Colonel North be givin me the real evil eye now, an from the corner of my own eye, I seen them fellers in the baggy diapers have begun drawin they swords. I figger I have said somethin wrong, so I says, “Well, how about a few of them olives or somethin.”
A feller begun collectin a plate of olives for me, an I am thinkin that this is okay, too, account of I reckon I ate enough ham back at the pig farm to last me a lifetime.
Anyhow, when the food was served to Colonel North, he begun eatin it with his fingers an oohin an ahin about how good it was, an I picked up a olive or two an put em in my mouth. The Ayatolja took out a fork an started eatin his lunch with it, an kinda raised his eyebrows at the colonel an me. When we was finished, the A-rabs took the plates away, an the colonel tried to get down to bidness again.
“Listen,” he says, “we got enough missiles we can lay our hands on to blow up half of Christendom. Now, you want some of these, you gotta promise to make them crackpots over in Lebanon let our fellers go free. Is that a deal?”
“The Ayatolja don’t make deals with the Great Satan,” he says.
“That so?” the colonel answers. “Well, why don’t you make your own missiles then?”
“We ain’t got time to,” say the Ayatolja. “We are too busy with our prayers.”
“Oh, yeah.” The colonel snickers. “Then why don’t you pray yourself up some missiles, then?”
The scowl on the Ayatolja’s face become darker an darker, an I could see that the colonel’s tact an diplomacy was fixin to get us into a lot of hot water. An so I tried to lighten the tension with a little joke.
“Scuse me, Mr. Ayatolja,” I says. “Have you heard the one about the drunk caught drivin down a one-way street?”
“Nope.”
“Well, the policeman says to him, ‘Say, din’t you see them arrows?’ An the drunk says, ‘Arrows? I din’t even see the Indians!’ ”
“For Chrissakes, Gump...” the colonel hisses, but just then the Ayatolja busts out in a big laugh an begun slappin his thighs an stampin his feet.
“Why, Mr. Gump, you do have a sense of humor, don’t you? Why don’t you an me take a little walk in my garden?”
So that’s what we did. I looked back over my shoulder as we was goin out the door, an Colonel North was just standin there with his jaw hangin down past his chin.
“Look here, Mr. Gump,” the Ayatolja says when we get outside, “I don’t like this Colonel North of yours. His diplomacy is too slick, and my impression is that he is tryin to put a fast one over on me.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” I says. “He seems to me like a truthful feller.”
“Well, be that as it may, I ain’t got all day to listen to his bullshit. It’s about time for me to go pray again. So tell me, what do you think of all this arms for hostages stuff?”
“I don’t know much about it. I mean, if it’s a fair trade, I guess it’s okay. The President seemed to think it was. But, like I say, it ain’t exactly in my sphere of influence.”
“Just what is your sphere of influence, Mr. Gump?”
“Well, I was a pig farmer, before all this.”
“Father of God,” the Ayatolja mutters, claspin his hands an rollin his eyes up toward heaven. “Allah has sent me a swine merchant.”
“But basically,” I added, “I guess I am a military man.”
“Ah, that is a little better I suppose. So, from that standpoint, how do you think these missiles will help the poor ole Ayatolja in his war against the infidels in Iraq?”
“Damn if I know.”
“Ah—that’s the kind of answer the Ayatolja likes to hear. Not this slick car salesman crap of your Colonel North. You go back and tell your people we got a deal. Arms for hostages.”
“You gonna get our hostages out, then?”
“I can’t promise it, of course. Those fellers in Lebanon are a bunch of maniacs. All the Ayatolja can do is try—You just make sure them missiles get here on the double.”
So that’s how it was. Colonel North, when he got through chewin me out for hornin in on his diplomacy, he was happy as a pig in sunshine, so to speak.
“Great God, Gump,” he says on the flight home, “this is the deal of a lifetime! We have finally tricked that old moron into givin us back our hostages for some old beat-up missiles that an army of Norwegians wouldn’t know what to do with. What a lovely coup!”
All the way till we landed, the colonel be pattin hissef on the back for his brilliance. Me, I figger I might have found some kind of career in this bidness, so’s I can send some money home for little Forrest. As it turned out, that was not the way it worked.
We ain’t back in Washington but a while when all hell breaks loose.
But meantime, I tried to get my affairs straight. First, I gone on up to Walter Reed Hospital, and, sure enough, just like Colonel North said, there is ole Lieutenant Dan, lyin up in a hospital bed. And he was lookin one hell of a lot better than when I seen him last.
“Where’ve you been, you big asshole?” Dan ast.
“I have been on a top secret mission,” I says.
“Yeah? Where to?”
“To Iran.”
“What for?”
“To see the Ayatolja.”
“What’d you go to see that sombitch for?”
“We was there to make a deal for arms for hostages.”
“That so?”
“Yup.”
“What kind of arms?”
“Bunch of ole rusty missiles.”
“What kind of hostages?”
“Them over in Lebanon.”
“Deal go through?”
“Sort of.”
“What you mean, sort of?”
“Well, we give the Ayatolja his missiles.”
“You get back the hostages?”
“Not yet.”
“Yeah, an you never will, you dumb cluck! Not only have you just revealed to me, a civilian, all this top secret bullshit—which is a firin-squad offense—but it sounds like you have been had again! Forrest, you are a shit-for-brains for sure.”
Well, after exchangin our pleasantries, I took ole Dan in his wheelchair down to the cafeteria to get some ice cream. Since they don’t serve oysters on the half shell at the hospital, ice cream has become Dan’s favorite food. He says that aside from raw oysters, ice cream is sort of easy on his teeth. Anyhow, it kind of made me remember when I was a little kid settin out on Mama’s back porch, churnin away on Saturday afternoons, makin our own ice cream, an Mama would always let me lick the paddles when the ice cream was good an soft an cold.
“What you reckon is gonna happen to us, Dan?”
“What the hell kind of question is that?”
“I dunno. It just sort of come to me.”
“Hell it did—You been thinking again—which is not exactly your specialty.”
“Yeah, sort of, I guess. I mean, seems like everthin I touch turns to shit. I can’t keep no job more than a while, an even when it’s goin okay, I screw up. An I am always missin my mama an Jenny an Bubba an everbody. An now there is little Forrest to look after. Listen, I know I am not the smartest feller around, but people half the time be treatin me like some kinda freak. Seems like the only way I’m gettin anyplace is when I dream at night. I mean, when’s this shit gonna stop?”
“Probly it won’t,” Dan says. “That’s just the way it is sometimes. Folks like us, we is just screw-ups, an there’s no getting around it. Me, I ain’t worried what’s gonna happen, cause I know. I ain’t long for this earth, myself, an far as I’m concerned, good riddance.”
“Don’t say that kind of stuff, Dan. You’re about the only friend I got left.”
“I’ll say the truth if I want to. I probly done a lot of wrong shit in my life, but one thing you can’t say is that I don’t tell the truth.”