What's Eating Gilbert Grape

by Peter Hedges

  “Yes.”

  “I intend to take care of that today, sir.”

  “I knew you would. You’re a good employee, son. You’re the best I’ve ever had.”

  There was a time when I would have agreed with him.

  I’m heading out the door when he says, “Gilbert, keep hanging in there.”

  I stop and look at him.

  “Why do you think that you should keep hanging in there?”

  Nothing will come out of my mouth. I’m stumped.

  “Because…” Mr. Lamson pauses in that I’m-about-to-say-the-most-important-thing-ever way. “Because…”

  “Yes,” I say, trying to hurry him along.

  “Because there will be wonderful surprises.”

  Taking a moment to soak that in, I then smile as if to say “I hope so” and proceed to leave by the wrong door.

  I get in my truck and start it up.

  Inside the store, the Mrs. brings her husband a clean rag and he begins polishing the cash register. They must sense me watching because they look my way and wave in unison.

  I drive off.

  I feel sorry for them, believing in me the way they do. I’m not the stock boy I once was. Plus, there’s nothing worse than being told you’re good when you know you’re bad. For a moment, I even mourn for the eggs. Their sudden, tragic death at the hands of a deceptive employee. Life might be full of wonderful surprises as Mr. Lamson says. But more than that I believe Life is full of unfairness. I offer the fate of the eggs as proof of my point.

  4

  It isn’t even eleven in the morning and already the day is boiling hot, the seat in my truck is on fire, and I’m sweaty wet. How I wish I were a fish.

  I drive two blocks to that bastion of security and protection, Carver’s Insurance. Housed in an old gas station that’s been converted, Carver’s Insurance is one of the many buildings in Endora that have been remodeled or made over—only Lamson Grocery has remained the same.

  I pull into the gravel parking lot. Tears of sweat roll down the back of my legs as I climb out of my truck. I’m careful going inside because there’s a bell above the door that smacks in your ear. Clink, clank, dong, bang.

  Melanie, Mr. Carver’s secretary, looks up, startled, as if she can’t believe the sight of another human being. She puts the cap on her White-out and says, “Well, hello there, Gilbert Grape.”

  “Hi,” I say.

  Melanie wears her red hair in a beehive style that is completely out of date. She has a mole on her face that must weigh a pound and a half, but I guess she’s nice enough. She’s over forty but has always insisted that we call her by her first name. When I was in high school, she worked as the library monitor. She would let me sleep in the conference room. Once I saw her smoking, and something about her smoking disappointed me.

  “Are you here to see Mr. Carver?”

  He calls from the back, “Is that you, Gilbert? Melanie? Is that Gilbert Grape?”

  “Yes. Hello,” I say. “I think I’m late on my payment.”

  Melanie doesn’t even check my file. “You are late, Gilbert. Write us a check for a hundred twenty-three dollars and forty-three cents, and then you can scoot on out of here.” She closes the door to Mr. Carver’s office. “But you’re always late with your payments—why the sudden appearance of responsibility, why now?”

  “Oh, I’m trying, you know, to better my life.”

  Melanie smiles. Bettering your life, getting a fresh start, the bright side. Spout these concepts daily and you will survive in Endora; you might even thrive.

  “You don’t need an appointment, am I right? You just need to pay up.”

  “No. Uhm, also I’ve some confusion regarding my whatever you call what insurance does for you.”

  “I think you’re inquiring about your benefits.”

  “Yes, that’s it.”

  “So am I hearing that you actually do need an appointment?”

  I don’t know what Melanie is hearing. I can hardly talk to that hairstyle of hers. I wish I had a can of paint and a pair of hedge clippers. Fortunately I rarely speak what I think.

  “An appointment would be most opportune.”

  “Gilbert, what a fine vocabulary you have.”

  I want to explain that any flashes of intellect that spit through me are a tribute to the many study halls I spent sleeping in the library. “I only have you to thank for my vocabulary. I owe it all to you, Melanie.”

  “You charmer.”

  “No, I mean it.”

  “Well then, you exaggerate.”

  “No, I do not. All those study halls we shared. You were the finest study hall supervisor at the school. No question about it in my mind or in anyone else’s.”

  “How kind of you to say that.”

  “Is it kind if it’s the truth?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Rest assured, I love working for Mr. Carver—I would never say otherwise—and I believe in Insurance. But, between you and me, I miss working at the high school.”

  “And the high school misses you, I’m sure.”

  “The high school is closed, Gilbert. How could it miss me?”

  “It would if it could.”

  “I’m hard to anger, you know that, but I could bite off the heads of the people who made that decision to close our high school. Busing all those kids to Motley.”

  “Well, everyone’s moving away.”

  “I know, but still.”

  “There were thirty-nine in my freshman class and only twenty-three were left when we graduated.”

  “You don’t say. Well, we could talk all day, couldn’t we? We have so much in common, don’t you think?”

  I don’t know how to answer that without lying in the most blatant of ways. “So much in common, yes, come to think of it.”

  “I’ve always thought it a shame that we’re not the same age. You older or me younger. We’d have made a lovely couple, don’t you think? Really, it’s quite a shame.”

  “A pity.”

  “Yes, pity is a good word.”

  I left this conversation hours ago, but somehow my mouth is still moving, words are still forming, and none have seemed to offend. Amazing, the mind. My mind, I mean. Not hers.

  It’s suddenly down to business for Melanie. Her voice becomes sharp and biting. “So you’d like to make an appointment to see Mr. Carver?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Please.”

  “One moment.” She stands, moves to his door, and taps ever so lightly. She gently pushes it open. I hear classical music playing from inside his office. It takes a few minutes but soon she’s standing in the doorway, smiling as if she’s the most wonderful news. “How fortunate. You can see Mr. Carver right now if you’d like.”

  Mr. Carver calls out, “It would be a treat to see you! Step on back and let’s see what we can do.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Carver, but I’ll have to come back later. Errands and all.”

  Mr. Carver says, “Oh,” like he’s about to cry, Melanie smiles, smacks her lips and says, “I know how that is. I run errands day in, day out. Sometimes I think it’s all I do.”

  “Well…”

  She opens his appointment calendar, which, for this particular Wednesday, the first day of summer, is completely blank. “Well, you have picked a marvelous day. Mr. Carver lunches at noon sharp. He’s back at one sharp. At four o’clock, he and his wife are driving to Boone to make a surprise visit to their boys at church camp. So up until four, you have free rein.”

  “How does two sound?”

  “Perfect. A perfect time for an appointment. If it suits you, that is.”

  “Yeah, fine.”

  “We’ll see you at two o’clock sharp, then.”

  “Okay.”

  “Have a nice day. And hello to Amy, your family. Your mother. I haven’t seen your mother in years. How is she?”

  “Oh, you know…”

  “No, I don’t. It’s been some time since I’ve…”

  I say, “Big
things are happening for her, big things.” I’m backing up toward the door.

  Melanie puts a finger over her mouth, signaling me to be quiet. Then she waves me over to her and whispers, “You haven’t mentioned my new hairdo?”

  “That’s true.”

  “You like it, don’t you?”

  “Oh, it’s you.”

  “You think?”

  “It suits you perfectly.”

  Melanie stops for a moment. She shines—all four and a half feet of her. I don’t know how I did it, but somehow I made this woman’s day. “If I were any younger…”

  Oh God. Here we go again. Leap for the door, Gilbert. “Bye now!” I open the door slowly but still the bell jingles and clinks.

  5

  I drive off with the windows rolled down. My hair is getting blown all over, scratching my eyes. My hair is so long that it’s beginning to eat my head.

  I pass Endora’s Gorgeous, one of two beauty parlors in town, and suddenly the image of Melanie’s bright red cotton-candy hairdo returns to haunt me. The way it stands straight up, it’s like a new eraser on an old pencil. I try to picture her after a morning bath, her hair all wet and droopy. She looking in the mirror, trying to create the lie she tells herself to get up and get moving. I’ll never know how she keeps such a positive point of view. If I were her, I think I’d cry all day, all night.

  My truck’s gas gauge says it all. I drive over to the other side of town and pull up at Dave Allen’s station. Buying my gas from Dave is a pleasure because of his cord or tube or whatever you call the black thing that stretches across the station. It’s supposed to go bing-bing or bong-bong or ding-ding when tires go over it. The one at Dave’s stopped working several years ago, and he won’t have it fixed because he feels as I do—that none of us need to be reminded we exist.

  So I always drive there for my gas. No cord, no bing-bing, bong-bong, ding-ding. Bliss.

  I pump in a few bucks’ worth, buy an Orange Crush from the pop machine and a bag of Cheetos. I pay in exact change.

  Dave says, “The carnival.”

  “Yep?”

  “Real good for business, you know.”

  “Really?” I say.

  “Some of the rides run on gasoline.”

  “They buy it from you, I hope.”

  “Yeah.” Dave smiles. I’ve never seen him look so proud.

  Driving out of town, I pass Chip Miles driving a tractor on his daddy’s farm. I honk and Chip waves—all happy, I guess, that someone recognized him. Chip is a nice enough guy, strong in that I-throw-a-lot-of-hay way. He was a champion wrestler for the high school team in Motley. He graduated a few weeks back. The tragedy with Chip is that he never had a date the whole four years he went there. See, he’s got one of his front teeth capped in silver and that just discourages any girl in these parts. When he talks, he barely moves his top lip. But if you catch him off guard, like I just did, he will open his mouth wide, yell “Hey!” and you’ll get a glare from his tooth.

  I’ve got time to kill before my insurance appointment, and I’m going to relax. I speed up to seventy, seventy-five miles an hour and head for my favorite county road.

  The roads all around Endora are completely straight and flat and bland except for Highway 2, which I am presently on. This road curves, and there is a small bridge stretching across Skunk River, which is actually just a creek, but since it’s officially named a river everyone thinks that’s what it is.

  ***

  It’s eleven miles later and I’m at the county cemetery. I drive under the metal framelike gate thing. I turn off my truck and walk across the graves. I find my place and sit. I eat my Cheetos, drink my Orange Crush. I lie back and look at the sky. Every five minutes or so I hear a car or a semi drive past. I look at the clouds, which are not even clouds today—wisps of white, little streaks, strokes, that move, but not in any interesting way; even the clouds have their doubts.

  I eat two Cheetos for every sip of soda and soon both are gone. I roll over on my stomach and try to picture what my father looks like now. His skin is surely gone, and his heart and brain and eyes have turned to whatever it is they turn to. Dust, maybe. I’m told hair is one of the last parts of you to decay. The bones most certainly are still there, still rotting.

  There are two weeds to the left of his tombstone. I pull them out and throw them several feet onto somebody else.

  My heart beating confirms I’m alive. Sitting in this particular cemetery on this particular day makes me feel special. Like I stand out.

  I lie back and breathe myself to sleep.

  ***

  The sound of a truck driving into the cemetery wakes me. It’s two guys and a hydraulic shovel, and it appears they’ve come to dig a grave.

  The sun has moved far across the sky. My skin feels all warm. I did the dumbest thing—falling asleep with no sunscreen lotion and no shade. I have cooked my skin and by tonight, I’ll probably glow in the dark. I cross over to the grave diggers and say, “Hey, you know the time?”

  “Four o’clock or thereabouts.”

  “Thanks.”

  Already feeling the burn of my skin, I quickly seek distraction. “So is this how they dig graves? I thought you’d use shovels.”

  “No, man, shovels went out years ago.”

  Suddenly I’ve this sincere interest in their process. “You dig a lot of graves?”

  “Yeah. Me and my partner, we dig for all three cemeteries in this county.”

  “You wouldn’t happen to know who you’re digging this one for?”

  “Yeah, we know. It’s on the sheet.”

  The one who hasn’t said anything looks at the sheet.

  “I’m wondering,” I say, “because a friend of mine died yesterday.”

  “Sorry about that, man.”

  “Well, that’s the way it goes some days.”

  “Yeah, some days you die.”

  “Exactly,” I say.

  “Braider is her name.”

  “Brainer, that’s her.”

  “This is your friend we’re digging for?”

  “Yeah.”

  I try to look sad and forlorn.

  “You don’t seem all that upset about it.”

  “No, I do my grieving, you know, in private.”

  “Sure, that’s cool.”

  They’ve dug about three feet when I say, “You can’t make that hole deep enough.”

  “Huh?”

  “Oh, nothing. See ya.”

  As I walk away, the guy who has been silent mutters something to the other guy.

  “Hey, buddy, hey you!”

  “Yeah?”

  “Uhm. My partner here wants to know something.”

  “Okay, shoot.” I’m now about ten graves away from them.

  “He’s wondering if you’re one of the Grapes! We’re from Motley, you know. And for a long time we’ve been hearing about this family….”

  It takes two tries to get my door shut. And with my truck kicking up a cloud of dust, I leave them wondering. I drive home. Of course I’m a Grape, I want to shout. I’m Gilbert Grape.

  6

  Driving fast back to town, I see Endora’s water tower, silver with black lettering, looking like an old whistle or a cheap rocket. If it were a rocket I’d get in and blast off.

  I speed past Chip Miles again. He waves, but this time I don’t honk.

  A quick check in my rearview mirror and it is confirmed. My skin is already a hot pink. It will be bright red by bedtime.

  There is something in the middle of the road a few houses up from ours. Slowing down I hit the horn a few times. But “it” doesn’t move.

  I come to a stop, put my truck in park and walk up to it. I whisper, “Moooooovvvvveeee.” I make the I’m-about-to-spit sound. This something doesn’t flinch. So I scream, “OH MY GOD! ARNIE IS DEAD!”

  He smiles as if he likes the idea.

  “I saw that,” I say.

  “Saw what?”

  “That smile.”
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  “But I’m dead, Gilbert. Jeez.”

  “You are not.”

  “Yes, I am!”

  I start wailing and crying and moaning. I pound my chest. Of course it’s all done in that pretend sort of way because Arnie is still very much alive. To a neighbor watching, my performance must be completely unbelievable. I don’t cry. I just never do. And no one expects me to. I want to scream. At least something is going on here! At least we have some brotherly action here! If you’d open your eyes and look out your window, you’d see some Life happening! But I keep the screaming inside me, lift Arnie up with one arm under his shoulders and the other under his knees. His head drops back; he’s dead again. I lay him in the bed of my pickup and pull into the driveway.

  Arnie jumps out and runs into the house, letting the screen door slam. It’s a miracle that he’s lived this long. He’ll be turning eighteen on July 16, a little less than one month from today. Who would have thought? The party to end all parties is being planned. For the members of my family, especially my mother, Arnie’s eighteenth birthday will be the biggest day ever. More treasured than Thanksgiving, with more presents than Christmas, Arnie’s birthday will also unfortunately bring the return of the other Grapes.

  My mother is a woman of few words. The words used are choice, and you can break her conversation categories into three sections.

  The first and most frequent is: “Where’s my food?” Or: “What’s for dinner?” Or: “I don’t smell anything cooking, do you?” Food.

  The second goes something like this: “Get me my cigarettes.” “Who took my cigarettes?” “Matches! Matches, anybody!” Smoking.

  The third category is always repeated in the same word order. She speaks it at least once a day. This is Momma at her most poignant. Her words are these: “I don’t ask for much. Just let me see my boy turn eighteen. That’s not too much to ask, is it?” At my father’s funeral I saw Momma write something down on a paper napkin. I’m not sure but I think it was those words.

  ***

  I open the door and go in the house. I see Arnie under Momma’s table, his arms wrapped around her feet. She’s saying, “…turn eighteen. That’s not too much to ask, is it?”

  “Hi, Momma,” I say.

  She lights a cigarette. Her blue lips take a long drag. She smiles, not because of me but rather because of the boy at her feet and the cigarette in her mouth. “Gilbert, you hungry?”