Forrest Trump Sits at the Bus Stop, Waiting for a Ride To the Opening of His Presidential Library
Chuck Etheridge
January 17, 2021
Hello
My name is Forrest Trump.
You want a chocolate?
I could eat about a million and a half of ‘em.
No, you can’t have one,
But I’ll sell you one.
My mama always said, “Life is like a box of chocolates.
You can sell something to almost anyone,
Even if they don’t need it.”
My mama was an immigrant.
She came from Scotland.
She came here because she hated haggis and kale,
And wanted to eat good old American food
Like frankfurters and sauerkraut.
My grandpa was an immigrant, too.
He got deported from Germany.
That’s right, they kicked him out.
His name was Drumpf,
But they changed it at Ellis Island.
They were the right kind of immigrants, you see.
They came from Europe.
They didn’t come from one of those shithole countries.
And that’s all I’m gonna say about that.
Mama, Grandad, I love my family.
I’m proud of my family.
That’s one of the things that they’re gonna say in my library—
That I protected the American family.
I believe marriage should be between a man and a woman.
I believe it so much I married three different women.
I was a good father, too.
I was such a good father I paid child support for all six of my children.
Did Obama do that?
Did he pay his child support on time?
Nope, I bet he didn’t pay it at all.
Besides, his father was an immigrant
From a shithole country.
And that’s all I’m gonna say about that.
I love my country, too.
Everywhere I go, people say,
“That Forrest Trump, he really loves America.”
I fought for America, too.
No, I didn’t go to Vee-Ett—Nahm.
I really wanted to
But the doctors said I couldn’t.
But you can bet that if I woulda gone,
I woulda been the best soldier ever.
The US woulda won that war bigly.
But I kept this country safe.
I stood up for America.
When they said
“Russia is attacking the US
With computers,”
I didn’t really understand how
You could attack with computers.
But I went to this place called Helsinki—
I think it’s in Europe somewhere,
And I told that Putin fella—
Putin was President of Russia at that time—
To stop firing missiles at South Korea.
No, wait a minute. That wasn’t Putin.
That was the other fella.
I made him—I think his name was Jim or Kim,
Anyway, I made him pinkie promise
Not to fire any more missiles.
And he stopped.
Same thing with Rasputin.
No, wait a minute, it was Putin.
He pinkie promised me
That Russia didn’t have anything to do
With computer attacks on America.
I stood up to him!
And now, America is safer that it’s ever been.
We got Russian and Korean military bases
Right here in the US of A to keep us safe!
I protected America.
And that’s all I’m gonna say about that.
You sure you don’t wanna buy a chocolate?
You wanna know the best part?
When I ran for office,
I said I was gonna build a wall
And get Mexico to pay for it
And I did!
When Russia and North Korea
Started setting up bases
In California and Kansas.
Some people didn’t like it.
Really, they were traitors,
And they started to try and leave.
So many of ‘em tried to get into Mexico
That Mexico built a wall
And they paid for it.
You wanna know the best part?
Canada built a wall, too.
And that’s all I’m gonna say about that.
And now they’ve built me a library
US taxpayers didn’t have to pay a nickel!
The government of Russia
And the government of North Korea
Pitched in to honor me.
Can you believe it?
It’s gonna be the biggest,
Bestest,
Most amazingest presidential library ever.
And that’s all I’m gonna say about that.
That’s Ivan, my driver,
And Byung-hoon, his helper.
I have to go now.
You sure you don’t wanna buy a chocolate?
After joining the Navy, El Paso native Chuck Etheridge kept California safe from communist invasion before attending UTEP and TCU. He’s published two novels, Border Canto and The Desert after Rain; Chagford Revisited is forthcoming in January. His most recent poetry is in Corpus Christi Writers Anthologies, Trek-a-Tanka, and Tejascovido.
