On March 3, 1968, I quit my job at the Quik ‘n’ EZ, shouldered my backpack, grabbed my guitar, and managed to hitch a ride on Highway 31 west out of Arkansas and into Oklahoma. If you’ve ever hitchhiked, you know how quickly the initial conversation can subside into an awkward silence, and that’s what happened with the fellow who picked me up. He talked a little about his wife and kids, enough to reassure me that he wasn’t a predatory homosexual, and I said I had a girlfriend named Jade to let him know that I wasn’t homosexual prey, and that was about it.
I was watching the telephone poles whiz by when I noticed that the sun began to dim and the sky began to darken, kind of like what happens in the Book of Revelation when one of the seals gets broken. A bank of charcoal clouds, growling with thunder and glowing with fire, loomed up in the southwest and bore down on us with fierce rapidity. The driver, whose name I never got, turned to me with a smile and said, “Here we go, partner! Looks like we’re in for it.”
Boy, was he was right: not fifteen minutes later, the storm was writhing and booming right on top of us, and large drops were splatting on the windshield. A spasm of lightning and crash of thunder unleashed a furious pounding of hail that thrummed and bounced on the car hood and windshield and ricocheted from the blacktop. The driver started whooping and laughing and yelling, “Hell, yeah, baby, bring it on! You found me! C’mon, darling! Here I am! Ha-ha!” The hailstorm no sooner stopped when a downpour of rain engulfed the car. The wipers were vainly thumping back and forth, and we could barely make out the road. But then the rain lapsed into a dead hush, and we heard a massive roar, and there it was: About a half a mile in front of us, a tornado was slopping across the highway like some kind of monstrous snapping turtle, not nimble like you see some tornados, delicate fingers toying with the winter wheat, but an ugly smudge of churning wind reaching to the heavens and slouching toward Jerusalem. The driver started shouting again, as giddy as a Baptist at the Second Coming, and pounding the steering wheel and saying, “Look at that big bitch! Woo-hoo, God-almighty, she is one big bitchin’ bitch!” I urged with some intensity that we pull over and lie down in a ditch, a safety procedure my teacher Mrs. McCaslin had recommended in the seventh grade, but the driver said, “What, so’s we can drown like a couple of puppies in ditch water? Listen, boy, I’m from Oklahoma, and I been watching these bitches since I was four and a half years old, and I’m a-fixin’ to drive this car with you and me in it between her legs and into the inner sanctum!” And with that, he floored the car.
That was some ride, let me tell you, rushing 120 miles an hour toward certain death, all so some Okie lunatic could screw a tornado. Thank you, God, by the time we covered the distance, the winds had dropped, and the tornado had passed to the northeast and lifted off the ground like a fat lady hoisting her skirts. The driver slammed on the brakes and watched the funnel ascend while I sat stunned and breathing hard. Suddenly, the driver laughed and pointed, “Hey, lookee there what that she-bitch did! Ha-ha!” On our left were strewn mangled trailer homes and pickup trucks on their sides and broken limbs and strips of pink insulation. I saw an old man leaning on a fence post and staring around at the debris.
I asked the driver, “Shouldn’t we stop and help him?”
And the driver said, “Help? Help who? That old fellow? Pshaw. He’s having the time of his life. He’s about to smoke the best cigarette he ever smoked.” Then he lowered his voice and said, “Dammit, boy, we had our chance and we missed her! But next time, by God, next time you see me, I’m a-gonna be a-ridin’ that big old bitchin’ bitch with a shotgun in my right hand, a six shooter in my left, and the reins in my teeth. You can hunker down in a ditch if you want to, but not me, nossir! I’m gonna ride that bitch from up in heaven all the way down to hell until she begs me to stop!”
I will say I was damned happy when he dropped me off in McAlester and went on to Oklahoma City. Very damned happy.