"PUT YOUR HANDS UP! DON'T #$$#@%^ MOVE OR I'LL BLOW YOUR HEAD OFF..."

'OH NO!' Joe screamed in his head....'THEY'RE ROBBING THE PLACE!'

Joe was totally blown away. Here they were: in the center of town, bright lights everywhere, a packed truck stop across the highway, cars cruising along the main highway--which could be plainly seen from the lobby; yes, the lobby ... with great, big, plate glass windows which looked out on the highway... one looking back! AND THEY WERE ROBBING THE PLACE!

"Hey, Mike, grab the dough! NOW!!"

Harry had used his name! Though it was not his true name, it was his road name--one which could be traced! Joe wanted to run: but where to? He hurried to the counter and grabbed the huge wad of large bills. He could see the terror in the eyes of the clerk. He could see the death in the eyes of Harry. He wanted to be out of there and in his bed!

"Come out from behind the counter...easy now...slowly!"

The clerk moved in extra slow motion until he had cleared the desk and Harry, eyes darting back and forth between the clerk and a group of doors--looking like he was gonna find some where to shoot the guy--grabbed him and opened the first door he laid his hand on.

"YO!" Joe yelled. "Don't hurt the guy..."

Harry just gave Joe a look of "Shut your mouth!" and pushed the guy into what was a back office...and followed him in.

Joe almost ran out the door. He really wanted to just take the money and run to the truck stop, jump into a truck, and leave all of them to rot... but he could not forget the cabbies look of shock when he first saw the gun ... Joe dashed into the back thinking of ways to halt what he believed was going to be the ending of the clerks life, when, with a sudden halt of his progression, he was geeted to a sight of Harry tying the clerk up right next to a safe--which was open and had enough money to fill the large gym bag Harry had placed on the floor.

Deborah was ready when they jumped into the car. She dumped the pedal and they zoomed across the road ... and right into the truck stop!

Joe, seated in a back seat, with no doors or windows which opened, felt completely trapped. Deborah and Harry were acting like a pair of tourists out for a night ride... no cares... no worries--.not even the sirens looming in the night.

"Fill it up.." She said to the pump boy with a wrinkling of her nose in a soft and cuddly way. "How much we get?"

"Fifteen thou or so.."

"Oooh!!!!!!!!!! PARTY TIME!" She cried grabbing Harry by the crotch.

While all of this "celebration" was being conducted up front, in the back seat, Joe sat staring out the rear window while he applied a ton of Harry's Brillcream Hair tonic in an effort to change his look--like slicking his hair back was going to alter the facts!! "Hey, don't you guys think we should be getting the heck out of here?"

"Don't worry. Just sit there and we will be out of here... "

"Well I am just saying th..."

"Sonny..." Deborah called to the kid filling the car. "Get me a pack of Marlboros."

He took the twenty she had in her extended hand and, as he began to walk towards the restaurant, jammed the pedal down....AAAARRRRRRRUAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

With red and blue lights in the distant rear, gas shooting from a gas pump that failed to shut down when the hose was torn in two, and what looked like fifty thousand large ants swarming a mound, Deborah hit I-40 west at a hundred and ten..........

'This is it, if I get out of this mess I will light twenty candles..' Joe thought to himself as he desperately prayed no sudden arrival of massed cop cars and swarming helicopters, swooping down from a pitch black sky, would appear...

After driving almost--they stopped briefly off the highway for a burger--non-stop at ninety miles an hour, for more then twenty four hours, the Barbie and Clyde gang pulled off the road in Flagstaff, Arizona.

Deborah was ecstatic: An old member of their group was hiding out in Flagstaff; they were going to meet him at a hotel there--and she was already planning on what to spend the money on. Joe, on the other hand, just wanted out. He made the comment he wanted to go east... but they never acknowledged him. Deborah just pulled into a hotel restaurant, parked the car, and told Harry to rent a room.

When Harry came back, an ugly, scar faced man, looking deadly and mean, accompanied him to the car. Harry introduced him as "Monkey Face"and said he would "be riding with us". Monkey Face then grabbed Harry and pulled him to the side. After a brief conversation, where they kept looking over at Joe, Harry came over, threw the keyes for both the car and the room to Joe and said, "Listen, we're gonna get something to eat. We got some unfinished business to discuss, I want you to unload the stuff in the trunk and we will bring something back for you."

As they strolled off whispering to one another, Joe decided this was the time to leave--he just had this premonition he might not be around later. As soon as they entered the restaurant, Joe jumped into the drivers seat and drove around to the room number listed on the key. After emptying the trunk, he ransacked all of the baggage in search of cash. No luck. He decided to look in the trunk again. Behind the spare tire he discovered a large packet of papers and photographs. While rifling through them, he hit pay dirt! Two thousand dollars in small bills! 'Why would they rob a hotel when they had this money stashed?' He thought... well, he did not care, he was on his way home! He decided to find a bus depot and catch a bus promptly. After dumping everything into the room, he grabbed the package, went into the bushes, and then lit out of the parking lot.

It was not to difficult to find the bus depot. Once there, he carefully drove by to check it out. Then, he turned the car, and drove several blocks to hide it. Passing a probable location, Joe whipped the car in a U-turn and zoomed to a stop. As he was getting out of the car, a patrol car pulled up and two officers got out.

"What are you doing making U-turns like that." The driver said. Then noticing Joe's age, he said. "How old are you?"

Joe knew if they called in the car he would be dead. His mind began to race and then..."Oh! officer. Don't tell. Please don't tell. My uncle does not know I'm driving the car. He's with my aunt at the Holiday Inn. In the restaurant...I..I..I was supposed to be watching TV in the room...I just wanted to drive the car.. Oh, please I ..."

Joe sat in the back of the squad car laughing and carrying on with the two highway patrolmenlike he knew them for years. He was telling them stories as they drove to the Holiday Inn as they reprimanded him for "borrowing the car" and driving with out a license. Even as he cracked a laugh, flashed a smile, and generally acted like a happy go lucky kid, he dreaded the outcome when the officers met Harry and Deborah ... and the killer looking guy!

The squad car pulled up to the restaurant---right in front of the window in which the gang was sitting at. With radios chattering and Joe held between them, the officiers entered the restaurant and approached the booth. Joe's mind was clicking away as they approached the booth Barbie, Clyde, and Monkey face sat at: 'when they looked up and saw the cops dragging Joe in, would they begin shooting?' So, with much apprehension, Joe struggled with to come up with something...

Ten feet away, Harry looked up and his face went white.. .I mean snowy-dead person-bloodless-icy cold white. Joe could see him going through the motions of thought and then reaction. His foot kicked under the table and the dude and Deborah turned and did a double take... all there faces went ashen white. And, just as Joe was sure they were going for there guns, he began his show........

"Uncle Freddy, OH! Uncle Freddy...I didn't mean to...honest..I just took the car for a drive... Oh! Please...I am sorry....Uncle Freddy.."

"Yes sir. Seems your nephew decided to "borrow" your car while you folks were eating..." one of the officers stated.

Harry stood up and grabbed Joe. "You know your not supposed to drive unless your on the ranch! You are going to be punished. You hear me? Officer, where did you find my nephew?"

"He was near the bus depot. We usually watch the place. A lot of runaways stop here on their way to California. Listen, go easy on the kid. He was wrong, but you know how it is. Your car is several blocks east of the depot. I did not have it towed in ... but if I catch this kid driving again I will impound your car. You folks have a good vacation."

With that, they left ... Joe in the care of his "relatives".

"What the $#%$ were you doing at the bus depot! Running out on us? No body runs out on us ...SMACK!"

Joe's head was spinning from the beating. His nose was bleeding and one eye felt hot and sticky. He tried to explain that he was just going to take a bus home, but they had made up their minds--they had other plans.

"Listen, I just want to go! I don't want anything!"

"Oh! Your gonna go all right!" Deborah shouted. "Tie him up and lets go get the car..."

Harry, Deborah was really into acts of violence--she got off more to the endings then the beginnings...

Joe sat in the darkness thinking how he was tied up tighter then a frogs butt in a snake pit! "WOW! Pretty good thought", he said to himself with a chuckle.

The TV's picture had been blacked out with the volumn turned completely up. Some stupid picture about a Japanese monster running amuck in a city; Rhodan or something like that. Boy, talking about running amuck! He had not had time to evaluate the things he had done nor his direction. It seemed so long ago he had a family. Even the Georgia trip was lost in an avalanche of happenings. A jumble of messages crossed against the grain of his thought, spilling in vast tracks of blabber: 'Is this the way Father felt before his blood drenched the earthen ground? Boy, that cop was cool...no matter what the wiseguys said of cops; I bet he was a great father figure! Yes father figure... just what was a father figure...'

...for him.. for Joe... was it possible? Jeanette had hung up... or had he? ... or they both had---in mind at the very least! Yes mind... think. Think. Think! 'What will, are, can you do... imagine... to die... here... in a damn city miles above the earth--so much for cities so high and stuff!!! To die in NY sounded reasonable: But here? What the heck happened to that guy in the sky? Was he so angry he would forsake one of His children? Who was that Saint whom protected the traveler?'...

Racking his brain for the answer only increased the headache that came with the twenty blows he recieved with out showing any pain nor tears. 'Yes, tears. Just what one would expect from some damn kid. Yes, but--he was a wiseguy; a descendant of many past soldiers of the hand!' PAST?... DID HE THINK PAST? 'Whom were these jerks whom thought they could be the ones whom bowed his knees!' And then, for some unknown reason, a thought of a ride he had recieved when he first hiked through the desert after leaving the reservation crossed his mind. It was one of the strangest experiences of his life. At first, he thought it to be an experience left over from the Great Spirit of Nihanio...

...There he was, thirty miles from the reservation, sitting beside a road on a highway in the middle of a dry, hot desert.

Not a single sound of a creature wailed its message of existence. No cars or trucks zoomed by that lonely spot of earth without a speck of shade or cover from the sun's brutal punishment. He was alone, total and silent...

"Hey, God, I need a ride. Heck I've been here twelve hours!" No reply.

"Hey, God... You listening? It's me! You know...the guy that's always asking you for stuff and making promises I don't keep. If you help me now, I promise to stop in church... whenever I see one! I swear!" No ride, no answer...

"Hey God, listen, just get me something to drink and I'll..."

Suddenly, it seemed, from out of nowhere, pitch black billowing clouds formed high above his head and a thunderous roar---evoking sounds of two freight trains colliding at a hundred miles an hour--- pierced the still, quiet air. Startled, he looked up into the sky just as the rain came pouring down, crashing in torrents to quench his thirst...

Soon he was pleading again--this time for HIM to turn the doggone water off!

The rain stopped as quick as it had begun. "Wow!" He thought to himself, "A miracle!"

Now Harry, we've all asked for something in our lives. "Please God, can you...", must be the most asked question since the age of Moses! "; Oh God, I promise if you...", the second. Usually our prayers are answered--but not with such immediate speed! So he viewed this occurrence with a slice of skepticism.

"Hey, God, if you can make it storm in the desert, then please get me a ride... and something' to eat!" No ride appeared.

He sat by the road for another hour until he heard the distinct and obvious sounds of an automobile whizzing the road towards him. Jumping upon his feet in a split of a split second, he rushed into the middle of the highway--- frantically performing acts of an aspiring clown...

An old, beat-up-used-to-be green vehicle pulled off the road and a cheerful driver in overalls quipped, "Sonny, need a ride?"

I know you must be asking yourself Harry... 'Is this guy for real?' Well allow me to continue...

"Yes sir. I've been waiting for a ride for thirteen hours!" He said with relief as he opened a creaking, rusty door and sat on the torn and weathered front seat. Closing the door, he started conversing and soon established a rapport.

"...well let me tell you... a miracle it was! The rain just came all of a sudden like. Then, when I was soaked from head to toe, I asked God to turn the water off....and he did!" He said, exuberantly advising this stranger of the recent miracle.

"You do know it usually rains like that here in the desert this time of year. Yep. Could have been a normal occurrence, that rain storm... it was."

He felt like his bubble burst and the first true miracle--for him--was not what he thought it was, but a normal occurrence. He just sat in the seat watching as the automobile rapidly devoured the very pavement they depended on. He thought, 'if they ate the road at this pace, no one would have to sit in that darn desert again!'

They had gone fifty miles and were approaching a small town--well, really a village -- at the state border when they resumed their conversation. He asked him of his reason for traveling through the desert.

"Do you normally drive this way?" He asked in curiosity.

"Well, I'm pastor of a church that's about twenty miles back from the spot I picked you up," he said matter-of-fact, "and I got a call about an hour before I picked you up. Seems that Mrs. Somnerset needed the Lord's shepherd for an emergency---never know when ya gotta tend to the flock. Why don't you stop with me and, after I take care of the emergency, we'll grab somethin' to eat at Old Joe's place... you can get a ride from there?"

"That sounds great," he said, his stomach growling like a cage of hungry tigers.

They pulled into a driveway of an old, sun-weathered, wood frame house, exited the vehicle, and approached the front door.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

"Oh, Pastor Johnson! What brings you here at such a late time of day..."

"Didn't you call me?" A surprised Pastor Johnson inquired.

"No, I didn't. I'm surprised you're here!"

"Well, someone called to inform me I was needed immediately, to come this here way," he said, scratching his head.

"Well, I don't know, but since you're here, if you and that young fela are hungry for some hot vittles, then come on in..."

Joe smiled at the memory and was once more back to his reality... "what to do?"

Then, a light went off in his head... 'Why the documents and photographs! They must be important! Why were they hidden?'

Joe had hid them in the bushes because he did not want to leave them in the car in case it was towed in after he left--a lesson from his father about never ratting nor causing the arrest of anyone.. "even your enemy"--nor did he want to let them know he had found them by leaving them in the room. They were pictures of people bandaged up--including Mark--and of "Bonnie and Clyde" posing with weapons...just like the movie! He had quickly looked at them, but in his haste, he had not given them much thought! They had not recovered the money because it was hidden under the seat of the car. They had no idea he had found it nor the documents and photos...

Bang! Someone kicked him awake.

"Come on! Wake up! Your going for a ride!"

It was Monkey Face. He held a black hand gun in his hand and a killer look on his face. Joe rolled over and tried to rise but kept falling due to the fact his legs were bound. Monkey Face untied them and, as Harry looked through the curtains, he pushed Joe towards the door.

"Hey, Harry. You know those pictures?" Joe blurted...

"What pict... !"

Harry, his face suddenly red with rage, tore at Joe. Just as he was in striking distance, Joe blurted out... "And, ... the cops will have them in an hour.."

Harry stopped cold in his tracks. Monkey face, whom was set to deliver a blow to shut Joe up, looked stunned. And, Oh, yea ... Mrs. Barbie? She collapsed....

"We could beat it out of you! Where are they?"

"I could have gave them to the cops... I didn't. At least not yet. You do not know what I did with them. And, if you do find out by torture, how do you know they might not wind up in the cops hands anyway?"

Frozen, like they had viewed medusa herself and been turned into stone, the trio--including Mrs. Barbie--were at lose for words. Joe took the initiative: "Untie me. NOW!"

They moved as one in their haste to untie Joe's hands.

Two in the morning and icy cold...

Joe, with out a dime in his pocket, wearing a flimsy wind breaker--one designed for the heat of Miami--stood, once more, praying for a ride. The gang had agreed to allow Joe to leave if he returned their stuff, but Joe had to maneuver to get away. They finally agreed to let Joe go to the bus station with Monkey Face, where he would purchase a ticket for NY and Joe would inform Monkey Face where he had hidden the stuff. When they arrived at the depot, Joe looked around until he saw one of the officers he had driven to the restaurant with. That over-looked fact cost the trio there stuff... and there planned retribution.

"Officer Mack!" Joe shouted across the busy terminal.

The officer looked over with a funny look until he recognized Joe. "Hey, Mike. What are you doing here? What happened to your face?"

"Oh, I fell off a horse. You know us kids think we can do anything! I'm just pricing a ticket home. My pass from school is about to run out. My uncle will stay here but I have to return. This is"... Joe turned to introduce Monkey Face... but he was no where to be seen! He had lit out! ... "is a busy place!"

"Yea it is. Well, I have to make some rounds. You have a good trip. And watch those broncos!"

"Yes sir. Oh. Thank you again."

With that, he turned and shuffled away...so did Joe!

But Joe had two problems: One-he was broke. Two-it was late and he knew the gang would soon be looking for him. He knew he had to hide out at least for the night. As he walked along he passed a motel; most of the rooms were empty and the doors faced an empty parking lot on the side of the building. The office was in the front and it's lights were out. Joe decided to "borrow" one of the rooms until the morning. He slipped into the woods behind the lot, and with stealthy movement, advanced to the furthest room. After jimmying the lock, he entered, turned the wall heater on, undressed, and jumped into the most comfortable bed he had ever lay upon. Soon he was snoring...

Cartoon characters--weird faces--zooming in and out--like reflections coming from a group of carny horror house mirrors--haunting Joe's mind ... Joe, lying on the bed in his underwear, sweating with unbearable heat, slowly opens one eye to make sure it is a dream....

"AAAAAAAUUUUGH!" Joe Screams!

"AAAAAAAUUUUGH!" They Scream!

Six people, all looking down and yelling at one time, greets Joe's eye ball! In fact, they looked like his dream, complete with big, round, open mouths!

Joe leaps from the bed, grabs his cloths, and hits the door at ninety miles an hour.

Joe is running down I-40 in his BVD's, attempting to slip on his pants, while a half dozen Key Stone Cops chase him screaming:

"Whatareyoudoinginmyhotel!!!"

It seems the morning clean up woman noticed the heater running from the outside while making her rounds. When she checked her list, she realized the room was not rented. She went and got the manager.. the rest you know..

Freezing cold, he slips one leg in his pants and falls on his face.

The group is gaining...

He is up and running again...

Cars, zooming by, pointing fingers and shouting laughter as they roll their windows down to gawk...

Joe stops, throws his shoes down and tries to slip his pants on again...

Sensing imminent capture, the keystones pick up their pace...

Joe is once more is off...with his pants still off! He keeps a thumb out as he hops up and down in his losing attempt to get his pants on...

A car passes... it slows down....

A beautiful Thunder Bird with a black guy in uniform driving....

Is that a grin and a "Come on... Hop in"?

The group is ten yards away, Joe gets his pants half way up before hopping towards the car... which briefly stops...

"COME ON... HOP IN!"

Joe runs into the roadway and hops into the window of the car...

The soldier, laughing up a storm, drives off with Joe, pants half on, half in, half out of the car,....

Zoom..

FREEDOM

ONCE MORE!