What's Eating Gilbert Grape

by Peter Hedges

  Ellen is dropped off by her friends, who laugh and scoff at the dripping me. She gets out of Cindy Mansfield’s mom’s blue station wagon. The girls shout “Praise God” to Ellen, who throws her hair back in agreement. They drive off, honking and waving. Ellen looks past me and says, “Arnie, wait till you see what I got you.” She marches into the house. The retard follows.

  You forget that my paycheck bought those clothes, I almost say, as the sprinkler sends rain down on me.

  ***

  “Gilbert? I’ve missed you this week,” Mr. Lamson says this as he loads me up with the groceries.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “My days aren’t as happy when you’re not around.”

  “I have mutual feelings.”

  This is the truth. Lamson Grocery, and I didn’t know this until this week, is my one escape, my desert oasis.

  “Mr. Lamson?”

  “Yes, son.”

  “Working here is like walking on the moon.”

  He looks at me. He stops, then breathes, then mashes his lips as his eyes mist. “Oh, Gilbert, what a nice thing to say.” He lifts up a huge tub of peanut butter. He hands the tub to me. “For Arnie.”

  “Oh, boss, you shouldn’t have.”

  ***

  I leave work, weighed down by the peanut butter, only to find Becky sitting on the hood of my truck. She smiles, her head tilts like a puppy dog’s. I set the grocery sacks in back and say, “Off my truck.”

  “No.”

  “Get off. Off.”

  “No.”

  “This is my truck. I paid for it. It’s mine. Get off the hood.”

  “No.”

  “Goddammit—get off my hood—get off my back—get off my hood!”

  Becky shakes her head. She slides off and starts home.

  “And stay off,” I say. “Stay off my hood.”

  She turns my way but keeps walking. “It’s not that I don’t want to kiss you. I do. But…”

  “But what?”

  “If you could see yourself, see the hate in your eyes. If you could see the…”

  I cover my ears. She is gone. I go, “Aaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh!”

  I drive to the car wash and spray down the hood. Normally I’d wash the whole vehicle, but my family’s food is packed in back.

  ***

  When I get home, Amy and Ellen are in back. Arnie is nowhere to be seen. I unload the groceries with no help from the others. In the house, I find Momma awake, talking to herself, “I just want to see my boy turn eighteen….”

  “We know, Momma.”

  “Was I talking to you?”

  “I gathered you were. As I’m the only one here.”

  “Gilbert?”

  “Yes?” I stand in front of her, studying her as if she were an animal in a zoo—her hair in clumps, her skin bleached out. The absence of blood.

  “You think when I’m talking that I’m always talking to you? Is that what you think?”

  “No. It’s just that I’m the only…”

  “Your father.”

  “Huh?”

  “I was talking to your father. I do that sometimes. I’m still so mad at him. So mad that I want to kill the man. But, as you know…”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “He did that for himself.” She leans forward, putting her stone elbows on the shaky table. “And you know what your dad says to me when I talk to him? Do you know what…?”

  “Sorry,” I interrupt. “I’m sorry that…”

  “Yes. He says he’s sorry.”

  Momma sits for a moment. Her swollen hands cover her face and I say, “Oh, Momma,” and she utters all these words that I can’t make out because of her crying.

  Finally, she gets enough composure to spit out her thoughts, a word at a time. “Sorry. Doesn’t. Bring. Albert. Back. It doesn’t. Erase. What we’ve become.”

  Those words sit in the air for quite a long time before I find the courage to ask, “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that my kids all want to kill each other, I mean that my house is caving in. Have you noticed this floor? I’m shoving this house down the drain.”

  “No, you aren’t.”

  “Look at the floor. Look at the curve.”

  “Momma, you aren’t…”

  “Don’t say what I want to hear. Look at me, Gilbert. Tell me the truth. Tell me.”

  I want to forget all words, I wish I were a two-year-old.

  “Say this—‘Bonnie Watts Grape’—repeat after me, Gilbert.”

  I don’t.

  “You will repeat after me, young man!”

  “Okay, okay.”

  “‘Bonnie Watts Grape…’”

  I say dutifully, “‘Bonnie Watts Grape…’”

  “‘Is my mother…’”

  “‘Is my mother…’”

  “‘And I hate her.’”

  I stop the repetition.

  “Repeat after me—I hate my mother.”

  I start out of the house.

  “Gilbert? Gilbert!”

  “Okay,” I say. I look at her, glaring her way. “I hate you. Deeply. Completely. I. Hate. You.”

  Momma’s eyes seem to swell. She looks at me hard and long. She thought she was going to enjoy my hate, but it has broken her. I can’t watch, so I barrel out of the house.

  It takes three hours of driving on county roads, two cans of beer and a pack of cigarettes for me to try and forget that conversation. I fail.

  50

  It’s the next morning, the day before the big day, and Momma is ignoring me. I won’t apologize for last night, though. I gave her what she wanted. She’ll have to deal with it on her own for a while.

  Yes, Arnie’s still a dirt ball.

  Amy is touching up the frosting on his cake. It is white with white frosting. The retard likes lots of icing, so she’s used up two cans of it. Momma has a game show on and she wants to win, so she calls Amy into the living room.

  I study the cake as each guess they make turns out wrong. “Happy 18th birthday, Arnie!” is written in green block capitals. Only the candles wait to be put in their place.

  Amy returns to the kitchen, shaking her head. “Some day Momma and me are gonna win something.”

  “Well,” I say, “this cake is a winner.”

  She looks at it with a critical squint. “You think?”

  “It’s your best. It is the most complete cake you’ve ever—what’s the word?—sculpted.”

  “Gilbert…”

  “It’s almost a crime to eat it, you know. Almost a crime to cut it into slices.”

  “But…”

  “Yes, we must, though. We must serve the cake to whoever wants it. Arnie’s retard friends, Janice, even Ellen.”

  I pat Amy on her sweaty back.

  Minutes pass.

  The cake is close to perfection. Arnie runs into the house with a jar full of baby grasshoppers. Wanting to keep the cake a secret, Amy gives me that “get rid of Arnie” look. I quickly block the hall and say, “Hey, buddy…”

  “What?” he says. “What, what, what?”

  “Hide ’n’ seek, what do you say?”

  “No.”

  “Come on…”

  Sensing the impossibility of the kitchen, Arnie tries to crawl under my legs. I catch his head in between my knees and squeeze, trapping him.

  “Gilbert, Gilbert…”

  Momma hears the struggle and certain that I’m in the wrong, she starts shouting, “Gilbert, Gilbert,” and before I know it, Amy is behind me, her body quivering. She, too, speaks my family’s favorite word. “Gilbert.”

  Arnie is still squirming between my legs when I turn to Amy. He bites into my thigh. I lift him by his ankles. The grasshopper jar falls and rolls toward the front door. I set Arnie loose. He dives for the jar and looks up at me. I point and say, “Outside. Arnie. Outside!” Momma is screaming now, “I JUST WANT TO SEE MY BOY TURN EIGHTEEN! IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK?” He runs outside with his grasshoppers, and Momma stops her
noise making long enough to light a cigarette. Amy waves me back to the kitchen. I hold up a finger as if to say “one minute” and look out our front door. Arnie stands in the middle of the yard, ramming his head into the trunk of our sycamore tree. Turning, I head to Amy when Momma asks, “How is my boy?”

  “I’m fine,” I say.

  “Arnie. How is ARNIE?”

  “He’s fine.”

  “What’s he doing?”

  “Adjusting, Momma.” I check on him once more and see that he’s moved to the mailbox. He puts a grasshopper in its place and brings down the metal flag fast, snipping off the head. Arnie’s adjusting.

  In the kitchen I find Amy on her knees. In front of her, like the baby Jesus, is the cake, splat on the floor. The frosting has squished out on all sides.

  “I barely bumped it. It just slid off and fell. In slow motion, it fell. And I couldn’t get to it… and… and… what am I gonna do?”

  I say things meant to help: “It’ll work out.” “Everything will be okay,” etc. But it makes matters worse. I’m about to suggest making another cake, when Amy says, “I can’t do better than this.”

  She’s right. She can’t do better.

  I ask, “So what do you want to do?”

  ***

  Let me say this—my big sister dug deep inside herself, gained the needed composure, and dialed Food Land. She spoke steady and clear. I cringed as she ordered. When she hung up, she said, “Be sure to see Jean in the bakery section. It’ll be ready for pickup at seven o’clock.”

  “Me?”

  “I’d do it, but we’ll be with Momma at the beauty parlor.”

  “But…”

  “Thank you, Gilbert.”

  ***

  I’ve been standing here—in the kitchen—motionless—for the last five minutes. I’ve watched as Amy took a washcloth and wiped up the last of the frosting on the kitchen floor.

  This is not the time to protest, I decide, swallowing the gallon of spit that has filled my mouth.

  Amy says, “I know how you feel about Food Land.”

  I don’t think she does.

  “It’s sweet of you to do this.” She kisses me on the cheek, just as Judas did to Jesus. “Really sweet.”

  51

  I’m on my way to Hell.

  Driving across town, I see Dave Allen’s station in the distance. I could use some gas. As I approach, Dave is shouting something, trying to flag me down. I reach down to turn off the radio when I hear “bing-bing” or “ding-ding” or “ringa-dinga.” I slam on my brakes. Dave has his arms almost up in the air, as if to surrender. I back the truck up slowly because this can’t be. Bing-bing. Ding-ding.

  “Dave! What the hell…?”

  “I tried to tell you last time you were here. The regional manager…”

  I spin my tires fast, squeal out, covering my ears as the truck shoots over the cord.

  ***

  The giant letters are glowing their fluorescent bright red. Each letter must be three times the size of me. As my dirty shoes hit the floor mat, the electric doors swing open and I enter. For the first time I feel the power a foot can command at Food Land. I’m inside, and the brightness of the lights and the glare from the shiny floor overwhelm. My eyes move around like a kid’s on Christmas Day. For a moment, I forget about my family, my mammoth mother, my life, and I see not two, not six, but twelve cash registers. The workers wear red-white-and-blue uniforms. They flash toothy smiles. Music pours out from a sound system. The people in the store, the countless people, blur into a dream as I walk down Aisle One. I see more than fifteen types of bread, loaves of date-nut and walnut. Aisle Two is the canned items, and everything imaginable is there, in abundance, stocked in sequence, each can clearly marked. I see workers everywhere. People grabbing food, sacking fresh vegetables, weighing peaches on shiny scales.

  I remember why I’m here and I go off to find the Bakery section.

  ***

  “Yeah, I’m here to pick up a cake for Grape,” I say, looking around for Jean, the cake lady.

  A guy with curly brown hair turns, his face all sweaty, his fingers covered in flour. His name tag reads “Jean.” He says, “The Grape cake?”

  “Yeah. Grape. Arnie Grape. He’s turning eighteen.”

  Jean the cake baker breathes deep. His eyes veer as he tries to remember.

  “Surely there aren’t that many cakes….”

  Jean’s eyes dart to mine, his head starts to quiver. “Excuse me?” This Jean speaks with a lisp. He has a girl’s name. Go figure. “Don’t think for a moment you’re the only cake in this county!”

  He opens the big silver refrigerator in such a way that it is difficult for me to see inside. But I stretch to my left and see, in a flash, that there is only one box inside and that the rest of the fridge is empty, spit-shine clean.

  But Jean takes an eternity checking all the shelves, looking here, looking there. He doesn’t know that I know what I know. Finally he brings out the cake, saying, “Oh, here it is.” He lifts the box lid for me to inspect.

  “Fine,” I say, approving the white cake, with white frosting, green lettering, “but you forgot the candles.”

  “Oh my,” Jean says, covering his mouth.

  “Eighteen candles, Jean, okay? Like my sister ordered.”

  “Yes, sir. Right away. Will take just a second.”

  Rather than watch this sorry baker arrange the candles, I wander up and down Food Land. Aisle Seven has children’s toys. Aisle Eight has baby diapers and Tupperware galore. Aisle Nine is juices and Hi-C and frozen TV dinners. Rounding Aisle Ten, I see two eyes, surprised eyes.

  “Gilbert.”

  “Hi.”

  Mr. Lamson is standing in front of me.

  We say nothing. There is nothing to say. We just stand there for a time, not looking at each other but not knowing where to look.

  “Sir, I uhm… Arnie’s cake uhm… you see…”

  Mr. Lamson holds up his hand for me to be silent. So I stop my talking. He bites his lower lip, then rolls it out like an ocean wave into a beaming smile. “Have you seen the lobsters?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Be sure to see the lobsters. My God, what a sight. And the cereal selection. It’s… well, I’ve never seen one quite like it… and frozen orange juice for less than a dollar… all of their prices… all of their prices, Gilbert… many good bargains here… and…”

  I try once again to explain about the cake. Mr. Lamson looks around and says, “No need to explain, son. We’ve been whooped.”

  He pushes his empty cart down Aisle Ten. I watch him look from side to side, floating along slowly, studying product after product. His simple flannel shirt, his noble brown shoes move away from me, reducing Mr. Lamson in size but not in stature.

  “Wonderful surprises” echoes in my head.

  ***

  I count the green and white candles. Jean turns the cake so I can see it from every angle, but it makes me lose track. “Fine,” I say. “Just fine.”

  “Is that all you can say? Is that all you can muster up?” Jean is starting to huff now; his top lip is beginning to drip sweat. One drop hits the cake box, causing the white paper to puff out.

  I gesture for him to close up the box. Jean doesn’t. “This cake, if you’ll excuse my saying so, deserves much more than a fine. This cake is good.”

  I pull out the twenty dollars Amy gave me. The cake was quoted at $14.50, and in an effort to exit quick, I say, “Keep the change.”

  Jean closes the box, tapes it, inserts it into two sacks for safekeeping, and smiles smiles smiles.

  I walk away slowly.

  “Have a nice day!”

  As I approach the electric doors, the sound system plays a dentistlike version of “Let It Be.” And I try. But the image of Mr. Lamson flashes in me. The image of him and me being here at the same time—staring at each other—knowing that we’ve both bowed down and stuck our tongues up the asshole of America.

  I dis
appear from Food Land.

  ***

  A note at home leaves dinner instructions for Arnie and me. I put the cake in the space Amy made in the refrigerator. I don’t unwrap it. Arnie keeps saying over and over, “What is it? What is it?” and I say, “It’s a surprise.” I make the grilled-cheese sandwiches and pour the kid his chocolate milk.

  As he eats, a ring of yellow-orange cheese forms around his mouth. This is in addition to the oil stains, jellies, chunky peanut butter, bits of potato chips and cheese puffs, various flavors of Kool-Aid, ketchup, and mustard. He has become his own abstract painting.

  ***

  Arnie and I are watching TV. The ladies loaded Momma into the Nova at about 5:30 P.M. No one saw, because they pulled Amy’s car into the garage. They got to Endora’s Gorgeous by six. It’s about eight-thirty now and they still aren’t home. The house is different with Momma out of it. The house seems relieved.

  ***

  The phone rings. I make my way to the kitchen and answer.

  “Gilbert, you get the cake? Did you?”

  “Yes, Amy.”

  “How does it look? Not as good as mine, but it looks…?”

  “Great. It looks mighty nice.”

  “Arnie. How is Arnie?”

  “Watching TV, Amy. Arnie is superb. Arnie is doing great.”

  “You won’t believe it, what Charlie is doing here. First of all she is giving Momma the works. The whole works. A mud facial, a new hairstyle, easy-to-apply makeup. Janice and Ellen are watching real close. It’s like a real lesson in beauty happening here….”

  I’m looking around the kitchen at the failed attempt at order. The greasy counters, the yellowing floor. Beauty? Arnie is changing the channels fast in the living room. I could tell Amy about Mr. Lamson at Food Land and Dave Allen, too. I’ve got to tell her these things. I want her to know about the day I’m having, how hard it is for me to keep hanging in there. But Amy’s voice has a rhythm, a spunk to it, and I haven’t the heart to interrupt.

  Before hanging up, she sings, “If you get Arnie clean, I’ll love you forever.”

  “Jesus, Amy. Don’t sing.”

  “Get him clean.”

  “Okay. Just don’t sing.”