This morning I’m crusin’ and perusin’ down the road and in passing Bubba’s place I note that his truck is back, so I figure that Bubba’s back from Russia.
I get out, knock on the door and there’s no answer so I go to hollerin’. Bubba yells back from out behind his house. I go around there and he’s diggin’ a hole in the back yard.
“Whatcha’ doin’, Bubba?”
He nods toward a pile of dead cats: “Buryin’ my damn cats. Two of ‘em got hit by a log truck last night.”
I walk over and toe the dead animals. Two are stiff and cold, but the third one’s body is still limber. There are small, bright drops of blood on the limber cat’s white fur. “So two of ‘em got hit. What happened to the other one?”
He says: “I shot the sum-bitch. I figured he’d just be lonely without the other two.”
I ask: “Shotgun?”
“Yep, that .410 yonder” he says, jerking his head towards a shotgun that’s leaning against a small tree trunk.
I ask: “What happened in Russia?”
He hands the shovel to me: “Dig awhile and I’ll tell ya’.”
Bubba went to Kiev and employed a male interpreter. The interpreter called Honey and she told Bubba through the interpreter that it would “not be convenient” for Bubba to come to see her. This really pissed Bubba off. “Not Convenient” after he’d traveled from the U.S. to Russia to see her!
Not deterred, Bubba paid the interpreter to accompany him on the six to seven hour bus trip to Honey’s home. When they got there, Honey’s father met them at the door and said they weren’t welcome, they should go back to Kiev.
Bubba was going to stay there and force the issue, but the interpreter told him that her father would call the police if they didn’t leave. The interpreter took this seriously and said he was leaving, period. He wanted no involvement with rural law enforcement people.
So they went back to Kiev. Bubba hung around there until two weeks passed and his visa played out. He spent this time alternately trying to contact Honey again and attempting to meet more girls.
He wasn’t able to contact Honey. He met several other girls, but none that he considered prospects, so he came back home.
Meanwhile, back in his yard the hole is about deep enough, and I’m tired of digging anyway. I hand the shovel back to him.
I ask: “What ya’ gonna’ do now, Bubba?”
“What ya’ mean, what am I gonna’ do now? Look around. Spring is openin’ up, the fruit trees are startin’ to bloom, and the bees have started workin’. I’m way behind. I’ve got lots to do to get ready for the honey season.”
I ask: “You goin’ back to Russia to try it again?”
“Nope. I’m never goin’ back.”
At this point, I take a calculated risk and ask: “How much money did you drop on this Russia deal anyway?”
Bubba loses it: “It’s none of your goddam business what I do with my money! I paid you back what I borrowed from you and that’s all you need to know. Besides, I can tell you don’t like it that I shot that cat. It’s my goddam cat, and my goddam land, and I’ll shoot any goddam thing I want to shoot.”
So I walk back to my truck and leave the lonely, bitter man to finish burying his cats. The best I can estimate, he spent somewhere between 9 and 12 thousand dollars on this mail order bride deal, with nothing to show for it but a stack of photographs.
I hope that his bees work hard this year and honey prices stay high. He’s due all the good luck he can get.
That’s the end of this misadventure. (I think.)
