Gump & Co. by Winston Groom Read Free Book Online Page B

still taste like shit or whatever.
    So I gone into the pantry, where all the stuff is on the shelves. Truth is, I can’t remember exactly what I put in the CokeCola that might of improved it. But I went on anyhow an started mixin the shit up. All the time, four or five fellers be follerin me around, takin notes whenever I do somethin.
    First I took a pinch of cloves an a dab of cream of tartar. Next I put in some root beer extract an meat tenderizer an popcorn cheese seasoning an added some blackstrap molasses an crab boil. After that I done opened a can of chili con came an skimmed the little orange fat that floats around the top an put that in, too. An then I added a little bakin soda, for good measure.
    Finally, I stirred the whole thing up with my finger, just like I done at Mrs Hopewell’s, an I took a big ole swig of it. Everbody be holdin their breaths an watchin me with they eyes all bugged out. I swished the stuffaround in my mouth for a second, then said the only thing that come to mind, which was ‘
Ugggh!
’
    ‘What’s wrong?’ one of the fellers ast.
    ‘Can’t you see he don’t like it?’ says another.
    ‘Say, let me taste that,’ Alfred says.
    He takes a drink an spits it out on the floor. ‘Christ! This shit is worse than the stuff
we
made!’
    ‘Mr Hopewell,’ one of the fellers says, ‘you spit that out on the floor. Gump spit his in the sink. We’re losin control of the experiment.’
    ‘Yeah, well, all right,’ Alfred says, an he got down on the floor an wiped up the Coke with his handkerchief. ‘But that don’t seem too important to me,
where
he spit it. Main thing is, Gump, we gotta get back to work.’
    So that’s what we did. All that day an most of the night. I got so confused at one point I accidentally poured half a saltcellar in the CokeCola instead of garlic powder, which I thought might take some of the edge off the turpentine taste. When I drank it down, it made me half crazy for a while, like they say happens to people in lifeboats that drink seawater. Finally Alfred says, ‘Okay, I guess that’s enough for today. But we gotta get back at this bright an early tomorrow mornin. Right, Gump?’
    ‘I reckon so,’ I says, but I am figgerin we might be up against a hopeless cause.
    All that next day an the next weeks an the next months that gone by, I done tried to fix the CokeCola. Didn’t work. I put in cayenne pepper an Spanish saffron an vanilla extract. I used cumin an food colorin an allspice an even MSG. The fellers follerin me aroun had gone through about five hundrit notebooks by now, an everbody was gettin on everbody else’s nerves. Meantime, at night I would go back to the big ole hotel suite where we was all stayin, an sure enough, there would be Mrs Hopewell, loungin aroun in next tonothin. Couple of times she ast for a back rub an I give it to her, but when she ast for a front rub, that’s where I drawed the line.
    I am beginnin to believe this whole thing is a bunch of crap. They feed me an give me a place to stay, but I ain’t seen no money yet, an that’s why I am here, on account of I gotta take care of little Forrest. One night lyin in bed, I am wonderin what I’m gonna do, an start thinkin about Jenny an some of the good ole times, an all of a sudden, I see her face in front of me, just like I did at the cemetery that day.
    ‘Well, you big bozo,’ she says. ‘Can’t you figger this one out for yourself?’
    ‘What you mean?’ I ast.
    ‘You ain’t never gonna be able to make that stuff taste right. Whatever you did the first time was just a fluke or something.’
    ‘Well, what I’m gonna do, then?’ I says.
    ‘Quit! Leave! Go find yourself a real job, before you spend the rest of your life trying to do what’s impossible!’
    ‘Well, how?’ I ast. ‘I mean, these people are countin on me. They says I am their only hope to save the CokeCola Company from rack an ruin.’
    ‘Screw em, Forrest. They don’t care anything about you.