July 1, 2025 • 9 mins
Dive into the gripping narrative of Thieves Like Us, also known as Your Red Wagon. Set against the backdrop of the Great Depression, it tells the story of Bowie Bowers, a young prison escapee who, along with two accomplices, sets his sights on a daring bank heist. As plans unravel, Bowie finds himself entangled in a passionate love affair with Keechie, a relative of one of his partners in crime. This classic noir tale of doomed lovers on the run has been immortalized in film not once, but twice. Originally by Nicholas Ray in 1940s They Live By Night and later by Robert Altman in 1973s rendition of Thieves Like Us. Join us as we delve into this captivating tale. - Synopsis by Ben Tucker
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Chapter five of Thieves Like Us by Edward Anderson. The
sliprivox recording is in the public domain read by Ben Tucker.
Chapter five. They had a furnished house in Zelton now,
all right, but they were as broke as bombs and
McMaster's yesterday too. Tee Dub had almost had a rumble,
(00:21):
and then he came over here and almost had the
same thing. Happened while he was getting the coop gassed
up in McMasters a car of laws drove right up
alongside of him with guns sticking out all over. It
just turned out that the laws were looking for a
couple of fellows that had made a hole in the
jail in the next town. Then in this town he
draws up at a stop sign and right there, looking
straight in the face as a law he had known
(00:41):
since he was a kid. But that law must not
have recognized him. No, he didn't recognize you, Bowie said.
He was lying on the Creton covered iron cot at
the living room. You could have told it the way
he acted right there. It's not anything to fail good
about anyway, Teetub said, we gotta go to hole up
up in this joint, though, Bowie said seventy five dollars
(01:03):
was a lot of money for dump like this, Chickamaw said.
He sat slumped in a rocking chair by the empty fireplace.
His eyes were red veined from yesterday's drinking. Things are
always high in these oil towns, Bowie said. This is
a pretty good place when you take everything into consideration.
It was a five room corner house three blocks off
(01:23):
Main Street. On the corner back of them was a
machine shop grinding day and night. Across the street it
was a fenced in lot piled with drilling materials. On
the opposite corner was a church tabernacle, and across from
it a two story barn looking building that was a
lodging house for oil field workers. Moving cars kept sand
and dust sifting through the window screens all the time,
(01:44):
and there was nearly always somebody walking on the street.
Right now, the three of them were waiting on Mattie
Tee Dub's sister in law. She had gone up to
a Hamburger stand on the corner to get sandwiches and
a milk bottle full of hot coffee. She was using
her own money to feed them. I'm fed up on
running around in these overalls like a damn hoosier too.
Teeedt Up said, now, Bowie, you look more like an
(02:06):
oil filled gun than khaki pants. I feel more like
a hungry man than anything else, Bowie said, quit crying.
Teeto Chicken mom said, I can get us some eating
money from old Wendy over and McMasters. I'll give him
out of a note and it'll be good for fifty bucks.
Fifty dollars won't do us no good. Teet Up said,
it's gonna take a couple thousand. I'll be doggone if
(02:28):
I'm gonna change this bank here half cocked. We need
cars and a bunch of stuff, and it takes money
to make money, all right, Bowie said. You know that
little town we come through this morning, teet Up said,
more head one that's got the band stand in the
middle of the street. Yeah, Bowie said, there's a bank
(02:49):
there that I robbed when I was a kid. Saw
me off a bar and crawled through and got fourteen
dollars and pennies. I used to live in that little town,
Bowie grinned. What are you grinting about? Teet Up said,
you crawling through them bars and sucking up them pennies?
I was a cutter. Then I was getting me some
bicycle money. It was a day after Christmas. What were
(03:11):
you saying about? Morehead? Chicka math said, I got half
of mine to charge that bank there. I just got
a hunch that bank will go for four or five thousand,
and it might go for five hundred. Chicken Mall said,
I swore one time I never would fool them two
bit banks again. Beggars can't beat choosers. What do you
think about it? Bowie, anything suits me, whatever you all say,
(03:35):
don't get me wrong. T Dobe Chicka Mall said, if
you boys want to charge a filling station, I'm with you.
When you hear me talking about banks, and you're not
listening to me talk about my first one, Teet Up said,
The footsteps on the porch were lock of man's and
they listened. It was Maddie though. Teet Dub went to
the door and she came in. She was a big
woman with hips like sacks of oats. The lines in
(03:57):
her face were like the veins and dried corn blades.
She had a grease slotted sack in her hand. I
thought they never were goin to get these damn things cooked,
she said, what's matter. Mattie teet Up said nothing. She
put the sack on the fireplace shelf, her toes knotted
the leather of the loose black pumps. I'm gonna be
checking in to you, boy, though in jest a few minutes.
(04:19):
I got to get back to my job. I sure
hate to see you havin to work as hard as
you do. Mattie teet Up said, I sure don't know
what we would have done without you. Bowie nodded. This
is a cash on the barrelhead proposition to me. Mattie said,
I need some money. You're goin to get it, girl,
teet Up said. After Mattie left, they started eating the
(04:41):
hamburgers and teet Up told them about her. She worked
in a sandwich shop for a dollar a day. Showed
you what a woman would do when she liked a man.
His brother had been in two years, and she had
never missed a week without sending him money. One woman
in ten thousand. He was goin to see to it
that she got hold of a good piece of money
so she could buy a lawyer and spring that butt
of his. He was going to stick them to a
tourist camp, too, wasn't going to be any more need
(05:03):
of that brother, his having to be a thief. This
is not getting up Morehead business settled. Chickamau said, I'm
just waiting on you two. Teetub said, we can sack
them gentlemen up right tomorrow. Rab it that seven miles
through mc masters and then cool off at that Wildcat
when it gets dark, come right back through that town
right on over here, and tomorrow night, I don't think
(05:24):
we'll be setting here and quite as busted. Call your shop, Bowie,
Chickamaw said, I'm in. Bowie said, I'm ready. That's settled.
Teet Up said. Chickam said, some boys like to rob
a bank before it opened. Another is round ten thirty
in the morning, and two o'clock be any old time
suited him. Teet Up said that the bank and Morehead
(05:46):
didn't have more than three or four working in it,
and they wouldn't have to count on hendling more than
that same number of customers, if any at all. His
bank here in town, though, would be a man sized job.
Four men would be the best number to charge a
bank like it. One man holding the car down outside
and seeing to it that nobody came out, one holding
down the lobby and keeping everybody in, and the other
two working the vault in cages and seeing to it
(06:07):
that nobody kicked off any switches. Bowie was lying on
the cot again. I can rib myself up to do anything,
he thought. Tell him you split money four ways, though
you haven't got enough to go around. Chick Mas said,
three is plenty. I'm just telling you. Tee Dub said,
these won't be the first banks I ever charged. I
(06:28):
didn't mean anything, Chicken Math said, he doesn't mean nothing.
Bowie said. He sat up and looked at the hearth,
but the cigarette stubs on it were too short to snap.
The outside man has the hardest job. Tee Dub said.
Some of these dingbats think the guy in the car
has a snap, but he's a man that gets the
rumbles first. The inside is a snap. I never saw
a banker yet that wouldn't fork over as soon as
(06:49):
you throw down on him. You can always figure that
a man has got sense enough to work in a bank,
has sense enough to act like a little man when
you throw down on him. I've had high pressure a
few of them, Chicka Mau said, Only hoosiers kill. Tee
Dub said, I don't believe you have to kill him,
Bowie said, Them bankers will tell you to help yourself.
(07:10):
It's insured. It's them billionaires up in New York that
lose it and them capitalists. I hope that Morehead Bank
will go for a nice piece, said Bowie. We'll get
a cigarette money anyway. Chicka Mau said, no, sir, I
never robbed anybody in my life that couldn't afford to
lose it. Tee Dub said, you couldn't hire me to
(07:31):
rob a filling station or Hamburger joint. I don't believe
in that either, Bowie said. The boys in them filling
stations don't make but two or three dollars a day,
and if they're robbed, they gotta make it up. I
just assume beg as do that. I know one thing,
Chicka Mau said, I'm gonna be wearing me a fifteen
dollars stetson and a sixty dollars suit here pretty soon.
Or it might be a black suit with some silk
(07:52):
plush around me. But I'm sure not gonna be wearing
no overalls. Tee Dub went back to the kitchen and
returned with three broomstraws. Short man works the outside, he said.
Bowie drew the short straw. The other slept. Now Bowie
lay in the living room darkness, his elbow on the
window sill, his fingers scratching the screen. Five thousand gentlemen, an,
(08:14):
I'm backing off. The bed in the middle room creaked,
and Bowie listened. He smiled that Indian he thought. Voices
sounded in the yard outside, and Bowie sat up, his
hand extended toward the pump gun beside the cot. It
was two men with dinner pails cutting across the yard,
going back to the machine shop. Bowie lay back. Next
(08:34):
time I see that little soldier, he thought, I'll be
driving a brand new auto job and looking pretty good
in the gray suit and red polka dot tie and
a flannel shirt with pearl buttons. I'll say to her,
I'm lookin for that little girl. It gave me a
big lecture here a couple years ago. She would look
plenty surprised. You get a smile out of her, though,
(08:55):
who's that snorin? That old soldier gotta be doin a
little o that myself one, two, three, four, five six,
End of chapter five
Chapter five of Thieves Like Us by Edward Anderson. The
sliprivox recording is in the public domain read by Ben Tucker.
Chapter five. They had a furnished house in Zelton now,
all right, but they were as broke as bombs and
McMaster's yesterday too. Tee Dub had almost had a rumble,
(00:21):
and then he came over here and almost had the
same thing. Happened while he was getting the coop gassed
up in McMasters a car of laws drove right up
alongside of him with guns sticking out all over. It
just turned out that the laws were looking for a
couple of fellows that had made a hole in the
jail in the next town. Then in this town he
draws up at a stop sign and right there, looking
straight in the face as a law he had known
(00:41):
since he was a kid. But that law must not
have recognized him. No, he didn't recognize you, Bowie said.
He was lying on the Creton covered iron cot at
the living room. You could have told it the way
he acted right there. It's not anything to fail good
about anyway, Teetub said, we gotta go to hole up
up in this joint, though, Bowie said seventy five dollars
(01:03):
was a lot of money for dump like this, Chickamaw said.
He sat slumped in a rocking chair by the empty fireplace.
His eyes were red veined from yesterday's drinking. Things are
always high in these oil towns, Bowie said. This is
a pretty good place when you take everything into consideration.
It was a five room corner house three blocks off
(01:23):
Main Street. On the corner back of them was a
machine shop grinding day and night. Across the street it
was a fenced in lot piled with drilling materials. On
the opposite corner was a church tabernacle, and across from
it a two story barn looking building that was a
lodging house for oil field workers. Moving cars kept sand
and dust sifting through the window screens all the time,
(01:44):
and there was nearly always somebody walking on the street.
Right now, the three of them were waiting on Mattie
Tee Dub's sister in law. She had gone up to
a Hamburger stand on the corner to get sandwiches and
a milk bottle full of hot coffee. She was using
her own money to feed them. I'm fed up on
running around in these overalls like a damn hoosier too.
Teeedt Up said, now, Bowie, you look more like an
(02:06):
oil filled gun than khaki pants. I feel more like
a hungry man than anything else, Bowie said, quit crying.
Teeto Chicken mom said, I can get us some eating
money from old Wendy over and McMasters. I'll give him
out of a note and it'll be good for fifty bucks.
Fifty dollars won't do us no good. Teet Up said,
it's gonna take a couple thousand. I'll be doggone if
(02:28):
I'm gonna change this bank here half cocked. We need
cars and a bunch of stuff, and it takes money
to make money, all right, Bowie said. You know that
little town we come through this morning, teet Up said,
more head one that's got the band stand in the
middle of the street. Yeah, Bowie said, there's a bank
(02:49):
there that I robbed when I was a kid. Saw
me off a bar and crawled through and got fourteen
dollars and pennies. I used to live in that little town,
Bowie grinned. What are you grinting about? Teet Up said,
you crawling through them bars and sucking up them pennies?
I was a cutter. Then I was getting me some
bicycle money. It was a day after Christmas. What were
(03:11):
you saying about? Morehead? Chicka math said, I got half
of mine to charge that bank there. I just got
a hunch that bank will go for four or five thousand,
and it might go for five hundred. Chicken Mall said,
I swore one time I never would fool them two
bit banks again. Beggars can't beat choosers. What do you
think about it? Bowie, anything suits me, whatever you all say,
(03:35):
don't get me wrong. T Dobe Chicka Mall said, if
you boys want to charge a filling station, I'm with you.
When you hear me talking about banks, and you're not
listening to me talk about my first one, Teet Up said,
The footsteps on the porch were lock of man's and
they listened. It was Maddie though. Teet Dub went to
the door and she came in. She was a big
woman with hips like sacks of oats. The lines in
(03:57):
her face were like the veins and dried corn blades.
She had a grease slotted sack in her hand. I
thought they never were goin to get these damn things cooked,
she said, what's matter. Mattie teet Up said nothing. She
put the sack on the fireplace shelf, her toes knotted
the leather of the loose black pumps. I'm gonna be
checking in to you, boy, though in jest a few minutes.
(04:19):
I got to get back to my job. I sure
hate to see you havin to work as hard as
you do. Mattie teet Up said, I sure don't know
what we would have done without you. Bowie nodded. This
is a cash on the barrelhead proposition to me. Mattie said,
I need some money. You're goin to get it, girl,
teet Up said. After Mattie left, they started eating the
(04:41):
hamburgers and teet Up told them about her. She worked
in a sandwich shop for a dollar a day. Showed
you what a woman would do when she liked a man.
His brother had been in two years, and she had
never missed a week without sending him money. One woman
in ten thousand. He was goin to see to it
that she got hold of a good piece of money
so she could buy a lawyer and spring that butt
of his. He was going to stick them to a
tourist camp, too, wasn't going to be any more need
(05:03):
of that brother, his having to be a thief. This
is not getting up Morehead business settled. Chickamau said, I'm
just waiting on you two. Teetub said, we can sack
them gentlemen up right tomorrow. Rab it that seven miles
through mc masters and then cool off at that Wildcat
when it gets dark, come right back through that town
right on over here, and tomorrow night, I don't think
(05:24):
we'll be setting here and quite as busted. Call your shop, Bowie,
Chickamaw said, I'm in. Bowie said, I'm ready. That's settled.
Teet Up said. Chickam said, some boys like to rob
a bank before it opened. Another is round ten thirty
in the morning, and two o'clock be any old time
suited him. Teet Up said that the bank and Morehead
(05:46):
didn't have more than three or four working in it,
and they wouldn't have to count on hendling more than
that same number of customers, if any at all. His
bank here in town, though, would be a man sized job.
Four men would be the best number to charge a
bank like it. One man holding the car down outside
and seeing to it that nobody came out, one holding
down the lobby and keeping everybody in, and the other
two working the vault in cages and seeing to it
(06:07):
that nobody kicked off any switches. Bowie was lying on
the cot again. I can rib myself up to do anything,
he thought. Tell him you split money four ways, though
you haven't got enough to go around. Chick Mas said,
three is plenty. I'm just telling you. Tee Dub said,
these won't be the first banks I ever charged. I
(06:28):
didn't mean anything, Chicken Math said, he doesn't mean nothing.
Bowie said. He sat up and looked at the hearth,
but the cigarette stubs on it were too short to snap.
The outside man has the hardest job. Tee Dub said.
Some of these dingbats think the guy in the car
has a snap, but he's a man that gets the
rumbles first. The inside is a snap. I never saw
a banker yet that wouldn't fork over as soon as
(06:49):
you throw down on him. You can always figure that
a man has got sense enough to work in a bank,
has sense enough to act like a little man when
you throw down on him. I've had high pressure a
few of them, Chicka Mau said, Only hoosiers kill. Tee
Dub said, I don't believe you have to kill him,
Bowie said, Them bankers will tell you to help yourself.
(07:10):
It's insured. It's them billionaires up in New York that
lose it and them capitalists. I hope that Morehead Bank
will go for a nice piece, said Bowie. We'll get
a cigarette money anyway. Chicka Mau said, no, sir, I
never robbed anybody in my life that couldn't afford to
lose it. Tee Dub said, you couldn't hire me to
(07:31):
rob a filling station or Hamburger joint. I don't believe
in that either, Bowie said. The boys in them filling
stations don't make but two or three dollars a day,
and if they're robbed, they gotta make it up. I
just assume beg as do that. I know one thing,
Chicka Mau said, I'm gonna be wearing me a fifteen
dollars stetson and a sixty dollars suit here pretty soon.
Or it might be a black suit with some silk
(07:52):
plush around me. But I'm sure not gonna be wearing
no overalls. Tee Dub went back to the kitchen and
returned with three broomstraws. Short man works the outside, he said.
Bowie drew the short straw. The other slept. Now Bowie
lay in the living room darkness, his elbow on the
window sill, his fingers scratching the screen. Five thousand gentlemen, an,
(08:14):
I'm backing off. The bed in the middle room creaked,
and Bowie listened. He smiled that Indian he thought. Voices
sounded in the yard outside, and Bowie sat up, his
hand extended toward the pump gun beside the cot. It
was two men with dinner pails cutting across the yard,
going back to the machine shop. Bowie lay back. Next
(08:34):
time I see that little soldier, he thought, I'll be
driving a brand new auto job and looking pretty good
in the gray suit and red polka dot tie and
a flannel shirt with pearl buttons. I'll say to her,
I'm lookin for that little girl. It gave me a
big lecture here a couple years ago. She would look
plenty surprised. You get a smile out of her, though,
(08:55):
who's that snorin? That old soldier gotta be doin a
little o that myself one, two, three, four, five six,
End of chapter five
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