A Day with Bonnie and Clyde, 1933
You Are There: A Graphic History Series
You Are There… The Graphic Time Travel Guide.
Historical Backdrop
By the spring of 1933, Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker had been on the run for more than a year, cutting a reckless path across the American heartland during the worst years of the Great Depression. Clyde, 23 years old, was a hardened ex-convict shaped by the brutality of the Texas prison farm at Eastham, and Bonnie, twenty-two, was a former waitress and aspiring poet from a poor Dallas family who had fallen deeply in love with him. Along with Clyde’s older brother Buck Barrow, Buck’s reluctant wife Blanche, and sixteen-year-old accomplice W.D. Jones, the Barrow Gang had rented a small apartment above a two-car garage in Joplin, Missouri, hoping to hide out and rest. They had been there about two weeks, but their suspicious behavior — the garage doors always shut, people coming and going at odd hours, the sound of gunshots from target practice — had drawn the attention of neighbors and, inevitably, the law. On this day, a squad of five lawmen organized by Highway Patrol Sergeant G.B. Kahler would raid the apartment, triggering one of the most violent and consequential shootouts in American crime history and leaving behind a trove of personal effects — including rolls of undeveloped film — that would transform two small-time outlaws into national legends.
April 13, 1933 — 5:22 AM — 3347½ Oak Ridge Drive, Joplin, Missouri
You wake up in a cramped apartment above a garage in Joplin, Missouri, with a loaded gun under your pillow and the smell of gun oil in the air — and by nightfall, your face will be in every newspaper in America.
You lie on a thin, stained mattress on the floor of the cramped upstairs apartment, your dark brown eyes open, staring at a water-damaged ceiling you have memorized over two weeks of sleepless nights. You are Clyde Barrow. Your body is wiry, barely a 130 pounds, and the old scars from Eastham ache in the cold Missouri dawn. The room smells of cigarette ash, gun oil, and unwashed bodies. Bonnie is curled beside you, her small frame barely making a shape under the wool blanket, her strawberry-blonde finger-waved hair pressed flat on one side, her lips slightly parted. Across the room, Buck snores on a sagging couch, and Blanche is a motionless lump in a chair with her small white dog, Snowball, tucked against her chest. W.D. is on a pallet by the door. You can hear birds outside and the faint rattle of a milk truck somewhere on the road below. Your right hand rests on the .45 automatic under your pillow. You do not relax. You have not truly relaxed since the day you left Eastham.
April 13, 1933 — 7:15 AM — Kitchen, Barrow Gang Apartment, Joplin, Missouri
You stand at the narrow stove in the apartment’s cramped kitchen, frying eggs in a blackened iron skillet, a Lucky Strike cigarette clamped between your lips, the ash growing long. You are Bonnie Parker, and you are making breakfast for five people with four eggs, a heel of bread, and some reheated coffee that already tasted burnt yesterday. Your strawberry-blonde curls are pinned tightly in place with bobby pins, and you are wearing a faded knee-length cotton dress with small blue flowers on a cream background, your feet bare on the cold linoleum. Clyde sits at the small wooden table in his white undershirt, suspenders hanging, loading a magazine for the BAR with methodical, practiced hands, the brass cartridges clicking into place one by one. Buck leans in the doorway drinking coffee from a chipped ceramic mug, and Blanche is trying to feed scraps to Snowball, her face pinched with worry. W.D. sits silently on an overturned crate, staring at nothing. Nobody is talking much. The kitchen window faces east and pale morning light falls across the dirty dishes stacked in the sink. The whole apartment smells like grease, tobacco, and the particular staleness of people who have been cooped up too long.
April 13, 1933 — 9:10 AM — Garage Below the Apartment, Joplin, Missouri
You are Clyde Barrow, crouched beside the driver’s side of a stolen 1932 Ford V-8 sedan inside the closed garage below the apartment, your hands black with axle grease. The car is your lifeline, and you know every sound its engine makes. You have modified it yourself — adjusted the carburetor, checked the tires for road-readiness, made sure the tank is full. The garage is dim, lit by a single hanging bulb, and it smells of motor oil, gasoline, and damp concrete. Your dark brown wavy hair is slicked back with pomade but a strand has fallen across your forehead. You wear your white dress shirt now, sleeves rolled tightly above the elbows, suspenders up over your narrow shoulders, your .45 automatic tucked in your waistband at the small of your back. There are two more stolen cars outside, parked to block the view of the garage doors from the road. On a wooden workbench behind you, three Browning Automatic Rifles, two sawed-off shotguns, a dozen handguns, and hundreds of rounds of ammunition are arranged with the neatness of a man who knows his survival depends on these tools. W.D. hands you a wrench without being asked. You nod once. You always keep the car ready to run.
April 13, 1933 — 10:40 AM — Living Area, Barrow Gang Apartment, Joplin, Missouri
