Going to Chicago (10 page)

“That's right, he did,” I said. “We all had our chance to shoot Gus Gillis and didn't.”

“Gus asked me if I was going to,” Clyde said.

“He didn't?!”

“I shook my sideways head no.”

We laughed into the necks of our Pepsi bottles. “What'd he say?”

“He said that was good to hear. He said when he did get killed he didn't want it to be with just one lousy gun. He wanted dozens of guns blasting away at him. Said he wanted his body riddled with holes just like Clyde Barrow.”

Then we laughed at how Gus actually did die. That made us think of Will, of course. We stopped laughing and I went over to Ruby & Rudy's for cigarettes. That's when I found out they wanted to sell; when I first got my brainstorm for the R&R Luncheonette. I could have returned to my tire-stacking job at Goodrich. They were hiring every veteran they could get their hands on. But I'd spent three and a half years cooking. I figured I might as well use what the Army Air Force taught me.

Clyde was in World War II, too. Never left the States. Made Staff Sergeant just like me. Spent the whole war in Washington, D.C., supervising Negro privates in the War Department laundry. Shortly after our talk he took the job with Spang. Did real well. Worked his way up to a desk job. I see him every other Thursday now.

“
Who's afraid of the big bad wolf
,

big bad wolf big bad wolf
.

Who's afraid of the big bad wolf
,

Tra la la la la
.”

F
ROM
W
ALT
D
ISNEY
'
S
T
HREE
L
ITTLE
P
IGS
,

W
ORDS AND MUSIC BY
F
RANK
C
HURCHILL

Ten/Pass the Ketchup, Clyde

It was doubtful Gus had ever been a Boy Scout like Will and me, nonetheless he knew his way around a campfire. We had a grand feast: pork and beans and fried potatoes, hot dogs and melon—a day in the Indiana sun had sweetened them up fine—and all the Orange Whistle we wanted. Will was anxious to boil coffee. He showed Gus my new pot and the two bags of fresh-ground we brought from Bennett's Corners. Gus got a sour look on his face and waved Will off. “Me and the coffee bean don't agree,” he said. “Just the smell of it retches my guts.”

We were still feasting when the sun set. The meadow was lousy with crickets.
Que-queek que-queek que-queek que-queek
.

Gladys lit up a cigar and blew the smoke on her legs to strangle the mosquitoes feeding off her. Gus taught Clyde the words to “Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf.” It was one of the biggest hits of the decade, an anthem for FDR's New Deal. Everybody was singing it or whistling it. Appropriately, Clyde had never heard of it.

Our feast dwindled to the last wiener. Gus claimed it. He masterfully twirled it low over the coals. “You know boys, I feel just like the Lord Jesus at the Last Supper, here with y'all. I think tomorrow may be the big day. Every gun in Weebawauwau County making Swiss cheese out of my mortal flesh. Pass the ketchup, Clyde.”

Gus slid the blackened dog into a bun and drowned it with the ketchup. He piled several spoons of beans on top and shook pickle relish over that. Took a messy bite. “I truly pray that none of you get yourselves killed along with me,” he said. “But if that's what the Almighty has in mind, I hope you'll die with dignity, and not start squirming and crying like a bunch of amateurs when the lead starts flying. Judas Priest! How would that read in the papers?”

Another messy bite. “Bonnie and Clyde took their medicine like the professionals they were. One hundred and eight-seven bullets. I heard that a half dozen of those bullets went straight through old Clyde's manhood.”

“His manhood?” our Clyde asked.

“His winger,” explained Gladys.

I hadn't heard about the manhood part, but everybody alive knew how Bonnie and Clyde lived and died. They'd been robbing and running since 1930, mostly in their home state of Texas. They robbed hundreds of gas stations and banks and groceries. Along the way Clyde killed at least thirteen men. There were lots of famous gangsters in those days. The way the law dogged them, and their daring escapes, made Bonnie and Clyde the most famous.

Only three months before our own adventure to Chicago a Texas Highway Patrol officer named Frank Hamer—a real tough sonofabitch who'd tracked down and killed sixty-five outlaws in his career—ambushed Bonnie and Clyde on a country road between Sailes and Gibsland, Louisiana. Twenty after nine in the morning. Clyde was driving in his socks. Bonnie was eating a sandwich. In their big Ford V-8 they had a shotgun, a dozen pistols, three Browning automatic rifles, two thousand rounds of ammunition, and fifteen stolen license plates. Hamer and his lawmen fired continually for four minutes. After it was over they counted 187 holes, twenty-five of them in Clyde and twenty-three in Bonnie. I remember reading that the stream of fire was so thick that it slashed Clyde's necktie in half and cut Bonnie's dress away from her shoulders. But there was nothing in the papers about Clyde's manhood getting riddled. A few years ago I saw a documentary on PBS that said Clyde was a homosexual and Bonnie a nymphomaniac. I didn't know anything about that in 1934, and I doubt Gustavus P. Gillis did either.

It was clear to me even then that Gus and Gladys were playing Bonnie and Clyde, the way kids might have played the Lone Ranger and Tonto. When I went to see Gladys in Mingo Junction in 1955 I asked her about it. “Who really knows what's playing and what's real,” she said. “Gus truly did want to die in a hail of bullets, I know that.”

“Why was that?”

“Because he hated being a poor dumb hillbilly with no hope of ever being anything but a poor dumb hillbilly. When he heard how Bonnie and Clyde died, he figured that was the way for him. Riddled right out of his miserable existence.”

I brought up a subject I'd always wondered about. “Did Gus ever kill anybody? He didn't the week we were with him.”

Gladys laughed. “Gus never shot anything more alive than those melons in his life. He didn't want to hurt anybody. Just himself. And it bothered him that Clyde Barrow actually killed people. ‘Clyde Barrow was a great man,' Gus used to tell me, ‘but shooting people was his one fatal flaw.'” She watched a barge crawl up the Ohio River. “Gus was a good kid. We were all good kids.”

That brought me to something else I'd wondered about. “How'd you feel about Will that week? The two of you seemed to hit it off. I saw you kissing in the corn.”

She stared at the river long after the barge slid across her window. “He was a sweet boy, wasn't he?”

Both of us were on the brink of tears, so I changed the subject. “Did you really think you'd become a famous radio actress?”

“Good lord! I'd forgotten all about that.”

No she hadn't. Her face said she hadn't.

“I was just playing for Gus's sake,” she said. “I knew that wasn't really going to happen.”

And I didn't think I'd be a famous dogfighter like Eddie Rickenbacker and my father, dispatching Huns into the vineyards. Of course she thought she'd be a famous radio actress.

“
Evolution of the human face—from fish to man—is shown by a series of models in the Paleontology exhibit
.”

O
FFICIAL
G
UIDE
B
OOK OF THE
W
ORLD
'
S
F
AIR

Eleven/Strictly 9 to 5

Will woke up angry. It was already Thursday. We'd missed our first day at the World's Fair. His minute-by-minute itinerary was in shambles. His dream was in shambles. He ate dry Wheaties out of the box and glowered at the scorched bean cans in the fire ashes.

I woke up ashamed. Ashamed we hadn't had the guts to escape during the night. The Wild Teuton and my dad would have escaped had they been shot down and captured. Goddamn. Sonofabitch. We could have gotten away easily, too. Gus and Gladys were in the tent snoring like broken accordions. We could have been in the Gilbert SXIII and flying before they could untie the tent flap. Of course I say this now knowing that Gus never shot anybody in his life. We didn't know that then. Then we knew he'd shoot us down like dogs if we tried anything. We'd seen him kill that farmer's melons. So we didn't try to escape during the night and I was feeling lousy about it. I ate some dry Wheaties, too.

Clyde woke up humming, anxious for his drops. He had a pack of Juicy Fruit gum for breakfast.

Gus crawled out of the tent happy. Confident this was the day he'd die in a hail of bullets. He pissed in the ashes. Made the bean cans roll.

Gladys came out of the tent brushing her teeth. I watched the foam pour out of her mouth and wondered if Gus had poked her during the night. I hadn't heard anything. But who knows? Not everybody were squealers and moaners like my parents. They might have poked for hours in there. They had dry Wheaties and melon for breakfast.

Will and I started to police the campsite. But Gus made us stop. He wanted to leave as much evidence as possible. He even left an affidavit, flying like a flag on his wiener stick:
I Gus “The Gun” Gillis camped here with the talented Gladys Bartholomew and my three unwilling kidnappees
.

Gus made Will take several pictures of Gladys and him standing by the Gilbert SXIII. He made Clyde and me get in two of them. Had Gladys take one of him and Will, just so he wouldn't feel left out.

We drove back through the cow flops and corn to the road. Drove until we stumbled onto a main highway. It wasn't much past dawn. The landscape became surprisingly hilly. Below us we could see a muddy river—the grand Weebawauwau itself—and beyond that the silvery roofs of a fair-sized town. Gus was delighted. Told us he had a reign of terror in mind. “I plan to rob as many people possible in as short a time as possible,” he said. “To bring the law blazing.”

He had me park under the bridge. We were next to a long field of cabbage. The heads looked about ready to harvest. “Well let's go fishing,” he said.

“Fishing?” Clyde said. “We ain't got any poles or tackle.”

Gus reached back and squeezed Gladys's knee. “But we got bait, Clyde.”

Gladys crawled out with her suitcase and started up the embankment for the road. We stayed with Gus under the bridge. I can tell you what happened next because later that afternoon Gladys lavishly recounted every minute of it, using voices and gestures and sound effects. She was after all an aspiring radio actress.

She walked a quarter mile or so up the road and then waited, one leg up on her suitcase. Soon a little white milk truck came along, heading toward town to make deliveries.

Naturally the milkman stopped. He drank in her legs and yellow hair. “Trouble, miss?”

As soon as Gladys saw the truck coming she'd lathered her cheeks with spit to make it look like she was crying. She made her voice tremble. “I didn't think anyone would ever come along—ever ever.”

“You've always got a friend at Willow Farm Dairy,” the milkman said, smiling heroically, tugging the black plastic visor on his white cap. He was wearing a white shirt, white pants and white shoes. Gladys said he looked like a big bottle of milk himself.

She staggered forward and grabbed the door like it was a life raft. “I was afraid he'd find me alone out here. Shoot me dead. Just like he did the others.”

The milkman's heroic smile froze. Adam's apple went up and down. “How can I help you, miss?”

“Just get me away from here. That crazy man could be anywhere. With that big gun.”

Gladys could barely tell us the next part. She laughed and gasped and pressed on her bladder so she wouldn't pee. “That milkman curdled right before my eyes. ‘Oh my! Oh my! Get in! Get in!' he said. ‘I'll drop you off at the sheriff's. I've got to start my deliveries right at six. But I can drop you! I can do that! You've always got a friend at Willow Farm Dairy! Yessiree Bob!'”

So Gladys got in and the milkman sped off. “I can't begin to thank you,” she said. “He's such a deadly shot.”

With the immediate danger of getting shot behind him, the milkman's heroism returned. So did his libidinous stare. “It'll be fine, miss. It'll be fine.”

“He is the most jealous boyfriend I've ever had,” she told him. “Killed a man once just for admiring my shapely legs. Do you think my legs are shapely?”

The milkman's eyes shot back to the road. “Why don't you have a bottle of milk to soothe your stomach. Courtesy of the Willow Farm Dairy.”

Gladys couldn't resist toying. She opened a bottle of
cream
and slowly licked it. Wrapped her eyes around his. “He turned straight into cottage cheese,” she told us. “Then I screamed ‘Dear lord! There he is!'”

The milkman frantically looked out of every window in his little truck. “Where? Where? Where?”

That's when Gladys produced the pistol from her suitcase, with the silver kitten on the pink pearl handle. “Hiding under that bridge up there,” she said. “Waiting for his sweet little biscuit to bring him a big white sucker fish.”

We witnessed the rest for ourselves. The milk truck skidded to stop. Gus, shotgun over his shoulder, climbed slowly to the road. We followed. He waved his fedora at the milkman like he was an old friend. The milkman crawled out, arms over his head, relieved he'd fallen victim to highway robbery and not that jealous boyfriend.

“Great little actress, ain't she?” Gus said.

The milkman agreed.

“Did you really believe I was a woman in distress?” Gladys asked him. “Distress is one of the hardest emotions to play. And really be convincing.”

The milkman assured her he'd been completely bamboozled. Gladys was thrilled.