My Life with Bonnie and Clyde (9 page)

Buck didn't know that while he was gone his people forgot the wife he had left behind, the wife he loved more than anything or anyone else on earth, even them. Neither did he know that they soon forgot the promises they made to him when he returned to prison. I loved him too much to hurt him by telling him that they had broken these promises to him—that they would treat me as their own daughter and would not let me work outside of their home. He also didn't know that they had not been as kind and loving toward his wife as they had promised to be.
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I loved his people because he loved them. And I knew it would make him unhappy if he thought I did not love them. I would have never wanted to be guilty of killing his love for them just because of something they had done to me. I loved his people, knowing they were jealous of me and of his love for me. Although they were not always unkind to me, they often showed me I was imposing on them by living with them and not working in town to pay my rent. And they all knew this was one thing Buck would not have wanted me to do.
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On Saturday morning, March 25, Buck bought two Model A Ford coupes. They did not look so good, but they were cheap and the motors were okay. He was sure he could make one pay for both by overhauling
the motors and giving them each a new paint job. He paid for them with the fifty dollars he received with his pardon papers when he was released from prison. He loved to work on cars, or any kind of machinery. He decided he could take care of our needs by opening a used car lot and doing this kind of work. But he was never given the chance.

That afternoon we drove one of the coupes to Wilmer, Texas, about fifteen miles south of Dallas. My mother lived about three miles from Wilmer, in the country on a small dairy farm with her husband, my stepfather. I had not seen my mother for several months and wanted to pay her a visit. Buck had a short visit with his people, now we could visit my mother.

Buck's oldest sister had given him one hundred dollars to take care of our needs until he started working. She was the only one who ever gave him anything. The rest always expected something from him all the time. And if they ever gave him any money or anything, they were always well paid for it. As long as he had anything to give, and they wanted it, they always got it—and with my permission.

My mother and stepfather were very happy to see us. So was our little white dog, which my mother was keeping for me while Buck was in prison. I wasn't able to keep him because Mrs. Barrow did not like dogs that stayed in the house and I was afraid to make him stay outside for fear he would be run over and killed by a car. Buck thought a lot of the dog and told me often in his letters not to let anything happen to our little dog. Mother was glad to keep the dog for me. It was a lot of company for her. The dog had not forgotten Buck and seemed so glad to see him. He stayed at Buck's heels whenever he went in the house or yard.
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That night about eleven or twelve o'clock, someone knocked on the front door downstairs. My stepfather went to the door. A young man asked him if Buck Barrow was there. He told him, yes, and asked him to come in, saying that Buck was in bed upstairs. My stepfather did not know Clyde Barrow, Bonnie Parker, or W. D. Jones
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personally, so at first he did not know who they were.

Buck and I had not been in bed long and had just dozed off to sleep. But when they asked for Buck, their voices woke us both. We were sleeping in a bedroom on the second floor, which had been added to the small farmhouse long after the first floor had been built. We knew their voices when we first heard them.

Naturally, Buck wanted to see his brother. He had not seen him since Clyde left prison the year before.
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So Buck went down to meet them. In a
few minutes, he came back up the stairs with Clyde, Bonnie, and W. D. I was still in bed. Clyde and W. D. were both carrying sawed-off shotguns. Bonnie was so drunk she could hardly walk. All of them came over to the bed and sat down.

“Bonnie was so drunk she could hardly walk.” (Courtesy of Buddy Williams Barrow)

Bonnie greeted me. She seemed glad to see me, and I was glad to see her. I had always felt sorry for her, having to live the life she was living, never a minute's peace. She had often told me she was happier when she had something to drink. So I did not blame her for staying drunk most of the time, if it made her feel better.

The Barrows blamed her for Clyde's downfall.
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But I knew she was not to blame for it all. She looked so tired, like she had not slept in a week. Clyde wanted to talk to Buck, so W. D. sat near a window and kept watch. I did
not think Clyde would want Buck to go with him and start living the life he was living, knowing Buck was through with hiding from the law.

“W. D. sat near a window and kept watch.” (Courtesy of L. J. Hinton)

I asked Bonnie to get in bed with me and try to get a little sleep, as I had heard Clyde say they would stay until just before dawn. But Bonnie seemed to want to talk instead of sleeping. She said it was so good to have a woman she knew to talk to, adding that it was so lonesome for her just being in the company of men all the time and never any women friends to
talk to. I knew this was true because I had experienced a few months of that myself, after I had married Buck and before he went back to prison.
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Through Bonnie's chatter and laughter, I caught a few words now and then of Clyde's conversation with Buck, and I did not like what I heard. Clyde seemed to be trying to lay out a plan on a map, but I decided Buck would never go with him even if Clyde wanted him to.

I heard Clyde say, “Blanche knows where the place is and knows the country pretty well.”

Then they pulled their chairs up close beside the bed and Clyde began outlining his plans. I did not like them and told him so. Clyde's plans were to go to the Eastham prison farm where Raymond Hamilton was serving a long sentence for robbery and take him away from the guards while the convicts were cutting wood or working in the fields away from the building.
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I told him he could count Buck and me out if he thought he would get any help from us. We were not going to get mixed up in any of it.

Clyde said, “Okay, if that's the way you feel about it. But you or Buck would not get into any trouble over it. All I wanted you to do was go visit Ray and tell him where he will find everything and what time we will be there to get him. And you know all about the country around there,
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or enough about it, to make the plan plain to Ray, where we will place the guns for him to get when he gets a signal and we will give you money enough afterwards to start you and Buck out in business and buy you a nice little home.”

I told him I did not want to start our home that way because it would never do us any good. I also told him he should forget about going after Ray. I said that in a way he was a good kid and that I felt sorry for him because he had so much time to serve.

“But you are in enough trouble,” I said. “And you may get him killed and get killed yourself.”

“Ray would be better off if he were dead rather than have to spend the rest of his life in that ‘hell hole,’” Clyde said.
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“You have to take the chance of getting killed or your freedom.”

I knew this was true. But why should Buck and I get mixed up in it?

“Why don't you try to go some place where you are not known and try to stay out of trouble?” I asked Clyde. “If you don't you know you are not going to last long, going as you are now.”

“Blanche, you know I can't stop now,” Clyde said. “I have gone too far already to stop. So if you are afraid you and Buck will get in trouble helping me get Ray, then I can get someone else to help me.”

Raymond Hamilton. “'Ray would be better off if he were dead rather than have to spend the rest of his life in that hell hole,' Clyde said.” (Phillips Collection)

“Well, Bud,” I said.
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“You will just have to get someone else, because Buck and I are not going.”

Buck seemed worried about Clyde's plans too. He told Clyde he would not do anything that I thought would get us in trouble again, adding, “And what she says goes! She's the boss now you know.”

Clyde did not like to hear Buck talk that way about things. But Buck also told Clyde to forget about going after Ray, that it wasn't worth the risk of Bonnie and him getting killed. Bonnie herself did not like the idea and told Clyde that Ray would not do that much for him. But of course, since Clyde wanted to do it she had nothing to say about it.
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The boys decided to go sit in Clyde's car and keep the motor running. The night was cold and the bedroom didn't have a heater. They also worried that they might keep my mother and stepfather awake by walking around and talking, and they did not want to do that. Besides, they could keep the car nice and warm with its heater. You could hardly hear the motor running so it would not cause any suspicion in case someone should pass the house. But at that hour of the night, no one was likely to pass anyway. And the house was quite a distance from the main highway.

Buck and Clyde told Bonnie and me to go to sleep, then went to the car with W. D. But Bonnie and I did not go to sleep. She told me everything that had happened to them in the past six months and how she wished she and Clyde were as free as Buck and I were.
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She said she hoped we could stay that way.

About four o'clock, Buck and Clyde came back upstairs. They had another plan to talk to me about. I did not notice that Buck had been drinking. Clyde asked me if we would visit them in Joplin, Missouri, and rent an apartment or house, so they could rest up a couple or three weeks. He said they would not do anything to make the place hot and that Bonnie and I could buy whatever we wanted, furnish, and fix the place up as we pleased. We could have lots of fun doing that and when Buck and I were ready to return to Dallas, we could bring everything back with us to fix up our own house or apartment.

Clyde and Buck had already discussed this plan and worked everything out. Clyde made Buck believe we would be in no danger and that Buck would not get into trouble. Clyde said they would have plenty of money and would not have to pull any robberies for quite some time, not while we were with them anyway. And when they were away, they would take all the guns with them. There would be no guns around the place to cause us trouble. He said they would have most of the guns in the car at all times and only keep a couple rifles or shotguns inside, something they could grab and take with them to the car in case the place got any heat on it and they had to leave in a hurry. That way there would be no danger of any officers causing Buck and me trouble because of guns they may find in the apartment. And we would have nothing to be afraid of and could stand a trip to the police station in case they should want to question us. But he was sure nothing would happen because they would not do anything to cause any suspicion.

All of this had sounded very good to Buck and he could see no harm in going. So, he had already promised Clyde we would go. He thought this
story would sound okay to me and that I would enjoy the trip. He also told me we would go by and see my father and bring him home with us on our way back to Texas.
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Clyde knew how devoted I was to my father and that I had not seen him since Buck and I were married about two years before.