Clyde closes his eyes, exhales. “I don’t ever want to be without you, Bonnie. I’m trying to give us a future. That farmland we talked ’bout years ago. I’m going to find some and get it ready for us.”
“But Clyde,” I say, “you left last time thinkin’ you were protecting me.” I pause, swallow. “It took two years for you to come back.”
Clyde comes as close to rolling his eyes as I’ve ever seen. “Be fair. I didn’t have a choice. Ain’t like I asked to be locked up, and”—his eyes flick to the side, back again—“for all that followed.”
I whisper, “I’m sorry.”
He squeezes my hand. “Dallas doesn’t want me here. They chewed me up and are ready to spit me out. No one is going to be looking for me. Certainly not on all that land. It’ll be safe for all of us, our families, too.”
I free my hand and take a bite of my chicken. I chew, slowly. Getting a stretch of farmland was a dream for a prison escapee and his lovesick fool. I thought that was all behind us, yet I ain’t done loving the man sitting ’cross from me—and he’s still a wanted fella.
Problem is, life for a farmer is even harder after the stock market crash. I’ve read the headlines and the words beneath. The average household brings in less than fifteen hundred clams. But farming—farming is much less, the underside of two hundred. And that’s for an able-bodied man working eighteen-hour days. How’ll Clyde manage limping ’cross all our acres? He’s got blinders on ’bout having the farm, and I know why.
Dallas equals nothin’ but heartbreak for his family—ever since they lost his little sister. Mrs. Barrow still spends her Saturdays down by the tracks that reduced their family by one. The farm, any farm, is a place prior to all of that. And while I connected those dots, Clyde’s been sucking on his tooth.
“What ain’t you telling me?” I ask.
“I ran into Raymond—”
“Raymond?” I hadn’t heard that name in forever. Last I did was when Buck told me Raymond got locked up. Last I’d seen him was when Doc’s closed, and, like me, Raymond was out of a job.
“Ray got out the other week. We got to talking and decided to help each other get back on our feet.” He stabs a piece of chicken. “So, he’s going out on the road with me.”
“You’re leaving with Raymond? What ’bout me?”
“Bonnie, I got to go.” Clyde drops his chin to his chest, shakes his head slowly. Then he meets my eye. “And you’re making this hard as sin ’cause you look so pretty. But you know I can’t stay here. There ain’t a future for us here. But I’ll be—”
I shake my head briskly. No, Clyde ain’t understanding what I’m saying. I’ve just spent two years without him. Even if I don’t have all of him back, I ain’t willing to let any of him go. Hell, I’ve waited twenty-one years, six months, and fourteen days to start living. If Dallas won’t allow us to add verses in our song, we’ll do it elsewhere. “Clyde, honey, I ain’t going to stop you. I’m going with you.”
What I really want to add: I’m going to get you all of the way back, too.
His shoulders relax an inch. “I was hoping you’d say that.” He snorts. “Selfish of me, ain’t it?”
No, I want to say. What’s selfish is how I needed that reaction from him after all he’s been through.
“The thought of leaving you behind—again,” he says, “was eating a hole through my stomach. I needed you to say it, though, without me putting the words there. But here, on your finger, I was hoping to put this.” Clyde produces a ring and takes my right hand instead of my left.
“I can take Roy’s off if—”
“I know you have your reasons. He can have one li’l finger. I get the rest of you. I made this while I was gone. See here”—he twists the ring—“it’s a serpent. That means power. You and me, Bonnie, we’re a force to reckon with. You hear?”
I nod. I’m too touched to do more.
“And this here number three, I etched that in ’cause I learned once it’s for good fortune.”
I swallow to find my voice. “We could use a heap of that.”
He slides the ring onto my finger.
“A perfect fit. Do I know my lass or what?” Then, he exhales. “Bonnie, I’m relieved this ain’t a parting gift.”
On my left hand, I wear a reminder of my mistakes. But on my right, that ring’s a promise of a future. I smile at Clyde’s relief. I say, for both of us, “You and me, Clyde. It’s always going to be you and me.”
5
The open road plays tug-of-war with my head and heart. For starters, we’re in a stolen car, and I try not to think about the person we took it from. Years ago, I found myself in one for the first time, and I said, “I want out. I want out this very second.”
But now I accept our borrowed car as a means to an end, to get us where we need to go. Beside us, the MKT train races out of Dallas. Headed for Kansas, then Missouri. We’re set for Kansas ourselves. I wanted to be moving forward, and Clyde is putting a seemingly endless amount of road ahead of us. But it meant a tear-filled good-bye with my family.
“Ma,” I said. Sitting in her favorite chair, she twisted her lips. “It’ll only be a few months. Once we find land, we’ll settle down. We’ll call for you. You can quit sewing at the factory and rest your fingers and live with us on the farm.”
I held on to those words with such conviction. To the word us. To the way Clyde and I used to be together.
I didn’t want to take on Clyde’s dreams of the farm as my own a second time, but they snuck inside my head and planted themselves deep, as a way for Clyde and me to continue to grow together. The farm will be a foundation for all that’s to come.
My ma shook her head. “What ’bout Clyde breaking parole? They’re going to come after him. I don’t want you anywhere near him when that happens.”
“They won’t, Ma. They want him out of Dallas. Once he’s gone, he’s someone else’s problem.”
“Yours.” Ma’s words even startled her, as if she never meant to say ’em aloud.
I pressed my lips together, saving myself from a response.
Ma sighed. “How do you two kids expect to buy land? With what money?”
Easy. The boys are planning to rob a bank.
’Cept I didn’t actually say that.
’Cept I actually hate the sound of that. I didn’t realize that’s what the boys meant to do. If I’m being honest, I didn’t think beyond not getting left behind.
On the way to the car, our bags packed, Clyde said, “I ain’t aiming to hurt anybody, Bonnie, and I’m only taking what the bank took from me, from you. Plus a few clams more. Think of it as interest.”
I twisted my lips, just like my ma did to me. Clyde’s words gave me mixed feelings. Robbing ain’t right. Like, how the banks robbed me blind during the crash. “One bank,” Clyde said. Then we’d be even. So I had climbed into the passenger seat, consoling myself with the fact I’d only be taking back what’s mine.
Not long after, Raymond climbed into the back. Now, he pulls out a syringe and a bottle. I stare at Clyde, open-mouthed, my brain screaming ’bout how we’re saps to rely on a dopehead.
Clyde shakes his head, but doesn’t say a word ’bout Raymond’s newfound addiction. Or at least I assume it’s new. It’s been over a year since I’d seen him manning the door at Doc’s or keeping the peace at the poker tables. Time—and I’m guessing morphine—hasn’t been kind to him. He’s pale, gaunt, enhancing the size and color of the mole on his forehead. The name Mary tickles my lips.
I haven’t seen his girl, either, since Doc’s closed down. Mary’s uncle, Dr. Peterson, owned the joint, but it was Mary’s through and through. She put all of herself into it, always quick to remind me she was in charge. Now Mary is God knows where, doing God knows what. But the rumors haven’t been kind, saying she went from one kind of illegal establishment to another.
I wonder how Raymond feels ’bout that, and if those two are still wrapped up in each other. Is she the reason he keeps a
syringe in his pocket like someone would a pen? I can’t reason if mentioning Mary will bring him pleasure or pain. So any thoughts of that snarky broad stay in my head and memories.
I light a cigarette, take a drag, and study Raymond in the rearview mirror. His head is propped against the window; he’s asleep. Moments ago he was wide awake. Beyond his head, the twin smokestacks of the Dallas Power and Light Company peek out from above the trees. And in front, a sign: LEAVING DALLAS, TEXAS. POPULATION 260,475.
Without bothering to ask or look, I pass my cigarette to Clyde.
You couldn’t pay—or drug—me to sleep. Not with us looming closer to the First National Bank of Lawrence.
Robbing a bank was Raymond’s idea. “You scratch my back in Lawrence, and I’ll scratch yours,” he said to Clyde. I ain’t exactly sure what Clyde’s got in mind, but it’s all making me itchy.
Clyde said the trip to Kansas will take all of seven hours. I wonder, though: “Why are we going all the way to Kansas?”
“Almost was Minnesota,” Clyde replies. “So many banks are closed nowadays, so slim pickings. But all the big bucks are up north. So are the icy roads, though. Makes a getaway a wee bit harder if we got to run. Kansas cuts the distance, and the danger, in half.”
Splendid. I get to thinking more. “How’d Raymond end up in prison before?”
Clyde glances at me, and would you look at that, there’s a hint of amusement in his eyes. Out here on the road, it’s like he shed a layer of worry. He asks, “You really want to know?”
“I asked, didn’t I?”
“He got caught robbing a bank.”
My jaw drops.
Clyde frees a hand from the steering wheel and nudges the underside of my chin. “Go on and close that mouth of yours. We’re going to be fine. I’m calling the shots this here time.”
I shake my head, ’cause Clyde’s is ’bout as thick as the cattle outside our window. He’s got to know he could be caught the same way. He’s held up filling stations, but they only got one register and maybe a small safe to clean out. What’s Clyde know ’bout robbing banks? It’s not like he’ll waltz in, declare Open Sesame, and the bank will reveal all its hidden treasure.
But look at him now, tapping the wheel. Could be he’s nervous, but there’s a beat to it, like he’s got a song playing in his head.
I smile, and silence settles between us as Lawrence settles ’round us. We drive down a wide street. MASSACHUSETTS STREET, I read. The brick and stone buildings on either side of us connect, creating walls. Or at least it feels like walls, confining us, ’specially when we slow outside the bank.
“There she be,” Clyde says. He pulls the car over, putting the parking brake into place.
“What ya doin’?” I panic, sitting straighter. “You ain’t robbing it right now, are ya?”
Clyde chuckles. “’Course not, darling.” He points to a building ’cross the street. “We’ll be getting a room at the Eldridge Hotel for a few days.”
In our room, Clyde unpacks his guns. I’ll be honest; the sight of ’em is jarring. It’s not like I’ve got much experience with guns. Buster taught me to fire a shotgun at a bird just fine, and my aim ain’t bad. But pointing ’em straight at a person isn’t something I’ve done before. Clyde has, I’d imagine, with his arrests being all burglaries and auto thefts, but he’s never shot a man.
“You going to use them?” I ask.
“How else will we rob the place?” Clyde retorts, then grins—all sweet-like. “Would ya rather I ask ’em nicely to give me all their money? I may need some pointers.”
I put a hand on my hip. “You going to fire them?”
His face changes from casual to serious, his dimples melting away. He knows I’m good and spooked. “Not unless I have to. I won’t shoot unless I have to, Bonnie.”
“When would you have to?”
“When someone’s shooting at me first. Or,” he says, “if I don’t have a choice.”
I swallow, not liking the sound of that. I wish Clyde could nicely ask for their money, or use a silly magic word. To busy myself, I peek through a slit in our hotel room’s draperies, watching the goings-on of the bank.
It’s a bustling joint. Throughout our first day scouting, the door to the lobby has people coming and going on a regular basis. The second day doesn’t offer much of a change.
I don’t think ’bout those men in suits, or the ladies with children’s hands in theirs, as our targets. It’s the institution. The bank that had no problem stealing from me—and others.
“Too busy,” Raymond says on day three, pacing, his speech slightly slurred. Clyde sits on the bed, cleaning a gun, something that seems taboo on a floral bedcover. “There’s no consistent lull. And I ain’t hankering to handle no crowd.”
Meaning, there ain’t a conducive time to hold her up, with so many people inside. But, “I noticed something,” I say.
Raymond keeps pacing. Clyde keeps cleaning.
“The same man opened the bank the past two days in a row. Noticed his cane both days. Thing is,” I say, feeling my heart quicken at the excitement of it all, “no one else arrived for another ten minutes, the past two days, at least.”
Raymond stops, and Clyde’s hands go still. In the vanity mirror beside the window, I watch the boys look at each other and nod. They’ve got a ten-minute window to get in and out. The plan’s been set.
And I’m more than okay with the fact I’ve got little to do with it. Clyde doesn’t want me sitting in the getaway car, waiting for them, so I’ll stay here, amidst the floral wallpaper, the floral bedcover, and the floral carpet. I’ll wait.
If they got to run, they’ll take the car and come back for me later.
If the coast is clear, they’ll move the car and come back to retrieve me.
If they can’t both make it to the car, they’ll separate. Clyde calls it his ‘heat rule.’ His “every man for himself” rule, when things get a little hot. That way, if someone gets caught, it’s not both of ’em.
That night, side by side with Clyde, my stomach is in knots, and sleep only comes in small bursts. The sun is barely glowing behind the draperies when Clyde presses up behind me. It’s an intimacy that surprises me—not only ’cause Raymond is ’cross the room—and I welcome how he pulls me against him, whispering in my ear, “Bonnie and Clyde, meant to be.”
I smile, rolling over to face him in bed. “Alive and free.”
“You and me, darling.”
“And Raymond. I don’t like that there’s morphine racing through his body.”
Clyde nods to him, asleep in an armchair. “Ain’t sure he could’ve slept in that thing without it.” Clyde rubs his neck with a sour look on his face.
“Not funny,” I say.
Clyde kisses the tip of my nose. “We’ll be fine as long as it ain’t me who touches that dope. I’m the one in control. You hear me?”
I nod.
“You trust me?”
I nod again. My nose gets kissed again.
I wish he had another question in him so I could get another kiss, but Clyde throws Raymond’s shirt at him, and he stirs. The boys ready themselves for the bank robbery, and I pack our things.
When Clyde walks out of the bathroom, my hands still and my eyes widen. His usual tee and baggy trousers have been replaced by a three-piece suit, the jacket still unbuttoned. He runs his hands down the striped vest. “Think this’ll make me look like I got money to invest?”
Lordy, I can’t help myself. I say, “Raymond, I may need a minute or two alone with Clyde.”
“Saint Bonnelyn.” Raymond gasps, then laughs. “No such luck, you’ll wrinkle his suit.”
The nickname from Doc’s triggers a bout of nostalgia, back to when Blanche first dragged me, as saintly as they come, into the juice joint. Me, the honor student, the spelling bee champion, the girl who pressed her shoulders back and belted out a hymn on Sunday mornings. Then life changed me. Then I became Bonnie, thanks to Clyde.
H
e wraps his hands ’round my waist, talking into my neck, “Raymond, dear friend. I think what Bonnie has in mind has me wearing a different kind of suit.”
I blush, Clyde putting it so plainly, but also ’cause I ain’t sure if Clyde’s saying all that for Raymond’s ears or ’cause he’s starting to come back to me.
Raymond laughs again, peeks out the window. “Sorry, Bonn, but I see our man with the cane down the block, coming this way.”
Suddenly, everything seems to be moving too fast. Fortunately, too fast for Raymond to pull out his trusty syringe. Time slowed to a crawl the past few days, but now Clyde buttons his jacket, pops a tan fedora on his head, and checks his gun. Raymond slides his own into the waistband of his pants. And Clyde is kissing my forehead, saying words I don’t hear through the pounding of my heart in my ears.
They grab our few belongings, packed away in bags, then they’re gone. The click of the door, sounding too much like a gun, brings me back. I trip over myself to get to the window. Bank Man is only steps from the bank’s front door. Like the past two days, he fiddles with the keys, his lips pursed together as if he’s whistling a tune.
I look straight down, ’til Clyde and Raymond appear as they lower the car’s trunk door, bags gone. I’d recognize Clyde forward, backward, upside down, or four stories up. But now he stands out even more. While Raymond walks straight ahead ’cross Massachusetts Street, Clyde rocks to the side with each step. That limp is a constant reminder of why Clyde and I need the farmland for him to hide out on. Why, frankly, robbing this bank is something I can stomach. It’s my nerves, not guilt, that’s getting the best of me.
Bank Man now fiddles with the lock, his cane stuck under his arm.
Clyde’s arm raises to the right, directing Raymond, who cuts in front of Clyde and veers off that way. Down the block, two men approach the bank. Bank Man waves at them.
They’re not supposed to be here yet. I hold my breath.
Clyde approaches Bank Man. Then he’s got his front against Bank Man’s back. Raymond brings the other two men over. The three bank employees are escorted inside.
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