STORY "Forrest Gump" - Chapter Six
The
White House
I was at the hospital for two
months. After the first few weeks my leg was getting better, and one day I went
down into the little town, to the fish market.
I bought some shrimps, and one of
the cooks at the hospital cooked them for me. Two days later, I went back to
the fish market and talked to man who was selling shrimps.
“Where do you get them?” I asked
him.
He immediaetly started talking
fast in a language that I couldn’t understand, but he took me somewhere past
all the boats and the beach. There he took a net and put it in the water. When
he took it out again, it was full of shrimps!
Every day for the next few weeks,
I went with Mr.Chi (that was his name) and watched him while he worked. He
showed me how to catch shrimps with the net, and it was so easy that an idiot
was able to do it!
Which I did!
Then one day I got back to the
hospital and a Colonel Gooch said, “Gump, we’re going back to America together!
You’re going to see the President of the United States, and he’s going to give
you a medal because you were very brave.”
***
There were about two thousand
people waiting for us at San Francisco airport when we got off the plane! What
a surprise! A lot of them had beards and long hair. I thought perhaps they were
there to welcome us, but I was wrong.
They were shouting unpleasant
things, and then somebody threw a tomato at Colonel Gooch and it hit him in the
face. He tried to clean it off and not look angry, but I didn’t want to wait
for them to start throwing things at me! No sir! I started running.
The people ran after me _all two
thousand of them!_ but they couldn’t catch me. I ran all round the airport, and
then I ran into a toilet and locked the door. I waited in there for almost an
hour before I came out again.
I went to look for Colonel Gooch,
and I found him in the middle of a group of policemen. He was looking very
worried until he saw me.
“Come on, Gump!” he said. “The
plane for Washington is waiting for us.”
The army sent a car to meet us at
Washington airport, and we drove to a really nice hotel. After we put our
suitcases in our rooms, the Colonel asked me to go out to a bar with him for a
drink.
“People are different here,” he
told me, “they aren’t like the people in California.”
He was wrong.
When we got there, he bought me a
beer, and he was telling me about the President and my medal when something
happened. A pretty girl came up to our table, and the Colonel thought she was a
waitress.
“Get us two more drinks, please,”
he said.
She looked at him and said, “I
won’t get you anything not as much as a glass of warm river-water, you pig!”
Then she looked at me and said, “And how many babies have you killed today, you
big ape?”
Well, after that we went back to
the hotel.
***
Next morning we got up early and
went to the white House, where the President lives. It’s a really pretty house
with a big garden.
A lot of army people were there,
and they immediately started shaking my hand and telling me that I was a brave
man and that they were pleased to meet me.
The President was a great big old
man who talked like somebody from Texas, and there were a lot of people
standing round him in the flower garden.
Then an army man started to read
something, and everybody listened. Everybody but me, because I was hungry and
wanted some breakfast. At last the army man finished reading, and then the
President came up and gave me the medal. After that, he began to shake my hand.
I was just thinking of getting
out of there and having some breakfast when the President said, “Boy, is that
your stomach making that noise?” So I said, “Yes,” and the President said,
“Well, come on, boy, let’s go and get something to eat!” And I followed him
into the house, and a waiter got us some breakfast.
The President asked me a lot of
questions about Vietnam and the army, but I just said, “Yes, it’s ok” or shook
my head to say no, and after several minutes of this we were both silent.
“Do you want to watch TV?” the
President asked suddenly.
So me and the President of
America watched TV while I ate my breakfast!
Later, when we were back in the
garden, the President said, “You were hurt, weren’t you, boy? Well, look at
this…!” And he pulled up his shirt and showed he was hurt once. “Where were you
hurt?” he asked me.
So I pulled down my trousers,
turned round and showed him.
Well, lots of newspaper men
started taking photographs before Colonel Gooch could run across and pull me
away!
That afternoon, back at the
hotel, he came to my room shouting and throwing newspapers on to the bed. And
there I was, on the front page, with my trousers down!
“Gump, you idiot!” shouted
Colonel Gooch.
“Yes, sir,” I said, “that’s what
I am. But I just try to do the right thing.”
_ to be continued
