Stranger Than Fanfiction(60)
“You need to claim the driver’s seat,” Cash said. “Never take a backseat to your own life! You gotta take that bitch by the steering wheel with all your might—even if the road is bumpy, even if there’s blood under your fingernails, even if you lose passengers along the way. Only you can steer your life in the direction that’s best for you.”
“That’s a nice metaphor—but real life isn’t always that simple.”
“You want something real?” Cash asked. “Fine, I’ll give you something real. Your lesson starts right now—come on, Chinese fire drill!”
“I’m Japanese!”
“That means we’re switching places!”
Cash ran around the car, slid into the passenger seat, and pushed Mo in front of the steering wheel.
“Drive us back to the junkyard,” he instructed. “And if this car doesn’t prove it’s better to live life in the driver’s seat, then nothing will.”
“I don’t have my driver’s license,” she said.
“I don’t have my driver’s license,” Cash mocked her. “I don’t have a college fund! I don’t have a daddy who understands me! I don’t want to be inconvenienced in exchange for happiness! Do you know how many people would slap you in the face right now? Shut up and drive!”
Once again, Cash knew the exact button to push. Mo looked at the open highway in an entirely new light. She wrapped her fingers around the steering wheel and stepped on the gas, and the sports car roared down the road. It was fun to be a passenger in the Porsche, but it was a completely different experience behind the wheel. Cash controlled the stick shift, but knowing she was in complete control of the speed and the direction gave Mo a sensation she had never felt before: she was in charge—and it was addictive!
“This is awesome!” Mo said.
“I told you!” Cash said. “This is how your life should feel!”
“Fuck you, Stanford!” Mo yelled toward the open sky.
“Yeah, that’s it!” Cash said.
They raced down the road until it became another highway altogether. Mo turned back around and only slowed when she saw her friends and the junkyard in the distance.
“Wow!” she said. “This is exhilarating! No wonder everyone in Hollywood loves James Dean so much—I can only imagine the freedom a car like this gave him.”
Cash knew very well that the icon was actually killed in 1955 after crashing his Porsche 550 Spyder, but he didn’t have the heart to tell her.
“Dream as if you’ll live forever. Live as if you’ll die today. That was his motto.”
Chapter Sixteen
THE JAILHOUSE
“Over here, you’ll find the last photo Bundy and Claire Carmichael ever took,” the tour guide said. “The photograph was taken in 1933 at a secret location organized by the Chicago Daily Tribune. The pair had caused a media sensation during their time on the run and agreed to an interview if the Tribune paid them the costly fee of one hundred dollars. The newspaper was later criticized for aiding wanted criminals and their business suffered greatly until the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.”
The Bundy and Claire Jailhouse Museum in Old Town, Amarillo, Texas, was barely big enough for Cash and the Downers Grove gang to stand comfortably inside. However, at five o’clock on Wednesday afternoon, the small brick building was crammed with them, three large families, and their tour guide.
“Here, we have a wanted poster from 1929, where the reward for capturing the dangerous duo was set at a whopping three hundred dollars,” the tour guide said. “Beside it are some examples of how Bundy and Claire have impacted our pop culture. This barrette is one of many pieces they inspired for Marc Jacobs’s 2008 fall collection, Bad Marc. Here’s a photo from the set of the 1965 film Jailbirds, where Jack Nicholson and Ann-Margret famously portrayed the Carmichaels. Next to it is a picture of the 2001 television remake starring Frankie Muniz and Hilary Duff. As you may have noticed, the couple were not as attractive in real life as they’re often depicted.”
“That’s putting it nicely,” Joey whispered to Topher.
“Right?” he whispered back. “I thought they were bulldogs in people clothes.”
The tour guide squeezed through the center of the group to show the items on the other wall.
“Moving along,” she said. “This map shows all the locations of Bundy and Claire Carmichael’s crimes throughout the late 1920s and early 1930s. As you can see, it reads like a timeline. They were teenage lovebirds from southern Illinois who eloped in 1926 to avoid the arranged marriages planned by their families. Then in 1927, they met notorious gangster Baby Face Bucky and joined his band of Chicago mobsters. He introduced them to a world of crime, and they became the infamous criminals we know today.”
“Sounds familiar,” Mo whispered, and eyed Cash.
“Eventually the Carmichaels had a falling out with Baby Face Bucky—and by falling out I mean they shot him in the face. In 1929, they fled to Missouri and started their own gang. From 1929 to 1935, the couple committed twenty-seven robberies and thirty-six homicides across the southwestern United States. Law enforcement officials of eight different states joined forces to track down the pair. After a grueling six-month manhunt, they captured the Carmichaels in the desert just a few miles away and brought them back to this jailhouse. But the rambunctious couple’s story is not over yet. Right this way.”