CHASERS
by
Richard Banks
When
water flows uphill you know that something more than crazy is breaking all the
rules. It’s a something you got to see, so Cassie, me and Kendrick pile into a
’copter and go out to take a look. By the time we get there, it’s all over and
the plume of water shooting up from the mountain top has collapsed into the
valley below. Land that hasn’t seen a drop of water in seven years is now a
lush, green meadow speckled red with black-eyed poppies. We hover overhead
taking pictures as the specks became spots and the spots grow larger, joining
one with another until the only specks are green. It isn’t what we come for
but it’s a sight we won’t forget.
It was time to get the how and why of it all or
at least as much as folk could tell us, so we touch down in the nearest town
and, on being told that the only bar is in the only hotel, complete the rest of
the journey on foot. If the locals know anything worth the knowing this will be
where we hear it. Inside there are more out of towners than locals. Mattie
Harris of the Clarion I know, also Jackson of the Tribune. Other familiar faces
are tourists like ourselves. If the Feds are here they aren’t letting on.
It doesn’t take long to find out that Michael has
been in town and that he is being held responsible for everything that has
happened.
“Who else?” says Cassie in a knowing sort of way.
An old guy among a group of cowboys shoots us a
look that’s a long way from friendly. “You know this guy?”
“You mean Michael?”
“Of course I mean Michael. God damn it, if we
ever get our hands on him he won’t be going anywhere else in a hurry.”
The speaker is seventy years at least and clearly
has no liking for strangers, particularly those who seem to know more about
Michael than he does. Outnumbered as we are this is no time for a rumpus. If he
and his pals hate Michael then so do we with a loathing that more than rivals
their own. At least that’s what we let them think. Having established common
ground and loosened their tongues with the local firewater they’re soon vying
with each other to tell us everything that has happened.
He had come in the morning when folks were
heading out to their work, he and the others he called his disciples. There
were ten or eleven of them mainly guys, dressed in long white shirts and
bleached jeans.
“Weirdos, every one of them.” The old man screws up his face in
disapproval. “And do you know, none of them were wearing shoes.”
“Nor hats,” chimes in one of the younger guys. “One hundred and ten in
the shade. How the hell didn’t they get sunstroke? Don’t tell me it’s their
blond hair. That’s not the reason.”
“Were they all fair?” I ask.
“Yeah, all of them, long blond hair and faces
white as milk. No hats, no shoes and not a dime piece between them, that’s what
caused the argument that started the flood.”
“How so?”
“It began here in the hotel,” resumes the old man. “I was sitting in
the corner over there. Saw it all, how they came in, ordered breakfast and
water from the tap. Lofty, that’s the guy who runs this place, should have got
them to pay upfront, instead, he leaves it to the end when he finds out they’ve
got no money.
‘So what do you want instead?’ asks the one they call Michael. He
looks at Lofty like he’s staring through his head into his brain. ‘What’s the
thing you most want but don’t have?’ Lofty’s not too keen on riddles owing to
the fact that he never knows the answers and doesn’t understand them when
explained. He just wants the ninety bucks he’s owed. ‘Pay up or I’ll send for
the cops,’ he shouts.
‘But what is it that you really want?’ repeats Michael.
What Lofty wants is what everybody else in town wants. It hasn’t
rained for seven years, the wells are dry and the river that watered the fields
is no more than a creek. If the town don’t get water soon everyone who hasn’t
already given up on the place will pack their bags and leave.
‘Just tell me,’ says Michael, ‘and if I can’t provide it I’ll go down
to the bank and get your money and ten dollars more.’
Lofty’s not too sure whether Michael has an account with the bank or
if he’s intending on robbing it but either way he doesn’t care he just wants
his ninety bucks. Ask for something impossible he thinks and then he remembers
that the water company only turns on the taps for two hours a day. ‘Water,’ he
hollers, ‘make it rain like it's never rained before.’
The words are no sooner out of his mouth than it starts, huge raindrops battering down on Lofty’s tin roof so you can hardly hear what’s being
said. The main road is one big puddle and the creek is back to being a river
again. So far so good but when the river becomes a raging torrent that knocks
down a whole row of houses people decide that enough is enough.
‘Stop it now,’ they shout but Michael says if they didn’t want the rain
they shouldn’t have asked for it in the first place. This is a miracle, he
tells them, they should be grateful, but grateful they aren’t, so he vows to
take back the rain, every last drop of it.
He marches out the back door ahead of his disciples who are falling
over each other trying to keep up. The rain’s stopped and although the river’s
still roaring along it’s not getting any wider. Job done, we’re thinking, but
Michael doesn’t see it that way. He wades into the river and points at the
mountains from where the water is coming. He wants the river to go back to
where it started and though this is not the kind of thing that rivers normally
do it wastes no time in doing what it’s told.
At this point, all the folk who had their houses washed away come running
towards Michael like they’re in the mood for a good lynching. Michael, however,
has other plans; he’s clearly had enough of the town and can’t wait to get out
of it. What he fancies is a good swim and the last we see of him and the others
is of them being swept along in the direction they were first seen coming.”
The old man finishes a whisky chaser and stares despondently into the
empty glass. “It’s a calamity, the electricity’s down, the phones don’t work,
and there’s a half-mile gap in the highway, and what’s worse we’ve still got
no water!” He aims a punch at the wall and on connecting adds physical
pain to his list of grievances.
“Never mind,” says Cassie. “It might have been worse.”
“How so?” says the old man. So we tell him about all the other things
Michael has been doing. How the folk in Mexico asked him to stop the flies that
were bothering them and Michael conjured up the largest flock of birds ever
seen that after eating the flies also ate the crops they were growing. We tell
him about the ice sheet in Norway that the farmer wanted melting so he could
till the land and how Michael turned the ice into the water that flooded Oslo.
Then there were the bush fires in Australia and volcanos in Indonesia.
Everywhere he tried to give the people what they wanted, but nothing turned out
like it should.
“How come you know all this?” asks the old man.
We explain that we are Michael chasers. Some people chase twisters or
mysterious creatures like Big Foot or the Yeti, others search for UFOs or
ghosts, take your choice, whatever stirs your juice. We ask him if he wants to
join us but he shakes his head and says he’s had enough of talking so we go
back to the ’copter, but it’s gone, tired of waiting, a distant speck against
the setting sun. We walk home beneath a blood red moon, giant steps across the
Painted Desert and the Uinta Mountains. The world, this world, is a wondrous
place.
*****
It’s six o’clock on a cold winter’s morning. It’s raining. In fifteen
minutes the alarm will ring and I will set off for the job I hate and Cassie
will wait for the text that tells her if she has a shift in the factory.
Kendrick who started the night at the end of the bed is now in the warm space
between Cassie and me. He likes being a part of our dreams. He purrs, uncoils
and swishes his tail against my arm. Soon he will be put outside and, despite
his protests, abandoned until we’re ready to let him back in.
When life’s a bitch you’ll always have your dreams.
