From "Bonnie and Clyde in the Backyard"
My mother, Whit, and Clara are at church, so I put the Chopin that Doc Melbourne lent us on the Victrola to soothe my father into sleep. Whit and I slaughtered a hog early in the morning, and the meat will rot in the May sun if I don’t tend to it. I sheathe the hog, dispose of the trimmings, and am hypnotically rinsing the blood from the slaughter slab when I see a car barrel down the road to our farmhouse. A plume of dirt billows behind. Who in the world would drive the farm road that fast? I clean my hands and run to the house as a beautiful sand-colored sedan brakes in front. It looks new, despite the dried mud blasted against the fenders and sideboards. The dust rises up and over the hood like a shroud. I squint and cover my face with my sleeve. Though I’ve never seen them in person, I know before they speak a word who they are. I scan the backseat for more passengers, but it’s just the two of them.
“Your father named Zachary?” Clyde asks. Boyish, with a dark brown curl of greasy hair flopping on his forehead below his fedora, his voice is higher-pitched than I imagined it would be. I wonder for a moment if maybe I’m mistaken. Maybe they’re just joyriding kids.
“Yep,” I say.
“What’s your name?”
“Riley.”
“Glad to meet you. I’m your cousin, thrice removed. Clyde.” I shake his small, calloused hand. “This here’s my wife, Bonnie.”
“I see handsome runs in the family,” she says, and Clyde smiles.
I know they aren’t married. I know everything about them. I know she was married once when she was sixteen to a thief named Roy Thornton. I know she was a waitress at Marco’s Café in Dallas. I know Clyde has killed at least ten men by now, including four police officers. I know that Buck is dead, his face and skull practically shot clean off in an ambush in Platte City. I know about the banks in Oklahoma and Missouri and Louisiana and New Mexico. I know about Bonnie’s aunt in Carlsbad and the policeman they kidnapped there and dropped off in San Antonio, the one that made them famous. And I know, as everyone else in the country knows at this point in 1934, that it’s just a matter of time before they will be caught or killed.
“My father’s been sick,” I say.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Clyde says. “What’s wrong?”
“Something’s the matter with his head.”
He laughs. “You can say that about most the folks in Texas.”
Bonnie slaps his arm. “Be respectful,” she says. And then to me, “Don’t mind him none. He’s just like that. How’s your daddy doing?”
“Not too well.”
“Can we see him?” Clyde asks, suddenly serious. “He was nice to me when I was a boy. My mom’s favorite cousin. She made me promise to stop by and pass on her good wishes.”
I nod.
“Good deal,” he says.
They step out of the car. The sight of them surprises me. So little. From the stories about them in the papers, I expect size, a certain grandeur. Yet she isn’t even five feet tall, a girlish wisp, though prettier in person than in the newspaper photos, her skin pale, almost translucent, with freckles and a big, pretty smile and almost straight teeth. Her reddish-blonde hair twirls in ringlets to the bottom of her neck. A bright red skirt and a matching sweater cling to her body. I glimpse, at the skirt’s hem, white gauze wrapped around her leg.
Clyde isn’t much bigger, certainly no bigger than I am at thirteen. The coroner’s report will later say that he was five-seven and weighed a hundred and thirty pounds. When he takes off his hat, his thick brown hair makes his head look too large for his body, as if he is a little girl’s doll. He has an oval-shaped face with baby fat and freckles, a kid’s face, complete with a couple of nicks on his cheeks and a scab on his forehead. He sports a green-and-red-striped tie, like a Christmas dandy, but his shirt is spattered with either dirt or blood. He walks with a slight limp, a pistol tucked into the front of his pants. My mother won’t appreciate that pistol. She won’t appreciate this visit at all. But I am not about to tell Clyde Barrow, cousin or not, that he can’t carry a gun onto our property.
“The rest of your family here?” Clyde asks.
“They went to church.”
He nods.
“Clyde, the car,” Bonnie says.
“You got a barn, son?” Clyde asks. I point to the north side of the house, beyond the stand of peach trees. “You think your father’d mind if I parked my car in there?”
“I guess not.”
“Why don’t you give the boy a ride?” Bonnie says.
“I’ll do one better.” Clyde tosses me the keys. “You know how to drive, don’t you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well then.”
I get in the car, and Bonnie climbs in with me. Her skirt rises. The bandage extends beyond her knee to her thigh.
She catches me looking. “An accident,” she says. “But I’m better now. Clyde nursed me back to health, the sugar.”
I turn the key, and the engine starts right up, without any trouble, just hums.
“This is nice, ain’t it?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Feel these custom seats.” She places her little hand on mine and runs my fingers over the upholstery. “It’s also got a built-in water-style heater.” She turns it on, and hot air pours like the breath of a horse from the vents. “Not that we need it in this weather, huh?”
Clyde pokes his head inside my window. He smells, strangely, like sweat and oranges. “She sure is sweet on this damn car,” he says. “Let’s put her away.”
I inch the sedan along. At the barn, Clyde says he’ll get the doors. He limps over and swings them open. The chickens squawk and flutter, sounding an alarm, but he walks in like it’s his place, not ours, and I roll the car over the hay-strewn ground until he holds up his hand for me to stop. Bonnie and I get out, and I drop the keys in Clyde’s small hand.
“Thanks,” I say.
“The pleasure’s mine, son.” It sounds odd, him calling me son,since he doesn’t seem much older than me, though of course I know that what he’s done over the past few years—including the stint in Eastham prison—is enough for any lifetime.
Bonnie and I stand on either side of him while he opens the trunk. About a dozen guns clutter the padded floor, including revolvers, rifles, and two of the automatics called BARs that I’ve seen in the newspapers and magazines. There’s a crate of oranges there and a box of license plates. Clyde smiles at me, proud of his stash. I try not to reveal any surprise, but my face must please him because he and Bonnie both laugh.
“What’ll it be?” Clyde asks Bonnie. “Texas, Arkansas, New Mexico, or Missouri?”
“Let the boy decide,” Bonnie says.
The plates on the car are from Kansas. I know Clyde likes to change plates frequently, usually after every job.
“What’ll it be, sugar?” Bonnie says to me. “You choose.”
“Texas,” I say with no hesitation.
“Why?”
“Because you’re less likely to attract notice with in-state plates.”
Bonnie steps around Clyde and kisses me on the cheek. “I think we’re gonna have to recruit you. You’re good-looking and intelligent.”
She hooks her arm in mine as Clyde changes the plates.
“Why don’t you go tell your father we’re here,” she says, almost a whisper.
“Yes, ma’am.”
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