Gump & Co. (8 page)

He is so excited he’s about to bust, an he picks up little Forrest an give him a big ole hug. ‘You’re a genius, my boy! Why, we’re all gonna be rich!’

Anyhow, Mister McGivver give us both a raise an let us have Sunday
an
Saturday off, an so on weekends I’d take little Forrest down to Coalville to Etta’s diner an we’d get to talk to the ole miners an other folks that come around. They bein real nice to little Forrest, an he is all the time astin them questions about stuff. It weren’t a bad way to spend the summer, actually, an as the weeks gone by I felt that little Forrest an me is gettin somewhat closer.

Meantime, Mister McGivver is tryin to solve a very messy problem, namely, what we gonna do with all the pig shit that is pilin up as our operation expands? By now, we has got more than ten thousan hogs, an that number is expandin ever day. By the end of the year, Mister McGivver say we ought to have upwards of twenty-five thousan hogs an, at about two pounds of pig shit per hog per day . . . well, you can see where this is leadin to.

Anyways, Mister McGivver is sellin the hog shit for manure at a pretty fast clip, but at this point he is about run out of folks to buy it, an besides, the folks in town are complainin louder an louder about the smell we are creatin.

‘We could try to burn it,’ I says.

‘Hell, Gump, they already bitchin about the odor as it is – How you think they’d react to a bonfire of fifty thousand pounds of pig shit ever day?’

Over the next few days we kicked around a few more ideas, but ain’t none of them gonna work, an then one night at the supper table when the conversation
turned to pig shit again, little Forrest piped up.

‘I been thinkin,’ he says, ‘suppose we use it to generate power?’

‘Do what?’ ast Mister McGivver.

‘Look here,’ Little Forrest says, ‘we got that big ole coal seam runnin right underneath our property . . .’

‘What makes you think that?’ says Mister McGivver.

‘Cause one of the miners tole me so. He says the coal mine goes for nearly two miles from where the entrance is in town right across this land where the hogs are, and stops just before it gets to the swamp.’

‘Is that so?’

‘It’s what he tole me,’ little Forrest says. ‘Now, looka here . . .’ He pulls out a composition book he has brought an lays it out on the table. When he opens it up, damned if it don’t contain some of weirdest drawins I have ever seen, but it look like little Forrest might have saved our asses again.

‘My God!’ Mister McGivver hollers after he has looked at the drawins. ‘This is wonderful! First rate! You deserve a Nobel Prize, young man!’

What little Forrest has come up with is this: First we plug up the entrance to the coal mine back in town. Next, we drill holes down to the shaft under our property an bulldoze the pig shit into it ever day. After a while, the pig shit will begin to ferment an give off methane gas. Once that happens, we have a vent for the gas that runs through some kind of machinery an stuff that little Forrest has figgered out, an in the end winds up in a big ole generator that will produce enough power not only to run our farm, but it will run the power for the whole
town
of Coalville!

‘Just think of it,’ Mister McGivver shouts, ‘a whole
city
run on pig shit! And furthermore, it’s so simple an idiot can run it!’ I am not so sure about this last statement.

Well, that was just the beginnin. It took the rest of
the summer to get the operation goin. Mister McGivver had to talk to the city fathers, but they come up with a government grant to let us start the deal. Pretty soon we got all sorts of engineers an drillers an EPA people an equipment drivers an construction workers millin around on the farm, an people are installing the machinery in a big ole blockhouse they built. Little Forrest is named ‘honorary chief engineer.’ He is so proud, he is about to bust!

I gone on about my duties sloppin hogs an cleanin barns an pens an so on, but one day Mister McGivver comes an says for me to get the bulldozer, because it is time to start shovelin the pig shit into the mine shaft. I worked at that bidness for a week or so, an when I am done, they put a big mechanical seal over the holes they has drilled an little Forrest say now all we got to do is set an wait. That afternoon as the sun begins to go down, I watched him disappear over a little hill that leads down to the swamp, ole Wanda trottin along beside him. She’s gettin big now, an so is he, an I ain’t never been prouder of anythin in my life.

A week or two later, when it is almost the end of summer, little Forrest come an say it is finally time to start up the pig-shit-power operation. He took Mister McGivver an me into the blockhouse just before dark, where there is a big heap of machinery with a bunch of pipes an dials an gauges, an he begun to explain to us how the thing works.

‘First,’ he says, ‘the methane gas is released from the mine shaft through this pipe, an a flame ignites it here.’ He points to what look like a big ole hot water heater. ‘Then,’ he says, ‘the condenser gets the steam compressed an it turns this generator, which makes electricity that moves out through these wires, and that’s where the power comes from.’ He stands back, grinnin from ear to ear.

‘This is wonderful!’ cries Mister McGivver. ‘Edison,
Fulton, Whitney, Einstein – none of them have done better!’

Little Forrest suddenly begun turnin valves an handles an thowin switches, an pretty soon the needles on the pressure gauges begun to climb an the meters on the wall begun to turn around. All of a sudden, lights flickered on in the blockhouse an we is all jumpin for joy. Mister McGivver rushes outside an begun to holler – all the lights in the house an barns be on, bright as day, an in the distance we can see lights comin on in Coalville, too.

‘Eureeka!’ shouts Mister McGivver. ‘We have turned a sow’s ear into a silk purse, an we are now eatin high on the hog!’

Anyhow, next day little Forrest got me back into the blockhouse an begun showin me how the operation ran. He explained all the valves an gauges an meters, an after a while, they didn’t seem so hard to understand. I just had to check it all once a day an make sure that one or two of the gauges was not registerin more than they should be, an that this or that valve was turned on or off. I guess Mister McGivver was right, even a idiot like me could run this thing.

‘There is somethin else I been thinkin about,’ little Forrest says at supper that night.

‘What is that, my brilliant lad?’ says Mister McGivver.

‘Well, I been thinking. You said you were having to slow down the breeding a little bit cause there are just so many hogs you can sell in Wheeling and the other places around here.’

‘That is correct.’

‘So what I’m thinking is, why not ship the hogs overseas? South America, Europe – even China?’

‘Ah, well, my boy,’ says Mister McGivver, ‘that is another fine idea. The problem is, it costs so much to ship hogs that it becomes uneconomical. I mean, time
you get em to some foreign port, the shipping costs eat up your profit.’

‘That’s what I been thinkin about,’ he says, an he pulls out the little composition book, an damned if they ain’t another whole section of sketches he’s drawn.

‘Fantastic! Unbelievable! Terrific!’ Mister McGivver cries, leaping up. ‘Why you should be in the Congress or something!’

Little Forrest has been at it again. He has done sketched a model of a hog transport ship. I did not understand all of it exactly, but the gist of it is this: Inside the ship the hogs is kept in layers from top to bottom. The flooring is nothin but heavy mesh steel, an so when the hogs on the top layer shit, it drops on the second layer an the second on the third an so on, until finally all the hog shit winds up in the bottom of the boat, where there is a machine like we have made here that runs the entire ship.

‘So the energy costs are virtually nil!’ Mister McGivver roars. ‘Why, think of the possibilities! Shipping hogs for less than half the normal cost! This is simply amazing! Whole fleets of ships powered by shit! And it doesn’t have to stop there, either! Think of it – trains, planes, airplanes! All of it! Even washers and dryers and television sets! Screw atomic energy. This may usher in a whole new era!’ He is so excited he is now wavin his hands, an for a minute I worry he is gonna have a fit or somethin.

‘I’m gonna turn this over to somebody first thing in the mornin,’ Mister McGivver says. ‘But first, I want to make an announcement. Gump, you have been so helpful around here that I want to show my gratitude by cutting you in on one third of our profits. Now, how about that?’

Well, I was kind of surprised, but it sounded pretty good, an I tole him so.

‘Thanks,’ I said.

Finally the time come for little Forrest to go back to school. I was not lookin forward to it, but it had to be. The leafs was just beginnin to turn on the sycamore trees when I carried him to the train station in the truck. Wanda was ridin in the back, account of she was too big now for the cab.

‘I want to ask you somethin,’ little Forrest says.

‘What is that?’

‘It’s about Wanda. I mean, you ain’t gonna . . .’

‘Oh, no – no, I ain’t gonna do anythin like that. I think we’ll keep her on here as a brood hog, you know? She’ll be fine.’

‘You promise?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Well, thanks.’

‘I want you to be good when you get home, hear? An do what your grandma tells you, okay?’

‘Yeah.’

He just set there lookin out the winder, an I got the feelin there was somethin wrong.

‘You ain’t unhappy about anythin, is you?’

‘Well, I was sort of wondering, why can’t I just stay here and help run the hog farm?’

‘Cause you too young, an you gotta go back to school. We’ll see about that later, you know? But it ain’t time right now, okay. Maybe you can come back for Christmas or somethin, huh?’

‘Yeah, that’d be good.’

We got to the station an little Forrest gone around to the back of the pickup truck an got Wanda down. We set on the depot platform, an he was huggin her around the neck an kind of talkin to her, an I felt real sorry for him. But I knowed I was doin the right thing. Anyhow, the train come along an he hugged Wanda one last time an got on board. Him an me, we just shook hands, an I watched him through the winder
as the train pulled out. He give me an Wanda a little wave, an then we gone on back to the farm.

Well, let me say this: The days that follered was crazy, an Mister McGivver, he was busy as a one-legged man at an ass-kickin contest! First, he done expanded the hog breedin operation tenfold. He is even
buyin
hogs from all over, an so in the months that come, we has got upward of fifty or sixty thousan hogs – they is so many of them, we lost count. But it don’t matter, cause the more hogs we got, the more methane gas we produce, an by now we is not only lightin up Coalville, but two other little towns down the road. People from the federal government up at Washington says they is gonna use us as a model example an even want to give us an award ceremony.

Next, Mister McGivver has gone to work on the project of buildin the pig-shit fleet, an almost within no time, he has got three huge ships under construction over on the Atlantic Ocean at Norfolk, Virginia. This is where he spends so much of his time now, he has left most of the hog farmin bidness to me. Also, we has had to employ about a hundrit workers from the town, which was a great relief to them, as most was out-of-work miners.

Furthermore, Mister McGivver has expanded the hog-slop garbage collection to ever military base within three hundrit miles, an we is got fleets of trucks pickin up the garbage, an what we don’t use ourselfs, we sell to other farmers.

‘We are becoming a great national enterprise,’ Mister McGivver says, ‘but we are leveraged up to the hilt.’

I ast him what that meant, an he says, ‘Debt, Gump, debt! We have had to borrow millions to build those ships and buy more land for the hog farm and trucks for the garbage operation. Sometimes at night I worry about goin broke, but we are in too deep now to quit. We are
gonna have to expand the methane gas operation to meet expenses, and I’m afraid we’re gonna have to raise our prices.’

I ast him what I could do to help.

‘Just keep shoveling shit fast as you can,’ he says.

So that’s what I did.

By the end of that fall, I figgered that we has got somewhere between eight hundrit thousan an one million pounds of pig shit down in the mine, an the operation is runnin full steam night an day. We had to double the size of the plant just to keep it goin.

Little Forrest is due to arrive for Christmas, but about two weeks before that they has scheduled the ceremony to honor us for our contributions to society. The whole town of Coalville is decked out in Christmas decorations an little colored lights an stuff – all run by our plant. Mister McGivver cannot come home for the celebration on account of he is too busy tryin to get the ship fleet built, but he tells me to accept the award in his absence.

The day of the ceremony, I put on my suit an tie an drove into town. There is people there from all over – not only Coalville, but the little towns nearby an also a bunch of busses with folks representin civic an environmental organizations. From Wheeling, the governor an the attorney general has come down, an from Washington, they has come a United States senator of West Virginia. Sergeant Kranz has also come over from the army post, an the mayor of Coalville is already makin a speech when I arrive.

‘Never in our wildest dreams,’ he says, ‘did we ever believe that our deliverance was at hand – saved, as it were, by a herd of swine, an the ingenuity of Mr McGivver and Mr Gump!’

The ceremony was takin place in the town square below the little hill where the mine entrance was, an
the platform was decked out with red, white, an blue buntin an little American flags. When they seen me comin, the high school band interrupted the mayor’s speech an begun playin ‘God Bless America,’ an the five or six thousan people in the crowd begun to holler an clap an cheer as I walked up the platform steps.

Everbody there shook my hand – the mayor, governor, attorney general, an the senator, as well as they wives – even Sergeant Kranz, who was wearin his dress uniform. The mayor concludes his talk by sayin what a fine feller I am, an thankin me for ‘revitalizin the town of Coalville by creatin this marvelous invention.’ He then says everbody should stand for the playin of ‘The Star-Spangled Banner.’