Pretty Boy Floyd

Larry McMurtry, Diana Ossana

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Year: 2010
• ISBN:
  9781439129685
• Topic: Literatura
• Subtopic: Literatura general

The time is 1925. The place, St. Louis, Missouri. Charley Floyd, a good-looking, sweet-smiling country boy from Oklahoma, is about to rob his first armored car. Written by Pulitzer Prize–winner Larry McMurtry and his writing partner, Diana Ossana, Pretty Boy Floyd traces the wild career of the legendary American folk hero Charley Floyd, a young man so charming that it's hard not to like him, even as he's robbing you at gunpoint. From the bank heists and shootings that make him Public Enemy Number One to the women who love him, from the glamour-hungry nation that worships him to the G-men who track Charley down, Pretty Boy Floyd is both a richly comic masterpiece and an American tragedy about the price of fame and the corruption of innocence.

BOOK THREE

1931–1933

1

Ruby was painting their new name on the mailbox when she saw a policeman pull in the driveway across the street from them. The sight unnerved her, but she went on painting the name on the mailbox anyway. After much discussion, Ruby and Charley had decided to call themselves the Hamiltons. They even told Dempsey that he had to remember his new name.

“Okay,” Dempsey said. Both his parents looked solemn when they made the request, so solemn that he felt he shouldn’t ask why his name had to be Hamilton when they moved into their new house. Dempsey didn’t really care what his name was. He had a room of his own, and it was upstairs, and there was a swing in the back yard, and his father had promised to take him fishing in the river.

The policeman noticed Ruby painting the name on the mailbox—she smiled at him; he tipped his cap to her briefly, and then went on into his house. He was a heavy man, and walked slowly, as if he were tired.

Ruby forced herself to finish painting the name on the mailbox, but the minute she got back in the house, she shot up the stairs two at a time to wake Charley. He had been putting one of their new beds together, but had lost interest and was taking a nap on the mattress.

“Charley, wake up, there’s a cop next door,” Ruby said.

Charley had just gone to sleep. He sat up, his hair tousled, and tried to collect his wits.

“Next door which way?” he asked, wondering if he had managed to get a pistol up to the second floor. He and Ruby had put Dempsey in his new school, and then spent a whole day buying furniture, and kitchen stuff, and whatnot. The whole two-story house was filled with beds and couches and lamps and frying pans and rugs and curtains, most of the stuff not yet fully unpacked. Charley had gotten a big kick out of seeing how happy Ruby looked while they were buying the furniture, but he got far less of a kick out of unpacking it and arranging it. He had several guns with him, but he had no idea where they were—still in the car, probably, and the cops were next door.

“Not next door, across the street,” Ruby corrected. “It scared me so bad I got mixed up.”

“How many are they?” Charley asked, digging in a box of soap and washrags, hoping he might have stuck a pistol in it for some reason.

“How many what?” Ruby asked, confused.

“How many cops are next door? Get a grip,” Charley said.

“You get a grip, you ain’t even got your shirt on,” Ruby said. It always ticked her off when Charley told her to calm down. The least little upset, and he acted like she was a raving maniac.

“How many cops are next door?” he demanded. “You started this conversation, what do you think it’s about?”

“Don’t yell at me,” Ruby said. “There’s just one cop, and he’s across the street. I think he may live there.”

Charley sighed, and then he flopped back onto the mattress.

“Why’d you wake me up, then, if that’s all the news?” Charley asked. But he wasn’t really mad. He was barefoot, and he stuck his foot up under her skirt, and tried to feel her with his toes.

“Don’t do that!” Ruby said, jumping back. “Your feet smell. What are we gonna do about the policeman?”

“Nothin’,” Charley said. “Cops have to live somewhere. There’s no law saying a cop can’t live across the street from a bandit.”

“But what if he recognizes you?” Ruby said. “He might see a poster or something.”

Charley just yawned. “Across the street from a cop is probably the safest place to live,” Charley said. “It’s the last place anybody would expect to find me.”

Ruby wasn’t satisfied. “I still think we oughta move,” she said. “I’ll be a nervous wreck in a week, wondering when he’s gonna recognize you.”

“You’d worry on a clear day with the doors locked,” Charley said, reaching for her with his hand this time. Ruby eluded him, and began to unpack the soap.

“If the doors were locked and you were on the inside, I’d have plenty to worry about,” she said. “Gettin’ pregnant, for one thing.”

Charley had been looking cheerful and sort of silly—his hair was all cowlicks—but he turned gloomy the minute she made the remark about getting pregnant.

“I wish we could have another kid,” he said. “I wish we could have five or six. Dempsey deserves some brothers and sisters—we had ’em.”

Ruby felt melancholy, too. There was a time when they could have had five or six children—they both would have enjoyed a big family, she thought. But that time was past. Charley could wake up any day and find himself bound for prison, or worse. Ruby could never watch him drive off calmly, even if he was just going to get smokes—she could never be sure he’d come back alive. There was a thousand-dollar reward posted for him already, and the bounty would only go up if he kept robbing banks, which she knew he would: it was what he did. It wasn’t a choice anymore. Charley couldn’t get a real job, like everybody else—it was too late. She wasn’t foolish enough to think he would change, just because she and Dempsey had come to live with him.

“Let’s just enjoy Dempsey, Charley,” Ruby said, sitting on the mattress beside him. “Let’s just enjoy this time together.”

Later, Charley looked out the window and noticed the policeman changing a flat on the old police car. He immediately went downstairs, crossed the street, shook hands with the man, and helped with the jack.

“Thanks, Mr. Hamilton,” the policeman said, shaking hands again when they finished. “I ain’t mechanical, changing tires is about the extent of it.”

“Call me Charley,” Charley told him.

2

On the day they were supposed to go fishing, Dempsey was the first one up. He quickly put on his clothes and slipped downstairs to the kitchen, just on the off chance that his mama or his daddy might be there. But they weren’t. The sun wasn’t even up; there was mist in the back yard. His daddy told him they would go out and dig worms, first thing, and they had even got an old coffee can and put some dirt in it, for the worms to live in.

But his daddy wasn’t up. Dempsey’s new pole, with the line and the cork and the hook already fixed, was leaning up against the back porch. It was annoying that his parents were sleeping so late. Dempsey tiptoed back upstairs, just to make sure his daddy wasn’t shaving, or his mama brushing her teeth. His daddy wasn’t shaving, and his mama wasn’t brushing her teeth, either, so he very carefully pushed open the door to their bedroom, and peeked in.

When Dempsey peeked into the bedroom, he saw that his mother and father were still asleep, their arms around one another. The rising sun had just begun to shine through the bedroom window, covering them with light. Dempsey was a little disappointed; it was the day his daddy had promised to take him fishing, emphasizing how important it was to get up early and be at the river just as the sun was coming up.

Now the sun was up, and they weren’t even at the river yet. But his mama and daddy looked so peaceful and so happy, sleeping in the sunlight with their arms around each other, that Dempsey decided to let them sleep. Maybe they were extra tired from staying up too late or something.

He went back downstairs, and found a biscuit in the oven. The biscuit was left over from supper, but Dempsey ate it anyway. There wasn’t much else to eat. Then he found his worm can with the dirt in it on the back porch, and took it down the steps. He meant to dig for worms. There was a spade in the garage, which he carried into the back yard. To his annoyance, he discovered that the grass in the back yard was really tough grass. He wasn’t strong enough to push the spade through it. He got it through a little ways, but not deep enough to get to the worms, and when he tried to pry some dirt up, all he got was grass.

While he was struggling with the spade and the tough grass, he heard the screen on the back door slam. He looked up, and there was his daddy, with some fishing boots on and his shirt unbuttoned.

“I see an early bird, trying to be the one to get the worm,” Charley said, taking the shovel from Dempsey.

“Daddy, we’re late,” Dempsey pointed out. “The sun is up already.”

“Don’t worry about it, son,” Charley said. “I heard on the radio that the fish are sleepin’ late today. We’ll be there by the time they’re ready for breakfast.”

His daddy had no trouble with the grass—he pushed the spade right through it, and the second spadeful of dirt he dug up had seven fat, squirmy worms in it. Dempsey pulled one worm apart, trying to pull it out of the dirt, but his daddy said not to worry about it, they could use both parts of the worm for bait.

At the river, two old men were already fishing, floating quietly in a little boat.

“Daddy, why don’t we have a boat?” Dempsey asked. “If we had a boat, we could go out where the fish live.”

“It’s just one of those things we ain’t got around to yet,” Charley said. “I expect we’ll round us up a boat one of these days.” He had brought a little .22 single-shot with him, in case Dempsey wanted to plink at turtles, or bottles, or any good target that might be floating by.

After only a few minutes of fishing, Dempsey’s cork went out of sight in the brown water, and when he yanked on his pole a small, fat, shiny fish came out of the water, attached to his hook.

“It’s a perch,” his father said. “Perch are bony. Let’s throw this little feller back, and see if we can’t hook a big old catfish.”

“Where will he go now?” Dempsey asked, when he had pitched the little fish back in the river.

“He’ll go home and tell his ma an expert fisherman named Dempsey Floyd caught him and let him go,” Charley said. He had forgotten the thermos of coffee he had meant to bring, and was feeling a little empty.

“Dempsey Hamilton,” Dempsey corrected. “I’m not Dempsey Floyd anymore.”

“Sharp thinkin’, buddy,” Charley said. “You’re Dempsey Hamilton, all right.”

“Daddy, will I ever be Dempsey Floyd again?” Dempsey asked.

“Well, maybe,” Charley said. He was glad Ruby wasn’t there to hear the conversation. Dempsey’s confusion about their names, which Charley couldn’t blame him for, sometimes set her crying.

“I like Dempsey Floyd better,” Dempsey confessed. “That’s the same as my Uncle Bradley and my cousins.”

“Yep, it is,” Charley admitted. “But they live in Oklahoma, and we live in Arkansas. It’s better to be Dempsey Hamilton while we’re over here in Arkansas.”

Just then, Dempsey’s cork went way under, and when he tried to pull the fish out of the water, nothing happened. He pulled and pulled, but it was all he could do to keep the fish from pulling him into the river.

“You must have hooked Old Grandpa Catfish,” Charley said. “It’s gonna take both of us to get this monster to the bank.”

He grabbed the pole, and with the two of them pulling, they did get the monster to the bank, only it wasn’t Old Grandpa Catfish, it was a snapping turtle as big as a washtub. He had an ugly green shell with mud on it, mean little red eyes, and a snapping beak that scared Dempsey every time the big turtle snapped it.

“Oh boy, that’s the end of this fishing trip,” Charley said. “This old devil looks like he wants to eat us both.”

“Daddy, I’m scared,” Dempsey said, staying as far away from the turtle as he could get. “Can’t we shoot him with our gun?”

“Be like shooting mud,” Charley said. “He’s got a brain the size of a pea—we could shoot a whole box of shells into him, and I doubt he’d die.”

“What will we do?” Dempsey asked, looking at the ugly monster.

“Want to put him in the trunk and take him home to Mama?” Charley asked. “Mama could use him for a pet.”

“No!” Dempsey said. “I don’t want to take him home!”

“The next best thing is just to cut him loose and let him go,” Charley said, getting out his pocketknife.

Just about that time, two elderly colored men with fishing poles came walking along the riverbank in the clear sunlight. When they saw that Charley was about to cut the line and let the big snapper go, they hurried over.

“Mister, could we have ’im?” one of the old men asked.

“Why, sure—take him, if you can handle him,” Charley offered. “He may take you.”

The old colored man chuckled. “No, sir,” he said. “We take him. He ain’t gonna take us.”

The old man quickly stuck his foot under the big turtle and flipped him over, and when he did, the other colored man grabbed the turtle by the tail and began to drag him up the bank.

“You men know what you’re doin’, looks like,” Charley said, admiringly. “What are you gonna do with him now that you got him?”

“Eat him, boss,” the old man said. “Makes good eatin’, Old Man Turtle.”

Then he followed his friend.

“Might make good eatin’ to them,” Charley told Dempsey. “Wouldn’t make good eatin’ to me. How about you, Dempsey? Want to eat a snappin’ turtle?”

“No thanks!” Dempsey said firmly.

3

Charley was buying smokes and rubbers at a drugstore on the main street in Fort Smith when he happened to glance at the magazine rack, and noticed his name on the cover of Police Gazette. There was a mug shot taken when he was booked in Ohio, and underneath, in big letters: “PRETTY BOY FLOYD KILLS AGAIN!”

Before paying for th...