“Look, Gump,” Reverend Bakker says, “if that ignoramus Walt Disney can do it, so can I. This is the grandest scheme of the grand. We will attract Bible thumpers from all over the goddamn world! Fifty thousand a day—maybe more! Every scene in the Bible—every parable—will have its place here! And at twenty dollars a head, we’ll make billions!”
In this, the Reverend Bakker was correct.
He had more than fifty rides an attractions, an was plannin for more. People got to walk through some woods where they was a guy dressed up like Moses, an when they got close he stepped on a button that set off a gas valve that shot a fire twenty feet in the air—“Moses and the Burnin Bush”! An as soon as the gas fire bust out, the visitors all jump back an begun hollerin an ooohin an ahhhin, like to scared them to death!
There was a stream, too, where a little baby Moses was floatin aroun in a plastic boat wrapped in a towel—“Moses in the Bulrushes”!
Then there was “The Red Sea Parting,” where Reverend Bakker has figgered out a way for a whole lake to be sucked up on both sides on command, an the people get to walk across on the bottom, just like the Israelites—an furthermore, when they got to the other side, the reverend has a bunch of goons from the prison-release program dressed up like Pharaoh’s Army start chasin after em, but when the goons tried to get across the sea, the pumps thowed all the water back in the lake an Pharaoh’s Army got drownded.
He had it all.
They was “Jacob in His Coat of Many Colors” an the entire “Story of Job,” which was about as much sufferin as I have ever seen a man go through on a daily basis. After the first bunch had walked through “The Red Sea Parting,” a second group got to come to the lake to watch Jesus turn loafs of bread into fishes. The reverend, he had figgered out a way to save money by lettin the fishes eat the bread till they got fat enough, an then he served them up to the visitors at the fish-fry pavilion for fifteen dollars a plate!
They have got “Daniel in the Lion’s Den” an “Jonah in the Belly of the Whale,” too. On Mondays, when Holy Land is closed, the reverend rents out the lion an his tamer to a local bar for fifty bucks a night, where they bet people that nobody can beat the lion in a rasslin match. The whale is a big ole mechanical whale, an it was all workin pretty good till the reverend discovered that Jonah was hidin a bunch of whisky behin the whale’s tonsils. Ever time the whale gobbled him up he’d run back an slug down a drink. End of the day come, Jonah is pretty drunk, an the finale arrived when Jonah commenced to give the crowd the finger just before the whale’s jaws clamped shut. Reverend had to put a stop to that, account of some of the mamas complained that their kids was givin the finger back.
But the most spectacular ride of all was “Jesus Ascending into Heaven,” which was run on somethin the reverend called a skyhook. In fact, it was like one a them bungee-jumpin things in reverse, where the guy in the Jesus suit gets hooked up an then snatched about fifty feet in the air into a cloud of machine-made mist—an to tell the truth, it did look kinda realistic. The visitors could pay ten dollars apiece to get to do this themsefs.
“Gump,” the reverend says, “I have got a brand-new attraction that I want you to be a part of. It is called ‘The Battle of David and Goliath’!”
It didn’t take a whole lot of smarts for me to figger out what part I was sposed to play.
I thought the deal playin in “David and Goliath” was gonna be easy, but of course it wadn’t.
First off, they dressed me up in a big ole leopardskin tunic, an give me a shield an a spear an pasted a big black beard on me. What I am sposed to do is growl an roar an generally act like a asshole. An just when I am lookin my fiercest, the David character, he comes out wearin a set of diapers an starts thowin rocks at me with a slingshot.
David is played by that nut Hinckley, who has got hissef into the program by claimin he is really crazy an don’t belong in jail anymore. When he is not throwin rocks at me with the slingshot, he spends all his times writin letters to Jodie Foster, who he describes as a “pen pal.”
Problem is, they is real rocks he is thowin an ever so often one of em hits me—an let me say this: It hurts! We be doin our act five or six times a day, an by closin time, I probly been hit two dozen times by rocks. Hinckley, he seems to enjoy it, but after about a week or two, I done complained to Reverend Bakker that this don’t seem fair, me havin all these bruises an lumps an gettin two of my teeth chipped out by this little bastid, when I don’t never get to do anythin back to him.
But the reverend says it is okay, account of in the Bible story, that was the way it was, an you can’t change the Bible. Damn if I wouldn’t, if I could, but of course I didn’t say so, account of the reverend, he say if I don’t like it, I can go on back to jail. I am sure missin little Forrest, an Jenny, too, an somehow, I feel that I am seriously forsaken.
Anyhow, the time come when I had had enough. It was a big day at Holy Land, an the theme park was filled with visitors. When the crowd gets to my attraction, I begun roarin an lookin fierce an threatenin David with my spear. He begun thowin his rocks with the slingshot, an damn if one of them don’t hit me on the hand an I dropped my shield. I bent over to pick it up, an the little bastid done thowed another rock that hit me in the ass. This is totally uncalled for! A man can put up with just so much.
Well, I lurched over to David, who is just standin there with a stupid smirk on his face, an I grapped him by the seat of his diapers an spun him around a few times, an then let go. He sailed all the way over the trees an landed right in the middle of the lake where Jesus was doin his loafs an fishes thing.
David’s arrival must of set somethin off wrong with the main switchboard, cause all of a sudden the pumps begun operatin an the Red Sea begun to part. Without no warnin, the gas jet at the Burnin Bush went off, an Moses, who was standin too close to it, was set on fire. About this time, the mechanical whale took off right out of the lake an came up on shore, chompin an bitin like mad. Now the crowd begun to riot; women was hollerin an children was cryin an men was runnin for they lives. All this got the lion over at Daniel’s Den upset, an he busted loose an started to run amok. At that point, I appeared on the scene, which sort of added to the confusion. The guy what was playin Jesus ascendin into heaven was standin there drinkin a soda pop, waitin for his act to start, when all of a sudden the bungee cord snatched him up an flung him into the sky. He wadn’t strapped in or nothin, so it just let him go, an he landed in the middle of the fish-fry pavilion, right in a big pot of warm grease.
Somebody had called the police, who showed up an immediately begun beatin people on the heads with nightsticks. Meantime, the lion had got loose in the bulrushes, where he surprised the Reverend Bakker an Jessica Hahn, who was havin some kind of relationship minus their clothes. They come tearin out right in the middle of things, with the lion in hot pursuit. When the police got an eyeful of this, first thing they do is arrest the reverend for “indecent exposure,” an cart him off to jail. Last thing he says before they tossed him in the paddy wagon is “Gump, you idiot, I’ll have your head for this!”
Chapter Eight
After that, it was all over for the Reverend Bakker. One thing led to another, an in the end he gone on to jail hissef—where he can now help rehabilitate the prisoners full-time, not to mention his own pious ass.
Me, however, it looks like, will be returnin to jail also, but that was not to be.
The national media had got wind that there was a riot at Holy Land, an somehow my picture got into the papers an on TV. I am actually waitin for the bus to take us back to prison, when a feller shows up with a document in his hand, says it is my “release.”
He is dressed all nattily in a suit with suspenders an has big flashy teeth an spit-shined shoes, look kinda like a stockbroker. “Gump,” he says, “I am gonna be your ‘Angel of Mercy.’ ”
Ivan Bozosky is his name.
Ivan Bozosky says he has been tryin to find me ever since the Capitol Hill hearins with Colonel Nor
th.
“Have you seen the newspapers today, Gump?” Ivan Bozosky ast.
“No, sir, I haven’t.”
“Well, then,” he says, “perhaps you’d like to,” an hands me a copy of The Wall Street Journal. Headline reads: STOOGE SHUTS DOWN IMPORTANT ECONOMIC THEME PARK.
A recent releasee from a Washington hospital for the criminally insane ran amok yesterday in a small Carolina town, ruining economic opportunities for thousands of hardworking American citizens by setting off a chain of events that caused the downfall of one of Carolina’s most revered citizens.
According to sources, the culprit’s name is Forrest Gump, a man of low IQ who has been identified in similar disturbances in Atlanta, West Virginia, and elsewhere.
Gump, who was serving time for expressing contempt for the U.S. Congress, was on a work-release project at a Bible-oriented enterprise under the tutelage of the Reverend Jim Bakker, a devout entrepreneur of our American way of life.
In his role as the giant Goliath, Gump, who is said to be a large-figured man, apparently began to disport himself yesterday in a manner described by authorities as “inappropriate,” at one point hurling his fellow Bible character David over several stands of trees and into a lake inhabited by a mechanical whale, which, in the words of Holy Land authorities, “became distressed by the intrusion,” and began to seethe and set upon the guests and visitors.
Somewhere in the confusion, Reverend Bakker and his secretary, one Jessica Hahn, became embroiled in the exhibit’s biblical bulrushes, which tore off their clothing, and they were swept up in a police dragnet, which the spokesman described as “unfortunate.”
An shit like that. Anyway, ole Ivan Bozosky, he took back the newspaper an turns to me.
“I like your style, Gump,” he says, “because way back before all this, you had every chance there was to rat on Colonel North an the President, but you didn’t. You covered it all up an took the blame yourself! Now, that’s what I call real corporate spirit! My outfit can use a man like you.”
“What outfit is that?” I ast.
“Well, we buy an sell shit—stuff on paper, actually. Bonds, stocks, bidnesses—whatever. We don’t buy an sell anything really, but when we get through talkin on the phones an shufflin all the papers, we wind up with a shit-pot of money in our pockets.”
“How you do that?”
“Easy,” Ivan Bozosky says. “Meanness, dirty tricks an stuff, peekin over people’s shoulders, goin behind their backs, pickin their pockets. It’s a jungle out there, Gump, an right now, I am the big tiger.”
“So what you want me to do?”
Ivan puts his hand on my shoulder. “Gump, I am starting a new division in my company in New York, called the Division of Insider Trading, an I want you to be its president.”
“Me? Why?”
“Because of your integrity. It took a lot of integrity to stand up there and lie to the Congress and take the rap for that fool North. Gump, you are just the kind of feller I’ve been looking for.”
“What’s it pay?”
“Sky’s the limit, Gump! Why, do you need money?”
“Everbody needs money,” I says.
“No, I mean real money! The kind with half-a-dozen zeros behind it.”
“Well, I gotta earn somethin to keep little Forrest in school, an pay for his college someday, an stuff like that.”
“Who’s little Forrest—your son?”
“Well, sort of. I mean, I’m in charge of takin care of him.”
“Good godamighty, Gump,” Ivan Bozosky says, “with what you’re gonna make, you can send him to Choate, Andover, St. Paul’s, and Episcopal High School all at once, and when you’re done, he’ll be so rich he can send his shirts off to Paris to be laundered.”
So that’s how I begun my corporate career.
I had never been to New York City, an let me tell you: It was a sight!
I didn’t know there was so many people in the whole world. They was millin in the streets an sidewalks an up in the skyscrapers an in the stores. The racket they made was unreal—horns blowin, jackhammers jackin, sirens wailin, an I don’t know what-all else. I had the immediate impression that I was in a anthill, where all the ants was half crazy.
Ivan Bozosky first took me to his company’s offices. They was in a big ole skyscraper down near Wall Street. They was hundrits of people workin there at computers, all was wearing shirts an ties an suspenders, an most of em had little round horn-rimmed glasses, an their hair was slicked back. To a man, they was talkin on their telephones, an smokin cigars so much at first I thought the room was on fire.
“This is the deal, Gump,” Ivan says. “What we do herein is, we make friends with the folks that run big companies, an when we learn they are gonna issue a big dividend or earnings statement, or sell their company, or start a new division—or do anything else that will make the price of their stock go up—why, we start buying their stock ourselves before the news officially gets in the papers an lets every sonofabitch on Wall Street have a fair chance to get in on the profits.”
“How you make friends with them people?” I ast.
“Simple. Just hang around the Harvard or Yale clubs or the Racquet Club or any number of places where these morons do their thing. Buy em a bunch of drinks, play dumb—take em to dinner, get em a girl, kiss their asses—whatever it takes. Sometimes we fly em out to Aspen to ski or to Palm Beach or something. But don’t you worry about that, Gump. Our fellers know how to run that scam—All I want you to do is be the president, and the only person you’ll report to is me—about, oh, say, once every six months or so.”
“What I’m gonna report?”
“We’ll figure that out when the time comes. Now, let me show you your office.”
Ivan took me down a hall to a big ole corner office that has a mahogany desk an leather chairs an couches, an a Persian rug on the floor. All the windows look out over the city an the rivers, where there is all sorts of boats an steamships goin up an down, an in the distance I can see the Statue of Liberty, shinin in the evenin sun.
“Well, Gump, what do you think?”
“Nice view,” I says.
“Nice view my ass!” says Ivan. “This shit cost two hundred dollars a square foot to lease! This is prime real estate, my man! Now, your private secretary will be Miss Hudgins. And she is knock-dead gorgeous. And what I want you to do is, just sit at this desk here and when she brings you in some papers to sign, sign your name on them. You don’t need to bother to read them—they’ll just be a bunch of bullshit and details anyway. I’ve always thought bidness executives shouldn’t know too much about what’s going on in their bidness—you know what I mean?”
“Well, I dunno,” I says. “You know, I done got into a lot of trouble in my life doin stuff I didn’t know what it was.”
“Now, don’t worry any about that, Gump. All this is on the big-time up and up. It is the chance of a lifetime for you—and your son.” Ivan puts his arm around my shoulder an flashes a big ole toothy grin at me. “Want to ask anything else?”
“Yeah,” I says. “Where is the bathroom?”
“Bathroom? Your bathroom? Why, it’s right here through this door. You wondering if you got a private bathroom? Is that it?”
“Nope. I got to pee.”
At this, Ivan jumps back a little. “Ah, well, that is a rather straightforward way of putting it, I must say. But you go right ahead, Mr. Gump—in the privacy of your own bathroom.”
An so that’s what I did, but I was still wonderin if I was doin the right thing with this Ivan Bozosky. After all, seems I had heard some of his kind of shit before.
Anyway, Ivan, he gone off an left me in my new office. Big brass nameplate on the desk says Forrest Gump, President. I had just set down in the leather chair an put my feet up when the door opens an in walks a beautiful young woman. I figger this to be Miss Hudgins.
“Ah, Mr. Gump,” she says. “Welcome to the insider trading division of Bozosky Enterprises.�
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Miss Hudgins is certainly a looker—enough to make your teeth chatter. She is tall an brunette with blue eyes an a big toothy smile an skirt so short that I am afraid her underpants might show if she bends over.
“Would you like some coffee or anything?” she ast.
“No. Thank you, though,” I says.
“Well, is there anything I can do for you? How about a CokeCola—or perhaps a whisky sour?”
“Thanks, but I really don’t want nothin.”
“Then perhaps you would like to see your new apartment.”
“My what?”
“Apartment. Mr. Bozosky has ordered you an apartment to live in, since you are president of the division.”
“I thought I was gonna stay here on the couch,” I says. “I mean, since there is a bathroom an all.”
“Heavens, no, Mr. Gump. Mr. Bozosky asked me to find you suitable living quarters over on Fifth Avenue. Something where you can entertain.”
“Who I’m gonna entertain?”
“Whoever,” Miss Hudgins says. “Will you be ready to go in, say, half an hour?”
“I am ready to go right now,” I says. “How we gonna get there?”
“Why, in your limousine, of course.”
In no time, we is down on the street gettin into a big ole black limousine. It is so big I think it cannot turn a corner, but the driver, whose name is Eddie, is so good that he can even drive right past the taxicabs by goin up on the curb, an in a few minutes we is arriving at my new apartment after scatterin people all over Madison Avenue. Miss Hudgins says we are now “uptown.”
The buildin is a big ole thing of white marble with a canopy an doormen dressed up like in one of them old-time movies. The sign out front say Helmsley Palace. As we is goin in the door, a woman wearin a fur coat come out walkin a poodle. She be eyein me pretty suspicious an lookin me up an down, account of I am still wearin my work clothes from Holy Land.
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