Along for the Ride

by Christina Schwarz

He was taller than she was, although not by a whole lot. Emma was struck by how well they fit together; two well-formed people built on a small scale. Bonnie seemed to have attracted a dark-eyed, dark-haired, male version of herself.

  “Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Parker.” He nodded, his hand still under the whisk. “Can I get you some hot chocolate?”

  Emma didn’t have much of a sweet tooth. She sipped a little of her drink, while Clyde gulped at his. Bonnie, she noticed, hardly touched her cup.

  He had a confidence about him that made him appear relaxed, even though Emma could see that he was exquisitely alert. His hair was combed and his shirt was pressed; he even wore a tie—Emma approved of good grooming. And his eyes were ardent when he looked at her daughter.

  “You like him, don’t you, Mama?” Bonnie’s voice was a whisper. He’d gone back into the kitchen to pop some corn, but the house was very small.

  “Well, he looks darn cute in an apron.”

  “Mama! I’m not fooling! He’s… well, he’s just the man for me. That’s all.”

  * * *

  He courted her energetically for some weeks in the usual ways—car rides and picture shows, chilly walks around Fair Park where they posed for photos in Edwardian togs and cowboy gear. Love made all of these outings exhilarating—the harsh wind through the open car window invigorated Bonnie; the grubby costumes made her laugh so hard she staggered; the stilted, often silly, dramas she watched with her head on his shoulder transported her—the hero with his dark, soul-baring eyes was always so like Clyde. Clyde told her he was going places, and she believed him. She understood his desire to be special, because it matched her own. But while she only wished and dreamed, he went out and did things. And if those things weren’t strictly what he ought to be doing, well, it was her job to improve her errant boy.

  “Lazy bastards think I done practically every crime in Dallas. How can I be robbing a garage in Denton and a dry goods store clear over in Mesquite the same night? What do they think I am? Some kind of Slim Jim?” He shook his head, but she could tell he was proud. “I wish I pulled half the things they say I done.” When he grinned, she frowned back at him, playing her part.

  “You know I don’t think that’s funny. You got to use your smarts for something better, Clyde.” They were entwined on the davenport at her mother’s. Barbara’s cast had come off a week or so ago, and Bonnie had moved back home.

  “Like what, sugar? You tell me what I oughta do.”

  “You could fix cars at your daddy’s service station. Make it into one of those clean places like over in Dallas, with an awning and flower boxes and one of those bells that dings when you run over the cord. Or you could play in the clubs with a little practice. Bring your girl along to sing. Or why not another job in Dallas? You said you never once got fired. You’re a good worker. You just got to settle down to something, that’s all.”

  “Tell you what. When you’re a famous singer, I’ll be your driver, take you round to all your gigs, make sure you get paid what they owe you. How about that?”

  “I’m serious, Clyde. What if you get caught?”

  “They ain’t going to catch me. Them laws don’t know the first thing about how to catch a fellow moves around the way I do.”

  * * *

  That was why he had to go away for awhile, he explained a couple weeks later. He was standing at the Parkers’ door. She could see that he didn’t want to come into her house with news like that, and she loved him for his gentlemanly scruples.

  “Can’t you come in?” She reached for his arm, slid her fingers down until they held his. “You don’t have to go right this minute, do you?”

  It didn’t take too long for her to lace him to her with her arms and legs, as they sat in the front room. “But where are you fixing to go?” She’d asked this twice already, but there wasn’t much else to say.

  “I told you. Nowhere special. I just gotta go away.” He traced the rim of her ear with his nose. “I’ll be back.”

  “When?”

  “When they find someone else to bother and forget about me, I guess. I don’t know. A couple of weeks. A month.”

  “A month!”

  “C’mon, Blue-eyes, don’t be blue.”

  Mrs. Parker tried to ward off her daughter’s unhappiness for as long as she could. “It’s so late now. Why don’t you stay over? Sleep on the davenport tonight.” She nodded at the couch. “Then we can all get to bed,” she added, a touch of dryness in her tone.

  “Yes, Clyde! Stay here! You don’t want to go out now in the dark and cold.” Bonnie pressed on him with all her weight, holding him against the cushions, and though he could have extricated himself, he would have had to use a firmness he didn’t feel.

  “I suppose one more night in Dallas won’t hurt.”

  Bonnie hurried to find a blanket and took the pillow off her own bed. “You comfy?” She knelt beside him to kiss his forehead in the dark room. Her mother had given him a pair of Buster’s pajamas and the shirt gapped loosely around his slight chest. “I better get to bed. Mama won’t like me being out here when you got your pants off.” She giggled.

  He smiled at her, a little boy tucked in the covers.

  “Good night.” As she rose to her feet, she kissed her two longest fingers and held them out to him, as if proffering an invisible cigarette.

  He answered with his own chaste fingertip kisses. “Good night.”

  * * *

  Bonnie dreamed of a dragon whose wings banged against the sky, which turned out to be the laws pounding on the door. By the time Bonnie and Emma reached the front room, two officers were standing over Clyde, watching him exchange Buster’s pajama shirt for his own dress shirt.

  “What are you doing?” Bonnie shrieked.

  “I got caught,” Clyde said.

  “Why don’t you run like a rabbit?” one of the officers sneered. “Why don’t you run the way your brother Marvin did?”

  Clyde squinted up at him and pulled one hand through his sleep-mussed hair. “Buddy, I’d hop it, if I could.”

  He reached for his tie, but the other cop batted his hand away. “You ain’t gonna need that.”

  Clyde only shrugged, but Bonnie gave her emotions full sway. “Don’t take him!” She dropped to her knees and raised her clasped hands. She blocked their path to the door.

  “Step aside, miss.”

  “Don’t fret, honey.” His hands were cuffed behind his back, so the best he could do was dip his head in her direction. “I’ll be out in a couple of hours. They got nothing.”

  The cop who’d taunted him laughed. “If you believe that, you ain’t as smart as you look, cookie. Denton wants him; Waco wants him; and I don’t even know where else. We’re picking up the trash for the rest of Texas.”

  “What do you want to be rude for?” Emma scolded. “You gotta take him, then take him. You don’t have to be rude and scare my daughter.”

  “Get her out of the way, then,” the other cop said.

  “Bonnie, you gotta let them by.” Emma tugged her daughter’s arm.

  Bonnie’s steadfastness accomplished nothing. The laws finally just stepped around her with Clyde in handcuffs between them.

  While Bonnie slammed her palms on the floor in protest, one cop pushed Clyde outside and the second closed the door behind them.

  CHAPTER 15

  Emma believed Clyde had spent the night in her law-abiding household because he’d thought he’d be safe there, but Bonnie was convinced he’d been caught because he hadn’t wanted to leave her—like Cinderella at the ball. Less than an hour after they’d hurried him off, her eyes swollen nearly shut, she’d dressed to take the streetcar to the jail. Her mother said she wasn’t fit to go out, but Bonnie was proud to show her grief.

  When she’d worked at Marco’s, she’d admired the Dallas County Criminal Courts Building, which was practically around the corner. It was not so dramatic as the Old Courthouse, but with its arched windows and stone trim, it resembled one
of the better hotels, like the Athletic Club. Now, however, its grandeur cowed her.

  The jail was on the fifth floor, visitation on the fourth. The staircase, wide and bright between the sheriff’s offices on the first floor and the courtrooms on the second, narrowed and darkened as it climbed to the jury rooms on the third. Visitors going beyond that point were directed by a curt, grim-lettered sign to proceed to the rear of the building, where the windows were barred and the railing was unpainted iron.

  At the top of those stairs, a policeman blocked her way.

  “He’s barely been booked,” he said, scornfully, when she gave him Clyde’s name.

  She nodded, comprehending that some degree of penance had to be suffered before relief of any kind could be allowed.

  But later that afternoon, the law continued to refuse to let her in, and the next day he hardly glanced at her before shaking his head, although she’d gone to a lot of trouble to fix her hair and make up her eyes.

  “Not unless you’re kin,” he said, turning the pages of a newspaper at a pace that revealed he was too bored to read them.

  “Well, when can I see him?”

  “I wouldn’t know,” the man said. “Depends on how busy we are.”

  There was nothing much going on at that old jail that she could see. Finally, she understood that he had all the power, and she had none.

  CHAPTER 16

  Although Bonnie couldn’t get into the jail, she hoped that her letters could. Every evening, she played the blues and other melancholy selections on the radio and luxuriated in the emotions her words evoked.

  Mr. Clyde Barrow

  Care of The Bar Hotel

  Dallas, Texas

  (Not much in the way of wit, but the best she could muster under the circumstances. Her confidence that he would appreciate the joke made her love him all the more.)

  My Sweet Sugar:

  How’s my baby tonight? I truly hope you don’t miss me as much as I miss you, because I couldn’t bear to think of my sugar so blue.

  I tried again to see you today but because I’m not your wife, they don’t have to let me in unless they durn well please. I guess they don’t know I love you until death do us part. You better know that however long this takes, I’ll be waiting for you.

  Other boys came over—apparently, it wasn’t any more clear to them than it was to the laws that she was now essentially Mrs. Clyde Barrow—but she did not encourage them.

  That fool Walter Crump presented her with a heart-shaped box of chocolates. “I brung you a Valentine,” he announced, in a way that said he expected a kiss or some such favor in return.

  “Well, how sweet. Thank you very much,” was all she gave him.

  Pointedly, she didn’t open the box, but set the garish thing—its shiny, cartoonish shape an affront to the complex, desperate emotions she experienced at the thought of Clyde—on the little table beside the door that served to collect keys and coins, sticks of gum and single gloves and bills from the electric company that no one wanted to open.

  She nodded politely at his story about a girl they both knew who’d gotten into a fight with her fellow—“Say, you could hear them barking and howling clear across the river, I’ll bet,” he said—but she didn’t ask questions or tell any stories of her own.

  “Ain’t you going to open that candy?”

  “Not just now. Did you want a piece?”

  He sighed. “I guess not.”

  Pretty soon he got the hint. “I can see you’re tired tonight. You sure you don’t want to go out and get some air?”

  “No, I’d rather stay at home, thank you.” She took pleasure in saying it. She smoothed her skirt over her thigh. Its dark gray color pleased her, too. If Clyde had to stay in prison, maybe she’d become a nun.

  “Well, you enjoy that candy, then,” Walter said from the doorway.

  They both looked at the unopened box on the table, he with regret and she with satisfaction.

  * * *

  Well, since I couldn’t get in there to see you, I ran over to West Dallas and met your mother.

  West Dallas was Bonnie’s polite way of referring to the “Bog,” the campground across the Trinity that grew like a fungus from the tree trunk that was Dallas proper. There those who’d escaped from farms that could not sustain them, finding themselves barred from a city that prohibited the poor, squatted in a welter of filthy, collapsing tents, until they could keep hold of enough cash to rent four walls. Among them, the Barrows alone had erected a permanent structure, either because that family had been more resourceful than others or because they’d inhabited the Bog so long that they’d despaired of moving away from it. Clyde had told Bonnie how his mama had saved pennies to buy wood and shingles and nails, back when they’d had to sleep under their wagon for lack of even a tent, and how his daddy, in his dogged way, had pieced together bit by bit a shack about the size of a wagon bed.

  * * *

  “You sellin’ Maybelline? I ain’t interested in none of that junk.”

  The scuffed, wooden door had hardly opened and already it was shutting.

  “I’m here about Clyde,” Bonnie’d said quickly. But she didn’t know what his people were like. Maybe they’d want nothing to do with a boy in jail.

  As she’d hoped, the door opened up again. The woman in the dim space looked like a grandmother, with her gray hair cinched in a severe bun, as if it were more nuisance than glory, a sack-like dress, and a mouth straight and thin as a needle. Like almost all the cropper women that Bonnie had encountered, Cumie Barrow had been worn down to a tough nub. “What about Clyde?”

  “Mrs. Barrow? I’m Bonnie Parker.”

  A girl, maybe ten years old, with cheeks soft and round as dinner rolls, appeared suddenly from the far side of the house, a battered tin plate dangling from one hand. Behind her strutted a bedraggled rooster, its comb ripped nearly in two. “You Bud’s new girl?” As if to second the question, the rooster tipped its head to level a black beady eye at Bonnie and then scratched its long, forked claws at the hard-packed dirt.

  “I’m Clyde’s girl,” Bonnie said. “Is that what y’all call him? Bud?”

  The girl nodded. She had Clyde’s warm brown eyes and the sprightly expression he had when he was happy.

  “You must be Marie. Clyde told me how pretty you’ve been getting.”

  Mrs. Barrow frowned and her eyes narrowed. Lines bristled around her lips like porcupine quills. “So you’re what he’s been running around with anymore, trying to impress.”

  Bonnie had made a mistake, obviously, doing herself up. The very embellishments that made most people—men especially, but women, too—approve of her looks—her fluffy, bobbed hair; her brightened lips; and, yes, her Maybellined eyelashes—made this woman sneer. Almost unconsciously, Bonnie curled her fingers into fists to hide her polished nails. But then she opened her hands and squared her slight shoulders; after all, Clyde loved the way she looked. “Yes, ma’am,” she said. “I suppose I am.”

  The woman sighed. “Well, you might as well come in and we can worry about him together, then.”

  Inside the Barrows’ house, surrounded by walls papered with the Dallas Morning News, they were protected from the chill wind and the rooster, but the room had the airless cold of a freezer. In the places where the newspaper had peeled off, the backside of the exterior boards was visible. Two wooden chairs and a couch-like piece of furniture that looked like it may once have formed the back seat of a car stood with no relation to one another on the wooden floor and crowded the dim space. A shelf jutting out from the wall, supported by two legs, held mismatched bowls and plates and a few odd-sized glass jars. On a small bureau with holes where drawer handles had once been stood a framed photo of a mother and her children, the woman—her hair upswept in a way that made her resemble the rooster and her eyes wide and bright—was recognizable as Cumie only by the somber set of her fleshless lips.

  Bonnie seized the picture. “Oh, how darling! Which is Clyde?”
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br />   “You can sit down,” Mrs. Barrow said, taking the photo from Bonnie’s hands, and scooping a cat off the grimy pillow that served as a cushion on one of the chairs.

  “I don’t know what it is about Buck and Bud,” Cumie said, settling herself on the car seat with the cat on her lap. “Elvin ain’t like them two. Neither is L.C. And all my girls is good girls. Marie here goes to school pret’ near every day.”

  “Clyde says she’s real smart.” He hadn’t said that exactly, but Bonnie supposed the sentiment would please the girl and maybe the mother, too.

  “Clyde give me a bicycle,” Marie bragged.

  Cumie frowned. “Oftentimes I wish we never came to this city. In the country a body don’t get in the habit of wanting. There’s nothing to want. No fancy clothes, no guitars, no movie houses, like you got here.” She looked accusingly at Bonnie, as if Bonnie had personally sponsored these temptations.

  “Nothing to eat in the country, neither.” A young woman stood in the doorway, her brown hair in the stiff frizz the cheap beauty parlors turned out.

  “Bud’s latest,” Cumie said, nodding in Bonnie’s direction.

  “Nell!” Marie exclaimed, brightening at the sight of this older sister.

  “Why don’t you tell her about the time you had us scrape the paper off the wall, so you could cook up the old paste, Ma?” Nell said. “Now there’s a nice story about country living.”

  Mrs. Barrow snorted. “I ain’t sayin’ we’re goin’ back!”

  Bonnie stood and offered Nell her rose-tipped fingers. If no one was going to introduce her, she would do it herself. She knew that Nell was for Clyde what Dutchie had been for her—playmate and protector. She’d also been second mother when their first didn’t have time even to let her eyes settle on her children’s faces and sent various combinations of them to live with this uncle or that. Bonnie wanted Nell, especially, to like her.