“Besides losing my mind?” She squirms. “Guess I wanted to see if Buck would follow. Couldn’t help feeling like he chose Clyde over me by wanting to join you two. It was weighin’ on me, ’specially after Lillian up and left when I was a child, then my daddy was always putting his women before me. I mean, holy hell, even my dog left me in his dust.”
“That dog has a brain the size of a pea.”
“No kidding. He chose to play house with you and Clyde.”
I ignore that part and say, “Well, all I know is that Buck is bewitched by you. He ain’t going anywhere.” I lean forward, squeeze her hand. “We’re in this together, okay? All of us.”
She lets out a huff, a few strands of her hair wafting. A few other strands don’t move at all, plastered to her head from all sorts of grime. Blanche grimaces. “I need to get clean. Now.”
Soon, we’ve all bathed the best we could with a pot. Took couple rounds back and forth to the pump, but we finally scrubbed most of the blood out of our clothes.
Then we all stand there, save Jones, who’ll be horizontal for quite some time, assessing each other, trying to figure out who’s going to go to the camp’s grocer for food. Clyde immediately says I ain’t going, and I’m immediately thankful. Sitting ’round the apartment in my nightgown is one thing. Prancing into a store is another. I counter that Clyde can’t go; too risky. Blanche offers, catching us all off guard.
“What?” she says. “These two jackasses look too much alike. If anyone would overlook Clyde’s height, they may confuse Buck for him.”
One glance at Clyde tells me he’s letting the jab go. From his pocket he pulls the last of our money, and off Blanche goes in her housedress, still damp, still a trace of red polka dots.
She comes back with a bag full of food and a mouth full of worry. “I don’t like how people were looking at me.”
“Well, you ain’t wearing a coat, maybe they were wondering why? It’s cold this morning,” I say.
“Maybe.” She takes a deep breath. “My sorry appearance is sure to make anybody wonder what I’m up to, but the storekeeper said something ’bout us taking so many trips for water this morning.”
Clyde uses his a finger and thumb to squeeze his tired eyes, then the bridge of his nose. “That’s that, then. We got to go.”
I glance at Jones, who finally fell asleep. I certainly don’t want to wake him; the boy needs his rest. But we also can’t stick ’round to find out if someone followed our trail. When Buck and Clyde lift Jones, his moan and bloodshot eyes are worse than I imagined.
“You’re going to have to try to walk on your own, you hear? In case anyone is watching,” Clyde says to him. “But we’ll be right next to you.”
Blanche scurries in the rear seat first, and guides Jones’s head onto her lap. With his feet on Buck’s lap and Clyde and me in the front seat, we skip out the back entrance of the tourist camp.
Clyde drives for hours, avoiding large towns, keeping to the backcountry roads, driving in a pattern that’d make anyone cross-eyed. I try not to think. Thinking means realizing that we’ve left the cabin where, if even for a few hours, time stood still. Now, we’re no longer in the eye of the storm, we’re off to take our chances in the unknown, beginning with Clyde pulling over the car.
“What’s that there sign say, Bonnie?”
“Ten miles to Amarillo.”
His gun sits between us on the bench seat. He pulls it into his lap “Okay, we’ll wait ’til dark.”
I don’t much like not moving, and I will for darkness to come. At least I can count on the sun always dippin’ beneath the horizon, and when she does, Clyde gets our Ford going again.
No one’s said much since leaving Shamrock. Still, no one says anything as we near Amarillo and Clyde parks along a curb in town. I know my man well enough to know what he’s got up his sleeve. He’s going to find some place to rob. We need new clothes. We need food. Being our current car’s been seen ’round the camp, we’ll need a new one of those, too.
Thing is, Clyde doesn’t like doing jobs alone. Never has. He had Raymond. He had Jones. And now, his voice is level as he says, “Buck?” and gets out of the car.
There’s total silence, all of us stealing each other’s air. I stare straight ahead, avoiding any mirrors that’ll give me a glimpse of Blanche’s face.
There’s a whisper, presumably passing from Buck to Blanche, being the tone had a deep hum. Then, Buck’s door opens and closes.
Blanche’s sobs fill the car.
17
With it being nighttime, it’s hard to know how much time passes while Clyde and Buck are off robbing somewhere. Jones is in the back, the chills overtaking his body. He’s wrapped in a blanket and, thank goodness, asleep. Blanche is back there with him, staring off into Amarillo.
It’s too dark for us to see much of anything. All I know ’bout the town is that its claim to fame is a helium plant. I remember reading ’bout it in the paper a few years ago after the natural gas was discovered here. But from where we’re parked, I don’t see anything resembling the cement plant we got back home. Though, if I squint, the building off to my right may be an opera house.
If I were a different girl, in a different world, I’d breeze inside, letting my hand stroke each red upholstered seat ’til I reached the stage. There, I’d find my mark, smack dab in the middle, and I’d look out at the vast room. I’d have to tilt my head back slightly to see the very top balconies. I imagine the cries of my fans, demanding an encore.
Blanche was right, I do know a little something ’bout having dreams. I also know something ’bout them crumbling ’round me, clunking me on the head, and leaving me with a black eye. And not just standing front and center on a stage. I wanted to stand at the front of a classroom, too. Only finishing school wasn’t in the cards. Not for me. Not with my ma’s bills to be paid. Not with the crash of ’29. Not with a husband who left me high and dry.
I feel like we should talk more, Blanche and I. But with the way she’s staring out the Ford’s window, barely blinking, her jaw clenched, I’m going to give her some more time.
What we had going at Oak Ridge was a good thing. More than good; it allowed me to feel like me again. But now what choice is there but to focus on the farms? And now, with Buck helping Clyde, just as Clyde wanted, it’ll get us back on track. Soon we’ll have our land, and a way for both Buck and Clyde to help their parents escape the memories of Dallas. Blanche’ll understand that once her blood cools.
She straightens. “Buck’s coming back.”
“Only Buck?” I squint harder now, a flash of panic settling over me. But there’s also a Clyde-shaped figure running our way.
From the moment they get in the car, running becomes our new normal. We drive, and drive like mad, going no place in particular, as long as it’s ahead of the cops. I grit my teeth at how we’re nothin’ but aimless, but Jones isn’t well enough to be on his feet, and Clyde wants ’em both for his next step in his plan to raid Farm Number One: stealing firearms from a weapons armory.
“May be the easiest way to get us a bundle of guns, and fast.”
I let out an exasperated sigh. “Easiest? Clyde.” I can’t think of more to say than his name, in a disapproving tone.
He only shrugs. “Mind’s already set on it, Bonnie.”
I throw up my hands.
As Jones heals, each state blends into the next. Texas becomes New Mexico becomes Oklahoma becomes Kansas becomes Nebraska becomes Iowa becomes Illinois. Along the way, we buy new clothes, we tend to Jones from a medical kit Clyde swiped from a physician’s car, and Clyde—sometimes Buck—drives day and night, sleeping only a few hours at a time. When money runs out, the boys rob, usually a filling station, grocery store, or drugstore. Low-risk hits, as Clyde refers to ’em, since there’s so much heat on us right now. Even with the so-called low risk, Clyde likes to put three hundred or four hundred miles behind us after each one. He calls it jumping.
From Illinois, we go to M
issouri, then Arkansas, then Oklahoma, then Louisiana. There, we pause, and pull into the parking lot of a café. It’s been two weeks, five cars, and only three nights in an actual bed. Otherwise, we sleep in the car. Jones can sit straight up now, no longer needing to stretch ’cross Blanche and Buck.
Better yet, his chills have passed, so now we can use our blanket to cover the few guns we have on the car’s floor instead of him. The boy hasn’t smiled much, though. Breaks my heart to see the sides of his lips turned down.
Too many miles ago, Blanche’s dismissive frown wasn’t any better when I suggested she name our first replacement car.
Now, the five of us head into the café, and Clyde leads us ’cross the black-and-white checkered flooring to a corner table. We haven’t risked too many trips like this, all together. Normally one person slinks into a store, with the rest waiting down the street in our car.
But after runnin’ all this time, we need a dose of not being on the run. Doesn’t mean the boys don’t got guns hidden under their jackets, though. And Blanche still has that sour look on her face, wholly out of place with the lively chatter going on ’round us and with the cheery, floral wallpaper behind her head. Being none of us is talking, I get up for a newspaper. We’ve been pulling them from each town we go through, and so far, we haven’t seen anything too damning. Meaning, no one knows where we are.
Even now, no one takes much notice of me, besides a man with a cordial smile. “How do ya do?” I say, and grab a newspaper from the rack beside his table. I’m halfway back to my own table when my gaze lands on a picture of myself in black-and-white. My hand shoots out on its own, my pinkie finding the corner of someone’s pecan pie. I mumble an apology and, head spinning, I concentrate on Clyde ’cross the room, my beacon.
He’s on his feet, taking me by my elbow to get me safely into my chair. “Bonnie, what is it?”
“Me.”
This, right here, is the first time I’ve ever seen myself in a newspaper. I drop it, my gaze unmoving as Blanche snatches it off the table, where my gaze falls on a burned spot, like someone put out a cigarette on the enamel tabletop.
Blanche barely has the newspaper in front of her eyes before she’s laughing. The unusual sound, something I haven’t heard for fourteen days, pulls my attention away from the dark spot on the table and to my best friend.
“‘Clyde Barrow and his cigar-smoking gun moll murder two,’” she says and turns the paper ’round, displaying the headline, along with the photo of me: gun on my hip, elbow propped on the car, foot up on the fender, cigar between my teeth. “Oh, Bonn, ain’t this rich?”
Ain’t it cruel, is more like it. I take a deep breath. Clyde’s thumb rubs circles on my knee. That photo, that was supposed to be just for us, that paints me in a horrible light, is now plastered for all of the country to see.
“You’re mortified,” Blanche says. “And rightly so.” She shrugs and turns the newspaper back to herself. “But,” she continues, “doesn’t appear they got your name. No mention of Buck or me. Nor you, honey,” she says to Jones with a wink. “Just Clyde, no surprise there.”
Jones sighs so audibly I think the whole café heard him. Not that I’m blaming him.
Blanche tosses the paper onto our empty table. “Where’s our waitress?”
Buck laughs, saying, “You’re horrible, ya know that, baby?” as Clyde begins tearing the photo of me from the paper.
I ignore Blanche. “Clyde, you going to rip me out of all of ’em?”
“If I could, Bonnie, I would. But”—he finishes tearing out my picture, putting me in front of himself on the table—“this here will keep me company on the nights I can’t sleep. Look at you.” He whistles.
I chuckle, thanking my lucky stars I got someone like Clyde to turn lemons into lemonade. Or at least sprinkle some sugar on top of those lemons.
A gasp pulls my attention up, to an open-mouthed waitress, both hands grasping a pad of paper. Clyde stiffens beside me.
“You’re Clyde Barrow, ain’t you? That fugitive,” she whispers. The woman looks over one shoulder, then another. When she moves, her hand dropping into the pocket of her apron, Clyde’s hand shifts inside his jacket. She pulls out a silver certificate dollar bill. “My mama is going to roll over in her grave, but would you sign this?” The poor gal’s hand is shaking as she extends a pen and the bill.
I reckon Clyde’s smirk steadies her a bit, or at least her voice is a bit steadier as she says to me, “And you, you’re his girl, right? Could you sign it, too?”
Clyde slides the dollar in front of me. “You go first, Bonnie. Your name should always go first.”
“Would you look at that, Bonn,” Blanche says. “You’re finally famous, just like you’ve always wanted.”
The waitress licks her lips. “I won’t tell—that you all are here.”
Blanche waves her off. “Ain’t me they’re after. I’ll have your finest grits, extra cheese.”
* * *
The waitress doesn’t draw any more notice to us and no one else bothers to scrutinize our group in the corner. Bellies full and—I can’t lie—my ego stroked at the waitress’s attention, we head back out on the road. Where to? I can’t be sure. But Blanche is chatty in the rear seat. She’s making Jones laugh, though I worry ’bout the boy. His laugh sounds like it’s lost some of its youth.
“What town we in now?” I ask Clyde, slinked down in my seat.
We pass a sign for RUSTON HARDWARE before Clyde can answer, and I read the sign aloud. This town doesn’t look much different than the others we’ve driven through, and I guess Clyde doesn’t see anyplace he wants to rob, maybe on account of how many people are out and about for a midday meal. The more we drive, the fewer the people and houses we see, and the more trees that span the spacious lawns.
“Hey, lad,” Clyde says. He tilts his chin up, giving him a better vantage point of Jones in the rearview mirror. Our car slows. “You see that there Chevrolet?”
“Yeah.”
“You want it?”
“I guess so.”
Clyde stops the car, turns in his seat. “Either you do or you don’t.”
His words aren’t aggressive, but I know what he’s doing. He heard Jones laughing earlier, probably music to Clyde’s ears, and Clyde wants to see if he has Jones all the way back. He misses the boy. Two peas in a pod, they are. Or at least they were before Jones got shot.
“I do,” Jones says.
Clyde grins. “Then off you go. Highway is a few blocks ahead. Go on and take her straight there. We’ll catch up.”
Jones pauses. He swallows. From Clyde to me to Buck to Blanche, he looks.
“The choice is yours, honey,” Blanche says. “No one’s making you go.”
Clyde doesn’t say a word.
“I’ll be okay,” Jones says. His eyes find Clyde’s but only for a breath, then Jones is out the door and walking at a crouch toward the car.
The boy looks guilty as sin, but fortunately the car’s only a few paces up the driveway. The house is dark, and being it’s midday, it’s likely the mister ain’t home. I imagine him working at one of the shops in town—it’s walking distance, after all—or maybe the university that’s down the road. A professor, perhaps. That’d make for a nice life. The house is two stories, enough room for a few bedrooms and perhaps a parlor off the entry. Not a bad life, at all.
Jones peeks over his shoulder at us, and the apprehension on his face triggers a flashback of Jones struggling to steal the car on Christmas. But this here is different. It’s April. It’s warmer.
Still, I hold my breath.
Jones opens the door, and maybe he gives his own exhale, because this time, when he looks at us, his expression is more confident. He slides into the car like he owns it, gets her started, then waves as if to say, All’s good here.
Clyde laughs, saying under his breath. “That’s my lad.”
We don’t leave right away. Clyde watches the house, making sure we don’t have any trou
ble on our hands, then we go after Jones.
Once we’re on the highway, one minute passes of us driving. Then two, and three. But there’s no sign of the Chevrolet. I know we’re all wondering the same thing: When’s the boy going to pull over?
After ten minutes, Clyde makes a wide turn right there in the middle of the highway, back the way we came. He winds on and off the highway, going down each country road we pass.
Fear is etched ’cross Blanche’s face with the reckless way Clyde’s driving, and Buck tells her to get down on the floorboards. “It’s better if you don’t got to see the world whizzing by, baby,” he says.
I’m half tempted to crawl back there with her, not wanting to see the pain on Clyde’s face. He knows it. I know it. Our boy took off. He’s gone.
18
Clyde’s got a heavy foot all the way to Dallas, thinking that’s where Jones has gone. But we don’t spot him along the way and we don’t go into town, not with us being the talk of it.
“Leave the kid alone,” Buck says. “He left for a reason.”
Clyde doesn’t respond to that. He grits his teeth like he wants to but, his jaw still tight, he heads us back into Louisiana. I ain’t sure why we’re headed that way, or where we’re headed after that. Our next stop was going to be an armory, and now we’re without Jones again. Now, our plans are cloudy again. I’ve got a cigarette lit for Clyde and me before he can ask for one.
And we drive. Through rain, through hailstorms, through mud that takes the weight of our car and doesn’t let it go. We leave the car behind, we’ve got no choice, and trudge over the soft ground, each of us cursing like sailors, ’til we reach some town. Clyde spots a Ford roadster, and he wants it.
“No way,” Buck says under his breath. We already stand out like sore thumbs, legs plastered with mud and faces plastered in the papers. “Stupidest thing I’ve ever heard to get a ride that small. We’ll be sittin’ on top of each other.”
I reckon that’s precisely why Clyde wants it, besides having an eye for the model. That way, every time he looks in the rearview mirror, there won’t be a gap where Jones’s dark head of hair should be.
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