Between the dark and the daylight, When the night begins to lower, Comes a crisis in the day's occupation Which is known as the prostitutes' hour.
Dr. Moore is pleased with this. Ninety percent of his patients can't read well enough to dig it. With the other 10 percent, it becomes a conversation piece and adds to the legend of Doggy Moore.
In 1969, Bette Bang Bang, because the economy was burgeoning and because she, Mattress Mary and Made Marion were getting a mite tired, took on three new girls. Their real names, if they have any, are unknown, so Doggy Moore named them Graveyard Alice, Infected Allegra, and Edie with the Great Big Pair. They are named quite inappropriately after grav Alice and laughing Allegra and Edith with golden hair, the heroines of Longfellow's poem paraphrased on Doggy's plaque.
Of the three, Graveyard Alice, a six-foot, one-hundred-and-seventy-pound redhead, is outstanding. In her two years there on the job, two of her customers, clearly overmatched, have suffered fatal myocardial infarctions while partaking of her favors. An enterprising local funeral director offered, for five bucks, flight insurance to each of Alice's customers. He guaranteed complete, discreet saddle-to-the-grave service to any subscriber who felt that, should all not go well, his image might be tarnished by cooling out in a whorehouse. This, plus Doggy Moore's statement that twenty minutes with Alice is the equivalent, in exercise, to jogging three miles and a helluva lot more fun, has made her a busy girl.
At ten forty-five the four surgeons left the party to keep the rendezvous on Elm Street. Crazy Horse, with bird suit, waited patiently in his Eldorado a cautious fifty yards east of the whorehouse. Bette Bang Bang was a trifle disconcerted when five such prominent citizens, none of them a customer, and one of them with a bird suit, crossed her threshold. Addressing Hawkeye, j she exclaimed, "What the hell do you guys want?" . "Be easy, Bette," Hawkeye said soothingly. "We just wanta see Halfaman. We got a new suit for him."
Crazy Horse Weinstein held up the bird suit.
"What the christ kind of a suit izzat?" demanded Bette.
"Vassar?" asked Trapper.
"No, I believe Bette was Wellesley," said Hawkeye, who explained. "Latest thing from Brooks Brothers, Bette. Just right for Halfaman. It's kind of like a bird suit."
Bette Bang Bang sensing that she might be in over her depth, sighed and said, "Halfaman's in the kitchen, restin' up for Alice. He goes on in fifteen minutes."
The group moved to the kitchen where Halfaman Timberlake, graying, handsome, horny, happy and normally somewhat confused, was drinking beer and staring vacantly at a TV set. "How they goin' Halfaman?" Hawkeye asked.
"Oh, hi, Hawk."
"We got a job for you, Halfaman," said Spearchucker, "and we got a new suit for you. We'll give you the suit if you'll wear it in my back yard tomorrow morning."
It figures that the average guy presented with a bird suit by Crazy Horse Weinstein, would categorically reject it. Halfaman is not the average guy. He put on the suit, flapped his wings and babbled, more or less incoherently, with what seemed to be pleasure.
"Halfaman learns quick," observed Duke. "He even talks like a bird."
"We gotta have a trial run," Hawkeye declared. "We gotta find out whether he seems authentic. We can't just send him cold into Chucker's back yard without practice. After all, they're pro bird-watchers. They'll spot a phony in a second."
"Okay," said Crazy Horse. "Let him try it out on Graveyard Alice. If she responds, maybe the birdwatchers will."
Halfaman was warming to his role and becoming more and more excited as his date with Graveyard Alice approached. Bette Bang Bang, entering the kitchen to give Halfaman the two-minute alert, saw him hopping like a bird, flapping his wings like a bird and looking pretty much like a bird.
"Sweet Jesus," exclaimed Bette. "You ain't gonna send him to Alice like that? He'll scare her to death.''
"What's wrong with a nice clean bird after some of your regular customers?" demanded Hawkeye, who turned to the bird and said, "Hop to it, Halfaman."
Trapper John Mclntyre, basically a philosopher and aware of current trends, said to the group, "Surely with all the government subsidized research on human behavior, there must have been papers written about this sort of situation. Perhaps before sending a guy in a bird suit into a prostitute's room we should have read up off it."
Turning to Bette Bang Bang, Duke said, "Hey, Bette, get the latest Quarterly Cumulative Medical Index and look up 'Bird suits; effect on prostitutes.' "
"Huh?"
"It might be under 'Prostitutes; reaction to bird suits,' " said Hawkeye.
"Of course," said Trapper, "this may be a variant that has escaped Big Brother."
"When you come right down to it, and regardless of scientific research," observed Crazy Horse Weinstein, "you don't have to be too smart to figure that any broad, even Graveyard Alice, is going to react negatively to Halfaman Timberlake in a bird suit."
If Crazy Horse had presented this theory to the proper authorities, he might have received fifty G's over a two-year period to prove it. No amount of research, however, could have added to the Weinstein theory, which was confirmed immediately by Graveyard Alice. She ran naked from her room screaming, "It's a big bird. A big sonovabitch of a bird."
"You're right, Alice," Hawkeye assured her. "Daddy was a whippoorwill and mommy was a Saint Bernard."
"That's no ordinary bird, honey," explained Spearchucker Jones. "That's a black-headed grosbeak and he came all the way from Saskatchewan to meet you."
Alice, suddenly aware of her nakedness, coveredherself with a bathrobe which Bette Bang Bang gave her. "I don't care where he came from," Alice protested. "I ain't takin' care of no bird."
"Would you say, Alice," asked Trapper, "that you are ecologically oriented?"
"What the hell are you talkin' about?"
"It's very simple, Alice," explained Hawkeye. "This is a very rare bird, and he's a very horny bird. The bird book says a black-headed grosbeak's gotta make love once a week or his feathers fall off. You wouldn't want that to happen,would you?"
Graveyard Alice, indicating no ecological orientation, said, "I don't care if his feathers fall off. I ain't servicin' no bird."
While this dialogue progressed in the hallway, Half- nman, The Greatest Black-Headed Grosbeak of Them All, his love unrequited, hopped and flew out of Alice's room and tried other rooms. Three rooms away, where Edie with the Great Big Pair was pacifying Jocko Allcock, Halfaman discovered that the door was not locked. He hopped in, flapping his wings. In a falsetto voice with undertones of bass, he stated, "Peep, peep."
Jocko, normally a cool head and usually privy to all that was going on, had not been involved in this action. In panic, he raced for the door and charged down the hall toward the bird discussion group, where Graveyard Alice, despite the blandishments of the surgeons, still was expressing her disinclination to enter into any business agreement, regardless of price, with a bird, however rare, however great his need.
"Evenin,' Jocko," said Hawkeye to the late arrival who stopped, confused and naked, in midflight and babbled incoherently in a language which, to the trained ear, sounded like gutter invective. "What seems to be your major maladjustment?"
"I hope y'all ain't changed over, Jocko," said Duke. "Ain't none of us here interested, but if we were, your credential would be impressive, even in its obviously obtunded state."
Mr. Jocko Allcock's possible response was interrupted by The Greatest Grosbeak who joined the group and stated once more, "Peep, peep." At this point, Dr. Spearchucker Jones decided that Halfaman's grosbea" credibility had been conclusively established. "Okay, folks," he said, "Halfaman has passed the test. You come to my house tomorrow morning at eleven o'clock, Halfaman, with your new suit. Pleasant evening everybody. We must get back to our party."
Jocko and Alice and Edie were somewhat put out, but forgave all when the situation was explained to them. Graveyard Alice insisted on taking care of Halfaman, bird suit and all, and later proclaimed that "birds
ain't bad."
Dr. Spearchucker Jones has a swimming pool in his back yard and, behind it, a pool house. At 11:15 on Sunday morning, The Greatest Black-Headed Grossbeak suddenly appeared on the roof of the pool house, flapping his great wings, preening, exposing his orange underparts and white wing patches.
In Spearchucker's kitchen, Mrs. Evelyn Jones, her son, Oliver Wendell Jones, Jr., and the bird-watcher platoon of the moment gasped and babbled in wonderment and confusion.
In the back yard, the star of the show, blown off course in his annual migration from Saskatchewan to Mexico, sensed that the good tiling he'd had going for him had come to an end. He filled his belly with all the bird food he could handle and still get airborne, waved his wings in a goodbye salute, and took off for a winter in Acapulco. At four o'clock in the afternoon, Dr. Hawkeye Pierce was watching the '49ers, who were losing to the Lions. To his wife, Mary, he said, "This Willard is a good bread-and-butter runner, but Frisco hasn't had anybody could really move the ball since Spearchucker retired."
The doorbell rang. "Who the hell is that?" growled Hawkeye. "Whoever it is, I'm not at home. I wanta watch the game. I'll run upstairs and watch from under the bed while you ditch the company."
"Oh, you're so nice," said Mary, "but I'll take care of it."
Moments later Mary, with the guest, entered the bedroom. "Come out from under the bed," she ordered. "It's only Spearchucker."
"Congratulations," said Spearchucker, sounding less than happy. "You got a house guest for a week. I can't go to a motel, the way I look."
Hawkeye, emerging from beneath the bed, inspected his guest and said, "Did you get the number of the truck that ran over you? Christ Almighty, with an eye that black, the rest of you looks white."
"Just get me a drink," ordered Spearchucker.
"What happened?" asked Hawkeye a few minutes later, handing his guest a big bourbon and coke.
"Evelyn was pretty upset about Halfaman busting up the bird-watchers. She's thrown me out for a week."
"Yeah, but how about the truck?"
"It wasn't a truck. Olly, my kid, was bothered about the bird, too, but it might have been okay if I'd kept my mouth shut about the Afro hair. I guess I'll never learn. I thought I could still handle him."
"Grin," suggested Hawkeye.
The phone rang and Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., said, "Hey, Uncle Hawk, this is Oily. Is Uncle Tom there?"
"Yeah."
"Is he mad?"
"Upset, I guess, but not mad. What's going on with you two?"
"We're having an identity crisis, Uncle Hawk," explained Olly.
"Come on, Olly, for chrissake," said Hawkeye. "Don't give me that hosshit. What do you want?"
"Well," said Olly, "I thought I was doing okay but Mama just explained that Daddy could beat me up if he wanted to."
"Yes, Oily," said Hawkeye, "he could. You wanta talk to him?"
"No, not now. Just tell him to come home. Mama's got the clippers out. She's on kind of a kick. She's gonna cut my hair and she's asked Halfaman to dinner and she says my father better get back here, or he'll really be in trouble."
"I'll give him the message," said Uncle Hawkeye.
THE RETURN OF BOOM-BOOM BENNER
IN 1971, twelve years after Doctors Trapper John Mclntyre, Hawkeye Pierce, Spearchucker Jones and Duke Forrest started the Finestkind Clinic and Fish Market, Dr. Mclntyre, Chief of Cardiovascular Surgery at Spruce Harbor General Hospital, decided that he needed a fulltime assistant. His decision came on April 5 after he had performed a particularly long and tedious open heart operation. His assistant, Dr. Hawkeye Pierce, said as they left the operating room, "For chrissake, in the time I spend on one of these cases I could jerk six gallbladders, play nine holes of golf and delight my wife. Why don't you get some young guy to help you?"
"Guess I will," said Trapper. "Maybe I can get that big kid who's working for John Morley at London Hospital. I hear he's a rampaging genius and a touch strange and he wants to come back to the States. John asked me to keep him in mind when I was over there last month."
"What's the guy's name?" asked Hawkeye.
"Walter Benner," said Trapper. "Come to think of it, Morley told me he's from Maine."
"You don't say," replied Hawkeye, who jumped into the shower so Trapper wouldn't see him laughing.
That evening Hawkeye sent a brief note to Dr. Walter Benner at London Hospital:
Dear Boom-Boom:
Trapper John wants to hire you. Take the job. You and your wife can stay with me and Mary until you find a place to live.
So long,
Hawk
Dr. Pierce soon received from London a postcard" with a picture of Big Ben. The card said "boom-boom" and was signed "Boom-Boom."
In May, Jerry Cousens, Spruce Harbor General's enterprising PR man, announced the imminent arrival of a new cardiac surgeon. The press release stated that Dr. Walter Benner was a native of Port Waldo and a former Rhodes scholar. He had trained at the Massachusetts General Hospital and the London Hospital and was, at the age of thirty-one, a pioneer in the development of the mechanical heart and an expert in its clinical use. There was also a paragraph devoted to Dr. Benner's year as a wide receiver for the Patriots and his prowess at rugby while at Oxford.
Dr. Walter Benner, with long black hair waving over six and a half feet and two hundred and twenty pounds, arrived with his wife, Vivian, at Logan Airport on a Pan Am 747 in early June. For the flight to Spruce Harbor the Benners transferred to a Dehaviland Otter belonging to the Spruce Harbor and Interisland Air Service. The plane this day was flown by the airline's owner, the famed Italian kamikaze pilot, Mr. Wrong Way Napolitano. Wrong Way seldom pays attention to the passenger list, having no head for business, but he never fails to peruse the cabin in search of good-looking broads. Before takeoff his discerning eye settled on Vivian Benner, and he was about to make a move of some kind when her husband jumped up, extended his hand and said, "Hey, Wrong Way— boom-boom."
"Boom-Boom," said Mr. Napolitano, who twelve years earlier had taught Boom-Boom to fly and learned a language known to an exclusive group, mostly friends of Hawkeye Pierce, as Boom-Boomese. Therefore he added his greeting, "Boom-boom," which, loosely translated, meant "I'm surprised but extremely happy to see you."
Dr. Benner replied, "Boom-Boom," which meant "I'm very glad to see you, too, Wrong Way." Then he nodded toward his wife and said, "Boom-boom."
Wrong Way Napolitano assessed the slim, five foot ten, properly protuberant, gorgeous redhead, extended his hand and exclaimed, "Some jeezly boom-boom," a statement that could be easily translated.
"Oh my God," moaned Vivian Benner. "Everyone assured me there couldn't be any more like Walter."
"Walter who?" asked the pilot.
"Benner, of course."
"Never heard of him," said Wrong Way.
An hour after Wrong Way took off from Logan he brought the Otter in over Thief Island and put down softly at Spruce Harbor International Airport. Dr. and Mrs. Hawkeye Pierce and Dr. Trapper John Mclntyre were there to welcome the new heart surgeon.
"Boom-boom, Boom-Boom," said Hawkeye Pierce.
"Boom-Boom," agreed Dr. Benner, who turned to his wife and said, "Viv, this is Hawkeye."
"Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, BOOM. Finest kind," stated Dr. Pierce.
"I find your quotation from Vachel Lindsay's poem 'The Congo' piquant and poignant, although perhaps a trifle forward, considering your short acquaintance with my wife," said Dr. Benner. "However, I am in total agreement with your evaluation."
"Welcome home, Boom-Boom," said Mrs. Mary Pierce.
Walter Benner, some fifteen inches taller than Mary, lifted her off her feet, kissed her and said, "Boom- boom, Mom."
Trapper John, taking all this in, was having second thoughts about his new colleague. Hawkeye had not briefed Dr. Mclntyre.
"Hello, Dr. Benner," said Trapper bravely. "Glad to have you with us."
"Some christly boom-boom, old fellow," said Boom-
Boom, suggesting that his basic Maine idiom had bee tarnished by years spent in Oxford and London.
"I got all the trouble I need," said Trapper. "I got a wife who milks goats. What kind of a nut are you?"
"Boom-boom," said Boom-Boom.
"Yeah, Boom-boom," said Trapper, who walked to his car shaking his head and muttering under his breath.
Several days later when Dr. Goofus MacDuff, the Medical Director of Spruce Harbor General Hospital, invited Dr. Benner to his office, he was particularly unprepared. Goofus is not well prepared for anything, which is why he is the Medical Director.
MASH Mania Page 3