Ol' Bubba Trump

I told Bubba McCoy that, frankly, I was jealous.

When readers implore me to gather wisdom from him, they essentially say they find lacking the usual presentation.

"Maybe they just need a change of pace once in a while," the mellowing Bubba consoled from the ragged leather recliner in the converted mobile home that is his office at Bubba's Auto Emporium.


Just drive over the White River and look for the sign, the pickups, the SUVs and cottonmouths.

"I shot one just yesterday," Bubba said.

With what? An AR-15?

"Oh, hell no," he said. "Nobody needs a rifle that small and lightweight that will fire that big a magazine that fast. The only thing a gun like that is good for is shooting a lot of people at once."

What did he use to blow up that snake?

"This classic right here," Bubba said, reaching into his drawer for what he said was a .38 Colt Detective Special.

Could he hit, from a safe distance, a slithering water moccasin's head with that?

"If he's still and just sunnin' himself and big enough, probably. Otherwise, I tend to mostly blow up the ground around 'em and run 'em off, mostly from plain irritation."

Maybe he needs an AR-15 with 30 semiautomatic shots.

"If these cottonmouths start getting any more aggressive, you may be right."

The burning reader issue, I told this suspender-clad mound nearing 70 and 285, was whether Bubba favored Donald Trump.

"That's gonna depend on the day," he said.

"Well, it's gonna depend on the minute," he amended.

Could he elaborate?

"Here's what happens. I'll click on that TV right over there. I'll do it a half-dozen times a day. And it'll be on CNN or Fox, depending on which one I was on when I turned it off. And, I guaran-damn-tee you, they'll be talking about Trump, if not right then, then in 10 seconds. And within a minute they'll be showing him saying something. And here's what happens: I think to myself, 'What a crazy SOB' or 'You know what? He might actually be making enough sense there to give him a try.'"

Examples?

"I think he danged near said Osama was in on the Orlando shooting, which, whatever you think of Osama, is ... Well, it's just crazy."

Be advised again that Bubba says Osama for Obama and doesn't seem to realize he's doing it.

"On the other hand," Bubba went on, "he can then say that he's gonna talk to the NRA and see if they'll go along with saying you can't buy a gun if you can't get on an airplane, which makes sense. And he might be the guy to do that because the NRA likes him.

"And maybe--just maybe--his whole job being president would be like that ... that, by being so abnormal, he'd get some things done because goodness knows normal ain't working."

Does Hillary factor into his equation at all?

"Nobody is for Hillary. That woman is just unpleasant. Whether I vote for her will come down to whatever stunt Trump has pulled lately.

"I don't think I'm gonna early-vote. Trump is apt to change my mind the minute I vote. I'm going to wait 'til about 7:30 on Election Day.

"Or not even vote."

Seriously?

"Look, if I can't make up my mind any better than this, I'm really not doing anybody any good by taking a wild stab at it. The rest of you can decide.

"I'm nearly 70 years old and fat. It's not my future at stake here. My future depends entirely on whether I'll be able to get up out of this chair."

Oh, Bubba, cheer up, I consoled. It's Father's Day on Sunday and you'll hear from Yvonne and the two teenaged grandkids, if not from Junior, who is still in prison out west in a methamphetamine racket that sounded like Breaking Bad.

"Yvonne and them are on vacation down in Florida. I'm pretty sure I won't get anything more than a phone call. Which is fine. I got all the suspenders I need."

Did he know how Yvonne and her dentist husband intended to vote?

"They don't have white people in Memphis anymore who aren't Republicans," he said.

"That dentist son-in-law of mine says Osamacare is about to kill him, though I'll be darned if I know how. I told him I thought Osamacare only had to do with real doctors."

That may be why he'll get no more than a call on Father's Day.

"Works for me," Bubba said.

"Those four blind me with those blazin' white teeth. I don't think they needed to go to the coast to get tanned. They could just sit around and smile at each other."

------------v------------

John Brummett, whose column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, was inducted into the Arkansas Writers' Hall of Fame in 2014. Email him at [email protected]. Read his @johnbrummett Twitter feed.

Editorial on 06/19/2016

Upcoming Events