Gump & Co. (13 page)

‘Don’t want to go up there to the Congress and tell the truth, do you?’

‘Nope.’

‘Well, you better, cause this is a serious bidness, sellin arms for hostages – At least those bozos think so.’

‘So I’m tole.’

‘So what you gonna do?’

‘I dunno.’

‘My advice is, I’d come clean with the whole thing. And don’t be coverin up for anybody. Okay?’

‘Yeah, I guess,’ I said, an then another big ole cloud of white mist come waftin in from the river, an Jenny, she just sort of vanished into it, an for a moment I wanted so bad to go runnin after her, maybe to catch her somehow, an bring her back – but even I am not so stupid as that. So I just turned aroun an started back for my crate. Anyhow, I am left on my own again. An as it turned out, it was the last time I did not take Jenny’s advice about tellin the truth.

‘Now, tell us, Private Gump, just when was it you first got the idea to swap arms for hostages?’

I be settin at a big ole table facin all the senators an lawyers an other muckity-mucks in the congressional hearin room, an the TV cameras be rollin an lights shinin in my face. A little young-lookin, blond-haired lawyer guy be astin the questions.

‘Who says I did?’ I ast.

‘I am asking the questions here, Private Gump. You just answer em.’

‘Well, I don’t know how I can answer that,’ I says. ‘I mean, you don’t even ast me
whether
I did – You just ast me
when
. . .?’

‘That’s right, Private Gump, when was it, then?’

I looked over at Colonel North, uniform all full of medals, an he be glarin at me an slowly noddin his head, like I am sposed to answer somethin.

‘Well, it was when I first met the President, I reckon.’

‘Yes, and did you not tell the President that you had conceived a scheme to swap arms for hostages?’

‘No, sir.’

‘What did you tell the President then?’

‘I tole him the last time I met a president, he wanted to watch
To Tell the Truth,
on the TV.’

‘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 himsef 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 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: M
ORON
D
ETAINED IN
C
ONTEMPT
O
F
C
ONGRESS
C
ASE
.

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 say, ‘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 singing ‘Away in a Manger,’ an I can hear a Santa Claus ringing 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 being 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 mist, 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 ‘Joseph 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 finalie 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.