MASH 10 MASH goes to Miami

by Richard Hooker+William Butterworth

  “Right,” Horsey said. “Hey, Crumbum, I want you to do something for me.”

  “What?” Mr. Crumley asked, profound suspicion in his voice.

  “Dere’s a little kid in here, got cut with an axe. Name is Juan Francisco. Hawkeye, Trapper, and Esther just sewed him up.”

  “I’m familiar with the case, Colonel,” T. Alfred Crumley replied.

  “Give him whatever he needs,” Horsey de la Chevaux said. “And put it on my tab.”

  “That’s very kind of you, Colonel,” T. Alfred Crumley said.

  “Ah,” Horsey said, visibly embarrassed, “he’s a refugee from Cuba. He needs a little helping hand.” He changed the subject. “Hey, Crumbum,” he said, “there’s a fifty-gallon barrel of gumbo in the kitchen.”

  “I know,” T. Alfred Crumley said. “I . . . caught a whiff of it as I came in the building.”

  “Help yourself,” Horsey offered. “Good for what ails you.”

  “That’s very kind of you, Colonel, I’m sure,” T. Alfred Crumley replied without much enthusiasm.

  “Forget it,” Horsey said grandly, and he hung up the phone. He reached for the half-gallon bottle of Old White Stagg, looped his index finger in the glass circle at the neck, and drank deeply. Then he stood up.

  “Well, I hate to leave good company,” he said, “but I got to go. I’ll look in on the kid and take off.”

  “Whither bound, Horsey?” Trapper John inquired.

  “First to the North Slope of Alaska, and then to Borney,” Horsey replied. “I promised the boys I’d bring them some gumbo.”

  “Let me finish my drink,” Hawkeye said, “and I’ll look in on the kid with you.”

  “Why not?” Horsey said. “As Hot Lips always says, two belts is safer than one.”

  He raised the half-gallon jug again, in the interests of safety, and then he and Dr. Pierce left the office.

  Juan Francisco was twelve years old, and the young body heals remarkably quickly. The next morning Juan Francisco was walking around his room, and by the next afternoon, his cast colorfully decorated with Merthiolate drawings, was inquiring in broken English when he might be permitted to return to camp.

  While Hawkeye didn’t forget Juan (they in fact became buddies in the four days Juan was in the hospital), he didn’t think much about him. What could have been a really bad business had turned out well, even so far as the depressing matter of paying the hospital tab was concerned. Even T. Alfred Crumley, that extraordinary worrier, placed absolute faith in Horsey de la Chevaux’s credit.

  When it was time for Juan to leave camp and return to Miami, Hawkeye prepared two envelopes. One, addressed to “The Physician Concerned,” contained a report of Juan’s injuries, the treatments thereof, X-rays of the broken bones, and Hawkeye’s recommendations on removal of the cast and physical therapy. The second contained photographs taken by Juan of the friends he had made among the hospital staff. At the last moment, Hawkeye paper-clipped a twenty-dollar bill to the bottom of the letter, and penned in a note saying it was to be used to go to Howard Johnson’s in Miami to eat fried clams and remember his friends in Maine.

  Then, with other business to attend to, the episode with Juan was filed in the back of his mind. It had been simply a pleasurable experience in the practice of medicine.

  Hawkeye was, then, greatly surprised to receive, ten days later, a telephone call from the Honorable T. Bascomb (“Moosenose”) Bartlett, mayor of Spruce Harbor, informing him that a delegation of Cuban-Americans was in his office. Would Hawkeye please come right down?

  “Not just now, Moosenose,” Hawkeye replied. “Thank you just the same.”

  “I thought you’d react that way, Hawkeye,” Moosenose said. “Your trouble is you have no civic pride.”

  Hawkeye thought it was just a tart but idle comment, but like so many of his fellow Americans, he underestimated the depths to which politicians will sink to get their way.

  He had barely had time to hang up the telephone when the door burst open and in stepped Jerome P. McGrory, attorney-at-law and public relations director of the Greater Spruce Harbor Chamber of Commerce.

  “You’ve got the wrong place, Mac,” Hawkeye said. “The ambulance chaser’s door is at the rear.”

  “This is for your own good, Hawkeye,” Mr. McGrory said, signalling with his hand. Two of Spruce Harbor’s finest came in the door.

  “There are two ways we can do this, Hawkeye,” McGrory said. “You either come along peacefully and cooperate...”

  “Or...”

  “These gentlemen will carry you,” McGrory said. “Think of it as a sacrifice you’re making for the good of the community.”

  “Think of what as a sacrifice?”

  “All you have to do is go to Moosenose’s office and accept a placque from the Cubans.”

  “What kind of a placque?”

  “For your selfless, patriotic, generous contribution to Cuban refugees, namely one Juan Francisco.”

  “You’re out of your gourd, shyster,” Hawkeye said conversationally.

  “The television cameras are there,” McGrory went on, ignoring him. “And representatives of the printed media. All you have to do, Hawkeye, is say ‘thank you.’ If you wanted to be a good guy and a responsible citizen with the best interests of your community at heart, you could even smile.”

  “I’ll sic Trapper John on you, McGrory,” Hawkeye said.

  “Dr. McIntyre is at this very moment in His Honor the Mayor’s office, waiting for you to show up,” McGrory said. “He even brought his Polaroid camera.”

  “For twenty years I have been nursing an Irish viper at my breast,” Hawkeye said. “All right, McGrory, I know when I’m whipped. Lead on.”

  Chapter Two

  Five minutes later, to a round of applause, Hawkeye entered the office of His Honor the Mayor, Moosenose Bartlett. The mayor was wearing his full dress morning suit, across the starched white bosom of which, in case there might be a question of his function, was stretched a purple ribbon with MAYOR lettered upon it in gold tinfoil.

  There were also three strangers—a long thin one, a short fat one, and a middle-sized one as bald as a cue ball. They were chattering excitedly amongst themselves in Spanish, but stopped immediately when Hawkeye entered the room. Now they beamed at him.

  “Any time you’re ready, Moosenose,” a man standing behind a television camera said.

  Moosenose, top hat square on his head, turned and beamed at the camera.

  “Hello, out there in TV-land,” he said. “This is your friend, the Honorable Moose . . . T. Bascomb Bartlett, fifth-term mayor of our fair city of Spruce Harbor. This is a proud day for all of us. We have right here in our office three gentlemen who have come all the way from Miami, Florida, to pay tribute to one of the fine physicians of the Spruce Harbor Medical Center.” He gestured to the three strangers. They joined him, somewhat nervously, in front of the camera. So did Jerome P. McGrory.

  Moosenose, frankly, looked a little miffed, but he rose to the occasion.

  “And this, of course, well known to all of you, is that distinguished attorney-at-law, Jerome P. McGrory, public relations director of the Spruce Harbor Chamber of Commerce, who only two days ago announced that he would, in the public interest, abandon his thriving practice of law for public service. He is seeking the office of district attorney.”

  Jerome P. McGrory put his hands over his head, joined, in the manner of a winning prize-fighter.

  “Come up here, Hawkeye,” His Honor the Mayor said. If it appeared to the television viewers that Dr. Pierce was being pushed before the cameras, he was.

  He turned and glowered at someone off camera and then faced His Honor the Mayor.

  “This is our own Dr. B. F. Pierce,” Moosenose said, “who, I am proud to say, is my lifelong friend.” Dr. Pierce looked a little ill.

  “Unfortunately,” Moosenose went on, “we were so pressed for time before this spontaneous broadcast that I didn’t get these gentlemen’s names.
It doesn’t really matter—they can’t speak English anyway.”

  The three Cuban gentlemen were beaming at Dr. Pierce. His Honor the Mayor snatched a shield-like placque from the hands of the short fat one.

  “I will read it to you,” Moosenose said, and proceeded to do so. “ ‘Presented to Dr. B. F. Pierce by the Cuban Refugee Association as a small tribute to his nobility in the practice of his profession.’ ”

  Hawkeye looked positively ill.

  His Honor thrust the placque at him, catching him by surprise.

  “There you are, Dr. Pierce,” Moosenose said. “Now, my lifelong friend, isn’t there something you’d like to say to all the people out there in TV-land?”

  Trapper John sat up. It was his considered judgment, based on his medical experience and long association with Hawkeye, that one of two things was going to happen. Hawkeye was either going to be physically ill (with a little luck, he thought, all over Moosenose’s MAYOR sash), or he was going to punch Moosenose in the nose. Moosenose was called Moosenose because his nostrils were flat and exposed. The major reason they were flat and exposed was that Hawkeye Pierce had, from the age of five, found it necessary to regularly punch his lifelong friend in the snoot.

  Whichever actually transpired, it would be long remembered out there in TV-land, and Trapper John was determined to have it captured on film. He raised his camera to his eye. He was somewhat surprised to see Hawkeye smiling.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” Hawkeye said quite smoothly, “I don’t really know how to respond to all this.”

  There was a pregnant pause. “I don’t really feel I can accept this,” Hawkeye went on. “The word ‘nobility’ has been mentioned. I have been a Boy Scout, a physician, an honorary member of the Knights of Columbus, a member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, and a Classroom Daddy for the fifth grade at Spruce Harbor Elementary School. But I have only done one noble thing in my life, and treating Juan Francisco wasn’t it.”

  His Honor the Mayor looked as if he had been struck with deep emotion.

  “Dr. Pierce,” he said, “Hawkeye . . . would you tell us all, your old friends and admirers, these foreigners from Miami, Florida, and all the folks out there in TV-land what that was?”

  “What what was?”

  “The one noble thing you did in your life?”

  “Certainly,” Hawkeye said. He beamed at His Honor the Mayor, Political Hopeful McGrory, and all the folks out there in TV-land. “One time I got to cheat a politician.”

  While the languages are far from identical, there is enough similarity between Italian and Spanish to permit a certain level of communication. With this in mind, Hawkeye took the short fat Cuban by the arm and led him out of His Honor the Mayor’s office, even before the political personage could manage to close his mouth, in search of one Wrong Way Napolitano. Mr. Napolitano was the proprietor of the Spruce Harbor International Airport,* and of Italian descent.

  (* Before a chartered DC-3 bound from Boston to Montreal had become lost and been forced to land at the facility for fuel, it was known as the Napolitano Truck Farm & Crop-Dusting Service. The change of name was the inspiration of the Spruce Harbor Chamber of Commerce.)

  The other Cuban gentlemen tagged along, as, of course, did Trapper John. He hadn’t gotten the photograph he had hoped for of Hawkeye punching His Honor, but the mayor’s face after Hawkeye’s remarks had been a perfectly satisfactory substitute.

  Within ten minutes, they were sitting around one of the wooden tables at the Bide-a-While Pool Hall/ Ladies Served Fresh Lobsters & Clams Daily Restaurant and Saloon, Inc. Mr. Napolitano functioned as interpreter while the proprietor of the establishment, Stanley K. Warczinski, Sr., and his good lady brought pitchers of beer and trays of steaming lobsters to the table.

  It came out that the Cuban gentlemen had a dual purpose in coming to Spruce Harbor. One of the reasons they were grateful to Hawkeye was that there had been no question of payment at the hospital. Juan Francisco had been treated and released and the question of money hadn’t even come up.

  “Tell them not to worry about it,” Hawkeye said. “It’s been taken care of.”

  The short fat Cuban gentleman listened intently as the message was roughly translated. Something, Hawkeye and Trapper John saw, had gone wrong during the translation. People who are told that hospital bills are taken care of do not normally get red in the face, smack their foreheads with the palms of their hands, and otherwise act as if someone had questioned the marital status of their grandparents.

  The short fat gentleman stood up, dipped into his pocket, and with some difficulty came out with a roll of one-hundred-dollar bills large enough to choke the proverbial horse.

  One by one, he tossed them onto the table, meanwhile keeping up a steady exchange with his two friends.

  “What’s he say?” Hawkeye asked.

  “He says just tell him how much,” Wrong Way answered, staring bug-eyed at the growing pile of bills.

  “Enough is enough,” Hawkeye said.

  “Ha!” the short fat Cuban gentleman said, glowering at him.

  Finally, however, he ran out of money. He pointed indignantly at the tall thin Cuban gentleman, who rose, extracted a Moroccan leather wallet from his suitcoat breast pocket, and began to peel even more one-hundred-dollar notes from it. They fluttered down onto the growing pile on the table.

  Hawkeye and Trapper John watched now in silent fascination until his supply of money was exhausted.

  The tall thin Cuban gentleman looked at Hawkeye, snorted, said, “Ha!” and sat down. The middle-sized one now stood up. Instead of money, he threw a thick bundle of traveler’s checks onto the table. They were in the denomination of five hundred dollars.

  Then all three of the Cubans sat back and looked expectantly at them.

  Hawkeye carefully gathered the money together in a pile, laid the stack of traveler’s checks on top, and pushed it back toward them. Acting as one man, they pushed in the other direction.

  “Wrong Way,” Hawkeye said, “tell them that Horsey paid the bill. Tell them about Horsey.”

  “How can you explain Horsey to anybody?” Wrong Way asked, quite reasonably.

  “Try, Wrong Way,” Trapper John ordered.

  Wrong Way’s efforts, while valiant, were not very successful.

  At this point, Esther Flanagan, R.N., unquestioned ruler of the Spruce Harbor Medical Center’s surgical wing, entered the establishment.

  “This is a fine thing,” she said indignantly. “There I am, waiting around for you guys in the office, and here you are, in the flushest poker game I’ve seen in years.” She looked around the table, fished under the money, and then inquired, “Where’re the cards?”

  “What did she say?” the short fat Cuban gentleman asked in Spanish.

  “I asked where the cards are,” Esther Flanagan replied, in Spanish.

  “Flanagan, where did you learn how to speak Spanish?” Hawkeye asked.

  “I did two tours at the naval hospital in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba,” Lt. Cmdr. E. Flanagan, U.S.N., Retired, replied. “How else did you think I was translating for Juan Francisco?”

  “You know Juan Francisco?” the short fat Cuban asked, still in Spanish.

  “Of course I know Juan Francisco. Who are you guys, anyway?”

  “I am his Uncle Juan,” the short fat one said. “And this is his Uncle Carlos, and this is his Uncle Salvador.”

  “Well, I’m pleased to meet you,” Flanagan said, shaking hands. “Who’s dealing?”

  “We wish to pay Juan Francisco’s bill,” the short fat Cuban, Uncle Juan, said.

  “And we don’t seem to have brought enough money,” Uncle Salvador said. “I had heard that medical costs had gone up, but this is ridiculous.”

  “I am beginning to change my opinion about the noble Dr. Hawkeye,” Uncle Carlos said.

  “What’s with you, Hawkeye?” Esther Flanagan said rather coldly.

  “Flanagan, please tell them that Horsey paid the bill,” Ha
wkeye said. Flanagan did so.

  “They want to give the money back,” Flanagan reported.

  “That would hurt Horsey’s feelings,” Trapper John said. “Tell them that.”

  She did.

  “They want to know what they should do with it, then,” Flanagan reported.

  “Nurse Flanagan . . .” Trapper John began with a smile.

  “Shut up, Trapper,” Flanagan said quickly, and then turned to the uncles and gave a little speech, the only parts of which Trapper John and Hawkeye understood were the words “Ms. Prudence MacDonald Memorial School of Nursing.”*

  (* The chief of nursing education at the MacDonald School of Nursing was Margaret Houlihan Wachauf Wilson, R.N., Lt. Col., Army Nurse Corps, Retired, who had once served in the 4077th MASH with Doctors Pierce and McIntyre. The details of her postwar career may be found, for those with an interest in the life of a retiree, in M*A*S*H Goes to New Orleans and in her pseudononymous autobiography, God, Medicine and Me, by “Reverend Mother Emeritus,” published by the Joyful Practices Press, Manhattan, Kansas. (It is 356 pages long, illustrated, and has an index.))

  The uncles looked at each other, raised their eyebrows, nodded, picked up the money and the traveler’s checks, and then smiled at Hawkeye and Trapper John.

  Uncle Carlos said something to Hawkeye, and then gave him a little bow.

  “What did he say?” Hawkeye asked, bowing back.

  “He apologizes for thinking you were a bandit,” Flanagan said. “And they will be happy to make a contribution in your name to the Ms. Prudence MacDonald Memorial School of Nursing, of New Orleans.”

  “Did you tell him that Ms. Prudence MacDonald is still among the living?” Trapper John inquired.

  “I told him that it’s a fine school of nursing for girls who have little money, and that it’s in Horsey’s hometown,” Flanagan said. “That was enough.”

  “She’s right, Trapper,” Hawkeye said. “Now let’s eat.”

  Over dinner, with Flanagan translating, Hawkeye and Trapper John learned that sometimes the term refugee is a trifle misleading. While uncles Salvador, Juan, and Carlos—as well as Juan Francisco—were indeed refugees from Fidel Castro’s Cuba, they were not what one could term welfare clients.