STORMFRONT

It was April 10th, 1979. Matthew was playing an early evening show at the Iron Horse, working through a rendition of Townes Van Zandt’s “Fraternity Blues”, when he, and his audience, heard the tornado sirens starting to go off. Looking out at the huge plate glass window off the side of the stage he saw a car flipping, end over end, down the middle of the street. Rooves were already letting loose on businesses across the street. Terrified, he sat down his guitar and tried to get to cover…

                                                                                                  *

Matthew woke with a start from the nightmare. He slowly realized he was okay, recognizing the shape of Libby lying beside him and the surroundings of the old motel room they were in. He thought to himself, where in the hell did that come from? I wasn’t even here when that happened. I was 16.

It was common knowledge, to everyone who inhabited Wichita Falls, TX for any length of time, the events that had occurred on April 10th, 1979. Homes and businesses through the southeastern part of the town had been obliterated. Over 1700 people had been severely injured, and another 45 had lost their lives in the F4 tornado which had blown through at around 5:55PM that evening. The locals, and many others in the surrounding areas, had come to call the event “Terrible Tuesday”.

When he had first come to Wichita Falls as an assistant instructor in the aircraft maintenance program, he had been warned, sternly, that relationships between instructors and students were frowned upon. He had met Libby the Shape back in February, and the attraction between them became undeniable. This hiding routine had become their reality for the last couple of months. He looked down at Libby again and shook his head.

He pulled himself out of the bed and lit a cigarette. As was his habit, he immediately switched the radio on, making sure the volume was low so as not to wake her. Music was his passion and one he had inherited from his grandfather. It was a part of himself which he refused to surrender, and whether playing or listening, he had music around him at every available opportunity.

Standing, he began to clear the cobwebs from his head. He had played a show the night before at the Iron Horse Saloon on Scott Street and had partaken quite liberally from the whiskey selection they kept on hand. Again, shaking his head, he looked down at his prize possession – the 1968 Gibson J200 his grandfather had left him – and thought, Girl, we knocked them out last night.

He stumbled to the bathroom in the dark, only turning on the light once he had closed the door. He looked at himself in the mirror and noticed the darkness around his eyes. He rubbed at the spot where he had just gotten the tattoo a few weeks before. The wolf, peering through his skin, seemed to be looking back at him in warning.

You have to give it up, brother.

                                                                                                *

He showered and walked out of the bathroom; picked up his watch and saw it was already 6:30AM. He picked up a pillow that had somehow made its way to the floor at the foot of the bed during the night’s frivolity. He gently threw it at Libby.

“Come on. We gotta get on the road.”

She woke and rubbed her eyes sleepily.

“God, what time is it?”

“Comin’ up on seven,” he replied. “We have to go if we’re going to Dallas to meet Brian and Nicci. I have to have you back for curfew by seven tonight.”

Jesus, is she prettier in the morning?

She rolled over to the side of the bed and started to get up, thought twice and laid back down in a heap.

“Who came up with the stupid idea of lunch in Dallas?”

“If memory serves, it was you.”

Brian and Nicci were friends of Matthew’s, both stationed at Dyess Air Force Base. They didn’t have the opportunity to spend a lot of time together and Libby had thought it a good idea to try to meet up in Dallas for a bit. It had been planned over a week before, and Matthew was looking forward to seeing them. At this point, Libby just wanted to curl up and go back to sleep.

“C’mon. Hop up. We’ve got a two-hour drive, and I don’t want to just go down there and hit and run.”

                                                                                                   *

Major Robert Lemke sat across his desk from Matthew on Monday morning. Lemke was an amicable sort, prone to good natured ribbing and fits of uncontrollable laughter at the slightest joke. When it came to running his training squadron at Shepherd Air Force Base, however, he was all business. He was a fair man but kept a serious demeanor regarding his command. He eyed Matthew for a moment.

“Pennies, are you doing okay this morning?”

“Yes sir. Thank you for asking, sir.”

“You know I fought hard for you to get this assignment, right?”

Lemke had learned about Matthew Pennington from a friend at Elmendorf Air Force Base in Alaska, which had been Matthew’s first assignment out of training. He had been amazed at his sparkling reputation and apparent prodigious knowledge of the KC-135R airframe. Still, it was somewhat unheard of for a Senior Airman, 21 years of age, to land a job as an assistant instructor. The Major had gone to great lengths to get him.

“Yes sir. I have always appreciated the opportunity,” Matthew replied, somewhat nervously.

“I know you play music sometimes. Side hustle, right? Off base some?”

“Oh, yes sir. It’s kind of a passion.”

“I get it,” Lemke said, picking up a manilla folder in front of him and opening it. “Question for you, though. You did realize that Scott and Flood Streets, and any of the establishments on either of them, were off limits to military personnel, correct?”

Matthew let his eyes fall from the Major’s for a moment, but he quickly recovered.

“Yes, sir.”

“Can you explain to me then what in the hell possessed you to play a show at the Iron Horse on Saturday night? Better yet, could you explain what possessed you to play that show in the company of one of my students?”

How did he find out about Libby?

“Airman Elizabeth Brink is just over four months out of Basic Training, son. She’s just turned 19 years old; and you’ve got her going to one of the roughest bars in north Texas to hear you play music? Then you take her to the seediest motel this side of Mexico after that and to Dallas yesterday. What the hell are you thinking?”

“I don’t have any excuses, sir.”

Matthew hung his head, for keeps this time.

“Pennies, I like you a lot. You are a good instructor, and you know your airframe better than most Staff Sergeants I know; but I can’t have you doing this. If you go back to Scott or Flood to play music again, I will Article 15 your ass quicker than you can whistle Dixie. That is a solemn promise.”

“Yes sir,” Matthew replied. “It won’t happen again, sir.”

Lemke relaxed somewhat and leaned back in his chair.

“Now, how about you and Airman Brink?”

“Sir?”

“I know these things happen, and every time they do they leave a shitstorm of paperwork on my desk a mile deep. Heartbreaks and nineteen-year-old girls don’t mesh, son, and that is a fact and an inevitability. She has about two months left here, Matthew, then what? You have to stop it… now. It is against regulations - highly against regulations - for one of my instructors to be involved with one of my students. I can’t have it.”

Matthew looked up at Major Lemke, defeated.

“Yes sir,” he replied. “I’ll handle it first thing after classes today.”

“See that you do, son. I would hate to lose you to youthful mistakes,” he said, sincerely. “You’re dismissed.”

                                                                                             *

Matthew grabbed Libby, as he had told Major Lemke he would, just after class. He didn’t want to do this on base, especially anywhere near the Maintenance Unit. They went to the Whataburger just across from the main gate. Outside of staff, they were the only people there.

“I have grown really fond of you over the last couple of months, Libby.”

“It shows your intelligence. I’m adorable,” she smiled.

Yes, you are…

Matthew paused for a moment and searched for words.

“Where are you going after you leave here? You got orders, right?”

“Yeah,” she replied. “McConnell in Kansas, for six weeks, and then to Guam. You knew that, Goof.”

Rip the bandage off, Pennies…

“Lemke found out about us.”

“Oh, shit,” she dropped a half-eaten fry onto the tray in front of her.

“Libby, you mean the world to me. Under different circumstances I could see us together forever. He’s making me break this off.”

She sat for a moment in silence, and tears started to form in the corners of her bright green eyes. Noticing this, Matthew wasn’t far behind her.

“What about after graduation?”

“It won’t work, Lib. You’re going to be an ocean apart from me.”

She hung her head, visibly sobbing.

He dropped her back at her dorm later, still trying to make her understand why this was the only decision he could make. Just as she started to get out of the car, she looked back at Matthew and said, through tears, “I love you, Matthew. Remember that.”

                                                                                                  *

At around 5:55AM on Tuesday, April 10th, 1984, Staff Sergeant Mike Ambrose and Airman Adrienne Fuller, his acting guard on duty that day, walked down the hallway toward Libby Brink’s dorm room after realizing she had not reported for formation. He knocked loudly, twice, but got no response. He unlocked the door, using the dorm passkey, to a dark room. When he turned on the overhead light, he saw her shape under the blanket on her cot.

“Airman Brink, why are you not in my formation?”

There was no response. The second time he asked louder and much more sternly. There was still no response. He turned his back and asked Airman Fuller to go rouse her. She pulled the blanket back from the cot to find the empty bottle of Jack Daniel’s lying beside Libby. In her hand, she still clasped an empty bottle of codeine. Her once pretty features were tinged blue. There was no pulse.

                                                                                                *

Matthew Pennington found out while in his office, roughly two hours later. Major Lemke had come to him personally and shared the news. His breakdown was at first a slow burn, then sudden and complete. The officer attempted to console him with everything he had.

“I had no idea it would come to this, son. I’m so sorry.”

“I’m not your goddamned son, sir,” Matthew replied, shocked by the force of his own voice. He then calmy added “I need some time. I have 30 days’ leave due. Can I take it?”

“Of course. You know, I really feel partia –“

Matthew heard nothing else as he had already started out the door.

He went to his dorm room shortly afterwards and changed clothes, noticing again the gaze of the wolf peering at him from his chest. He grabbed the J200 in its case and walked it out to his beat up ‘74 Chevy Nova. He put the guitar into the back seat, got in and started the car. When he got on I-44 East heading toward Oklahoma, he looked in the rearview mirror and noticed storm clouds rolling in. By the time he turned onto I-35, heading towards Laredo and the Mexican border, the rain had started to beat heavily on his windshield. The wolf’s warning haunted him. He didn’t care if he ever saw Wichita Falls, TX again.

Michael McMahan is an East Tennessee native and student at Full Sail University in Winter Park, FL. A long-time journaling enthusiast, Michael decided at 57 years old to go back to school to finish his BFA in the Creative Writing field. He still resides just outside of Knoxville, TN, with his wife and their 6-year-old Alaskan Malamute, Roxie.