FICTION

GUMP & CO. by Winston Groom. (Pocket Books: $22; 242 pp.) Lo an behole, Winston Groom done did it again. Writ a book about me, that is--Forrest Gump--and how I went from the shrimp bidness to the oyster bidness, with a few detours in between. Like sweeepin floors in a New Orleans strip joint, playin’ football for the Aints, kickin down the Berlin Wall, raisin hogs, fightin in Desert Storm, doin insider tradin on Wall Street an hobnobbin with the Rev. Jim Bakker, Ayatolja Khomeini an Col. Oliver North.

Let me say this: The ‘80s weren’t no box of chocolates, but they was kind of a bag of mixed nits, if you know what I mean.

As my ole Vietnam buddy, Lieutenant Dan, says, “Well, Gmump, you ain’t wasted no time. You done tricked the Ayatolja, got throwed in jail for contemptin the Congress, caused a riot down at some religious theme park, got arrested and put on trial for swindlin millions of people, was responsible for the single greatest maritime disaster of the world, an somehow managed to put an end to communism in Europe. All in all, I’d say you’ve had a fair few years.”

An that don’t even count tryin to raise Little Forrest, who I was lef with all of a sudden when Jenny Curran died. I still don’t know if I can forgive Mr. Groom for killin’ her, but she comes back t me now an then as a spirit like, an give me advice, an let me say this: She’s a whole lot smarter dead than alive. Which gives a feller hope, if you know what I mean.

Bein a idiot an all, I can’t learn nothin that don’t involve bein a savant, like chess an Ping-Pong. Nothin that counts anyway. That was the joke of “Forrest Gump”--that I go up an down an up again and don’t learn to hate nobody or figger the angles or even come in out of the rain. But even Mr. Groom must know one joke can only go so far--maybe not even as far as that--on account of he gets me to learnin a little this time. Thank to Jenny an Little Forrest an Lieutenant Dan and Sue, the purebread orangutan, I learn not to be so much of a fall guy. If you can believe that!