4 PAUL CRENSHAW the stairs of our cellar, judging when they might drop, how big they might be ifwe were in danger They judged clouds as some men judge the stock market, wondering if it might rise or fall, as all ‘through spring and into summer the storms in Tornado Alley rolled up out of the west, advancing in lines extending from thirty miles south of Broken Bow, Oklahoma, to fifteen miles north of De ‘Queen, Arkansas. [learned the counties of Arkansas — Logan and ‘Sequoia and Grawford and Sebastian and Scott, Franklin and John- son and Washington and Pope and Polk — through radio reports of tornado warnings or sightings, my geography formed of radio static in lightning, late nights in a storm cel the movement of storms across @ TV screen, north-northeast through Scott County migh learned to recognize at a glance my own county and the counties surrounding it, because when tornado watches or warnings were is- sued, in the bottom right part of the TV screen would be a map of ‘Arkansas with certain counties flashing red. On these nights I lay awake in bed, red bands of heavy storms moving across computer- drawn counties in my mind, reciting the path of storms: LeFlore, Sebastian, Crawford, Logan, knowing that at some time in the night 1 would be awakened, either by my father or the storm out. side. I would be wrapped in a blanket, hurried through the rain and into the truck and up the hill, to the flickering kerosene im- ‘ages of aunts and cousins, sleepy-cyed like myself, their shadows large on the wall, as outside the storm raged on. My grandfather could tell by the way leaves hung on the trees if it would rain that day or not—an old-ime meteorologist who ‘watched the seasons and the sky simply because they were there. “See there?" he said once. We were standing outside the cellar as the first storms began to fire up in the heat of late afternoon. Low geen clouds hung silent in the distance, and I have since learned that when clouds turn green, one should take cover. A point bung from the clouds, a barb that looked ominous as the clouds passed ‘on and we watched them go, and always after I have looked for low ‘barbs hanging from dark green clouds, for silent formations that might spawn destruction. He knew, standing on the cellar stairs watching trough the Title window, when a tornado might drop ‘Storm Country 25 from the clouds. He knew the feel of the air, the presence that an- ounces a heavy storm. ‘Sometimes it will stop raining when the funnel falls. Sometimes E the wind stops and the trees go stil and the air settles on you as everything goes quiet. Then, faint at first as the storm gathers | Speed, you can hear the force as it spins itself into existence, touchy | thg earth, whirling out into the day or night. It sounds like rusted sirens, howling dogs, the call of a freight train on 2 long trip across the plains somewhere in the western night, pushing speed and sound before it, lonely and forlorn on its midnight ride. ‘Tve seen tornadoes drop from a clear blue sky. I've seen barns and houses and fields wiped out, cattle thrown for a distance to lie in the rain bawling with broken legs. Once I watched as a three- oF fourhundred-pound cut of sheet metal floated across the highway. touched down once, then lifted off again, light as air. I've seen towns wrecked by tornadoes in November, houses swept avay, all that was left of a church the roof lying on the ground, unscathed ‘but for a few shingles missing at one corner. One time I was almost ‘ruck by a bullet of hail the size of my fist. It crashed through the Srindow and landed on our living room floor. We all looked atit for ymoment. My mother tried to protect the curtains as the rain came in, but my father herded us toward the cellar up the hill at my grandfather's house. Terre sound of storms, the low grow of thunder that means storms in the distance, the loud quick clap that means storms over- head. I've blinked in srglow of forked lightning, watched flash lightning light te hills as night tums into day. I've seen the emains of exploded houses, nothing le ling, from when the tornado drops and the air pressure changes and the air inside the house has to get 0 T've seen storms come with no warning, ‘em sky rimmed with the red rays of the last jing in the twilight the air ome hem and i ‘weep through with hardly a ripple but the wind in your hai, pass Seen Rat other es, ve huddled in hallways and Tistening to tornadoes pass overhead, and iuhen Tsee on television the remmants of a town destroyed by the Joree of storms, I always offer, however briefly, a thanks that itwas not my people or my town.