According to sources, the culprit's name is Forrest Gump, a man of low IQ who has been identified in similar disturbances in Atlanta, West Virginia, and elsewhere.

Gump, who was serving time for expressing contempt for the U.S. Congress, was on a work-release project at a Bible-oriented enterprise under the tutelage of the Reverend Jim Bakker, a devout entrepreneur of our American way of life.

In his role as the giant Goliath, Gump, who is said to be a large-figured man, apparently began to disport himself yesterday in a manner described by authorities as "inappropriate," at one point hurling his fellow Bible character David over several stands of trees and into a lake inhabited by a mechanical whale, which, in the words of Holy Land authorities, "became distressed by the intrusion," and began to seethe and set upon the guests and visitors.

Somewhere in the confusion, Reverend Bakker and his secretary, one Jessica Hahn, became embroiled in the exhibit's biblical bulrushes, which tore off their clothing, and they were swept up in a police dragnet, which the spokesman described as "unfortunate."

An shit like that. Anyway, ole Ivan Bozosky, he took back the newspaper an turns to me.

"I like your style, Gump," he says, "because way back before all this, you had every chance there was to rat on Colonel North an the President, but you didn't. You covered it all up an took the blame yourself! Now, that's what I call real corporate spirit! My outfit can use a man like you."

"What outfit is that?" I ast.

"Well, we buy an sell shit—stuff on paper, actually. Bonds, stocks, bidnesses—whatever. We don't buy an sell anything really, but when we get through talkin on the phones an shufflin all the papers, we wind up with a shit-pot of money in our pockets."

"How you do that?"

"Easy," Ivan Bozosky says. "Meanness, dirty tricks an stuff, peekin over people's shoulders, goin behind their backs, pickin their pockets. It's a jungle out there, Gump, an right now, I am the big tiger."

"So what you want me to do?"

Ivan puts his hand on my shoulder. "Gump, I am starting a new division in my company in New York, called the Division of Insider Trading, an I want you to be its president."

"Me? Why?"

"Because of your integrity. It took a lot of integrity to stand up there and lie to the Congress and take the rap for that fool North. Gump, you are just the kind of feller I've been looking for."

"What's it pay?"

"Sky's the limit, Gump! Why, do you need money?"

"Everbody needs money," I says.

"No, I mean real money! The kind with half-a-dozen zeros behind it."

"Well, I gotta earn somethin to keep little Forrest in school, an pay for his college someday, an stuff like that."

"Who's little Forrest—your son?"

"Well, sort of. I mean, I'm in charge of takin care of him."

"Good godamighty, Gump," Ivan Bozosky says, "with what you're gonna make, you can send him to Choate, Andover, St. Paul's, and Episcopal High School all at once, and when you're done, he'll be so rich he can send his shirts off to Paris to be laundered."

So that's how I begun my corporate career.

I had never been to New York City, an let me tell you: It was a sight!

I didn't know there was so many people in the whole world. They was millin in the streets an sidewalks an up in the skyscrapers an in the stores. The racket they made was unreal—horns blowin, jackhammers jackin, sirens wailin, an I don't know what-all else. I had the immediate impression that I was in a anthill, where all the ants was half crazy.

Ivan Bozosky first took me to his company's offices. They was in a big ole skyscraper down near Wall Street. They was hundrits of people workin there at computers, all was wearing shirts an ties an suspenders, an most of em had little round horn-rimmed glasses, an their hair was slicked back. To a man, they was talkin on their telephones, an smokin cigars so much at first I thought the room was on fire.

"This is the deal, Gump," Ivan says. "What we do herein is, we make friends with the folks that run big companies, an when we learn they are gonna issue a big dividend or earnings statement, or sell their company, or start a new division—or do anything else that will make the price of their stock go up—why, we start buying their stock ourselves before the news officially gets in the papers an lets every sonofabitch on Wall Street have a fair chance to get in on the profits."

"How you make friends with them people?" I ast.

"Simple. Just hang around the Harvard or Yale clubs or the Racquet Club or any number of places where these morons do their thing. Buy em a bunch of drinks, play dumb—take em to dinner, get em a girl, kiss their asses—whatever it takes. Sometimes we fly em out to Aspen to ski or to Palm Beach or something. But don't you worry about that, Gump. Our fellers know how to run that scam—All I want you to do is be the president, and the only person you'll report to is me—about, oh, say, once every six months or so."

"What I'm gonna report?"

"We'll figure that out when the time comes. Now, let me show you your office."

Ivan took me down a hall to a big ole corner office that has a mahogany desk an leather chairs an couches, an a Persian rug on the floor. All the windows look out over the city an the rivers, where there is all sorts of boats an steamships goin up an down, an in the distance I can see the Statue of Liberty, shinin in the evenin sun.

"Well, Gump, what do you think?"

"Nice view," I says.

"Nice view my ass!" says Ivan. "This shit cost two hundred dollars a square foot to lease! This is prime real estate, my man! Now, your private secretary will be Miss Hudgins. And she is knock-dead gorgeous. And what I want you to do is, just sit at this desk here and when she brings you in some papers to sign, sign your name on them. You don't need to bother to read them—they'll just be a bunch of bullshit and details anyway. I've always thought bidness executives shouldn't know too much about what's going on in their bidness—you know what I mean?"

"Well, I dunno," I says. "You know, I done got into a lot of trouble in my life doin stuff I didn't know what it was."

"Now, don't worry any about that, Gump. All this is on the big-time up and up. It is the chance of a lifetime for you—and your son." Ivan puts his arm around my shoulder an flashes a big ole toothy grin at me. "Want to ask anything else?"

"Yeah," I says. "Where is the bathroom?"

"Bathroom? Your bathroom? Why, it's right here through this door. You wondering if you got a private bathroom? Is that it?"

"Nope. I got to pee."

At this, Ivan jumps back a little. "Ah, well, that is a rather straightforward way of putting it, I must say. But you go right ahead, Mr. Gump—in the privacy of your own bathroom."

An so that's what I did, but I was still wonderin if I was doin the right thing with this Ivan Bozosky. After all, seems I had heard some of his kind of shit before.

Anyway, Ivan, he gone off an left me in my new office. Big brass nameplate on the desk says Forrest Gump, President. I had just set down in the leather chair an put my feet up when the door opens an in walks a beautiful young woman. I figger this to be Miss Hudgins.

"Ah, Mr. Gump," she says. "Welcome to the insider trading division of Bozosky Enterprises."

Miss Hudgins is certainly a looker—enough to make your teeth chatter. She is tall an brunette with blue eyes an a big toothy smile an skirt so short that I am afraid her underpants might show if she bends over.

"Would you like some coffee or anything?" she ast.

"No. Thank you, though," I says.

"Well, is there anything I can do for you? How about a CokeCola—or perhaps a whisky sour?"