MASH 13 MASH goes to Montreal

by Richard Hooker+William Butterworth

  “Are you talking about our Reverend Mother Emeritus?” Scarlet asked.

  “I’m afraid so,” Hawkeye said.

  “What do you mean, ‘our Reverend Mother Emeritus’?” Colonel Charles asked, somewhat confused.

  “She’s the one who got Uncle Hiram to take a bath,” Scarlett said. “And the one who was going to marry us, until she remembered that Bubba’s mother would like to be there.”

  “I’ve been thinking about that, Little Lady,” Bubba said. “It seems only fair that if my mother is at our joining together in the bonds of wedded bliss, your parents should also be there.”

  “I realize that this makes me sound like a cold, cruel and ungrateful daughter,” Scarlett said. “But I have dreamed since I was a little girl of my wedding day, of walking down the aisle to be joined together, till death do us part, to my own beloved husband. I don’t want that ruined by my father giving one of his speeches and my mother waving her damned pompons.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “I’d rather not talk about it any more, Dr. McIntyre, if you don’t mind.”

  “Whatever you say, honey,” Dr. McIntyre replied.

  “I don’t suppose there’s some place in this quaint little village of yours where a man could get a drink, is there?” Colonel Charles inquired.

  “By the wildest imaginable coincidence, Colonel,” Hawkeye said, “there is. I propose that we adjourn to the Bide-a-While. We can make sleeping arrangements for the lovebirds while we’re there.”

  Scarlett flushed and squeezed Bubba’s hand. Bubba tried to look nonchalant.

  “Bubba goes to my house,” Trapper John said. “And Scarlett to yours.”

  The smiles on the lovebirds faded.

  “You’re a party pooper, McIntyre,” Hawkeye said, softly, to him. “I’ve always said that.”

  The Bide-a-While Pool Hall, Ladies Served, Fresh Clams & Lobsters Daily Restaurant & Saloon, Inc., Stanley K. Warczinski, Sr., owner & manager, drink Coca-Cola was widely known along the Rock Bound Coast not only because its sign was the largest sign ever erected by the good people of the Coca-Cola Company for an individual business,* and not only because the pile of empty beer cans and whiskey bottles behind it is the second largest east of the Mississippi, nor even for its reputation as the “in” place among Spruce Harbor’s motorboating set, but rather because, on occasion, departing from his usual glum and surly attitude, the proprietor will sometimes develop, at first sight, an instant affection for a new customer, and thereafter lavish unparalleled hospitality on him/her. While it is true that his mood strikes Mr. Warczinski only after he has been imbibing a bit more than he should, this does not detract from the event for it is quite difficult, even for those who know him well, to detect the difference between Warczinski sober and Warczinski drunk.

  (* The Coca-Cola representative had told Mr. Warczinski that he could have the sign absolutely free of charge, and that he could advertise his business in any (nonobscene, of course) way he chose, just so long as it said Coca-Cola somewhere on it. The representative is no longer associated with the Coca-Cola Company.)

  On this occasion, Mr. Warczinski (beneath whose massive, hairy chest there beat the heart of a romantic; his hero was Frederick Chopin) developed, the moment he saw the ease with which Bubba moved aside the two fifty-gallon beer kegs that barred the door in order to permit Scarlett to pass, an instant affection for the both of them.

  “Despite those pearly white teeth and that massive chest,” Stanley said, moving with surprising grace for his bulk from the barstool on which he had been sitting and philosophizing to the door, “there’s mixed blood in you. But half a Pole is better than no Pole at all, as I always say. On the other hand, your lady friend, I can tell from the blonde hair and those boobs, is pure Pole!”

  “Watch it, Stanley!” Hawkeye warned.

  “I thought I’d seen the last of you,” Colonel Charles said. “I’d hoped you were lost at sea!”

  Stanley K. Warczinski looked at Colonel Charles for a moment with a look of bafflement, not unlike that of an elephant who has just ingested a bunch of plastic bananas, and then recognition dawned.

  “Major Charles!” he said, and swept the colonel off his feet and kissed him wetly on each cheek. “I haven’t seen you since I threw you off the junk.”

  “You were drunk then, too, as I recall. Set me down, you overstuffed Polack!”

  “Threw him off the junk, you said, Stanley?” Trapper John inquired.

  “The major said the next time he caught me making vodka on the junk’s still, he’d throw the still over the side. I said if he threw the still over the side, I’d throw him over the side. He did and he did and I did. But there were no hard feelings.”

  “The only reason I didn’t shoot you when I got back from the hospital was because they told me you’d been lost at sea,” the colonel said.

  “I was,” Stanley said. “But the navy found me.”

  “I’ve never liked the navy,” Colonel Charles said.

  “This is one of the happiest moments of my life,” Stanley K. Warczinski said, as tears rolled down his sagging, unshaven cheeks. “Reunited with my commanding officer, after all these years!”

  “Not another crying drunk, Warczinski,” Colonel Charles pleaded. “I couldn’t stand that again.”

  “Momma,” Stanley shouted to Mrs. Warczinski. “Bring in a couple of gallons of the good vodka!”

  “It is a pleasure, sir,” Bubba said, “to meet a fellow veteran.”

  “Tell me all about you and this Polish beauty, son!” Stanley said.

  “I’m not Polish,” Scarlett said.

  “Nonsense,” Stanley said. “Blood tells. But what’s a nice Polish girl like you doing with Pierce, McIntyre and this bald-headed dirty old man?”

  “Bubba and I are going to be married, Mr. Warczinski,” Scarlett said.

  “And I,” Stanley said, “Stanley K. Warczinski, Sr., will provide the traditional Polish wedding feast! It’s the least one Pole can do for another!”

  “The wedding, Stanley,” Hawkeye said, “won’t take place just yet.”

  “Not until tomorrow,” Scarlett said.

  “Perhaps as late as tomorrow afternoon,” Bubba agreed.

  The telephone rang. Stanley grabbed it, listened momentarily, said, “He’s not here,” and hung up. Then he turned to Hawkeye and announced, “That was for you.”

  “You didn’t happen to catch who it was calling, did you?”

  “It was the long-distance operator,” Stanley replied.

  “Did she say, by any chance, who was calling and from where?”

  “Esther Flanagan was calling from Montreal,” Stanley replied. At that moment, the telephone rang again.

  “If that’s for me, Stanley,” Hawkeye said, quickly, “I’ll take it.”

  “Answer it yourself then,” Stanley snapped. “Momma, where the hell is that vodka?”

  Hawkeye took the telephone.

  ‘The Bide-a-While,” he said.

  “Hawkeye, Hazel,” Hazel Heidenheimer said. “I thought you’d be there.”

  “Well, you were right,” Hawkeye said. “How much did you win?”

  “There’s a Rolls-Royce outside, Hawkeye,” Hazel said.

  “A Rolls-Royce?”

  “With two drunks in it.”

  “I’m afraid to ask what a Rolls-Royce with two drunks in it has to do with me,” Hawkeye replied. “But curiosity has got the better of me.”

  “One of the drunks is that funny-talking big ape from Cambridge,” Hazel said.

  “You are referring, Hazel, to Matthew Q. Framingham VI, executive secretary of the Framingham Theosophical Foundation?”

  “You got it,” she said.

  “And the lady?”

  “I don’t know. Both of them are out like a light. The chauffeur said that they came here to see you, that the lady met the big ape in Boston, at the airport.”

  Hawkeye looked over his shoulder to see if Bubba was w
ithin earshot. When he saw that he was not, he went on: “Hazel, get a couple of practical nurses, and unload the lady. Put her to bed in a private room, put a COMPLETE REST, DO NOT DISTURB sign on the door. As a humanitarian gesture, you’d better put a couple of Alka-Seltzers on the bedside table, too.”

  “Gotcha,” she said. “And the big ape?”

  “Send him over here,” Hawkeye said.

  “What’s this all about, Hawkeye?”

  “I made a big mistake, Hazel,” Hawkeye confessed. “I told the big ape to do whatever he thought was necessary to keep the lady off my back.”

  “Who is she?” Hazel said.

  “I wouldn’t want this to get out, Hazel,” Hawkeye said, “but she’s somebody’s mother.”

  “I understand completely,” Hazel said. “I’ll take care of everything.”

  Hawkeye still had his hand on the telephone, hanging it up, when it rang again.

  “Bide-a-While,” he said.

  “If you know what’s good for you, you overstuffed Polish sausage, you’ll get Hawkeye on the horn, and right now!”

  “This is Dr. Pierce,” Hawkeye replied. “With whom do I have the pleasure of speaking, as if I didn’t know?”

  “Dr. Pierce,” Esther Flanagan said, very shyly, “this is Esther Flanagan.”

  “How’s things in Montreal?” Hawkeye inquired.

  “Oh, things are just sublime!” Esther said.

  “Sublime?”

  “Sublime,” Esther confirmed. “Dr. Pierce, you are, one of the best friends I have in the world,” Esther went on.

  “Well, I’m happy if I am, but if I am, why don’t you call me Hawkeye like you usually do?”

  “I have a great favor to ask of you, one I wouldn’t dare ask if I didn’t regard you as my most respected friend,” Esther said.

  “Name it,” Hawkeye said.

  “Give me away,” Esther said.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Give me away to Henri Flambeau, I mean.”

  “To who?”

  “Henri Flambeau,” Esther repeated.

  “I never heard of him,” Hawkeye said. “And why should I give you to him?”

  “In marriage, I mean,” Esther said. “Henri has just asked me to be his bride.”

  “Esther, not you, too!” Hawkeye said. “One pair of overheated lovebirds is all I can handle at one time.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I said, how nice for you,” Hawkeye replied.

  “Then you will?”

  “Then I will what?”

  “Give me away.”

  “Marriage, Esther,” Hawkeye began, “is not something to be entered into frivolously or lightly. And besides, what about Hiram?”

  “Don’t be silly, Hawkeye,” Esther said. “Why should I marry a dirty old bearded buffalo rancher when a gentleman, one affiliated with the provincial government in a communications capacity, has asked me to become his blushing bride?”

  “You may have a point,” Hawkeye said. “But if you’re asking for my advice, Esther, you’ll consider this carefully, over a reasonable period of time.”

  “I’m not asking your advice,” Esther, sounding like Esther normally sounded, snapped. “Are you going to give me away or not?”

  “Can I bring Trapper John with me, to give me courage?” he asked.

  “Of course, you can,” she said. “I want you and Trapper John to be friends with my Henri right from the beginning!”

  “When, to coin a phrase, do you plan to tie the knot?”

  “Just as soon as you get here,” she said. “A man of Henri’s influence, him being associated with the provincial government and all, can just cut through the red tape like a buzz saw through hot peanut butter.”

  “Where are you, Esther?”

  “I’m in the Jean Claude Killy Suite of the Vieux Montreal Howard Johnson’s Motel,” she said. “How soon can you get here?”

  “We’re on our way,” Hawkeye said.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Now, see here, Sadie,”* Lance Fairbanks said, just as indignantly as he knew how, “there are limits to the sacrifices* I am willing to make for my profession. I’ve already been to Texas, and I still shudder to think of the crude and cruel things they said to Brucie and me down there. I have no intention of going to Maine.”

  (* Although it was one of the most closely guarded secrets of Sydney Prescott & Associates, it was whispered about that Ms. Sydney Prescott had gone through the first twenty-one years of her life with the name given on her birth certificate, Sadie Krausnitz. Unlike most whispers, this one was right on the target.)

  “Don’t call me Sadie, Elroy,” Sydney said. “I’ve told you that before.”

  “A rose by whatever name, so to speak,” Lance said. “I’m not going to Maine, and that’s all there is to it! I think Bubba meant every word he said about the rule he had in the Green Berets that he brought home with him.”

  “What rule are you talking about?” Sydney asked.

  “He said they had a rule in the Green Berets that if someone like me or Brucie came within an imaginary six-foot circle around them, they broke their legs. And I just know in my heart that he meant it!”

  “Well, then, all you have to do is keep your hands to yourself, Lance, and stay six feet away from him. I told you this was business, not pleasure.”

  “Oh, phooey!” Lance said.

  “You mean to tell me you don’t want to become the official personal photographer to the president of the United States?” Sydney asked.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “When I am presidential press secretary in the Alamo Jones administration,” Sydney said, “I’ll be in a position to put in a very good word for you, Lance, when the question of official personal photographer to the president comes up.”

  “You don’t mean to sit there with a straight face and tell me you think that brainless ex-football player, that smiling ex-farmboy, El Teetho, stands a chance to actually become president of the United States, do you?”

  “Think about it, Lance,” Sydney said. “Stranger things have happened, President-wise.”

  “What exactly am I supposed to do in Maine?” Lance asked. “I can see that my country is calling.”

  “All we have to do is bust up this romance,” Sydney said. “And it’s 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, here we come!” Sydney said. “We’ll think of something.”

  “Can Brucie come along?” Lance asked. “He gets so depressed when I leave him behind with nothing to do but water our rubber plant.”

  “If you think it necessary,” Sydney said. She picked up the telephone and dialed a number.

  “Around-the-World Travel Agency?” she said. “Sydney Prescott of Sydney Prescott & Associates, calling personally. Let me speak with someone important.” There was a moment’s delay, and then she said, “I need three seats, two tourist and one first-class, on the very next flight to Spruce Harbor, Maine.” There was another pause, this time a rather longer one. “What do you mean, there’s no way to get there from here?” she exploded. Another pause. “Well, if that’s the way it has to be, that’s the way it has to be. Damn the expense! Charter an airplane, and send the bill to the Honorable Alamo Jones, M.C.”

  They left the office of Sydney Prescott & Associates a few minutes later, bound, via a stop on Washington Mews to pick up Brucie, for John F. Kennedy International Airport to meet their chartered plane for the flight to the wilds of Maine.

  They were not, however, as they naturally presumed, alone. Another taxicab, its driver urged to new heights of recklessness by Ida-Sue Jones, who fed him a steady stream of twenty-dollar bills, stayed right on their bumper.

  In the second cab, as Lance sort of floated into the Washington Mews apartment to fetch Brucie, Ida-Sue turned to the congressman and said, “You see, Stupid, I was right again.”

  “You’re always right, Ida-Sue,” the congressman agreed. “I know that.”

  “You keep forgetting it,
” she said. “I knew that horrible woman knew where my little Scarlett and/or poor crazy Uncle Hiram was.”

  “Who would have thought it possible that my darling daughter and/or poor crazy Uncle Hiram would wind up in an apartment in a New York slum like this.”

  “I don’t think they’re in there, Alamo, and this isn’t a slum. This is a very select neighborhood.”

  “You’re kidding!”

  Lance, holding Brucie by the hand, came rushing back out of the apartment, shutting off any further conversation. With Ida-Sue and Alamo in close pursuit, they drove on to John F. Kennedy.

  “Just think, Alamo,” Ida-Sue said, “one day this airfield will be the Alamo Jones International Airport.”

  “But it’s already got a name,” he protested.

  “And it had a name before they called it John F. Kennedy,” Ida-Sue replied. “Fame passes, Alamo. The Kennedy family will just have to do what the Idlewild family did: take their lumps, step out of the spot light, and realize that time marches on.”

  “The Idlewild family?”

  “That’s what it was before it was Kennedy,” Ida-Sue said. “He was vice-president under Millard G. Fillmore.” Ida-Sue and Alamo watched as Sydney, Lance and Brucie boarded the chartered airplane and prepared to take off. Then they rushed across the field to where Air Force 909, the aircraft assigned to Congressman Jones by the grateful taxpayers for his travel in the public interest, sat waiting.

  “Follow that airplane!” Ida-Sue cried, as she jumped aboard. She turned to speak to her husband, who was shaking hands with the man with the fire extinguisher. “Get on the plane, Dummy!” she barked. “Time’s a-wasting!”

  Meanwhile, back at the Bide-a-While, Dr. Benjamin Franklin Pierce was in deep conversation with Dr. John Francis Xavier McIntyre. They were huddled, tete-à-tete, at the end of the bar, between the gallon jar of pickled eggs and the pigs knuckles.

  “Are you sure Esther is serious?” Trapper John asked. “I thought she was just kidding about having a gentleman admirer.”