Forrest Gump by Winston Groom Read Free Book Online Page B

cares,” somebody say, “This ain’t the Sans Souci, y’know.”
    “Why don’t you make a stew?” Somebody else say. “It’s easier.”
    “What of?” I axed.
    “Look in the icebox an the pantry,” the feller say, “Just thow in everthin you see an boil it up.”
    “What if it don’t taste good?” I axed.
    “Who gives a shit. You ever eat anythin around here that did?”
    In this, he is correct.
    Well, I commenced to get everthin I could from the iceboxes an the pantry. They was cans of tomatos an beans an peaches an bacon an rice an bags of flour an sacks of potatoes an I don’t know what all else. I gathered it all together an say to one of the guys, “What I’m gonna cook it in?”
    “They is some pots in the closet,” he say, but when I looked in the closet, they is jus small pots, an certainly not large enough to cook a stew for two hundrit men in the company.
    “Why don’t you axe the lieutenant?” somebody say.
    “He’s out in the field on maneuvers,” come the reply.
    “I don’t know,” say one feller, “but when them guys get back here today, they gonna be damn hungry, so you better think of somethin.”
    “What about this?” I axed. They was an enormous iron thing bout six feet high an five feet aroun settin in the corner.
    “That? That’s the goddamn steam boiler. You can’t cook nothin in there.”
    “How come,” I say.
    “Well, I dunno. I jus wouldn do it if I was you.”
    “It’s hot. It’s got water in it.” I says.
    “Do what you want,” somebody say, “we got other shit to do.”
    An so I used the steam boiler. I opened all the cans an peeled all the potatoes an thowed in whatever meat I could find an onions an carrots an poured in ten or twenty bottles of catsup an mustard an all. After bout a hour, you could begin to smell the stew cookin.
    “How’s the dinner comin?” somebody axed after a wile.
    “I’ll go taste it,” I say.
    I unfastened the lid to the boiler an there it was, you could see all the shit bubblin an boilin up, an ever so often a onion or a potato woud come to the top an float aroun.
    “Let me taste it,” a feller axed. He took a tin cup an dip out some stew.
    “Say, this shit ain’t near done yet,” he says. “You better turn up the heat. Them fellers’ll be here any minute.”
    So I turned up the heat on the boiler an sure enough, the company begun comin in from the field. You coud hear them in the barracks takin showers an gettin dressed for the evenin meal, an it weren’t long afterward that they begun arrivin in the mess hall.
    But the stew still wadnt ready. I tasted it again an some things was still raw. Out in the mess hall they begun a kind of disgruntled mumblin that soon turned to chantin an so I turned the boiler up again.
    After a haf hour or so, they was beatin on the tables with they knives an forks like in a prison riot, an I knowed I had to do somethin fast, so I turned the boiler up high as it could go.
    I’m settin there watchin it, so nervous I didn’t know what to do, when all of a sudden the first sergeant come bustin thru the door.
    “What in hell is goin on here?” he axed. “Where is these men’s food?”
    “It is almost ready, Sergeant,” I say, an jus about then, the boiler commenced to rumble an shake. Steam begun to come out of the sides an one of the legs on the boiler tore loose from the floor.
    “What is that?” the sergeant axed. “Is you cookin somethin in that
boiler!
”
    “That is the supper,” I says, an the sergeant got this real amazed look on his face, an a secont later, he got a real frightened look, like you might get jus before an automobile wreck, an then the boiler blew up.
    I am not exactly sure what happened nex. I do remember that it blowed the roof off the mess hall an blowed all the winders out an the doors too.
    It blowed the dishwasher guy right thru a wall, an the guywhat was stackin plates jus took off up in the air, sort of like Rocket Man.
    Sergeant an me, we is