Pretty boy, p.8
Pretty Boy, page 8
He giggles.
Fucking dope fiends.
I don’t think he knew what hit him. Two in the head.
I toss the heater into the ditch, down into that muddy water and get in my car and drive away because what’s done is done and I don’t look back. But now, with everybody getting on my nerves, I’m thinking it would be just as easy to get rid of everybody just to get them off my nerves — Rose, Beulah, Charley — as it was those two rats.
Beulah Ash
Rose tells me she thinks Billy did something to our exes — that that is why we left K.C. in such a hurry and in the middle of the night.
I’m not sure how I feel about this at first, to think Billy may have killed my ex-husband. But the thing is, I’m with Charley now and I can’t be overly concerned about Wallace. He had plenty of chances with me, but he chose morphine and his brother over me. I asked him one night when I caught him sticking a needle in his arm why he did it. I could never do anything like sticking a needle in my arm.
He looked at me and said, “Jesus, Beulah, it’s better than fucking sex!”
“Better than sex with me?”
He just smiled that stupid dope smile of his, said, “Better’n sex with anybody.”
Maybe if Billy did do something terrible to William and Wallace, maybe it was God’s will. Maybe if he hadn’t done something to them, somebody else would have. I tell this to Rose. I ask her, “Does it trouble you that Billy might have done something to them?”
“No,” she says. “I don’t care. I mean, yeah, I’d be a little sorry to know William’s dead, but I love Billy more than anything. You think that makes me a bad person, because I don’t really care or want to know what Billy might have done to them?”
“No, I don’t think it does, Rose. Love is a two-way street. Problem was, Willy and Wallace were traveling one way and we were traveling another. They loved their dope more than us.”
She smiles, we’re both dead tired.
I try not to think anymore about Wallace or Willy.
Pretty Boy Floyd
It’s Sunday and nothing is open in town. Bowling Green looks like a sleepy little place where nothing bad ever happened. Maybe nothing good ever happened here, either. We drive past the same bank three times. The only bank in town any of us sees.
“They’re not open,” I tell Billy, after the third time he drives past the bank.
He looks at me the same way he looked at Rose earlier when he told her to shut up. Maybe he thinks he can scare me the same way he does her, but he can’t. His gun doesn’t scare me, and neither does he.
“Ah screw it,” he says, after the third time past the bank. “Wrong time, wrong town. Let’s go find us a place by the lake.”
“What lake, Billy?” Rose says, sweeter now, trying to get back on his good side. It seems to work, for his mood changes; he laughs, says to Rose she ought to wise up and that there’s more to the world than just “Kansas fucking City.”
Rose pouts. Then Billy the Killer Miller explains to her which lake he’s talking about:
“Lake Erie,” he says. “I love being by the water.”
We drive across the state line into Michigan — through a little town called Monroe. We see a sign telling us that Monroe is the home of General George Custer.
“Hey, that’s that Custer’s last stand guy,” Billy says. Rose and Beulah look at each other. I don’t think they’re big on history.
We drive until we find Lake Erie. We drive right up to the water’s edge so that our front tires are practically in the water. The lake is flat and smooth. It looks like sheet metal under the early afternoon sun.
There are some cottages for rent and we rent two of them and then find a grocery store not far up the road. One of those old stores that reminds me of the one Daddy Walter had before he was killed: old screen door with rusty hinges, a metal Dr. Pepper sign, fly tapes hanging from the ceiling with about a million flies stuck to them.
“Should we rob it?” Billy says, as we walk in. But he’s laughing when he says it. We buy cold cuts, bread, beer, potato salad, cigarettes, some cold Dr Peppers, licorice sticks for Beulah and Rose because they beg us for them. The guy sells us some bottles of homemade beer.
Back at the lake, Billy and me sit on the stoop of one of the cottages while Rose and Beulah fix lunch: bologna sandwiches to go with the potato salad and bottles of beer.
“Why are we here?” I ask him.
“Figured a little vacation might do us all some good,” he says.
We see some guys out on the lake in a small boat, fishing. And later that evening, we watch the sun sink into the lake way out beyond a buoy while bats or starlings or something dart across the darkening sky.
Out in the reeds along the shoreline, frogs begin to croak in an uneven rhythm. Other than the sound of the frogs, and the moths flapping against the screen door, it’s all very peaceful. Billy doesn’t say anything, and neither do I. Then we hear the sound of a radio playing a torch song from one of the far cabins. It seems to fit the mood: sweet and lowdown. The yellow lights inside the cottages fall through the windows and lie in small squares in the sandy, stump grass yards. The shoreline of the lake curves gently and waves come in and caress the land then retreat again. I think of Ruby, wishing she were here with me, just the two of us on vacation here in this place, watching the sunset together, sipping a beer and doing nothing.
The girls come out and we sit in silence and watch the moon rise out of the water just to the right of where the sun sank into it. We drink and listen to the music coming from the radio and Rose says, “It’s really dreamy here.”
Something splashes in the lake.
“We should go fishing in the morning,” Billy says.
“What with, our guns?” I say. We all laugh.
Rose is right, it is dreamy here. I just wish it was Ruby here instead of Beulah.
Billy the Killer Miller
For a couple of days we laze around and do nothing. We rent a boat and row it out into the lake but the wind comes up and makes the water choppy and our feet get wet in the bottom of the boat.
“Ooh, ooh,” the girls say, so we row back to shore.
Charley and me take a long walk down the shoreline until there ain’t no more cabins and I take out my .45 and shoot some rounds into the water.
“What are you doing?” Charley says. “Fishing,” I say.
He shakes his head.
“What, you don’t think I can get any fish this way?”
“No, maybe you can,” he says. “But how you going to reel them in?”
We take turns shooting a piece of driftwood and watch it bob whenever we hit it.
“I’m about ready to blow this place,” I say when we run out of bullets.
“Yeah, me too.”
“You ready to pull a job?”
“Yeah, you?”
I look at him.
“That’s what I do, I pull jobs,” I say. “Hey, that’s my story.”
“Then let’s go pull us a job.”
“Let’s go.”
We walk back toward the cabins, our guns empty, but happy.
Pretty Boy Floyd
That night I hear Billy and Rose going at it. It’s a warm night and the windows are open and I can hear them laughing and going at it. Beulah says she’s not feeling well, that it’s her time of the month, so I get up and go sit on the stoop and watch the stars and think how far away from Aikens I am.
“Oh Jesus, Billy!” I hear Rose say, her voice full of heat.
I try not to listen, but it’s hard not to. I think of all the things I could have become if I’d only set my mind to it: a lawyer, maybe an actor out in Hollywood, something, anything but what I became. I look up at those stars and wonder why I became what I did and why I didn’t become something else.
I wonder why I wasn’t born to rich folks or born in Africa or something. I wonder what the hell is life about but chances. We all take our chances, we’re all born to chance. Everything is just a matter of chance — like why I met Beulah instead of Rose first.
I got a heart full of questions but no answers.
That night I dream they kill me: faceless men in gray suits with guns.
9
Pretty Boy Floyd
The way we work doing the job is we steal a car: a pearl Hupmobile from a parking lot. Big sedan. We tell the girls to take our own car and meet us at a diner we know a few miles outside of town. Then Billy and me drive to this small bank that’s got plate glass windows with gold lettering: FIRST CITIZENS OF WHITEHOUSE, the sun glaring off it.
“That’s the one,” Billy says. “Looks small.”
“All the better,” Billy says. “Who worries about a small bank in bum fuck Ohio getting robbed? You see any armed guards inside? Small banks don’t hire armed guards. You know why?” Before I can answer, he tells me: “Because they’re too cheap and they figure, like most folks, nothing bad is ever going to happen to them.
Cheap and stupid is a bad combination, but good for us.”
“You want me to go in and you wait behind the wheel?”
Billy shakes his head; he’s already got his .45 in his hand.
“Nah, piece of cake,” he says. “I’ll be right back.”
I drum my fingers on the steering wheel as I keep an eye open for any police cruisers that might be coming down the street or cops who might be walking a beat. Though I doubt a town this size they even have police. I look around. It’s not much of a town. I wonder why they call it Whitehouse. I don’t see anything that looks like the Whitehouse if that’s what they named it after. I see chestnut trees and old homes. I see a hardware store and a jeweler’s. I see a gas station and I see the bank Billy’s just gone into. I see a lovely little town where nothing ever happens.
Billy the Killer Miller is back out in less than five minutes and we drive off.
Billy’s grinning as he’s counting the dough.
“That’s the easiest eighteen hundred dollars you’re ever going to make Pretty Boy,” he says. “And all you had to do was sit in the car and watch the birdies.”
“I didn’t see any birdies,” I say. He gives me a screwy look.
We meet with the girls and ditch the stolen car.
“What now?” I say to Billy.
“Oh, man,” he says. “These are some easy pickings — these Ohio banks, Charley. We’re going to do real well for ourselves around here.”
I’m thinking maybe he’s right. Things have gone pretty good for me since I joined up with Billy. Maybe he’s my good luck charm. Later when we’re back with the girls and sitting around watching the same two guys out fishing in their boat I say, “Hey, let’s go to a speakeasy in Toledo tonight.”
“Now that’s the spirit,” Billy says. “And if we have to, we’ll shoot our way out of the joint.”
The girls giggle, kiss our faces and hug our necks.
Beulah Baird
I like it that we’re all so happy. I’ve never been so happy. Charley and Billy are in good moods and Rose is draped all over Billy like she’s something he’s wearing. The boys suggest we go to a speakeasy in Toledo and of course Rose and I both say we have to have something nice to wear. “You mean like new dresses?” Billy says, and hands us a hundred dollars. Rose’s kisses leave little red lipstick bows on Billy’s dark cheeks.
That night we dance and drink gin at a club where you have to knock and whisper your intentions through a small slot in the door. Billy slipped a ten spot through the slot and they let us in.
“Oh jeez Louise,” Rose says when we get inside and hear the music and see what a good time everybody is having. “Ain’t this the greatest!” Charley orders us a round of drinks — gin and bourbon. He and Billy look nice the way they’re all dressed up in new suits, new hats, white-on-white shirts with blue silk ties. Billy looks a little like James Cagney and Charley a little like George Raft. I feel like Rose and me are out with two movie stars. The cigarette girl comes around and Charley buys a couple of packs of Chesterfields from her and gives her a five dollar bill and tells her to keep the change and you never seen such a big smile.
I’m feeling very loving toward Charley. I tell him I want to dance with him.
“Sure,” he says. “I’m a hell of a dancer.” And he is.
“Oh dance with me, Billy,” Rose says. “I don’t dance,” he says.
Rose looks disappointed.
“Well, maybe I should find me a guy who likes to dance,” she says.
“Go ahead, and make sure he takes you home too and buys you new dresses.”
“Oh, Billy, I was just teasing.”
“I wasn’t.”
Sometimes Billy can be a real stick in the mud. Charley and I dance until our skin is warm and damp the way it is after we make love and I can tell looking into his eyes he wants to take me home and make love to me for real. And I want him to.
Except for Billy’s refusal to dance with Rose, we have a great time and don’t drive home until three in the morning. Home is a set of hotel rooms Charley and Billy rent us in Bowling Green. Billy says there’s a nice bank there he wants to take down and the hotel is closer than the cottage at the lake. Charley says about the bank: “The same one we drove past three times the Sunday it was closed?”
“Yeah, I got a feeling about certain banks, and I’m telling you this particular bank will be even easier than the last one. And I’m betting it’s got a lot more money than the last one, too.”
Charley’s in a really good mood, and says, “Sure, Billy the Killer Miller, whatever you say.” Billy grins like a fox showing his teeth. We go up to our rooms and I was right about when we were dancing, for we barely get in the door and Charley’s all over me, kissing me and pulling me in close to him and I say, “I like it Charley, the way you handle me.”
And he says, “I like it too, kiddo. I’m a real lady killer.”
We kiss, and oh my god I just can’t stand it.
“You want to turn out the lights or just do it?” I ask him.
“Just do it,” he says. So we do.
Pretty Boy Floyd
Beulah gives me anything I want and all of it I want, but it still isn’t the same as it was with me and Ruby. Ruby isn’t as sexy as Beulah, and she never tried as hard as Beulah tries when we’re in bed together. But there is just something about Ruby I can’t describe, the way I feel about her deep down in my bones. I think a man can only know that kind of love once in his life. All the other women that come along can’t touch me the way that Ruby does. I know she’s probably right now somewhere lying in bed with another man and I hate the thought of it, but I still love her.
It’s maybe an hour before daylight and I still can’t sleep. I’m thinking about Ruby and Jackie, and I’m thinking about the bank me and Billy are going to take down in a few hours. I’m thinking about my kinfolks, about them nesting in the sand hills of Oklahoma all safe and warm in their beds, how they must worry about me at times, reading about all the mean things I’m supposed to have done. Daddy Walter is resting in his grave and maybe the man who killed him, too. I think about how innocent I used to be and how I’d like to be back there now with them, safe and warm in my bed too without the cops looking for me. But I know that’s never going to happen.
Billy told me something disturbing while we were at the club and the girls were powdering their noses.
“You remember asking me when we first met if I’d shot anybody?” he says. We were watching people dancing, listening to the music. We already had a load on from all the booze.
I say, “Sure.”
“And I told you I’d shot my brother.”
“Yeah, that’s what I liked about you,” I say. “Your sense of humor.”
“It wasn’t a joke,” he says. “I did shoot him.”
I look straight into his eyes and I can see he’s dead serious.
“Why’d you shoot him?”
“Over a woman, like I told you,” he says. “I shot him over a fucking broad we both wanted.”
Something cold runs down the back of my neck because of the way he says this, the way he looks at me and grins.
“You’re pulling my leg again, right?”
“You think?”
But I know he isn’t pulling my leg.
I can see the streetlights glowing in the predawn darkness; they are like watchful eyes watching out for Billy and me. I’m tired but I can’t ever sleep more than a couple of hours at a time. Beulah is dead to the world and from the little light that filters into the room, I can see her sprawled on the bed, the covers twisted between her legs, one fleshy hip exposed as though offering it to whoever wants it. I think of how it is a man can be so jealous of a woman that he would shoot his own brother over her. I tell myself that I must be careful of Billy Miller, for he takes offense as easily as some women take compliments.
I should write a letter to the folks back home and in it ask them if they’ve heard anything of the whereabouts of Ruby and Jackie. I smoke and watch the darkness give way to the dawn. I feel like I’ve lived a lifetime already.
Rose Ash
Billy takes me face down after we get back from the club and later I dream of William. The dream makes me feel pitiful. I awake and Billy is asleep, on his side, his head resting on his arm. He seems quite innocent this way. I see his gun hanging in a shoulder holster draped over the back of a chair when I get up and turn on the bathroom light and it falls out into the room over Billy and the bed and his hanging gun. I see myself in the mirror above the sink and ask this woman I see what she is doing here with a man who kills people and robs banks. But she doesn’t answer and I don’t ask any more questions and turn out the light and sit on the floor with my head in my hands. I think if I listen hard enough, I can hear the gunshot that killed William.
