by John Gilmore
“Sure,” Buck said. “We’ve done that and both windin’ up where we didn’t figure we’d ever wanna to wind up.”
“I’m workin’ to do somethin’ about all that,” Clyde said. “I’ve got a real education workin’ for me that I’m puttin’ to use.”
In a hushed tone, Buck said, “That’s great, Bud, but listen to me, ’cause she don’t want me gettin’ in a pickle, now’s I got a clean slate in Texas. I’m walkin’ the fuckin’ streets free as a bird. But see, Bud, Blanche and both Marie and Nell’re sayin’ the same thing, and damn pushin’ me to get you to give up this kind of livin’. They’re sayin’, ‘Coax Clyde to get himself clean,’ and I’m tellin’ ’em, ‘I can’t do that.’ They’re sayin’, ‘Yes you can’—Mom’n’ Pop, too, sayin’ I gotta show you to turnin’ yourself in and makin’ a clean slate—”
“—knock it off!” Clyde said. “I follow anyone’s thinkin’ except my own, it goes in straight to the fuckin’ electric chair. Fuckin’ laws’re yankin’ straws to be pullin’ that switch and watchin’ me fry. That’s the only place I’d be headin’ hearin’ that kind of talkin’, whether it’s Mom or Pop or you or Jesus Christ doin’ the day-dreamin’.”
“I know,” Buck said. “I know that—”
“—get it through your head,” Clyde said. “I stay my way I’m goin’ fast and I make a fat score, I’m disappearin’ from view—me’n’ Bonnie’ll be two other folks livin’ out their own lives that’s nobody’s business. If it weren’t for Bonnie’s mom and family and for my own—and for you, Buck—we’d be in Mexico.” He stared at Buck for a moment. “Don’t matter what’s happened already, you’re my brother and we can live like a family, all you gotta do’s forget that crap of me turnin’ in, or you gettin’ on the spot. I’m tellin’ you we can do it.”
W.D. said, “I can do it with you!”
“That’s right,” Clyde said. “Boy, you got more beef in your fuckin’ blood than fellas twice your size.”
“I heard you got the laws lookin’ for you,” Buck said to W.D., “only they don’t know who you are yet.”
“I’m not about to send ’em a Christmas card,” W.D. said. “Bud’n’ me’ve got too much to do, and there ain’t no returnin’ address.”
“He’s right,” Clyde said. “No time except right now to get on the move. Get your duds and your pretty wife, and your Marmon and your pardon and we’ll all be in Missouri this time tomorrow.” He turned to W.D. “Get Bonnie and we’ll be movin’ on.”
“Wait a minute,” Buck said. “Hold on and I’ll talk to Blanche—fartin’ around with that dog in there. She didn’t wanna leave it with her stepdad, so I’m haulin’ a fuckin’ dog. We’ll go with you to Missouri, I can tell you that, just to see you settled safe. But I gotta see what she’s gonna say.…” Clyde nodded. Buck said, “Right now our folks’n’ hers are thinkin’ I don’t know which ducks’re sittin’ straight, but you know, Bud, you know fuckin’ well I know which goddamn ducks’re sittin’ straight. Am I right?”
That night in a dim roadside diner west of Ponca City, Bonnie, Blanche, and W.D. were enjoying bowls of navy bean soup and cornbread slathered with butter, while outside, Clyde and Buck smoked, strolling near the parked cars while sharing snorts of Oklahoma moon between drags on their cigarettes.
Talking about his troubles in prison, Buck said, “Ma did everythin’ a human bein’ can do to get my ass outta there. What turned the trick? Blanche stuffin’ her dress with laundry to look pregnant, then borrowin’ two toddlers from a friend and goin’ to the Texas governor beggin’ for my release. She told that old woman governor I was the only one who could work a job and keep her and the family from starvin’.”
Clyde shook his head when Buck handed him the bottle. “No, brother, I’ve had enough. That shit you thin paint with.…”
Buck laughed. “Y’know what? I get out the joint and was paintin’ houses and they send me packin’ after two stinkin’ hours. You know why?”
Nodding, Clyde said, “Sure, I know why.”
Tossing the bottle into some bushes, Buck said, “Couldn’t get work haulin’ garbage. Son of a bitch laughs and says, ‘Send your old lady to the sewin’ factory!’ You know what he meant?” Clyde nodded. “Whorehouse! Callin’ my wife a whore! I coulda shot the fucker. I said, ‘And you go fuck yourself, mister ’fore I send you to the fuckin’ hospital!’” Buck popped a match with his thumbnail, lit another cigarette, and stared at the diner window where Blanche and the other two were on their feet to leave. “I get sick at times,” Buck said. “Can’t eat, and that fuckin’ grub in the Walls killed my gut. I’m eatin’ goddamn porridge like a fuckin’ old man.”
“Could be worse,” Clyde said.
Buck said, “That old lady governor ain’t half bad, Bud. She can’t’ve known Blanche was pregnant ’cause I’d been locked away too long to have been able to pop her up. Fact is, unless we’re all spongin’ off the folks who’s got little enough as it is, we fuckin’ very well might be starvin’.” He laughed a little. “Don’t know how those tykes are doin’ who acted they was our kids, probably too dumb to know the truth that they wasn’t.” Taking a deep drag on the cigarette, he said, “Shouldn’t’ve brought that dog—hell, shouldn’t have bought the goddamn Marmon.”
Clyde said, “You two get in your fancy car, brother, and follow us. You’ll have your wife in a genuine mink coat come fall.”
Bonnie and Blanche rented an apartment in Joplin, but changed their minds when they saw the stone house—a two-bedroom, living room, kitchen, and bath above two garages separated by a stairway that led up to the second floor apartment. The front door was situated between the two hinged garage doors, with a doorway inside the garage leading up the stairs.
The rental arrangements were made by Blanche and Buck and the family moved in under different names—including W.D., who later said, “They were callin’ me Walter, sayin’ I was the kid brother. All the way there and gettin’ the place, you couldn’t say ol’ Buck was runnin’ for it like a darkie chasin’ a chicken, ’cause Blanche wasn’t too happy teamin’ up with Bud and Sis. But far as I could see, in a few days passin’ she wasn’t fussin’ as much as runnin’ to tidyin’ after Buck or herself. Or her and Sis goin’ shoppin’ at Kress, buyin’ sheets’n’ blankets and dishes and stuff, Sis buyin’ a kind of Chinese bathrobe, a bunch of towels and a new dress, a hat, and even a couple glass vases she stuck flowers in. There was a bunch of flowers growin’ out back where a separate garage was, and Buck’d made a deal on it to keep his Marmon in. The two cars we had in the garages downstairs were the ones we’d swiped before gettin’ into Joplin.
“They’d make lists of what we’d be eatin’ since Blanche or Bonnie’d be tellin’ the market and havin’ stuff delivered. The fella bringin’ it would be knockin’ at the downstairs door, so Sis or Blanche’d go down to have the stuff brought inside the door, no further ’cause nobody came up into where we all were. Enough it was that Snowball dog of Blanche’s barkin’ its head off. Got Clyde pissed every time it started a rumpus. I’d go down and haul the grocery boxes up the stairs while they’d be payin’ the fella. If Sis went down wearin’ that Chinese robe, I’d see that grocery guy’s eyes all buggin’ out.
“Blanche’d had some idea of keepin’ Buck in Oklahoma with her relatives, but Buck said he couldn’t find work—couldn’t even get a job for a salary that amounted to spare change. She told Bonnie her and Buck’d fought about it and he wasn’t gonna stay in Oklahoma. He said he’d never get a pocketful of money living as Blanche suggested, always someone handin’ it to him like he was crippled, and what they figured he was worth. It was never enough. He’d said, ‘You can’t get a man to live like that!’ He told her, ‘You’ll never get Clyde livin’ that way, gettin’ his hands dirty to make some fat sucker a wad to choke a horse. Bullshit,’ he’d tell her. He was gonna take all they got and let the goddamn devil take the rest!”
W.D. says, “Nights Buck’d be drinkin’ whiskey or beer wi
th Bud and Sis, cleanin’ guns or playin’ poker half the night until they crapped out. Sis’d go to sleep in the bed sighin’ how happy she was to be on a regular mattress with clean sheets and pillows and a comforter. I’d lay on top of the comforter on Clyde’s side of the bed, ’cause he didn’t sleep sometimes, but when he did he’d kick me off the bed. In the tourist cabins we’d stayed in, I usually was sleepin’ in the bed with them ’cause there wasn’t any place to sleep on the floor.”
Bonnie and Clyde had the bedroom that overlooked the rear of the property. W.D. said, “We’d been in Joplin more’n a week, livin’ like it was a real place to be, me sharin’ Bud and Sis’s bedroom, though I was sleepin’ on a couple of cushions off a couch. I couldn’t get comfortable, my shoulders got in the way no matter how I turned, and my head wouldn’t lay down.
“One night I looked up and Sis was starin’ down at me from bed, and she says, ‘What in hell’s the matter with you?’ Well, I told her what was wrong, and she said, ‘Get on the bed, but don’t crowd it up or else he’ll be kickin’ you back on the floor.’ I got on the bed and it was heaven comparin’ to the floor. I mean it was a good floor, good, clean, and everythin’ about the place was clean and didn’t need bein’ fixed, nothin’ busted like the places we’d been in. Sis did put her arm around me like she’d be holdin’ the dog and I said, ‘Sis, I sure like bein’ with you and Bud,’ and she said, ‘Shut your trap or he’ll be kickin’ you outta here.’
“All that time in Joplin was like livin’ in a regular person’s home, and Sis or Blanche fixin’ grub, or doin’ it together but always like there was somethin’ wrong between them. Sis hardly said much to her or Buck, maybe about the dog shittin’ or pissin’ somewhere and Sis steppin’ in it in a new pair of slippers. I slept on Sis’s side of the bed, or on the floor tryin’ to get my head layin’ even with the rest of me. Bud’d be up early, jigglin’ the window shade and checkin’ what’s outside, even though there weren’t much outside except the other house and that other garage where Buck had his car. But he’d stand there a long time, lookin’ and makin’ me wonder what he was seein’ ’cause there wasn’t nothin’ to see like laws or a posse showin’ up. I asked him but he said, ‘What the fuck, boy, you think they’re comin’ wavin’ a flag? What the hell, they’ll be wavin’ a rope for your goddamn neck.’
“I didn’t ask him anymore what he was seein’, ’cause he’d be up so early the sun wasn’t comin’ over. He once looked at me and said he couldn’t sleep half the night ’cause that fuckin’ dog was whimperin’ and he said I should give it somethin’ to whimper about, like a couple spoons of arsenic.
“He’d go out, shut the door, and then I was enjoyin’ sleepin’ up on the bed, but if I moved around too much, Sis’d shove me or push me off of the bed.
“She’d stay sleepin’ long as she wanted, but Blanche was usually up early and skulkin’ in the kitchen like fixin’ somethin’ for Buck ’cause of his stomach. That was goin’ on for a couple days, then she was fryin’ bacon the market fella’d brung us, along with the box of other grub and chocolate cookies and soda pop. Blanche’d be fryin’ bacon I could smell, and smellin’ it I had trouble stayin’ asleep.
“Sis could stay sleepin’ half the day and then she’d sit in the bathtub so long if you had to piss you’d go down in the garage or straight out around back to pee on the rock wall ’cause there wasn’t another place to piss on. Both Clyde or Blanche could go in the bathroom while Sis was in the tub, but neither Buck nor me could go in. Clyde never told her to get out of the tub, and nobody else would, but Blanche’d bitch to Buck, though most of the time he’d tell her to keep her trap shut so Bud wouldn’t get mad. When Bud got mad he’d just look at you like you were a rock we’d go down and piss on. Bonnie, sleepin’ so late and stayin’ in the tub till hot water turned cold.... Sometimes she’d run it hot all over, and that’d get Blanche like to pullin’ her own hair out. They got along okay the first week we were there and they had a good time shoppin’ at Kress or the other five-and-dime nearby, buyin’ all kinds of stuff, or walkin’ that dog around.
“If they weren’t playin’ cards half the night, they’d be listenin’ to Bud playin’ his guitar—damn good, and Sis would just be smilin’ and lookin’ pretty or else she’d be readin’ one of her poems she’d be writin’ when she was sittin’ in bed. She did that a lot and I couldn’t blame her after all the time she’d spent hunkered down on a car seat or on a blanket in a pile of leaves, then sneezin’ and near chokin’ on the dirt. She never complained, and told me never to complain ’cause it was weakness—then she’d say, ‘You see how Blanche is, don’t you? Complainin’ from mornin’ and damn near all night? So don’t complain and be a person like that, ’cause that’s a sign of bein’ scared, and bein’ scared’s bein’ weak and havin’ nothin’ worth holdin’ still for.’
“I said, ‘Well, her and Buck’re married and isn’t that what she’s holdin’ to?’ Sis looked at me, her eyes kind of gettin’ half shut, and she said, ‘If you wanna think that, you go on and think that, but keep your mouth shut, or I’ll have to smack you.’
“Sis kept playin’ with picture puzzles, puttin’ together all those little pieces. I remember a big old country road picture of a horse drawin’ a wagon in the woods. A lady with the reins and wearin’ a bonnet like a pilgrim, and it made me feel real sad. Sis said she’d met a little old lady at the market who was livin’ nearby and looked like the lady in the puzzle. She said the lady invited her to have macaroon cookies. So Sis said, “If you behave yourself, maybe we’ll go have macaroon cookies with that old lady.’
“We never did, though. Just didn’t think about it those couple weeks. Sis could cook up rice and red beans like she did, and chili, and then we’d maybe read her magazines and she’d talk about thinkin’, about the power of the mind, how you think hard and hold pictures in your mind and then answers come to you. She said, ‘It’s like hypnotizin’ yourself,’ then she rolled over and dozed off. A few times I went around the other side of the bed so’s I could look at her face while she was asleep.
“Three different times Bud said to me, ‘You stick here with Bonnie and keep that shotgun with you. You understand? We’re goin’ for some financin’. You stay here and keep a watch.’
“Buck’d get different when he’d go off with Bud, even looked different like how you are when you get excited. He’d hold that other shotgun like it just grew out of his arm, like sometimes how Clyde’d hold the steering wheel.
“One time Clyde came back with a bunch of little diamonds like out of rings and stuff, ’course there were no rings or pins, just these diamonds. We all sat lookin’ at ’em, with the big magnifyin’ glass Bud had in the canvas bag with the tools and flashlights and spyglasses. He wrapped those diamonds up and stuck ’em away somewhere in Sis’s stuff, but then later that night he was hidin’ ’em around the apartment. He kept a couple out and one afternoon when Buck was sick again, and after Bud’d sat up half the night puttin’ together one of Sis’s big picture puzzles which she’d got bored with—showed a big ship with giant sails in the middle of the ocean, all the water blowin’ around—he had the two diamonds out that he’d hidden, and then wrapped these careful in his pocket, and said, ‘You come on, we’re gonna take a ride.’ I’d hardly ever asked where we were gonna go ’cause he’d never answer me.
“We took the big Ford out of the garage and drove off. He wasn’t sayin’ where I was supposed to drive but after a few minutes he started gettin’ like ants in his pants. I’d seen him that way only a couple times. ‘Turn around and we’re goin’ back,’ he said. I said, ‘We forget somethin’?’ All he said was, ‘Turn around.’ So I turned around and headed back and he was really lookin’ everywhere, one way and then the other. Didn’t say nothin’.
“When we got on our street he said, ‘Get out and open the garage doors,’ and I got out and then he drove the car in. I was just startin’ to close the doors when there’s two cars stoppin’ on the street, an
d without warnin’ one of them pulls fast as hell into our driveway, blockin’ me gettin’ the garage door shut. Clyde hollers, ‘Laws!’ and he’s outta the car with the sawed-off.
“Son of a bitch laws is aimin’ a gun right at me and yellin’ at us, then takes a shot that goes through the garage door window, whizzin’ past my ear, bustin’ wood and glass. I got around the edge of the garage door but the cop’s shootin’ until Clyde lets loose the sawed-off, gets him in the shoulder and neck and he goes pitchin’ down in the driveway, his legs still kickin’.
“Right then I’m feelin’ wet and soakin’ out of my stomach, and I yell, ‘Bud! I’m fuckin’ hit!’ The second car’s into the driveway like to run through the wall and another cop’s already shootin’ into the garage. Bud blasts again and’s got him in the left side and the face, and one arm’s about blown off at the elbow. ‘My stomach’s hit, Bud! That’s where I’m hit—’ He hollers to get upstairs, get everyone down into the car. ‘Go on!’ he yells, ’cause there’s a couple other laws firin’ from behind the second car.
“I went through the other inside door to the stairs but I couldn’t make it. Even hollerin’ for ’em to get down in the car made me feel like I was fallin’ in half, bleedin’ all down myself.
“Buck’s comin’ down the stairs with the other shotgun. He looks at me. ‘You hit? Where you hit?’ I said I didn’t know. ‘My stomach—my side—’ He says, ‘Bud hit?’ I said no, he’s pickin’ them off. Buck says, ‘Get Bonnie and Blanche down here,’ then he lunges against the garage door and takes two shots at the laws. One law’s runnin’ to the far end of the building but Bud fires again, and Buck says he sees a bunch of dust and smoke flyin’ off the rock wall at the end of the buildin’—the law’s down, got a gun in hand and he’s reloadin’.