Above Ground Gene Poole

Someone was knocking at the door. Who could it be, Gene thought? The fee for the newspaper is drafted from the checking account and solicitors were discouraged by the wolfish looking one hundred pound Malamute, Riley.

Ruh roh! Gene realized he had missed his doctors appointment a couple of hours ago. It was Rubottom, Arkansas' most prominent physician, Dr. John Doolittle. Okay, actually the only physician. Yes, Dr. Doolittle, the same as the guy who talks to animals, only with an added "o".

What could Dr. Doolittle be doing here? Gene wondered aloud. Everyone knows doctors quit making house calls years ago. The good doctor wore a facial expression that said that this was no social call.

"Gene, I've got some bad news" Doolittle said quietly. "Remember that PSA you took at the office a couple of weeks ago?" Gene thought back to the annual prostate exam on the 13th, his mind racing. The PSA itself wasn't so bad.

"Just a little prick" the nurse said. Never say that to a man about to take his pants down, Gene recalled thinking. It seems Gene had just been swimming at the Rubottom Municipal Ool . That's right, the "Ool", complete with the sign reading: "notice there's no "p" in it, let's keep it that way."

Wasn't it bad enough to have the name Gene Autry Poole III? Gene's great granddad, Shiloh Gene Poole had been an admirer of Gene Autry, and named granddad after the singing cowboy, never suspecting the jokes his descendants would have to endure. "No diving into that Gene Poole", "too much chlorine in that Gene Poole", Gene had heard them all.

The good doctor was known around town as "Dr. DRE", when he wasn't being teased about his surname, due to Doolittle's famous Digital Rectal Exams. Doolittle was a tall man, standing about 6'7", with digits that easily palmed a basketball back in the days when he starred for the Rubottom Rottweilers.

When Gene assumed the position, bending over the examination table, pants around the ankles, he had joked "when you said 'digital' I thought you just took some sort of scope and took a picture, and got a readout, so what's up with the gloves?"

One of Gene Autry's most famous songs had been Back in The Saddle Again. After being probed by Doolittle's E.T. like phalanges, it would be a long time before Gene got back on the horse, so to speak.

"Gene, I didn't want to break this to you over the phone, and since you didn't show up today I thought I'd stop by on the way home. Your PSA level is elevated. Matter of fact, it's so dang high...I think you have prostate cancer."

Now, of all the words ever said to Gene in his 47 years, none of them had ever hit as hard as these.

Not "it's not you, it's me" from the girl Gene had thought was his "soul mate".

Not, "let's just be friends" from a former fiancee.

Not "son, football just isn't your sport, maybe you should try Frisbee" from the high coach grid coach, Austin Butts, scuttling Gene's plans to be the star quarterback for the Rottweilers in the football-crazed town.

Not "your best friend is bangin' me like a Salvation Army drum" from ex-fiancee Clarice. Like the female FBI agent in Silence of the Lambs, but Gene's ex, Clarice, was never silent and had more in common with Hannibal Lecter than any lamb.

Not the notice of an IRS audit. Hold on a minute, Gene thought.... Yeah, this is a little worse.

Doolittles' words were barely audible after that, and for the life of him, Gene couldn't remember what the man had said.

All he could think about was the retirement with lots of golf and lounging around in pajamas until 10 A.M. that might never come.

What about Squirtacus, Gene's nickname for Gene Autry Poole IV, so dubbed for his Kirk Douglas-esque dimpled chin and diminutive stature?

And who would take care of Riley, Gene wondered. The beloved "Mala-mule" Riley's howls when he wasn't fed every few hours could be heard all over the Dale Earnhardt subdivision, the neighborhood abandoned by the founder of the town, Clyde Dale Rubottom, for the swanky new digs of Foxworthy Manor.

Old man Rubottom might follow through on those threats to quarantine Riley after the then pup humped the bejeebers out of a Rubottom grandson's leg when the younger Rubottom was running for office and made the mistake of entering Gene's yard.

Norman Bates Rubottom, named for his mother's side of the family, born prior to the Hitchcock movie Psycho's release and known throughout school as "Master" Bates, was not amused when Gene jokingly offered him a cigarette. The Rubottoms had it in for the Pooles ever since, Riley in particular.

"Come in for a biopsy ASAP" are the next words Gene heard. Doolittle continued, " I'll need to check out the urethra and bladder, too."

"What in the H-E double hockey sticks does some soul singer have to do with my bladder?", Gene asked.

In any event, if all the childhood taunts, romantic problems, financial problems, and swinging arrows as Ol' Willie Shakespeare put it, couldn't drain Gene Poole of his will to live, neither could this.

Some changes are in order, that's all. Quit dipping snuff. Spend more time with Squirtacus. Be nicer to the wife, Amanda Dawn Pessina-Poole. And last of all, live like you were dying as the song says, 'cause we might be.

That goes for all of us, whether or not we know it. None of us is promised tomorrow.

Doolittle said he would need a tissue sample.

"Kleenex or Puffs?" Gene replied.