Mash

by Richard Hooker

  Mrs. Lee described all her girls as “velly clean.” Beyond that, they were divided into three subcategories: movie actresses, cherry girls and school teachers. A girl’s status varied with Mrs. Lee’s usually shrewd estimate of the customer’s needs.

  There was a commotion at the front entrance as Major Haskell appeared with two M.P.’s. Hawkeye was led to an area of seclusion by Mrs. Lee as Major Haskell and his troops entered the dining room.

  “Has Captain Pierce been here?” he demanded of Trapper and Duke.

  “Hell, no,” said Duke. “We figured you all had him under wraps. How’d he get away?”

  “I don’t know,” said Haskell, “but that boy is way out. It’s imperative that I find him.”

  “If I were you, I’d search the waterfront,” suggested Trapper. “He might be looking for mermaids.”

  “How about you fellows helping out? You said he meant everything to you. I should think you’d help me find him before he harms himself or someone else.”

  “If he’s all that crazy, the hell with him,” said Trapper.

  “Yeah,” the Duke said. “We got appointments with the epileptic whore anyway.”

  “I’m tired of hearing about the epileptic whore,” stated the Major. “What’s it all about anyhow?”

  “Epileptic whore hava yes, Major,” smiled Mrs. Lee. “Velly clean, school teacher. Finest Kind.”

  Major Haskell perked his ears at the last expression, but before he could draw any conclusions Trapper started talking.

  “Major,” he said, “a guy in your business really should take a crack at this broad out of professional interest. It’s an opportunity that’s unlikely to come your way again. You could make a name for yourself writing papers about her.”

  The Major sat down, ordered a drink and excused the M.P.’s. “You may have a point, gentlemen. Can you fix me up? It should be quite an interesting case.”

  “The fastest ride in the Far East Command,” Trapper assured him.

  “And y’all may have my reservation,” Duke told him. “I was on for three o’clock, but I can see that it’ll mean more to you all.”

  “That’s very kind of you, Captain,” replied Major Haskell.

  They had a few more drinks, ate an extended lunch, and at 3:00 P.M. Major Haskell went to keep his appointment.

  “Good luck,” said Trapper. “Don’t break your stem.”

  “Y’all watch out when she sunfishes,” warned Duke.

  Within fifteen minutes the Major, looking somewhat pale and drawn, reappeared and nervously ordered a double Scotch.

  “That was quick,” said Duke. “Major, y’all must be one of them short-time skivvy boys.”

  The Major did not reply.

  “Come on, Major,” urged Trapper, “how was it?”

  “I don’t think it’s epilepsy. I think it’s a purely hysterical convulsion,” replied the Major.

  “Yeah, but how was it?” insisted Duke.

  “Tremendous,” said the Major and departed.

  For the next two days, business at Mrs. Lee’s was big. The epileptic whore was in popular demand. The Swampmen hung around, observed with interest, interviewed many of the survivors, but did not avail themselves of her services.

  On the second day, Hawkeye asked, “When are you guys gonna try her?”

  “Maybe tomorrow,” answered Trapper.

  “What’s the hurry?” asked Duke. “When y’all gonna try her yourself?”

  “Never,” said Hawkeye. “I’m a man of simple needs, which have already been adequately fulfilled for the time being.”

  On the third day Colonel Henry Blake, returning to his duties as C.O. of the 4077th MASH, stopped at the 325th Evac, called his outfit and requested transportation. He spoke to Colonel DeLong, who told him that the Swampmen were undergoing psychiatric evaluation at the 325th Evac.

  Henry laughed with delight, but to himself. He sought out Major Haskell, who told him that McIntyre and Forrest were at Mrs. Lee’s but that Pierce had dropped from sight.

  “Don’t worry, Major, they’re all at Mrs. Lee’s. I’ll go over there. When my driver comes would you be kind enough to send him to pick us up?”

  “I’m sorry, Colonel, but even if Pierce can be found, I couldn’t possibly allow him to return to duty. I’m sure, when you see him, you’ll agree with me.”

  “Pierce isn’t any crazier now than he’s ever been,” Henry assured him. “Don’t let him worry you, Major.”

  “I’ll come with you if I may,” said Haskell.

  They found the Swampmen in Mrs. Lee’s bar.

  “Hiya, Henry. How they goin’?” asked Hawkeye. “I bet you got plenty in Tokyo, didn’t you?”

  “Shut up, Pierce. What’s this all about?”

  “I went ape,” said Hawkeye, nodding to Major Haskell. “Ask him.”

  “I think you’d better come with me, Pierce,” said Major Haskell.

  Trapper joined in. “Henry doesn’t believe you, Hawk. Say something in schizophrenic.”

  “My father was the keeper of the Eddystone light. He slept with a mermaid one fine night. Out of that union there came three—a porpoise and a porgy, and the other was me,” replied Hawkeye.

  “See what we mean?” said Duke.

  Colonel Blake turned to Major Haskell. “I’ll be responsible for him. Believe me, you’ve been had. Consider yourself lucky. I’ve been putting up with this kind of crap for months. You’ve only had a couple of hours of it.”

  Hawkeye summoned Mrs. Lee and whispered in her ear. Mrs. Lee asked to see the Colonel in private and led him upstairs to a certain room as Hawkeye ordered drinks for all and spoke to Major Haskell: “I hate to disappoint you, Dad, but I’m not quite as foolish as I led you to believe. I’m going back to the MASH with the rest of them as soon as Henry has enjoyed the Fastest Ride in the Far East Command. Have a drink with me, and let there be no moaning at the bar ere we leave Mrs. Lee.”

  “OK,” said Haskell, “but I still don’t think you’re normal.”

  “I ain’t. Normal people go crazy in this place.”

  While they were all on their second round of drinks, Colonel Blake returned.

  “Well?” said Trapper John.

  “‘Beware the Jabberwock, my son!’” said Colonel Blake, addressing Major Haskell, and then: “‘The jaws that bite, the claws that catch! Beware the Jubjub bird and shun the frumious Bandersnatch!’”

  “Major,” Hawkeye said to Haskell, “this looks like something right down your alley.”

  “Yeah, Major,” the Duke said, “y’all been educated to handle this kinda thing, and we gotta get out of here.”

  12

  With the end of summer, the baseball that the Swampmen had tossed and batted around occasionally to get some exercise and kill some time, took on air and a new shape. It became a football and an object of pursuit as, in their idle moments, they passed and kicked it back and forth and ran one another from one end of the ball field to the other to cries of: “How to go!”—“Nice grab!”—“Hawk, this time I’ll fake to the Duke and you fake the block on the tackle and I’ll hit you with it over the middle.”—“Way to go!”—“Way to throw! Who ever heard of Sammy Baugh?”

  “You know what we ought to do?” Hawkeye said, as they came puffing back into The Swamp one afternoon.

  “Have a drink,” the Duke said.

  “No,” Hawkeye said. “We oughta get us up a football team.”

  “And play who?” Duke said.

  “The Chicago Bears,” Trapper said. “It’d be a way to get home.”

  “No, thanks,” Duke said. “I’d rather get killed over here.”

  “Listen, you guys,” Hawkeye said. “I’m serious. We’re all starting to get stirry again. We need something to do. There’s that big guy named Vollmer over in Supply played center for Nebraska. Jeeter was a second string halfback at Oklahoma…”

  “God help us,” Trapper said.

  “There’s Pete Rizzo.”

 
“He was a Three-I infielder,” Duke said.

  “But he played football in high school.”

  “But who do we play?” Duke said.

  “Hot-Lips Houlihan’s Green Bay Pachyderms,” Trapper said.

  “I want Knocko McCarthy on our side,” the Duke said.

  “Now, wait a minute,” Hawkeye said. “I’m serious. They’ve got some kind of a league over here. The 325th Evac in Yong-Dong-Po claim they’re champions because last year they beat two other teams. I know where we can get a real ringer, and if we can beat them we can clean up on some bets.”

  “You’re nuts,” Trapper said.

  “Yeah,” the Duke said, “and who’s the ringer?”

  “You ever hear of Oliver Wendell Jones?” asked Hawkeye.

  “No,” Trapper answered.

  “Sounds like a nigra,” said Duke.

  “Never mind the racial prejudice. You ever hear of Spearchucker Jones?”

  “Yeah,” Trapper said.

  “Maybe the best fullback in pro ball since Nagurski,” Hawkeye said.

  “Okay,” Trapper said, “but what’s he got to do with us?”

  “You haven’t read much about him lately, have you?” Hawkeye said.

  “Probably just a flash,” Duke said.

  “Flash hell,” Hawkeye said. “You want to know why you haven’t heard about him?”

  “Yeah,” Duke said. “Tell us.”

  “No, don’t tell us,” Trapper said. “We’d like to spend all our spare time guessing.”

  “You haven’t heard of Spearchucker Jones lately,” Hawkeye said, “because his real name is Dr. Oliver Wendell Jones, and he’s the neurosurgeon at the 72nd Evacuation Hospital in Taegu.”

  “Damn,” Trapper said.

  “Yeah,” Duke said.

  “But how come,” Trapper, mixing the drinks now, wanted to know, “you’re such an expert on all this?”

  “Because,” Hawkeye said, “when I was in Taegu before they dragged me kicking and screaming up here I roomed with Spearchucker. He went to some jerkwater colored college, but he did well enough to get into med school. He had played football in college, but no one had ever seen him. When he got out of med school he got married, and he wanted to take a residency. He needed some dough so he started playing semi-pro ball on weekends around New Jersey. Somebody scouted him and the Philadelphia Eagles signed him. He was great even though he couldn’t work at it full time. He kept it a secret about being a doctor, but it would have leaked out fast if he hadn’t been drafted just as he was getting a reputation.”

  “And you’re the only one over here who knows this?” Trapper said.

  “A few of the colored boys know who he is, but they won’t talk because he’s asked them not to.”

  “Good,” Trapper said. “You really think we can get him?”

  “Sure,” Hawkeye said.

  “Now, wait a minute,” Duke said. “I know how you Yankees think. Y’all wanta get this nigra up here to live in The Swamp. Right?”

  “Right,” Hawkeye said.

  “OK,” Duke said. “If y’all can live with him, so can I. I’m washed up at home anyway, after living with two Yankees.”

  “So how do we get him?” Trapper said.

  “Easy,” Hawkeye said. “We tell Henry we can’t exist any longer without a neurosurgeon. If he doesn’t go for that we tell him the truth. There’s a little of the opportunist in Henry, too.”

  “Okay,” Trapper agreed. “Let’s make our run at him right now.”

  “But is this nigra in shape?” Duke wanted to know.

  “This big bastard has to be a long way out of shape before anybody around here will stop him,” Hawkeye assured him. “He’s also a helluva guy.”

  Five minutes later Colonel Henry Blake, on his hands and knees on his tent floor, rummaging through his foot locker for some personal papers, was interrupted by the Swampmen who entered without knocking.

  “Oops!” Trapper said, as Henry looked up. “Wrong address. This must be some kind of Shinto shrine.”

  “Looks like it,” Hawkeye said. “Pardon us, oh Holy Man.”

  “Knock it off,” Henry said, getting up. “What do you bastards want now?”

  “A drink,” Trapper said.

  “You’ve got drinks where you live,” Henry said, eyeing them. “What else do you want?”

  “Here,” Trapper said, handing Henry a Scotch, while Hawkeye and Duke helped themselves. “Relax.”

  “Henry,” Hawkeye said, “you’re not the only one caught up in this religious revival. We just had a revelation, too.”

  “What is this?” Henry started to say. “What…?”

  “Henry,” Trapper said, “it just came to us. We gotta get us a neurosurgeon.”

  “Right,” Duke said.

  “You’re out of your minds,” Henry said.

  “After all we’ve done for the Army,” Trapper said, “is that too much to ask?”

  “Please,” Hawkeye said, genuflecting in front of Henry. “Please, oh Holy One, get us a neurosurgeon.”

  “We’re serious,” Trapper said.

  “Right,” Duke said.

  “Okay,” Henry said, still eyeing them. “What’s the game?”

  “Football.”

  “What?”

  “Football.”

  “Football, hell,” Henry said.

  “We mean it,” Hawkeye said, “and it’s very simple. We want a football team, and we want to challenge the 325th Evac for the championship of Korea, and to do it we need a neurosurgeon. Wouldn’t you like the 4077th MASH to be the football champions of Korea? Who knows? We might be invited to the Rose Bowl!”

  “The hell with that,” Trapper said. “Just think of the dough we can make, with a little judicious betting on ourselves.”

  “Explain,” Henry said, perking up now. “And what the hell has a neurosurgeon got to do with it?”

  “Ever hear of Spearchucker Jones?” Hawkeye said.

  “Yeah. Colored boy. Plays pro football. So what?”

  “He’s not playing pro football right now, and we can get him.”

  “We can? How?”

  “Tell General Hammond you gotta have a neurosurgeon, and you want Captain Oliver Wendell Jones of the 72nd Evac.”

  It took a moment for it to sink in.

  “You mean it?” Henry said. “You really mean it?”

  “You see?” Hawkeye said to the others. “I told you Henry believes in free enterprise, too.”

  “You’re damn tootin’,” Henry said. “You really think we can get him?”

  “Sure,” Hawkeye said. “Nobody else over here knows who he is, except a few of his friends who aren’t talking.”

  “Good,” Henry said, starting to pace the floor now. “Good thinking. Now you want to know something else?”

  “What?”

  “That Hammond,” Henry said, pacing. “He flashes that star around and calls himself coach of that 325th Evac. Why, he’s still back in the Pudge Heffelfinger era of football. He doesn’t know the first damn thing about how the game is played today.”

  “Good,” Trapper said.

  “All he did was pull rank,” Henry said.

  “Then we can do it?” Hawkeye said.

  “Yes,” Henry said. “On one condition.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I want to be coach,” Henry said.

  “Anything you say, Coach,” they assured him in unison.

  “Hammond,” Henry said. “Where’d he ever get the idea he’s a coach?”

  The next day Hawkeye composed a letter to Captain Oliver Wendell Jones, apprising him of the plan. He extolled the congenial working conditions at the Double Natural, described in glowing terms the friendly atmosphere of The Swamp, of which he invited Captain Jones to become the fourth member. Then he pointed out the benefits, financial as well as physical, that could accrue from playing a little football against the innocents of the 325th Evac. At the same time Colonel Henry Blake, chuck
ling to himself all the while, made the proper request to General Hamilton Hammond, and ten days later Captain Jones appeared, filling the doorway of The Swamp.

  “My God!” Trapper said. “Darkness at noon. Look at the size of him!”

  “And he drinks double bourbon and coke, Trapper,” Hawkeye said, jumping up and shaking Captain Jones’ hand. “Welcome, Spearchucker, welcome!”

  “You sure I’m in the right place?” Captain Jones said, grinning.

  “You sure are,” Hawkeye said. “Shake hands with the Trapper. Shake hands with the Duke. Now shake hands with that double bourbon.”

  Captain Jones did. In fact, he shook hands with several double bourbons while the others made their usual display of affection for Trapper’s martinis. Hawkeye and Captain Jones kicked around a few memories, and then Trapper John got into it.

  “Tell me something,” he said to Captain Jones. “Where’d you get that Spearchucker handle?”

  “I used to throw the javelin,” Jones told him. “Somebody started calling me that, and the sports writers thought it was good and it stuck.”

  “How come you and the Hawk here got to be such big buddies down in Taegu?”

  “Well,” said Jones, “I got assigned there and there weren’t any other colored and they didn’t have a room for me all by myself. Hawkeye went to the C.O. and said: ‘Tell that big animal he can live with me if he wants to.’”

  “That was nice,” Trapper said, “but let’s not give him the Legion of Merit.”

  “Nobody’s handing out any medals,” Spearchucker said, “but there are so goddamn many phonies around. The worst are the types who knock themselves out to show you that your color doesn’t make any difference, and if it wasn’t for your color they wouldn’t pay any attention to you. They’re part of the black man’s burden, too.”

  “Understood,” Trapper said.

  “Anyway,” Spearchucker said, “there are a lot of colored boys over here, and I know quite a few. Every now and then some of them would drop in to visit me. Now and then Hawkeye would stay around but most often he’d cut out. One day I said: ‘Hawkeye, how come you don’t care for some of my friends?’”

  “So this guy,” Spearchucker said, nodding toward Hawkeye, “says to me: ‘Do you like all the white boys around here?’ I said: ‘No, Hawkeye, and thank you.’ That’s what I mean.”