Perry Bradford-Wilson's THE MARRIAGE PROPOSAL Part Three

A Novel in several parts By Perry Bradford-Wilson

Part Three: The Decline And Sudden Fall Of Bubba Puhzz
In which Bubba takes a crash course in love
©1998 by Perry Bradford-Wilson

As the sun set, the shadows slowly crawled up the walls of the Pump’n Munch Convenience Store & Gas Mart until any part of the building’s exterior not directly illuminated by the cheap flickering fluorescent parking lights had been plunged into an unholy darkness. Huck hiked up his Levis and dashed into the brightly lit interior of the store, but given the events about to transpire he might just as well have remained in the creeping blackness outside. There was no full moon but, as Huck would soon come to realize, there was certainly lunacy afoot.

The posse; Sammy, Hampton, Big Kenny, Larry, and Little Larry, had assembled in the store shortly after Bubba took over his night manager shift (as usual.) Huck was planning to tell them about his encounter with the Best Supporting Actress Nominee of 1986, but his brother spoke up first.

“Met a girl last night,” Bubba said. “Met her at my line dancing class.” He passed around some beers courtesy of Truman Krantz, the store’s generous owner (although Mr. Krantz wasn’t aware of his generosity, and if he had been Bubba would have quickly become an ex-night manager.)

“What kind of place is that to meet someone?” Huck huffed. He was just a bit peeved that Bubba had beaten him to the first story.

“It’s a place. Where do you find your dates?” Bubba asked, poking Huck in the chest with a wet Michelob.

Hampton smiled conspiratorially. “I get my dates through the ‘Fish Phone.’”

“The Fish Phone?!” Big Kenny said, dropping his copy of Heavy Metal magazine. “What’re you looking for, Hamp? Women or fish?”

Hampton became defensive. “Hey, the Fish Phone is run by this guy who owns Pappy’s Sporting Goods. You call up the number and the recording gives you pretty good fishing information. But if you’re a paying member and you type in your secret member code on your touch-tone phone you get a different recording that tells you which women have recently become single. You know, broke up with their boyfriends, got divorced, got widowed... ”

“Sounds pretty desperate when you get leads on your love life from an old fisherman whose idea of a good Friday night is staying home tying flies.”

“Well, I had three dates last month,” Hampton pointed out, “so don’t knock it until you’ve tried it.”

“Met a girl last night,” Bubba repeated, looking down at the greasy floor and shuffling a bit. “Name’s Cheryl. Pretty nice girl.”

The posse went quiet. I mean, it was so quiet you could have heard a mouse fart. These were very unusual adjectives coming from their leader’s mouth. “Great boobs” was okay Saturday night fare. “Legs from the Earth to the Moon” was one of Sammy’s favorites. “I wouldn’t throw her out of bed for eatin’ crackers” was a staple. Sometimes, if it was late enough and they’d had enough beer, they got as crass and lewd as most men usually get when it’s late enough and they’ve had enough beer. But “pretty nice girl” was definitely not part of the usual vocabulary.

“You getting sweet on some line-dancing tramp you just met last night?” Big Kenny laughed. He stopped laughing as Bubba turned quickly and grabbed him by the front collar with one hand and raised his other hand clenched in a fist. A dangerous move considering Kenny was twice his size. Everyone was still and (gasp) sober now. Bubba was not known for being a physical person. “What did I say?” Big Kenny asked. “What?”

“Don’t you ever talk that way again about the girl I’m going to marry,” Bubba said. I’m not sure, but I think a pin dropped.

“I asked Cheryl to marry me this morning. We’re gettin’ married in six weeks,” Bubba said.

You see, Bubba had been struck by cupid’s arrow, and the humors of his passion had arisen out of balance to all others and from their foam arose the embodiment of his adoration not unlike Aphrodite arising from the sea. Or, to put it in plain English, he fell head over heels in love at first sight with Miss Cheryl Wingate almost as soon as he spied her rocking and stomping to “Achy Breaky Heart.”

It had started out just like any other Friday night, dumping off the posse on his way home and then sneaking back to The Country Club to take line-dancing lessons at midnight. (If the guys had known they would have chewed and teased him mercilessly.) He hadn’t even had four beers when he saw her, bouncing along like a sweet whirling dervish on an assembly line. In the first five minutes he had known that she was his destiny, even before he waylaid her coming off the dance floor and introduced himself.

“My beautiful dear, my name is Bubba Puhzz, and I am madly and deeply in love with you,” he’d said.

To cut to the chase, Bubba didn’t go home that night, and the next morning he was engaged to be married. He figured it had taken him eight years to get promoted from stock room clerk at the Pump’n Munch to his now lofty position as Night Manager, and he wasn’t going to let his romantic life drag along at the same stultifying rate. Sometimes when you knew what you wanted you just had to reach out and take it.

“Why wait?” Bubba said, turning around to busy himself at the donut cabinet.

“You just met her twenty hours ago, you dolt! Are you out of your mind?!” Huck growled. No foolin’, he actually growled.

Of course, although it might have been prudent for Bubba to get to know the lady in question a bit more that wasn’t really the part of all this that was sticking in Huck’s craw so bad. It was that Bubba had beat him to it again. Bubba had always had the better grades (a C+ average!) and he had a whole posse of friends to make trouble with instead of just that turncoat Hunsey Bourcarte. Bubba always got the better jobs and usually made more money and got all that free beer. Bubba had always been Momma’s favorite. Now he had a line-dancing wife too. What did Huck have? He had a broken-down trailer, a hound dog good only at sleeping, and a monthly disability check.

Well, that about broke the camel’s back. Huck got off his stool and set down his free beer and then stomped off toward the door.

“I’m gonna be busy in six weeks,” he said loudly, and he made sure that he slammed the door as hard as he could (although it just swung through the other direction silently and then came to rest.)

Beating this one was going to take every bit of his ingenuity (if such could be located). Sabotaging Bubba’s matrimonial bliss would be too mean-spirited, even for Huck. No, he had to beat Bubba fair and square on the field of one-upmanship. There was only one possible solution.

He had to find a bride and arrange for a wedding ceremony in less than six weeks.

It would solve more than one problem. Ever since poor Andy Peterson’s tragic death the month before, Huck had been concerned about his own mortality and, especially, the prospect of dying alone. A man his age was supposed to have a wife, for Chrissake. You weren’t supposed to be a bachelor at forty-two.

Instead of going directly to his car, Huck started walking downtown. He found that he thought better when he was moving (more oxygen to his brain cells.) No ideas came and went as he walked, no brilliant plans formed as he marched past the storefronts in frustration.

And then a brilliant orange poster, left posted in the window by the absent-minded owner of J.J.’s Bookstore, caught his eye and everything fell into place.

To Be Continued...

Next: Part Four, "The Marriage Proposal" In which Huck matches all bets