PETER HEDGES
Amy puts her hand in mine and squeezes. "It would mean a lot to Arnie to win."
"Yeah, I know."
"He didn't mean to knock down those kids. I hope they know that."
"They know."
Lance gets up to the microphone. The people cheer and cheer. "Thank you." There is piercing feedback from the sound system. Even machines can tell a phony. People cover their ears, babies cry. "Test. Test." Lance taps the microphone. He waits till he gets the signal to go ahead. He is so nonchalant about it. 1 have to admire his confidence. "The awards are as follows. Third prize is a free meal for one at the Burger Barn." At this point. Lance launches into an advertisement for our new fast-food restaurant. I should have known that we'd get a commercial of some sort.
The grand opening will be Friday, July 14, and it's the talk of town. "Second prize is this plaque and a free meal for two at the ..." Lance pauses for effect and the kids, and Tucker, say, "Burger Barn." Lance smiles, proud of the crowd for joining in like that. "And first prize is this trophy and a party for twelve at. . . ?" The entire crowd, except for me, shouts, THE BURGER BARN!" Adults clap, the kids jump up and down.
"A trophy would mean a lot to Arnie."
"1 know. " I want to tell Amy that she, too, deserves a trophy for all she gives.
Third place goes to George and Martha Washington. Second place goes to Betsy Ross. They get their certificates, Betsy Ross gets a plaque.
"Gilbert, we're in the clear."
"Yes, we are," I say. I focus in on Arnie, who stands in the middle of the other kids. I can't wait to see his face.
"Wish we had a camera," Amy says, about to burst.
Lance clears his throat and reads from his paper.
"First prize, for best costume based on an American theme, goes to . . . DOUG AND TODD CARVER for ..."
"Bullshit!" Amy screams.
The other kids applaud politely as the parents whisper among
What's Eating Gilbert Grape
themselves. Amy covers her face. Arnie doesn't seem to mind. As far as he's concerned, he's always been a winner.
I look around and see Mrs. Carver. She has put on a pair of dark sunglasses. Surely she knows her kids don't deserve that trophy.
"One of the judges is Mr. Carver's secretary!" I shout out.
A parent of one of the Uncle Sams says, "That's unfair."
Another parent yells, "Those boys should have been disqualified!"
Amy mutters, "We were robbed. We were robbed."
The people begin to separate and go their own way when Lance says, "Excuse me. Excuse me. One more thing."
Someone shut that fake up, I think to myself.
"As grand marshal of this parade, 1 have one more thing to say."
I wish 1 had a gun.
"It is rare in this world that a person gets the kind of opportunity and privilege to do as I have done."
Yawn. Cough. Yawn. Yawn.
"Rarely do I see such courage, such quality, such dignity as I have seen today. There is an award I'd like to give. The Lance Dodge 'You'll be the next president of the United States' award and I am proud to give this award to the one, the only—^Amie Grape!"
Arnie looks around. Was that his name that he just heard?
"Arnie, come up here, buddy! Come on up!"
The other kids push Arnie to the stage. He and his boat ascend the platform. Lance shakes his hand. A couple of cameras flash. 1 don't believe this. Amy, in shock, says to me, "I wish Momma could see this."
The people clap politely. Lance raises Arnie's arm in the air, and 1 see Arnie mouth the word, "Ouch."
PETER HEDGES
33
%3 anice and Ellen took the next president to the Dairy Dream for a victory malt. Amy and I are walking home and she is looking down.
"Amy, what's wrong?"
She stops, she considers her words carefully. "How is his birthday going to top this?"
1 try to explain that Amies birthday will be different, not better or worse. "Different."
She sighs. "There's this pressure building, Gilbert. It's one thing to have Janice back and for Arnie to win some parade contest. But on his birthday, we'll have Larry, too. And Momma. And she has these giant expectations. 1 don't know what to do about her. She's eating in five days what she used to eat in seven. The supports under the floor won't last forever. I feel this pressure in my head, this pain in my head, and it's constant. It doesn't go away. Feel my shoulders."
I put my hands on her and feel dozens of bumps and tension spots. They feel like sharp rocks. "Wow."
"I can't last much longer. This movie on TV, the ground opened up and swallowed people. 1 keep waiting for the ground to open up and swallow me."
1 massage her back. "Sure, of course."
Amy looks down. Cars pass and honk, little kids run around throwing a plastic beach ball that has a map of the world on it. We just stand there as Amy's oily tears collect on the sidewalk. She uses my shirt to wipe her face, sniffs up the runniness in her nose, and says, happily, "You deserve someone, Gilbert. Someone special. "
We walk on. "No," 1 say.
"Yes—oh yes. Because, Gilbert, you've made sacrifices. And I'm
What's Eating Gilbert Grape
grateful to you. You've always been there and you deserve someone."* She talks on about what a good brother and fine person I am. I notice her mouth is about as gentle as they come, and her face, while beginning to puff out, has the kindest quality. My sister is not an ugly woman. I don't know if there's a better person around.
Amy had a boyfriend for a summer about three years back. He was a trucker and they met in the Ramp Cafe by chance one June day. He had lips like Elvis and wore long Elvis sideburns, even though his hair was strawberry blond. He didn't go by his real name, which only Amy knew. He went by Muffy. Every weekend for about three months he would drive up to our house and sound his horn. He treated all of us well. He became best buddies with Arnie and me and he always brought a special gift to Momma. It would either be a pretty rock that he'd find on the side of the road or 3-D postcards of cactus or whatever. Momma loved to look up from whatever food she was eating, her mouth still full, and say, "Muffy, you're the kind of man for me." He'd blush and go, "Aw, Mrs. Grape."
He and Amy held hands and I know they kissed a little. But it didn't go much further than that. He always slept on the sofa in the family room and would often wear these old pajamas of my dad's. Ellen and 1 placed bets on when they would marry. But one night, the last weekend that August, Amy was making a big end-of-summer barbecue. She went around the corner of the house and happened on Muffy who was locked in a kiss with Janice, Needless to say, Muffy was gone within minutes. He didn't even say good-bye to Momma, and you can imagine how upset she got. No one told Momma the real reason he disappeared. Amy said nothing, went straight to her room and played "Don't Be Cruel" over and over.
Amy and I are halfway down Elm Street when Mr. and Mrs. Lamson pull up in their 1970 Dodge Dart. Mrs. Lamson rolls down her window and says, with her red lips and light blue hair, "What a day, huh?"
PETER HEDGES
Amy, her eyes all bloodshot, says, "Wasn't that the most wonderful thing?" Mr. Lamson says, "You don't have days like that too often," "True, boss," I say.
"You tell your brother how proud we are. You tell him." "Yes, sir." He calls out, "Wonderful surprises, Gilbert," as they drive away.
Later, the three girls and I try to recount the parade for Momma. We're all talking at once, each of us vying for our mother's ears and eyes.
"You're pulling my leg," Momma says.
We all cry "We're not," "It happened," "Seriously, Momma!"
She says, "Pictures. Let me see the pictures!"
Amy says that we forgot the camera. Momma throws a tantrum. Arnie crawls under her table. She shakes the table and scrunches her fleshy face. "I WANTED PICTURES!"
Momma ate double the number of hot dogs at dinner. 1 only had a few potato chips
, as my appetite was lost due to her rantings about the lack of family photojournalism.
After dinner, we had our final planning session with Janice— this meeting was a review of sorts. Then Ellen got a call from Cindy Mansfield reminding her of the Fourth of July "I'm Born in the USA and I'm Born Again" get together. Cindy was there to pick her up within minutes. Then Amy drove Janice to the airport, with Arnie sitting in the back. After that. Tucker and Bobby McBurney stopped by wondering if 1 wanted to do something later. "I'm baby-sitting my mother," I told them, and they sighed, "Too bad, " and drove off.
Momma licked her plate so clean 1 almost forgot to stack it in the sink. She fell asleep immediately after eating. 1 stared at her— unable to accept that at one time I was growing inside her. I was once just a couple of cells. My father and my mother were naked and something had to be satisfactory about it, because he came inside her and she got pregnant. She, like me, was once a baby
What's Eating Gilbert Grape
in her mother s stomach and so on and so forth and so it goes. So it goes.
The TV was blaring. Momma was deeply asleep, making this sonorous kind of booming snore, her nostrils expanding and shrinking, her mouth open like an oven.
I devised a test.
I turned off the TV and instantly the snoring stopped. She began to move. When I felt her eyes about to open, I turned the TV back on and back to sleep she went. Then I'd turn it oflF and on— sometimes for a millisecond—and she never failed me. Each time it was off, she'd move and mutter—each time it was on, she'd sleep.
By the time the headlights from Amy's Nova turned into our driveway, my suspicion had been confirmed. My mother has a more intimate, connected relationship with this television than she has ever had with me.
First in the house is Amy, and she carries bags and paper cups that scream of fast food. She calls out the screen door, "Amie, come on in, okay?"
"Hey," I say. "Did Janice's plane crash?"
"No, why?"
I snap my fingers and go, "Damn."
"Gilbert, you don't mean that." Holding the screen door open, Amy turns on the porch light and calls to the retard one more time, "Get in here now." He comes barreling up the steps, his face splattered with mustard, ketchup, and dirt. On top of his warped head is a cardboard fold-up Burger Barn hat.
"Amy, you didn't."
"It's what he wanted. Isn't that right, Arnie?"
"Burger Barn is the best."
I explain, in the clearest way 1 can, that Burger Bam is not the best. "It's an insult to your uniqueness, Arnie, your individucdity. There's only one Amie Grape, right?"
"Right."
"Well, there are hundreds of Burger Barns and they are ..."
PETER HEDGES
"The best!"
Amy looks at me like I won't win this one. She's right. I won't.
In the kitchen, among the dishes that have fossilized and the trash that has crystallized. I ask Amy why she let Ellen go to this Born Again thing.
"Ellen needs to get out."
"And I don't? And you don't?"
"That new girl has changed her." Even Amy has heard of Becky, Becky who I do not miss. "She's not the beauty queen anymore. ..."
"Sure, she is. That new girl is nothing, believe me."
"The phone doesn't ring for her like it used to."
"Thank God. "
"Yes, it's great for you and me. But for a girl whose worth is determined by the number of calls she gets ..."
"You sound like Janice."
"Well. Janice and I talked."
I beg Amy to consider that Janice understands absolutely nothing about any of us or this house, that sending her to college was our biggest collective mistake. I resent how she'll fly in when it's convenient, provide her less than perceptive opinions, and then cdways leave us with the work.
"Janice is your sister."
"No fault of mine."
"You must love her."
"No."
"I love her."
"The bitch kissed Mufify. How can you , . . ?"
Amy's left hand flies across my face. The slap sound doesn't wake my mother, and I hold my cheek, my tongue rummaging to see if any teeth are now loose.
"Thanks," is all I can say.
After a considered silence, she says, "I love her so much that I pity her." She has yet to get over Mufify.
"That hurt," I say, my head dizzy.
"Good. "
Amy does the dishes while I sack up the endless bags of trash.
What's Eating Gilbert Grape
I carry them out to the garage door and a gang of flies attacks me. Later, I get our biggest swatter, turn on the garage light and chase down fly after fly, trapping them against the Wcills, in the corner where the lawn mower and rakes are, and proceed to annihilate them.
Back in the house. Amy fills the largest bowl she can find with a mountain of Neapolitan ice cream. "Good night," she says. Her solace is an entire half gallon and memories of happier times.
I run Amies bath water, get the bubbles big and plentiful, and dump in all his toys. Arnie is happy in the water and when the phone rings, I leave him splashing.
34
Hi, Tucker."
"Bobby's on the phone, too. Think of this as a conference call."
"Hi, Bobby."
Talking fast, Tucker says, "We're on our way over. ..."
"Arnie's in the bath. I'm going to sleep. We're going to sleep here. "
"Yeah, but ..."
Bobby interrupts. "Gilbert, we just need to bounce some ideas off you."
So while Arnie swims in the tub and Momma sleeps with her TV and Amy makes love to her ice cream, I stcind waiting at the edge of our driveway. The headlights that appear at the top of the street are from the McBurney Funeral Home hearse.
"Get in. Get in," Tucker yells.
I climb in back and kneel where the coffins usually ride.
"I brought some dandy beer," Tucker says.
Bobby launches into a speech about how it's not so easy for Tucker and him to get girls. They have turned to me, hoping for
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some support, some ideas, seeing as I'm thought to be something of a sexual god. "We're at a point of desperation."
I hear their schemes, each more tasteless, more stupid than the previous one. All of their ideas are unrepeatable.
Somehow we end up at Tucker's place, sitting around with a six-pack of obscure Australian beer. They're still talking over each other, on top of each other, and so much of what they say defies belief. They finish with a flourish and then say, in unison, "We welcome your input."
"Guys," I say. "Guys."
"Admit it, Gilbert. We have killer ideas."
"Guys."
"What? What what what?" barks Bobby.
"I'm . . . uhm . . , floored."
They take my statement as a compliment. Gilbert is speechless, Gilbert is in awe. But over time they begin to get the picture of my true feelings.
"Okay, maybe these are not the best ideas. But do you see what we're trying to do? We're trying ..."
"I get what you're trying to do. It is very clear what you're trying to do."
Tucker snaps, "But you won't help? You won't advise?"
I look at them both. I say, "You guys think I'm something I'm not."
"Right. Who in town got the girl? Who in town is going out and presumably fucking the best girl ever? Who?"
I try to explain that they've got it all wrong. "I wouldn't even touch that creature. ..."
Tucker covers his ears. "Please, Gilbert. We're not stupid." He uncovers them and continues. "You don't want to help us and that hurts. It hurts me."
Bobby adds, "It doesn't hurt me, really. It disappoints."
I dig deep and start talking. I explain how each of them is enough. "That if a girl can't see you for what you are, then that girl doesn't deserve you. She isn't worthy of your time or your dick."
The boys laugh when I say the word "dick." I chose
that word
What's Eating Gilbert Grape
because I knew it would lighten the air. They've been deprived for so long, I say to myself, that their bodies have begun to eat their brains.
I end with a simple plea. "Before you guys do anything. Consult me. Check with me. I need to put some thought into your ideas and let's see how we can best move forward." I sound like a politician, a bad one, but my speech works.
Bobby nods and Tucker says, "It's a dead."
We all shake hands and Tucker says, "I knew Gilbert would be helpful. 1 knew we could count on you, buddy."
"Listen, guys. I got to get home."
They drive me home and I almost laugh and cry at the same time.
"Night, guys." I shut the hearse door, and my two sorry friends drive off in the McBurney hearse. Ellen's light is on in her room, she's home. The others are fast asleep.
In the house the blue light from the television flickers its changing light on Momma. The shadows highlight her thick, fleshy brow and drooping jowls. Her gray hair is wild, wirelike. She ends up not looking like my mother at all, but rather some kind of monster or extraterrestrial.
Tonight, for reasons unknown to me, I wander through the living room and move close to my mother, her smell ancient and distinct, her body settled like clay. Momma is listening to "The Star-Spangled Banner " on the TV. She has turned up the volume.
"And the rockets' red glare,
the bombs bursting in air gave proof through the night ..."
In the dim, flickering light, I see that Momma has put one of her bloated hands over her heart. 1 know better than to speak during our national anthem. On the TV an American flag blows in the wind, and marines or soldiers or whatever stand in salute. An announcer says that Channel 5 is going off the air and the
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sound turns to static. Momma turns the TV to mute but leaves the blank, snowy picture on.
"Gilbert."
"Yes, Momma?"
"Sure was nice of Lance Dodge."
What's eating Gilbert Grape? Page 18