What's Eating Gilbert Grape

by Peter Hedges

  Out the door, I come upon a guy, younger than me, who is balancing on the curb. An older guy sits in the passenger side, holding a pipe but not smoking it. The younger guy says, “I’m looking for a Mr. Arnie Grape.”

  “He’s around here somewhere.”

  “I have a delivery for him.”

  “I’ll be happy to sign….”

  “No, sorry. He has to sign.”

  “Great, but…”

  “Buddy, that’s the regulation. Only Arnie Grape can sign.”

  I explain that my brother is special.

  “Yeah? So? We’re all special. Listen, he signs or there’s no delivery.”

  A muddy, grimy figure comes around the side of the house carrying a big rock. Unable to lift it above his head, he lets it drop on the sidewalk. He growls at the man.

  “Come here, Arnie,” I say.

  The delivery man looks at the dirt boy and quickly hands me the pen. I’m tempted to say “I told you so,” but I don’t. I sign next to the X. The delivery man hands me a card. “It’s for uhm uhm…”

  “Arnie,” I say. I open it and read it out loud slowly.

  “Arnie,

  a little early but Happy Birthday just the same.”

  Amy and Ellen watch from the porch as the two delivery guys lift the back door of their truck. Amy calls through the screen door to Momma, giving a play-by-play report on what she sees. “It’s for Arnie! An early birthday present! Who’s it from, Gilbert?”

  I tell her.

  “Momma! It’s from Mrs. Carver! What is it? Tell us what it is!”

  I tell Amy what I’m guessing.

  “Gilbert thinks it’s a trampoline, Momma!”

  “Yep, that’s what it is,” the young guy says, passing the metal legs out of the truck.

  The men and I carry it to the backyard and, after Arnie shows us where he wants it, we assemble it. Ellen brings a five-dollar bill as a tip for the men. They flirt with her and she relishes their eager eyes.

  As the men drive off, Amy calls out, “Dinner!”

  Ellen pleads for “one minute”—Arnie climbs up on the tramp. He tries to jump up and down, but he keeps falling over. Ellen, eager to try, gets up and stands on the edge, and shouts, “My turn! My turn!” As she jumps, her little breasts jiggle. She is the only Christian in town who doesn’t wear a bra. Arnie paces on the grass, mumbling, “It’s mine, it’s mine.” I wonder if Mr. Carver is watching this from wherever he’s gone to.

  I tell Amy I won’t be eating. The gift to Arnie feels more like a stab aimed at me. While the others eat dinner inside, I lie on the trampoline and look at the sky. I hear Ellen telling Arnie to stop spitting his food. Momma asks for thirds. Amy makes a polite plea to Arnie about bathing and the “immense joy” to be found from being clean. Arnie wisely points out that Momma doesn’t bathe. Amy explains that Momma’s a grown-up and older people don’t get as dirty as younger people. Arnie doesn’t buy her reasoning. Ellen asks to be excused so she can shower.

  ***

  The last thing I remember before falling off to sleep is the sound of her shower coming from upstairs. This must have made me dream that it was raining.

  I dreamed that it rained and rained and Arnie got clean and that my dad and I went fishing. We didn’t catch anything. We didn’t say anything. It was fine, just fishing, just sitting in the boat with him, just fishing was fine.

  “OH MY GOD!”

  I open my eyes to find that the sun hasn’t gone down any. It must have been a fast dream, the length of a cartoon.

  “OH MY GOD!” Amy screams. “HELP!”

  “What is it?” I shout, getting up from the trampoline.

  “MOMMA! MOMMA!”

  I run to the house.

  “No! Nooooo!”

  I’m up on the porch steps and inside fast. Amy is reaching across the table, trying to get to Momma, who is all pale and unable to breathe. Momma’s shoulders are locked up around her neck. Dinner is clogged in her throat.

  “Momma! Momma!”

  I try to put my arms around her to do that thing where you make a fist and pull up and back fast to dislodge the food. But I can’t get my arms around her stomach. Ellen runs downstairs half dressed. I’m holding Momma’s mouth open as Amy reaches in, trying to get her enormous tongue out of the way. Momma is going to be the color blue in moments—we’re all making noise, saying things that I don’t even hear. It’s absolutely quiet and painfully loud at the same time.

  Arnie is watching and keeps asking, “Why? Why? Why?” and none of us answers him. The lasagna and the corn on the cob and the blueberry muffins are all a kind of soupy, mushy goop in Momma’s mouth.

  “Don’t die,” is what I want to say.

  Amy takes hold of Momma’s jaw, I make both my hands into fists and press several rapid punches into her midsection, hoping to bust open the air passage.

  “Call Dr. Harvey!” one of us shouts.

  Dr. Harvey’s number is written in red ink on the wall above the phone. He lives all but three blocks away.

  Ellen dials and talks.

  “Is he coming? Is he coming?”

  “Come on, Momma. Come on! Spit it out! GET IT OUT!”

  Her eyes close, then open, then close. Arnie is screaming, “Don’t yell! Don’t yell!”

  “Get him out of here!” Amy says.

  “Arnie, come here. I got this surprise.” Ellen pulls at his arm, begging him to follow her. “Arnie! ARNIE!” Arnie doesn’t. Instead, he takes a dinner glass and heaves it against the wall; the glass shatters. Oh, great. He takes Momma’s plate and sends it soaring straight up—it breaks into pieces and rains down on top of us. I tackle Arnie and carry him out, drop him on the porch. Momma is making this muted scream sound now. My mother is going to die. Right now. We all know it, we all sense it. And there is nothing we can do.

  Ellen is saying, “Please, Momma. Hang on, Momma!”

  Amy starts apologizing. “I’m sorry. It’s all my fault. I love you, Momma. Don’t, don’t give up. Dr. Harvey’s coming. He’s coming.”

  For some reason I start hitting the back of her head, popping it hard. Suddenly, the chunk or mass or blockage of food erupts out, liquid comes out her nose and the food bullets down on the table.

  Momma breathes in deep and fast. Loud and scared.

  Dr. Harvey hits the door running. He wears pajama tops and dress slacks. He hurries to Momma. We clear out of the way and wait to do whatever he asks.

  ***

  It’s fifteen minutes or so later, and Dr. Harvey is leaning toward Momma, who whispers that her throat is sore.

  “It probably feels like you delivered a baby out your mouth.” Dr. Harvey says that to lighten the tension, to keep us loose, but no one laughs. I can tell he regrets saying that by the way he smiles.

  I’ve washed my hands, Amy is cleaning up the broken glass and Momma sits in her chair, still shaken.

  Most doctors would have left by now but not Dr. Harvey. He was my father’s best friend. He moves next to Arnie and explains for yet a third time that Momma’s going to be all right. Arnie keeps repeating “not funny, not funny.”

  Ellen is getting the vacuum cleaner for Amy when I see the McBurney Funeral Home hearse pull into our driveway. I am out of the house fast.

  “You get the fuck out of here, motherfucker! Go! Go!”

  I’m pounding on the hood of the hearse. Bobby McBurney is inside and he goes to lock the doors. But I get the passenger side open before he can lock it and I grab him and say, “You got some nerve. She isn’t dead. My mother isn’t dead! You fuck!”

  I’m about to punch him, he’s white in the face and smelling like some cologne or something—when Ellen screams from the porch, “Stop it! Stop it!”

  I pull back, get out of the hearse, and point firmly, violently for Bobby to drive away. “Get out of here, you motherfucker.”

  “He’s my date.”

  “Huh?”

  “Bobby’s my date.”

  Bobby shift
s to reverse and starts to back out.

  “Oh, great!” Ellen shouts. “This is the end of my entire life!”

  She bursts into tears, Bobby is terrified and as he shifts to drive, I run out in front to block his escape. He drives toward me—I climb up on the hood. “Let me explain,” I’m saying. Bobby shakes his head. “Let me explain, Bobby. Our mother…”

  Ellen is running alongside the hearse, squeezing her Bible. “Gilbert thought you were coming for Momma. Bobby, our mother just about died. He thought that’s what…”

  Bobby stops the hearse. He won’t look at me. I ripped a couple of buttons off his shirt, his neck is red where I was squeezing it.

  I slide off the hood. “I’m sorry,” I say to Ellen. She tells Bobby that she has to cancel the date—what with Momma and all. I tell her to go on. “Have a great time. Amy and me will take care of Momma.”

  She reluctantly gets in the McBurney Funeral Home hearse, and they drive off. I’m walking back to the house when I find Arnie clinging to a tree. I peel him off and we go up the porch steps.

  Inside, Dr. Harvey is making Momma drink water.

  “It hurts to swallow,” she says.

  He refills the glass.

  She takes a small sip and says, “It hurts.”

  42

  It must be midnight now. Looking out the kitchen window, I see her lit cigarette. I go to Amy, who is spooning Momma some applesauce. Amy says, “All is calm now, Gilbert. You go out for as long as you need.” Momma looks puzzled and Amy says to her, “Gilbert’s friend is out back.”

  I called Becky after Dr. Harvey left half an hour ago. She said she’d be over right away. She asked what this was all about and I said, “Nothing, really.” But I’m sure she heard the quiver in my voice.

  I walk out the back door. We don’t hug or kiss. It’s more of a handshake than anything. I explain the day; the trampoline, the little brother who won’t bathe, the taste of death.

  Soon I’m pacing in my backyard, the dry grass scratching my bare feet. Arnie is in bed, Ellen’s still out, and as Amy sits with Momma, watching an old movie, the house glows blue from the TV.

  “It’s like you’re somewhere else.”

  “Yes,” I say. “We almost lost Momma.”

  “Oh,” she says. “But she didn’t die. That’s good, right?”

  I don’t say a thing.

  “You’re not happy about that?”

  I shrug.

  “You want a drag?”

  I shake my head.

  Becky exhales. Her air sounds nice.

  I sit on the swing out back. She’s on the ground in front of me, her legs crossed Indian style. The sky is full of many stars.

  “I feel like dancing,” she says. “Or running around naked, singing to the moon. Something to remind the living.”

  “Huh?”

  “Remind the living.”

  “Of what?”

  “That we’re alive.”

  “I know I’m alive, thank you very much.”

  Becky puts the cigarette out on the bottom of her shoe, stands, and does a cartwheel. Then she starts this rhythmic, pulsing kind of movement. “Come on,” she says.

  I refuse to move.

  “Your mistake,” she says as her movements get even bigger, her arms whipping everywhere, her head and hair whooshing around.

  “I make lots of mistakes,” I say.

  ***

  The last five minutes have felt like five hours. I’m still on the swing and Becky’s rain dance has continued nonstop. I’ve no words. She is giggling and whooping and it’s not like she’s trying to pretend she’s having a good time. She’s not a faker. It’s the middle of the night, we’re in Endora, Iowa, and this girl is very much alive. I want to bury my head in my pillow. I walk over to a small tree of ours which has these orange berries. I yank off a handful and start tossing them at her. The first two miss, the third hits. She suddenly stops. She looks at me. Into my eyes. Piercing me.

  I look at her like “What? What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t know about you, Gilbert. You call me late at night… and I come over… you say nothing.”

  I throw a fourth berry, a fifth.

  “…stop throwing those… you pretend like nothing…”

  Quickly picking a bunch of them, I wind up like the baseball pitcher I never was and throw about ten berries. They spray Becky.

  “…and then you throw things at me…!” She stops talking. She walks quickly to her bike, which leans against the side of the house. I follow after her. She starts to get on her bike and I say, “Let me walk you.”

  “No.”

  “Let me, please.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “Sorry about the berries. Sorry.”

  ***

  We walk without words for some time. The only sound is the click from the bike and the crickets. She smokes. My hands tremble.

  “You’re so cut off from yourself.”

  “No, I’m not,” I say, stuffing my hands in my pockets so she won’t see them shake.

  “Feelings, Gilbert. They’re what people are supposed to have.”

  “I have feelings.”

  “Ha.”

  “I have plenty of…”

  “You stopped having feelings a long time ago. Look at you. You almost lost your mother and you’re out walking with me.”

  “Yes, because…” I say. “Because uhm I’m trying to live. Don’t you see?”

  She stares at me some more. Then she takes the handlebars, pulls her bike from me and gets on. Her cigarette drops to the ground.

  “I feel! I’m a feeling guy!”

  She rides away.

  “You’re just afraid of me, little girl! You’re scared, too!”

  She’s gone.

  I look down. Her cigarette is still smoldering. I bend down, pick it up, walk home down the middle of South Main, attempting to smoke what’s left.

  ***

  “Momma’s sleeping,” Amy says, meeting me at the front door.

  I say, “That’s good.”

  “You know how long it’s been since she slept at night?”

  “True. All this commotion must have been hard for Momma to swallow.”

  Amy doesn’t get my joke, which is not surprising for a woman who doesn’t think our family is funny. “We almost lost her, Gilbert.”

  “Yep, I know.”

  Momma snores and snorts, and with each burst of sound, Amy seems to feel better and better.

  The TV is on but the sound is down.

  “Hey,” I say. “Let’s turn off the TV. It needs a rest.” Our TV plays around the clock.

  “Momma likes the light. Helps her sleep.”

  “Fine, okay, whatever.”

  “Gilbert?”

  I’m on the second stair, heading to bed.

  “Huh?”

  Amy whispers this with special intensity.

  “Let’s make Arnie’s birthday the best one ever. For Momma.” The blue light from the TV casts a shadow on Amy. “Gilbert, did you hear me?”

  I stop and look long at her. The flickering light makes my sister of thirty-four look about eighty-two.

  “What’s the matter?”

  I say, “Oh, I was just thinking how we’re not so young anymore. I was thinking how I used to like us better.”

  “I know what you mean. I used to like us better, too. We never do anything. As a family. Like other families. Like real families. That’s why Arnie’s birthday is so uhm…” Amy’s thoughts trail off, partially because she’s sleepy, but mainly because a thump, like a muffled drum beat, comes from upstairs. Arnie has begun his music making. The thump becomes a thud.

  “I better stop the kid before he crushes his skull. You coming to bed?”

  “Can’t yet.”

  “Momma will be fine.”

  “Ellen, though.”

  “What? She’s not back yet?”

  Amy says, “No.”

  ***

  Arnie crouches
on his knees and baps his head in his sleep. Instead of waking him, I jam a pillow between him and the headboard and this muffles the sound enough and pads his brain. Clouds of dust and dirt poof out with each thud.

  Back downstairs, I offer to go drive around and find the puberty girl. Amy says no need. I’m going back upstairs, when she asks me to wait up with her. So I do. We watch an old movie with the sound down. Amy whispers, “I hope Momma doesn’t wake up. Ellen still being out would worry her.” This movie craves more commercial breaks.

  I say to myself, Bobby McBurney better not touch my little sister or I’ll beat his ass.

  “Something going on, Gilbert?”

  “Huh?”

  “Something you’re not telling us about. You seem to be drifting.”

  Me? Never, I say to myself.

  “You’re not yourself. Your mind and such. Something going on?”

  I must have fallen asleep, because I don’t remember the answer I gave Amy or the end of the movie, for that matter. I wake up to find Amy opening the door for Ellen. I stand up fast, shake my face as my little sister bounds in with a “Howdy, everybody.” Amy sighs and I look out the window and see Bobby and the hearse drive off.

  “Good night, everybody,” Ellen sings as she skips up the stairs. The kid is so fast and we’re so tired that she gets by us with no problem.

  Amy looks at me. “Did you smell beer on her?”

  I shrug.

  “I smelled beer,” she says.

  It occurs to me that getting drunk is the right idea wasted on the wrong person. “You want me to talk to her?” I ask.

  “No.”

  “She’s just a kid.”

  “I know. Tomorrow I’ll lay down the law.”

  “Good,” I say, knowing full well that Amy will turn soft. As I climb the stairs, two steps at a time, Amy goes to check on Momma and grab one last snack. Ellen has gone in the bathroom and as I pass the door, I hear her vomit. “Don’t forget to flush,” I say, through the door. I listen for an answer. She pukes again.

  “Youth,” I say to myself as I climb in my bed and put my left hand down my underwear.

  Part Five

  43

  “…she gets her braces off and she’s like a dog without a leash for the first time. One minute she’s a beauty queen—next minute she’s a Christian—now she’s staying out too late.”