STORY "Forrest Gump" - Chapter Three
The
Big Game
On Friday night, I went to the
Students’ Centre. There were a lot of people there, and Jenny was wearing a
long dress and singing. Three or four other people were in the group with her,
and they made a good sound.
Jenny saw me and smiled, and I
sat on the floor and listened. It was wonderful.
They played for about an hour,
and I was lying back with my eyes closed, listening happily. How did it happen?
I’m not sure. But suddenly I found that I was playing my harmonica with them!
Jenny stopped singing for a
second or two, and the others in group stopped playing. Then Jenny laughed and
began to sing with my harmonica, and then everybody was saying “Wonderful!” to
me.
Jenny came to see me. “Forrest,
weher did you learn to play that thing?”
“I didn’t learn anywhere,” I told
her.
Well, after that, Jenny asked me
to play with their group every Friday, and paid me $25 every time!
***
The only other important thing
that happened to me at the university was the Big Game at the Orange Bowl in
Miami that year. It was an important game which Coach Bryant wanted us to win.
The game started, and the ball
came to me. I took it and ran straight into a group of big men on the other
team! Crash! It was like that all afternoon.
When they were winning 28 to 7,
Coach Bryant called me across.
“Forrest,” he said, “all year we
have secretly taught you to catch the ball and run with it. Now you’re going to
run like a animal. Ok?”
“Ok, Coach,” I said.
And I did. Everybody was
surprised to see that I could catch the ball. Suddenly it was 28 to 14! And
after I caught it four or five more times, it was 28 to 21. Then the other team
got two men to run after me.
But that meant Gwinn was free to
catch the ball, and he put us on the 15 yard line. Then Weasel, the kicker, got
a field goal, and it was 28 to 24!
But then things began to go wrong
again. Weasel made a bad mistake and then the game finished, and we were the
losers.
Coach Bryant wasn’t very happy,
“Well, boys,” he said, “there’s always next year.”
But not for me. I soon learned
that.
I couldn’t stay at the
university. I wasn’t clever enough at the lessons, and there was nothing that
anybody could do about it. Coach Bryant was very sad.
“I knew this would happen,
Forrest,” he said. But I said to them.
“Just give me that boy in my team
for a year!” and they did. And we had a good year, the best year, Forrest! Good
luck, boy!”
Bubba helped me to put my things
in my suitcase, then we walked to the bus with me to say goodbye. We went past
the Students’ Centre. But it wasn’t Friday night and Jenny’s band wasn’t
playing. I didn’t know where she was.
It was late when the bus got to
Mobile. Mom knew that I was coming, but she was crying when I got home.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“A letter came,” she cried.
“You’ve got to go in the army!”
_to be continued
