- Location
- Municipal Commune of Bourne
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Within their own lifetimes, Bonnie and Clyde earned little fame. They were considered small beer by the FBI, despite their crimes crossing state lines, and were ultimately brought to a bloody end by a posse glued together by a former Texas Ranger, put to the task on the order of the Governor of that state. It wasn't surprising that they got little attention. Unlike John Dillinger or the Barker Family, they didn't rob banks (aside from a few exceptions to the rule, but even then their take was miserable in comparison) and they didn't appear to have had any ambition to live in ill-gotten luxury like those criminals. For Clyde Barrow, his chosen lifestyle was a matter of survival, born from his conviction that never again would he be put behind bars. He was under no delusion that he would die young, but believed it was the only option and was willing to drive as far, rob as much and kill as many would be needed to live one more day. Bonnie Parker was in love with him, and would not be parted from him for the world.
But there was a moment, where Clyde Barrow almost shifted his criminal career onto a different path, one which may have transformed his standing and made him into one of the icons of the Public Enemy era within his lifetime.
In June 1933, two FBI agents, Frank Smith and Francis Joseph 'Joe' Lackey, and Oklahoma police chief Otto Reed ventured to the mob holiday town of Hot Springs, Arkansas to bring in Frank 'Jelly' Nash 'the most successful bank robber in American history'. The apprehension was successful and they drove to Fort Smith, Arkansas to catch a train to Kansas City, Missouri in order to hand him over to that city's FBI Special Agent in Charge, Reed Vetterli.
At the same time that Nash was being transported to Kansas City, a conspiracy to free him was afoot. Nash had friends in Hot Springs and they wasted no time trying to get ahead of the law. The man selected to lead the attempted liberation was Vernon C. Miller, a gun-for-hire, bootlegger, bankrobber and former sheriff. He hurriedly attempted to assemble a team. It just so happened that two other groups, all unknowing, were to arrive in Kansas City in the early hours. Charles Arthur 'Pretty Boy' Floyd, the Robin Hood of the Dust Bowl, and his alcoholic sidekick Adam Richetti were on the run and sought shelter with Miller who soon convinced them to join his escape plan.
That same night, Clyde Barrow also arrived in Kansas City. With a seriously injured Bonnie Parker. A week earlier, Barrow had accidentally driven their car into a ravine - an ensuing gasoline fire had consumed Bonnie's legs, leaving burns so severe bone was visible. A forgotten detail of Bonnie and Clyde's story is that they never truly travelled alone, throughout their short reign of terror, they travelled with an assorted cast of characters - it was a former travelling partner's father who ultimately did them in. This was early in the story however, and they were travelling with Buck (Clyde's brother), Blanche (Bonnie's sister) and W.D. Jones, a childhood friend of Clyde's. Once the five rendezvoused they travelled to Fort Smith, Arkansas where they set up at a tourist campsite and attempted to nurse Bonnie's wounds.
It was clear however, that the severity of her injuries meant she needed a comfortable safe and permanent place to stay. Which meant money. Clyde had heard about Pretty Boy Floyd's flight through the area and so travelled to Kansas City, hoping to convince the legendary yegg to take him on a bank job, which might get them the money they needed to properly care for Bonnie. In our world, Clyde was too late. Floyd took up Miller's offer, and joined in the attempted liberation of Frank Nash. What ensued was called the Kansas City Massacre - FBI Agent Raymond J. Caffrey, Kansas City police officers W.J. Grooms and Frank Hermanson, and the Oklahoma police chief Otto Reed died in a hail of Thompson machine gun fire. As did Frank Nash. His would be rescuers peppered him in the fray pretty thoroughly. The truth of Floyd's involvement is debated to this day, but it is the FBI's official explanation for what happened that day.
But what if Clyde Barrow had reached Pretty Boy Floyd first? For Floyd, the priority was always escaping the heat - sometimes he needed to do a favour for someone, but the man knew how to hide. After the Kansas City Massacre, his whereabouts were effectively unknown until a chance encounter in West Virginia over a year later. Floyd was a fatalistic soul, much like Clyde, and may have taken up his offer seeing much of himself in the younger man. With that money, he could effectively bury himself in another life as he had attempted to do in the past. The formation of a short-lived gang also afforded him the opportunity to eject Richetti, whose drinking concerned him.
A successful bank robbery wouldn't only offer Pretty Boy Floyd the opportunity to leave his past behind and become a baker in Buffalo, New York. It also gave Bonnie and Clyde a taste of what was possible with a little organisation and planning. With more money than either of them would have ever seen before, they could spend months recuperating - and preparing. Clyde had no plans for a retirement into catering, and Bonnie was too much of a naive romantic not to follow him. Once they were ready, they would return to the road - and they already had the makeshift foundations of a gang. Taking into account the prison breaks that Clyde participated in subsequent to his attempted rendezvous with Floyd, that would certainly be built upon.
Where Clyde lacked the experience or sheer brains of the Barker Family and Alvin Karpis, or the disarming charm of John Dillinger - he had ruthlessness and bloody-minded stamina. Clyde would think nothing of driving hundreds of miles in one sitting if thats what he thought was necessary. He was an excellent driver, and a cold-blooded, remorseless killer. Clyde had an eye for powerful, fast cars and these vehicles were invariably weighted down with a veritable arsenal of weaponry - Clyde's speciality was the .30 calibre Browning Automatic Rifle, a far more effective weapon that a mere tommy gun.
Without Floyd's involvement, it is doubtful that the Kansas City Massacre would have happened - and the FBI, or rather the Bureau of Investigation, would remain a somewhat defanged agency for some time afterwards. This would give the Barrow Gang the time and oxygen it needed to grow and thrive. And where Dillinger and the Barkers tended to keep to a rather specific region of the Midwest, circulating between the gangland metropolises of Chicago, Illinois and St Paul's, Minnesota, the Barrow Gang would range as far as Clyde reached in our timeline - west to Colorado, north to Minnesota, and south to Louisiana - if not further. They had the potential to be the most notorious criminals of their age.
Their undoing would come, just as in our world, thanks to their attachment to their families. Clyde's nomadic lifestyle seemed chaotic on the surface, but his enormous circuits of the country always brought him back to Dallas, where he and Bonnie could meet up with the Barrows and Parkers and regale them with tales of their adventures. There is no reason to assume he would do any different if he formed a successful bank robbery outfit, in fact one can imagine him wanting to share his ill gotten gains with his poverty-stricken family. The cycles of travel and return were predictable once one took the time to study it - either the FBI or a hired gunslinger like Frank Hamer would catch up with him eventually. As with Dillinger and the Barkers, it seems likely that the denouement would occur in either 1934 or 1935.
It would be pretty hard to make a sympathetic 1960s movie about them though - there's a reason there isn't a movie about the Barkers.
But there was a moment, where Clyde Barrow almost shifted his criminal career onto a different path, one which may have transformed his standing and made him into one of the icons of the Public Enemy era within his lifetime.
In June 1933, two FBI agents, Frank Smith and Francis Joseph 'Joe' Lackey, and Oklahoma police chief Otto Reed ventured to the mob holiday town of Hot Springs, Arkansas to bring in Frank 'Jelly' Nash 'the most successful bank robber in American history'. The apprehension was successful and they drove to Fort Smith, Arkansas to catch a train to Kansas City, Missouri in order to hand him over to that city's FBI Special Agent in Charge, Reed Vetterli.
At the same time that Nash was being transported to Kansas City, a conspiracy to free him was afoot. Nash had friends in Hot Springs and they wasted no time trying to get ahead of the law. The man selected to lead the attempted liberation was Vernon C. Miller, a gun-for-hire, bootlegger, bankrobber and former sheriff. He hurriedly attempted to assemble a team. It just so happened that two other groups, all unknowing, were to arrive in Kansas City in the early hours. Charles Arthur 'Pretty Boy' Floyd, the Robin Hood of the Dust Bowl, and his alcoholic sidekick Adam Richetti were on the run and sought shelter with Miller who soon convinced them to join his escape plan.
That same night, Clyde Barrow also arrived in Kansas City. With a seriously injured Bonnie Parker. A week earlier, Barrow had accidentally driven their car into a ravine - an ensuing gasoline fire had consumed Bonnie's legs, leaving burns so severe bone was visible. A forgotten detail of Bonnie and Clyde's story is that they never truly travelled alone, throughout their short reign of terror, they travelled with an assorted cast of characters - it was a former travelling partner's father who ultimately did them in. This was early in the story however, and they were travelling with Buck (Clyde's brother), Blanche (Bonnie's sister) and W.D. Jones, a childhood friend of Clyde's. Once the five rendezvoused they travelled to Fort Smith, Arkansas where they set up at a tourist campsite and attempted to nurse Bonnie's wounds.
It was clear however, that the severity of her injuries meant she needed a comfortable safe and permanent place to stay. Which meant money. Clyde had heard about Pretty Boy Floyd's flight through the area and so travelled to Kansas City, hoping to convince the legendary yegg to take him on a bank job, which might get them the money they needed to properly care for Bonnie. In our world, Clyde was too late. Floyd took up Miller's offer, and joined in the attempted liberation of Frank Nash. What ensued was called the Kansas City Massacre - FBI Agent Raymond J. Caffrey, Kansas City police officers W.J. Grooms and Frank Hermanson, and the Oklahoma police chief Otto Reed died in a hail of Thompson machine gun fire. As did Frank Nash. His would be rescuers peppered him in the fray pretty thoroughly. The truth of Floyd's involvement is debated to this day, but it is the FBI's official explanation for what happened that day.
But what if Clyde Barrow had reached Pretty Boy Floyd first? For Floyd, the priority was always escaping the heat - sometimes he needed to do a favour for someone, but the man knew how to hide. After the Kansas City Massacre, his whereabouts were effectively unknown until a chance encounter in West Virginia over a year later. Floyd was a fatalistic soul, much like Clyde, and may have taken up his offer seeing much of himself in the younger man. With that money, he could effectively bury himself in another life as he had attempted to do in the past. The formation of a short-lived gang also afforded him the opportunity to eject Richetti, whose drinking concerned him.
A successful bank robbery wouldn't only offer Pretty Boy Floyd the opportunity to leave his past behind and become a baker in Buffalo, New York. It also gave Bonnie and Clyde a taste of what was possible with a little organisation and planning. With more money than either of them would have ever seen before, they could spend months recuperating - and preparing. Clyde had no plans for a retirement into catering, and Bonnie was too much of a naive romantic not to follow him. Once they were ready, they would return to the road - and they already had the makeshift foundations of a gang. Taking into account the prison breaks that Clyde participated in subsequent to his attempted rendezvous with Floyd, that would certainly be built upon.
Where Clyde lacked the experience or sheer brains of the Barker Family and Alvin Karpis, or the disarming charm of John Dillinger - he had ruthlessness and bloody-minded stamina. Clyde would think nothing of driving hundreds of miles in one sitting if thats what he thought was necessary. He was an excellent driver, and a cold-blooded, remorseless killer. Clyde had an eye for powerful, fast cars and these vehicles were invariably weighted down with a veritable arsenal of weaponry - Clyde's speciality was the .30 calibre Browning Automatic Rifle, a far more effective weapon that a mere tommy gun.
Without Floyd's involvement, it is doubtful that the Kansas City Massacre would have happened - and the FBI, or rather the Bureau of Investigation, would remain a somewhat defanged agency for some time afterwards. This would give the Barrow Gang the time and oxygen it needed to grow and thrive. And where Dillinger and the Barkers tended to keep to a rather specific region of the Midwest, circulating between the gangland metropolises of Chicago, Illinois and St Paul's, Minnesota, the Barrow Gang would range as far as Clyde reached in our timeline - west to Colorado, north to Minnesota, and south to Louisiana - if not further. They had the potential to be the most notorious criminals of their age.
Their undoing would come, just as in our world, thanks to their attachment to their families. Clyde's nomadic lifestyle seemed chaotic on the surface, but his enormous circuits of the country always brought him back to Dallas, where he and Bonnie could meet up with the Barrows and Parkers and regale them with tales of their adventures. There is no reason to assume he would do any different if he formed a successful bank robbery outfit, in fact one can imagine him wanting to share his ill gotten gains with his poverty-stricken family. The cycles of travel and return were predictable once one took the time to study it - either the FBI or a hired gunslinger like Frank Hamer would catch up with him eventually. As with Dillinger and the Barkers, it seems likely that the denouement would occur in either 1934 or 1935.
It would be pretty hard to make a sympathetic 1960s movie about them though - there's a reason there isn't a movie about the Barkers.