Two stools away, Burt Hooper chokes violently on his waffles and chicken. His fork clatters against his plate as he grabs his glass of Pepsi. Sputtering, with cola foaming from his nostrils, face turning as red and mottled as a boiled lobster, he at last clears his throat of food only to fill it with laughter, making such a spectacle of himself that it’s evident he would be a lousy fugitive.
Perhaps the trucker has just now remembered a particularly funny joke. His unrestrained hilarity is nonetheless rude, distracting Curtis and Donella from their mutual apologies.
The divine Donella glares at Burt with the expression of a perturbed rhino, lacking only the threat of a large pointed horn to make the comparison perfect.
In the same way that a clatter of laughter had knocked its way through the last of Burt’s choking, so now a rattle of words raps out of him between guffaws: “Oh, damn… I’m splat… in the middle… of Forrest Gump!”
They boy is puzzled. “I know that movie,”
“Never you mind, Curtis,” Donella says. “We’re no more splat in the middle of Forrest Gump than we are in the middle of Godzilla.”
“I sure hope not, ma’am. That was one mean lizard.”
Burt is spluttering again, half choking, even though his throat was clear a moment ago, and his deteriorating condition causes the boy concern. The trucker seems on the brink of a medical emergency.
Donella declares, “If anyone around here has a box of chocolates for a brain, then he’s sitting in front of a plate of chicken and waffles.”
“That’s you, Mr. Hooper,” Curtis observes. Then he understands. “Oh.” The trucker’s tears of laughter are this poor afflicted man’s way of dealing with his loneliness, his disability, his pain. “I’m sorry, sir.” The boy feels deep sympathy for this truck-driving Gump, and he regrets being so insensitive as to have thought that Burt Hooper was simply rude. “I’d help you if I could.”
Although the trucker looks vastly amused, this is, of course, purely sham amusement to cover his embarrassment at his own shortcomings. “You help me? How?”
“If I could, I’d make you normal just like Ms. Donella and me.”
The intellectually disadvantaged trucker is so deeply touched by this expression of concern that he swivels on his stool, putting his back to Curtis, and struggles to master his emotions. Although to all appearances, Burt Hooper is striving to quell a fit of giddiness, the boy now knows that this is like the laughter of a secretly forlorn clown: genuine if you listen with just your ears, but sadly fraudulent if you listen with your heart.
Exhibiting rhinoscerosian contempt for Mr. Hooper, Donella turns away from him. “Don’t you pay any mind to him, Curtis. He’s had every opportunity to be normal his whole life, but he’s always chosen to be just the sorry soul he is.”
This baffles the boy because he’s been under the impression that a Gump has no choice but to be a Gump, as nature made him.
“Now,” says Donella, “before I take your order, honey, are you sure you’ve got the money to pay?”
From a pocket of his jeans, he extracts a crumpled wad of currency, including the remaining proceeds from the Hammond larceny and the five bucks that the dog snatched from the breeze in the parking lot.
“Why, you are indeed a gentleman of means,” says Donella. “You just put it away for now, and pay the cashier when you leave.”
“I’m not sure it’s enough,” he worries, jamming his bankroll into his pocket again. “I need two bottles of water, a cheeseburger for my dad, a cheeseburger for me, potato chips, and probably two cheeseburgers for Old Yeller.”
“Old Yeller would be your dog?”
He beams, for he and the waitress are clearly connecting now. “That’s exactly right.”
“No sense paying big bucks for cheeseburgers when your dog will like something else better,” Donella advises.
“What’s that?”
“I’ll have the cook grill up a couple meat patties, rare, and mix them with some plain cooked rice and a little gravy. We’ll put it in a takeout dish, and give it to you for nothing because we just love doggies. Your pooch will think he’s died and gone to Heaven.”
The boy almost corrects her on two counts. First, Old Yeller in this case is a she, not a he. Second, the dog surely knows what Heaven’s like and won’t confuse paradise with a good dinner.
He raises neither issue. Bad guys are looking for him. He’s been too long in this one spot. Motion is commotion.
“Thank you, Ms. Donella. You’re as wonderful as I just knew you were when I first saw you.”
Surprising the boy, she affectionately squeezes his right hand. “Whenever people think they’re smarter than you, Curtis, just you remember what I’m going to tell you.” She leans across the counter as far as her fabulous bulk will allow, bringing her face closer to his, and she whispers these teaberry-scented words: “You’re a better person than any of them.”
Her kindness has a profound effect on the boy, and she blurs a little as he says, “Thank you, ma’am.”
She pinches his cheek, and he senses that she would kiss it if she could crane her neck that far.
As a desperate but relatively unseasoned fugitive, he has been largely successful at adventuring, and now he’s hopeful that he’ll learn to be good at socializing too, which is vitally important if he is to pass as an ordinary boy under the name Curtis Hammond or any other.
His confidence is restored.
The loud drumming of fear with which he has lived for the past twenty-four hours has subsided to a faint rataplan of less-exhausting anxiety.
He has found hope. Hope that he will survive. Hope that he will discover a place where he belongs and where he feels at home.
Now, if he can find a toilet, all will be right with the world.
He asks Donella if there’s a toilet nearby, and as she writes up his takeout order on a small notepad, she explains that it’s more polite to say restroom.
When Curtis clarifies that he doesn’t need to rest, but rather that he urgently needs to relieve himself, this explanation touches off another emotional reaction from Burt Hooper, which appears to be laughter, but which is probably something more psychologically complex, as before.
Anyway, the toilet — the restroom — is within sight from the lunch counter, at the end of a long hallway. Even poor Mr. Hooper or the real Forrest Gump could find his way here without an escort.
The facilities are extensive and fascinating, featuring seven stalls, a bank of five urinals from which arises the cedar scent of disinfectant cakes, six sinks with a built-in liquid-soap dispenser at each, and two paper-towel dispensers. A pair of wall-mounted hot-air dryers activate when you hold your hands under them, although these machines aren’t smart enough to withhold their heat when your hands are dry.
The vending machine is smarter than the hand dryers. It offers pocket combs, nail clippers, disposable lighters, and more exotic items that the boy can’t identify, but it knows whether or not you’ve fed coins to it. When he pulls a lever without paying, the machine won’t give him a packet of Trojans, whatever they might be.
When he realizes that he’s the only occupant of the restroom, he seizes the opportunity and runs from stall to stall, pushing all the flush levers in quick succession. The overlapping swish-and-lug of seven toilets strikes him as hilarious, and the combined flow demand causes plumbing to rattle in the walls. Cool.
After he relieves himself, us lie’s washing his hands with enough liquid soap to fill the sink with glittering foamy masses of suds, he looks in the streaked mirror and sees a boy who will be all right, given enough time, a boy who will find his way and come to terms with his losses, a boy who will not only live but also flourish.
He decides to continue being Curtis Hammond. Thus far no one has connected the name to the murdered family in Colorado. And since he’s grown comfortable with this identity, why change?
He dries his hands thoroughly on paper towels, but then holds them under one of the hot-air blowers, just for the kick of tricking the machine.
Refreshed, hurrying along the corridor between the restrooms and the restaurant, Curtis comes to a sudden halt when he spots two men standing out there at the lunch counter, talking to Burt Hooper. They are tall, made taller by their Stetsons. Both wear their blue jeans tucked into their cowboy boots.
Donella appears to be arguing with Mr. Hooper, probably trying to get him to shut his trap, but poor Mr. Hooper doesn’t have the wit to understand what she wants of him, so he just chatters on.
