“Well, sort of. I mean, I’m in charge of takin care of him.”
“Good godamighty, Gump,” Ivan Bozosky says, “with what you’re gonna make, you can send him to Choate, Andover, St. Paul’s, and Episcopal High School all at once, and when you’re done, he’ll be so rich he can send his shirts off to Paris to be laundered.”
So that’s how I begun my corporate career.
I had never been to New York City, an let me tell you: It was a sight!
I didn’t know there was so many people in the whole world. They was millin in the streets an sidewalks an up in the skyscrapers an in the stores. The racket they made was unreal—horns blowin, jackhammers jackin, sirens wailin, an I don’t know what-all else. I had the immediate impression that I was in a anthill, where all the ants was half crazy.
Ivan Bozosky first took me to his company’s offices. They was in a big ole skyscraper down near Wall Street. They was hundrits of people workin there at computers, all was wearing shirts an ties an suspenders, an most of em had little round horn-rimmed glasses, an their hair was slicked back. To a man, they was talkin on their telephones, an smokin cigars so much at first I thought the room was on fire.
“This is the deal, Gump,” Ivan says. “What we do herein is, we make friends with the folks that run big companies, an when we learn they are gonna issue a big dividend or earnings statement, or sell their company, or start a new division—or do anything else that will make the price of their stock go up—why, we start buying their stock ourselves before the news officially gets in the papers an lets every sonofabitch on Wall Street have a fair chance to get in on the profits.”
“How you make friends with them people?” I ast.
“Simple. Just hang around the Harvard or Yale clubs or the Racquet Club or any number of places where these morons do their thing. Buy em a bunch of drinks, play dumb—take em to dinner, get em a girl, kiss their asses—whatever it takes. Sometimes we fly em out to Aspen to ski or to Palm Beach or something. But don’t you worry about that, Gump. Our fellers know how to run that scam—All I want you to do is be the president, and the only person you’ll report to is me—about, oh, say, once every six months or so.”
“What I’m gonna report?”
“We’ll figure that out when the time comes. Now, let me show you your office.”
Ivan took me down a hall to a big ole corner office that has a mahogany desk an leather chairs an couches, an a Persian rug on the floor. All the windows look out over the city an the rivers, where there is all sorts of boats an steamships goin up an down, an in the distance I can see the Statue of Liberty, shinin in the evenin sun.
“Well, Gump, what do you think?”
“Nice view,” I says.
“Nice view my ass!” says Ivan. “This shit cost two hundred dollars a square foot to lease! This is prime real estate, my man! Now, your private secretary will be Miss Hudgins. And she is knock-dead gorgeous. And what I want you to do is, just sit at this desk here and when she brings you in some papers to sign, sign your name on them. You don’t need to bother to read them—they’ll just be a bunch of bullshit and details anyway. I’ve always thought bidness executives shouldn’t know too much about what’s going on in their bidness—you know what I mean?”
“Well, I dunno,” I says. “You know, I done got into a lot of trouble in my life doin stuff I didn’t know what it was.”
“Now, don’t worry any about that, Gump. All this is on the big-time up and up. It is the chance of a lifetime for you—and your son.” Ivan puts his arm around my shoulder an flashes a big ole toothy grin at me. “Want to ask anything else?”
“Yeah,” I says. “Where is the bathroom?”
“Bathroom? Your bathroom? Why, it’s right here through this door. You wondering if you got a private bathroom? Is that it?”
“Nope. I got to pee.”
At this, Ivan jumps back a little. “Ah, well, that is a rather straightforward way of putting it, I must say. But you go right ahead, Mr. Gump—in the privacy of your own bathroom.”
An so that’s what I did, but I was still wonderin if I was doin the right thing with this Ivan Bozosky. After all, seems I had heard some of his kind of shit before.
Anyway, Ivan, he gone off an left me in my new office. Big brass nameplate on the desk says Forrest Gump, President. I had just set down in the leather chair an put my feet up when the door opens an in walks a beautiful young woman. I figger this to be Miss Hudgins.
“Ah, Mr. Gump,” she says. “Welcome to the insider trading division of Bozosky Enterprises.”
Miss Hudgins is certainly a looker—enough to make your teeth chatter. She is tall an brunette with blue eyes an a big toothy smile an skirt so short that I am afraid her underpants might show if she bends over.
“Would you like some coffee or anything?” she ast.
“No. Thank you, though,” I says.
“Well, is there anything I can do for you? How about a CokeCola—or perhaps a whisky sour?”
“Thanks, but I really don’t want nothin.”
“Then perhaps you would like to see your new apartment.”
“My what?”
“Apartment. Mr. Bozosky has ordered you an apartment to live in, since you are president of the division.”
“I thought I was gonna stay here on the couch,” I says. “I mean, since there is a bathroom an all.”
“Heavens, no, Mr. Gump. Mr. Bozosky asked me to find you suitable living quarters over on Fifth Avenue. Something where you can entertain.”
“Who I’m gonna entertain?”
“Whoever,” Miss Hudgins says. “Will you be ready to go in, say, half an hour?”
“I am ready to go right now,” I says. “How we gonna get there?”
“Why, in your limousine, of course.”
In no time, we is down on the street gettin into a big ole black limousine. It is so big I think it cannot turn a corner, but the driver, whose name is Eddie, is so good that he can even drive right past the taxicabs by goin up on the curb, an in a few minutes we is arriving at my new apartment after scatterin people all over Madison Avenue. Miss Hudgins says we are now “uptown.”
The buildin is a big ole thing of white marble with a canopy an doormen dressed up like in one of them old-time movies. The sign out front say Helmsley Palace. As we is goin in the door, a woman wearin a fur coat come out walkin a poodle. She be eyein me pretty suspicious an lookin me up an down, account of I am still wearin my work clothes from Holy Land.
When we get off at the eighteenth floor, Miss Hudgins opens the door with a key. It is like goin in a mansion or somethin. They is crystal chandeliers an big gold-leaf mirrors an paintins on the walls. I see fireplaces an fancy furniture an tables with pitcher books on em. There is a library all paneled in wood an beautiful carpets on the floors. In the corner is a bar.
“You want to see your bedroom?” Miss Hudgins says.
I was so speechless, all I could do was nod.
We gone on in the bedroom, an let me say this: It was a sight. Big ole king-size bed with a covered top an fireplace an a TV set built into the wall. Miss Hudgins says it gets a hundrit channels. The bathroom is grander than that, marble floors an a glass shower with gold knobs an jets that spray in ever direction. There are even two toilets, although one is kinda funny lookin.
“What is that?” I ast, pointin to it.
“That, is a bidet,” she says.
“What’s it for? It ain’t got no seat on it.”
“Er, well, why don’t you just use the other one for now,” Miss Hudgins says. “We can talk about the bidet later.”
Like the sign out front announces, this place is a palace, an “Sooner or later,” Miss Hudgins says, “I imagaine you’re gonna get to meet the nice lady who owns it. She’s a friend of Mr. Bozosky. Her name is Leona.”