“Paroled in February of 1932, Barrow emerged from Eastham a hardened and bitter criminal. His sister Marie said, ‘Something awful sure must have happened to him in prison, because he wasn't the same person when he got out.’"
Finn reached over, grabbed the book, and tossed it out the window. I watched it tumble behind the car before turning to Finn in astonishment.
“I wanted to see what happened next!”
“We don’t need to read that, do we Bonnie?”
“But . . .” I protested. I had several more copies. It wasn’t like I couldn’t pull another one out. “It’s fascinating.”
“I don’t find it especially fascinating,” he said, his eyes straight ahead.
“Oh.” I felt sick, and we sat in silence as I tried to figure out what to say. He glanced over at me eventually. I guess I was too quiet.
“You look like you’re going to cry, Bonnie Rae.”
“Did that happen to you, Finn?” I asked, sorrier than I’d ever been in my whole life. Finn cursed and shook his head, like he couldn’t believe I’d just come right out and asked him. But I didn’t know how else to do it. And because I cared about him, I had to know.
“No. It didn’t. But it happens. All the time. And it was the thing I was the most afraid of. The thing I was most desperate to avoid. So I feel for him even though I don’t like him very much.”
“Who, Clyde?”
“Yeah. Clyde. It makes a lot more sense why he lived his life the way he did after that.”
I pulled another copy of the book out of my grocery sack. Finn just shook his head, but he didn’t protest.
“Clyde had another inmate chop off two of his toes in an effort to get released from hard labor. Instead, he got paroled.”
“Holy shit.”
“He was desperate.” I couldn’t imagine that kind of desperation. Or maybe I could. I don’t know. Cutting my hair was one thing, cutting my toes off was another thing altogether.
“And what did I tell you about desperate? Desperate people make bad choices.”
I had nothing to say in response, and Finn didn’t interrupt as I continued on with the story, though he listened intently with his arms crossed over the wheel, his eyes on the road and occasionally on me until I read the final page.
“Bonnie’s mother refused to have Bonnie buried with the man that led her daughter into a life of crime. So although they died together, and Bonnie predicted they would be buried side by side, they were buried apart, in two different cemeteries in West Dallas.” Then I read the last sentence, a stanza from Bonnie’s poem.
To few it’ll be grief –
To the law a relief
But it’s death for Bonnie and Clyde.
“They robbed banks and killed nine police officers,” I said, looking out over the wide open space, serene in the noonday sun, so unlike the dense, tree-lined freeways we’d started our journey with.
“Yep,” Finn said.
“They weren’t good people,” I added, but even I heard the reluctance in my voice.
“No.”
“So why the fascination? Why are movies made about them, museums built for them? Why did this little old lady—I read the author’s name off the bottom of the booklet—love them so much?”
Finn’s gaze was sober and probing, like he was waiting for me to come to a bigger conclusion. His eyes were a bright, sky blue, completely opposite from my own, and when he leveled them at me my mind tripped and my thoughts went spilling out in all directions. I forgot my own question for a minute. But then Finn looked away from me, out his window, but his jaw was tight.
“You tell me, Bonnie. Why the fascination?”
I studied Finn’s profile, the line of his jaw and the firm set of his lips. A few strands had worked their way free of his smooth tail and brushed his lean cheeks. I wanted to brush them back so that I could touch him. It was strange how I always wanted to touch him. And he tried so hard to be untouchable.
“Because they loved each other.”
The answer came out of nowhere. Or maybe it came from instinct or from that place in the human heart that knows the truth before we tell our heads what to think, but I felt the truth in the words even as I spoke them.
“They loved each other. And love is . . . fascinating.” I almost whispered the words, they felt so intimate. I was confessing my own feelings under the flimsy guise of discussing two long-dead outlaw lovers. And I was pretty sure he knew it.
“There’s that word again. Fascinating. You find them fascinating. But they were criminals.” Finn’s bright eyes were probing again, looking for something from me.
“But that’s not all they were.” Again, the truth resonated like a gong in my heart. “People aren’t one dimensional. They were criminals. But that’s not all they were,” I repeated.
“I’m an ex-con.”
“But that’s not all you are.”
“Oh yeah?” Finn asked, his eyes heavy and troubled. “But how long will I be fascinating to you, Bonnie?”
I wanted to laugh. And then it made me mad. Was he serious? “People who don’t even know me claim to love me, Finn, and people who should love me are more interested in claiming me. Maybe I should be asking you that question.”
“I’m a felon. You’re a superstar. Enough said.”
“But that’s not all I am!” I said, angrily pulling my hand free from his.
“So you and I, what are we? What else? Tell me,” he reached out and grasped my chin with the hand that wasn’t on the wheel, making me look at him as he looked between me and the lonely road, demanding an answer.
I gasped at his vehemence and bit down on all the things I wanted to say, but the words rose within me anyway, flashing like neon in my head.
“We’re Bonnie and Clyde! Wanted and unwanted. Caged and cornered. We’re lost and we’re alone. We’re a big, tangled mess. We’re a shot in the dark. We’re two people who have nowhere else, no one else, and yet, suddenly that feels like enough for me! I’m sorry if it’s not enough for you.”
I was angry, spitting the words out at him, so it caught me by surprise when I started to cry. I pulled my face from Finn’s grip, pushing at his arm, and I put my head down in my lap, not wanting him to see my nose swell and my eyes run, fearing I would look more like Hank than ever.
He didn’t say anything. But after a minute, he reached out and stroked my hair, tentatively at first. His big hand, gentle and heavy on my head, made the tears come harder, but lessened the agony of release.
“It’s more than enough for me, Bonnie Rae,” he said, and I was reminded of the way his voice had sounded the first time I’d heard him speak, the night I stood perched on a bridge and thought about becoming my own version of Suicide Sal.
“Tell me about numbers, Clyde,” I whispered, the tears still dripping off my cheeks and soaking my knees through my jeans. I wanted to listen to his voice. I wanted him to unravel the mysterious. “I want to hear you talk about numbers.”
“Which number?”
“One.” I responded immediately, because that is how he made me feel. Whole.
“One is the number of unity. One is the number that the ancient Greeks equated with God. It’s the number all others spring from . . . so I guess that makes sense.” Finn continued on, his head in the clouds, far beyond where I could follow, but his hand was in my hair, and that was enough for me. More than enough. As his hand stroked and soothed, there was a silent roaring in my ears, a roaring so loud that I wondered how he didn’t hear it too. Maybe it was our own song, the song we created together. The ballad of Bonnie and Clyde. The words to Bonnie’s poem suddenly echoed through the roaring.
“The road was so dimly lighted.
There were no highway signs to guide.
But they made up their minds,
If all roads were blind,
They wouldn’t give up 'til they died.”
In that moment, I understood with a clarity that was frightening, exactly what Bon
nie Parker—outlaw, lover, girl on the run—had meant. There was a point, a place in time, where all roads but one are blind. And there is only one way you can go, one direction. For me, for Bonnie Rae Shelby, Finn Clyde was that road, and I wouldn’t give him up. Not ‘til I died.
OUR SOURCES ARE telling us that just this morning in St Louis, police recovered the orange, 1972, Blazer owned by Infinity James Clyde, as well as items that were reported stolen inside the vehicle, including a large amount of cash, several credit cards, and identification belonging to the manager of singing sensation Bonnie Rae Shelby, furthering suspicions that Miss Shelby was taken against her will.
Reports of a message written on the window of the vehicle, an address, led police to a residence near Washington University, but the residence was empty when police arrived. Apparently, the home is owned by Jason Clyde, father of Infinity Clyde, who police have since confirmed has been out of town and is not a person of interest.
Then, just hours ago, we started getting reports of Bonnie Rae Shelby attempting to withdraw a large sum of cash from a small local bank. Bank personnel said Miss Shelby seemed upset and frightened and ran from the bank when she was refused access, causing sources to speculate that she had been sent into the bank under duress, possibly to pay her own ransom. Police aren’t commenting on this latest development, and we don’t have all the details, nor can we completely confirm this report, but our sources say that Miss Shelby may now be under some suspicion as well, as some of her recent actions have invited legal scrutiny.
This story just keeps getting stranger by the minute . . .
YOU COULD DRIVE across America and not see much, I decided. The cars were all the same, one road looked like another, and most of the roads were tree-lined, making it impossible to see the land and space beyond. As we made our way farther west, the trees became sparser and the landscape opened up and flattened out, but so many highways bypassed the towns, the people, and the flavor of a place, that the only thing that really provided any color and texture was Finn himself. He had a game he played called finding primes. It wasn’t a game I could play with him. He replaced the letters on license plates with its alphabetical number, for instance, A was replaced with 1, Z with 26, and so on. A license plate that read KUY 456 would be 112125 456 or 112,125,456, and Finn would then proceed to tell me what the factors of the number were. He told me he won when he found a prime, a number that was only divisible by itself and one. He hadn’t found a prime yet.
Since I couldn’t participate, I would make up little ditties for the different states on the license plates. Clyde would be ripping out factors while I sang about Texas, Vermont, and North Dakota, tapping a rhythm on the dash board, wishing I had Finn’s guitar, and creating songs that distracted him from his never-ending supply of numbers.
I had a good song for West Virginia and had been searching for a license plate from that state all day long when I spotted one attached to a maroon van at the side of the road, obviously experiencing car trouble. A grey-haired man was gamely looking under the hood while a child stood near him, watching the cars pass them by.
“Bonnie. No.” Finn was shaking his head. I hadn’t even said anything, but he’d seen them too, and he spoke before I could. “We aren’t stopping. Not this time.”
“But Clyde . . . they need help. And they’re a long way from home, too! They’re from West Virginia, for heck sake.”
Finn passed them, and I felt a little sick, swooshing by, just like that. Swooshing by with every other car.
“Please, Finn? Can’t we just stop and make sure he’s got help coming?”
Finn just shook his head and sighed. But he signaled and slowed, pulling over to the side of the road. Then he reversed the Charger and backed up for about a hundred yards, eating up the space between us and the old, maroon van. The man turned toward us, pulling his head from beneath the hood. He was an older man, probably the child’s grandfather, and he looked relieved that someone had stopped. He reached for the child’s hand as Finn climbed out. Finn told me to stay put, it would only be a minute. But he should have known he was wasting his breath.
The smell of burnt rubber was heavy around the vehicle, and I immediately held my hand to my nose.
“Hey. You need to borrow a phone?” I noticed Finn didn’t offer a ride. But I kept quiet. I’d pushed my luck with Finn way beyond breaking.
“No. I’ve got one. My engine light isn’t on, but I’m getting that burnt rubber smell, have been for the last hour. I’ve only got about an hour to go, so not too much farther, but it’s got me nervous.”
“You noticed any oil leaks on your driveway?”
“This isn’t my vehicle. It’s my daughter’s. She and her husband are going through a divorce. She’s moving in with us. Long story.” He waved his words away, obviously not wanting to go into detail.
“Is it driving okay?”
“Yeah. Doesn’t seem to be overheating.”
“You’ve probably got a small oil leak. The motor oil might be leaking onto the exhaust and burning, giving you that smell. It could also be your catalytic converter overheating, but if that were the case, your engine light would be on. Did you check the oil?
The old man nodded. “I checked the oil first. It was maybe a tad low, but still in the normal range. We should be fine to get home. I’ve got a mechanic friend who can take a look at it when we get there.”
“We’ll stay behind you until you turn off just to make sure you don’t have any more problems.” Finn offered, almost pleasant now that he realized we weren’t going to be taking on passengers or trying to pull the van behind Bear’s Charger. The image made me laugh a little as Finn and the old man turned toward the engine to take a final look. The little boy looked at me in confusion. Apparently, he wasn’t enjoying himself and my laughter seemed odd. He was probably eight or nine and had chubby cheeks and bright red hair. I leaned down and introduced myself, offering my hand for a shake.
“Hi. I’m Bonnie.”
He stuck his hand in mine awkwardly. “I’m Ben.”
“Hi Ben. I like that name. I reached in my pocket and pulled out some of the money I’d stashed there. Most of it was in my purse, but I was through leaving it all in one place. I had some bills stuck in my boots and some in my bra and some in my pockets too. You can take the girl out of Grassley . . .
I peeled off five one-hundred-dollar bills and folded the money up in Ben’s small hand.
“You give that to your grandpa when you get home, okay? Not before, because he might try to give it back. He can use it to help you and your mom.”
The little boy’s eyes were wide, and with his full cheeks he resembled a squirrel caught in the headlights. “Okay,” he squeaked as he stuffed the money deep into the front pocket of his jeans. I held my finger to my lips and stood.
The boy’s grandfather lowered the hood and called to Ben, thanking us as he waved us away, and we were back on the road, following the maroon van, within a few minutes.
“I hate that smell.” It lingered on our clothes.
“Burnt rubber?” Finn could still smell it too, obviously.
“Yeah. It reminds me of burning tires. In Grassley, people would burn tires to melt the rubber away from the rims so they could sell the scrap metal. One time, when Minnie and I were about fourteen, we actually pulled a guy away from his pile of burning tires. He’d been burning and drinking, which is never a great combination. He passed out too close to his pile. Minnie and I happened along and Minnie was convinced it was a test.”
“Do you think it’s Jesus?” Minnie asked.
“That guy?” I couldn’t imagine it was.
“Not Jesus, exactly, but someone Jesus put in our path. Maybe he’s an angel.”
“He sure doesn’t look like an angel,” I said doubtfully.
“If he looked like an angel then it wouldn’t be a test. Remember what Pastor Joseph said? That story about the couple waitin’ for their special guest and the special guest never coming
? Instead, it was all the people who needed something?”
“The couple asked the special guest why he never came, and he said he did. He was the beggar, and the old woman, and the hungry child . . . that one?” I looked at the man lying far too close to the pile of burning tires like it was just an outdoor barbeque built for roasting weenies instead of a roiling, greasy, smelly tar pit.
“Yeah. He might be an angel in disguise. He might be testin’ us!” Minnie said.
“So what should we do?” The smell of tires was so thick I could hardly breathe.
“He’s passed out, Bonnie. We should pull him away from the fire.”
We pulled on the neck of his coat and ended up pulling it right over his head and pulling him right out of it. He didn’t have a shirt on underneath.
“Ew!” I said, trying not to look at his jiggling white flesh, but failing miserably. “This one ain’t Jesus, Minnie. He ain’t an angel either. I guarantee it.”
“Come on, Bonnie. Grab his other arm.” I did as she instructed, and together we heaved and tugged, and managed to pull him closer to the house with the sagging porch and the plastic covered windows. The yard was littered with cans and broken bottles, and I worried about what his back would like if we kept pulling him that way. We were probably doing more harm than good.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t wearing a belt or suspenders, either, and by the time we reached the front of his house, breathing hard and sweating, our muscles protesting our lifesaving efforts, his pants had been dragged down around his knees, his underwear too. When I saw what we’d done I released his arm and pointed.
“Look, Minnie!” I laughed. “We depantsed him.”
Minnie looked down, screamed, dropped the arm she’d been tugging on, and backed away hurriedly, like she’d seen a snake. Which, I suppose she had. I was a little more curious and didn’t back up nearly as far. Plus, I wasn’t afraid of snakes.
But it was pretty horrifying. We had two brothers and because of it, had a fairly good idea what boys looked like naked, but this was a full-grown man, not related, and definitely not attractive.