What's Eating Gilbert Grape

by Peter Hedges

  “Ooooo, Gilbert—stop it.” She pulls my hair.

  “Ow. Okay, Amy. Okay!”

  And to make it up to her, I wet a rag and wipe the frosting off her nose and mouth. Amy picks up the cubes that are melting on the floor when binga-binga or dinga-dinga comes from upstairs.

  “That’s Momma.”

  While Amy is dropping the cubes in the sink, I push myself around her and take off for the stairs. “Coming, Momma!”

  Amy gets hold of my T-shirt. It starts to rip.

  “Stop it!”

  “I’m going to win, Gilbert, I’m going to…”

  “No way.”

  She holds my arm and I pull her along.

  Binga-binga. Dinga-dinga.

  Part Seven

  58

  We race up the stairs. I win.

  “Amy and Gilbert at your service, Momma.”

  Momma’s on her back in her bed and she’s looking for us. One of her big hands stretches our way, the other shakes the school bell above her. Binga-binga. Dinga-dinga.

  “What is it, Momma?”

  She tries to make a sound. The window fans are making this humming noise so I turn them off.

  “What, Momma, what?”

  Binga-binga. Dinga-dinga. The bell falls from her hand. This raspy sound is coming out her, a rattle. Momma’s eyes are having a time of it, she’s trying to whisper something, when her eyes start fluttering.

  “What is it?” Amy asks.

  Momma’s eyes close and her head rolls to the side.

  I shake her by her shoulders.

  “No. No!” Amy shouts. “Come on, Momma, come on!”

  I push on her chest, slamming on it. Amy gives her mouth to mouth. She does her best.

  But there’s no pulse. There is nothing there, nothing left. One second her stomach is rising up and down, her lips smacking together. Next second, it stops. Momma stops.

  “No. No, Gilbert, tell me this isn’t happening.”

  “It isn’t happening.”

  But it is.

  “Aaaaaaahhhhhhh!” goes Amy, and I put my arms around and hold her as tight as I can. She is convulsing.

  “Amy. Amy Amy Amy.”

  Arnie continues sleeping on the floor. He doesn’t hear her scream and pound the bed.

  Momma lies there, her mouth half open, her eyes closed, her hair still nice from the beauty parlor, her body covering her bed. I take hold of her hand. It won’t be warm much longer. What are these pictures that flash in me? Images of her giving birth to me, sweat all over her face, and imagining the look on her face the first time she held me.

  Amy goes, “Aaaaaahhhhhh!” again. Arnie stirs but doesn’t wake.

  I’m told women scream when they give birth because of the intense pain. And I think about how easily life can just slide away, like thawing ice. And how it’s only the living that scream.

  We stand there (I don’t know how long) not knowing what to do. Finally, Amy touches Arnie’s hair and says, “Better wake him up.”

  “Little buddy, it’s your brother. Gilbert here. Arnie…?”

  He opens his eyes and smiles. “I know it’s you, Gilbert. Jeez.”

  “I need to show you…”

  “Gilbert, I was dreaming. I was dreaming about these big goldfish. They were so big. So big. You shoulda seen ’em. You too, Amy. You shoulda seen ’em too.”

  When he sees that Amy’s face is all red, he stops his talking.

  “Arnie,” I say. “It’s Momma.”

  He sits up, looks at her. He crouches on the bed and touches her lips. He looks puzzled.

  “Momma’s gone.”

  Arnie hits her shoulder. He pinches her and giggles. I guess he thinks it’s a joke. It takes a while but eventually it sinks in. He sits quietly by Momma’s feet.

  ***

  Larry’s car drives up. He and Janice come in the house with two six-packs of beer. I stand at the top of the stairs and wave them up. “Leave the beer down there,” I say.

  They do. Janice with a cigarette comes up the stairs first, Larry follows. I point to Momma’s room and they go in. Amy is combing Momma’s hair and Arnie is holding one of Momma’s feet. Janice sees the situation first. They both stand there quiet.

  Larry leaves the room to punch a hole through the bathroom door. Janice doesn’t scream or cry, her face just stares blank-like. The ashes grow on her cigarette.

  It gets blurry for a while.

  Then Amy takes charge. She decides that we better call Dr. Harvey or the hospital in Motley.

  Janice says to call now. “Let’s get Momma out of here.”

  Amy says, “Not until after Ellen sees her.”

  Janice starts to object.

  Amy goes, “No, Janice. She needs to see Momma first. So, Gilbert?”

  “Okay…”

  “Go find…”

  “Of course.”

  ***

  I pull up to the intercom/drive through part of the Burger Barn. “Good evening. May I take your order?”

  “Tucker.”

  “May I take your order, please?”

  “Tucker, it’s me.”

  “Your order, sir?”

  “IT’S GILBERT!”

  “I know it’s you. Are you ready to order?”

  “I’m looking for…”

  “Gilbert, the district manager is here tonight. He’s over by the french fries, but pretend that we don’t know each other. It’s uhm important for me to make a good impression… so yessir—that will be one Burger Barn special, a large order of Silo fries and a Strawberry Moo Malt. That will be two ninety-three.”

  “Have you seen…?”

  “Yessir, your total is two ninety-three. Please drive forward.”

  I drive up.

  He slips a five out of his pocket and hands it to me. I hand it back, and he says, “Two ninety-three out of five. Here is your change. Would you like ketchup with your order, sir?”

  “Have you seen Ellen?”

  Tucker gets a glimpse of my eyes and stops what he’s doing. He mouths, “You okay?”

  I shake my head.

  He mouths, “What’s…?”

  “It’s Momma.”

  “Yeah?”

  “She’s gone.”

  “Where’d she go?” He says this as he puts about fifteen plastic packages of ketchup in my bag. “Where’d she go?”

  “Wherever you go when you’re gone.”

  He hands me the bag of food and whispers, “You mean… no… no…”

  “If you see Ellen, send her home, okay?” I hit the gas and squeal out, leaving a tire mark, surely.

  I drive fast. The speedometer breaks ninety. My truck stinks from the Burger Barn food. I roll down the window and toss the bag out. I can hear Momma saying, “What’s for dinner? What’s there to eat?” I wish I’d thrown food out earlier. Maybe if we’d thrown it out earlier, maybe if I had quit the grocery store. Maybe.

  I keep repeating “Momma’s gone” in my head, hoping that it will sink in.

  ***

  Parked under the old railroad bridge are many cars and pickup trucks. I pull in and blink my headlights on and off fast. One of the cars honks, annoyed at my light. Some guy yells out, “Hey, buddy, cut that out.” I see the McBurney Funeral Home hearse.

  I knock on the passenger window. The glass is steamed over and the doors are locked. Bobby McBurney climbs out the driver’s side and says, “You had to come and spoil this, didn’t you?”

  I don’t say anything to Bobby. “Ellen, get dressed. You gotta come home. Ellen!”

  “Your sister is a big girl.”

  “Now, I say.”

  Ellen gets out of the hearse, tying the string to her halter top. “I hate my brother. I HATE MY BROTHER!”

  Bobby threatens me. “One day we’ll be alone, Gilbert, and I’ll kick your ass.”

  “MY BROTHER RUINS LIVES! HE EATS HIS OWN SPERM!”

  The other cars start flashing their headlights, honking their horns.

>   I drive away slowly, with as much dignity as I can manage. Tomorrow they’ll hear about what happened to Momma. Tomorrow they’ll feel bad.

  The whole way home she says, “What is it? What is it? Something happened? Did I do something wrong? It’s Arnie? Oh, God—it’s Arnie.”

  “It’s not Arnie.”

  I smoke a cigarette. Ellen rolls down the window and forces cough after cough. I drive as fast as I can. She looks for a seat belt.

  “There’d better be a good reason, Gilbert, because you’ve ruined my life. You’ve destroyed my entire existence.”

  We’re home.

  Dr. Harvey is on the porch talking with Amy and Larry. Ellen goes to them. “What is it? What happened?” Janice appears and takes Ellen upstairs.

  I get to the porch and Dr. Harvey is finishing saying something. He hugs Amy, shakes Larry’s hand, and extends his out to mine. “Your mother was a good woman, Gilbert.” I say nothing. Since he’s holding the death certificate in his right hand, we shake with the left. “Let me know if I can be of help.”

  Ellen cries, out of control like. It isn’t until after we get her calmed down that she can speak coherently.

  She meets me as I’m coming out of the bathroom. “Gilbert…” she says, barely getting out the words. “You know what Bobby and I were doing, don’t you? Don’t you? In the uhm hearse?”

  “Not really.”

  “We were… you know… doing it… while Momma was… was…”

  I look at her puffy eyes and quivering lips. “You didn’t know,” I say softly. “How were you supposed to know?”

  “But…”

  “Shhhh. Shhhhh.”

  “But…”

  “It’s okay, Ellen. It’s okay.”

  I try to hug her. My arms wrap around her awkward-like, but I try.

  ***

  We go back to Momma’s room. Ellen asks a bunch of questions. “Was she in pain?”

  “Didn’t seem to be.”

  “Was she scared?”

  “I think so.”

  “Was she… was she… was she…?”

  I answer whatever Ellen asks. Amy gets a bottle of perfume and starts to spray it on Momma. Janice says, “Enough is enough,” and starts to dial for an ambulance.

  “Hang up, Janice. Hang up!” I shout.

  She stops for a moment, looks at me like I’m joking, and then continues dialing.

  “Hang up the phone!” I shout. “I’m not ready for her to be uhm taken away.”

  Janice says softly, “Gilbert, it’s time.”

  “I’m not ready for them to touch her, to take her away, okay?”

  “But…”

  “What are they gonna do with her now anyway? They’ll leave her naked under some sheet in some cold room till morning. Dr. Harvey has signed the certificate. I want to wait till morning.”

  Janice puts down the phone. “Can Amy stop with the perfume, though? At least stop with the perfume.”

  Amy puts the bottle down.

  Janice says, “Let’s call before sunrise. I don’t want a crowd outside.”

  “Yes,” Ellen says. “Momma wouldn’t want the crowd.”

  Amy decides that we’ll call in an hour or two.

  “I just need more time to get used to the idea of Momma gone,” I say. “It doesn’t sink in. It just doesn’t sink in, does it?”

  We sit quietly, the girls and me. We look at Momma. After a long time of sitting there, Amy asks me to go get Larry and Arnie. “Don’t call,” I say, as I leave the room.

  ***

  I find Arnie sitting in Momma’s chair downstairs and I say, “Hey, buddy,” and he says, “Yeah,” and I say, “Amy wants you upstairs, okay?”

  “Okay.” He walks past me and stomps up the stairs.

  ***

  I find Larry in the basement pulling apart the support beams. “Larry, stop it.”

  “What is this? What’s this wood? What is this?”

  “She was falling through the floor. We didn’t know what else to do.”

  “But this is where… this is where…”

  “I know.”

  Larry kicks the beams, hitting the higher boards with his fists. “I hate this house. I hate it.”

  “You have every right to,” I say.

  “I’m going. Okay? I’m getting in my car and going. I can’t stay here. I can’t be here.”

  “I know how you feel… but…”

  Larry has crouched in the corner, like a baby in a womb. “But what?”

  “You can’t leave just yet. You just can’t.”

  “But…” He wraps his arms around his knees tighter.

  “It’s not a good time to be leaving. Hey, come on. Amy wants us upstairs. All of us. Come on, Larry.”

  He sits, not budging an inch.

  “Come on, buddy.” I pull him up. We duck under and around the support beams and walk slowly upstairs.

  ***

  Amy goes, “You think we could all just sit in here for a while? Just sit together?”

  No one objects. Arnie sits at Momma’s feet. Amy is at her side. I stand behind Larry in the doorway, blocking him in case he tries to get out. Ellen and Janice stand by the window, smoking. Ellen holds a cigarette of her own.

  Amy has brought in a cassette player and she turns on first a tape of Frank Sinatra. Momma loved Frank. When that ends, she puts on Elvis. And while one of us is crying, another stares out the window and somebody else pipes up with some story about Momma.

  Janice says that Momma was once the prettiest girl in Endora, and that Ellen looks just like how Momma did as a girl. Larry mentions how Momma was always happiest when she was pregnant. And Amy says she always knew that this was going to happen—Momma dying—but that in no way did she think it would happen now. “I’m glad we’re all here,” she says. Ellen says that she still can’t believe that she’s Momma’s spitting image, so Amy and Janice get the trunk out. We look at pictures of Momma as a little girl and as a young woman. One is of Momma at about age five, holding a teddy bear. Her face looks so sad and forlorn. And she’s wearing a winter hat and mittens.

  I’m not saying we all of a sudden decided that our mother was Saint Mary. But even though she was angry, even though she was soooo fat, she was our mother. And we could see in each of us a trace of her. And we knew in some weird way that she wasn’t gone, she had just moved into us and now it was time for us to move on.

  One of the Elvis songs gets Amy dancing. And Larry, too. Arnie jiggles around with Janice. Ellen is taking pictures with her Kodak, but the flash has stopped working so I don’t know if the pictures will come out. I sit on the bed and look at Momma lying there, still. Everybody is moving around her, spinning and laughing. Momma is still and Elvis sings.

  I look at Momma and say under my breath, “It’s going to take a crane to get you out. You know that? They’re going to have to cut a hole in the ceiling. A helicopter, maybe…”

  Amy sticks her sweaty face in front of mine and says, “Gilbert, who you talking to?”

  “Nobody,” I say.

  “Then dance,” she says. “Dance.”

  And I do.

  59

  We’re all danced out and Larry has brought up the beer and some of us have opened up cans.

  Amy says, “I haven’t danced this way in years.”

  Janice says, “I know some great places in Des Moines where…”

  Ellen says, “You’re a good dancer, Amy.”

  Larry belches. Arnie puts his hand up to Larry’s mouth and says, “Stop that, stop it!”

  We sit in our sweat.

  ***

  Amy says, “Okay. It’s time.”

  “For what?” I say, feeling this rush of blood around my face.

  “Time to call. The sun will be up in a few hours. We want to do this before the sun, right?”

  “Uhm.”

  “Yes,” Janice says.

  I go, “It’s gonna take a crane to get her out, you know that. Have you thought abo
ut that?”

  “No, it won’t.”

  “They’ll have to cut a hole in the roof. She’s too big to carry down. It’ll take a crane of some kind.”

  Larry says that there are hydraulic stretchers for people like Momma. He tells Janice to call. Janice stands and walks over to the phone.

  “No!” I shout. “Don’t!”

  “You need more time, Gilbert, is that it?” Amy says.

  “Uhm.”

  “We can wait a little longer.”

  Janice sighs. “Let’s do it. Let’s just call, okay?” She picks up the phone.

  “Noooooo!”

  Arnie covers his ears and the others stop moving and look at me.

  “Don’t call. Do not call. By the time they get her out, it’ll be morning. And there’ll be a crowd. And the McBurney hearse will show up. They’ll put her in the hearse, Ellen. And the people will talk and talk. Whisper. They’ll look at her and feel superior. And they will joke. They will make her a joke.”

  Ellen has turned away. Janice starts to dial.

  “SHE IS NO JOKE! THEY’LL LAUGH AT HER AND POKE AT HER AND JUDGE HER! DO NOT LET THEM DO THAT!”

  “Okay, Gilbert, shhhh. Shhhhh.”

  “SHE DESERVES BETTER! SHE DESERVES…” I try to breathe. Amy tries to hug me, but I flinch. “MOMMA IS BEAUTIFUL AND NOBODY IS GOING TO LAUGH! …NO LAUGH!…”

  There is no dialing sound, no words of protest—only the sound of me sobbing.

  Ellen says, “She’s beautiful. No matter what anybody says or thinks, Momma is beautiful.”

  “So can I dial now?” Janice asks.

  I shake my head.

  “Well, then, little brother, what do you suggest we do?”

  I lunge through the air, ripping the phone away from her, cradling it like a football.

  “Well,” Janice says.

  I unplug it and carry it to my room. I pull out two dresser drawers stuffed with clothes, set the phone in the top drawer, and walk back down the hall.

  “What are you doing?” Janice asks. The others are watching.

  I go down the stairs and set the drawers in our front yard. I find a box. In the upstairs hall, I empty Amy’s Nancy Drew collection into the box.

  Janice asks, “What is Gilbert doing? Is anyone else interested?”