“I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you?”
I shrieked with laughter when William pulled the microphone from the reporter’s hand and got right up into the camera, preaching his favorite sermon with a voice worthy of a packed hall. He finished his scripture with a thrust of his dirty finger into the lens.
“And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me!’” William’s eyes were fierce on the lens as the reporter managed to retrieve her microphone.
“Thank you, William. Well, you heard it here, folks. Reports have been coming in from people who say they were helped or assisted or enriched by the cross-country flight of Bonnie and Clyde, ever since all charges were dropped and the two were released, separately, from LA County jail.”
“Praise the Lord for their release! God protects his servants!” William could be heard shouting in the background. Then his face filled the screen once more, blocking out the young reporter who had completely lost control of the situation.
“Miss Bonnie? If you is watchin’, listen up. I had a dream last night. A girl named Minnie and a boy named Fish—looked just like you and Mr. Infinity—they told me they is saving you two a big room in the Grand Hotel, but no hurry. You’ve got Infinity, and they’ve got each other. And Fish says, ‘Who’s the genius now?’”
The feed was cut and a commercial for a new season of Nashville Forever flashed across the screen, but I was too stunned to move.
“Bonnie Rae?”
Finn was standing behind me, his face lined with sleep, his body gloriously uncovered. He’d said my name, but his eyes were fixed on the TV—his expression incredulous.
I threw back my head and laughed. I could have danced around and said “I told you so,” but I didn’t. What William had just said was unbelievable. Impossible even. But, then again, he’d really said it all with a message on a little cardboard sign.
I believe in Bonnie and Clyde.
BEAR RECOVERED AND eventually got his car back, though I had already bought him a new one. As promised, he received a substantial raise and hazard pay, which he thought was funny, but Finn said was only fair, considering I was an accident waiting to happen. We also retrieved our belongings from the backseat, along with that cardboard sign I would have hated to part with.
I had it matted and framed, and it hangs in our house in St. Louis on a wall filled with pictures from the disposable camera Monique gave us on our wedding day. There are pictures of us at the wedding chapel in Vegas and standing beside the “Death Car” riddled with bullets in Primm. I even framed magazine clippings of us on the red carpet at the Academy Awards, along with copies of our mug shots because they made me laugh, and Finn hated them. I told him we were jailbirds and lovebirds, and it was funny. And he was the one who’d said, “Sometimes funny is all you’ve got.”
But we had a great deal more than funny, and I never wanted to take it for granted. That’s why, in the center of it all, I framed an enlarged, black and white photo of the original Bonnie and Clyde, arms around each other, standing against the backdrop of desperate times. And I framed Bonnie Parker’s words so I wouldn’t forget our own incredible journey and the vows that Finn and I had made. It was Bonnie’s version of ‘til death do us part.
“The road was so dimly lighted.
There were no highway signs to guide.
But they made up their minds,
If all roads were blind,
They wouldn’t give up 'til they died.”
And I planned on living a long, long time.