第1章

for my mother

who is not fat

and my father

who is not dead

1

Standing with my brother Arnie on the edge of town has become a yearly ritual.

My brother Arnie is so excited because in minutes or hours or sometime today trucks upon trailers upon campers are going to drive into our home town of Endora, Iowa. One truck will carry the Octopus, another will carry the Tilt-A-Whirl with its blue and red cars, two trucks will bring the Ferris wheel, the games will be towed, and most important, the horses from the merry-go-round will arrive.

For Arnie, this is better than Christmas. This beats the tooth fairy and the Easter bunny: all those stupid figures that only kids and retarded adults seem to stomach. Arnie is a retard. He's about to turn eighteen and my family is planning an enormous party. Doctors said we'd be lucky if he lived to be ten. Ten came and went and now the doctors are saying, "Any time now, Arnie could go at any time." So every night my sisters and me, and my mom too, go to bed wondering if he will wake up in the morning. Some days you want him to live, some days you don't. At this particular moment, I've a good mind to push him in front of the oncoming traffic.

My oldest sister, Amy, has fixed us a picnic feast. In a thermos was a quart of black cherry Kool-Aid, all of which Arnie drank in such a hurry that above his top lip is a purplish mustache. One of the first things you should know about Arnie is that he always has traces of some food on his face—Kool-Aid or ketchup or toast crumbs. His face is a kind of bulletin board for the four major food groups.

Arnie is the gentlest guy, but he can surprise this brother. In the summertime, he catches grasshoppers and sticks them in this metal tab on the mailbox, holding them there, and then he brings down the metal flag, chopping off the grasshopper heads. He always giggles hysterically when he does this, having the time of his life. But last night, when we were sitting on the porch eating ice cream, a countless sea of grasshopper bodies from summers past must have appeared to him, because he started weeping and sobbing like the world had ended. He kept saying, "I killed 'em, I killed 'em." And me and Amy, we held him close, patted his back and told him it was okay.

Arnie cried for hours, cried himself to sleep. Makes this brother wonder what kind of a world it would be if all the surviving Nazis had such remorse. I wonder if it ever occurs to them what they did, and if it ever sinks in to a point that their bodies ache from the horrible mess they made. Or are they so smart that they can lie to us and to themselves? The beautiful thing about Arnie is that he's too stupid to lie. Or too smart.

I'm standing with binoculars, looking down Highway 13; there is no sign of our annual carnival. The kid is on his knees, his hands rummaging around in the picnic basket. Having already eaten both bags of potato chips, both peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches and both chocolate donuts, he locates a green apple and bites into it.

By trying to ignore Arnie's lip-smacking noises, I am attempting the impossible. You see, he chews as if he's just found his mouth and the sounds are that of good, sloppy sex. My brother's slurps and gulps make me want to procreate with an assortment of Endora's finest women.

It's the twenty-first of June, the first day of summer, the longest day of the year. It isn't even 7:00 A.M. yet and here I stand, little brother in tow. Somewhere some smart person still sleeps.

***

"Gilbert?"

"Yeah?"

Bread crust and peanut-butter chunks fall off Arnie's T-shirt as he stretches it down past his knees. "Gilbert?"

"What is it?"

"How many more miles?"

"I don't know."

"How many, how many more till the horses and stuff?"

"Three million."

"Oh, okay."

Arnie blows out his lips with a sound like a motorboat and he circles the picnic basket, drool flying everywhere. Finally, he sits down Indian style and starts quietly to count the miles.

I busy myself throwing gravel rocks at the Endora, Iowa, town sign. The sign is green with white printing and, except for a divot that I left last year at this time with my rock throwing, it is in excellent condition. It lists Endora's population at 1,091, which I know can't be right, because yesterday my second-grade teacher, Mrs. Brainer, choked on a chicken bone while sitting on her porch swing. A great loss is felt by no one.

Mrs. Brainer retired years ago. She lived half a block from the town square, so I'd see her pretty much every day, always smiling at me as if she expected me to forget all the pain she'd inflicted. I swear this woman smiled all the time. Once, as she was leaving the store, her sack of groceries ripped. Cans of peaches and fruit cocktail dropped out onto the floor, cutting open her toes. My boss and I saw this happen. She pushed up a real big grin as the tears fell off her cheeks. I resacked her cans, but she couldn't stop smiling and crying, and her toes couldn't stop bleeding.

I'm told that when they found her on the porch, her hands were up around her throat, and there were red scratch marks on her neck, in her mouth, and pieces of flesh under her fingernails. I wonder if she was smiling then.

Anyway, they took her body to McBurney's Funeral Home in Motley. They'll be planting her tomorrow.

***

"Gilbert?"

"What?"

"Uhm."

"What?"

"Uhm. The horses, the rides, the horses are coming, right? Right?"

"Yes, Arnie."

***

Endora is where we are, and you need to know that describing this place is like dancing to no music. It's a town. Farmers. Town square. Old movie theater closed down so we have to drive sixteen miles to Motley to see movies. Probably half the town is over sixty-five, so you can imagine the raring place Endora is on weekend nights. There were twenty-three in my graduating class, and only four are left in town. Most went to Ames or Des Moines and the really ambitious made it over to Omaha. One of those left from my class is my buddy, Tucker. The other two are the Byers brothers, Tim and Tommy. They stayed in town because of a near fatal, crippling car accident, and they just kind of ride around the square racing in their electric wheelchairs. They are like the town mascots, and the best part is they are identical twins. Before the accident no one could tell them apart. But Tim's face was burned, and he's been given this piglike skin. They both were paralyzed but only Tommy lost his feet.

The other day in our weekly paper, the Endora Express, pigskin Tim pointed out the bright side in all of this. Now it is easy to tell which is which. After many years Tim and Tommy have finally found their own identities. That's a big thing in Endora these days. Identities. And the bright side. We got people here who've lost their farms to the bank, kids to wars, relatives to disease, and they will look you square in the eye and, with a half grin, they'll tell you the bright side.

The bright side for me is difficult on mornings like these. There's no escaping that I'm twenty-four years old, that I've been out of Iowa a whopping one whole time, that you could say about all I've done in my life to this point is baby-sit my retard brother, buy cigarettes for my mother, and sack groceries for the esteemed citizens of Endora.

***

"Gilbert?" says Arnie. He has frosting all around his mouth and a glob of jelly above his good eye.

"What, Arnie?"

"You sure they're coming? We've been standing such a long time."

"They'll be along any second." I take a napkin from the basket and spit in it.

"No!"

"Come here, Arnie."

"No!"

"Come here."

"Everybody's always wiping me!"

"Why do you think that is?"

"Because."

For Arnie, that is an answer.

I give up on spring cleaning his face and look down the road. The highway is empty.

Last year the big rides came pretty early. The trailers and the campers came later. Arnie is really only interested in the horses from the merry-go-round.

I say, "Hey, Arnie, there's still sleep in my eyes," but he isn't interested. He nibbles on his bottom lip; he's working on a thought.

My little brother is a somewhat round-looking kid with hair that old ladies always want to comb. He is a head shorter than me, with teeth that look confused. There's no hiding that he's retarded. You meet him and you figure it out right away.

"Gilbert! They're not coming!"

I tell him to stop shouting.

"They're not coming at all, Gilbert. The rides got in a big crash and all the workers hung themselves…."

"They will be here," I say.

"They hung themselves!"

"No, they didn't."

"You don't know! You don't know!"

"Not everybody hangs himself, Arnie."

He doesn't hear this because he reaches into the basket, stuffs the other green apple inside his shirt, and starts running back to town. I shout for him to stop. He doesn't, so I chase after him and grab his waist. I lift him in the air and the apple drops out onto the brown grass.

"Let me go. Let me go."

I carry him back to the picnic basket. He clings to me, his legs squeeze around my stomach, his fingers dig into my neck. "You're getting bigger. Did you know that?" He shakes his head, convinced I'm wrong. He's not any taller than last year, but he's rounder, puffier. If this keeps up, he'll soon be too big for me to pick up. "You're still growing. You're getting harder and harder for me to carry. And you're getting so strong, too."

"Nope. It's you, Gilbert."

"It's not me. Believe me, Arnie Grape is getting bigger and stronger. I'm sure of it."

I set him down when I get to the picnic basket. I'm out of breath; beads of sweat have formed on my face.

Arnie says, "You're just getting little."

"You think?"

"I know. You're getting littler and littler. You're shrinking."

Stupid people often say the smartest things. Even Arnie knows that I'm in a rut.

Since I don't believe in wearing a watch, I can't tell the exact time—but this moment, the one when my goofy brother rips the bandage off my heart, is followed by a yelp. Arnie's yelp. He points east, and with the binoculars I locate a tiny dot moving our way. Several dots follow.

"Is it them? Is it them?"

"Yes," I say.

Arnie's jaw drops; he starts dancing.

"Here come the horsies. Here come the horsies!"

He begins howling and jumping up and down in circles; slobber sprays from his mouth. Arnie is entering heaven now. I stand there watching him watch as the rides grow. I just stand there hoping he won't sprout wings and fly away.

2

It's the same morning of the same day, and I'm asleep on the couch in the family room.

I'm truly savoring this period of rest, this catnap, when a rude smell comes dancing up my nose and starts screaming in my head. My eyes smack open. I look around, fuzzy at first, only to find my little sister sitting there in shorts and a halter top, painting her nails. The smell of that—Jesus.

My little sister's name is Ellen. She turned sixteen last month. She also just got her braces off, and for days now she's been walking around the house, running her tongue all over, going "Oo-ah"—like she can't believe the feel of teeth.

Ever since Ellen got her braces off she has been one big pain in the butt. And now with a sudden penchant for lip gloss and painting her toes red, she has bumped to the big time—becoming even more of an already impossible thing.

The smell of the polish forces me to rise up and look her in the eye. She stays fixed on the toe of the moment, so I say, "Little sister, must we?" She keeps painting, coating toe after toe. No response, no answer. So I say, "CAN'T THIS BE DONE SOMEWHERE ELSE?"

Without looking at me, my sister dishes this shit: "Gilbert, some of us are only sixteen. Some of us are trying to do something with our one chance at life. I am trying something new, a brand-new color is being applied, and I could use your support and your encouragement. When that is there I might consider moving, but you are my brother, and if you don't support these new steps, who will? Who will? Tell me, who will!"

She breathes a few times fast through her nose, making a whistly noise.

"I'm at such a difficult age. Girls my age bleed. We bleed every month and it's not like we did anything wrong. Just to be sitting there in church…"

"You don't go to church."

"Hypothetical, Gilbert."

"Don't use big words."

"Okay. I'm at work, mixing the toppings or making cones. And suddenly I feel it coming, and I didn't do anything. You are a guy. So you don't know how this feels. You should be understanding, and let me in peace do the one thing that brings me joy and a sense of completion. So thank you, Gilbert, thank you sooooo much!"

I stare at her trying to decide the most discreet way to murder. But she turns suddenly and stomps out of the family room leaving only the smell of her new toes. I decide to smother myself, as it is my most immediate option. Covering my face with an old orange sofa pillow, I begin the process. It gets to the interesting part where my lungs want air and my heart doesn't, when I feel this poking on my arm. This family. If it's Ellen, I'll smother her, first thing. And if it's Arnie, we'll have a pillow fight, laugh a bit, then I'll do the smothering.

But this time the voice is that of my big sister, Amy. She's whispering, "Gilbert, come here."

I don't move.

"Gilbert, please…"

I'm almost dead. Surely she can see this.

"Gilbert!"

I give in to the idea of air and say, "I'm busy" from underneath the pillow.

"You don't look busy."

Amy pries off the cushion and pulls it away from me. My eyes adjust to the sudden light. She's wearing a worried and concerned look. But what else is new? This look of terror is most often her face of choice, and I've grown fond of it. I find its predictability somehow comforting. It's only when Amy smiles that you know something is wrong.

Amy is the oldest of us Grape children. At thirty-four, she's ten years older than me. Most of the time she feels more like a mother than a sister. During the school year she works for the Clover Hills Elementary School in Motley. As assistant manager of the cafeteria, she serves the little ones green beans, frankfurters, and sugar cookies. She also works as a teacher's aide, spending her nights drawing elaborate smiley faces on the papers of those students who make no mistakes. Most important, though, is this—Amy doesn't work in the summers. Since, during the school year, our family finds a way to fall apart, she uses June, July, and August to put us back together.

"I'm sleeping," I say. "I'm trying to sleep."

Amy puts the pillow between her fleshy arm and her light blue Elvis T-shirt. She squints, her eyes searing into mine.

"Amy, please. God, if there's a God, please. I took the kid to wait for the rides. We got out there at four-thirty something. I need sleep. I work at ten. Please, Amy. Please! Don't stare at me like that!"

"You might think about Momma."

I want to say that I think about our mother all the time, that every move I make is made with her in mind, but before I can say anything, Amy grabs my wrist and jerks me up. "Ouch. I'm coming already."

Amy pulls me toward the dining room.

"This house stinks," I say. "The smell, God!"

Amy stops. We're standing in the kitchen, buried in several days' worth of dirty dishes and numerous sacks of trash. She whispers, "What do you expect? No one helps around the house. Ellen is good for nothing, you're working all the time or never home. I can't do it all."

She takes a deep breath and then turns around in a circle like those fashion models do.

"Look at me. Look."

"Yeah?" I say.

"Don't you see?"

"New outfit? Uhm. I don't know. What do you want me to see?"

"I'm starting to get like Momma."

I lie and say, "You're not."

"My skin is rolling over my clothes. I can't fit into chairs so well."

"Momma's on a whole other level. You're nowhere near…"

"These are the early stages, Gilbert. What you see here is the early phase." Amy wipes her eyes with the backs of her hands and smiles.

Oh boy.

Okay.

It's time for you to know the rarely spoken truths about my mother, Bonnie Grape.

There is no nice way to break it to you. My mother is a porker. She started eating in excess the day our dad was found dead seventeen years ago. Since that day, she's been going at it nonstop, adding pound upon pound, year after year, until now we have a situation where no one knows her actual weight. No household scale goes high enough.

Momma has the first room at the top of the stairs, but she doesn't like climbing, or even walking for that matter. She sleeps all day in this blue padded chair and only wakes up for meals and many occasional cigarettes. She doesn't sleep at night but stays in the chair, chain-smoking and watching the TV. We splurged and bought her the kind of television with a remote control. When Momma walks, she holds on to things, she clings to counters and shelves. It will take her fifteen minutes to make it to the bathroom and get situated. She hates baths, and quite honestly, she's barely able to fit in the tub. Not a particularly happy lady, she does laugh when Arnie dances for her and is all smiles when one of us, usually me, brings her a carton of cigarettes. She smokes Kool.

It's been over three years since she stepped out of the house, and other than her children and a former friend here and there, no one in town has seen her. They talk about her, sure, but mostly in whispers. Only the water-meter man during his monthly checks has gotten a good peek at Momma. Dr. Harvey came by once when we thought she was having a heart attack. It was a false alarm, though. Apparently she swallowed wrong, or there was some kind of intestinal gas in her veins, something like that.

If you were to gripe to my mother about her weight, or express in any way any fear you have about her steady growth, she would say "Hey! I'm here! Alive! I didn't cop out like other people we know!"

I've tried to tell Momma that her eating is a suicide of sorts. But those words are never easy.

So.

Amy drags me through the kitchen. We stop short of the dining room where Momma sits snoring with her mouth wide open. Amy points to Momma's feet. They are swollen, very red and purple and dry, crackly. Her feet don't fit into shoes anymore.

"I've seen her feet before," I whisper.

She points again, mouthing these words: "The floor."

I'm unable to believe what I see. The floor below Momma curves down like a contact lens. "Oh my God," I say.

"This is no longer a joking matter, Gilbert."

Once, after several beers, I suggested to a sloshed Amy that maybe Momma would fall through the floor and we'd be done with it. We laughed hard about it then.

"Something's gotta be done about this," Amy says, not laughing now.

Please realize that I'm no carpenter. I have no skill in home repair or craftsmanship. And with that in mind, notice how Amy's still got me in mind to fix the floor.

"Gotta do it without her knowing it," she adds in a hissed whisper.

Amy's right. If Momma knew she was slowly drilling a hole in her house, she would cry for days.

"I'll talk to Tucker."

Tucker is my best friend. He loves to build things—birdhouses, wooden ducks, and shelving for his beer-can collection.

"When will you talk to him?"

"Soon. Real soon, I promise."

"Today."

"I work today."

"This is urgent."

"I'm aware of this, Amy." I walk away, because her face is starting to contort into that weird shape again.

"Later today then. Okay, Gilbert? Gilbert, okay?"

I shout "OKAY!" and Momma wakes up with a snort.

"Morning, Momma," Amy says. "You want some breakfast?"

The next sequence of events defines predictability. Momma will say, "Wouldn't you think?" Amy will ask, "What will it be today?" and Momma will order a stack of pancakes or a couple of waffles or French toast, half a pound of bacon, some eggs maybe, fried or scrambled, and lots of pepper. Pepper on everything. And Amy will make whatever Momma wants, and it will taste great, and Momma will clean her plate like a big girl.

Having lost what little appetite I had, I head for fresh air. As I swing open the screen door, Arnie dives into the evergreen bush next to the mailbox. He loves to hide, but only if you take the time to find him. And while I suspect that's true for most people, only a retard or a kid would admit it.

"I wonder where Arnie is," I say too loud. "Where could he be?"

Amy is at the front door and speaks through the screen. "Thanks for talking to Tucker."

I make a face, like it's no problem, point to the bush, and say, "Have you seen Arnie? I can't find him anywhere."

Amy is a pro at this game. "Gilbert, I thought Arnie was with you."

"Nope, not with me."

"Shoot, 'cause I was hoping he'd help me with breakfast."

"I've looked all over for him."

The evergreen bush is giggling.

"Momma's up and she's hungry. Guess I'll have to make those pancakes by myself!"

The garage door rises, and Ellen emerges wearing her candy-cane bikini. Her red toes and fingers match. She unfolds our only lawn chair and lies back to receive the morning sun. In an effort to include her in this, a family activity of the rarest kind, I say, "Ellen, have you seen your brother?"

She ignores me. I look to Amy. The bush is getting restless.

"Little sister, did you hear me? We can't find Arnie."

Ellen flips through Cosmopolitan magazine. She's still mad from this morning.

Amy says, "We're looking hard. Have you seen him?"

She pretends to read.

Amy hates not being answered. "Ellen, did you hear me?"

"He's in the bush!"

I will kill her.

"No, he isn't," Amy says. "Gilbert checked the bush."

"Yeah," I say.

"Gilbert is blind and a liar and quite, quite stupid!"

Arnie rises, oblivious, and shouts his traditional "Boo!" I make a big noise and fall to the ground. "You scared me, Arnie. Oh God, you scared me."

With a new batch of pine needles in his hair and a thick streak of dirt across his mouth, he laughs in a way that reminds us he's retarded.

Amy says, "Breakfast," and he runs into the house to watch her cook.

I walk to my pickup, climb in, and it starts up right away. My truck is a 1978 Ford: it's blue, and even though the bottom is rusting out, I know you'd want to go for a ride in it.

Before backing out of the drive, I study my little sister. Most people who sunbathe do so in their backyards; at least this is how most people sunbathe in Iowa. But Ellen will be the first to tell you that she is not most people. She knows that she is the prettiest girl in these parts. And that by strategically placing herself on our oil-stained driveway, she also knows that all day long cars and trucks and bicycles from all over the county will drive past and watch as she toasts her skin. Ellen likes an audience.

I've this dream of building Arnie a lemonade stand and setting him up in business. The kid would make a killing.

I honk my horn, even though it's a sound I can't stand. Ellen looks up, and in an attempt to make peace, I wave and shout, "Have a nice day!"

She says nothing, pushes out a fist with the back of her hand facing me, and her middle finger stretches toward the sun. It stands there like a candle.

She loves me—she just doesn't know it yet.

I wait for her finger to go away, and when it doesn't, I shift into drive and take my foot off the brake. My truck and I roll slowly toward her. She looks up confident that she'll win. The closer I get, the louder her laugh becomes. At three feet, I press on the horn, and she is up and off the lawn chair. Before she can pull it out of the way, I accelerate fast and drive over it, crush.

The chair is dead.

Ellen stands to the side, her face matching the red in her bikini, the red on her toes. She wants to cry, but it would mess up her makeup.

I was fine till the finger, I say to myself, as I shift to reverse. You don't flip off Gilbert Grape. Let that be known.

As Ellen struggles to bend the chair back into shape, I back out of the driveway. I see Arnie looking out the living-room window. He starts banging his forehead on the glass. He does this seven, eight times before Amy pulls him away.

3

In Endora, there are two grocery stores. Smack on the town square is Lamson Grocery, where I work, and on the edge of town, there is Food Land, where everyone else shops.

Food Land was built last October. Apparently, it's loaded full of every cereal imaginable and Italian sausage that hangs down. They say a smile can be found in every one of their fourteen aisles. They installed these electric doors that open when your foot hits the black rubber mat. Many would say that this is the greatest thing ever to happen in Endora. Also, they installed a stereo system that plays this dentistlike, elevator-like music, whatever you call it. The Endora Express reported at the time that this music was intended to calm the customer, to soothe. Please, spare us. Food Land is equipped with special cash registers that have conveyor belts, the kind of belt you see in Des Moines, the kind you never thought would make it to Endora.

Food Land had a kind of grand-opening celebration this past March. Amy made me drive Arnie and her. Having made up my mind never to set foot inside, I sat in my truck while Amy took the retard in for a look around. She said that when Arnie saw the beans and Pop-Tarts and peanut butter move along the belt for the first time, he started whooping and hollering.

I regret having to describe Food Land to you. I tried to avoid even mentioning that garbage dump, but there is no way around it—not if you are to fully understand Mr. Lamson and Lamson Grocery and why I, Gilbert Grape, can still be found there in his employ.

You won't find electric doors and conveyor belts and computerized cash registers at Lamson Grocery. The store is composed of only four aisles—each only twenty-one feet long. Lamson Grocery contains everything that a reasonable person requires. But if you need the trappings of technology to think you're getting a good bargain, then I guess you better mosey your brainless body down to Food Land.

We at Lamson Grocery price every product by hand. We talk to our customers, we greet them without faking a smile, we say your name. "Hello, Dan." "Hello, Carol." "Hi there, Marty, you need some help?" If a person wants to write us a check, we don't take down all kinds of information or make you prove that you're you. There's none of that crap. We say without saying it that your word is good. Then we sack up your groceries and carry them out to your car.

Perhaps it is this excess of integrity that keeps the crowds away from Lamson Grocery. Perhaps Mr. Lamson is like a constant reminder of our shortcomings. A man who works all day, every day and loves each apple he uncrates, who cherishes each can of soup—a man like that surely puts us all to shame.

I started working for Mr. Lamson on a part-time basis when I was fourteen, and since graduating from high school seven years ago, I've worked full-time.

It is a white building with gray steps, red trim, and a sincere sign that reads, "Lamson Grocery—Serving you since 1932."

***

I push open the door that says ENTER and see Mr. Lamson at the cash register. His wife of a thousand years is in the little closetlike cubicle that we use as our office, stacking pennies. The store is empty of customers. As I get my apron from off the hook, he says, "Good morning, Gilbert."

"Hi, boss." I poke my head in the cubicle and say, "Good morning, Mrs. Lamson." She looks up and smiles the nicest smile. I get the push broom from the back and start sweeping Aisle One.

Mr. Lamson moves toward me, his hands in his pockets. "Son, are you all right?"

"Uhm, yeah. Why?"

"You look like you aged ten years. Honey, look at Gilbert."

"I'm in the middle of counting."

"Is something wrong at home?"

There is always something wrong at home. "No, sir," I say.

Mrs. Lamson pokes her head out of the office. "Oh, he just looks tired. You just look tired, that's all."

"Is that what it is?"

"You're looking at me like I'm dying, please, I'm not dying. It was an early morning. I took Arnie out to see the carnival rides come in. I didn't get a whole lot of sleep."

"How do they look?"

"The rides? Okay, I guess. You know, same old rides."

Mr. Lamson nods as if he knows what I mean. He goes to the cash register, rings it open, and brings me a crisp five. "This will help."

"Huh?" I say.

"Arnie and the merry-go-round. This will get him a couple of rides, right?"

"Yes, sir," I say. "It will buy a bunch of tickets."

"Good." Mr. Lamson walks away.

There is nothing he wouldn't do for Arnie. I put the five in my back pocket and continue my sweep.

***

I'm whipping down Aisle Four, my rhythm really rolling, when I see two feet in ladies' shoes. A cloud of dust floats over these shoes, and I look up to find Mrs. Betty Carver standing before me dressed like a Sunday-school teacher. She sneezes.

"Gilbert."

"Hi," I say.

"Bless me."

"Huh?"

"You bless a person when they sneeze."

"Oh. Bless you."

"I can't reach the Quaker Oats. Could you for me?"

"Yes, ma'am."

She smiles when I say "ma'am." I notice my fingernails are dirty. I try to hide my hands.

The Quaker Oats are on the top shelf in Aisle Three, and I'm tall enough to reach. I hand her a box. Mr. Lamson comes around the corner and says, "Oh, Gilbert got that for you. Good."

Mrs. Betty Carver suddenly blurts out, "Is Gilbert a good employee?"

"Yes. The best I've ever had."

"He's reliable, I assume. Conscientious?"

"Yes. Very."

She follows him to the cash register. "I'm perplexed, then. Why is it, do you think, that he's not prompt with his insurance payments? For his truck. Why do you think that is?"

Mrs. Betty Carver is the wife of Ken Carver, the only insurance man left in Endora.

"I'm afraid you'll have to ask Gilbert that."

She turns to look at me.

"I'm sorry," I say. "I'll take care of it right away."

"Of course you will," Mr. Lamson says. "In fact, Gilbert, why don't you run on over there and set the matter straight right now?"

"No!" Mrs. Carver practically shouts. Then looking at me, and in this churchlike voice she says, "I believe an afternoon appointment would be better."

I look at my feet and say nothing.

Mrs. Betty Carver and the Quaker Oats are gone.

"That woman could have been a movie star," Mrs. Lamson says. "Don't you think, dear?"

"Prob'ly so," Mr. Lamson says, all the while looking at me. "You think she could have been a movie star, Gilbert, huh?"

I find the broom and go back to sweeping.

***

It's forty minutes later and there have been no customers since Mrs. Betty Carver. I'm in the back of the store. Mr. and Mrs. Lamson are up front. Opening a carton of eggs, I drop two of them on the floor. I break the shells of three more. I make a noise like I just fell. From the floor I start yelling, "Darn it. Man! I can't believe this!"

Mr. Lamson hurries down Aisle Three. "What is it? What's wrong?"

He sees the eggs. I sit there, my hands covering my face. "I can't believe this day. I'm sorry. I'm really sorry, boss…."

"It's all right, son. You're having one heck of a day."

"Yes, sir."

"Listen. Clean up the mess, okay? Then take the rest of the day off."

"No, I can't do that."

"I insist."

"But…"

"Gilbert, I know when you need a day off."

I pick up the shell bits with my fingers and then mop up the rest—half impressed at my theatrics, half ashamed that I've deceived him. Never has a man been so good, so honest.

As I'm hanging up my apron, Mr. Lamson approaches. "Just a friendly reminder. I know that it isn't any of my business…."

"The insurance?" I ask.

"Yes."

"I intend to take care of that today, sir."

"I knew you would. You're a good employee, son. You're the best I've ever had."

There was a time when I would have agreed with him.

I'm heading out the door when he says, "Gilbert, keep hanging in there."

I stop and look at him.

"Why do you think that you should keep hanging in there?"

Nothing will come out of my mouth. I'm stumped.

"Because…" Mr. Lamson pauses in that I'm-about-to-say-the-most-important-thing-ever way. "Because…"

"Yes," I say, trying to hurry him along.

"Because there will be wonderful surprises."

Taking a moment to soak that in, I then smile as if to say "I hope so" and proceed to leave by the wrong door.

I get in my truck and start it up.

Inside the store, the Mrs. brings her husband a clean rag and he begins polishing the cash register. They must sense me watching because they look my way and wave in unison.

I drive off.

I feel sorry for them, believing in me the way they do. I'm not the stock boy I once was. Plus, there's nothing worse than being told you're good when you know you're bad. For a moment, I even mourn for the eggs. Their sudden, tragic death at the hands of a deceptive employee. Life might be full of wonderful surprises as Mr. Lamson says. But more than that I believe Life is full of unfairness. I offer the fate of the eggs as proof of my point.

4

It isn't even eleven in the morning and already the day is boiling hot, the seat in my truck is on fire, and I'm sweaty wet. How I wish I were a fish.

I drive two blocks to that bastion of security and protection, Carver's Insurance. Housed in an old gas station that's been converted, Carver's Insurance is one of the many buildings in Endora that have been remodeled or made over—only Lamson Grocery has remained the same.

I pull into the gravel parking lot. Tears of sweat roll down the back of my legs as I climb out of my truck. I'm careful going inside because there's a bell above the door that smacks in your ear. Clink, clank, dong, bang.

Melanie, Mr. Carver's secretary, looks up, startled, as if she can't believe the sight of another human being. She puts the cap on her White-out and says, "Well, hello there, Gilbert Grape."

"Hi," I say.

Melanie wears her red hair in a beehive style that is completely out of date. She has a mole on her face that must weigh a pound and a half, but I guess she's nice enough. She's over forty but has always insisted that we call her by her first name. When I was in high school, she worked as the library monitor. She would let me sleep in the conference room. Once I saw her smoking, and something about her smoking disappointed me.

"Are you here to see Mr. Carver?"

He calls from the back, "Is that you, Gilbert? Melanie? Is that Gilbert Grape?"

"Yes. Hello," I say. "I think I'm late on my payment."

Melanie doesn't even check my file. "You are late, Gilbert. Write us a check for a hundred twenty-three dollars and forty-three cents, and then you can scoot on out of here." She closes the door to Mr. Carver's office. "But you're always late with your payments—why the sudden appearance of responsibility, why now?"

"Oh, I'm trying, you know, to better my life."

Melanie smiles. Bettering your life, getting a fresh start, the bright side. Spout these concepts daily and you will survive in Endora; you might even thrive.

"You don't need an appointment, am I right? You just need to pay up."

"No. Uhm, also I've some confusion regarding my whatever you call what insurance does for you."

"I think you're inquiring about your benefits."

"Yes, that's it."

"So am I hearing that you actually do need an appointment?"

I don't know what Melanie is hearing. I can hardly talk to that hairstyle of hers. I wish I had a can of paint and a pair of hedge clippers. Fortunately I rarely speak what I think.

"An appointment would be most opportune."

"Gilbert, what a fine vocabulary you have."

I want to explain that any flashes of intellect that spit through me are a tribute to the many study halls I spent sleeping in the library. "I only have you to thank for my vocabulary. I owe it all to you, Melanie."

"You charmer."

"No, I mean it."

"Well then, you exaggerate."

"No, I do not. All those study halls we shared. You were the finest study hall supervisor at the school. No question about it in my mind or in anyone else's."

"How kind of you to say that."

"Is it kind if it's the truth?"

"Oh, I don't know. Rest assured, I love working for Mr. Carver—I would never say otherwise—and I believe in Insurance. But, between you and me, I miss working at the high school."

"And the high school misses you, I'm sure."

"The high school is closed, Gilbert. How could it miss me?"

"It would if it could."

"I'm hard to anger, you know that, but I could bite off the heads of the people who made that decision to close our high school. Busing all those kids to Motley."

"Well, everyone's moving away."

"I know, but still."

"There were thirty-nine in my freshman class and only twenty-three were left when we graduated."

"You don't say. Well, we could talk all day, couldn't we? We have so much in common, don't you think?"

I don't know how to answer that without lying in the most blatant of ways. "So much in common, yes, come to think of it."

"I've always thought it a shame that we're not the same age. You older or me younger. We'd have made a lovely couple, don't you think? Really, it's quite a shame."

"A pity."

"Yes, pity is a good word."

I left this conversation hours ago, but somehow my mouth is still moving, words are still forming, and none have seemed to offend. Amazing, the mind. My mind, I mean. Not hers.

It's suddenly down to business for Melanie. Her voice becomes sharp and biting. "So you'd like to make an appointment to see Mr. Carver?"

"Yes, ma'am. Please."

"One moment." She stands, moves to his door, and taps ever so lightly. She gently pushes it open. I hear classical music playing from inside his office. It takes a few minutes but soon she's standing in the doorway, smiling as if she's the most wonderful news. "How fortunate. You can see Mr. Carver right now if you'd like."

Mr. Carver calls out, "It would be a treat to see you! Step on back and let's see what we can do."

"Thank you, Mr. Carver, but I'll have to come back later. Errands and all."

Mr. Carver says, "Oh," like he's about to cry, Melanie smiles, smacks her lips and says, "I know how that is. I run errands day in, day out. Sometimes I think it's all I do."

"Well…"

She opens his appointment calendar, which, for this particular Wednesday, the first day of summer, is completely blank. "Well, you have picked a marvelous day. Mr. Carver lunches at noon sharp. He's back at one sharp. At four o'clock, he and his wife are driving to Boone to make a surprise visit to their boys at church camp. So up until four, you have free rein."

"How does two sound?"

"Perfect. A perfect time for an appointment. If it suits you, that is."

"Yeah, fine."

"We'll see you at two o'clock sharp, then."

"Okay."

"Have a nice day. And hello to Amy, your family. Your mother. I haven't seen your mother in years. How is she?"

"Oh, you know…"

"No, I don't. It's been some time since I've…"

I say, "Big things are happening for her, big things." I'm backing up toward the door.

Melanie puts a finger over her mouth, signaling me to be quiet. Then she waves me over to her and whispers, "You haven't mentioned my new hairdo?"

"That's true."

"You like it, don't you?"

"Oh, it's you."

"You think?"

"It suits you perfectly."

Melanie stops for a moment. She shines—all four and a half feet of her. I don't know how I did it, but somehow I made this woman's day. "If I were any younger…"

Oh God. Here we go again. Leap for the door, Gilbert. "Bye now!" I open the door slowly but still the bell jingles and clinks.

5

I drive off with the windows rolled down. My hair is getting blown all over, scratching my eyes. My hair is so long that it's beginning to eat my head.

I pass Endora's Gorgeous, one of two beauty parlors in town, and suddenly the image of Melanie's bright red cotton-candy hairdo returns to haunt me. The way it stands straight up, it's like a new eraser on an old pencil. I try to picture her after a morning bath, her hair all wet and droopy. She looking in the mirror, trying to create the lie she tells herself to get up and get moving. I'll never know how she keeps such a positive point of view. If I were her, I think I'd cry all day, all night.

My truck's gas gauge says it all. I drive over to the other side of town and pull up at Dave Allen's station. Buying my gas from Dave is a pleasure because of his cord or tube or whatever you call the black thing that stretches across the station. It's supposed to go bing-bing or bong-bong or ding-ding when tires go over it. The one at Dave's stopped working several years ago, and he won't have it fixed because he feels as I do—that none of us need to be reminded we exist.

So I always drive there for my gas. No cord, no bing-bing, bong-bong, ding-ding. Bliss.

I pump in a few bucks' worth, buy an Orange Crush from the pop machine and a bag of Cheetos. I pay in exact change.

Dave says, "The carnival."

"Yep?"

"Real good for business, you know."

"Really?" I say.

"Some of the rides run on gasoline."

"They buy it from you, I hope."

"Yeah." Dave smiles. I've never seen him look so proud.

Driving out of town, I pass Chip Miles driving a tractor on his daddy's farm. I honk and Chip waves—all happy, I guess, that someone recognized him. Chip is a nice enough guy, strong in that I-throw-a-lot-of-hay way. He was a champion wrestler for the high school team in Motley. He graduated a few weeks back. The tragedy with Chip is that he never had a date the whole four years he went there. See, he's got one of his front teeth capped in silver and that just discourages any girl in these parts. When he talks, he barely moves his top lip. But if you catch him off guard, like I just did, he will open his mouth wide, yell "Hey!" and you'll get a glare from his tooth.

I've got time to kill before my insurance appointment, and I'm going to relax. I speed up to seventy, seventy-five miles an hour and head for my favorite county road.

The roads all around Endora are completely straight and flat and bland except for Highway 2, which I am presently on. This road curves, and there is a small bridge stretching across Skunk River, which is actually just a creek, but since it's officially named a river everyone thinks that's what it is.

***

It's eleven miles later and I'm at the county cemetery. I drive under the metal framelike gate thing. I turn off my truck and walk across the graves. I find my place and sit. I eat my Cheetos, drink my Orange Crush. I lie back and look at the sky. Every five minutes or so I hear a car or a semi drive past. I look at the clouds, which are not even clouds today—wisps of white, little streaks, strokes, that move, but not in any interesting way; even the clouds have their doubts.

I eat two Cheetos for every sip of soda and soon both are gone. I roll over on my stomach and try to picture what my father looks like now. His skin is surely gone, and his heart and brain and eyes have turned to whatever it is they turn to. Dust, maybe. I'm told hair is one of the last parts of you to decay. The bones most certainly are still there, still rotting.

There are two weeds to the left of his tombstone. I pull them out and throw them several feet onto somebody else.

My heart beating confirms I'm alive. Sitting in this particular cemetery on this particular day makes me feel special. Like I stand out.

I lie back and breathe myself to sleep.

***

The sound of a truck driving into the cemetery wakes me. It's two guys and a hydraulic shovel, and it appears they've come to dig a grave.

The sun has moved far across the sky. My skin feels all warm. I did the dumbest thing—falling asleep with no sunscreen lotion and no shade. I have cooked my skin and by tonight, I'll probably glow in the dark. I cross over to the grave diggers and say, "Hey, you know the time?"

"Four o'clock or thereabouts."

"Thanks."

Already feeling the burn of my skin, I quickly seek distraction. "So is this how they dig graves? I thought you'd use shovels."

"No, man, shovels went out years ago."

Suddenly I've this sincere interest in their process. "You dig a lot of graves?"

"Yeah. Me and my partner, we dig for all three cemeteries in this county."

"You wouldn't happen to know who you're digging this one for?"

"Yeah, we know. It's on the sheet."

The one who hasn't said anything looks at the sheet.

"I'm wondering," I say, "because a friend of mine died yesterday."

"Sorry about that, man."

"Well, that's the way it goes some days."

"Yeah, some days you die."

"Exactly," I say.

"Braider is her name."

"Brainer, that's her."

"This is your friend we're digging for?"

"Yeah."

I try to look sad and forlorn.

"You don't seem all that upset about it."

"No, I do my grieving, you know, in private."

"Sure, that's cool."

They've dug about three feet when I say, "You can't make that hole deep enough."

"Huh?"

"Oh, nothing. See ya."

As I walk away, the guy who has been silent mutters something to the other guy.

"Hey, buddy, hey you!"

"Yeah?"

"Uhm. My partner here wants to know something."

"Okay, shoot." I'm now about ten graves away from them.

"He's wondering if you're one of the Grapes! We're from Motley, you know. And for a long time we've been hearing about this family…."

It takes two tries to get my door shut. And with my truck kicking up a cloud of dust, I leave them wondering. I drive home. Of course I'm a Grape, I want to shout. I'm Gilbert Grape.

6

Driving fast back to town, I see Endora's water tower, silver with black lettering, looking like an old whistle or a cheap rocket. If it were a rocket I'd get in and blast off.

I speed past Chip Miles again. He waves, but this time I don't honk.

A quick check in my rearview mirror and it is confirmed. My skin is already a hot pink. It will be bright red by bedtime.

There is something in the middle of the road a few houses up from ours. Slowing down I hit the horn a few times. But "it" doesn't move.

I come to a stop, put my truck in park and walk up to it. I whisper, "Moooooovvvvveeee." I make the I'm-about-to-spit sound. This something doesn't flinch. So I scream, "OH MY GOD! ARNIE IS DEAD!"

He smiles as if he likes the idea.

"I saw that," I say.

"Saw what?"

"That smile."

"But I'm dead, Gilbert. Jeez."

"You are not."

"Yes, I am!"

I start wailing and crying and moaning. I pound my chest. Of course it's all done in that pretend sort of way because Arnie is still very much alive. To a neighbor watching, my performance must be completely unbelievable. I don't cry. I just never do. And no one expects me to. I want to scream. At least something is going on here! At least we have some brotherly action here! If you'd open your eyes and look out your window, you'd see some Life happening! But I keep the screaming inside me, lift Arnie up with one arm under his shoulders and the other under his knees. His head drops back; he's dead again. I lay him in the bed of my pickup and pull into the driveway.

Arnie jumps out and runs into the house, letting the screen door slam. It's a miracle that he's lived this long. He'll be turning eighteen on July 16, a little less than one month from today. Who would have thought? The party to end all parties is being planned. For the members of my family, especially my mother, Arnie's eighteenth birthday will be the biggest day ever. More treasured than Thanksgiving, with more presents than Christmas, Arnie's birthday will also unfortunately bring the return of the other Grapes.

My mother is a woman of few words. The words used are choice, and you can break her conversation categories into three sections.

The first and most frequent is: "Where's my food?" Or: "What's for dinner?" Or: "I don't smell anything cooking, do you?" Food.

The second goes something like this: "Get me my cigarettes." "Who took my cigarettes?" "Matches! Matches, anybody!" Smoking.

The third category is always repeated in the same word order. She speaks it at least once a day. This is Momma at her most poignant. Her words are these: "I don't ask for much. Just let me see my boy turn eighteen. That's not too much to ask, is it?" At my father's funeral I saw Momma write something down on a paper napkin. I'm not sure but I think it was those words.

***

I open the door and go in the house. I see Arnie under Momma's table, his arms wrapped around her feet. She's saying, "…turn eighteen. That's not too much to ask, is it?"

"Hi, Momma," I say.

She lights a cigarette. Her blue lips take a long drag. She smiles, not because of me but rather because of the boy at her feet and the cigarette in her mouth. "Gilbert, you hungry?"

All of a sudden I see Momma and Arnie disappear through the floor. When I cross to the hole they made, I see that they kept falling and this wind blows and they went through the center of the earth and out the other side, which is probably Vietnam or something, and they keep going, surely, toward the sun and when Momma and Arnie hit the sun, the sun grows too bright and hot and the earth melts into nothingness.

Fortunately, this is just my imagination.

I glance at the floor below Momma. The saglike curve is bigger than it was this morning. I go into the kitchen where Amy is baking a couple of meat loaves. "Smells good," I say.

"You think?"

"Yep."

Amy would like it if I gave her a hug when I came in from work. But Gilbert Grape is not the hugging type.

"I called you to bring home some potatoes for dinner. Mr. Lamson said you'd…" Amy stops when she looks up and sees my skin.

"Gilbert, my God."

"Yeah, ouch, huh? The sun was something today…."

Amy turns back to the oven, shaking her head.

"Mr. Lamson gave me the day off."

"We need the money. You can't just go take off the day to work on your tan…." She takes a toothpick and sticks it in a meat loaf.

"It was just one of those days…."

She burns two fingers on the second meat loaf pan. "Ow. Darn it! Darn it!" Amy isn't the swearing type. She runs cold water over her hand. I take the pot holders and lift out the second meat loaf.

"You okay?"

"Of course."

I lie and say, "Looks really good."

"Oh, and Melanie called. Seems you missed some appointment with Mr. Carver…."

"Oh, crap." I completely forgot about my appointment.

"She wasn't happy with this…."

"I'll reschedule…."

"She said that you better hope Mr. Carver can fit you in."

In the dining room Momma has given Arnie the controls to the TV and he's pushing the buttons fast.

"So I guess I know why you took the day off from work. At least I hope this was the reason. Is he going to help us? Say that he will."

"Who?"

"Tucker."

"Sure, sure. Of course."

"So you talked to him."

"Uhm."

"That's the reason you took the day off. To work on the floor situation."

"Yes?"

"You say that like a question. Are you asking me or telling me?"

"Tucker will be glad to help."

Amy doesn't know whether to believe me or not. She turns off the water and dries her hands on her apron. She half smiles, lifts her foot and stomps suddenly.

"Ants," she says. "There are ants everywhere in this house."

"At least something likes us."

"Cute, Gilbert."

"If Ellen would do the dishes…"

Washing dishes is Ellen's job, mine is laundry, and Amy does everything else.

"Oh, and that was a real clever thing you did this morning. That was Dad's lawn chair, you know."

"Yeah, I know."

"It was his favorite lawn chair."

"Well…"

"And Ellen went off all morning."

"I'm sure she did."

"Please. Please stop inciting her." Amy is using some of her I'm-a-teacher's-aide big words. "I told her I want this resolved today. I want this family cooperating. We don't have to love each other but we have to get along. Are you listening?"

"Yes."

"You've got to do your part. You're older than she is…."

When Amy finishes today's lecture, she points to a pink envelope that has been taped to the refrigerator. In purple is a giant "G." I take it into the downstairs bathroom, sit down on the toilet, and begin to read.

"Dear Brother,

I am sorry.

I say that even though I'm not.

Things are happening in me that I can't explain.

Things that a guy can't understand.

Your Sister."

There is a water spot at the bottom of the page. Ellen has circled it with a turquoise marker and written "One of many tears you caused."

I slowly crumple up the note, drop it in the toilet, and flush.

***

Amy has split one of the meat loaves in two. One half goes to Arnie, one half goes to me. The other meat loaf is on Momma's plate and she's fast at work. She takes a bite, changes the TV channel, then takes another bite.

"You eating, Amy?"

"No. Starting a diet," she whispers. "Tooooo-day."

"Oh. You should eat something."

"Look at me, Gilbert."

Good point.

If Amy's so worried about the floor, why did she bake Momma an entire meat loaf? I better not ask. Instead, I grab a fork out of the drawer only to find that it has a piece of cereal crusted on one of its prongs. The next fork has this line of grease or oil or butter or something. I pull out fork after fork, and all of them are grungy or dirty or whatever. So I take the meat loaf in my fingers and eat like an animal. At least I know where my hands have been, I'm thinking, when Amy comes into the kitchen.

"Jesus, Amy, these forks." My mouth is full of meat loaf. "Have you seen these forks?"

Amy didn't get a word. "Swallow before talking."

"These forks—cleaned lovingly by my premenstrual sister, whom I love and like and cherish…" I pause to push a chunk of meat out from between my teeth. "These forks prove…"

Amy is smiling. She loves to see me upset. It proves to her, I guess, that this brother has feelings.

"These forks prove…"

"What do they prove?"

"THE EXISTENCE OF SATAN!"

Momma drops her silverware. "Amy?"

"Yes, Momma."

"Tell him this is my house. Tell him we don't have any shouting during dinner. Tell him that."

"He knows, Momma. Gilbert didn't mean to raise his voice."

The hell I didn't.

"Have him get his momma some cigarettes."

Amy moves toward the dining room and says, "You've still got an entire pack left."

"But after that! WHAT AM I GONNA SMOKE AFTER THAT?"

Amy takes a ten-dollar bill from the Folger's coffee can on top of the refrigerator and hands it to me. "Get her some cigarettes. And please speak with Tucker. Don't tell me you have when you haven't, okay? And pick up Ellen from work at nine. She likes it when you pick her up. It would mean something."

"Sure, Amy. I'll do it all."

"Good. I knew I could count on you."

***

It's nights like these that I have to get out of my house. I drive around town and dream about going places. I dream about the kind of families I watched on TV as a kid. I dream about pretty people and fast cars, and I dream I'm still me but my family is someone else. I dream I'm still me.

7

Tucker says, "Did you hear? Did you hear?"

"Hear what?"

"They're finally building…" Tucker has to stop because a bug gets in his mouth.

"Finally building what?"

"A Burger Barn." He looks at me like he expects me to start dancing around the room.

I say, "Yeah, so?"

"Don't you see what this means? Don't you see the uh… uh…"

"The implications."

"Yeah, that's the word. Burger Barn is just a first step. Someday we'll have a Pizza Hut, a Kentucky Fried Chicken. Maybe a Taco Bell. I'm gonna get me a job. Wear one of those uniforms."

"Neato," I say.

"Gilbert, I hate you. All day I've been waiting to tell you this and now you stand there like a telephone pole."

"You got any beer?"

"Does Tucker have beer? Tucker has Canadian beer."

"Yeah, so?"

"Canadian beer uses a certain kind of water."

"Big deal."

"It is a big deal, Gilbert. It's not every beer that uses this special Canadian water."

He tosses me two cans and I start drinking.

Tucker lives in a converted garage behind his parents' house. He has a little refrigerator and a hot plate that is more for show than anything because he eats every meal with his parents. He and his dad did all the work on the garage conversion, and while it's not very impressive-looking, his garage/bedroom/apartment is functional. They cut a hole in the garage door and put in this stained glass window of a horse. Other than that, the place is dusty and dark, very Tucker. They installed track lighting to illuminate his beer-can collection which totals over nine hundred cans. You go to his place and it smells like you're in a bar. A bar without women, though, because Tucker never dates.

I'm finishing can number one when he says, "I guess it's that special Canadian water."

"Nope."

"It's the water—admit it."

I'd rather be wrong than concede that Tucker was right. I never let him win, either, and if he were ever about to, I'd have no choice but to change the rules.

"Anyway, about the Burger Barn. You know, they bring in a team of experts and they build the whole thing, start to finish, in less than thirty days. I drove out there today. They're putting it up right next to Food Land. They've leveled the ground and it will be open, get this—by the middle of July."

Tucker is on a roll. It usually takes two beers for him to like himself but tonight he only needs half a can.

"I mean," he continues, "just this morning I wake up, I look around my room, and I see achievements. I see that I have a life. Some people don't have what I have, right? I've got my own place. Certain skills, you know?"

I nod, but my mind is elsewhere.

"So I couldn't get out of bed today. I couldn't even move! Does that ever happen to you? Tell me it does. Well, I get up finally and go to my truck…"

Tucker got his pickup the week after I got mine. He bought his brand-new. He never had to spend a penny because his dad took out a loan to pay for it. It has remained in mint condition because Tucker covers it every night with a black tarp.

"…and my truck starts right up—engine humming nice—and I drive to Food Land to get some donuts…"

Lamson Grocery has superb donuts, I want to say. I make a fist to punch him in the arm but I stop when I see his eyes watering.

"…and my life suddenly wasn't what I wanted, you know? I'm thinking 'Is this it?' You know? Have I reached my uhm…"

"Potential."

"Potential, yeah."

Those can't be tears forming. Surely a gnat or a dust ball got in his eye.

"I hope I haven't, because why get up? Why wake up? You know? So I see the sign announcing the arrival of the Burger Barn and… I don't know how else to say it… but it was like suddenly my life made uhm… uhm… made…"

"Sense."

"Yeah. And well…" Tucker wipes his eyes. Those are tears and I suddenly feel sick. "I knew then that this was supposed to… uhm… happen. I had hit bottom and now I was on the way back up."

Tucker stops talking and waits for a response. I open the second can of beer and begin to chug it.

"Aren't you happy for me? Aren't you happy for me? Aren't you happy for me?"

I can answer him now that the second beer is inside me. "Tucker?" I say. "I'm happy for you."

He smiles. He can't tell when I'm lying. He takes the empty can from my hand, rinses it out in his little sink, and dries it with a towel. He turns on his track lighting and, without much ceremony, puts the can in its new home next to the others. "Whew. It's been a big day. I need to wind down. Pro wrestling comes on in a couple of minutes. You're welcome to stay and watch."

"No thanks on the wrestling, buddy."

He moves his beanbag chair to the center of the room, turns on his TV, and as he sits, the chair makes that beanbag sound. "Okay," he says, "well, see you, then."

"Tucker, I got a favor to ask."

"I knew it. The minute you said 'buddy' I knew it. It's not a good day for favors, okay? Oh man, I'm tired!"

"But…"

"I just told you my day. It's been unbelievable. I can't absorb any more…."

"It's Momma."

"What?"

I repeat that it's Momma and Tucker is suddenly interested. He loves my mother maybe more than his own.

"Is she sick? Is she okay?"

"Well, Tucker, you're one of the few who has seen Momma these last few years."

"Yeah. And it means a lot to me."

"You know that she's about the biggest thing around."

"I was at the state fair and I saw this guy that was a little bigger…."

"Yeah, but…"

"I'm just saying that she's not the biggest I've ever seen. That's all I'm saying."

I tell him about the floor and how it sags.

He says, "Your momma isn't that big."

"Afraid so."

"No way possible."

"You've got to see it to believe it."

"I'll come over tomorrow."

I stand and walk to his TV. I block the screen with my body and turn it off with the back of my hand. "Momma needs you tonight."

***

We head home, stopping to pick up a carton of cigarettes at ENDora OF THE LINE, the stupidest name for a store ever. I walk in, and Maggie or Josh or whoever's working just grabs a carton of Kool and rings it up before I'm even at the cash register. This is the one advantage in having a mother so set in her ways.

Inside the house, we find Momma and Amy watching "The New Dating Game" and Arnie asleep on the floor.

"Tucker and I are gonna play some cards," I say, handing Amy the carton of Kool. "Or throw some darts."

"Careful with the darts," Amy says.

Tucker waves and says, "Hey, Mrs. Grape."

Having just picked bachelor number two, Momma stays fixed on the TV. She doesn't acknowledge Tucker, and there's no thank you for the cigarettes. She says a person shows their gratitude by action, not by words. So I guess that means she thanks me by smoking every cigarette in every pack.

Downstairs, Tucker's mouth is open. He's in shock. The sagging floor looks even worse from below. Taking out his tape measure, he says, "We got to act fast. These beams could snap at any time." He wants to talk to Momma. "To see if she'd consider moving to another part of the house for a while."

"She won't move," I say. "And anyway, if she knew she was cutting a hole through her floor, she would lose it big time. Especially since she's drilling right directly above where my dad hung himself."

"What?" All of a sudden Tucker gets this squeamish look on his face. "Right here, right here is where they found your dad?"

"Yep. He was hanging from that support right there. A puddle of piss was below him and there was vomit all across here." I point to the washer and dryer. "He was found swinging. His body still kind of warm. But it was too late."

Tucker is confused, so I explain that when a person dies often their bowels let go for the last time. "You dump in your pants and piss down your legs. If you're hanging."

He says he doesn't see how I can be so cold about it.

I say that if you live with something long enough, it becomes normal. "Besides, my getting all teary isn't gonna change anything. It's done, he did it, and what's foremost is that Momma's gonna fall through the floor if we don't do something fast."

Tucker estimates that she'll fall through by the beginning of next week. "There's even a chance she could go tonight." With that, he grabs my arms and pulls me out of the way.

I say, "What are you doing?"

"She might go right now."

***

Upstairs, we're heading outside to my truck.

Amy says, "Pretty fast cards."

I say something about not being in the mood for playing games, and then I wink at Amy, trying to hint that we're working on the floor situation. My guess is that she didn't get my signal, because she says, "Remember to pick up Ellen."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," I say.

"Bye, Mrs. Grape," Tucker calls out.

Momma doesn't move. It occurs to me that maybe Tucker loves my mother because she has no interest in him.

***

We're getting into my truck, when I hear Arnie scream. I run back to the house, certain that Momma just fell to Hell. I throw open the door and find Amy hugging Arnie, who woke from a bad dream. "Everything's fine, Gilbert. You go on with Tucker. Go have a fine time," she says with a wink.

I guess she got my earlier point.

8

"It will take great planning to save your mother. No floor is made to withstand such… such…"

"I know, buddy, I know. But if anyone can do it…"

"Thanks. Means a lot coming from you."

I pull up at Tucker's. He jumps out while my truck is still moving, calls out, "I'll get right to work!" and sprints inside to begin drawing up his plans.

***

My sister Ellen works at the Dairy Dream. Some dream. They've got cones, colored sodas, candy bars, sprinkles, nuts, malts, shakes and one of those real dippy, sissy, piss-me-off bells that tinks or clanks or chimes when a person enters.

Before you enter the Dream, look in and study whatever girl is working. Make sure she doesn't see you and then observe how she is hating her job. She wants to be in some fast car, you see, or home doing her nails—anywhere but in the Dream. Then push in the door, she'll hear the bell, and this smile will snap on like a zipper unzipped. Or like God will take her face and turn it inside out. All of a sudden she'll be smiling like some beauty queen and so friendly and so interested and so happy. This is some shit, huh?

When I pull up at the Dairy Dream, I notice three girls. Two of them are chubby and plain and they are walking toward the Dream. They look familiar. The third girl doesn't. She is straddling a boys' bike, standing motionless, staring at something. The third girl my eyes can't deny.

She has black hair, thick and full. It drapes her shoulders. She has legs. Oh my. From where I'm sitting, she is not to be believed. She is the moon.

I put my truck in park, turn off the engine, take the headlights out, and roll down the window—all in slow motion. I breathe with great difficulty. Certain that I must be imagining this, I look around to see if this is Life that is happening. This is my truck. These are my hands. That's my little sister scraping the insides of the fudge machine. Yes, this is Life.

The other two girls go inside to order, but the one I'm aching for doesn't move. The bell clinks or clanks or dings, and one of them holds the door, thinking the girl on the bike is coming in. She's staring at something on the dirty white stucco wall of the Dream, however, and waves them off with a "No, thanks."

Now, Gilbert, get out of your truck now.

I remember my beer breath and find some Bazooka in my glove compartment and chew rapidly. I close my truck door slowly; my heart is pounding now, firing blood bullets. Minutes ago I was calm, a walking coma practically, and now, in seconds, I'm so glad to be alive. And so scared.

She's looking at some insects or maybe a spider. I move closer, trying to look at what she's looking at and trying not to look at her. I get close enough to smell her hair and make out the slope of her nose, the shape of her pillowlike lips. The round black glasses. The creamy skin, perfect skin.

I have seen God and he is this girl.

I better say something fast. My mouth is drying out. As I step up behind her, she says, "Praying mantis. The male is sneaking up on the female. He wants to mate. If he's not careful, she'll turn around and bite off his head. His instinct will keep on mating. But when the rest of him is done, she'll eat what's left. That's how praying mantises mate. Interesting, huh? My name is Becky."

She turns, pulls down her glasses, and looks at me.

"Uh," is all I can say.

"I'm from Ann Arbor. My grandma lives here and I'm only here for that reason. My grandma's old, her hair is blue, and she'll die soon. Want to smoke?"

"No, thanks. I'm trying to quit."

"Really. Why?"

"Makes my skin gross? My teeth gross?"

"If you think it does, then I guess it does." She puts a cigarette between her perfect lips. "Smoking makes me feel alive. Helps me get through it. You know, the bullshit?"

I nod because I'll agree with anything she says. She lights her cigarette, looking like a magazine ad.

"You like me, don't you?"

"Yes."

"You think I'm beautiful."

I fight nodding but lose.

"I might be now, but one day I'll have blue hair and blotched skin and plastic teeth and maybe one breast left. If the thought of that appeals to you, then we might talk about hanging out. But if you're into the surface thing, the beauty thing, then I might just have to turn around, snap off your head, and eat you."

I laugh but don't know why. This Becky girl doesn't even crack a smile. She goes inside and when that piss of a bell clinks or chimes, I fall back on the stucco of the Dairy Dream. I'm thinking, was the wind just knocked out of me or what?

It's then when I hear a soft crunch, a chomping of sorts. Turning, I see that the female mantis has caught the male, and his head has been snapped off. She is munching, he is squirming, and I run to my truck and drive out of there fast. She expected me to follow her. I guess I told her.

As I pull out, I see Ellen pressing her face against the take-out window. Oh God, I left Ellen. I've got to go back.

Oh God.

9

"What about the third girl, who came in after them…?"

"I don't know who you're talking about."

"She… she… come on… you saw her!"

Ellen turns on my radio and says for me to speed up.

"Her eyes. She's got these eyes. Dark brown. And her hair is uhm and her nose… slopes…."

"What was she wearing?"

"I don't know that. I'm no fashion expert."

"Then I can't help you out."

"You just served her! She…"

Ellen lets out this high-pitched giggle and it pierces the night air. I check to see if her door is locked. It isn't, and a big part of me wants to reach over, open the door, and shove her out onto the street.

Instead I say, "Thanks a million, Ellen."

"Why yes, brother dear, and a big thank-you for this morning."

"You're welcome."

Did I do something this morning? It seems so long ago—like 1983.

"It was perfect tanning weather," Ellen continues with her eyes closed. "Thank you for ruining my morning…."

Oh. The lawn chair. "Well, what is family for."

Her sound changes to a gentle, kind of throaty just-had-sex voice. "I've never known what you have against me, really, except maybe the regret that you are my brother, and being my brother just means that you can't date me. You can't kiss me or ever know me in a sexual way. Could that be what's keeping you in Endora?"

I won't honor that with an answer.

"We all expect the floor to be fixed. After all, you are the man in the family."

"What does that mean?"

"Men fix things."

"What?"

"Women cook things. Men fix things."

"Oh."

"This is the way in America. Men have their thing and we women have our thing but you, Gilbert, you will have NO-thing if you don't fix the floor."

I drive faster.

"Ellen, we're home."

She opens the passenger door. The overhead light kicks on and she sees my sunburn for the first time.

"Oh, rub it in, why don't you!"

"What?"

"You can have sun. But not me. Real fair. Fine!" She stomps into the house.

I'll sit for a bit.

From my truck I can see Amy and Momma are watching TV. There are no lights on in the house except for the flicker from the screen. Upstairs, the light comes on in Ellen's room. She starts to take off her white polyester Dairy Dream top. She doesn't pull down her shade and part of her probably wants me to watch. I don't. Instead, I study our house. It is big and sort of white. The roof needs replacement shingles, all the floors are sagging, and the porch is on a slant. The outside and inside both beg for a paint job. My father built this house with his own hands the year he married my mother, in honor of their nuptials. No wonder it all droops.

I'm walking to the porch, when Ellen lifts her window to ask if I want to see the tragic remains of the lawn chair. "No interest in dead things," I say as I go in the front door.

"So that's why you've no interest in yourself." Ellen thinks I heard her say that but I didn't.

Inside, the TV is on a commercial break, but it's commercials that Amy and my mother like best on television. I head back to the kitchen but don't know why, so I turn around and move fast toward the stairs hoping to make it up to my room without any familial contact. But I come across Arnie asleep in the coat closet with a ring of chocolate around his lips. Instead of waking him, I struggle to scoop him up in my arms. The kid is getting porky and lifting him pinches my sunburned arms.

Up we go.

My foot pushes open the door to his bedroom. He has bunk beds and sleeps on the top because he believes that's where heaven is. There was a time when we shared this room. But I got my own when one of the other Grapes moved out. Arnie's room is full of toys. There's a path that winds and curves to his bunk. Amy makes his bed every morning.

I set him on the bottom bunk, yank back the sheet up top, pull off his shoes and socks, and begin to lift him, when a giggling starts. I pretend to ignore it, because that's the way Arnie wants it. But he says, "I wasn't sleeping. I fooled you." I tuck him in. "I fooled you!" he shouts.

I turn the light out on him, not saying a thing. I go downstairs to say goodnight. Ellen is in the kitchen stirring her yogurt with a plastic spoon. Even she can't eat off the dishes she rarely cleans.

I go in the living room, where Amy is using the remote control to change between Channel 5 and Channel 8. Momma is mumbling, "…let me see my boy turn eighteen. That's not too much to…"

"No, Momma," Amy says.

"Let me finish what I'm saying."

"Sorry."

Momma stops, her big tongue pushes out of her mouth like on those "National Geographic" specials when a whale rises out of the water for air. "Now I forgot what I was saying." She looks up and seeing me, her eyes bulge for a second, her head snaps back, and then her face softens. "Jesus!"

"What?"

"Gilbert, my God. For a second…"

"What is it?" Amy says as she turns the TV to mute.

"For a second I thought you were Albert. I almost called you Albert. I almost did that."

"It's okay, Momma," Amy says. "Gilbert kind of looks like Daddy."

"Kind of? He's the spitting image."

I shouldn't have come down to say goodnight. Whatever possessed me?

Momma's lips stretch out as she sticks the next cigarette between her teeth. Her big fingers are eager to light a match. She can't get one going, so she tries a second. Amy reaches her ever-growing hands in to help, but Momma clutches the matches, hacks out a laugh, and stomps both feet on the floor. The table jiggles, a picture falls.

"Don't stomp like that!" I shout.

Momma stops. She puts out her unlit cigarette, glares at me, and takes a new one from the pack.

"Is this my house, Gilbert?"

I nod.

"I believe it to be. Amy? Is this my house?"

"Yes, Momma."

"Ellen? Come here, honey."

Ellen appears with her yogurt. "Yeah?"

"This is your mother's house, is it not?"

"It's our house."

"But I'm the mother, right?" They nod. "Amy—Ellen—girls—tell me it's okay for me to stomp in my house." Momma talks with the cigarette in her mouth. It waves up and down. "Tell me that I can do whatever I want in my house. And why is that? Why do you think I can do whatever…"

"Because it's your house," they both say fast.

Momma looks at me.

I say, "Sorry, I'm sorry," as I move to the stairs.

"Your father always said that. Sorry. I used to think 'sorry' was his middle name. And you can see where 'sorry' got him!"

I want to scream, Momma, stomp all night. Punch yourself right through the floor. Instead, I simply say, "Good night," and climb the stairs two at a time.

***

The mute is taken off the TV and the sound of studio audience applause for some talk show can be heard. In the bathroom mirror, I study my face. The burned skin, the almost purple redness of it. I squirt some skin cream into my hands and cover my face, hoping it will cool me down. My cheeks and nose and chin are slippery now. The sound of applause from the TV grows, and I take a bow.

10

Arnie is in bed, Ellen is playing records in her room, and downstairs Amy is setting out the assortment of snacks and little cakes for Momma to nibble on during the night. I'm sitting on the upstairs toilet with the lid down, talking on the phone.

"What, Tucker, what?"

"Gilbert. It's grim."

"What is?"

"The floor."

I don't know what to say.

"It's all changing," Tucker says. "Your mother is like twice the size of when I last saw her."

"I know."

"She's like a balloon. I swear."

"I know this, Tucker. Don't you think I know this?"

Suddenly there comes this violence at the bathroom door. "Gilbert? Gilbert!"

The return of Ellen.

"Open up, please. Hurry!"

"Go downstairs."

"What I need isn't downstairs!"

Even Tucker is startled by the screaming. "Who is that yelling?"

"My little piss of a sister."

"Which reminds me. You ever gonna set me up on a date? Get me a date." Tucker has wanted to date Ellen since she was nine. For years, when I've needed something, I've bribed him with the promise that one day he could take her out.

"Gilbert. Please open the door. You don't understand. It has to do with hygiene!" Ellen screams at the top of the stairs, "Amy! Amy!" She pounds on the door, she kicks at it. She is quite loud.

So I go, "And you want to date this girl? This noise? My sister is all noise."

He listens, but it will have no impact.

Arnie is screaming now, too. So much for him all tucked in bed.

"Girls my age! We… bleed!"

I reach under the sink. I locate the blue-and-pink box, lift out one of those tubes wrapped in white, and slowly push it under the bathroom door. Ellen makes it disappear fast and runs off. All she had to do was ask.

"About the floor, Tucker. You got any ideas?"

"I got a plan. But I'm scared. For your mother. For your house. For you."

"Yeah, well, we can only do so much."

I hear the pitter-patter, titter-tatter of Arnie's fingers on the bathroom door. "One second, Tucker." I open it, let him in, and shut the door, locking it fast. Arnie smiles like he's just been made a member of a secret club.

I say, "You were saying?"

Tucker continues. "I've designed what I think to be the only possible solution that can save her."

"Okay, great."

"Tomorrow we'll get the wood."

"Fine."

"It's gonna cost."

"We'll pay you whatever it takes."

"Oh, I don't want any money. The materials are what's gonna cost. My services are donated."

Arnie pulls at my T-shirt. I shove his hand away. He pushes down the toilet handle and the bathroom fills with that flush sound. Tucker says, "You taking a dump?"

"No."

"Liar. I heard the flush. You were taking a dump."

"But I…"

"I just wish you'd admit it. We got to be honest with each other."

"But…"

"I heard the flush, Gilbert. You can't fool Tucker Van Dyke."

"See ya tomorrow, Tucker." I hang up.

Arnie taps me on the arm. "Gilbert? Hey…?"

"What, buddy?"

"Can't sleep."

"You got to."

"But I can't."

"Tomorrow is a big day. We're going to ride the horses tomorrow."

"Lots of times, right?"

"Yep."

"Uhm. Maybe we could go now and ride 'em. Ride 'em now."

"The horses are sleeping, buddy. Like you should be."

"Oh."

"You know they gave me the day off from work tomorrow."

"Oh."

"You know why? Because Mr. Lamson wants you to have a good time. He even chipped in for some tickets."

"All 'cause of the horsies?"

"Yep."

He turns and heads for bed.

"Good night, Arnie."

"Good-bye."

"Good night, Arnie. It's not good-bye. It's good night."

"Yeah."

"Good-bye is for when you're going away." He mixes those words up. "And you're not going anywhere."

"Yeah."

He walks down the hall. I watch his wide feet and his messy hair. He farts. I'll wait for the smell to clear.

Last Christmas I made him a sign that says "Arnie's Place" on it with my woodworking kit. I nailed it to his door so he'd know which room was his.

I check on him—he's lying in bed pressing his feet to the ceiling. I turn his light out.

"Good night," he says from the dark.

"That's right, buddy. Good night."

***

It's later. I'm not getting any sleep because Arnie's bapping his head to a steady beat. If you wake him to explain that it's bad for him, he'll nod like he agrees. Then, though, within the hour (I promise) you'll begin to hear the pulse or punch or pound of his head into the bed, and you realize that what you tried to teach him has not and cannot be learned. So. You want to die. No, I mean, you don't even want to go through the hassle of dying. You wish you didn't exist. If only you could disappear.

I don't have a clock in my room, so I can't tell you the exact time. But it must be the middle of the night. My sunburn has made my arms and face dry out. I'm longer than my bed, so my feet hang over the edge. I lie on top of the sheets in my underwear. The night is dry and hot. The farmers are worried about the weather these days. There has been no rain in weeks. My boss, Mr. Lamson, says it's what we've done to this planet. He says that it's the car fumes and air conditioners in buildings and the chopping down of some rain forest.

I've often thought that my dad killed himself because he could see the future. They say he was the most hopeful man ever. He was apparently a constant supporter, compliment giver, and always had a kind word for everyone. I was seven when he hung himself, and I don't remember all that much, and anything I did remember, I've managed to forget.

Amy says you could count on him to smile even after the hardest, longest of days.

Him hanging in the basement had the same kind of impact in our town as President Kennedy's death. That's what Amy told me once.

In the last two weeks at least five people have called me "Al." I always say that I'm Gilbert Grape, not Albert, but people believe what they want to believe. They stare and gawk at me like I'm some freak of genetics. "Okay," I want to scream, "so I look like him—that doesn't make me him."

The only pictures of my father are kept in a shoe box under Amy's bed. The shoe box is surrounded by her overflow of Elvis books and lesser Elvis memorabilia. The pictures of him are kept hidden like they're some awful secret.

Downstairs, Momma changes the channels. She likes the TV loud, and it can be heard all hours of the day. A person adjusts to it or they don't.

I sit up on my bed. There are no posters or pictures anywhere. I believe in bare walls. I check outside for the moon, but there isn't one tonight.

***

I'm asleep now, dreaming.

Arnie takes me to a restaurant. I notice he's much bigger than me and really confident-looking. I say, "But, Arnie, you're retarded," and he says, "No, I'm smart like Einstein." He smiles, and his teeth are perfectly straight and very white. I say, "What is going on?" He says, "Gilbert, here is a hamburger. Eat it. It is good. Mom ate it. She started crying it was so tasty. Everybody—look over there." And I turn to see my entire family at a long table. They all wave and wipe at the hamburger juice on their chins. All of them have been crying. "But I'm not hungry," I explain. "Eat the burger. It's what you need." He holds my arms down. Then that girl from the Dairy Dream, that Becky girl, materializes. She holds a giant burger and moves it slowly toward me, saying, "It is so tasty," and I realize she's seducing me. She says, "You'll love it, you'll want to never stop chewing." I whisper, "I believe you." I open my mouth to bite. "And best of all, Gilbert Grape, it will make you cry." "No!" I shout. "NNNNNOOOOOOO!"

The light snaps on in my room.

"Gilbert?"

My face is scrunched, fighting the light. I've covered my eyes. "What?"

"You were yelling in your sleep again," Amy says.

"Was I?"

"Yes."

"Ha. Funny."

"You okay?"

"I'm okay."

She turns off the light and says, "You must have been having a bad dream."

"Huh?"

"A bad dream. You were having a bad dream."

"Oh," I say. "Is that what I'm having?"