What's Eating Gilbert Grape

by Peter Hedges

  “That’s right. See ya, Donna.”

  “Everybody knows who it is, Gilbert.”

  I am gone.

  ***

  The rain pounds my windshield so I can barely see. I drive up slow to the old Lally place. Becky is standing in the yard, drenched. She comes toward me. I check my pants and the condom I took out of the box is waiting in a front pocket. The other two wait in the glove compartment.

  “Hi,” she says.

  I roll the window down a crack. “Get in.”

  “It’s great out here.”

  “You’re all wet. Come on, get in.”

  Becky walks around in front of my truck and opens the passenger door, she climbs in. Her T-shirt is wet and her nipples stick out and it’s all I can do to keep my hands on the steering wheel. She sees me look at her chest. Most girls would get embarrassed, most girls would fold their arms. But Becky sits motionless, stares at me and says, “Insides. Count.”

  We sit and listen to the rain.

  Then I say, “I was down, really down, earlier today. Looking for a reason to go on. You… uhm… you caught me off guard.”

  “When?”

  “When you… uhm… kissed me.”

  “Oh.”

  “I’d given up on…”

  “On what?”

  “On anything physical.”

  I giggle and she stares at me. I look at her like “May we pick up where we left off?” but she looks away.

  “Let’s go somewhere,” she says.

  Yes. Yes yes yes yes yes.

  ***

  I’m driving out of town toward the cemetery.

  “Gilbert…”

  “Yeah?”

  “Don’t try anything, okay?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The kiss was to give you hope. Nothing more.”

  My driving slows. “What are you saying?”

  “You were looking down, nothing was going your way. You look sweet when you have feelings. I couldn’t resist.”

  “Oh, come on—what are you saying?”

  “There’ll be no more kissing. Not for the time being.”

  I look at her like “WHAT?”

  “You’re too cut off from yourself. Right now you are. When you’re vulnerable, you’re kissable. But now…”

  “Me? No way. I am many things, but I am not cut off.”

  “You’re out of touch, out of sync. You don’t like yourself. You don’t even see yourself.”

  I’ve got a condom in my pocket, I think to myself. All I need to see is her naked body. “One kiss.”

  “No.”

  “A little peck?”

  “No. No no no.”

  “Come on.”

  “No, if you are so eager to run away from yourself—imagine how quick you’ll run away from me.”

  “Fine. Okay. Yeah, whatever.”

  I drop her off. She’s a tease. Becky is a total tease.

  “Maybe one day we’ll hold hands, maybe.”

  She shuts the door and goes in to her grandma. I sit in my truck screaming unrepeatable things. I wipe my mouth on my shirt, rubbing hard, rubbing away the memory of her lips. “BITCH!” I scream.

  ***

  It’s night now and I’m in bed naked. I’m angry and lonely, and if an erection can be profound, mine is. I do the obvious.

  Outside the rain has slowed, the ground and streets have been washed clean. I hear Momma downstairs, screaming with Amy about when Arnie will take a bath. Sleep comes quick, as it’s the only decent option.

  In the morning, Arnie, the human alarm clock, arrives outside my door. He chants, “Burger Barn, Burger Barn.”

  “Shit,” I say to myself, jumping out of bed fast. I overslept.

  ***

  Outside there must be two hundred people, all shapes and sizes and I know every one of them. Arnie and me watch from my truck. Tucker’s dad walks around with a video camera filming the festivities. Tucker is standing among the many new employees, wearing his Burger Barn hat. He’s a good head taller than the average worker.

  Speeches are made. The air is full of that burger and french-fry smell. Sniffing with his nose, Arnie rubs his tummy and I say, “Arnie, please.”

  “I want to eat! I want to eat!”

  “You’re not getting out of this truck.”

  “But I want…”

  “You’re too dirty.”

  “Yep!” Arnie couldn’t be more proud. “Yum, yum.”

  He starts to get out of the truck. I grab his arm, holding him inside. “No, Arnie, you stay put.”

  He pouts.

  The crowd applauds and while Mayor Gaps cuts the ribbon, the Motley High Jazz Band plays “We’ve Only Just Begun.”

  The ceremony ends and Tucker hugs his parents. A photographer from the Endora Express is taking pictures. People crowd inside to get the first taste. Looking out the back of my truck, I can see that there must be forty cars in the Food Land parking lot. Business is booming.

  “I want food. I want food!”

  I start up the engine, say “Arnie, not today,” and begin to pull out when I get a great idea. I turn to him and negotiate a deal. I tell him that if he’ll submit to a good scrubbing, if he gets extra-clean, I’ll bring him back to the Burger Barn for a meal.

  “When when when?”

  “As soon as you’ve dried off. I’ll bring you here and you can order what you want.”

  He says, “Okay.”

  “It’s time for that bath.”

  He nods his head. “Okay.”

  “Afraid so, buddy.”

  “Okay! I SAID OKAY!”

  I’m so used to him refusing that I haven’t heard him agree to my terms. “This won’t be a moment too soon, Arnie. You want to get clean, don’t you?”

  “Yes!”

  ***

  At home, Momma’s guessing the answers of a game show and Amy is taking the cake layers out of the oven. I give her the thumbs up. She looks at me, puzzled, so I mouth “You’ll see” and point at Arnie. Then I take him by the hand and we climb the stairs. I pour in the bubble bath, dump in his plastic toys. “Let’s go for a swim, buddy.”

  “You get in too.”

  “What?”

  “Get in too, Gilbert!”

  I haven’t taken a bath with my brother in years. Not since pubic hair. But I’ll do anything at this point, anything to get him clean.

  As I’m stripping, the dirt ball is pointing at my privates, screaming his shrill giggle. “Arnie, shhh. Please.” He finds this extremely funny. I get in, sitting down slowly in the scalding hot water, and smile at him once I’m comfortable. “Okay, Arnie, dive in. Burger Barn here we…”

  He turns and runs out of the bathroom. He thumps down the stairs and the screen door slaps shut.

  Still in the tub, bubbles all around, I shout, “I did not make this mess! I did not make this mess!”

  48

  “I get into the water with him…”

  “Yes?”

  “And he outsmarted me.”

  “You have two days. The party is in two days.”

  “I know.”

  I’m air drying in the kitchen with Amy, who is busy with this year’s birthday cake, which will be a three-layered affair. Momma turned the TV to one of those morning talk shows. Today’s topic is adoption and she immediately fell asleep. Ellen has gone to Motley with her lip-gloss girlfriends, where she’s supposed to be buying Arnie a new birthday outfit.

  “I have a list of groceries, Gilbert.”

  “Okay.”

  “You get them today?”

  “Sure.”

  “Janice called. She’s coming in tomorrow night. She said for me to break this to you gently. She’ll be renting a car and won’t need you to pick her up. She wondered if you’d be upset.”

  “What do you think?”

  “She’s going to drive straight to the beauty parlor.”

  “Beauty parlor?”

  “Momma wants to go to the Endora�
�s Gorgeous, what do you think about that?”

  I want to say, “It’s going to take several weeks to resurrect Momma’s face,” but instead I go, in a less than enthusiastic way, “Great.”

  “I think so, too.”

  “Better make an appointment.”

  “Gilbert, please. I spoke to Charlie.”

  Charlie is the owner of Endora’s Gorgeous and chief beautician. Charlie has arms the thickness of my fingers. Charlie is a woman.

  “Yeah?”

  “And get this. She’s staying after work tomorrow to accommodate us. Momma’s appointment is at six. Charlie said she’ll stay as long as it takes.”

  “I hope she’s got all night.”

  “Gilbert.”

  “All night and the entire next day.”

  “Shush.”

  “Anyway, Momma’s going out will be the talk of…”

  Amy goes on to explain that Charlie is going to put sheets in front of her windows so no one can look in. Amy plans to drive rarely traveled back roads to the parlor, and Momma will enter from the back door. Detail upon detail has been worked out so that Momma won’t be seen.

  I want to tell Amy that we’ve got to be realistic about such things, no way is Momma going to benefit by time spent in a beauty parlor, but instead I say, “The cake is huge.”

  “Yes, it is. Today is layer day. Tomorrow I frost. Gilbert, I think it could be my best ever.”

  “No doubt.”

  Amy does many things right, but one thing is not the baking of birthday cakes. Each year they come out uneven. Often they’re littered with random hairs and bits of eggshell. The harder she tries, the worse they seem to look and taste. In an effort to improve, she started on Arnie’s cake two days early.

  I ask, “How many retards are coming to the party?”

  “Gilbert.”

  “Well…”

  “Six of Arnie’s friends have confirmed. Still need to hear from two others.”

  Amy speaks as if this is a party at the White House. When she says “friends have confirmed,” she means that someone confirmed for these kids, many of whom are not kids at all, and all of whom have no phone dialing capabilities. They range in age from six to thirty-five. Arnie is the third-oldest—the biggest—the sloppiest.

  “I want you to supervise the party games on Friday. Will you do that for me? Think up some activities that can revolve around the trampoline.”

  “Of course,” I say. “Whatever you want me to do.”

  I’m holding the cake pan. Amy takes a knife and loosens the sides, when the screen door swings open.

  “You back already? Ellen?” Amy calls out.

  There is no answer. The door closes.

  “Must be the wind,” I say.

  Setting each layer out on the counter, Amy is about to stack them, when a shorter, stockier, balder, blander version of me walks into the kitchen. Amy grabs my elbow and we watch as he finds the peanut butter, the jelly, the bread and begins to make a sandwich. We stand there waiting for him to say, “Hello.” Say something, anything. He cuts the bread at a diagonal into two triangles. He looks up at us and without blinking, without acknowledging that he’s been away a year with no phone call, only his monthly checks, he says, “Oh, hey—you want one, too?”

  Amy can barely talk. “You know how I hate peanut butter. You know that.”

  As he crosses out to the porch, he mumbles, “They say that taste buds change every twenty-one days. It’s like we get a whole new set of taste buds.”

  The screen door crinks shut and Amy doesn’t know where to move or what to think. She says, “The nerve.”

  “Yes,” I say.

  Momma kicks into a snore from the living room and Amy starts pinching the top cake layer. She wasn’t prepared for our other brother.

  “Don’t you want to frost it first?” I say.

  Amy stops. “Yes, of course.” At this point, Momma’s snore surges to a new decibel.

  The screen door opens and he shouts, “Momma! Momma!” The snoring stops. “Momma, you’re snoring.”

  “Am I? Was I?”

  “You were, yes.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  The screen door slams as he goes back to the porch and his peanut butter and jelly. Momma says, “It’s not that I’m making a choice to snore. The snoring just happens. It’s not that I like that I do this, Gilbert.”

  From the porch, in a loving, dulcet tone, he says, “I’m not Gilbert. I’m Larry.”

  “No, you’re not. You can’t fool me. The son of mine who you refer to only comes back on my little boy’s day.”

  “I know. That’s why I’m back today.”

  Momma says, “But Sunday is his birthday and, Amy, what is today?”

  “Friday, Momma.”

  “Yes, so you see, Gilbert? You can’t fool your Momma.”

  There is a silence that seems like forever, but it’s probably only been three or four seconds. The screen door opens yet again, Larry’s boots smack the floor and move toward Amy and me.

  Flustered, his bald spot casting blotches of light on the kitchen ceiling, he asks, “Today isn’t his birthday?”

  Amy shakes her head no.

  Larry looks at me for confirmation. “This is some joke, isn’t it?”

  You’re the joke, I want to say.

  “You’re early by two days,” Amy says.

  He smiles but not because he’s happy.

  “It’s real good to see you, Larry,” she says. “You look good.”

  I say nothing to him, proud that I don’t say what I don’t mean. But when he looks over at me, I smile, even though later my lips will feel guilty.

  Larry looks at his feet, laughs like the joke was on us and strolls out of the house. Chasing after him, Amy says “But we could use some help around the house…” but before she can say “…painting the picnic table…” the screen door slams. Larry climbs into his new car and drives off.

  The screen door at our house is a kind of living punctuation mark.

  Amy whoops up her arms and says, “Same old Larry.”

  “I’ll paint the picnic table.”

  She utters a firm “no” and tells me not to worry about it. “Put all your energies to getting Arnie clean. Where is he, anyway?”

  I shrug.

  She pats my shoulder in that everything-will-be-all-right way and says, “You think you might look around for him later?”

  I say, “Yes, later. I’ll track him down later.”

  She slowly turns the cake, pushing down any of it that she pulled up. “Makes me feel like I can sit down and rest. What with being ahead of schedule and all.”

  “Quite a cake.”

  “Yes, Gilbert. This cake is divine.”

  We go on as if our brother Larry didn’t exist.

  ***

  Minutes later, the phone rings. Amy answers.

  “Yes… uh-huh… I know… we know… we’re working on the situation, Larry….”

  Larry on the other end? Larry dialed our number?

  “…I know it’s disgusting… but Arnie is almost an adult”—Amy’s face is turning red—“well, if you gave a good goddamn maybe you’d be around here more often, maybe you’d be around here to help!” She slams the phone down.

  “You okay?” I say.

  “He’s driving out of town, right? And he sees Arnie digging for worms. Arnie runs over to him to give him the worms, and he said he couldn’t even recognize him under all that dirt. The nerve—the nerve of that man.” Amy goes out in our backyard. She pounds the picnic table with her fists and screams, “Fuck you! Fuck you!”

  I’ve never been so happy to hear anyone swear.

  49

  “So he was two days early?”

  “Yep.”

  “Well, he’s probably been under the gun at work. Pressure, you know.”

  “Where does he work?”

  “How do I know? I’m just Janice.”

  “You seem to know more about him tha
n anybody.”

  “Larry keeps those things to himself. I know more about him because I’m trained to understand people.”

  I don’t respond to that. I move the phone to my other ear.

  “So why aren’t you at work, Gilbert? Huh? Why aren’t you at work?”

  “This week I’m only putting in half days.”

  “That’s great, Gilbert.”

  My sister Janice is talking fake. She could care less when I work. She’s been calling every day lately. She’s already asked me a bunch of inane questions and heard none of my answers. “So how’s the weather there?”

  “It rained.”

  “I loathe rain. Rain is so inconvenient.”

  How can rain be inconvenient when the crops and trees and fields have needed it so?

  “It better not rain on Arnie’s birthday. We deserve nice weather that day. Don’t you think?”

  “Sure, whatever.”

  Janice launches into a verbal essay on the clothes she plans to wear. I set the phone down, walk to the fridge, pour some ice water, drink it, pour some more, return to the phone. “…So what do you think about that?”

  “Uhm. Yes.”

  “‘Yes’? Yes is all you can say?!”

  “Well… yeah… yes is the best word.”

  “Get me Amy! You’re deliberately hurting me!”

  “No. I meant ‘no.’ Really.”

  She listens. “I can’t believe you said ‘Yes.’ You’re so insensitive, little brother. I’m so looking forward to seeing you.” Then she’s silent. I hear her inhale on a cigarette. “Did you just hear the sarcasm in my voice?”

  “Yes.”

  “Because, Gilbert, you could drive to South Dakota and I’d never know you were gone.”

  I drop the phone on the floor. I hear her faint voice, yelling, “I WAS ONLY KIDDING.” The phone hangs by its cord. The receiver spins itself out.

  ***

  At four o’clock in the afternoon, I hook up our sprinkler. Wearing Hawaiian shorts, I stand under it and pretend to play in it. Arnie watches from behind the sycamore tree. “Having lots of fun,” I say.

  Arnie doesn’t budge.

  “You really must try this, ol’ boy.”

  He shakes his head.

  My demonstration of water games reminds me of my time at the Carvers’ with the trampoline. Mrs. Carver has only been gone two days. Every time the phone rings, I’m hopeful it’s her calling to announce a change of plans, her offer to let me live in St. Louis. But who am I fooling with this fantasy? She won’t be calling.