Chapter 19 Chapter Nineteen

The result of Muncie's game booking is this: I'm going to be slaughtered by "shit". This is what Mike told me on the way to Muncie.The reason seems to be that "shit" is my senior, so he should win, and since this is my first match, I have to lose.Mike said he just wanted to get things up front so he wouldn't hurt feelings. "It's ridiculous," Jenny said, "that someone would call themselves 'shit'." "He's probably a shit," Dan said, trying to amuse her. "You just remember, Gump," Mike said, "this business is a show. You can't get mad. Nobody get hurt. Shit gotta win."

Well, we finally got to Muncie, where the wrestling match was held in a big local gymnasium.There was already a contest going on—"The Vegetable" took on a guy who called himself "The Beast." "The Beast" was covered in fur, like an ape, with black blindfolds on his eyes. As soon as he came out, he grabbed the hollowed-out watermelon worn by "Vegetable" and kicked it into the back row of stands.He then grabbed Vegetable by the head and slammed him into a ring post.Then he bites the "vegetable"'s hand.I'm feeling sorry for The Vegetable, but he also has a few tricks--namely, he reaches inside the leafy suspender he's wearing, pulls out a handful of something, and rubs the Beast's eyes.

"The Beast" roared, kneeling all over the field, rubbing his eyes and trying to get the thing off, "Vegetable" bullied him from behind, kicked his ass, and then he threw "The Beast" on the rope ring, wrapping him up Let him immobilize, and then beat the "beast".The audience booed and threw paper cups at "Vegetable", and "Vegetable" pointed the middle finger at the audience.I was wondering how the fight was going to end when Mike came over and told Dan and I to go into the locker room and change our costumes, because the next game was me and the shit.

After I put on a diaper and a cone hat, someone knocked on the door and said, "Is Dumbo in?" Dan said, "Yes." The guy said, "You're going to play, come out." We're going to up. By the time Dan pushed the wheelbarrow up the aisle after me, the shit was already in the ring.He was running around the field making faces at the crowd, uh, he looked like a shit in that leotard.Anyway, I climbed into the ring, and the referee called us together and said, "Okay, guys, I want a good, clean fight - no eye gouging, or attacking below the belt, or between biting and grabbing." Bird-like movements." I nodded and said, "Yeah." "Shit" just stared at me.

The bell rang, and Poo and I were circling around each other, and he tripped over me but didn't trip, and I grabbed his shoulders and threw him onto the loop.Only then did I realize that a slippery ghost had been smeared on him, making it impossible for people to catch him.I tried to wrap my arms around his waist, but he slipped away from me like an eel.I grab his arm, but he pulls away too, grinning at me. Then he rams his head into my stomach, but I step aside and the shit flies over the rope and lands in the front row.The crowd booed him and the chickens yelled, but he climbed back onto the ring with a folding chair.He chased me with a chair, I had no defenses, so I ran away.But "shit" hit me on the back with the chair, man, that hurts.I tried to grab the chair, but he hit me on the head with it and I was cornered with nowhere to hide.Then he kicked my shin, I bent over and hugged my shin, and he kicked my other shin.

Dan sat on the ledge by the side of the ring and yelled at the ref to put the shit down, but it didn't work. "shit" Hit me four or five times with a chair, knocked me to the ground, then pressed me on top of me, grabbed my hair and hit my head on the floor. Then he grabbed my arm and twiddled my fingers.I looked at Dan and I said, "What the hell is this?" Dan tried to get into the field, but Mike got up and grabbed Dan by the collar and dragged him back.Then suddenly the bell rang and I was able to go back to my corner. "Listen," I said, "this bastard is trying to kill me by hitting me on the head with a chair. I have to do something to fight back."

"What you have to do is drop the game," Mike said. "He didn't want to hurt you—he just wanted to play well." "I don't think it's brilliant," I said. "Just hang out for a few more minutes and let him run you down," Mike said. "Remember, you've got to lose the game to make the five hundred bucks—not win." "If he hits me with the chair again, I don't know what I'll do," I said.I looked into the auditorium, where Jenny was sitting looking sad and embarrassed.I gradually felt that it was wrong to do so. Anyway, the bell rang again, and I went on stage. "Shit" tried to grab my hair, but I tossed him and he spun into the loop like a stick.Then I hooked him around the waist and lifted him up, but he slipped out of my hands and fell on the ground, moaning and moaning, rubbing his ass, and all I knew was that his manager gave him a rubber tip" toilet flusher," and he hit me on the head with that thing.Well, I snatched it up and kneed it in half and got up and ran after him, but I saw Mike shaking his head there, so I let the shit come and grab my arm and twist it behind my back and lock it.

That son of a bitch nearly broke my arm.Then he pinned me to the canvas floor and elbowed me on the back of the head.I could see Mike nodding and smiling approvingly. "The Poo" got off my back and kicked me in the rib cage and stomach, then he took the chair and hit me on the head eight or nine times, and finally put his knee on my back, and there was nothing I could do. I just lay there and he sat on my head and the referee counted to three and the game should have ended there. Poo gets up and spits in my face.The scene was extremely embarrassing, and I didn't know what to do, so I couldn't help crying.

"Shit" was strutting around the ring, and Dan came up to me with a wheelbarrow and wiped my face with a towel, and then all I knew was that Jenny was on stage too, holding me and crying, and the crowd yelled and threw Stuff to the ring. "Come on, let's get out of here," Dan said.I stand up, and "shit" sticks his tongue out at me and makes faces. "Your nickname is so apt," Jenny said to The Shit as we left the ring. "It's a shame." What she said can even count on me.I've never felt so humiliated in my life. The ride back to Indianapolis was awkward.Dan and Jenny didn't say a word, and I was sore in the backseat.

"You put on a great show tonight, Gump," Mike said, "especially the crying at the end--the crowd loved it!" "That's not acting," Dan said. "Oh, come on," Mike said. "Listen—someone gotta lose. So—next time I'll let Forrest Gump win. how do you feel? " "There should be no next time." Jenny said. "He made a lot of money tonight, didn't he?" Mike said. "It's only five hundred yuan for a beating, which is not a lot of money." Jenny said. "Well, it's his first game. Well--I'll give him six hundred for the next one.

"How about a thousand and two?" Dan asked. "Nine hundred," Mike said. "How about putting him in a bathing suit instead of a diaper cap?" Jenny said. "The audience loved the look," Mack said. "This is his show!" "Are you going to dress up like that?" Dan said. "I'm not an idiot," Mike said. "Shut your mouth!" said Dan. Well, Mike kept his word.The opponent in the second game is called "Human Fly".He wears a small peck like a fly, and the mask houses two large protruding eyes.I could throw him up and down the stage and end up sitting on his head and get my nine hundred dollars.Plus, the audience was yelling, "We want 'Dumb'! We want 'Dumb'!" Not a bad deal. Next, I competed with the "fairy" and they even made me hit him on the head with a wand.I fought a lot of guys after that, and Dan and I managed to save five grand to start a shrimp business.But, at the same time, I became quite popular with the audience. Women would write to me, and there were even people selling paper cone hats as souvenirs.Sometimes when I go on stage, there will be nearly a hundred people in the audience wearing paper hats, applauding and cheering for my nickname, which makes me feel intoxicated, you know? In the meantime, Jenny and I were on good terms--except for the wrestling incident.Every night after she came back to the apartment, we made our own dinner and the three of us sat in the living room to plan how to start the shrimp business.We're gonna go to Bet River, where Bob's come from, and find a swamp near the Gulf of Mexico.We'll have to buy some big wire and small nets, and a boat and shrimp feed. Dan said we'd have to have a place to live while we waited for the first harvest, and we'd have to buy groceries, and we'd have a way to get the prawns to the market.All in all, he estimated that it would take around five thousand to cover the first year's expenses—after that, we were self-sufficient. Now the problem is Jenny.She said that we have saved up to 5,000 yuan, why not pack our bags and go south?Well, she has a point in what she says, but honestly, I don't want to go yet. Well, I've never felt like I've really accomplished anything since the Orange Bowl game with those Nebraska corn guys.Maybe there was a little bit of that when I was playing table tennis in mainland China, but it only lasted a few weeks.But now, you know, every Saturday night, I hear people cheering.And they applaud me—whether I'm an idiot or not. You should have heard the cheers of the crowd when I slammed "Big Mill," the guy with the hundred dollar bills glued all over his body in Game 7.And "Amarillo Horror Al," who I gave him a stand-in slam and ended up winning the Eastern Conference belt.After that, I raced Juno the Giant, who weighed four hundred pounds, wore a leopard skin, and carried a cardboard stick. But one day Jenny came home from get off work and said, "Forrest, we need to talk." We went out for a walk near a creek, and Jenny found a place to sit down, and she said, "Gump, I think the biting thing has gone too far." "How to say?" I asked, in fact, I more or less understood. "I mean, we've got close to ten thousand now, almost double what Dan said it would cost to raise shrimp. I wonder why you still have to come on stage every Saturday and make fun of yourself." "I'm not kidding myself," I said, "I have to think about my audience. I'm a famous person now, and I can't just walk away." "Shit," Jenny said, "what's an 'audience fan'? What's a 'famous'? Those people are just a bunch of jerks who pay to see this shit. A bunch of adults on stage in suspenders pretending to hurt each other .Who ever heard of someone calling themselves a 'vegetable', a 'shit', whatever - and you, calling yourself a 'dumb'! " "What's wrong with that?" I asked. "Well, how do you think this makes me feel? The man I'm in love with is a proverbial 'dumb' who makes a fool of himself once a week—and on TV!" "You can make extra money by being on TV," I said. "Fuck what extra money," said Jenny, "we don't need extra money!" "Who ever heard of someone who didn't need extra money?" I said. "We don't need it that badly," said Jenny, "I mean, I just want a quiet little place to sit and you can get a decent job like raising shrimp—we might buy a little house, Had a little garden, got a dog or something - maybe even had kids. I was already famous with "Cracking Eggs" and it didn't do me any favors. I wasn't happy. I'm almost thirty-five now , I want to settle down..." "Well," I said, "I feel like it's up to me to decide whether I'm in this business or not. I'm not going to be in it forever—I'll quit when the time comes." "Well, I won't wait forever," said Jenny.But I don't think she's serious.