“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.