Side by Side

by Jenni L. Walsh

  “That long?”

  Yet I still feel so tired.

  Billie presses her lips together, the bottom one quivering. “I know you only just woke up again, but”—she reaches for a small bottle—“you got to drink some of this, too, before the pain comes back too strong. Morphine. The sleep’s good for you.”

  “No.” I ignore the shooting pain in my neck to turn my head away. “You can’t be giving that to me. It’ll hurt my—”

  “Bonn…” She squeezes my hand. “You and Clyde can try again, when you’re better.”

  Then, I remember the sticky feeling between my legs. A pain so intense—more than the screaming sensation in my leg, more than the pain I now compartmentalize as coming from my stomach—hits me like a freight train. I don’t want to be awake a second longer.

  “Give me the drugs.”

  When I wake, I insist for more, and more. The days lump together, ’til one day I wake to find Clyde bending over my motel bed. He’s on his knees, his hands pressed together under his chest, his forehead resting on my “good” leg, the leg the battery acid mostly spared. My other leg is wrapped in bandages, more than my leg, really. From my hip to my toes, those burns make their presence known.

  I stretch my fingers, noticing scrapes, scabbed over, on my knuckles. My fingertips barely skim Clyde’s hair. He startles, and it breaks my heart to see the red in his eyes, the dark circles underneath, the sheen on his unwashed hair, a new shiny scar marring his face.

  “Bonnie,” he breathes. “I’m sorry I’ve been away.”

  I ain’t sure where he’s been, or how much time passes between each time I wake and before I’m drugged again, but this man looks like he’s been torturing himself plenty.

  I smile, or try to at least, with one side of my mouth turning up. It feels stiff, my whole mouth does. And dry. “I reckon you didn’t miss much when it comes to my happenings.”

  Clyde shuffles, still on his knees, and brings a glass of water to my lips.

  “Better?” he says. His hand finds the side of my head. “Oh, Bonnie, I was so worried ’bout you. I’m so sorry for missing that sign. The bridge…” He clenches, unclenches my bedsheets with his free hand. “Jones, he was mostly okay after he came to. I’m the one who should be in this bed, and I didn’t even lose consciousness. I bet God did that on purpose. He kept me awake, let me walk out of that car, so I could see everything I’d done.”

  “What happened”—I pause—“after the crash?”

  “These farmers were out on their porch, and they came running. We got you out of the car.” He closes his eyes. “You were burned, bad. Down to the bone in some places. Your jawbone was showing, your chest uneven. My God, Bonnie, I thought I was going to lose you. So many times.” He opens his eyes, his breath held. Clyde exhales. “Jack, the man’s name was, he tried to carry you, and you went hog wild on him. But we got you inside. His wife was caring for you the best she could with what she had on hand, and Jack went into town to get a doctor. Jones warned me, though, that Jack had seen our guns. When he came back, he didn’t come back alone. Jones and I got the jump on them. Guess the whole situation got our lad keyed up ’cause he ended up shooting at the missus, Jack’s wife, thinkin’ she was going to pull a gun on us.”

  “I remember that.” And I bet the boy’s still beating himself up over an impulse that could’ve taken a life, or two of ’em.

  “Surprised you remember; you were barely there. But guess I ain’t too surprised, either. You had the brains to call the lad Buck instead of his real name.”

  That part I don’t recall.

  “You’re a good one, Bonnie, protecting Jones when your own life was the one needing protecting.” He licks his lips. “From there, we had you stretched ’cross the coppers’ laps in the rear seat. They did good by you, holding your head still. Didn’t matter, though, not at first. I was mad, so mad at everything going on that when it came time to let them go, I almost didn’t. I wanted to make someone else hurt as badly as you were hurting. But it dawned on me that it should be me, not those men. They didn’t do anything wrong. I left ’em tied to a tree.”

  “I’m glad you didn’t hurt ’em.” I shift, and I’m in pain, but not like before. The devil’s decided to let me be. “Tell me something happy.”

  Clyde clucks, like he’s ’bout to question me or object or say he’s got nothin’ happy to tell me, but then his hands are ’round mine. “The farm. I reckon you don’t remember much of it. The house wasn’t grand or anything, didn’t even have electricity.”

  “No electricity?” Now that ain’t something I had in mind for our one-day farm.

  “Nope. An icebox, though.”

  “Well, hallelujah for that.”

  He squeezes my hand. “A porch, too, that stretched right on ’round it. Ya know, for some rocking chairs. All white. The house, the porch, those chairs. They had themselves hogs, cows, and chickens. I put two and two together, figuring they sold milk and eggs to keep themselves afloat. They didn’t even rely on the land, only had a small vegetable garden. But it looked like they were doing just fine, tucked away in their own li’l paradise.”

  I say, “Sounds grand to me.” More than grand, considering Clyde will always be without those toes. “That farm is exactly the kind of place we’ll have, but maybe with some lights.”

  He kisses my hand, resting his chin on the spot his lips touched when he’s done. “And on that farm, Bonnie, we’re going to make a baby.” He swallows, his chin pressing into me. “Another one.”

  I lose my breath. “You knew?”

  “I was blind as a bat to it, ’til your body let go of our bairn. But you kept mumbling ’bout him…” He turns his head away. “Or her. Then I knew.”

  “Come here.”

  Clyde practically crawls closer and rests his head on my chest. It hurts, but the pain Clyde and I share is worse.

  “I had to put it into words,” he says into my breast. “It ain’t a happy one, but I wrote another verse in our song if you want to hear it.”

  I bite my lip, dragging the words out of myself to say, “Of course I do.”

  With my eyes closed, I hear him breathe out. Slow. Steady. “It won’t sound as good without a guitar so bear with me, Bonnie.”

  Then, “Death came for them, out of nowhere, quick as can be … It scratched, it clawed, it burned, right down to her bone.”

  His voice cracks, but he goes on, his tone raw.

  “But that girl’s stronger, much stronger, with a fight to survive, you see … So, Death took what it could: the life they’d hoped to call their own.”

  I quit breathing. Clyde looks up at me, tears in his eyes. “That could break them, if they let it, it’d be easy, it’d be fair. But, ohh”—he draws out the word, not a second of it steady—“Oh, oh, oh, they still got each other, forever and always, to hold on to.”

  The tears in Clyde’s eyes fall. Mine join his. Together, we cry for what could’ve been, and ’cause, at the end of the day, we’re both still here to see another one of those.

  21

  Blanche is next to visit me. Later that day, the next morning? I ain’t sure, but everything hurts a bit less, my heart included.

  Blanche has changed. She’s thinner than I remember. Wearing pants?

  “You know,” she says, not quite trotting into the room. Her gait is slower. Heavier? “That boy ain’t the only one who can sing.”

  “Was that you? When I was sleeping?”

  Dear Blanche tried to carry a tune. She kept dropping it, though. I sit up. I can do that now: sit up, even if I do moan, and even if my leg won’t fully straighten out. But if the stack of newspapers on the bedside table equates to a number of days, it’s been nearly two weeks since I’ve been out of commission. One of the headlines peeks out.

  DESPERADOS TIE KIDNAPPED OFFICERS TO A TREE

  So I’ve heard.

  “Girl,” Blanche says, and I refocus on her, “you were doing more than sleeping; might as well call it a
coma.”

  “That bad, huh?”

  She sighs, gingerly sits down next to my bum leg. “Bonn, you scared me. Really scared me. All of this does. And just when I think things can’t get any worse, Buck acts a fool.”

  “Dare I ask what—”

  “The last few weeks have been expensive with us staying in cabins and motels and giving you all those drugs. That stuff doesn’t come cheap, Bonn. All our money is almost all gone.”

  I scrunch one eye. “Sorry?”

  She tugs on the ends of her hair. “I know, not like you wanted any of this. But Buck decided to be some hero and rob a grocery store. He took the boy with him. The jamokes got too excited and crashed into a car—a parked one—on their way back here. The law came.” She shakes her head, but behind her stiff upper lip, I see Blanche’s fear. “Buck and Jones had to shoot their way out. Jones lost the tips of two fingers. And Buck—he shot one of the deputies dead. To make matters worse, their car wasn’t going anywhere, so they stole the law’s ride.”

  “Holy hell, is Jones okay? Is Buck?”

  “Buck ain’t the one who got shot.”

  “Blanche,” I say slowly, and I can’t help feeling lousy I took one pill after another, keeping us here longer than we needed to be. “Buck ain’t ever killed a man before.”

  She says, “No, he hasn’t.”

  But that’s it, and her expression ain’t giving me much to work with. Blanche doesn’t look like Blanche. Her hair’s dark, maybe darker than mine. Her cheeks are sunk in. And, “Blanche, you’re wearing pants.”

  A snort comes out. “They’re riding pants.” She lifts a foot. “And boots.”

  “Did you get a horse?”

  “No. And you better not tease me like the boys. Dresses are too hard to keep fit. Grime hides easier on pants. The boots are heavy, though. Harder to run in, which the boys say is all I’m good for after that time…”

  I nod. We’ll leave it at that. Though there’s no denying she wanted to leave before. It hurts to think it, but maybe she should’ve. Maybe she should now. “Blanche, you can go, ya know. I don’t want you to leave, but you can.”

  She laughs, but it ain’t a real laugh. “I can’t leave Buck, just like you can’t leave Clyde. But, there’s still hope for Billie.”

  My head twitches. “What you mean by that?”

  “Your sister and Jones have been ogling each other for days. And ever since he lost the tiniest piece of his fingers, she’s hardly left his side.”

  I could wring Blanche’s neck for not leading with this news. Of course, she’d talk ’bout herself first and foremost. Seconds pass while I regain my composure. “Where is she?”

  Blanche’s eyes widen. “You going to go runnin’ in there like her mama?”

  I shrug, and fight to swing my legs off the motel bed. It’s pathetic. I’m only twenty-two years old, and I move like I’ve got one foot in the grave. My right leg slips free of the sheets, and my eye catches on the mass of bandages.

  “Have you seen it?” I ask. “What’s under all that?”

  “It ain’t pretty, Bonn. I won’t lie to you. But your face is healing well.”

  I touch my cheekbone. “My face?”

  Blanche slides my hand lower, to my chin. There’s an indentation there that wasn’t there before. My skin’s puckered as if it’s been … “Stitched?”

  She nods. “Your whole chin was busted open, but Billie sewed you back together.”

  And now my sister is canoodling with a boy who ain’t right for her. It’s not like Jones ain’t sweet as sugar and good-natured. Funny, too. He’s a fine boy, someone I’m pleased to have with Clyde and me. But the thought of Billie sitting in a jail cell, trying to figure out if she should follow her head or her heart, well, that would wreck me. Mostly ’cause that girl’s a lot like me. Heart always wins.

  “Help me up.” I reach for Blanche. She pulls my arm, straightening it, but my leg won’t do the same. I stare at it, like somehow my head is getting back at me for the thoughts I just had, and if I try a little harder, the directions I’m silently shouting will make it all the way down to my leg. But it stays crooked. Not bent, not like I’m sitting in a chair, but my leg’s curved ever so slightly, like a sickle.

  Neither of us know what to do to get me on my feet—I certainly don’t—so we’re stuck in between me standing and sitting.

  Clyde walks into the room, and Blanche exhales.

  I sink back into the bed, quickly rearranging the sheet to cover proof of the fact I ain’t the same girl I was before the crash. That girl could stand on her own two feet.

  Clyde’s so intent at looking at my face, I can tell it’s forced. Before he can say a thing, there’s a parade into my motel room: Buck, Billie, then Jones on her heels.

  “Gang’s all here,” Blanche says dryly.

  Buck hooks an arm ’round her waist, kissing her temple. “Don’t sound so enthused, baby.”

  I ask, “What’s wrong?”

  “We got to head out,” Clyde says, “But with the extra heat on us…” It goes unspoken he’s referring to Buck taking out that deputy, and his tone broadcasts he ain’t pleased with his brother ’bout it. “Well, we can’t risk staying here any longer or getting a cabin or anything where we got to check in.”

  That leaves sleeping under the stars, and I’m not even partly a fan of the woods. I sigh. “Can someone get me a smoke?” I ask the room.

  They all leave. Billie’s the one who comes back with a cigarette, along with a change of clothes.

  She pulls my dress over my head. I keep my eyes closed, not wanting to see any parts of my body.

  “Aren’t you scared?” I hear. “Being around someone like Clyde?”

  Scared? No. “He’d never hurt me.” Not like Roy did, deserting me, berating me, deceiving me. I fell for Clyde with open eyes.

  “Still”—Billie yanks a new dress over my head—“Clyde seems capable of hurting others plenty well.”

  I open my eyes to see Billie’s doe-like ones. “Maybe it doesn’t scare me ’cause I know the real him.”

  I think, I knew him before all this. I knew the man he was, the man he wanted to be. Commander Clyde Barrow of the United States Navy—that’s who. Someone could easily think the USN letters inked on his upper arm are an ex-girlfriend’s initials. Lord knows I’ve got Roy’s name on my upper thigh. But those letters meant something bigger to Clyde.

  “Clyde tried,” I tell Billie. I think of how Dallas also rejected him after he was paroled. “He tried more than once. But life keeps dealing him a different hand. I’m not making excuses. It’s wrong. Don’t think I don’t know that, Billie. But…”

  She gently takes a brush to my hair. “But what?”

  “But I’m in this with Clyde, no matter what. That makes me horrible, I know. You, though, Billie. You don’t need to be like me. I want you to stay away from Jones, you hear?”

  She startles, no longer brushing my hair. My sister apparently didn’t know I knew ’bout their budding love affair.

  “Billie,” I say. “Jones is a nice boy, he is, but isn’t there somebody at home more to your liking?”

  She doesn’t answer. Instead, Billie finishes with my hair, with not as much care as before. I let the topic of Jones go, for the time being.

  * * *

  The girls and I are stretched out on blankets. Being in the woods is bad enough, and now it’s nighttime. I shudder.

  When we got to our new makeshift campsite, Clyde carrying me through the trees, he set me down, then took extra care to clear the ground of any sticks or pine cones. He spread out sheets for me to lie on, ones he took from the motel. When he did, though—when he took those sheets—he dug into his pockets and left some bills behind.

  That wasn’t completely out of character. He’s given money to our hostages before we’ve set them loose. But then, it was only enough to make a point-to-point phone call. This time, Clyde left behind a wad of bills, and based on my conversation with Blanche, I d
on’t get the sense we have much to spare. I think Clyde’s conscience is chasing him ’bout what happened to me—and to our baby.

  He’s off with the boys now, retrieving a few rifles they stashed somewhere and maybe trying to add to our piggy bank. Then it’s back on the road.

  “Tonight,” Clyde said, “we need to put some distance between us and this town.”

  The sun left shortly after they did, though heat still lingers in the air. The humidity certainly doesn’t make it easier to breathe. I’m uncomfortable all over, including a bladder that’s too full. It’ll have to stay that way; I ain’t going to ask Billie or Blanche to carry me away from our camp and into the unknown. There’s barely any moon in the sky, and the trees are thick. I reckon that’s why Clyde chose this spot, those trees doing their job to keep us hidden, but it’s dark. Too dark and—

  “You hear that?” I whisper.

  Billie’s only a few feet away and she’s barely more than an obscure bump on the ground. Blanche is on her other side, another bump in the night. “I don’t hear anything,” Billie says.

  I say, “I do. Something’s slithering.”

  “A snake, I’d guess.” Blanche. “Or a lizard, one of those legless ones. Not sure why they don’t just call it a snake and be done with it.”

  “’Cause it ain’t a snake,” I counter.

  I can imagine Blanche shrugging.

  “If it’s a lizard, it’s a lizard,” I add, as if this distinction truly matters.

  “Fine,” Blanche says, drawing out the word. “It’s a lizard. Unless it really was a snake.”

  Billie chuckles. “Both of you have always been so pigheaded.”

  Blanche says, “I prefer headstrong.”

  It’s quiet, besides a faint rustling that I’m resolute ’bout ignoring, ’til Billie says, “Bonn, when’s the last time you’ve sung?”

  That came out of nowhere, and I’m immediately defensive. “What kind of question is that?”