying monkeys, Heavey.” Clevey didn’t care much for that particular nickname (bestowed when he’d gotten a real sudden case of stomach flu in second grade and blew his cookies all over Miss Lavinia Duchamp’s school desk while trying to get permission from the old battle-ax to run to the bathroom). He started pummeling Little Ed, but Junebug forced them apart. He was always our peacemaker, our healer of young wounded egos. “Y’all shut up,” Davis snapped. “KBAV’s back on.” Intermingled with the static (which was sounding more like wind to me, the longer I listened to it-or perhaps every noise now sounded like wind) were a few words we could make out: Heavy rains reported near Bavary and east Bonaparte County… do not travel unless absolutely… winds gusting to 55 mph with threat of tornadoes forming… a man reported missing in La Grange due to flash-flooding… “Hmmph.” Junebug frowned at Trey, “This wasn’t so clever of us to do this, now was it? We ought to get on home.” “You can go out in that if you want, Stinkbug,” Trey said. “I think it’s probably safest for us to stay right here.” He leaned against the trembling wall of the tree house and propped his boots up on the crates we used for a table. “No, what’s safest is for us all to hike back to my mama’s house and stay there.” Davis Foradory stood and stretched. “I think we’ve proved enough, Trey. Come on, let’s go on back to my mamaw’s. We can have chocolate milk and cookies.” “Chocolate milk and cookies,” Trey mocked in the overly nasal tone a lounging prince might use. “That just sounds divine, Four Door. I’m sure you and the other ladies will enjoy yourselves.” “Better than getting our asses blown over to Fayette County,” Davis shot back, He wasn’t easily gulled by Trey. He pulled open the rattly door. The torrent outside roared, wind and rain gusting in over us. Davis gingerly set a foot out on the ladder and paused. “Jesus, shut the door!” Clevey hollered. Davis turned back, his eyeglasses already coated with raindrops. “Do you hear that? Sounds like the train’s running.” Trains. No trains would be running as a hurricane’s totters tore across the Texas coastal plains. I peered out through the window, squinting into the darkness. Darkness squinted back at me. It was almost as though night had settled on Mirabeau as Althea passed over like some shadowy wraith, eclipsing sun and summer sky. I saw trees bending hard in the wind, and grass in the Foradorys’ pasturelands rippling like waves on the ocean. Then I saw it: a dark, jagged line moving toward the woods. Except this line was spinning, its point in the earth, its top arcing back and forth in a short pendulum swing. “Tornado!” I screamed. The other boys froze with shock. “Yeah, right, Jordan-” Trey began, but then he caught sight of my eyes. His face blanched like an old man’s. “I’m not kidding! Tornado coming! Get out! Get down the ladder!” I hollered. There was a mad scrabble as boys leaped for the rope ladder we had pulled up behind us, pushing it out into the darkness. It unfurled like a cracking whip. I yelled at Clevey. “Go down first and hold it steady for the others.” He nodded, fear in his freckled face. As he moved down each rung his weight brought the ladder back toward earth. I saw Clevey reach the bottom, practically sitting on the last rung to steady it. Gusts tore at his hair like a madwoman, and looking down at him, I saw him staring toward the funnel, eyes wide in shock. I turned to Little Ed, pushing him out next, followed by Davis. I gestured at Trey. “Go!” I hollered. “I’m sorry, Jordy,” he said in a whisper that somehow cut through the screams of the storm. He descended into the slashing wind and darkness. Junebug turned from the window, his eyes intense. “We gotta go now, Jordy, now! ” he ordered, shoving me down the ladder, climbing down practically on top of me. Clevey still crouched on the bottom rung; the others were gone, running God knows where. I fell to the ground, the storm shoving me with the force of nature’s worst bully. “Where are they?” Junebug shouted at Clevey. “House!” Clevey yelled back. “Four Door’s house!” Nearly a half mile away. I stumbled, Junebug’s hand gripping my wrist as he pulled me along. He was bigger than me and I didn’t resist. I could hear a roar, like a growl of God. I tried to cry out, but the gale tore my voice from my throat, sending it spinning far above into the dark, rot-colored clouds. Junebug and I ran across pastureland, toward the Old River Road that snakes along the shores of the Colorado. I risked a glance back and, through a sheet of rain, saw the frees churning in the circular wind. Our boyhood hideout and second home cartwheeled crazily apart like a match- stick house. “It’s heading this way,” I screamed into Junebug’s ear. “Run! Run!” We didn’t get much farther. Halfway through the pastureland we fell into a ditch, with water already swirling in it. I tumbled head over heels, Junebug sliding down more gracefully. I landed in muddy, grass-topped water. I froze in terror, thinking a flash flood would sweep us away, but the rain was collecting placidly and was only up to our ankles-for the moment. We were alone. “Lie down! Cover your head!” Junebug ordered me. “Where’s Clevey? And Trey and the others?” I hollered, but he shoved me down, forcing me to obey. I went face-first into the cold rainwater, sheltering my head with my thin arms. Junebug pressed down beside me and we waited, listening as the roaring twister approached. I thought of Daddy and Mama finding my body-and my sister asking if she could have my catcher’s glove. (She fancied herself a better ballplayer than me, which was ridiculous-she couldn’t hit to save her life.) I thought of our friends talking about how stupid we were in braving Althea’s wrath. And I thought of my whole life, left unlived. In heaven, would I forever be a boy, or would I get to grow up? A noise like God’s own tantrum roared in our ears. I shoved my face into water and mud and grass, trying to burrow into the ground. I didn’t know how much later it was when I felt Junebug’s weight ease up beside me. I first became conscious of the quiet. It was as penetrating as the noise had been. An eerie stillness settled on the land, and the sky, rather than being dark, shifted to a bilious green-a gigantic dead eye, staring sightlessly down at us. Junebug and I were coated in mud and twigs. We shook with dampness and shock, our clothes completely soaked. The tornado had passed near us, disintegrating in the storm’s competing winds or as it hit the trees that crowded in on the river. “Holy God,” I heard myself say in something that didn’t sound like a child’s voice. “It’s the eye. It’ll be calm for a little while, then it’ll be much worse.” Junebug started crawling out of the ditch. I followed him, my breath catching in my throat when I looked at the land. Trees lay shattered in a swath. A dirty smell hung in the air, even though we’d just been battered with rain. Where the tree house stood not even the tree remained-only a gaping maw where the old roots had vainly clutched. The land lay like a dead thing. “Clevey!” Junebug brayed at the top of his voice. “Davis! Trey! Where are y’all?” “Oh, God, don’t let ’em be dead,” I coughed. “We got to find them before the eye passes. Then we got to get to Mrs. Foradory’s.