Gump & Co. by Winston Groom Page A

ground, streets, trees – everthin, about three or four inches deep! The guy playin the tuba in the band was the strangest sight of all. He was so surprised, I guess, that when the explosion happened, he was blowin a long note an didn’t quit – just kept on tryin to blow his note with the tuba full of pig shit, an it looked sort of like a soufflé about to get done.
    I turned around again, an there was Sergeant Kranz, starin me right in the face, eyes all bugged out, teeth bared – somehow he’d even managed to keep his army hat on.
    ‘Gump!’ he hollers. ‘You fuckin idiot! What is the meaning of this?’
    Before I could answer, he reach out to grap me by the throat, an I figgered what is comin next, so I leaped over the railin an run away as fast as I can. Sergeant Kranz an everbody else, them what was able, anyway, begun to chase me, too. It seemed like a familiar situation.
    I was tryin to get home to the farm, but I realized they ain’t no place to hide there, probly – at least not from a mob that has just been hit with a million poundsof Poland China pig shit, an blamin it on me. But I runned just as fast as I could, which is considerable, an by the time I got to the house, I has outdistanced them somewhat. I was gonna try an pack my bag, but suddenly, here they come up the road, hollerin an yellin, an so I run out the back door an go into the barn an get Wanda, who look at me kinda funny but follows me anyhow. I runned past the pens an across the pasture, an damn if all the hogs don’t start chasin us, too – even the ones in the pens, what broke through an joined the mob.
    Only thing I can think of is maybe to get into the swamp, so that’s what I did. I hid there till sundown, while there was a lot of cussin an shoutin all around me. Wanda, she had enough sense to keep quiet, but when night come, it is cold an wet an there is flash-lights shinin through the swamp, an ever so often I can pick out a person carryin a pitchfork or hoe, just like in the Frankenstein movie. They even got helicopters overhead, shinin their lights, an loudspeakers demandin that I come out an surrender.
    To hell with that! I say, an then along comes my salvation. I hear a train in the distance on the far side of the swamp an figger this is my only chance to make a break for it! Wanda an me, we slogged out onto higher ground an by some miracle managed to jump on board a boxcar. Inside, there is a little dim candle burnin, an I make out a feller settin there in a heap of straw.
    ‘Who in hell is you?’ he ast.
    ‘Gump’s my name,’ I says.
    ‘Yeah, who’s that with you?’
    ‘Her name’s Wanda.’
    ‘You got a girl with you?’
    ‘Sort of,’ I says.
    ‘What you mean, sort of – you got some kind of transvestite there?’
    ‘Nope. She’s is a polled Duroc hog, might win some prizes one day.’
    ‘Hog?’ he says. ‘Greatgodamighty! I ain’t had nothin to eat in a week.’
    I can see this might be a long trip.

Chapter Five
    AFTER A LITTLE bit on the train, the feller’s candle burnt out, an after he coughs for a while, it seem like he has dozed off. An so we rode on in the dark with the wheels clackin an the boxcar sway in an rockin, an finally Wanda done put her head in my lap an gone to sleep. Me, though, I stayed up for a while, wonderin how in hell I am always gettin myself into these kinds of fixes. Everthin I touch, it seems, turns directly to shit. Literally.
    Next mornin there is a faint little light comin in through the doors of the boxcar, an the feller in the corner begins to stir an starts coughin again.
    ‘Hey,’ he says, ‘why don’t you open the doors a little an get us some fresh air?’
    I gone over an opened the door about a foot or so. We is passin by houses an some dingy ole buildins, an everthin is gray an cold, cept for a few little Christmas decorations on people’s doors.
    ‘Where we headed?’ I ast.
    ‘Near as I can figger, Washington D.C.,’ the feller say.
    ‘Hell, I been