Winston Groom - Gump & Company

“Yeah? Well, we don’t mix with them people down here, Gump. You gonna hang aroun in this town, you better learn the rules.”

“Who makes the rules?” I says.

“We do.”

Well, that’s how it went. Smitty ain’t outright tole me to stop oysterin, but I got a feelin that trouble lay ahead. Anyhow, I gone on back home an tole Mrs. Curran an little Forrest that I done got a real job, an they seemed pleased. It might even be I can earn enough to keep Mrs. Curran from sellin her place an goin to the po house. It wadn’t much, but it was a start.

Anyhow, the oysterin bidness was, for now, my salvation. Ever mornin I’d ride the bus down to Bayou La Batre an tong up enough oysters to get us by another day, but what happens when the season is over or the beds is closed by pollution, I do not know. It is very worrisome.

Second day I was there, I gone to the dock where my skiff is, an it ain’t there. I look down in the water, an it is settin on the bottom. Took me a hour to pull it on shore, an when I did, I find somebody has knocked a hole in the bottom. Took me three hours to fix the hole, an I only got enough oysters to make twenty dollars that day. I am figgerin this is some kind of message from Smitty an his friends, but I got no proof for sure.

Another time, my oars is missin, an I got to buy new ones. Few days later, somebody done smashed up my bushel baskets, but I am tryin to take it in stride.

Meantime, I am havin some problems with little Forrest. Seems he is engagin hissef in some typical teenage activities, such as stayin in trouble all the time. First, he come home drunk one night. I noticed this, since he fell down twice tryin to get up the steps. I didn’t say nothin about it next mornin, though—the truth was, I wadn’t really sure of what my position with him was sposed to be. When I ast Mrs. Curran, she shakes her head an say she don’t know, either. She says he ain’t a bad boy, but he is very hard to discipline.

Next, I caught him smokin a cigarette in his bathroom. I set him down an tole him how bad it was. He listened, but was kinda sullen, an when I was finished, he don’t promise to stop, he just walked out of the room.

An then there was his gamblin. Account of his brilliance, he could beat just about anybody at cards an stuff, an proceeded to do so. This got him a stern note from the school principal sayin that little Forrest was fleecin all the other kids at school with his gamblin activities.

Finally, he didn’t come home one night. Mrs. Curran stayed up till midnight, but finally went to bed. I was up till dawn, when he finally tried to sneak in the bedroom winder. I decided the time had come to set him down an have a serious talk.

“Look,” I says, “this shit has got to stop. Now, I know young fellers like you gotta sow some wile oats ever so often, but you is carryin it to the extreme.”

“Yeah?” he says. “Like what?”

“Like sneakin in past midnight—an smokin cigarettes in your bathroom.”

“Whatsittoyou?” he says. “You been spyin on me, huh?”

“I ain’t spyin. I’m noticin.”

“Well, it ain’t nice to notice. Besides, it’s the same as spyin.”

“Listen,” I says, “that ain’t the point. I got some responsibility here. I’m sposed to look after you.”

“I can look after myself,” he says.

“Yeah, I can see that. Like you lookin after yoursef by hidin a six-pack of beer in your toilet tank, huh?”

“So you have been spyin on me, haven’t you?”

“I have not. The toilet started runnin, an when I went to look I saw one of your beer cans have fallen over an plugged up the flusher hole. How could I not notice that?”

“You could of kept it to yourself.”

“The hell I will! If you can’t behave yoursef, it is my duty to make you—an that’s what I’m gonna do.”

“You can’t even speak English right—or keep a decent job. What gives you the idea you got some authority over me? I mean, who are you to tell me what to do? Is it because you sent me those cheap presents from everyplace? A goddamn fake Alaska totem pole? An that ridiculous ooompa horn that I’d look like a fool playin? Or that great antique knife from Saudi Arabia—when it got here, the little pieces of glass you said were jewels had all fallen out, and besides, the thing’s so dull it can’t cut butter, let alone paper! I threw em all away! If you’ve got some authority over me and what I do in life, I’d like to know what it is!”

Well, that did it—an so I showed him. I snatched him up an thowed him across my knees an afore I raised my hand I said the only thing that come to my mind.

“This is gonna hurt me more than it’s gonna hurt you.”

An I give him a big ole spankin. I ain’t sure if what I just said was true, but ever time I swatted him, it was like I was swattin mysef. But I didn’t know what else to do. He was so smart I couldn’t reason with him, cause that ain’t my specialty. But somebody gotta exercise some control around here, an see if we can get back on track. Whole time, little Forrest ain’t sayin nothin, ain’t hollerin or cryin or anythin, an when I am through, he got up, face beet red, an gone to his room. He didn’t come out the whole day, an when he come to the supper table that night, he ain’t sayin much, cept things like “Pass the gravy, please.”

But also, over the next days an weeks, I noticed a marked improvement in his behavior. An I hope he noticed that I noticed that.

A lot of days when I am out oysterin or doin my other stuff, I am thinkin about Gretchen. But what I’m gonna do about it, anyway? I mean, after all, here I am livin barely hand to mouth, while she is gonna be a college graduate one day. A lot of times I thought about writin her, but can’t figger out what to say. It would probly just make it worse, is what I am thinkin. So’s I just kept the memories an went on about my bidness.

One time after he got home from school, little Forrest come into the kitchen, where I am tryin to clean up an wash my hands after a long day on the oyster beds. I have cut my finger on a oyster shell, an though it don’t hurt much, it bled pretty good, an that is the first thing he noticed.

“What happened?” he ast.

I tole him, an he says, “Want me to get you a Band-Aid?”

He gone in an got the Band-Aid, but before he put it on my finger he washed out the cut with some peroxide or somethin that stang like hell.

“You gotta be careful with oyster-shell cuts,” he say. “They can give you a pretty serious infection, ya know?”

“Yeah, how come?”

“Cause the best kind of place for oysters to grow is where there is the dirtiest nastiest kind of pollution there is. Din’t you know that?”

“Nope. How’d you find out?”

“Cause I studied up on it. If you could ask a oyster where it wanted to live, it’d probly say, in a cesspool.”

“How come you studin up on oysters?”

“Cause I’m figgerin I need to start pullin my weight around here,” he says. “I mean, you goin out there every day an tongin up oysters, an all I’m doin is goin to school.”

“Well, that’s what you sposed to do. You gotta learn somethin so’s you don’t wind up like me.”

“Yeah, well, I already learned enough. I mean, to tell you the truth, I don’t do nothin in school. I’m so far ahead of everybody in the class that the teachers just let me go sit in the library an read whatever books I want.”

“That so?”

“Yeah, that’s so. And I am figgerin that maybe I could just not go to school every day anymore, but maybe come down to Bayou La Batre sometimes an help you out with the oyster-tongin bidness.”

“Uh, well, I appreciate that, but uh...”

“That is, if you want me to. Maybe you don’t want me around.”