Photo by Arseny Togulev on Unsplash
You have to love old Sam Jaffe, who played Gunga Din
back in ’39, stealing the last scene from Cary Grant.
Here he is on TV, Dr. Zorba, mentor to the dashing
Vince Edwards as Ben Casey, the star, voted
Best Gambling Junkie by cast and crew, speeding
to Santa Anita, missing the weekly voiceover.
Part Einstein, part Gunga, Sam Jaffe intones
Man Woman Birth Death Infinity
Ben gets “Woman,” but that other stuff?
He’s busy with the mirror—make-up, wavy black hair,
white doctor coat light on the starch. Oh, no!
A pregnant mother’s wheeled in from a collision,
my baby, my baby, but not to worry, Ben’s running
tests—neurology, cosmology, astrology—lucky star!
Cliff Robertson turned down this role, that’s why
Vince looks so cool sliding x-rays on the light panel
like a shark dealing seconds, and there it is:
mom’s head, an ostrich egg—eight, maybe nine
omelets, thinks Ben, distraught, torn, turns out
he knows the woman from the track, all he can do
is run a troubled hand through his thick hair—
Doc Zorba’s cue to admonish his charge.
“A doctor is a man, Ben Casey.”
That does the trick, the young surgeon bucks up,
lays a yard on My Girl in the fifth. He’s going
to scrub, save two lives, plugging his ears
to muffle the somber music of Man cutting into Woman,
Ben Casey between Birth and Death,
dancing the edge of Infinity, week after week,
season by season, from the bright lights of the studio
to the bright lights of our living room, the only
sign of life a television. Ma doesn’t talk, my old man
responds in kind, stone-faced, dying for a drink,
our eyes on the black-and-white Admiral
Ma won in an ulcer raffle, Rosenbloom’s Drug Store,
the year we left Chicago cold for desert heat.
But Dr. Ben’s ever faithful. Here he comes, climbing
through the screen, To do what I can, to help,
searching for the cranial saw I’ve hidden behind my back.
To support his golf habit, Nils Nelson worked menial jobs before and after grad school, Cal State Fresno, so long ago the CW degree had just two letters: M.A. An award-winning golf writer/editor for many golf magazines, his poetry has shown up in Ironwood, Crazyhorse, Partisan Review, Seneca Review, Salt Hill and other usual suspects. Nils is finishing a full-length manuscript in Tucson, where he burns through sunscreen.
