Pretty Boy Floyd

by Larry McMurtry

  “It’s snowing on me,” Rose said, astonished. “It’s snowing right into this car.”

  Billy Miller felt more and more friendless. Not a single person would even look at him, but he knew Charley was still hot, from the way he was gripping the steering wheel. He was squeezing it so hard, his knuckles were white.

  “I’ve had bad dreams about freezin’ in snowdrifts,” Beulah said. “Can’t we stop and get a room?”

  “It just started snowing five minutes ago,” Charley said. “There ain’t no snowdrifts, and we ain’t stoppin’.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t talk rude to me, Charley,” Beulah said. “I get blue when you talk rude.”

  “I hope it snows all night,” Charley said. “It’ll cover up that window Billy smashed out.”

  “Yeah, but it’ll cover me up, too,” Rose said. “I’ll be the one in the snowdrift.”

  “Yeah, her and me will be the ones in the snowdrift,” Billy piped up.

  “Charley, you act like this is all my fault,” Beulah said. “But it ain’t my fault. I didn’t tell you to rob that bank, and I didn’t shoot no deputy.”

  Charley’s face was as dark as the starless sky. “You bought that purple nail polish, though,” Charley said, grim. “Things have been goin’ downhill ever since.”

  12

  “I never even heard of Sylvania, Ohio,” Charley said. “This is a case of mistaken identity, I don’t even have a bank account.”

  The fat detective with the sap hit him in the head so hard that he fell out of the chair. Charley was on his hands and knees on the dirty floor, seeing lights in his head. The lights were red, like an Oklahoma sunset in the fall.

  “I hate stubborn crooks,” the detective said. “Kick him, Asa. See if you can knock loose a rib or two.”

  Asa, a big bull of a cop, kicked Charley three times. Charley stopped seeing lights in his head, and saw nothing. When he came to, they had propped him in the chair again. Charley was afraid to lean back for fear he’d vomit, and afraid to lean forward for fear he’d tip out of the chair.

  “Mistaken identity,” he slurred.

  “No, we got the identity straight,” the detective said. “You’re Charley Floyd, and you done four years in the Jeff City pen, over in Missouri, for robbin’ an armored car. Your partner got away that time, and now he’s got away agin. He must be a few degrees smarter than you, bud.”

  “I don’t know who you’re talkin’ about,” Charley insisted. “Where would I get a partner?”

  He and Beulah had been in bed in a cheap rooming house, when the goons broke in. Beulah had been trying to cheer him up, and she had been having no luck.

  “Charley, I took the nail polish off,” she said, holding her fingers up for him to see.

  “It won’t bring that deputy back to life,” Charley said. The deputy had been killed instantly—they heard that on the radio in an eats joint they stopped at. Billy Miller had caught a bus to Louisville, where he had a cousin. Rose decided to go with him, even though he wasn’t particularly nice to her.

  “Some kind of boyfriend’s better than no boyfriend at all, I guess,” she said, giving her sister a kiss just before she boarded the bus.

  Charley threw the Tommy gun into the Ohio River.

  “That’s a hundred dollars wasted,” he said.

  “Charley, don’t you want to fuss around some?” Beulah asked, about five minutes before the goons broke in.

  “I’m wearing my blue slip,” she added.

  “Big Carl said that once the killin’ starts, it never stops,” Charley said. “He was a man who knew what he was talking about, too.”

  “I’m a woman who knows what she’s talking about, too,” Beulah informed him. “Big Carl’s dead, and the deputy’s dead, but my pussy’s alive, and it’s right here in bed with you.”

  Charley didn’t say a word—he just looked out the window. It was still snowing.

  But the cops found the car anyway. They wouldn’t even give Beulah time to dress. She had to put her coat on over the blue slip when they took them to jail.

  “If I was to miscalculate and hit you too hard with this sap, it would crack your noggin wide open,” the fat detective said. “Your brains would run out like egg yolk.”

  He gave Charley a little bit of a whack, to remind him what the sap felt like. Charley saw the red lights again.

  “Start over about your partner,” the detective said. “What did you say his name was?”

  “Mistaken identity,” Charley said. “If I hadn’t taken a wrong turn down in Kentucky, I wouldn’t even be in Ohio tonight.”

  The big bull kicked the chair over. Charley went skidding across the floor, and hit the wall.

  “Maybe we oughta go slap that little chickadee around for a while,” he said. “She might squawk pretty good if her feathers get yanked. This hick’s too dumb to make good conversation.”

  Charley kept mum. He wasn’t worried about Beulah. If they aggravated her, she’d call them a few names they hadn’t been called before. Beulah might be a flirt, but she was solid—she wouldn’t give their game away.

  The bull kicked Charley in the face as he left the room.

  “Sleep tight, Oklahoma,” he said.

  13

  Bessie Floyd brought Ruby the news. She and Bradley had driven up to Coffeyville for a square dance. She told Brad she needed to get out more or else go crazy, so he agreed to take her to the dance. They brought Millie, their little six-year-old, so Dempsey would have a cousin to play with. Lenny and Bradley were in the back yard, pitching horseshoes, when Bessie handed Ruby the clipping from the newspaper:

  Charles “Pretty Boy” Floyd Sentenced to 15 Years

  for Sylvania, Ohio Bank Job

  Accomplice Escapes

  “Pretty Boy?” Ruby said. “Where’d Charley get a nickname like that?”

  “You got me,” Bessie said. “Maybe some newspaper guy made it up.”

  “I bet Charley hates it,” Ruby said, frowning.

  Bessie and Bradley had driven all that way to visit; Ruby didn’t want to let them down. But inside she felt like cold dough. The thought of Charley being behind bars in a prison for fifteen years was a thought she couldn’t bear. Dempsey would be a grown man before his daddy got out; more than likely, he’d be married and have a baby or two of his own. Charley would have missed his whole raising: father and son would be two strangers.

  Bessie saw that Ruby was sad. She held out her arms to Ruby, for to Bessie, she still seemed like a girl. At least Lenny was nice; he was just a little solemn. He wasn’t a cutup like Charley. But he wasn’t in jail, either.

  “Aw, Bessie. Why’d he have to do it?” Ruby said. “Why couldn’t he have been satisfied with things like they was?”

  Bessie didn’t answer. She had no answers when it came to Charley Floyd.

  “We was so happy, Bessie, that year Dempsey was born,” Ruby told her. “I never wanted nothin’ but to be with my husband.”

  Just then, the men trooped in from horseshoe pitching.

  “Dern, Brad must have been born with a horseshoe in his hand,” Lenny said. “He hit five ringers. I barely throwed that many ringers my whole life.”

  Lenny saw that Ruby was tearful, but he didn’t say anything. Part of Ruby wished he would say something; part of her wished he would complain that she didn’t really love him—at least if he complained, she would know that he knew her feeling for him wasn’t all it should be. Lenny was so sweet, and so kind to her and to Dempsey, that she couldn’t not love him some—still, just the mention of Charley Floyd’s name, or a headline in the newspaper, made her realize the difference between what she felt for Lenny and what rose up inside her when she remembered her time with Charley. When she was hit with the difference, as she just had been, she felt too sad to be around anyone. She missed Charley almost more than she could stand—but at the same time, she felt so sorry for Lenny that it was all she could do to face him, much less pretend that everything was okay.
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br />   “Bradley’s pitched horseshoes ever’ spare minute since I’ve known him,” Bessie said. “I could barely get him to stop long enough to court me.”

  Before Ruby could say a word, Dempsey came running into the kitchen purple in the face, Millie right behind him. The two of them had been playing Chinese checkers in the bedroom.

  “He swallowed a marble!” Millie informed them. “I told him not to put them in his mouth, but he just kept on doin’ it!”

  Lenny grabbed Dempsey, and promptly turned him upside down. Ruby tried to get her finger in Dempsey’s mouth so she could scrape the marble out, while Bradley pounded him on the back. Lenny began to shake him up and down; Brad kept pounding. Later, nobody could agree on which tactic worked, but the marble popped out and rolled under the stove. Ruby rocked Dempsey in her lap for a while, until he quit crying and caught his breath.

  “It’s a wonder children ever live to get grown,” Bessie said.

  “I guess that’ll teach you not to swallow marbles,” Ruby told Dempsey.

  “I didn’t swallow it, it rolled down my throat,” Dempsey informed his mother. Then he went outside to pitch horseshoes by himself.

  14

  Both the bulls were mad at Charley because he won their ham sandwiches in a poker game. It happened while the train taking him to prison lurched across Ohio in the middle of the night.

  “I don’t see why we gotta tote you to the pen at night anyway,” Earl said. He was the fat bull.

  “It wasn’t my idea,” Charley replied.

  “It’s cheaper at night, Earl,” Luke told him. Luke was the skinny guard.

  “The state of Ohio don’t believe in wastin’ no money on transportation,” he added.

  “I wouldn’t mind playin’ some more cards,” Charley said. “Maybe you’ll win your sandwiches back.”

  “Wouldn’t do us no good if we did, you already et ’em,” Earl said. “Now me and Luke will have to get by till breakfast on chewin’ tobacoo.”

  “Serves you right for playin’ cards,” Charley told them with a grin. “You’re lawmen, you ought to know better than to gamble with an outlaw like me.”

  “It’s funny that a train trip would cost less at night,” Earl said. “It’s the same distance, night or day, way I see it.”

  “We could play for your next year’s wages,” Charley said. “If I win, you could send the money to me at the pen.”

  “You didn’t have to eat both them sandwiches,” Earl said, morosely. “You could have et one, and let me and Luke split the other.”

  “I’m goin’ to the pen,” Charley said. “I may not get a decent sandwich for fifteen years. Your old lady can make you another one tomorrow. When you see her, compliment her on the pickles, those were tasty.”

  To his surprise, Luke began to cackle hysterically. He was given to fits of various sorts, but Charley had never heard him laugh so hard.

  “Say, what’s so funny?” he asked. “All I did was give Earl’s old lady a compliment on her pickles.”

  “I get a fit ever’ time I think of pickles,” Luke replied.

  “Why?” Charley asked. “What’s so funny about pickles?”

  “Shut up, Luke,” Earl said. “This man’s a convict. We ain’t supposed to entertain him—we’re only supposed to haul him to the pen.”

  Charley waited, hoping somebody would let him in on the joke involving pickles, but nobody said another word. He had to sit between Earl and Luke, so he couldn’t even look out the window. After a while, when Luke had stopped laughing and caught his breath, Charley stood up.

  “Where you goin’, bud?” Earl asked.

  “Thought I’d jump the train,” Charley said. “If there ain’t gonna be no more card playin’, I might as well.”

  “Jump the son-of-a-bitch,” Luke said, grinning. “A stunt like that’ll break your thievin’ neck.”

  “Yeah, go break your neck,” Earl told him. “It’ll save the state of Ohio your room and board for the next fifteen years.”

  “I’d rather take a piss than break my neck, if you don’t mind,” Charley informed them.

  “Take one for me while you’re at it,” Luke said. “I hate pissin’ on a bumpy train.”

  The commode was in the next car. As soon as he was out of hearing, Earl leaned over to Luke.

  “You wasn’t gonna tell that joke about the man who put the dill pickle up his wife’s twat, was you?” he asked.

  “No, I never heard no such joke,” Luke said. “I was gonna tell a better one, I bet.”

  “Tell it now,” Earl suggested.

  “Naw, it’s too long,” Luke said. “I’ll keep it to myself till Charley gets back.”

  Charley went into the washroom and washed himself good in the washbasin. He hated feeling dirty, and the night train was anything but clean. It smelled like throwup, from all the drunks who had puked on the floor.

  Once he had freshened up, Charley walked out of the washroom and on back to the caboose. The conductor was there, sprawled out on a bench, asleep with his mouth wide open. An empty whiskey bottle rolled around on the floor. Charley went on out the back door of the caboose to the little platform at the end of the train.

  He looked around. He couldn’t see a light anywhere; he only saw the dark forest on both sides of the track. In a way, that was good, since the forest would hide him. Ohio wasn’t empty, and he was sure he’d find a farmhouse somewhere—maybe he could steal a file out of a barn and file off his handcuffs.

  The jump wasn’t as bad as he’d expected. He went off his feet and scraped one hand pretty good, but he didn’t break his neck. He watched the train until it rounded a bend in the forest and was out of sight. He would have preferred to walk along the track until he spotted a town or a farmhouse—it would be a lot easier on his clothes, but he knew easy traveling was a luxury he could not afford, not right now. Sooner or later, even Earl and Luke would figure out that he’d jumped the train. Once they figured it out, there would be pursuit.

  Charley loped down the track a few hundred yards in the opposite direction from the train, and then turned off into the woods. He nearly stepped on a possum before he had gone twenty feet from the tracks. Seeing the dumb little creature reminded him of the time Ruby had tried to cook one, not long after they were married. Something went wrong, and the possum meat turned out so oily that they had to throw it away. Ruby cried for an hour, thinking it meant she was a failure as a wife.

  “Honey, you ain’t no failure as a wife,” he told her. “You’re just a failure as a possum cook.

  “You do fine with pork chops,” he added, in an effort to cheer her up.

  As Charley picked his way into the dark Ohio woods, he couldn’t help thinking about Ruby, and her long legs, and her sweet smile, and her cooking. He might only be a handcuffed convict who’d jumped a train, but it was his firm intention, before his life ended, to find Ruby wherever she was, and eat some more of her pork chops.

  15

  Earl got uneasy about Charley long before Luke did. Luke took life as it came, but Earl was a worrier.

  “It’s takin’ that crook a long time to piss,” he observed. “What if he did jump the train?”

  “Aw, he didn’t jump,” Luke said. “I ’spect he’s takin’ a long crap.”

  “It’s a mighty long one, if that’s what it is,” Earl said, ten minutes later.

  Luke didn’t respond. He was lost in thought.

  “You sure you never heard that joke about the man who put a dill pickle in his wife’s twat and left it there a week and it come out sweet?” Earl asked. “Then the old boy started givin’ these sweet pickles to his buddies and they got a taste for ’em, never suspecting the truth.”

  “What truth?” Luke asked. When he was lost in thought, it was hard to get the simplest point across to him.

  “I think I’ll check the washroom,” Earl said.

  “Help yourself,” Luke said. He was engaged to a woman who wanted him to buy the wedding dress, a thirty-dol
lar expenditure, and he was trying to get easy in his mind about whether or not she was marrying him for his money. Her name was Yvonne, not a common name in the part of Ohio Luke was from.

  Earl checked the washroom, and found no Charley. Then he checked the caboose, where he found a drunk conductor, but no Charley. Then he became alarmed, and began to run back and forth through the cars, pistol drawn, yelling for Charley Floyd. A yarn salesman, sound asleep in the first car, threw up his hands in alarm when he saw a bull standing over him pointing a gun.

  “I didn’t do it!” he said.

  “Go back to sleep, you idjit,” Earl said, disgusted. “I ain’t lookin’ for you.”

  When Luke was finally persuaded that the prisoner had made a bold escape, he had another fit: a fit of panic. If he got fired over such an escapade, he wouldn’t be able to afford Yvonne’s wedding dress, nor would he have the money she was going to marry him for.

  Earl convinced the engineer to stop the train, and he and Luke jumped off and ran back up the track a long way, hoping to bump into the prisoner. Their hope was that he had indeed broken his neck and would be lying there dead, leaving their futures secure.

  But there was no sign of Charley, and they were finally forced to wake the conductor and wire the local authorities. The engineer was against any kind of wait. He didn’t like having to stop his train in a remote region in the dark.

  “What if his henchmen jump us?” he asked Earl.

  “Hell, they’d have to find us first,” Earl told him. “I ain’t got a clue where we are, have you?”

  “Yeah, we just passed Mattville,” the engineer said.

  The conductor was the only one who could approve a wire, and he was so soused they couldn’t get him fully awake. When he did finally regain a semblance of consciousness, he failed to grasp the seriousness of the situation.

  “There’s bears in them woods, maybe they’ll eat him,” he said, when it was made clear to him that a dangerous prisoner had escaped.

  Then he got into a heated argument with Luke, insisting that bears were far more of a danger to the general populace than bank robbers.