Forrest Gump pdfdrive com

A
in something called Intermediate Light, an then an 
F
in phys-ed class—
when you is jus been named the Most Valuable College Back in the
Southeastern Conference!”
It was a long story that I did not want to bore Coach Bryant with, but
why in hell do I need to know the distance between goalposts on a
soccer field anyway? Well, Coach Bryant lookin at me with a terrible sad
expression on his face. “Forrest,” he say, “I regret awfully havin to tell
you this, but you is done flunked out of school, an there is nothin I can
do.”
I jus stood there, twistin my hands, till it suddenly come to me what
he is sayin—I ain’t gonna get to play no more football. I got to leave the
University. Maybe I never see any of the other guys no more. Maybe I
never see Jenny Curran no more either. I got to move outta my
basement, an I won’t get to take Advanced Light nex term, like Professor
Hooks have said I would. I didn’t realize it, but tears begun comin to my
eyes. I ain’t sayin nothin. I jus standin there, head hangin down.
Then Coach, he stand up hissef, an come over to me an he put his arm
aroun me.
He say, “Forrest, it okay, son. When you first come here, I expect
somethin like this would happen. But I tole em then, I said, just give me
that boy for one season—that is all I ask. Well, Forrest, we has had
ourselfs one hell of a season. That is for sure. An it certainly weren’t
your fault that Snake thowed the ball out of bounds on forth down.…”
I look up then, an they is little tears in Coach’s eyes, too, an he is

---

lookin at me real hard.
“Forrest,” he say, “there has never been nobody like you ever played
ball at this school, an there won’t be never again. You was very fine.”
Then Coach go over an stand lookin out the winder, an he say, “Good
luck, boy—now git your big dumb ass outta here.”
An so I had to leave the University.
I gone back an pack up my shit in the basement. Bubba come down an
he done brought two beers an give one to me. I ain’t never drank a beer,
but I can see how a feller could acquire a taste for it.
Bubba walk with me outside the Ape Dorm, an lo an behole, who
should be standin there but the entire football team.
They is very quiet, an Snake, he come up an shake my han an say,
“Forrest, I am very sorry about that pass, okay?” An I says, “Sure Snake,
okay.” An then they all come up, one by one, an shake my han, even ole
Curtis, who is wearin a body brace from his neck down on accounta
bashin down one door too many in the Ape Dorm.
Bubba say he’d hep me carry my shit down to the bus depot, but I say
I’d rather go alone. “Keep in touch,” he say. Anyhow, on the way to the
bus station, I pass by the Student Union store, but it ain’t Friday night,
an Jenny Curran’s band is not playin, so I say, the hell with it, an catch
the bus on home.
It was late at night when the bus got to Mobile. I had not tole my
mama what had happened, cause I knew she’d be upset, so I walk on
home, but they is a light on up in her room an when I get inside, they
she is, crying and bawling jus like I remember. What had happen, she
tell me, is that the United States Army has already heard bout me not
makin my grades, an that very day a notice done come for me to report
to the U.S. Army Induction Center. If I had known then what I know
now, I would never had done it.
My mama take me down there a few days later. She has packed me a
box lunch in case I get hungry on the way to wherever we is going. They
is about a hundrit guys standin aroun an four or five busses waiting. A
big ole sergeant be hollerin an yellin at everbody, an Mama goes up to
him an says, “I don’t see how you can take my boy—cause he’s a 
idiot
,”
but the sergeant jus look back at her an say, “Well, lady, what do you
think all these other people is? Einsteins?” an he gone on back to

---

hollerin an yellin. Pretty soon he yell at me, too, an I git on the bus an
away we went.
Ever since I lef the nut school people been shoutin at me—Coach
Fellers, Coach Bryant an the goons, an now the people in the Army. But
let me say this: them people in the Army yell longer an louder an nastier
than anybody else. They is 
never
happy. An furthermore, they do not
complain that you is dumb or stupid like coaches do—they is more
interested in your private parts or bowel movements, an so always
precede they yellin with somethin like “dickhead” or “asshole.”
Sometimes I wonder if Curtis had been in the Army before he went to
play football.
Anyhow, after about a hundrit hours on the bus we get to Fort
Benning, Georgia, an all I’m thinkin is 35 to 3, the score when we
whupped them Georgia Dogs. The conditions in the barracks is actually a
little better than they was in the Ape Dorm, but the food is not—it is
terrible, altho there is a lot of it.
Other than that, it was just doin what they tole us an gettin yelled at
in the months to come. They taught us to shoot guns, thow hand
grenades an crawl aroun on our bellies. When we wadn’t doin that we
was either runnin someplace or cleanin toilets an things. The one thing I
remember from Fort Benning is that they didn’t seem to be nobody much
smarter than I was, which was certainly a relief.
Not too long after I arrive, I get put on KP, on account of I have
accidentally shot a hole in the water tower when we was down at the
rifle range. When I get to the kitchen, it seems the cook is took sick or
somethin, an somebody point to me an say, “Gump, you is gonna be the
cook today.”
“What I’m gonna cook?” I axed. “I ain’t never cooked before.”
“Who cares,” somebody say, “This ain’t the Sans Souci, y’know.”
“Why don’t you make a stew?” Somebody else say. “It’s easier.”
“What of?” I axed.
“Look in the icebox an the pantry,” the feller say, “Just thow in
everthin you see an boil it up.”
“What if it don’t taste good?” I axed.
“Who gives a shit. You ever eat anythin around here that did?”
In this, he is correct.

---

Well, I commenced to get everthin I could from the iceboxes an the
pantry. They was cans of tomatos an beans an peaches an bacon an rice
an bags of flour an sacks of potatoes an I don’t know what all else. I
gathered it all together an say to one of the guys, “What I’m gonna cook
it in?”
“They is some pots in the closet,” he say, but when I looked in the
closet, they is jus small pots, an certainly not large enough to cook a
stew for two hundrit men in the company.
“Why don’t you axe the lieutenant?” somebody say.
“He’s out in the field on maneuvers,” come the reply.
“I don’t know,” say one feller, “but when them guys get back here
today, they gonna be damn hungry, so you better think of somethin.”
“What about this?” I axed. They was an enormous iron thing bout six
feet high an five feet aroun settin in the corner.
“That? That’s the goddamn steam boiler. You can’t cook nothin in
there.”
“How come,” I say.
“Well, I dunno. I jus wouldn do it if I was you.”
“It’s hot. It’s got water in it.” I says.
“Do what you want,” somebody say, “we got other shit to do.”
An so I used the steam boiler. I opened all the cans an peeled all the
potatoes an thowed in whatever meat I could find an onions an carrots
an poured in ten or twenty bottles of catsup an mustard an all. After
bout a hour, you could begin to smell the stew cookin.
“How’s the dinner comin?” somebody axed after a wile.
“I’ll go taste it,” I say.
I unfastened the lid to the boiler an there it was, you could see all the
shit bubblin an boilin up, an ever so often a onion or a potato woud
come to the top an float aroun.
“Let me taste it,” a feller axed. He took a tin cup an dip out some stew.
“Say, this shit ain’t near done yet,” he says. “You better turn up the
heat. Them fellers’ll be here any minute.”
So I turned up the heat on the boiler an sure enough, the company
begun comin in from the field. You coud hear them in the barracks takin
showers an gettin dressed for the evenin meal, an it weren’t long
afterward that they begun arrivin in the mess hall.
But the stew still wadnt ready. I tasted it again an some things was

---

still raw. Out in the mess hall they begun a kind of disgruntled mumblin
that soon turned to chantin an so I turned the boiler up again.
After a haf hour or so, they was beatin on the tables with they knives
an forks like in a prison riot, an I knowed I had to do somethin fast, so I
turned the boiler up high as it could go.
I’m settin there watchin it, so nervous I didn’t know what to do, when
all of a sudden the first sergeant come bustin thru the door.
“What in hell is goin on here?” he axed. “Where is these men’s food?”
“It is almost ready, Sergeant,” I say, an jus about then, the boiler
commenced to rumble an shake. Steam begun to come out of the sides
an one of the legs on the boiler tore loose from the floor.
“What is that?” the sergeant axed. “Is you cookin somethin in that
boiler!
”
“That is the supper,” I says, an the sergeant got this real amazed look
on his face, an a secont later, he got a real frightened look, like you
might get jus before an automobile wreck, an then the boiler blew up.
I am not exactly sure what happened nex. I do remember that it
blowed the roof off the mess hall an blowed all the winders out an the
doors too.
It blowed the dishwasher guy right thru a wall, an the guy what was
stackin plates jus took off up in the air, sort of like Rocket Man.
Sergeant an me, we is miraculously spared somehow, like they say will
happen when you are so close to a han grenade that you aren’t hurt by
it. But somehow it blowed both our clothes off, cept for the big chef’s
hat I was wearin at the time. An it blowed stew all over us, so’s we
looked like—well, I don’t know what we looked like—but man, it was
strange.
Incredibly, it didn’t do nothin to all them guys settin out there in the
mess hall neither. Jus lef em settin at they tables, covered with stew,
actin kinda shell-shocked or somethin—but it sure did shut their asses
up about when they food is gonna be ready.
Suddenly the company commander come runnin into the buildin.
“What was that!” he shouted. “What happen?” He look at the two of
us, an then holler, “Sergeant Kranz, is that you?”
“Gump—Boiler—Stew!” the sergeant say, an then he kind of git holt of
hissef an grapped a meat cleaver off the wall.
“Gump—Boiler—Stew!” he scream, an come after me with the cleaver.

---

I done run out the door, an he be chasin me all over the parade grounds,
an even thru the Officer’s Club an the Motorpool. I outrunned him tho,
cause that is my specialty, but let me say this: they ain’t no question in
my mind that I am up the creek for sure.
One night, the next fall, the phone rung in the barracks an it was
Bubba. He say they done dropped his atheletic scholarship cause his foot
broke worst than they thought, an so he’s leavin school too. But he axed
if I can git off to come up to Birmingham to watch the University play
them geeks from Mississippi. But I am confined to quarters that
Saturday, as I have been ever weekend since the stew blowed up and
that’s nearly a year. Anyway, I cannot do it, so I listen to the game on
the radio while I’m scrubbin out the latrine.
The score is very close at the end of the third quarter, an Snake is
having hissef a big day. It is 38 to 37 our way, but the geeks from
Mississippi score a touchdown with only one minute to go. Suddenly, its
forth down an no more time-outs for us. I prayin silently that Snake
don’t do what he done at the Orange Bowl, which is to thow the ball out
of bounds on fourth down an lose the game again, but that is 
exactly
what he done.
My heart sunk low, but suddenly they is all sorts of cheering so’s you
can’t hear the radio announcer an when it is all quieted down, what
happened was this: the Snake done