Gump and Co. (Page 21)

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!