'Bonnie'
At this moment, we had only two things in common. One, we were both completely naked. And two, we’d both just eaten the exact same dinner in this shitty little apartment. Could this even be called an apartment? Maybe twenty odd years ago. Now it was just this piece of shit derelict building at the edge of town. We could have called it as house, never a home, if more than one room was inhabitable. It was too much work to clear the shit from the other rooms when we’d be leaving in less than a week or so. Given our track record, probably within the next few days.
I was in front of the window, the countertop fan blowing across my skin, brushing the little beads of sweat on the back of my neck away. You were sprawled on the couch, flipping through the channels, pausing every time our faces were plastered on the tiny screen. The way you’d been doing for the past god knows how long. You just stare at that screen and smoke those cigarettes and laugh about them always getting your bad side.
Before you, everything kind of feels like a lazy blur. Like one of those old sepia movies, pushed into the back of my head. It’s too hot to have you pressed against me now, with your skin on mine and your scent in my nose. Spicy, not like cinnamon or curry or pepper, but something all your own. If we could bottle that up, we could make a million, settle down, live that picket fence life both of up know we were never meant for. Not that we hadn’t tried. We met in college, both of us struggling on until you’d snapped and burned your textbook and set of the alarms that sent the whole dorm off into the night at 3 am. You were laughing, I was freezing. I bummed a smoke, those clove blacks you still get today. We’d fucked in your truck.
Half a year later, we dropped out. A few months later, they were calling us the new Bonnie and Clyde. Which was funny shit, you know, because we were different in some pretty damn obvious ways. That week, I nearly broke your arm and you gave me three damn bloody noses and a black eye for the record books fighting over who was Bonnie and who was Clyde.
Your lips break my concentration, bringing me back to the heat and our bodies. You taste like you always do, chocolate mint and cigarettes and that spice of your skin a hundred times more, fogging my mind and weakening my knees just like it always has. That spice, god, it’s like red lipstick in black and white movies, a shot of colour in the dark. Like the smoking barrel of a gun in an old mob flick. You make fun of the way I’m addicted to film. I make fun of the way I’m addicted to you.
We both knew it was coming to the end. Those weren’t wedding bells ringing, it was that familiar siren always in the back of our heads. The dinner we’d salvaged, the chocolate mint ice crème, well, I could see in your eyes you tasted it before I did. God damn, that mouth of yours is so distracting. That spice, it was betrayal and deception. Broken glass and car crashes. It was danger. It was probably the first thing that should have tipped me off about you back in college. Maybe that’s what I’m addicted to. Not you, but the danger. The excitement. Modern day Bonnie and Clyde, my ass. We were something completely new. Something I couldn’t quite put a name to, not when you’re pulling me down on the cracked tile, the dust clinging to our overheated and underdressed bodies. What was that line from the movie we’d snuck in a few years back? It seemed so appropriate for just this moment. That woman, standing there, singing away. “Some men just can’t hold their arsenic.”
Maybe they can’t. Maybe they just don’t want to.
____________________________________________
'Clyde'
Our bodies are just laying on the floor, our arms entwined at the elbow. Hot, sweating, nude forms pressed against the practically ancient cracked tiling. That was partially our fault. You had the cuts all along your back to prove it. We really should have fucked on the couch instead. That seemed slightly more stable, even if it was filthy. Not that it mattered where we went. Anywhere we go we’d be coated in the dust and filth that just accumulates in these places after a while. If it weren’t for the APB, we could have got a hotel room. I cringe, another piece of tile is digging into my back, and turn, and the sight of your face makes me forget everything. We’ve been together so long, but no matter what’s happening, your face can always catch me by surprise. I can find you anywhere, it doesn’t matter how big the crowd. Like when we’d met in college. It was late, real late, and I don’t know what happened. They say it was stress or drugs or whatever the hell people usually say when they try and rationalize something that was purely irrational. I took my Psych book and I set it on fire, every last little page. And I watched them blacken and curl with the alarm going off in the back of my head and then I threw it out the window. And just like that, I grabbed my jacket and keys and walked out with everyone else.
That’s when I first saw your face. You, in those tight jeans with your hair all windblown, crouching under one of the trees in the smokers area to fight off the late fall wind. You, I approached, offered you a cig. Those cat eyes met mine. I was lost. Helpless. We didn’t say anything. And then I started to laugh. Really laugh. And you were startled. And then you laughed. And we sat and we laughed until tears ran down our faces and we kept laughing even when everyone else had gone back inside. Then I took you to my truck and, basically, we fucked and fucked and drove away. Left everything behind. It took a few months to get up and go, but we weren’t who we used to be, and time didn‘t matter any more. After that, we had our first debut. Television. We were on the 5 o’clock, 6 o’clock, 7, 9, 11’o clock news. Bonnie and Clyde, they said.
I pull you closer, into a kiss, and you tense but lean into it, your body on mine, our lips connected. You always talk about the way I smell, the way I taste, and all of those movies you watch. I’ll always remember your eyes, your nose, your lips, the way your skin feels under my fingers, how this filth can do nothing but enhance your radiance as the tears run little rivers through the dirt caked on your skin. First, it was just the sirens but now, as you cling to me so hard I can’t breath, I can’t speak, I can just feel your heart thudding against mine and feel the floor shake as heavy boots thunder up the stairs.
You could get out now. You drove, I held the gun, I took the money, I did what I had to do. But you would never, and your broken sob breaks the silence of the room just before the door is kicked in and uniformed men with their little guns and little sticks and great big egos all full of power and hate grab you and pull you off, and your face is so helpless and broken and pained that it takes me a minute to realize I’m screaming at them. Words and phrases I don’t even comprehend, I just yell and cry and fight to get to you but the cuffs are around my wrist and there are too many and take us off separately, in different cars. Intimidation through separation.
And I swear in the back of this car I’ll have you back.
And I swear they will never take you away from me again.
