What's eating Gilbert Grape? by Peter Hedges Page A

and begin to back out.
    "Oh yeah." Tucker remembers now. He's frantically trying to apologize as I drive away.
    If it were possible, I wouldn't talk to Tucker for a week. I deserve better friends.
    The Ramp Cafe is in the distance now and I'm alone with my thoughts. My only regret is that 1 didn't pee on Mrs. Brainer while she was alive.

    What's Eating Gilbert Grape
    17
    I\. case could be made that Gilbert Grape became the thinker, the dreamer that he is while stocking the many cans and bags and food items for the people of this town.
    Over the years my technique has become so automatic, so natural, that 1 don't need to think about what I'm doing. No, my thoughts wander off wherever they want. I'm usually not in the same place mentally that I appear to be physically. Either I'm in Des Moines at Merle Hay Mall or driving across the desert or standing on an Omaha rooftop waiting for a tornado to come ripping. Know this—I am rarely in this store or in this town in my thoughts.
    I'm pricing the breakfast cereals when Mr. Lamson comes up behind me. "Wonderful surprises are in store for us all, Gilbert."
    Startled, I almost drop the Wheaties I'm holding. I manage a "Huh? What?"
    "Surprised you, did I?"
    "Yes, sir."
    "So you see my point."
    I nod.
    "I knew you would."
    For years Mr. Lamson has taken great joy in surprising me. He's hidden under the counter, behind the dog food, and once he almost froze to death in the freezer waiting for me to open it so he could yell "Surprise." When I finally did, his eyebrows had begun to frost and his lips had turned blue.
    I whisper under my breath, "Wonderful surprises—I'm waiting."
    Mr. Lamson sees my mouth move. "What was that?"
    "Nothing, sir."
    Mrs. Lamson, who is in the little office cubicle waiting for money

    PETER HEDGES
    to count, calls out. "Dad, do they got some special going on at Food Land?"
    "Not that 1 know of. Gilbert, anything going on at Food Land?"
    "Oh, I'm not the one to ask. Never shopped there. Never will. Would rather die."
    "You do not mean that."
    "Sir," I say, "I'm afraid that 1 do. I go to a store for food. Not for . . ."
    "They must have something going," Mrs. Lamson chimes in, walking all over my words and not seeming to mind. "Because nobody is here."
    I can't bring myself to tell them what Tucker told me the other day. It seems that Food Land installed an aquariumlike tank where they keep crabs or octopus or lobsters with their arms or claws or whatever taped shut. People crowd around; kids make faces at the creatures—glad, I guess, that they're not the ones trapped inside.
    I look up at the Wonder Bread clock. The forty-seven minutes I've worked today feel like forty-seven days.
    "Gilbert, you sure you don't know something we don't know?"

"Honey," Mr. Lamson says, "I'm sure Gilbert would fill us in if he knew something was up over there. Wouldn't you?" Mr. Lamson smiles his yellow-toothed grin and glides down Aisle Two.
    Mrs. Lamson starts singing the "Iowa Corn Song."
    "loway, loway
    State of all the land Joy on ev'ry hand
    We're from loway, loway That's where the tall corn grows."
    I feel a tap on my back. It's Mr. Lamson—he's circled around and his eyes look misty. "If only there was another woman like her. If there were two of her, you could have one," he says.
    Finally, for the first time in weeks, I'm able to say something and mean it. "You don't know how much I would like that, Mr. Lamson."

    What's Eating Gilbert Grape
    "Oh, I know, son. Believe me, 1 know."
    The singing stops. "What are you boys talking about?" she calls back. "You're not poking fun at my music?"
    "Never!" Mr. Lamson says.
    "No, ma'am."
    "Then how come no applause?"
    So me and the boss clap. He yells out a bravo and I toss a dime.
    Outside, the Carver family station wagon drives by with the boys in back. Mrs. Betty Carver half waves. I turn away hoping she didn't see me see her.
    I uncrate a box of assorted Campbell's soups. I stamp on the purple prices and sort them into