Gump and Co - By Winston Groom Page 0,81

the thing's so dull it can't cut butter, let alone paper! I threw em all away! If you've got some authority over me and what I do in life, I'd like to know what it is!"

Well, that did it - an so I showed him. I snatched him up an thowed him across my knees an afore I raised my hand I said the only thing that come to my mind.

"This is gonna hurt me more than it's gonna hurt you."

An I give him a big ole spankin. I ain't sure if what I just said was true, but ever time I swatted him, it was like I was swattin mysef. But I didn't know what else to do. He was so smart I couldn't reason with him, cause that ain't my specialty. But somebody gotta exercise some control around here, an see if we can get back on track. Whole time, little Forrest ain't sayin nothin, ain't hollerin or cryin or anythin, an when I am through, he got up, face beet red, an gone to his room. He didn't come out the whole day, an when he come to the supper table that night, he ain't sayin much, cept things like "Pass the gravy, please."

But also, over the next days an weeks, I noticed a marked improvement in his behavior. An I hope he noticed that I noticed that.

A lot of days when I am out oysterin or doin my other stuff, I am thinkin about Gretchen. But what I'm gonna do about it, anyway? I mean, after all, here I am livin barely hand to mouth, while she is gonna be a college graduate one day. A lot of times I thought about writin her, but can't figger out what to say. It would probly just make it worse, is what I am thinkin. So's I just kept the memories an went on about my bidness.

One time after he got home from school, little Forrest come into the kitchen, where I am tryin to clean up an wash my hands after a long day on the oyster beds. I have cut my finger on a oyster shell, an though it don't hurt much, it bled pretty good, an that is the first thing he noticed.

"What happened?" he ast.

I tole him, an he says, "Want me to get you a Band-Aid?"

He gone in an got the Band-Aid, but before he put it on my finger he washed out the cut with some peroxide or somethin that stang like hell.

"You gotta be careful with oyster-shell cuts," he say. "They can give you a pretty serious infection, ya know?"

"Yeah, how come?"

"Cause the best kind of place for oysters to grow is where there is the dirtiest nastiest kind of pollution there is. Din't you know that?"

"Nope. How'd you find out?"

"Cause I studied up on it. If you could ask a oyster where it wanted to live, it'd probly say, in a cesspool."

"How come you studin up on oysters?"

"Cause I'm figgerin I need to start pullin my weight around here," he says. "I mean, you goin out there every day an tongin up oysters, an all I'm doin is goin to school."

"Well, that's what you sposed to do. You gotta learn somethin so's you don't wind up like me."

"Yeah, well, I already learned enough. I mean, to tell you the truth, I don't do nothin in school. I'm so far ahead of everybody in the class that the teachers just let me go sit in the library an read whatever books I want."

"That so?"

"Yeah, that's so. And I am figgerin that maybe I could just not go to school every day anymore, but maybe come down to Bayou La Batre sometimes an help you out with the oyster-tongin bidness."

"Uh, well, I appreciate that, but uh..."

"That is, if you want me to. Maybe you don't want me around."

"No, no, it ain't that. It just that about the school. I mean, your mama would of wanted..."

"Well, she ain't here to have a say-so. And I think you might could use some help. I mean, tongin oysters is hard work, and maybe I could be of some use."

"Well, yeah, sure you could. But..."

"Okay then, that's it," he says. "How about I start tomorrow mornin?"

An so, right or wrong, that's what we done.

Next mornin before dawn I got up an fixed us some breakfast an then I peeked in little Forrest's room to see if he's awake. He ain't, so's I tippy-toed in an stood