’Cause I know it’s been months—since the Oak Ridge apartment, maybe—and that ain’t like me.
“Not sure how to word that question differently,” Billie says.
I scrunch my nose, twist my lips back and forth, annoyed. It’s hard to put into words exactly why my feathers are ruffled, but I know I don’t like my younger sister seeing me as a different version of myself. And I ain’t talking ’bout my body being disfigured, though that’s a load of horse dung, too. But it’s like Billie recognized, at the drop of a hat, that my soul’s scarred. She hasn’t even seen me awake long enough for me to sing, yet she knew, and that knowledge has been festering on her mind enough to ask me ’bout it.
It doesn’t help that Blanche’s shape now appears propped up, like she’s waiting to hear what I’ve got to say as well.
But I’m afraid I don’t have an answer for them, or for myself, besides not having a reason for wanting to sing.
Billie’s voice almost startles me. “Remember,” she says, softer this time, “when we used to fish down at the creek?”
I swallow a lump in my throat, already nostalgic, only a few words into her story, for the picture Billie’s ’bout to paint. “Most Saturdays we’d go.”
“When we were younger, yeah, life was slower then. But every time we went, it felt like the sun was shining, the birds were chirping, but you, Bonn, you were always shining the brightest and chirping the loudest.”
I smile. “I don’t remember you liking my songs at the time. You used to pick up your skirt and your pole and wade to the other side of the creek.”
She laughs. “You were scaring away all my fish. And, I’ll be honest, your shadow couldn’t reach all the way ’cross the water. It wasn’t always easy having you as an older sister. The perfect grades. The perfect boyfriend—well, at the time, before Roy turned sour. The perfect voice.”
“The perfect best friend,” Blanche says.
Billie laughs again.
“Quiet, child.”
But I can tell, even without seeing Blanche’s face, she’s smiling. I am, too, at how Billie used to see me. I bite my lip, hard. The sharp pain adds to the dull ache in my leg. Too bad the smile can’t last, not with all the “what could have beens” snaking their way into my head. Yet I’m still here. After all the crashes life has thrown at me, I’ve always found a way to pick myself up. I like the pain, both sharp and dull. It’s something undeniable. I can still feel, which means there’s still hope for me. So maybe, just maybe …
“I’ll sing again one day.”
“I hope so,” Billie says.
22
Silence hangs in the air after Billie’s story of our childhood. The hours tick by, well beyond midnight, or at least it feels that way. With clouds snuffing out the moon, the only source of light is the slight flicker of lightning bugs who have joined us in the night. Finally, the boys return, and we can get on with things. Whatever and wherever that may be, though, I know it can’t be with Billie tagging along.
“Clyde,” I say, “will ya help me?”
He scoops me into his arms and walks us, almost blindly, a distance away. He holds me in position so I can do my business, and I do my best for that business not to splatter us both.
Clyde says, “There’s nothin’ we can’t share, is there?”
I chuckle and nestle my head into his neck as he carries me back to the gang, using their soft voices as a guide, taking care so we don’t catch any branches.
“Thank you for getting Billie to take care of me. Never did thank you for that.”
“But it’s time for her to go home,” he states, not a question.
“Blanche says she’s been getting cozy with Jones.”
Twigs break under his feet. “Yeah, I’ve been seeing them exchange sweetness.”
“I just don’t want her ending up like me, that’s all.”
With his next step, he dips lower to one side, almost as if my words caught him off guard. I squeeze my eyes shut, feeling bad, but Clyde’s gait returns to normal and he doesn’t respond. I open my eyes, unable to read his features in the dark.
Not far off, there’s a sudden glow. I tense ’til I realize it’s the interior light from the car. Blanche and Billie are folding our sheets and packing the car. Buck and Jones are straightening the guns to make room for us.
Clyde stops walking and lowers his voice. “Do you regret this life with me? I know there’s a lot we could’ve done without … But you and me, do you wish you could turn back time and gone a different way in life?”
There are a lot—heaps—that I wish would’ve gone differently so far in my life. I probably won’t ever have the chance to stand in front of my own classroom or climb on a stage again, the heat of the spotlight on my face. Those are big hits to the dreams I’ve had for myself.
But Clyde … do I wish for a life without him? Do I wish I got on that bus in Kaufman? Never. I grab his chin, focusing on the outline of his face. It’s all I can see of him, but it’s enough. I know the curves of his face and what those lines mean. Right now, his chin protrudes, like he’s got his lower lip sucked in.
“Clyde Barrow, there’s no one I’d rather pee with.”
He laughs, exactly my intention. We need to do more of that if we ever want a shot at holding on to who we really are.
“Ya know, Bonnie?” he says, and shifts my weight in his arms.
We’re still not walking, still standing still. I don’t think either of us is quite ready to rejoin the group. So I lay my head back against his chest, the night all ’round us no longer scary when I’ve got Clyde’s arms under me.
“Yeah?”
“After the crash and leaving the farm, we found a schoolhouse. It was empty, being it was a Saturday. I don’t reckon you remember any of this, but I stretched you out on the desk at the front of the room. It was a big ol’ one. Blanche and Buck stayed with you while the lad and I found a doctor to bring to ya. You should’ve seen the looks the whitehead gave me. Jones thought he was going to turn my own gun against me ’cause I wouldn’t take you to a hospital. But the doctor did good by you, fixing you up the best he could.” Clyde sighs. “Sorry, I’m rambling. What I want to say, Bonnie, is how it dawned on me—with you at the front of that classroom—how it’s somewhere you’ve always wanted to be. And there you were, ’cept you didn’t even know it. And I wish you had a different reason for being there. I wish I had put you there for another reason. But, Bonnie, I can’t read.”
I react, my head shifting, but I don’t lift it from his chest. “I’ve seen you read maps.”
“That’s learning and remembering how lines fit together. Words,” he says. “I can recognize certain ones. My name. Other words I’ve seen and heard plenty of times. But on that godforsaken road sign, Closed wasn’t one of ’em.”
His lips graze the top of my head, and I know this boy well enough to know his eyes are closed as he punishes himself.
“It’s okay,” I say. It is. But I still got to know. “Why didn’t you ever learn to read?”
“I stopped going to school after I got sick. It was too hard when I had trouble hearing. I got behind, and it took a toll on my ego, I guess you could say. But I want to learn, and Bonnie, I was hoping you could teach me.”
My chest warms. “I’d like that.”
He exhales. “And I’d like to get you on that land. I got ahold of Pretty Boy, and he suggested an armory that’s ripe for the picking. Would give us plenty to bust open the prison. I need that, to make it right after all I’ve made wrong recently.”
He needs it, that’s plain to see. “All right, but not with Billie ’round.”
“We’ll get her home,” he says, “Then…”
I nod. Farm Number One.
We rejoin the others, and soon our little car is cramped with the six of us. We begin zigging and zagging our way on back roads toward Texas, so I can put Billie on a bus home. We decide on the town of Sherman, it being close but not too close to Dallas.
>
The moving is slow. The mountain terrain wreaks havoc on our tires, giving us one flat after another. We stop to rob. We stop to eat. I shift uncomfortably from my wounds. We stop to put ointment on my leg, and I get a good look at it for the first time. I gag, while the others look away, giving me a moment to come to terms with the large divots in my skin, shiny now, with fresh skin growing over where the battery acid had eaten away my flesh and bone.
I put my dark hose back on as fast as I can, the ointment soaking through. Maybe it’d be easier to wear riding habits like Blanche, but I don’t want to give up my dresses and skirts.
Sometimes we camp in the forest in the afternoon, then drive at night. Sometimes we sleep at night and drive when the sun is blazing, now nearly July. There are times the boys rob in the thick of things, middle of the day, a time where they aren’t noticed amongst the crowds. Other times, they slip in under the cover of night like cat burglars. Clyde likes to mix it up, be unpredictable.
I miss some of it, the drugs forcing my eyes closed for hours at a time.
Along the way, between doses, I decide there’s no time better than the present to give Clyde lessons. His head whips toward me, all of us bracing when the wheel turns. He’s embarrassed. But I shush him. The way I see it, he shouldn’t be embarrassed to not know something he wasn’t ever taught.
I smirk, too, when I get under way with my teaching and see Jones and Buck, their heads poking out from the rear seat, taking note of what I’m saying. It seems Blanche, Billie, and I are the only educated people in our one-car schoolhouse. Imagine that, in a world dominated by men.
One day, Clyde brings me a newspaper so I can spell out common words as I go. It’s dated a few days ago. I shake open a page, start skimming aloud, then clamp my mouth shut before I can say a word.
ONE HALF OF CHRISTMAS DAY KILLERS IN JAIL
I read the article as fast as my heavy eyes will allow, confused how one of the killers is locked up when both of ’em are in this car.
A convict named Frank Hardy, a name I vaguely recognize, was fingered for a robbery in Missouri. That got his photo in the system. Later, mug shots were pulled into a lineup, so Johnson’s mother could point to Clyde’s accomplice. She fingered Frank. Which means Jones has never been implicated in anything we’ve done. I should tell him as much—right now. Jones could easily be a free man. Free, at least in the sense he doesn’t have any murders to his name.
But if I do, he might get on that bus with Billie.
I can’t have that. That boy has a piece of my heart, but he also has the taste of fugitive on his tongue. He’ll find his way to trouble again. He’ll take Billie with him.
“What is it?” Billie says, between Clyde and me on the front bench seat, as far from Jones as I could get her in our car.
I flip to a new page. “Nothin’. Brain’s foggy, moving a bit slow.” I rub my eyes, then read the next headline. “‘SHARKEY LOSES TITLE IN SIXTH-ROUND KNOCKOUT TO CARNERA.’”
“What?” Buck says. “No way.”
Clyde shrugs. “No surprise there.”
While the boys hem and haw ’bout the boxing match, I hem and haw with my conscience ’bout keeping the first headline to myself. As much as I like having Billie close by, I let out a sigh of relief when it’s time to let her go. I feel like I’m saving her from ever having to say, I’m in this with Jones, no matter what, when it comes to hurting other people.
I get out of the car at the bus stop and hop like a drunk rabbit to my sister. The rest of our gang stays in the car, giving us privacy.
“Don’t tell Mama,” I say. My new disability goes unspoken—even now, as I’m standing on one leg—but for me that plea for silence can apply to many a things.
Billie braces both my arms, under my elbows. “I wouldn’t tell Mama, even if you didn’t ask me not to. She paces the house at night, ya know, wondering if you’re okay.”
“I will be,” I say. “You can tell her that.”
Billie nods. Her chest rises, but doesn’t fall again for a second or two. “Bonn, I want to see you again.”
Suddenly, my throat is too thick to swallow, but I force the motion, and my emotions, down. This time, she’s the one with an unspoken message: Don’t die on me.
I wipe the corners of my eyes with the heel of my hand. It’s one thing for me to have those fears, but I can’t let them find their way to my little sister and to my mama. With the bus rumbling nearby, I give her the tightest hug I can muster, a silent thank-you for loving me despite how black my heart’s become, then climb back into the car.
I turn my head away as Jones slinks from the car to say his good-bye. When he’s back, when we’re moving again, I keep my eyes off the rearview mirror so I don’t see his face.
Guilt hits me from every angle, including how Jones could also be on that bus, headed home. ’Cept he’s headed with us to Oklahoma, to an armory on a prim and proper university campus.
But before the boys go near the school, Blanche insists they need some cleaning up. She sits on the car’s hood, cross-legged, scissors in hand. She snips at Jones’s hair. The boy’s still standing at the front of the car when Blanche yells, “Next.” Buck takes his spot in the hot seat.
Through the windshield, I watch her work. I got the passenger door wide open, letting in the sticky air.
Her fingers move quickly, and I’m fearful for the tips of Buck’s ears. At least with Clyde’s, with how they stick out, they’re easy to spot. He’s pacing, waiting for his turn. I know he wants to get this charade over with so we aren’t sitting here on the side of the road. Anyone could happen by, think we’re stranded, and offer their help.
“Next!” Blanche calls. It’s Clyde’s turn.
If all goes according to plan, the boys will come back with a large haul of guns to bust open the prison. Then, we’ll rob a big ol’ bank to get our land. I’ll tell Jones the truth after that, giving him the choice to stretch out on our land or go on home.
Clyde, now with his hair freshly cut, lifts me from the passenger seat and takes me past the tree line. I run my hand over his shorter hair. There’s something addictive ’bout the feel of a man’s hair right above the nape of his neck after it’s been cut. I could run my hand back and forth ’til the cows come home.
Or ’til he places me on a blanket that Jones has out for me on the ground. Clyde hands me a sedative to dull that ache in my leg, and also my nerves. Then, he taps the underside of my chin, forcing me to meet his eyes. Clyde kisses me, short and sweet, an “I’ll see you later” kiss.
It’s another dark night, but Blanche and I don’t risk talking too loud or even lighting cigarettes for fear of someone seeing the glowing tips. Soon, I’m drowsy, but despite the sedative, I can’t fully fall asleep. I must, for short stretches of time, but then my eyes shoot open, blurry, with my head full of fuzzy uncertainties. The last time I wake, night still hovers over us, but the sky’s beginning to glow red. Blanche’s eyes are rimmed in a similar color.
She shakes me, her fingernails digging into my arm. Headlights peek through the trees.
“Is it them?” she whispers.
Voices float through the night, ones we recognize, and we both audibly exhale.
“Sorry, baby,” Buck says, greeting Blanche, “but it ain’t going to be a comfy ride from here.”
Neither Blanche nor I know what he’s talking ’bout ’til we get a glimpse of the backseat. Even in the lingering darkness, it’s clear the seat is piled high.
Clyde laughs, patting Jones on the back. “There are actually so many guns I ain’t sure what to do with ’em all.” Then he says to me, “Did you muster any shut-eye?”
I rub the back of my neck, feeling a bit overwhelmed. “A li’l. How we all going to fit in the car?”
Buck puffs on a cigarette. “What it matter to you, Bonn, you’ll be up front like always.”
I scrunch my brows; I can’t tell by his voice if he’s cross or not, and I wonder if I missed something while the boys we
re gone. Must’ve ’cause Clyde moves fast, knocking the cigarette from Buck’s hand. “Why ya got to be like that?” He stomps on the cigarette. “Let’s go.”
No one says anything. Based on Buck’s scowl, Clyde’s reaction left a sour taste in his mouth. After we’ve put a few miles behind us, Blanche is the first to speak, propped up on the guns next to Buck, the top of her head brushing the top of the car. “None of these are loaded, right? I ain’t going to blast a hole in my derriere if I move?”
Between Clyde and me, Jones lets out a soft chuckle, his laughter growing when Clyde laughs, too. Buck doesn’t. Not this time.
We make it to Iowa, far enough north where the temperature drops by a few merciful degrees. We make camp along a river, and while all Blanche and I want to do is sleep, the boys are eager to try out their new toys. Clyde assures us we’re off somewhere remote, where no one will hear their gunshots. And when Blanche starts to complain, Buck is the one to quiet her, taking his brother’s side. Those Barrow brothers can be hot and cold.
Tired of sitting, I’m simply happy to lie flat. I ain’t happy, however, that each blast, followed by one of the boys’ hoots or hollers, doesn’t allow for much sleep. Neither do the mosquitos, who sure have a taste for my blood.
The day’s excitement comes when Clyde’s automatic rifle somehow gets stuck, firing bullets nonstop. The thing won’t stop, not ’til he throws it in the river. Blanche is keyed up after that, convinced someone had to have heard the prolonged noise or noticed how every bird in a mile radius of us seemed to take flight all at once. She offers to keep watch that night, and the next two, while we wait to see if the headlines link us with the armory. I’m not sure how she stays awake when tiredness makes my eyes burn all day long.
“Rubbing alcohol,” she tells me. “I dab it on my face. The sting and the smell keeps me awake.”
I scratch a mosquito bite on my arm. “That’s horrible, Blanche.”
She shrugs. She’s been doing a lot of that lately, shrugging, in between her scathing remarks ’bout one thing or another.
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