word count 1900

                                                       The Missing Linc

                                                 Bill Tope & Doug Hawley

“What’s the story, doc?” asked Linc, addressing his family physician in the examination room at the local clinic. Linc was just completing his annual compulsory physical exam.
“Vell, Mr. Lincoln,” said the doctor, affecting a Sigmund Freud accent, the way he always did when he was holding forth, “I shee sometings which ist not show good.”
Linc frowned. Maybe this was serious. “What do you mean, doc; what’d you find?”
The physician went on to explain, at great length, the very serious, incurable and always fatal malady now afflicting E. Cosmo Lincoln, actuary extraordinaire. The prognosis was bleak, the jargon was complex, and Linc understood not a word of it. “Look, doc, give it to me straight; break it down for me, would you?” he implored.
The doctor crossed his arms over his chest. “If you were a package of raw hamburger,” he told Linc, “your expiration date would be last year.”
Yikes! thought Linc. This went far beyond being removed from his preferred insurance policy or the loss of his job; his very life was on the line!
“You’ve got just six months to live,” the doctor told him. Linc gulped. When Linc had asked what could be done for what ailed him, what wonder drug existed to dislodge this medical monkey from his back, the doc silently wrote out a prescription on his pad and handed it to his patient. On the way home from the doctor’s, Linc stopped at Munchies, the new cannabis dispensary in town, to get his script filled. Arriving at last at home, Linc stepped into the living room, only to be accosted by his twin 16-year-old daughters, Min and Lin, who immediately shook him down for whatever substances he might’ve scared up. But when they saw that all their father had were marijuana buds and hash brownies and THC extracts, they soon lost interest. They appeared to have no interest in his continued health.
“Everybody’s got weed, Pops,” said Min, instantly bored. And they walked away.
Linc, who hadn’t been high in twenty years, chewed a brownie and almost immediately scaled the moon, he was so high.  When Sally, his wife, came home from work that evening, she took in the stoned spectacle that was now her husband with a jaundiced eye. “What’s up with you” she asked him suspiciously.
After Linc explained his diagnosis, Sally stared reflectively at her husband for some time and for a moment, Linc was afraid she would break down in tears. But she surprised him.
“We have to start planning, right now,” said Sally.
Linc nodded. “Yes, there will be the final expenses. We have the life insurance,” he reminded her. “And, you’re already working.”
“I don’t really care about the final expenses,” she told him. “They can bury you in a Hefty Bag for all I care, and then plant you in the tomato patch.”
Linc blinked in surprise. “Why don’t you just donate my body to science? he suggested irritably. “Then you can save the price of a trash bag.” He sulked a little.
Sally tapped her finger against her lips. “Not a bad idea,” she agreed. “But what I’m most anxious about is your successor.”
“You mean that you’ll remarry, after I’m…gone?”
“No, honey,” she said, tenderly touching his cheeks with her fingertips. “I told you that you were the only man I’d ever marry.” Linc smiled. “I’ll just live with someone — hell, maybe two or three of them, once the girls go off to school. There’ll be lots of space then. Sally grabbed a tablet off the coffee table and began composing a list.
“What are you doing?” asked Linc, straining to see.
“Making a list of potential boyfriends,” she replied. When he stared at her, she continued, “After all, Linc, I’m just 41 years old. I have a lot of living yet to do.”
“Lemme see what you’ve got so far,” he said, craning his neck to look over Sally’s shoulder. “Duke Hanley?” he exclaimed incredulously. “You’ve got to be kidding. Duke isn’t your type!”
“I talked to his ex-wife, Mavis, and she said Duke is hung like a donkey,” said Sally with a tidy smile.
Linc shook his head. “Do you have to do that now? I’m not even cold yet.”
“Sorry, Sweetie,” murmured Sally contritely, pecking him on the cheek and turning away. “I’ll fix supper.”
At the evening meal, Linc broke the news to the twins, who seemed affected not at all. “Can you get some Oxy?” asked Min, avarice twinkling in her eyes.
“I…I don’t know, maybe,” replied Linc. “Doc said it would be pretty painful in the end, so, maybe…” The twins looked up at him and grinned hungrily.
When Linc went to work the next day, he informed his boss of his impending doom and was summarily fired on the spot, for cause. It seems he had used the office copier surreptitiously one time and management had held onto that nugget of information. Inasmuch as he was now ineligible for the company’s life insurance policy, he left work clutching his personal files, his calculator, and a brochure for Colonial Penn. His shop steward was nowhere to be found.
Having been fired for cause, Linc was ineligible for unemployment benefits, and could not in good conscience seek another job, so he spent his time at home, in front of the tube. Curiously, his condition did not worsen. He felt no pain, no palpitations, lost no weight, had no headaches, as his doctor had indicated he would. After about three months, Sally stepped between Linc and the television and asked, “Are you dying, or what?”
He glanced away from The Young And The Restless and looked up into Sally’s angry eyes.
He shrugged. I dunno. But, I got six months, so give me a break!”
“You were talking about pieces of you falling off by now,” complained Sally bitterly. “Get on with it, alright?”
“Alright!” he snapped back. Then he went back to watching a commercial for laundry detergent.
A while later, Linc received a call from his doctor’s nurse, who asked him to return to the office for follow-up.
“What follow-up?” queried Linc. “I got a terminal diagnosis. Doc said I had six months to live, and that was four months ago. The assistant went on to explain that the health insurance policy that Linc had enjoyed with his job wouldn’t expire for another two months, so doc wanted to do as many procedures as he could before the coverage elapsed. “What sort of procedures?” asked Linc.
“MRIs, CT scans, ultrasounds, biopsies…” she read off the list like a waitress reciting a tempting menu.
“Will any of this help?” he asked next.
On the phone, Linc could visualize her shrugging. “Can’t hurt.”
So Linc journeyed back to clinic and had test after test, sometimes as many as three MRIs in a single day, until which time his health insurance maxed out and the nurse told him he needn’t return, unless he came with a fistful of cash.
Linc asked to speak to his doctor as a sort of going away gesture. Once seated in the examination room, Linc remarked that none of the expected effects of his illness had manifested. He wanted to know what was up.
The doc stared blankly at him for a moment, and then broke spontaneously into laughter. “I was wondering who that was! You see, six months ago I was heavy into a cocaine habit and I misdiagnosed patients right and left. But there was one patient that I prophesied doom for and couldn’t remember his name. And that’s you!  Isn’t that funny?” He was laughing uproariously now. The doctor no longer talked like Sigmund Freud. Now he sounded like Gregory Peck.
When Linc exited the clinic, he sat in his car, thinking. His wife was estranged and openly dating other men. The twins were addicted to Oxy from all the capsules he’d been prescribed. He was high as a kite most of the time. And he didn’t have a job. What should he do next? He blew out a weary breath. He’d come clean, tell his family everything. Maybe he’d get his old job back. If not, then other vistas might open: he’d longed to be a brain surgeon or a nuclear scientist, or maybe an astronaut.

He’d have to win Sally back. Then he remembered: Duke Hanley was coming over tonight.  He told Sally “You don’t have to replace me. I’m not dying. Everything will be great, I promise you.”

Sally replied “Sorry Linc that ship has sunk. Even before your fake news, Duke had been boffing me for months.  No way I’m limping through life with you.”

“I can take pills, I can do better.”

“Listen to me:  Ship sank.  You’ll be OK, and to sweeten the deal, I’ll keep the pill head daughters.  Aren’t yours anyway.”

Sally saw his open jaw gawp and told him “Grow up Linc.  It’s time for you to get used to real life.”

That wakeup call worked.  Within five minutes Linc called “Lawyers R US”.  He explained his situation to the secretary who answered the phone in great detail.  The secretary was a great listener, and asked many appropriate questions, and had comments every few minutes.  After the fifteen minutes when Linc was finished, she assured him “We are going to make you a rich man, and we are going to get a big chunk of it.  Our liability lawyer will be in touch within the next fifteen minutes.  By the way I’m Susan.”

Good to their word, Gerald Wilkins called in five minutes.  Linc asked “Can you protect me in my upcoming divorce.”

Wilkins replied “Sure, but that’s small potatoes.  Your doctor and employer will make you rich.”

“Huh?”

“Your doctor Fanc has a great malpractice policy.  Dare I say a million dollar payout, you might clear half a million, and your former employer will probably be good for a few hundred thousand.”

The court case made the local news, and Linc made out even better than Wilkins had suggested.  His lawyers had wisely advised him to get his divorce first so she wouldn’t get a piece of the settlement.

After the news was out, he immediately got a call from Sally which he didn’t answer based on his caller id.

The second call was from Susan, who congratulated him profusely.  “Now that I’ve seen your picture, I really want to celebrate with you.”  The celebration turned delightful and carnal.  “I don’t want this to end.  Mind if I stay overnight?”  Susan enjoyed his company, and was hoping for something matrimonial, but Linc had had enough of supposed connubial bliss for a while.  He felt a little bad about stringing her along, but not bad enough to stop.  Boner pills made him a fan of modern medicine.

Linc let Min and Lin live with him as long as they took weekly drug tests.  After a few weeks of clean drug tests, the three of them got along quite well, possibly because of their shared passion for peach vodka.  Linc wisely didn’t insist on their sobriety.  Susan decided she liked Linc as well as his money, and told him she would be happy to sign a pre-nuptial in order to marry him.  The four of them made one happy and weird family.

                                                                         The End

Appears in Down In The Dirt. As usual, mostly a Tope. Hawley thinks and writes a lot about death because he is old and hates his life.