6) I don't know how cold it was at my house this morning, and you wouldn't be asking if you weren't sure it was colder at your house than my house so buzz off and let me go about my business, or I'll have somebody break your kneecaps.
Arriving at the Intensive Care Unit, Dr. Pierce discovered that a chest drainage tube had been clamped off while the patient went for a walk. Since the patient had a constant air leak following a lobectomy, and since he had specifically ordered that the tube not be clamped, he was on the verge of a temper tantrum.
"Now, now, Doctor," said Lucinda, "please let me take care of it. Remember, you aren't talking today." She hurried him out of the unit, backed him into a corner. "I know your routine. It does no good to rant and rave about the hospital being a home for retarded females and so forth ad nauseam. I already know about this. There was a new nurse on last night, and she misunderstood. She's terribly upset, and I want you to break your silence and explain to her nicely why the tube shouldn't have been clamped and to assure her that no real harm was done."
"Which one? That big redhead?" asked Hawkeye. "Maybe I'll ask her if she'd like to shack up. In fact that's exactly what I'll do. Let's go."
"Oh, no, you don't. There'll be none of that."
"Okay, Lucinda. Then you tell that dumb wool when I say a chest tube isn't to be clamped, it's because clamping it could get the patient in serious trouble. And if she ever does it again I'll run her out of town. Furthermore ------"
"Oh, shut up, Hawkeye. Not another word, particularly of the kind you're so fond of."
"Ain't my fault I grew up a grunt."
"Oh, just please shut up."
Well, that's how it went the rest of the week. Hawkeye communicated through Lucinda, did his surgery and postponed everything that could be postponed in the office.
"Dr. and Mrs. D'Artagnan Maguire arrived from Iowa City on Friday afternoon and moved directly into the Pierce home in Crabapple Cove. When Hawkeye got home from work, he found his twins, Jim and Ann, showing their guests how to drive a snowmobile.
Hawkeye met the Maguires in the kitchen. I gather that the guests felt a trifle awkward until Big Benjy Pierce, Hawkeye's still-robust father, dropped in with some lobsters for supper. Big Benjy'd been out hauling traps most of the fairly cold day and had worked through the best part of a pint of Old Bantam Whiskey. His arrival tended to break the ice. Benjy has a collection of stories, all untrue, which he uses on outsiders. After half an hour Frenchy Maguire and his pretty wife were well broken up with laughter. From then on, Hawk says, it was easy. Frenchy adjusted easily to being called "Boy" when he figured out that Benjy calls everybody "Boy."
Hawkeye and Frenchy came to see me in my office after rounds on Saturday morning. With some embarrassment I brought up the bit about the staff being psychoanalyzed. To my relief, neither surgeon seemed a bit upset. They even suggested a Tuesday appointment with Rex Eatapuss. I should have known.
By Tuesday, French had met all of Hawkeye's inpatients and several of the future surgical patients. In the O.R. Monday morning he did a pneumonectomy and a gallbladder, assisted by Hawkeye. Any doubts about Frenchy's ability and personality had been dispelled by four o'clock Tuesday afternoon when, rigged with a recording device by Trapper John, someone went to be psychoanalyzed by Dr. Rex Eatapuss.
As I said, I should have known. The someone was not Frenchy Maguire. God save us, it was the curator of the Port Waldo town dump, one Juicy (Big Dumpsmell) Larkin. As I pieced it together later, Frenchy, hearing about Rex Eatapuss, stated firmly that, rather than submit to such an indignity, he would return to Iowa City.
Hawkeye told me afterwards, "I wasn't too upset when Frenchy said no to that foolishness. If we get to the point where a high-class cat like Frenchy can't work until he's psychoanalyzed by a moron like Rex, then I'm cutting for Canada. What's more, none of my gang is going to hold still for it either. You can take that hundred grand and stick it in some Democrat's ear."
"Okay, okay," I agreed. "I'll get around it, somehow. But for chrissake, how and why Juicy Larkin?"
"Well, Rex has never seen Frenchy, and he's so dumb he wouldn't know a nigger from a giraffe. My brain trust and I decided that Juicy would be a good substitute. He'd try a goat with the mumps for twenty bucks and a case of beer, so there was no problem in enlisting his services."
I still marveled that even a group as eccentric as Hawkeye Pierce and his brain trust would select Juicy. For one thng, he is not black, although, come to think of it, he does look a lot like one of the old black-face vaudevillians. Dirt and soot from his fires on the dump coat not only his face but all of him. Unshaven, slovenly, forty-six years old, about five eleven and 240 pounds. Juicy has to be one of our less prepossessing citizens. I don't know whether, as Hawkeye alleges, he likes goats, but somehow he has bestowed fourteen children upon the community. And I do mean on the community. Food stamps will never go begging.
At my behest, Hawkeye described the recruiting of Juicy Larkin. He and Wooden Leg went out to the dump on a Sunday. The interview went about like this.
Hawkeye: "Hi, Juicy. How they goin'?"
Juicy: "Finestkind."
Hawkeye: "You wanna make twenty bucks and a case of beer, Juicy?"
Juicy: "Ayuh. What I gotta do?"
Hawkeye: "Get psychoanalyzed by Rex Eatapuss."
Juicy: "By the Jesus."
Hawkeye: "Well, whadda yuh say, Juice. Give it a try?"
Juicy: "Jesus, boy. I dunno. That Rex, ain't he quee-ah? I don't want him messin' round."
Hawkeye: "He won't mess around. All you gotta do is be on a couch and talk to him. Just your normal conversation will be okay."
Juicy: "I gotta problem. Been savin' my money, take a crack at Graveyard Alice, but I keep havin' financial difficulties."
Hawkeye: "You do drive a hard bargain, Juicy. But okay. You go into Bette Bang Bang's and me and Wooden Leg'll see you're taken care of."
Juicy: "My pickup's done broken down. You'll have to take me in your own self."
Wooden Leg: "Tain't no problem. Jump right into Hawk's Mercedes. Get in back, Juicy. Make yourself comfortable."
As they drove toward Spruce Harbor, Hawkeye was somewhat piqued. "I'll never get this car deodorized," he complained to Leg. "Smell's like we got the whole Steeler defense before they showered plus about six goats in here."
At Bette Bang Bang's they knocked on the door and waited while Bette inspected them to make sure they were legitimate customers. Juicy's lip's moistened, he slobbered just a touch and his eyes were beginning to pop outwards.
Whenever someone like Hawkeye and Wooden Leg appeared, Bette was suspicious, but, reluctantly, she let the three of them in.
"Whadda yuh want?" she asked in her dulcet voice.
"We wanta fix Juicy up with Alice. We're payin', me and Leg."
"Cost double and he's gotta have a bath first and burn his clothes. I got some old clothes lyin' around he can have. Ain't fancy, but they're clean. Alice won't be back for an hour nohow. She's gitten' saved by the Reverend Rankin."
"Maybe you better make him the house chaplain," suggested Leg.
"Like to give the horny sonovabitch the next dose of clap we get around here," Bette growled. "He don't pay nothin'. Gettin' to be a nuisance. Hey, you fellers wouldn't go over theah and pick her up, would yuh?"
"Course we would, Bette," purred Hawkeye.
At Jocko Allcock's pad, Wooden Leg knocked on the door and yelled, "Okay, Alice, you been saved enough. Bette wants you to get back and take care of Big Dumpsmell."
The Reverend Mr. Rankin appeared, demanding, "What is the meaning of this? The young lady and I are in religious consultation."
"Zip up your fly and knock off that consultation crap. Fella like you shouldn't exercise too much on Sunday," Wooden Leg admonished him. "Now tell that broad to get out heah. Big Dumpsmell don't like to be kept waitin'."
Graveyard Alice flounced out, sort of. "Thanks, fellas," she said. "The jerk can't decide whether to pray or
what. I been gettin' a complex. Guess I'd just as leave have Big Dumpsmell. In ninety seconds he goes home happy without no talk."
The Reverend Mr. Rankin took this all in. Hawkeye said later, "I couldn't help feeling sorry for the simple sonovabitch, so I didn't rub it in. I didn't even let him see me. Hope he can get his kicks out of his wife and The Joy of Sex for a while."
At Bette Bang Bang's, Juicy Larkin was timed in 58.5 seconds, which broke- the house record for men over forty-five and gratified Graveyard Alice no end. She was spent after a busy Saturday night and an hour of religious consultation with the Reverend, who, she said, had studied The Joy of Sex as assiduously as he had the Bible.
And so it came to pass that with his physical ashes recently hauled, a cleanish if not immaculate body, cleanish if not stylish clothes, twenty bucks in his pocket and half a case of Gansett sloshing around in his pendulous belly, Juicy Larkin showed up Tuesday afternoon to be psychoanalyzed by Rex Eatapuss. He had been provided with a white coat, like the doctor he was impersonating, and Trapper John had wired him for sound, so that the analysis could be studied and enjoyed. Beyond this, Juicy had been given no specific instructions.
"Just lie down here on the couch, Doctor," purred Rex Eatapuss. "I'll sit here behind you. This will be very informal. What I'd like you to do is just relax. Let tension roll away. When you are relaxed, completely at ease, just tell me about yourself, anything. This is all in confidence. Nothing will go beyond this room."
There was silence for three minutes. The first sound that came, when the tape was played, was the sound of Juicy Larkin snoring.
Then, "Doctor, please wake up. Talk to me. Say something. Anything."
"That Alice be some finestkind diddlin', I'm here to tell yuh"
Rex: "I beg your pardon?"
Juicy: "Ain't you never tried her? Alice?"
Rex: "Perhaps we should try for a new start. Tell me, Doctor, what do you like to do, aside from your work?"
Juicy: "Hunt."
Rex, very hesitantly, uncertainly: "Oh, really? What do you hunt?"
Juicy: "Somethin' you couldn't handle, I'll betcha."
And the audience, when it listened later, murmured in unison, "Oh, my Holy Jesus."
Rex: "Doctor, I don't think you are approaching this interview with the proper attitude. We do have a serious purpose, you know."
Juicy: "Sonovabitch, you don't mean it."
Rex: "I beg your pardon."
Juicy: "You mind if I have a bee-ah?"
Rex, confused: "I'm afraid I don't -------"
Juicy: "Got one right heah in my pocket."
Juicy opened the beer, took a long pull, sighed and said, "Ain't that some good!"
Rex: "Dr. Maguire, this is a psychoanalysis, not a beer party."
Juicy: "Whadda you mean? I been wonderin'. You got a funny lookin' beard. Be you one of them quee- ahs? I tell you right now, you try somethin', I'll take aholt a you."
Rex, now clearly in retreat: "Please, Doctor, let's try to be impersonal. Can't you curb your obvious hostility? Can't you lie back with your beer and jus' tell me your thoughts?"
Juicy: "I'd like some."
Rex: "With all due respect, may I say that even for a surgeon, your general field of interest seems somewhat—ah—ah—carnal."
Juicy: "Ain't had a good carnival around heah for ten yeah. Jeezless cops run off the cooch shows."
Rex: "How would you know that, Doctor? Your record indicates that you've just come from Iowa City."
Juicy: "I ain't no doctor. I'm a curator. You must be some mixed up. Queerest sonovabitch I ever see."
Rex: "The interview is over. But may I ask, of what are you the curator?"
Juicy: "Christly dump. That's what Hawkeye Pierce says I am. Curator."
Rex, screaming: "Get out of here, you animal!"
Juicy, vaguely sensing hostility in Rex Eatapuss, arose from the couch, decked the psychoanalyst with one roundhouse shot to the jaw and stalked out, dignified, in his white coat.
The next morning Hawkeye, just before he and Mary left for three weeks in sunny Portugal, called on me to say, "The Brain Trust and I have reached a decision. Rex and the Mental Health gang go. Gonzo. Goodbye. Upon my return, if not before, the wheels shall be set in motion."
SOCIAL SERVICE
I WASN'T too concerned with the psychoanalysis program, figuring that if half my staff would participate there'd be no problem with the federal subsidy. And indeed most of the staff cooperated. As conscientious physicians, they have a healthy intellectual interest in other specialties and felt that analysis might increase their understanding of themselves and their patients.
Naturally, inevitably, even before Hawkeye Pierce returned from Portugal, the small noisy minority was heard from. This happened even though I had given Dr. Ovari a list of people who were to be excused from the program. I suppose there was no way I could win. After considerable thought and with misgivings I put Dr. Al Black's name on the exempt list. Only later did it occur to me that all four of our black doctors were on this list.
Pierce arrived home from Portugal on the Sunday before Christmas. On Monday P.M. he and most of us attended Angelo's annual Christmas party at the Bay View. Hawkeye asked about the psychoanalysis busi ness, and Wolfman Davis told him, "Everybody's doing it except you, Trapper, Boom-Boom, Duke an the four spooks."
"I think Dr. Albert Schwarzer, the Spade pediatrician who takes care of underprivileged honky kids should get psyched," announced Hawkeye. "He may be strange."
"Out of the question," said Wolfman. "Everybody knows you can't psychoanalyze a spook, except of course, spook actors, who don't count."
Dr. Al Black is the only one of our black doctors who does not have a pro football background. He's just a little guy, and he may be almost as crazy as Hawkeye Pierce.
"I demand my rights," Al demanded, downing a generous portion of Angelo's booze. "I wanna get psychoanalyzed."
"I'll call the Mental Health Clinic and tell them we're bringing in an emergency case," said Hawkeye. "Get him some bananas."
Forthwith, the whole gang of crazies, eight or nine of them, poured out and into Spearchucker's station wagon carrying Al Black, who by now was munching on a banana and clutching a large bunch of them to his skinny bosom. At the Mental Health Clinic, minutes later, they bore him and the bananas directly to Dr. Ovari's office and deposited them all on the couch. Hawkeye and Spearchucker found Dr. Ovari and literally dragged him to the patient. Rex protested but was told, "Rex, this boy is in trouble. He's gone bananas. He needs psychoanalysis."
Again Rex protested, but Spearchucker said, "Now, Rex, I want you to take care of this young fella, or you and me going to have to have a little talk."
Hardly anyone argues with Spearchucker Jones, particularly if he mentions "a little talk," so Rex reluctantly began his interview, which, like Juicy Larkin's, was bugged.
Rex: "How do you feel, Doctor?"
Al Black: "Like I've eaten a whole bunch of bananas."
Rex: "Do bananas have some special significance to you?"
Al Black: "Come on, you old hunkie honkie, have a banana. Finestkind!"
Rex: "Thank you, no."
Al: "Man, do bananas have some special significance to you?"
Rex: "I'm conducting this examination, not you."
Al: "Can you sing 'The Winnipeg Whore'?"
Rex: "I'm afraid not."
Al: "I'll teach you: 'My first trip to the Bay of Fundy, first time on Canadian shores, there I met Mrs. Michael O'Finnegan, commonly known as the Winnipeg Whore.' Now you take the second verse, Rex. Fine tune, ain't it?"
Rex: "I'm sorry. I don't know the words to the second verse."
Al: "If you don't know the words to the second verse, how about showing me your ------."
Just what Al wanted to see we'll never know because Rex interrupted quickly: "I'm afraid that your problem is beyond psychoanalysis. I must refer you to the psychiatrist, Dr. Davis."
" 'Then along tha
t river bank a thousand miles, the tattoed cannibals danced in files.' Man, I gonna eat you, you hunkie honkie, but first I gotta get me a kettle and some Adolph's meat tenderizer. You stay right here, Rex. I'll be back in jig time."
Dr. Albert Schwarzer, the psychoanalysis over, returned to the Bay View where the tape was played for the edification of the assembled multitude, who cheered enthusiastically. By now the situation had progressed to where there was strong sentiment in favor of having a cookout with Rex Eatapuss as the cookee.
Saner minds prevailed as a few wives, hearing of trouble, came to rescue their loved ones and get them back on a proper pre-Christmas program.
MASH Mania Page 14