What's Eating Gilbert Grape

by Peter Hedges

Becky touches my shoulder. I jump. She says, “What is it?”

  “I’m just seeing if anybody’s here. You know, to throw away my cup. Let’s go.” I leave my cup on the hood of Mr. Carver’s car.

  ***

  The next several minutes, Becky is talking about her house back in Ann Arbor, her friends, her parents and how they’re professors at the university. I don’t hear much of it, though, because my thoughts are totally on what I just witnessed.

  “What was going on in there?” she asks. “Tell me the truth.”

  So I do. I describe what I saw. She asks if I’m all right. I just say I’m fine and that I’d really like to keep on walking.

  Becky says, “Okay,” like it’s no problem. For her, true feelings never seem to be a problem.

  As we walk on, the haunting image of Mr. Carver, Melanie, and her wig clogs my thoughts.

  “Is something the matter, Gilbert?”

  “Oh, nothing.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s just that Mr. Carver has a wife. I feel bad for her, that’s all.”

  “That’s sweet of you to care so much for another person’s feelings.”

  Funny—I don’t feel sweet.

  We walk up and down practically every street in Endora. At the self-serve V-shaped car wash, I put in three quarters and Becky stands there while I spray her with water. Her T-shirt gets wet and sticks to her chest. I dig my fingers into the backs of my legs to keep from ripping off her shirt. She sprays me with water, too, and we end up cleaner than any car.

  After the washing, we sit on the wet pavement to dry out in the sun. She asks about my previous girlfriends and I say that there has been only one and that it’s long in the past and that I don’t want to talk about it.

  “Sounds like you regret it.”

  “Yep.”

  Becky says, “I never want to regret. ‘Regret’ is the ugliest word.”

  To me, the ugliest words are “family,” “Endora,” “Jesus Christ.” So I say, “I don’t have a problem with ‘regret.’”

  Becky stretches out, her eyes closed. I sit Indian style, looking down at her smooth skin, her angel face. She breathes in and out slowly. Her eyes are closed while mine remain open and stay fixed on her.

  ***

  The cement under us is no longer wet. We’ve been baking in the sun for over an hour and Becky hasn’t said a word.

  She stands up suddenly, stretches her arms above her head. She feels that her shirt is almost dry. I cup my hands in front of me in an effort to hide my erection.

  “I want to walk.”

  “Okay,” I say, sitting there a moment, hoping my bulge will go away.

  “Your nose is turning pink, Gilbert Grape.”

  “Oh well.”

  Tucker drives past in his truck. He sees us first. I wave—he doesn’t even honk.

  ***

  We’re walking in silence when suddenly Becky sprints ahead. I notice how smooth she runs, how it’s as if she’s floating. She skips a bit, picks a dandelion and puts it behind her ear. I keep her in sight—walking at a steady pace—refusing to speed up, unable to slow down.

  29

  “That’s my old school!” I call out.

  Becky is walking toward the old building with its red brick and green tin roof. I have to run to catch up. “Pretty ugly building, huh?”

  “I like it.”

  “You didn’t have to go there for thirteen years.”

  Becky moves toward a window and looks through the dusty glass. Many of the windows are broken, and for the most part, the school has been boarded up since it closed seven years ago, the summer I graduated.

  “They’re burning it down tomorrow,” I say.

  “I heard.”

  “Practice for the Volunteer Fire Department. Can you imagine?”

  “It’s the most interesting building in this whole town. So it gets burned down. Some justice.” This is the first time Becky has sounded anything like angry.

  “Well, we live in a time of Burger Barns.”

  “Very true, Gilbert. How old is this building?”

  “Nineteen hundred something.”

  She moves to another window.

  “My sister says they’re anticipating quite a crowd.”

  “Crowd?”

  “Yes, hundreds of people are expected. The Methodist Church is selling popcorn. Mayor Gaps is going to start the fire.”

  “How morbid.”

  “Welcome to Endora.”

  I go on to explain that I’d rather pick up my sister in Des Moines tomorrow than be around Endora to smell the burning and listen to the cheering masses. “They’re making a celebration out of it.”

  Becky looks in a second window, a third.

  “That was the fifth-grade room,” I say.

  She lifts up a window and tries to climb in.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Good-byes are important. You’ve got to learn to say good-bye.”

  “To a building?”

  ***

  It’s the middle of the day and Becky has disappeared into my old school, the day before its death. I have no choice but to follow. “I haven’t been in here in years,” I say, pulling myself through the now open window. I scratch my stomach on the bricks. Inside, I lift my T-shirt and show her my scrape in hopes that she’ll kiss it to make it feel better.

  “Ouch,” she says.

  “Yes,” I say, trying to look as if I were in pain.

  She turns away from me, no kiss. She crosses to the wall and says, “So this was fifth grade?”

  “Yep.”

  She runs her nails lightly down the dusty blackboard. My hands are on my ears and I shout, “Don’t!” I see her laugh. “Not funny,” I say.

  She walks out into the hall, which is dark and hot. She opens the doors to other rooms—she looks in where the old library was, where Melanie and her red hair would stamp everyone’s books.

  “So this was it?”

  “Yep, you’re seeing where my entire education took place.”

  She looks at me. “Are you saying that you’ve stopped learning?”

  “Something like that.” I laugh. Becky doesn’t.

  ***

  I show her where my locker was for grades seven through twelve. “Lance Dodge was six lockers down,” I say. Becky doesn’t seem too impressed. “Lance often would call out to me. He’d say ‘Hey, Grape. How’d you do on the quiz? How’d you do on the Iowa Basic skills test? How’d you…?’” I look to Becky, but she’s writing on an empty, dusty trophy case.

  “What are you writing?”

  She steps away from the trophy case and I walk to it. Written in the dust are these words:

  HELPING GILBERT SAY GOOD-BYE

  We walk toward where the gymnasium/stage/cafeteria used to be. This part of the building is higher than the other part and the light pours through windows that have been broken. Several golf balls lie on the tile floor—they were the glass breakers, I decide. The basketball hoops have been removed, the championship banners and fold-up tables, too.

  “One time, Lance Dodge stood up on the stage area….”

  “Gilbert, I don’t care about Lance Dodge.”

  “Yeah, but it’s a good story.”

  “I don’t care about him. He’s nothing to me.”

  Becky hands me a piece of chalk she must have found in one of the rooms. “I want you to do something.” Her voice is suddenly sexy, suddenly very much the sound I’ve been waiting for. “Will you do it?”

  “Sure,” I whisper, thinking maybe this is our moment.

  She tells me to go into each room and write “Good-bye” on the chalk board. Write “Thank you” or “Miss you” or whatever. I start to object but she says, “You’ll be glad you did.”

  I climb the back stairs and start with my twelfth-grade room where Mr. Reichen taught. He was a toad. I look around the room, the green paint has peeled and even the light fixtures have been removed. I write, “So long, Senio
rs. Gilbert was the last one out.” In the junior room, I draw a picture of Tucker farting, which he was always known to do. I write, “Gilbert was here.” The sophomore room gets an elaborate “G” which I fill in, the freshman room gets a simple “Thanks.” I do eighth grade down to kindergarten and only skip one room.

  I find Becky dancing in the gym/stage/cafeteria and say “I’m all done.” She stops moving, her face and arms are sweaty, her hair has started to curl. She shakes her head and her sweat splatters my face. I would like to catch some of it on my tongue but I’m too late.

  “Can we go now?”

  Becky smiles, and we walk out and down the cobwebbed, dirty hall. If this whole experience was supposed to move me or touch me in some way, it didn’t.

  The school is empty and echoey. I’ll be glad to be out in the sun, walking across the brown grass.

  I say, “Apparently, they’ve got to be careful with the fire because the ground is so dry that the grass could catch on fire. They’re taking precautions….”

  Becky stops. “You forgot this room,” she says. She is standing in front of my second-grade classroom. The room where Mrs. Brainer taught.

  “No, I didn’t.”

  She opens the door. The blackboard is blank.

  “Let’s go, okay?” I say.

  “Come to terms with it.”

  “With what?”

  She walks into the room.

  “I suddenly feel sick,” I say.

  “I bet.”

  I look at Becky. “How do you know about this room?”

  She looks at me and my eyes find my feet. My shoes are a size twelve. In second grade my feet weren’t so big. “It was a long time ago,” I say.

  “Tell me about it.”

  “No.”

  “Please,” she says, taking my hand in hers.

  I can’t refuse her. I approach the chalk board which is the length of one of the walls. I wait for Becky to leave the room. I start writing. Half in cursive, half in block print. This is what I write:

  Mrs. Brainer had a rule cause of Lance Dodge. Rule was—If you have to go to bathroom before break time you forfeit recess rights. So. 10/13/1973. Amy = Senior, Student Council Secy. Larry = 10th grade, Janice = 5th. I was in this room. 2nd grade. Second chair, fourth row. Tucker in front of me, L. Dodge to my left. I had uneasy feeling about my Dad. Had to get home. Wanted to get home. Momma was in Motley with Arnie for tests. Found out he was retarded that August. I had a sick feeling. That morning my dad had been in good spirits. He had been all smiley and picked me up by my ears. Larry said on way to school that Dad was happy. I had this sick feeling and made plans to run home during recess. But I had to pee so I squeezed my legs so hard. It was 8 minutes till recess when I wet my pants. L. Dodge told Mrs. Brainer. I cleaned it up while others went outside. Autopsy determined that about same time my Dad was hanging himself, I was peeing in my seat. Ha. Ha ha ha he he he he ha ha ha. He ha.

  I drop the chalk on the floor and it breaks in two.

  I leave by the fifth-grade window as Becky reads what I wrote. I wait by where the slide used to be. I sit on the cement and pull at the weeds that have grown through the cracks. My hand is sore from writing. I covered the entire board.

  Becky climbs out the window and walks my way. I don’t look at her. She offers no hug, no consoling.

  “They say you cried so hard. They say you were sitting in the biggest puddle ever seen and you were howling.”

  I say nothing.

  “People remember this sound coming out of you. Like a dying animal. People remember it, Gilbert. You could hear it throughout the whole school. Is that correct?”

  I shrug. Becky sounds like a detective.

  “And Mrs. Brainer made you stay after school, right?”

  I nod.

  “And when you got home, what did you find?”

  I look away from her.

  “They were taking your father out of the house. Is that right?”

  I don’t move my head. I stand and rub the pebbles off my legs. They’ve left an imprint.

  “No one saw you upset at the funeral. No one saw you cry.”

  I look at her.

  “You’re proud of that.”

  I say nothing, but I am. She stares at me. I close my eyes tight and begin to laugh. A jiggly laugh, high-pitched, my face scrunched.

  “Gilbert.”

  I laugh. Oh, I laugh and laugh.

  “Gilbert.”

  More laughter. The uncomfortable kind.

  “Nobody can remember the last time you cried….”

  With that, I start off running.

  “Gilbert, wait.”

  I don’t even look back. I run fast as I can. I cut through yards, hop the Hoys’ fence. I run across Main Street, past Lamson Grocery, the Ramp Cafe. I cut through the Meffords’ backyard and tip over their birdbath.

  At home, I run upstairs and shut the door to my room. I wipe the sweat off my legs, my arms—I dry off my face by dunking my head into my pillow.

  Later, I refuse dinner. As night falls, I keep watch at my window. I’ve shoved my dresser drawers in front of my door.

  It is night now and I keep my door blockaded. I look out my window for a glowing match, a flaming watermelon, a sign from her, a surrender flag.

  No sign comes and I fall asleep.

  30

  It’s Saturday, July 1—fifteen days till the retard’s birthday—it’s seven-forty-something in the morning, and I’m on my way to pick up my stewardess/psychologist sister from the Des Moines Municipal Airport.

  I’m maybe a mile out of town when I decide to drive past my old school one last time. I thought yesterday’s good-bye was final, but I’ve this urge for one last look.

  As I do a U-turn on Highway 13, my tires screech.

  I’m a block away when I see that clusters of people have already gathered to watch. The burning won’t start until ten and already there must be fifty people. I feel sick to my stomach, hang another U-turn, and head out of town.

  ***

  I’m making great time when I need to stop and stretch my legs a bit. I pull off at a Burger Barn on the outskirts of Ames. The outside is a kind of simulated barn, with a black, red, and white sign that lights up at night. I walk in and look around. The food has a paper smell about it, the orange and blue colors inside make me dizzy, and a boy with braces stands waiting—he’s practically dying to take my order. It occurs to me that this is what Tucker wants to be. The boy snaps at me to order and since he’s left his microphone on, it’s echoing throughout the store. “Sir, may I take your order? You, sir, your order!”

  I walk out of the store in a daze—a young couple with their pudgy baby in a stroller enter as I’m leaving—and I say, “They’re burning down the wrong building.”

  It isn’t until I’m in my truck that I realize that those people had no idea what I was talking about. My paranoia grows so great that for the next several miles, I check my mirror for the flashing lights of a police car. Maybe the couple reported that a young, unshaven, dirtily dressed man with arsonist tendencies was seen leaving the Burger Barn.

  I drive for miles and no siren, no lights, no arrest.

  ***

  I’m an hour early, so I cruise around downtown Des Moines. I see the giant buildings, the enormous car dealerships and hospitals the size of what I believe Moscow to be. I see the Equitable building, which at one time was the tallest in all of Iowa. My father, brother Larry, and I would take trips to Des Moines and Dad would always explain how it was the tallest building and somehow I always felt special when looking with them at the tallest.

  I see the capitol with its giant gold dome and its four smaller green domes.

  It is so hot that no people are outside. In downtown Des Moines, the surprising place that it is, a walkway has been built from building to building. This way a shopper or businessman won’t have to go outside. I pass under one of those passageways and, through the tinted glass, I see people moving along. So—in
side, where there’s air-conditioning, they all mill about but outside, where I am presently, the streets of Des Moines are mine.

  I pass a big, fairly new theater called the Civic Center, where important people perform. In a cement park across the street is this giant sculpture. It is a giant umbrella frame lying on its side. It’s green. Stand under it, during a rainstorm, you’ll still get wet—that’s why it’s art.

  ***

  At the airport, Janice is waiting behind one of those electric doors, still dressed in her polyester stewardess blue. I pull up. She looks disappointed. “Thought Amy was…”

  “Nope,” I say. I put her blue luggage in the back of the truck.

  “Couldn’t you have driven the Nova?” Janice hates my truck. She has an aversion to trucks, seeing as she lost her virginity several times in pickups identical to mine.

  I’m about to say “You wanna walk?” when Janice gives me this much-too-fake hug. Her arms about break my neck, but the rest of her stays two feet away.

  “You look good!” she says.

  Of course, I didn’t shower this morning, I didn’t shave, and I’m wearing the dirtiest clothes I could find. No sane person would say I look good, unless they lie.

  My sister Janice would like to be as pretty as Ellen and she’d like to be as loyal as Amy, but she sits in the middle of all things. This is why she tries so hard, this is why our trip back will feel like an eternity.

  “Can’t believe you’d come get me. To what do I owe this honor?”

  I’m about to tell her the truth: the town is burning down our old school and all, but before I can say anything, she says, “You probably want to borrow some money.”

  “No!”

  “Oooo—do not get hostile with me, young man. Your hostility is your own and I refuse to take responsibility for it.”

  I say nothing. My thoughts race. Yes, I could do with some money. A thousand dollars would get me started in Des Moines—a new life, a new name. But I’ll never ask Janice.

  ***

  Pulling in to get gas, we go over the black cord of a Des Moines gas station. The bing-bing, bong-bong becomes BING-BING, BONG-BONG. I’d swear it’s in stereo. I hit the brakes and cover my ears. Janice looks at me as if I’m nuts. But this is how she always looks at me. She gives the station boy the most colorful of her many credit cards and then carries a garment bag into the ladies’ room on the side of the station. As Janice walks away, the oily station boy looks at Janice’s butt, studies it, and dreams. I fill the tank. Minutes pass and Janice emerges dressed in one of her many country-and-western outfits. Her boots are lizard or rattlesnake or armadillo. She carries a black cowboy hat.