"I don't like it," groaned Hawkeye.
"Why not?"
"Well, it just doesn't set right with me. Mean has earned a chance. Why should he have to sail under a different flag? It'll be hard to explain to him and Evelyn, the whole family."
"A month ago," Dr. Jones reminded Hawkeye, "you were all for dipping him in chocolate and sending him to Meharry."
"I was just talkin'."
"There's nothing dishonest about it," Tip Toe explained. "It'll just save Izzy a bit of embarrassments He can justify admitting a forty-one-year-old man if a story goes with it. It's just that Mean's real story is not a winner at Mid-State Medical. If I know Izzy, he'll come up with a story."
The phone rang. "For you, Toe," said Angelo.
"Izzy? Yeah. What's up?"
"I was just saying, if I know-you, you'd come up with a story, but really, Iz, I don't know if I can get this guy to hold still for tattoos.
"If you say so, Izzy. I'll see what I can do. So long.”
The pilot faced the group. "Izzy says Meyer Morse has to have some numbers tattooed on his left foraarm. Seems they have an opening for a kid who prepped at Auschwitz."
"Oh, my holy, bleeding Christ," groaned Dr. Pierce. "There's only one way, I suspect, that Mean'll buy this. You guys don't know him as well as I do. He does not have a devious bone in his body, like all us sophisticated folk."
"Whadda ya mean?"
"He's gotta join the Hebe church for real. That way it'll be on the up and up. I suppose he'll hold still for the tattoo. As a result of World War II, although his attitude toward the Japanese remains antagonistic, he also hates Krauts."
"I may have to move out of Crabapple Cove," said Duke. "Don't believe I'd care to live in a Jewish neighborhood."
Mean came home the weekend after Wednesday's working lunch. All charges against him had long since been dropped by the Political Scientists. Alumni pressure had threatened them with a financial quandary that could serve only to increase their liberalism, so their conservatism took over. Ho Jon had spent two long nights convincing Mean that his conversion to Judaism was reasonable and justified. Ho Ion went over Mean's application to Mid-State Medical (Izzy sent it special delivery) very carefully, changing only the religious question. Mean had written "Hebe," but Ho Jon changed it to "Jewish." The implication went into Saturday morning's mail.
Within a few days Claremont (Meanstreak) Meyer Morse had been circumcised by Duke, tattooed by a minion of Wooden Leg Wilcox and, under the auspices of Tip Toe, begun his conversion. Every effort was made to keep all this quiet, but nothing is quiet for long in places like Spruce Harbor and Crabapple cove. Early on there was talk, some needling, some laughter. Hawkeye predicted that there'd be no major problem, theorizing that 6'4", 230-pound Hebes are seldom afflicted with overt anti-Semitism. As the summer progressed, Mean Morse was deeper and deeper into his new religion, declaring that he found it much more stimulating spiritually and intellectual than the Nazarenes, the Witnesses, the Spirits, the Full Gospels or the Bible Baptists, and he said, "That preacher feller, whatcha call him, the Rabbi, the sonovabitch even reads books."
There was a suggestion that Mean, to maintain his new image at the Mid-State Medical Collegiate should learn Yiddish. Tip Toe voted this down, pointing out that, despite the Phi Bete key, Mean's English was still primordial. Tip Toe suggested that Mean's best bet, for the first few months in medical school was to say as little as possible in any language.
Mean grew a bushy black beard in preparation for his new membership in the Jewish quota at Mid-State. Once he got there, he worked hard and said little. He was an object of wonder and awe to his younger classmates. Also, one gathers, fear. A month after starting medical school Mean broke up an anti-Vietnam demonstration that he felt was interfering with his educational program. He broke it up by picking up a "Puny little pink ass" in each huge paw and carrying them to the laboratory where they were supposed to be. After a few trips, the others figured they'd better get back to work.
After a couple of years at Mid-State, according to news leaked Down East by Dean Izzy Tannenbaum, there was some doubt as to exactly who was running the outfit, him or Meanstreak Morse. "It's okay, though," Izzy said. "At least we don't have any student demonstrations because Mean doesn't hold with demonstrations."
Eventually, Izzy revealed, some of the students had reason to doubt Mean's ethnic and other backgrounds. This was partly a result of interclass basketball games in which Mean demonstrated techniques virtually unknown to survivors of concentration camps. Probably the biannual visits of Mean's father-in-law, Big Benjy Pierce, did a lot to destroy Mean's credibility. Benjy, now and then, drives a load of lobsters to New York for Wooden Leg Wilcox. On these occasions he'd stop in to see Mean on the way home, parking the lobster truck in the student parking lot. On these occasions Mean would interrupt his strict work program and get drunk with his father-in-law. After a few pops, the relatives usually decided that a program of ideological revision should suddenly be added In the medical school curriculum. The program invariably began with Mean's proclamation: "Let us proceed to the Student Union and discuss life with some draft dodgers."
Even with his beard, even adorned in conservative non-clam-digging threads, Mean Morse still looked like a drill sergeant on pass from Camp Lejeune. After Benjy's third visit, Dean Tannenbaum called Tip Toe. The Dean was disturbed.
"Look, Irving," he said to Tip Toe, "you gotta do something about that animal who comes down from Maine and gets Meyer Morse all worked up. You wanna know what they did this time?"
"No," said Tip Toe.
"They shanghaied six of my kids into the Marines."
"Oh, come, Izzy. How could they do that?"
"They brought a bunch of Marine recruiters right into the Student Union and made the kids sign up, that's how they could do it. Pure intimidation."
"Oh, come on. Just the two of them couldn't intimidate a whole medical school."
"They had help. I got two black kids, fought in Nam. Your guys got them juiced, too. I figure Mean, Benjy, those two schwarzers could beat up the whole school. Some of my kids aren't what you'd call physical."
"One would certainly have to classify such behavior as slightly reprehensible," Tip Toe agreed.
"Slightly! You meshuganeh! Why just slightly?"
"Well, really, Izzy, if they'd tried harder they could easily have gotten more than six, wouldn't you say? So what happened? The Marines keep 'em?"
"Hell, no. They examined them and found them unworthy or something."
"So, what's your beef?"
"I can't have it. I don't mind Mean keeping this bunch from going crazy, but he comes on like the SS. He doesn't watch out, he's gonna be out, and me with him."
"I'll speak to Benjy," Tip Toe assured his brother.
This episode took place just before Thanksgiving, Mean's second year at medical school. After recruiting the six tigers for the Marines, Benjy, Mean and the black medical students all piled into the lobster truck and headed for a long weekend in Crabapple Cove. They got in late Wednesday afternoon. News of their exploit had preceded them. Evelyn received her husband and her father quite coolly, but was charmingly hospitable to the two medical students who weren't quite sure where they were or how they got there.
"These men are ex-Marines," Mean told Evelyn, "and they are in my class and they're the only white, er, uh, I mean, they're about the only guys, well, hell, honey, you know what I mean."
Hawkeye dropped in to invite the Morses and their guests for Thanksgiving dinner at his house.
Hawk mixed a drink and, before he could be introduced, he said to the two strangers, "Welcome, gentlemen. I see Mean brought two other Jew boys with him."
"Don't mind him, fellas," Mean ordered. "He's a bigot."
"Good," said Jack Andrews, the larger of the ex- Marines (he's doing urology down Belfast way now). "I guess we are, too. Our classmates sure as hell think so."
Thanksgiving was a success that year. The
ex- Marines initial impression of Crabapple Cove was that they wished they were back on the Mekong Delta, but the Cove grew on them. Spearchucker came down to meet them, and I guess that impressed them some.
Back at school, Meanstreak, perhaps to save his own skin, became less militant and more tolerant. When Big Benjy visited they just had a few pops with the ex-Marines and attempted no ideological revisions. During his senior year Mean was selected, for three months, to go to the University of Tel Aviv us an exchange student. This was despite the fact that his bogus background had long since been exposed. Evelyn went with him, and I guess they had quite a time.
We all went to work to get Meanstreak an internship down at Maine Medical Center in Portland. That was no problem, and he stayed there for his neurosurgical residency.
As I said backalong, there was a big party at the Bay View Cafe last night. Mean had to give a little speech. He particularly thanked the Allcock-Tannenbaum insurance agency for subsidizing his education.
At the end of the party, Dr. Jones was also asked to speak. "I can't tell you how proud my partner and I are to welcome Dr. Morse to our neurosurgical group," etc. He concluded with, "As you know, I have resigned as chief of our department of Neurological Surgery, and Claremont Morse, Jr., who joined us last year, has assumed my administrative responsibilities. I will ask Dr. Morse to say a few words, then we'll all go home."
The Chief of Neurological Surgery, now 6'5" | 235 pounds, ascended the podium and said, "I just want to say this. I'm gonna run a real tight neurosurgical service, and I can take you now, you mean old bastard."
THE MOOSE OF MOOSE BEND
ONE OF my recurring administrative headaches for over ten years has been that, in the Spruce Harbor Medical Center's operating suite, Duke Forrest and his patients get preferential treatment. Hawkeye, Trapper and Spearchucker get taken care of pretty well, but Duke is The Man. Duke wants to schedule something, everybody gets swept aside. Not a week goes by that someone, usually a tonsil jerker, an orthopod or a cataract plucker doesn't storm into my office, swearing vengeance against Duke and whatever it is that makes him The Man.
The explanation begins in 1951, when Laurier Castonguay of Moose Bend, Maine, was drafted by the Army of the U.S. This was a broadening experience for a young Canuck whose previous travels had been north to Jackman and south to the Skowhegan jail. He was not a criminal, but Laurier Castonguay was this kind of guy: you took one look at him and you knew he should be in jail. His criminal activities did not exceed deer jacking, drunkenness, sexual promiscuity and the simple fact of being a Castonguay from Moose Bend where everybody is named Castonguay. There are a number of reasons why they'd all be Castonguays even if they weren't all named Castonguay, but in the final analysis they are all named Castonguay because it's easy that way and the easy way is the best way in Moose Bend.
The Army, in its infinite wisdom, evaluated Laurie Castonguay and concluded that he should join the infantry. After all, he'd grown up with a rifle in one hand and a jacklight in the other. In Korea he was told that the technique of Chink catching differed in certain ways from deer jacking. He probably didn't understand what they were saying, and if he had had wouldn't have believed them. A jacklighter, one way or another, he skylined himself one evening as the sun sank into the Yellow Sea, popped a Lucky into his mouth, happily thumbed his Zippo into flame and leisurely lit the Lucky. Before he shut the Zippo, a benevolent Chinese provided him with the million-dollar wound: a through-and-through perforation of the left chest without apparent damage to any vital structure except lung, which can often take care of itself. He got a Purple Heart and a ticket home.
The trip home for Laurier Castonguay was hurried at first but became leisurely later on. In early darkness he was transported to the 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital by a chopper pilot with more guts than brains. He flew at night because the doctor in the Battalion Aid Station thought the jacklighter might not last till morning. At the MASH a surgeon put a tube in Laurier's chest to drain out blood and gave him three pints of blood; he survived without major surgery. From the 4077th, our hero was evacuated to Yong-Dong-Po and then to a hospital in Osaka, Japan. Private Castonguay, although he recovered rapidly, did not return to combat. This was not because the Army determined that he lacked talent for combat. The Army, in its infinite wisdom, just decided to reassign him in Japan.
Japan was a place where even Laurier Castonguay of Moose Bend, Maine, could go good, and he did. He found a moose. The word "moose" meant girl, more or less, at that time, in that place. Her name was Amiko. Private Castonguay, after shacking up with Amiko for a week, offered marriage. This was the dream of the moose herd, which knew that all Americans are rich. Amiko, private Castonguay and their son, Jacque, arrived in Moose Bend a year later. Amiko looked for the milk and the honey, but all she saw were empty beer cans and Castonguays. Laurier taught her very little English because his native tongue is pidgin French. Amiko was not at a loss, however, because she'd learned one invaluable speech: "Gimme pound of hot dog." The hot dogs, supplemented by trout and venison, allowed her to feed her family, which increased to four by 1957.
Over the years Amiko decided that as things go in Moose Bend, or maybe the world, she wasn't too badly off. She had the Oriental philosophy and rolled with the punches. This was a useful attitude. Laurier got drunk every Saturday night and beat hell out of her. Then he'd push her into bed, jump on, roll over shortly thereafter and fall sound asleep.
In January 1957 Amiko discovered a swelling in her neck. She became more dyspneic than usual while submitting to her hero's athletic feats. In May she mentioned this to him and was appropriately rewarded. By July, however, Laurier became annoyed because Amiko was having trouble transporting the hot dogs, so he took her down river to a quack who knew there was no money in neck lumps from Moose Bend. He accepted five bucks for twenty pink aspirins and wished her well.
In October Amiko was brought by ambulance to Spruce Harbor. She was admitted to the hospital and assigned to Duke Forrest, the surgeon on call. A biopsy established the diagnosis of adenocarcinoma of the thyroid gland. The pathologist couldn't define the degree of malignancy, but there was no doubt that the tumor was big and very much in the way. She could neither breathe nor swallow normally. Duke scheduled her for surgery two days later, but this was a day too late. The night before surgery Mrs. Castonguay became cyanotic, and unconscious. She could not breathe at all.
When Duke arrived a tracheostomy set was ready, but there was no time to move her to the operating room. She was in a dark alcove because the hospital was too full. She needed a tracheostomy right then and there—not a few minutes later—if she were to have any chance at all. Duke grabbed a pair of gloves and a scalpel, wondering how he was going to find the displaced trachea in the dark with that big tumor surrounding it. Fumbling his way with no good help and no good light, he cut an internal jugular vein. Blood flowed out of the wound and down over Amiko's bare chest like lava from an erupting volcano. Duke swore, stuffed in a sponge and told a nurse to lean on it while he fixed the windpipe between his fingers, stabbed it and forcefully shoved in a trach tube.
He ordered one nurse to keep pressure on the vein and another to administer oxygen while he ran to the blood bank, found a pint of type O blood, ran back, cut down on a vein in the right groin and started the blood without bothering to cross match it. A lab technician arrived to prepare more blood. The slit in the jugular vein sealed itself off, but Amiko was unconscious with little blood pressure and no palpable pulse.
Leaving orders to push the blood, Duke slept in the recovery room, figuring the cause was lost and the transfusions were gestures to his conscience.
He awoke at 7 a.m., surprised at having slept so long and sure that Amiko had died. He walked to the surgical ward, his mind on other patients. A glance at the cul-de-sac in the hallway established Amiko's absence. The head nurse said, "Good morning, Doctor. We moved Amiko into 207."
"Whadda you mean? You mean she's okay?"
He followed the nurse into 207. She stopped, turned and smiled in triumph. Amiko looked up from breakfast with a big grin and held out her hand. Duke took it. She held on for a good thirty seconds, just looking at him. Then, with a shy smile, she said, "Thank you."
Duke stood there looking foolish while Amiko sipped her tea.
"Her breathing is fine," said the nurse, "and she seems to swallow much better since you did the tracheostomy."
"How come you gave her breakfast? I got her scheduled for surgery."
"I thought you'd want to wait."
"You're right, of course. Excuse me. I'm so surprised I can't think."
Amiko smiled at him again and pointed to her neck.
"You fix," she said. It wasn't a question. It was a statement of total confidence in Duke's ability "to fix."
"You goddamn well better believe it," Duke said and meant it, emotionally, but he knew that surgical triumphs aren't achieved at the emotional level and wondered about himself. Still, this was language Amiko understood. She finished breakfast, confident of the future. Three days later surgery involved an extensive bilateral neck dissection plus splitting the sternum and scooping out tumor that surrounded the trachea all the way down to where it divides. A lot of tumor was left behind, but Amiko's neck had its normal contour, and pressure on the trachea and esophagus had been relieved.
MASH Mania Page 10