I imagine the guns at their back. I imagine Clyde, in his deep, confident voice, instructing Bank Man to open the vault.
No reason for anyone to get hurt, Clyde will say. He’ll even apologize on his way out for any inconveniences.
Yes, this is how it’ll all go.
Seconds pass.
Then minutes.
Two men burst from the bank, hooting and hollering. I reposition and feel a touch of nausea after standing so still, my knees no longer locked. Raymond’s got a sack in his arms. Clyde’s got one slung over his shoulder, moving as fast as his limp will allow.
Both men got smiles on their face, mirroring the one on my own.
Butter my butt and call me a biscuit. Clyde just robbed a bank.
6
I rush from the hotel room, not following our plan for me to wait for Clyde to fetch me. But I didn’t hear any alarm bells, didn’t see anyone after the boys, and, Lord help me, adrenaline carries me to Clyde.
He’s in the driver’s seat, ready to go. His frown at seeing me on the sidewalk is short-lived. He grins, but motions for me to hurry into the passenger seat. And we’re off, Raymond falling into the rear seat at Clyde’s quick acceleration.
Once back there, Raymond hollers, banging his fists against the ceiling of the car. He takes a swig from a dark bottle. “Saint Bonnelyn”—Raymond hangs over the front seat—“Mr. Clyde Barrow, that was our first successful bank robbery. April eighteenth will go down in history.”
“And stay there,” Clyde says, chewing on a toothpick. “Once is enough for me. My underclothes are going to be wet for a week.”
“Come on, now. We pulled it off without a hitch.” Raymond knocks my shoulder with the back of his hand, as if he’s expecting me to encourage Clyde to rob more vaults. But I know Clyde. Neither money nor greed motivates him. Clyde only wants to be free, with me.
“You should’ve seen him.” Raymond pauses, drinks. “On our way out of the vault, that fella of yours lowered his voice all deep-like and said, ‘Best not go telling no one now. Imagine how that’d make the bank look, ’specially to others who have the thought to rob ya.’ Then he dipped his hat, like he was saying good day or something. Genius.”
Clyde smirks. For the first time, he smirks. Sure, he’s smiled. He’s even grinned. But neither of those are linked with Clyde’s pride. And at his core, Clyde Champion Barrow is a proud man.
I’m feeling a little smug myself. “You said that?” I ask him.
He reaches over, rubbing my arm. “Something along those lines.”
Raymond hoots. “Well, it worked. Didn’t see no coppers in front of the bank, did ya? And you’d know, since you were out there.”
“Whoops,” I say, and Raymond, laughing, passes up his bottle.
Clyde shakes his head at my offer of a sip. “Want to keep my wits ’bout me in case I’m not as suave as Ray here made me out to be. And Ray? How ’bout you start counting that dough.”
“Don’t got to ask me twice. But, Clyde, man, these bills are large. My guess is ten large.”
I widen my eyes. “Ten thousand dollars?”
Raymond waggles his brow. “Each.”
“Clyde, honey, is that enough for some land?”
Clyde laughs. “Hell, Bonnie, we could get us three hundred acres.”
He winks, and a smile spreads ’cross my face. “They make farms that big?”
“Bigger, Bonnie. You’re looking at over three hundred for most farms. I can’t imagine any po-lice trudging ’cross all that land to track me down, ’specially with us keeping quiet, living off it.”
I stare out the windshield at the open road, my knee bouncing with excitement. “Then we’ll get your ma and daddy, my ma, Little Billie, maybe Buster can come, too, though he had his eye on this gal, Edith, before we left town, and—”
Clyde laughs again. “Got to find the right land first. But we’ll get there, Bonnie. We’ll get there.”
Yes, we will.
I take another sip of whiskey, my chest filling with warmth, and hand the bottle back to Ray, who’s ’bout as happy as a hog in mud. Some whiskey and some clams. What more could a fella want, save maybe a gal? Again, I’ve the mind to ask him how Mary’s doing, but, again, I think better of it. I’m too tired anyway, after my eyes were held open by nerves all the way to Kansas and practically three nights thereafter.
Smiling, I rest my head against the car’s window and close my eyes. Clyde takes my hand. Before sleep claims me, I think of our song. The second verse—the one I wrote after Roy left me in pieces—comes back to me, and warms me further.
Dreams can be forgiving, with second chances to strive.
But only if—she says from the heart—all is truly lost.
Love has failed, hope is gone, feeling no need to survive.
Then there he was, after all this time, saving her, no matter the cost … He looked into her eyes, held on tight, told her he’d never let go … Ohh—I draw out the word in my head—oh, oh, oh, hope for her future has been restored.
When I open my eyes again, Clyde whispers my name. Rain pings on the windshield. The landscape hasn’t changed much, just miles and miles of fields.
“Bonnie,” he says.
Clyde’s face is serious, the joy after robbing the bank gone. I sit up straighter. Nothin’ seems amiss, but I feel as if I’ve missed something. Something big. “What’s wrong?”
“Well, Bonnie … there are some things you should know. Some things I’ve kept from you.”
“You’ve what?” I cock my head. “Clyde, what’s going on?”
He stares straight ahead, his knuckles white on the wheel.
I press, “Clyde.”
We bump off the road. My hands flies to the door handle for something to hold on to. Clyde yanks on the parking brake. He sits there, not moving. I look all ’round, confused. His gaze flicks to the rearview mirror. Raymond still sleeps behind us. “Let’s get out.”
I ask, “In the rain?”
Clyde opens his door, steps out. I rub my eyes, put on a hat, then do the same. He waits for me under a tree, the canopy helping to mostly shield us from the rain.
“What is it?” I ask him. “You’re making me nervous.”
“In prison”—Clyde licks his lips, averts his eyes—“I was targeted.”
“I know.”
“No, ya don’t. No one does. There was this lad.” Clyde’s chest rises, falls. He still won’t look me in the eye. He wipes rain and also what may be tears from his face. I want to reach for him, touch him, but I ain’t sure if I should. He says, “Ed Crowder. I won’t ever forget the name. Called me a punk. Took a liking to me. He took the wrong kind of liking to me.”
My hand’s in the air, stopping him, before I even know I moved. “I don’t need to know the specifics.”
Clyde’s face shows one thing: mercy.
He tells me he had to stop it, no matter the cost. He tells me ’bout a fella named Skelley, another inmate, a “heavy,” not ever going to see the light of day outside the prison farm.
“I was a ‘short-timer,’ you see, and Skelley didn’t want me getting caught with Crowder’s blood on my hands. He knew I had you waiting at home for me.”
He and Skelley worked it all out. Clyde slipped a galvanized pipe in his pants. After he was done doing his business at the urinals, he waited for the others to leave. By himself, his back turned, Clyde knew it was only a matter of time before Crowder crept up behind him.
“Bonnie.” After all he’s said, hearing my name makes me jump, as if I were at the prison with him. Being here, hearing it secondhand, seeing how every feature on his face is tilted down, is torture enough. He swallows. “Bonnie, I cracked his head wide open. Then Skelley stood over the body for me.”
I hug myself, glad in that moment that Clyde and I aren’t touching. I feel too many emotions for one to rise to the top. I’m numb. I’m cold. Then, I realize, there is something I feel above all else. Relief.
“So, he�
��s dead?” I ask.
“I’ve done some bad stuff,” Clyde says, “but I ain’t never killed a man before. You got to understand, though. It was either kill or risk a part of me being killed.”
“I understand,” I say, barely more than a whisper. And I do. Not only why Clyde did what he did in prison, but why he’s been acting distant with me since. I uncross my arms. I reach out. I touch him. He lets me, looking down to where my palm rests on his arm. Clyde covers my hand.
He says, “You see me differently now.”
“No.” The truth is, I do see him differently. I see a twenty-three-year-old man who almost lost himself. Who lost some of himself. A man who’s still healing. I step forward and kiss him, wanting this kiss to chase Ed Crowder’s contact further from Clyde’s mind. Our noses, our faces, our lips, are wet. But here we are, standing together on the other side of what happened to Clyde in prison.
I’m thankful he told me, but with the heaviness of his story, I try to lighten things. “Couldn’t have been sunny when you told me all that, huh?”
He clears his throat, his eyes flicking away from me again. “Bonnie, with this bank money, we got a shot at a life now.”
“We do. We’ll—”
“But—”
My breath hitches. “Honey, I ain’t ready for a but.”
“But,” he says. “I can’t settle down into a life before making things right. I couldn’t wait for the sun to tell you all this.”
I blink, keeping my eyes closed. I’m sympathetic to what Clyde went through—how could I not be?—but he just turned a corner from his past to our future, and my chest is tight as hell. “Clyde Barrow, if there’s more, you better spit it all out now.”
He says, “I got to get Skelley out.”
I go to run my fingers through my hair, forgetting my hat’s on. I knock it off. “Jesus, Clyde, you want to bust him out, don’t you?”
Clyde dips on his good leg to retrieve my hat. He places it back on my head, keeping his hands there. “You’ve always been smart, darling.” He licks his lips. “I also want to get back at that place, badly, for all it’s done to me.”
“When?” But my Lord, I know the answer. Rain is pelting me, after all. This conversation couldn’t wait.
Clyde nods to the car. “I told you Ray and I were scratching each other’s backs.”
I shake my head. “But you left out how. I thought it was a bank. One bank. That’s all. Now we’re raiding a prison right after?” I say again, “Jesus, Clyde. How could you keep this from me?”
“Bonnie,” he says, and his voice is eerily calm. So calm that I startle. “I told you something I’ve never uttered to a single person before.” He takes my hands. “If it weren’t for Skelley, I wouldn’t be telling you at all.”
I’m not sure if he meant them to, but Clyde’s words hit me two times. Ed Crowder would’ve killed Clyde’s insides if it weren’t for Skelly. And, if Clyde weren’t busting out Skelley, I may’ve never known the truth ’bout why Clyde’s been pushing me away. I rub my lips together. “I owe Skelly a thank-you after we get him out.”
Clyde tries for a smile. “Let’s get you dry.”
In the car, the engine allows hot air to shoot from the vents. The outside air’s warm, so I don’t feel particularly cold, but I don’t particularly like being damp.
Clyde says, “There’s a town up ahead. If my memory hasn’t failed me, there’s a hardware store, and that’s what I’m after, for some more guns and ammunition. I’ll need that to bust open the prison farm.”
Even while knowing the why behind all of this, it still leaves me feeling like I swallowed a rock and the darn thing is sitting in my belly. “After the prison farm, it’s our farm, right?”
He nods. “Then it’s our farm.”
I exhale and eyeball the open fields outside my window. “How do you plan to raid it?” I look back at Clyde. “I know you’ve got a plan.”
“Aye, our part ain’t much more than setting it up. Ray will go in and visit with Skelley to tell him how it’s happening, and I’ll hide the guns out by this ol’ sewer. Skelley’s earned himself a bit of freedom to move about, so he’ll retrieve ’em. Rest is up to him to get out. I ain’t going in.”
“Then we’re even,” Ray says from the rear seat. I didn’t even know he woke up. “I got my money. You got your prison raid. Unless you want to do more banks together.”
“Then we’re even,” Clyde says.
But first, they need the guns to plant. We arrive in Mabank, Texas. Population: 967.
It ain’t much, but halfway down Market Street is a hardware store. We park down an alley. When I open the passenger door, Clyde rushes ’round the car to meet me. “Oh no, you ain’t coming in with us.”
I scrunch my brows, cross my arms. “I’ve been in the car for hours.”
Raymond laughs. “Let her come. She’s Saint Bonnelyn, remember. No one will think she’s up to no good.”
I scoop up a discarded newspaper from the ground and shield my head from the rain. Clyde exhales, turns on his heel, and walks toward Market Street.
It’s not ’til Clyde’s got his hand on the hardware store’s doorknob and Raymond makes a comment ’bout going two for two that I glean the boys mean to steal the guns and ammunition. I’m on my heels, but the owner’s looking at us through the storefront window, and if I backpedal now, red flags may pop up all ’round him. I grit my teeth, cursing to myself, and step inside the store. There, I plaster a friendly smile on my face.
“Easy now,” Clyde whispers to me. “Stay by the door. You don’t know us if push comes to shove.”
It’s Clyde I want to be shoving, for once again not telling me what’s going on. The boys approach the counter, and I reach for the nearest doodad, fiddling with it. It brings back memories of Roy and our many trips to the hardware store as we were fixing up our godforsaken house. Funny, I’d rather be here, feet away from Clyde, even as I’m huffy with him, and even as he waves ’round a gun and starts barking commands at the storekeeper. ’Cause even though Clyde’s breaking the law, he won’t break his promises to me. That means something in my book.
Raymond, with his back to the counter, swings his gun from side to side, keeping an eye out for any movement. But we’ve got the place to ourselves.
I peer out the window. No one there either.
“And some ammunition,” I hear Clyde say. “Put it in a bag. Aye, now fold it over.”
I startle at the touch on the small of my back. “All ready,” Clyde says with an alarming amount of firearms tucked under his arm. He nods to Raymond, who joins us.
Clyde leaves first, Raymond walking backward, keeping his gun aimed on the storeowner. Sandwiched between, I start shaking my head at the unnecessary risk the boys just took. We’ve got money. Why not pay for the guns? All five of ’em. I can only imagine the tongue-lashing Blanche would give Buck if he did such a thing. She’d probably say—
“Run!” Clyde pushes me toward the alley. “Now, now, go!”
I go, Clyde’s hand connecting with my back with each hobbled step he takes. Raymond’s first to the car.
I scurry to the passenger side, slipping against the wet gravel, and into my seat. I ain’t laughing no more. My breath comes ragged, too ragged to ask Clyde what’s going on. He’s got the car moving already, barreling down the alley.
He looks over his shoulder. Rain drips from his long lashes. “Shit!”
“What?” I manage.
“Po-lice, just turned after us. They were down the block when we came out. I don’t know how we spooked ’em”—he takes a breath—“but we did.”
I look, too, and sure enough, another car is following us.
“Better outrun ’em,” Raymond says. In the rear seat, he starts shoving bills and coins down his shirt. He tucks his pants into his socks. More coins and bills disappear into his pants.
I’m in complete disbelief at all that’s going on; my cheeks are feeling too hot, my heart beating too fast.
“Clyde.”
“Bonnie, I got you. One more turn and we’re outta town. I’ll get ’er going on that open road.”
I hold my breath ’til we’ve put Mabank in our rearview window. Problem is, the copper’s reflection shows up too soon in that glass.
“Let’s see how fast she’ll go,” Clyde says.
I grab the door’s handle, pressing back into my seat. We thump over the road, part rock, part dirt, and I pray we don’t get a flat tire.
“Shit!” Clyde yells again as we round a tight bend.
We’re stuck in the mud.
I should’ve been praying for that instead.
Clyde scurries out of the car. Raymond next. I sit, hands tucked between my knees, pressing the fabric of my dress between my legs. In the side mirror, I see Clyde and Raymond trying to push the car.
It’s rocking, but not enough.
Clyde slams his fist down on the trunk. His head flies side to side, and I know the wheels are turning inside his mind. He pops the trunk open, blocking my view of him—and also the copper, who can’t be more than a half-mile back now. I panic, reaching for the door, but it opens on its own. Clyde’s head appears, his hair matted against his forehead, our sack of money at his feet.
“Let’s go,” he says. “I found us a new ride.”
He pulls me toward a fence, three rungs high. Picking me up, he drops me over, then climbs over himself. I catch sight of a gun tucked into the back of his pants. Raymond hands Clyde our sack, his coins clinking against one another as he hurdles the fence.
I survey the field. Rain pelts me. My eyes land on mules. My jaw drops open to speak, but Clyde beats me to it: “Bonnie, darling, did I ever tell you I once did rodeo over in Fort Worth?”
“Clyde, honey, that ain’t a horse!”
“Well, its daddy was. Now, get on.”
The police car slides to a stop behind ours. Two officers hop out, guns drawn, and scream for us to stop.
Raymond pulls himself up on the mule. Cursing under my breath, I put my foot in Clyde’s hands to give myself a boost up in front of Raymond. The mule’s back is slick with wetness, and I slip to one side. I hold on to its mane with all I’ve got, finally straddling the ridge of its backbone.
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