Groom Winston. Gump & Company

   “Issat so! An what did the President say?”
   “He says he would rather watch Let’s Make a Deal.”
   “Private Gump! I remind you that you are under oath here!”
   “Well, actually, he was watchin Concentration, but he said it confuses him.”
   “Private Gump! You are evading my question—and you are under oath. Are you tryin to make the United States Senate look ridiculous? We can hold you in contempt!”
   “I reckon you already do,” I says.
   “Sombitch! You are covering up for all of them—the President, Colonel North, here, Poindexter, and I don’t know who-all else! We are gonna get to the bottom of this if it takes all year!”
   “Yessir.”
   “So, now, Gump, Colonel North has told us you conceived the whole nefarious plan to swap arms for hostages to the Ayatolja and then divert the money to the Contras in Central America. Isn’t that so?”
   “I don’t know nothin about any Contras—I thought the money was goin to some gorillas.”
   “Ah—an admission! So you did know about this horrible scheme!”
   “I understood the gorillas need the money, yessir. That’s what I was tole.”
   “Ha! I think you are lying, Private Gump. I suggest that it was you who devised the entire operation—and with the President’s complicity! Are you trying to play dumb?”
   “It ain’t exactly playin, sir.”
   “Mr. Chairman!” the lawyer says. “It is obvious that Private Gump, here, the ‘special assistant for covert operations to the President of the United States,’ is a fraud and a faker, and that he is deliberately tryin to make the United States Congress look like fools! He ought to be held in contempt!”
   The chairman, he sort of drawed hissef up an look down at me like I was a bug.
   “Yes, it does appear that way. Uh, Private Gump, do you understand the penalty for makin the United States Congress look like fools?”
   “No, sir.”
   “Well, we can thow your ass in jail—not to put too fine a point on it.”
   “Oh, yeah,” I says, tryin to imitate Colonel North’s tact an diplomacy strategy, “start thowin then.”
 
   So here I am again, thowed in jail. Headline in The Washington Post next day says:
 

Moron Detained in Contempt of Congress Case

 

 

   An Alabama man, who sources close to the Post identified as a “certified idiot,” has been charged with contempt of Congress in the Iran-Contra scandal, which this paper has covered from top to bottom.
   Forrest Gump, of no fixed address, was sentenced to an indefinite prison term yesterday after he began ridiculing members of the Select Senate Committee appointed to investigate charges that key members of the Reagan administration conspired to swindle the Ayatolja Koumani of Iran out of cash in an arms-for-hostages scam.
   Gump, who apparently has been involved in numerous shady activities involving the U.S. Government, including its space program, was described by sources as “a member of the lunatic fringe of American intelligence operations. He’s one of those guys who comes an goes in the night,” the source said.
   A senator on the committee, who asked not to be identified, told the Post that Gump “will rot in that jail until he repents for trying to make fools of the U.S. Congress. Only the U.S. Congress itselves, and not some shitheaver from Alabama, is permitted to do that,” said the senator, to quote his own words.

 
   Anyhow, they give me some clothes with black an white prison stripes on em, an stick me in a cell I got to share with a forger, a child molester, a dynamite bomber, an some nut called Hinckley who is always talkin about the actress Jodie Foster. The forger is the nicest one of the bunch.
   Anyhow, after reviewin my employment qualifications, they set me to work makin license plates, an life settled down to a dull routine. It was about Christmastime—Christmas Eve, to be exact, an it was snowin—when a guard come up to the cell an say I got a visitor.
   I ast him who it was, but he just says, “Listen, Gump, you is lucky to have any kind of visitor, considerin the crime you have committed. People that go around makin a fool of the U.S. Congress are lucky they don’t get thowed in ‘the hole’—so get your big ass out here.”
   I gone on down to the visitors room with him. Outside, a group of carolers from the Salvation Army is singin “Away in a Manger,” an I can hear a Santa Claus ringin his bell for donations. When I set down in front of the wire booth, I am absolutely floored to see settin across from me little Forrest.
   “Well, merry Christmas, I guess” is all he says.
   I don’t know what else to say, so I says, “Thanks.”
   We just set lookin at each other for a minute. Actually, little Forrest is mostly starin down at the counter, ashamed, I guess, to see his daddy in the pokey.
   “Well, how’d you come to get here?” I ast.
   “Grandma sent me. You was in all the papers and on TV, too. She said she thought it might cheer you up if I came.”
   “Yeah, well it does. I really appreciate it.”
   “It wadn’t my idea,” he said, a comment which I thought was unnecessary.
   “Look, I know I’ve screwed up, an right now I ain’t exactly somebody you can be proud of. But I been tryin.”
   “Tryin to do what?”
   “Tryin not to screw up.”
   He just kep starin at the counter, an after a minute or so, he says, “I went out to the zoo to see Wanda today.”
   “She okay?”
   “Took me two hours to find her. Seemed like she was cold. I tried to put my jacket in there for her, but some big ole zoo guard come up an start hollerin at me.”
   “He didn’t mess with you, did he?”
   “Nah, I tole him it was my pig, an he says somethin like, ‘Yeah, that’s what some other crackpot tole me, too,’ an then he just walked off.”
   “So how’s school?”
   “It’s okay, I guess. The other kids been givin me a hard time on account of you bein thowed in the slammer.”
   “Well, don’t let that bother you, now. It ain’t your fault.”
   “I don’t know about that… If I’d just kept remindin you to check those valves and gauges at the pig farm, maybe none of this would have happened.”
   “You can’t look back,” I says. “Whatever is, is what is meant to be, I reckon.” That was about the only face I had left to put on it.
   “What you doin for Christmas?”
   “Oh, they probably got a big ole party for us here,” I lied, “probably have a Santa Claus an presents an a big turkey an everthin. You know how prisons are, they like to see the inmates enjoyin themsefs. What you gonna do?”
   “Catch the bus back home, I guess. I reckon I seen all the sights. After I got back from the zoo, I walked by the White House an up to Capitol Hill an then down to the Lincoln Memorial.”
   “Yeah, how was that?”
   “It was kinda funny, you know. It had started snowin, an was all misty, an… an…”
   He begun shakin his head, an I could tell by his voice he was startin to choke up.
   “An what…”
   “I just miss my mama, that’s all…”
   “Your mama, was she… You didn’t see her, did you?”
   “Not exactly.”
   “But sort of?”
   “Yeah, sort of. Just for a minute. But it was only a dream. I know that! I ain’t stupid enough to really believe it.”
   “She say anythin to you?”
   “Yeah, she says I gotta look out for you. That you all I got, besides Grandma, an that you need my help now.”
   “She said that?”
   “Look, it was just a dream, like I said. Dreams ain’t real.”
   “You never know,” I says. “When’s your bus?”
   “About an hour. I guess I better be goin.”
   “Well, you have a good trip home, okay. I’m sorry you had to see me like this, but maybe it won’t be too long afore I get out.”
   “Yeah, they gonna turn you loose?”
   “Could be. There is a feller comes here for charity work with the inmates. A preacher. He says he is tryin to ‘rehabilitate’ us. He says he thinks he can get me out in a few months on a ‘federal work-release program’ or somethin. Says he’s got a big ole religious theme park down in Carolina an needs fellers like me to help him run it.”
   “Yeah, what’s his name?”
   “The Reverend Jim Bakker.”
 
   So that’s how I come to go to work for the Reverend Jim Bakker.
   He had a place in Carolina he had named Holy Land, an it was the biggest theme park I had ever heard of. The reverend had a wife called Tammy Faye, looked like a Kewpie doll with eyelashes long as a dragonfly’s wings an a lot of rouge on her cheeks. They was also a younger woman hangin aroun, name of Jessica Hahn, that Reverend Bakker described as his “secretary.”
   “Look, Gump,” Reverend Bakker says, “if that ignoramus Walt Disney can do it, so can I. This is the grandest scheme of the grand. We will attract Bible thumpers from all over the goddamn world! Fifty thousand a day—maybe more! Every scene in the Bible—every parable—will have its place here! And at twenty dollars a head, we’ll make billions!”
   In this, the Reverend Bakker was correct.
   He had more than fifty rides an attractions, an was plannin for more. People got to walk through some woods where they was a guy dressed up like Moses, an when they got close he stepped on a button that set off a gas valve that shot a fire twenty feet in the air—”Moses and the Burnin Bush”! An as soon as the gas fire bust out, the visitors all jump back an begun hollerin an ooohin an ahhhin, like to scared them to death!
   There was a stream, too, where a little baby Moses was floatin aroun in a plastic boat wrapped in a towel—”Moses in the Bulrushes”!
   Then there was “The Red Sea Parting,” where Reverend Bakker has figgered out a way for a whole lake to be sucked up on both sides on command, an the people get to walk across on the bottom, just like the Israelites—an furthermore, when they got to the other side, the reverend has a bunch of goons from the prison-release program dressed up like Pharaoh’s Army start chasin after em, but when the goons tried to get across the sea, the pumps thowed all the water back in the lake an Pharaoh’s Army got drownded.
   He had it all.
   They was “Jacob in His Coat of Many Colors” an the entire “Story of Job,” which was about as much sufferin as I have ever seen a man go through on a daily basis. After the first bunch had walked through “The Red Sea Parting,” a second group got to come to the lake to watch Jesus turn loafs of bread into fishes. The reverend, he had figgered out a way to save money by lettin the fishes eat the bread till they got fat enough, an then he served them up to the visitors at the fish-fry pavilion for fifteen dollars a plate!
   They have got “Daniel in the Lion’s Den” an “Jonah in the Belly of the Whale,” too. On Mondays, when Holy Land is closed, the reverend rents out the lion an his tamer to a local bar for fifty bucks a night, where they bet people that nobody can beat the lion in a rasslin match. The whale is a big ole mechanical whale, an it was all workin pretty good till the reverend discovered that Jonah was hidin a bunch of whisky behin the whale’s tonsils. Ever time the whale gobbled him up he’d run back an slug down a drink. End of the day come, Jonah is pretty drunk, an the finale arrived when Jonah commenced to give the crowd the finger just before the whale’s jaws clamped shut. Reverend had to put a stop to that, account of some of the mamas complained that their kids was givin the finger back.
   But the most spectacular ride of all was “Jesus Ascending into Heaven,” which was run on somethin the reverend called a skyhook. In fact, it was like one a them bungee-jumpin things in reverse, where the guy in the Jesus suit gets hooked up an then snatched about fifty feet in the air into a cloud of machine-made mist—an to tell the truth, it did look kinda realistic. The visitors could pay ten dollars apiece to get to do this themsefs.
   “Gump,” the reverend says, “I have got a brand-new attraction that I want you to be a part of. It is called ‘The Battle of David and Goliath’!”
   It didn’t take a whole lot of smarts for me to figger out what part I was sposed to play.
 
   I thought the deal playin in “David and Goliath” was gonna be easy, but of course it wadn’t.
   First off, they dressed me up in a big ole leopardskin tunic, an give me a shield an a spear an pasted a big black beard on me. What I am sposed to do is growl an roar an generally act like a asshole. An just when I am lookin my fiercest, the David character, he comes out wearin a set of diapers an starts thowin rocks at me with a slingshot.
   David is played by that nut Hinckley, who has got hissef into the program by claimin he is really crazy an don’t belong in jail anymore. When he is not throwin rocks at me with the slingshot, he spends all his times writin letters to Jodie Foster, who he describes as a “pen pal.”
   Problem is, they is real rocks he is thowin an ever so often one of em hits me—an let me say this: It hurts! We be doin our act five or six times a day, an by closin time, I probly been hit two dozen times by rocks. Hinckley, he seems to enjoy it, but after about a week or two, I done complained to Reverend Bakker that this don’t seem fair, me havin all these bruises an lumps an gettin two of my teeth chipped out by this little bastid, when I don’t never get to do anythin back to him.
   But the reverend says it is okay, account of in the Bible story, that was the way it was, an you can’t change the Bible. Damn if I wouldn’t, if I could, but of course I didn’t say so, account of the reverend, he say if I don’t like it, I can go on back to jail. I am sure missin little Forrest, an Jenny, too, an somehow, I feel that I am seriously forsaken.
   Anyhow, the time come when I had had enough. It was a big day at Holy Land, an the theme park was filled with visitors. When the crowd gets to my attraction, I begun roarin an lookin fierce an threatenin David with my spear. He begun thowin his rocks with the slingshot, an damn if one of them don’t hit me on the hand an I dropped my shield. I bent over to pick it up, an the little bastid done thowed another rock that hit me in the ass. This is totally uncalled for! A man can put up with just so much.
   Well, I lurched over to David, who is just standin there with a stupid smirk on his face, an I grapped him by the seat of his diapers an spun him around a few times, an then let go. He sailed all the way over the trees an landed right in the middle of the lake where Jesus was doin his loafs an fishes thing.
   David’s arrival must of set somethin off wrong with the main switchboard, cause all of a sudden the pumps begun operatin an the Red Sea begun to part. Without no warnin, the gas jet at the Burnin Bush went off, an Moses, who was standin too close to it, was set on fire. About this time, the mechanical whale took off right out of the lake an came up on shore, chompin an bitin like mad. Now the crowd begun to riot; women was hollerin an children was cryin an men was runnin for they lives. All this got the lion over at Daniel’s Den upset, an he busted loose an started to run amok. At that point, I appeared on the scene, which sort of added to the confusion. The guy what was playin Jesus ascendin into heaven was standin there drinkin a soda pop, waitin for his act to start, when all of a sudden the bungee cord snatched him up an flung him into the sky. He wadn’t strapped in or nothin, so it just let him go, an he landed in the middle of the fish-fry pavilion, right in a big pot of warm grease.
   Somebody had called the police, who showed up an immediately begun beatin people on the heads with nightsticks. Meantime, the lion had got loose in the bulrushes, where he surprised the Reverend Bakker an Jessica Hahn, who was havin some kind of relationship minus their clothes. They come tearin out right in the middle of things, with the lion in hot pursuit. When the police got an eyeful of this, first thing they do is arrest the reverend for “indecent exposure,” an cart him off to jail. Last thing he says before they tossed him in the paddy wagon is “Gump, you idiot, I’ll have your head for this!”

Chapter 8

   After that, it was all over for the Reverend Bakker. One thing led to another, an in the end he gone on to jail hissef—where he can now help rehabilitate the prisoners full-time, not to mention his own pious ass.
   Me, however, it looks like, will be returnin to jail also, but that was not to be.
   The national media had got wind that there was a riot at Holy Land, an somehow my picture got into the papers an on TV. I am actually waitin for the bus to take us back to prison, when a feller shows up with a document in his hand, says it is my “release.”
   He is dressed all nattily in a suit with suspenders an has big flashy teeth an spit-shined shoes, look kinda like a stockbroker. “Gump,” he says, “I am gonna be your ‘Angel of Mercy.’ “
   Ivan Bozosky is his name.
   Ivan Bozosky says he has been tryin to find me ever since the Capitol Hill hearins with Colonel North.
   “Have you seen the newspapers today, Gump?” Ivan Bozosky ast.
   “No, sir, I haven’t.”
   “Well, then,” he says, “perhaps you’d like to,” an hands me a copy of The Wall Street Journal. Headline reads:
 

Stooge Shuts Down Important Economic Theme Park

 

 

   A recent releasee from a Washington hospital for the criminally insane ran amok yesterday in a small Carolina town, ruining economic opportunities for thousands of hardworking American citizens by setting off a chain of events that caused the downfall of one of Carolina’s most revered citizens.
   According to sources, the culprit’s name is Forrest Gump, a man of low IQ who has been identified in similar disturbances in Atlanta, West Virginia, and elsewhere.
   Gump, who was serving time for expressing contempt for the U.S. Congress, was on a work-release project at a Bible-oriented enterprise under the tutelage of the Reverend Jim Bakker, a devout entrepreneur of our American way of life.
   In his role as the giant Goliath, Gump, who is said to be a large-figured man, apparently began to disport himself yesterday in a manner described by authorities as “inappropriate,” at one point hurling his fellow Bible character David over several stands of trees and into a lake inhabited by a mechanical whale, which, in the words of Holy Land authorities, “became distressed by the intrusion,” and began to seethe and set upon the guests and visitors.
   Somewhere in the confusion, Reverend Bakker and his secretary, one Jessica Hahn, became embroiled in the exhibit’s biblical bulrushes, which tore off their clothing, and they were swept up in a police dragnet, which the spokesman described as “unfortunate.”

 
   An shit like that. Anyway, ole Ivan Bozosky, he took back the newspaper an turns to me.
   “I like your style, Gump,” he says, “because way back before all this, you had every chance there was to rat on Colonel North an the President, but you didn’t. You covered it all up an took the blame yourself! Now, that’s what I call real corporate spirit! My outfit can use a man like you.”
   “What outfit is that?” I ast.
   “Well, we buy an sell shit—stuff on paper, actually. Bonds, stocks, bidnesses—whatever. We don’t buy an sell anything really, but when we get through talkin on the phones an shufflin all the papers, we wind up with a shit-pot of money in our pockets.”
   “How you do that?”
   “Easy,” Ivan Bozosky says. “Meanness, dirty tricks an stuff, peekin over people’s shoulders, goin behind their backs, pickin their pockets. It’s a jungle out there, Gump, an right now, I am the big tiger.”
   “So what you want me to do?”
   Ivan puts his hand on my shoulder. “Gump, I am starting a new division in my company in New York, called the Division of Insider Trading, an I want you to be its president.”
   “Me? Why?”
   “Because of your integrity. It took a lot of integrity to stand up there and lie to the Congress and take the rap for that fool North. Gump, you are just the kind of feller I’ve been looking for.”
   “What’s it pay?”
   “Sky’s the limit, Gump! Why, do you need money?”
   “Everbody needs money,” I says.
   “No, I mean real money! The kind with half-a-dozen zeros behind it.”
   “Well, I gotta earn somethin to keep little Forrest in school, an pay for his college someday, an stuff like that.”
   “Who’s little Forrest—your son?”
   “Well, sort of. I mean, I’m in charge of takin care of him.”
   “Good godamighty, Gump,” Ivan Bozosky says, “with what you’re gonna make, you can send him to Choate, Andover, St. Paul’s, and Episcopal High School all at once, and when you’re done, he’ll be so rich he can send his shirts off to Paris to be laundered.”
   So that’s how I begun my corporate career.
 
   I had never been to New York City, an let me tell you: It was a sight!
   I didn’t know there was so many people in the whole world. They was millin in the streets an sidewalks an up in the skyscrapers an in the stores. The racket they made was unreal—horns blowin, jackhammers jackin, sirens wailin, an I don’t know what-all else. I had the immediate impression that I was in a anthill, where all the ants was half crazy.
   Ivan, Bozosky first took me to his company’s offices. They was in a big ole skyscraper down near Wall Street. They was hundrits of people workin there at computers, all was wearing shirts an ties an suspenders, an most of em had little round horn-rimmed glasses, an their hair was slicked back. To a man, they was talkin on their telephones, an smokin cigars so much at first I thought the room was on fire.
   “This is the deal, Gump,” Ivan says. “What we do herein is, we make friends with the folks that run big companies, an when we learn they are gonna issue a big dividend or earnings statement, or sell their company, or start a new division—or do anything else that will make the price of their stock go up—why, we start buying their stock ourselves before the news officially gets in the papers an lets every sonofabitch on Wall Street have a fair chance to get in on the profits.”
   “How you make friends with them people?” I ast.
   “Simple. Just hang around the Harvard or Yale clubs or the Racquet Club or any number of places where these morons do their thing. Buy em a bunch of drinks, play dumb—take em to dinner, get em a girl, kiss their asses—whatever it takes. Sometimes we fly em out to Aspen to ski or to Palm Beach or something. But don’t you worry about that, Gump. Our fellers know how to run that scam—All I want you to do is be the president, and the only person you’ll report to is me—about, oh, say, once every six months or so.”
   “What I’m gonna report?”
   “We’ll figure that out when the time comes. Now, let me show you your office.”
   Ivan took me down a hall to a big ole corner office that has a mahogany desk an leather chairs an couches, an a Persian rug on the floor. All the windows look out over the city an the rivers, where there is all sorts of boats an steamships goin up an down, an in the distance I can see the Statue of Liberty, shinin in the evenin sun.
   “Well, Gump, what do you think?”
   “Nice view,” I says.
   “Nice view my ass!” says Ivan. “This shit cost two hundred dollars a square foot to lease! This is prime real estate, my man! Now, your private secretary will be Miss Hudgins. And she is knock-dead gorgeous. And what I want you to do is, just sit at this desk here and when she brings you in some papers to sign, sign your name on them. You don’t need to bother to read them—they’ll just be a bunch of bullshit and details anyway. I’ve always thought bidness executives shouldn’t know too much about what’s going on in their bidness—you know what I mean?”
   “Well, I dunno,” I says. “You know, I done got into a lot of trouble in my life doin stuff I didn’t know what it was.”
   “Now, don’t worry any about that, Gump. All this is on the big-time up and up. It is the chance of a lifetime for you—and your son.” Ivan puts his arm around my shoulder an flashes a big ole toothy grin at me. “Want to ask anything else?”
   “Yeah,” I says. “Where is the bathroom?”
   “Bathroom? Your bathroom? Why, it’s right here through this door. You wondering if you got a private bathroom? Is that it?”
   “Nope. I got to pee.”
   At this, Ivan jumps back a little. “Ah, well, that is a rather straightforward way of putting it, I must say. But you go right ahead, Mr. Gump—in the privacy of your own bathroom.”
   An so that’s what I did, but I was still wonderin if I was doin the right thing with this Ivan Bozosky. After all, seems I had heard some of his kind of shit before.
 
   Anyway, Ivan, he gone off an left me in my new office. Big brass nameplate on the desk says Forrest Gump, President. I had just set down in the leather chair an put my feet up when the door opens an in walks a beautiful young woman. I figger this to be Miss Hudgins.
   “Ah, Mr. Gump,” she says. “Welcome to the insider trading division of Bozosky Enterprises.”
   Miss Hudgins is certainly a looker—enough to make your teeth chatter. She is tall an brunette with blue eyes an a big toothy smile an skirt so short that I am afraid her underpants might show if she bends over.
   “Would you like some coffee or anything?” she ast.
   “No. Thank you, though,” I says.
   “Well, is there anything I can do for you? How about a CokeCola—or perhaps a whisky sour?”
   “Thanks, but I really don’t want nothin.”
   “Then perhaps you would like to see your new apartment.”
   “My what?”
   “Apartment. Mr. Bozosky has ordered you an apartment to live in, since you are president of the division.”
   “I thought I was gonna stay here on the couch,” I says. “I mean, since there is a bathroom an all.”
   “Heavens, no, Mr. Gump. Mr. Bozosky asked me to find you suitable living quarters over on Fifth Avenue. Something where you can entertain.”
   “Who I’m gonna entertain?”
   “Whoever,” Miss Hudgins says. “Will you be ready to go in, say, half an hour?”
   “I am ready to go right now,” I says. “How we gonna get there?”
   “Why, in your limousine, of course.”
 
   In no time, we is down on the street gettin into a big ole black limousine. It is so big I think it cannot turn a corner, but the driver, whose name is Eddie, is so good that he can even drive right past the taxicabs by goin up on the curb, an in a few minutes we is arriving at my new apartment after scatterin people all over Madison Avenue. Miss Hudgins says we are now “uptown.”
   The buildin is a big ole thing of white marble with a canopy an doormen dressed up like in one of them old-time movies. The sign out front say Helmsley Palace. As we is goin in the door, a woman wearin a fur coat come out walkin a poodle. She be eyein me pretty suspicious an lookin me up an down, account of I am still wearin my work clothes from Holy Land.
   When we get off at the eighteenth floor, Miss Hudgins opens the door with a key. It is like goin in a mansion or somethin. They is crystal chandeliers an big gold-leaf mirrors an paintins on the walls. I see fireplaces an fancy furniture an tables with pitcher books on em. There is a library all paneled in wood an beautiful carpets on the floors. In the corner is a bar.
   “You want to see your bedroom?” Miss Hudgins says.
   I was so speechless, all I could do was nod.
   We gone on in the bedroom, an let me say this: It was a sight. Big ole king-size bed with a covered top an fireplace an a TV set built into the wall. Miss Hudgins says it gets a hundrit channels. The bathroom is grander than that, marble floors an a glass shower with gold knobs an jets that spray in ever direction. There are even two toilets, although one is kinda funny lookin.
   “What is that?” I ast, pointin to it.
   “That, is a bidet,” she says.
   “What’s it for? It ain’t got no seat on it.”
   “Er, well, why don’t you just use the other one for now,” Miss Hudgins says. “We can talk about the bidet later.”
   Like the sign out front announces, this place is a palace, an “Sooner or later,” Miss Hudgins says, “I imagaine you’re gonna get to meet the nice lady who owns it. She’s a friend of Mr. Bozosky. Her name is Leona.”
 
   Anyway, Miss Hudgins says we got to go out an get me some new clothes that is “fittin for the president of one of Mr. Bozosky’s divisions.” We gone on over to a tailor shop called Mr. Squeegee’s, an is greeted at the door by Mr. Squeegee hissef. He is a little short fat guy with a Hitler-lookin mustache an a bald head.
   “Ah, Mr. Gump. I have been expecting you,” he says.
   Mr. Squeegee done showed me dozens of suits an jackets an pants an cloth patterns an materials—ties an even socks an underpants. Ever time I pick out somethin, Miss Hudgins says, “No, no—that won’t do,” an she picks out somethin else. Finally, Mr. Squeegee stands me in front of a mirror an begun to take my pants measurements.
   “My, my, what a fine specimen you are!” he says.
   “You got that right,” Miss Hudgins chimes in.
   “By the way, Mr. Gump, what side do you dress on?”
   “Side of what?” I ast.
   “Side, Mr. Gump. Do you dress to the left or the right?”
   “Huh?” I says. “I guess it don’t matter. I just put on my clothes, you know?”
   “Well, er, Mr. Gump…”
   “Just dress him for both sides,” Miss Hudgins say. “A man like Mr. Gump looks like he can swing any way he wants.”
   “Right,” says Mr. Squeegee.
 
   Next day, Eddie picked me up in the limousine an I gone on down to the office. I had just got there when Ivan Bozosky came in an says, “In a little while, let’s do lunch. I got somebody I want you to meet.”
   All the rest of the mornin I signed the papers Miss Hudgins brought in. I must of signed twenty or thirty, an even though I sort of glanced at what was in a few, I could not understand a word that was in them. After a hour or two, my stomach begun to growl, an I started thinkin about my mama’s srimp Creole. Good ole Mama.
   Pretty soon, Ivan come in an says it is time for lunch. A limo took us to a restaurant called The Four Seasons, an we is showed to a table where there is a tall skinny guy in a suit with a wolfish look on his face.
   “Ah, Mr. Gump,” Ivan Bozosky says, “I want you to meet a friend of mine.”
   The guy stands up an shook my hand.
   Mike Mulligan is his name.
 
   Mike Mulligan is apparently a stockbroker who Mr. Bozosky does some bidness with. Mike Mulligan deals in somethin he calls junk bonds, though what anybody would want with a bunch of junk is beyond me. Nevertheless, I get the impression that Mike Mulligan is some kind of big cheese.
   After Ivan an Mike had done some chitchat, they get down to bidness with me.
   “What will happen, Mr. Gump,” says Ivan Bozosky, “is that Mike, here, is going to give you a call from time to time. He will tell you the name of a company, an when he does, I want you to write it down. He will spell the name out very carefully, so you will not make any mistakes. When you have done that, give the name of the company to Miss Hudgins. She will know what to do with it.”
   “Yeah?” I ast. “An what is that for?”
   “The less you know, the better off you are, Gump,” says Ivan. “Mr. Mulligan and I occasionally do each other favors. We trade secrets between us, you know what I mean?” At this, he gives me a big ole wink. There is somethin about all this I don’t like, an I am about to say so, but then Ivan, he springs me the big news.
   “Now, Gump, what I’m thinking is, you need a proper salary. You gotta have enough to keep your son in school and put yourself in the catbird seat financially, and I am thinking about, oh, let’s say, two hundred and fifty thousand a year. How does that sound?”
   Well, I was sorta dumbstruck. I mean, I have made a bit of money in my day; but that’s a lot of bread for an idiot like me. An so I thought about all this for a few seconds, an then just nodded my head.
   “Okay,” says Ivan Bozosky. “It is a done deal, then.” An Mr. Mike Mulligan, he be grinnin like a Cheshire cat.
 
   Over the months, my executive duties went into full swing. I am signin papers like crazy—mergers, acquisitions, buy-outs, sell-outs, puts an calls. One day I come across Ivan Bozosky in the hallway, chucklin to hissef.
   “Well, Gump,” he says, “this is the kind of day I like. We done bought out five airlines. I changed the names of two of them, and shut the other three down flat. Them sombitchin passengers ain’t gonna know what the hell is happenin to em! They get their asses strapped into a city-block-long steel cylinder an shot up in the air at six hundred miles an hour, an when they come down, they ain’t even on the same airline as they was when they left!”
   “I reckon they will be surprised,” I says.
   “Not half as much as those turkeys that was flyin on the ones I shut down!” Ivan chuckles. “We sent out orders by radio for the pilots to land immediately, wherever the nearest field is, an let the bastids off, then and there. There’s gonna be assholes thinkin they’re headed for Paris, gonna be put off cold in Thule, Greenland. Or those who booked in for LA, they gonna wind up in Montana or Wisconsin or someplace!”
   “Ain’t they gonna be mad?” I ast.
   “Screw em,” says Ivan, wavin his hands. “That’s what it’s all about, Gump! Base capitalism! The old fuckeroo! We gotta consolidate, fire people, get folks scared, an then, when they ain’t lookin, get our hands in their pockets. That’s what the deal is, my boy!”
   An so it went, me signin papers an Ivan an Mike Mulligan buyin an sellin. Meantime, I was gettin my taste of the high life in New York City. I gone to Broadway plays an private clubs an charity benefits at Tavern on the Green. Seems like nobody don’t cook at home in New York, but go out to restaurants ever night an eat mysterious-lookin food that cost as much as a new suit of clothes. But I guess it don’t matter to me, account of I am makin so much money. Miss Hudgins, she is my “escort” at these affairs. She says Ivan Bozosky wants me to keep a “high profile,” an indeed this is so. Ever week I am mentioned in the newspaper gossip columns, an many times they run my picture, too. Miss Hudgins says there are three newspapers in New York—the “smart people’s paper,” the “dumb people’s paper,” an the “stupid people’s paper.” But, Miss Hudgins say, everbody who is anybody reads all three, account of they want to see if they are in there.
   One night we had got through with a big charity dance an Miss Hudgins was gonna drop me off at the Helmsley Palace before Eddie took her home. But this time, she say she’d like to come up to my suite “for a nightcap.” I am wonderin why, but it is not nice to say no to a lady, so we went on up.
   Soon as we get inside, Miss Hudgins turns on the hi-fi, goes over to the bar, an makes a drink. Straight scotch. Then she kicks off her shoes an plops down on the sofa in a reclinin pose.
   “Why don’t you kiss me,” she asts.
   I gone over an give her a peck on the cheek, but she graps me an hauls me down on top of her.
   “Here, Forrest, I want you to sniff this.” With one hand, she dumps a little white powder from a vial out on her thumbnail.
   “Why?” I ast.
   “Cause it’ll make you feel good. It’ll make you feel powerful.”
   “Why I need to feel that?”
   “Just do it,” she says. “Just this one time. If you don’t like it, you don’t have to do it again.”
   I didn’t much want to, but it seemed harmless enough, you know? Wadn’t but a little bit of white powder. An so I done it. Made me sneeze.
   “I’ve waited a long time for this, Forrest,” she says. “I want you.”
   “Ah, well,” I says, “I thought we had a sort of workin relationship, you know?”
   “Yeah, well, it’s time you get to working!” she pants, an begun to undo my tie an grap at me with her hands.
   Well, I didn’t know what I was sposed to do. I mean, I had always heard it was a mistake to git involved with persons you work with—”Do not foul your own nest” was what Lieutenant Dan used to say—but at this point, I am truly confused. Miss Hudgins was certainly a beautiful woman, an I had not been with a woman, beautiful or otherwise, in a long time… an after all, you are not sposed to say no to a lady… an so I done made all the excuses I could think of in the time allowed, an the next thing I knowed, Miss Hudgins an I was in bed.
 
   After it was over, she smoked a cigarette an thowed on her clothes an left, an I was there alone. She had lit the fire in the fireplace an the logs was flickerin low an orange, an I was not feelin good, like I reckon I was sposed to, but sort of lonely an scared, an wonderin where my life is headed up in New York City. An as I am lyin there, starin at the fire, lo an behole, there suddenly appeared Jenny’s face in the flames.
   “Well, bozo, I spose you’re proud of yourself,” she says.
   “Oh, no, I’m not, in fact, I’m sorry. I didn’t never want to get into bed with Miss Hudgins in the first place,” I tole her.
   “That’s not what I’m talkin about, Forrest,” Jenny says. “I didn’t expect you to never sleep with another woman. You’re a human. You got needs. That’s not it.”
   “Then what is it?”
   “Your life, you big moose. What are you doing here? When was the last time you spent any time with little Forrest?”
   “Well, I called him a few weeks ago. I sent him money…”
   “And you think that’s all there is to it, huh? Just send the money and make a few phone calls?”
   “No—but what I’m gonna do? Where I’m gonna get the money. Who else is gonna give me a job? Ivan’s payin me top dollar here.”
   “Yeah? For what? Do you have any idea what those papers are you’re signing every day?”
   “I ain’t sposed to, Jenny—that’s what Mr. Bozosky said.”
   “Uh huh. Well, I reckon you’re just gonna have to find out the hard way. And I spose you don’t have any idea what that crap was you just stuck up your nose, either.”
   “Not really.”
   “But you did it anyhow, just like you always do. You know, Forrest, I’ve always said you might not be the brightest feller in town, but you’re not as dumb as you act sometimes. I’ve known you all my life and the problem is, mostly, you just don’t think —You know what I mean?”
   “Well, I was kinda hopin you’d help me out there a little.”
   “I told you, it ain’t my turn to watch you all the time, Forrest. You gotta start lookin out for yourself—and while you’re at it, you might pay a little more attention to little Forrest. Mama’s gettin old, she can’t do it all. Boy like that, he needs a daddy in his life.”
   “Where?” I ast. “Here? You want me to move him up to this dump—I might be stupid, but I ain’t so dumb I don’t see that this ain’t no place to raise a boy—everbody either rich or poor, an no in between. These people, they ain’t got no values, Jenny. It’s all about money an shit, an gettin your ass in the newspaper columns.”
   “Yeah, an you’re right in the middle of it, aren’t you? What you’re describing is just one side of this town that you’re seeing. Maybe there’s another one. People are pretty much the same, everyplace.”
   “I am doing what I am tole,” I says.
   “What ever happened to doin the right thing?”
   To this, I had no answer, an all of a sudden, Jenny’s face begun to fade behind the fire.
   “Now, wait a minute,” I says. “We is just beginnin to get things straight—Don’t go now—It ain’t been but a couple of minutes…”
   “See you later, alligator,” she says, an then she is gone. I set up in the bed an tears come to my eyes. Ain’t nobody understands what is happenin with me—not even Jenny. I wanted to pull the sheets over my head an not get up at all, but after a while, I gone on an got dressed an went into the office. On my desk, Miss Hudgins had left a pile of papers for me to sign.
 
   Well, I know that Jenny is right about one thing. I got to spend some time with little Forrest, an so I arranged for him to come up to New York City for a few days’ vacation. He arrived on a Friday, an Eddie picked him up at the airport in my limousine, which I figgered would impress him. It didn’t.
   He come into my office wearin dungarees an a T-shirt, took a quick look around, an delivered his opinion.
   “I’d rather be back at the pig farm.”
   “How come?” I ast.
   “What’s so good about all this?” he says. “You gotta nice view. So what?”
   “It’s where I earn my livin,” I says.
   “Doin what?”
   “Signin papers.”
   “This what you gonna do the rest of your life?”
   “I dunno. I mean, it pays the bills.”
   He shook his head an gone over to the winder.
   “What’s that out there?” he ast. “That the Statue of Liberty?”
   “Yup,” I says. “That’s her.” I can’t get over how much he has growed up. He must be more than five feet tall an is certainly a handsome young man, with Jenny’s blond hair an blue eyes.
   “You wanna go see her?”
   “Who?”
   “The Statue of Liberty.”
   “I guess,” he says.
   “Well, good, cause I done arranged for us to take a tour of the town these next few days. We is gonna see all the sights.”
   So that’s what we did. We gone down Fifth Avenue to see the shops an out to the Statue of Liberty an the top of the Empire State Buildin, where little Forrest says he wants to thow somethin off to see how long it takes to land on the ground. I did not let him do that, though. We gone up to Grant’s Tomb an down to Broadway, where they was a man exposin himself, an in Central Park, but not for long, account of there was muggers present. We took the subway an come out near the Plaza Hotel, where we stopped in for a CokeCola. The bill come an it was twenty-five dollars.
   “That’s a bunch of shit,” says little Forrest.
   “I reckon I can afford it,” I says, but he just shook his head an walk on out to the car. I can see he ain’t havin such a good time, but what I’m gonna do about it? He don’t want to see no plays, an the FAO Schwarz store bores him. I took him to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, an for a while, he seems interested in somethin looks like King Tut’s tomb, but then he says it’s all just a bunch of ole stuff, an we are on the street again.
   I let him off at the apartment an gone back to the office. When Miss Hudgins brought me in another batch of papers to sign, I ast her what I oughta do.
   “Well, maybe he’d like to see some famous people, you know?”
   “Where I’m gonna find em?”
   “Only place in town,” she says, “Elaine’s restaurant.”
   “What is that?” I ast.
   “You gotta see it to believe it” was Miss Hudgins’ answer.
 
   So we went to Elaine’s restaurant.
   We go there at five o’clock sharp, account of that’s the time most people have they supper, but Elaine’s restaurant was deserted. It was not the sort of place I had expected; to say it is nothin fancy is a understatement. There was some waiters hangin around, an at the end of the bar was this big ole jolly-lookin lady doin paperwork. I figger her to be Elaine.