hell are you!"
I tole him Jenny had died, but he didn't seem to understand.
"Who in hell is Jenny?" he screamed.
It wadn't too easy to explain all this, so I just tole him she was a friend of mine. Then the owner got on the phone.
"Gump, I tole you that if you don't show up for a game, I'm gonna fire your ass myself! And that's what I'm doin. Your ass is fired!"
"But see," I tole him, "it was Jenny. I just found out yesterday..."
"Don't hand me that bullshit, Gump! I know all about you and your so-called agent, Mr. Butterbutt, or whatever his name is. This is just another cheap trick to get more money. An you ain't gonna do it. Don't never come around my football team again. You hear - never!"
"Did you explain it to them?" Mrs. Curran ast, when she came back into the room. "Yeah," I said. "Sort of."
An so that ended my professional football playin days.
Now I had to find some kind of job to help support little Forrest. Jenny had put most of the money I'd sent her into a bank account, an with the other thirty thousan dollars Jenny's mama had sent back to me, there was enough to earn a little interest. But it weren't gonna be enough for everthin, so I knew I had to find me some work.
Next mornin, I looked through the papers at the job ads. Wadn't much goin on. Mostly they wanted secretaries an used car salesmen an such, an I figgered I needed somethin, well, more dignified.
Then I spotted a ad in the column marked "Other."
"Promotional Representative," it says. "No experience necessary! Huge profits for hard workers!" An it give an address for a local motel. "Interviews at 10 A.M. sharp." "Must be able to deal with people" was the final line.
"Mrs. Curran," I says, "what is a 'promotional representative'?"
"I'm not sure, Forrest. I think it's... Well, you know the guy who dresses up like that big peanut outside the peanut store downtown and hands out little samples of nuts to folks? I think it's something like that."
"Oh," I says. Frankly, I was expectin somethin a little higher up on the ladder. But I am thinkin about them "huge profits" the ad talked about. An besides, if it was bein a peanut man or somethin, at least people wouldn't know it was me inside the costume.
As it turned out, it was not the peanut man. It was somethin very very different.
"Knowledge!" says the feller. "Everthin in the world depends on knowledge!"
They was about eight or ten of us done answered the ad for "Promotional Representative." We had arrived at this dinky little motel an was sent into a room that had a bunch of foldin chairs set up an a phone settin on the floor. After about twenty minutes, the door suddenly bust open an in comes this tall, thin, suntanned guy wearin a white suit an white buck shoes. He don't say his name or nothin, just comes marchin into the room an gets in front of us an begun to give us a lecture. His hair is slicked back an greasy, an he has a little pencil mustache.
"Knowledge!" he shouts again. "And here it is!"
He unfolded a big color-poster-size sheet of paper an begun pointin out the various forms of knowledge, which are printed on it. They is pictures of dinosaurs an ships an farm crops an big cities. They is even pictures of outer space an rocket ships, of TVs an radios an cars, an I don't know what-all else.
"This is the opportunity of a lifetime!" he hollers. "To bring all this knowledge into people's homes!"
"Wait a minute," somebody ast. "Does this have anything to do with selling encyclopedias?"
"Certainly not," the man answers, sort of hurt like.
"Well, it looks like it does to me," the feller says. "If it's not selling encyclopedias, what the hell is it?"
"We do not sell encyclopedias!" the man replies. "We place encyclopedias in people's homes."
"Then it is about selling encyclopedias!" the first man shouts.
"With an attitude like that, I don't think you should be here," said the feller. "Leave us now, so the others can be informed."
"Damn right I'll leave," says the first man, walkin out. "I got roped into sellin encyclopedias one time before, an it's a total bunch of bullshit."
"Nevertheless!" hollers the feller in the white suit, "you will be sorry when all these other guys are rich and famous." An he slammed the door so