Winston Groom - Gump & Company

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.