I had believed, not just hoped, that once the holidays were over and the routine returned to normal, heat would be off the Mental Health Clinic. In. fact, by early January I had nearly forgotten the trouble and crossed it off my worry list. Then Hawkeye dropped in late one afternoon and said, "Hook, Rex and the rest of the psychologists gotta go. We've had it with them. They got too much hair and too few brains."
"What do you mean?" I asked, not too brightly.
"I've had it. We've all had it. I take care of some grunt who shoots himself in the chest, Spearchucker's got the same deal in the head, or a broad with six kids and a drunk husband gets cancer of the boob, we inherit them forever. They ain't got enough to eat, they're nervous, they can't get a job, the old man beats 'em up—you name it. Who do they call? They call the guy who operated on them. Christ Jesus, they get a ticket for drunk driving they call the guy who operated on them. I, Trapper, all of us spend half our time running a social service agency. So along comes the Mental Health Clinic and a Social Service Department and a Department of Rehabilitation, bunch of dinks like Rex Eatapuss, long hairs in VW vans with Impeach Nixon and Recall Ford written on 'em, them dinks are gonna take care of the grunts, leave surgery to the surgeons, medicine to the internists, bring happiness to the unhappy. They probably got a payroll of a hundred and fifty big ones just for secretaries over there in that half mil building, and as far as anybody I know can figure out, all they do is have a daily ring dub and fill out a lotta forms. You write them a letter and tell them about somebody who needs help, they write you back the same letter and say they're gonna look into it. And two days later the patient's back in my office, somebody's office, saying they're nervous or the old man beat 'em up again. You ask 'em why don't they go to the Mental Health Clinic or Social Service, they say Mental Health had 'em fill out a form and if they got problems see their personal physician. Then you call one of the dumb bastards, they give you a lotta bull like somebody is gonna assess the home situation but they ain't got it cleared with the head misfit at the State House, or some ex-lush who's running this agency or that because he flunked out of life.
"My Holy Jumped Up Jesus! And you know, don't you, that's how the whole government runs at every level. A psychologist in Spruce Harbor is just a minor league version of a congressman in Washington. Give the dink the job, he figures he's got a mandate to malfease. He can get famous second-guessing Kissinger. But no way dinks like this ever gonna even try to do their job. And maybe they're right. They try, somebody shafts 'em. Still and all, this does nothing for the lame, the halt, the old, the deserving poor or the millions of just plain bums who, if you don't help them, are gonna make everything worse. Jesus Christ, it's enough to make you sick. Vermont got $900,000 to 'study medical needs in Vermont.' Now ain't that something? They'll hire twenty hairy incompetents who couldn't get from Montpelier to Burlington to 'make a study' and in three years the dough will be gone and not a jeezely cent spent on taking care of anyone. And the newspapers .will give grunts like this three columns a week telling how great they are. The guys taking care of the sick people, workin' like hell, doing most of what these jerks are supposed to be doing in addition to our own jobs, we're a bunch of predators on society because we can afford a country club."
"Does that conclude your speech?" I asked when he paused for a moment.
"Hell, no. Fifteen years ago, just for emphasis, we all took care of these people pretty well, for no dough and with considerable effort and with the help of a few fairly bright State types who'd do what the doctors told them. It wasn't perfect by a long shot, but believe me, I think it was better than it is now. We've had a proliferation of these hairy forty-hour-a-week amateurs who are accomplishing less than we did and costing five times as much. Meanwhile the busy doctors are still the backbone of the effort because most of us are nice to the losers, sympathize or try to help if only to get 'em the christ off our backs. And all they get from the hair is a date to come in and be told to keep a stiff upper lip. Jesus Christ, last week I had to call Joe Robbins and tell him to put furnace oil in some broad's house or I'd kick hell out of him, and he did it. The broad has cancer, no husband, three kids, no money—and those mental health social service losers couldn't do a thing for her. I could, so what the Christ are they for?"
"I heard about that. The Social Service people were working on it and they've made arrangements to take care of that the rest of the winter."
"Yeah, but by the time those creeps got around to it, that family would have had to get through two subzero nights with no heat."
"True," I had to agree, "but did you really accomplish anything by chasing that young social worker across the parking lot?"
"Yeah, I did. That was just after the broad called and told me she had no oil for her furnace and that jerk told her to fill out a form. I knew she couldn't fill out a form because she can't read or write and she's ashamed, but the dink doesn't know that. I happened to be in the hospital just as he was quitting for the day at four o'clock. I chased him out to his van with the Recall Ford sign on it. I had the freak so shook up he couldn't get that van movin' before I finished micturating in his gas tank. He didn't get too far once he got it started."
"So that's what happened. He was quite upset."
"Ain't that a pity? Pardon me if I don't choke up. You know these holier-than-thou eight-hours-a-day humanitarians are just a bunch of zips who couldn't get into medical school, don't you? So they take courses in psychology, learn five big words, grow some hair, find out where to buy cheap wine and tell each other they're better than surgeons who drive big cars and drink Chivas Regal."
"There's just one thing I'd like to say," I said.
"What's that?"
"No way you could beat hell out of Joe Robbins."
"Of course not, but you miss the point. One of these dinks calls Joe and gives him a lot of jazz about delivering oil, Joe's gonna wanta see the money, not a lotta forms, and he may decide to work the dink over just to keep in shape. When I call up and explain the situation, a guy like Joe says, 'Sure, Hawk, I'll keep her full the winter. Just don't tell nobody.' As a matter of fact, Joe keeps a few others full for nothin' because having to have anything to do with the dinks makes him nervous."
"You sound just like the medical profession from time immemorial," I suggested to my irate surgeon. "You're ticked off, the government's screwing everything up, but you guys aren't providing the answer either. You don't seriously suggest that, in the 1970's, we can take care of the poor, the handicapped, without help from Social Service and Mental Health facilities?"
"You're right. We haven't provided the answer, but we're gonna. Maybe our answer wouldn't swing in the city, but we're gonna upgrade the facilities around here."
"How?"
"You just relax, Hook, and enjoy it. Watch it evolve."
I waited and not much seemed to happen for weeks, except that early in January 1975 Wooden Leg Wilcox withdrew $100,000 from the hospital account and bought Chrysler stock. Two weeks later he sold it at a profit of $60,000 and replaced the hundred grand.
Although I kept my ears open and obliquely nudged Pierce when I had the chance, I heard nothing more except that, on February 26, Wooden Leg and Jocko Allcock departed for a week in Las Vegas. Ostensibly they were to visit Leg's sister and her rich husband, Benny Aaron. This meshed with rumors that Leg and Jocko, gamblers by profession, had been going here and there to study the game of baccarat. By that I mean, of course, they were learning how to emerge triumphantly by cheating.
March came in like a lion, accompanied by the announcement that Miss Priscilla Poissonier, B.A., M.S., had joined the Spruce Harbor Mental Health Center as a psychiatric social worker. Specifically, Uncle was popping for twelve G's a year for Priscilla to be a rape counselor.
If Blue Shield had announced a doubling of -or halving of surgical fees, my surgical staff would have reacted a little, or not at all. But they thought a rape counselor was the greatest thing since the wheel. Masochistically
I went to the coffee shop, always a beehive of gossip, to hear the reactions, which were predictable.
"Just what we need," said Hawkeye. "I been worried about how to go about it."
"About what?" Duke asked.
"Rapin' some broad."
"You must be gettin' desperate," thought Trapper.
"Not really. It's just that I'm fifty years old now, never raped anybody. I figure time's passing me by. I don't do it soon, may never get around to it."
"Well, now," said Spearchucker, "maybe we oughta ask this young lady in for a cuppa coffee and some counseling. I'll see if I can dig her up."
"She's right over there with Dr. Ovari," the waitress told them. The waitresses always listen to the surgeons.
Spearchucker introduced himself and invited her to join their table. "We understand you graduated summa cum laude from rape school and we have a small problem," he explained. "I'd like you to meet Dr. Pierce."
"Oh, how do you do, Dr. Pierce. I've heard so much about you," Priscilla exclaimed.
"Perhaps you could help Dr. Pierce," said Trapper. "He's planning to rape someone but has no experience."
"Always had to beat it off with a club," Hawkeye told her modestly. "No experience at all."
"I'm afraid I don't understand."
"Well, just what does your counseling service provide? Like, who selects the victim, you or me? Like do I whack her around a little first, I mean, honey, supposin' I was to take a liking to you, would I wait for you in your apartment or grab you on the way home or "
Miss Poissonier gave a little squeal and departed abruptly.
"We gotta help that girl out," said Chucker. "Unless we do, she won't have work and our taxpayers' money will be wasted. As far as I know, we don't have more'n two or three rapes a year."
Duke mulled this and asked, rather fearfully, "What measures do you contemplate, Chucker?"
"Well, now, I've had this hankerin' for Lucinda Mclntyre -------"
"Won't work," Trapper objected.
"Now, why not, Honkie? You sayin' I ain't ---------"
"All I'm sayin' is no way you could rape her. She'd think bedding a nigger was part of women's lib. In fact, I figured you and she'd already -------"
"Now wait a damned -------"
"Knock it off, you guys," Hawkeye ordered. "Surely men as resourceful as we can fulfill this young lovely's needs without interfamilial sexual coercion."
"What's that mean?"
"Rapin' each other's wives."
"What measures do you recommend?"
"I say we keep the dolly busy interviewing rape victims."
"Brilliant," agreed Duke. "Who's gonna be the rap ers and who's gonna be the rapees? Hope we can get this settled before we have to go back to the O.R."
"Why, the rapees can be the broads from Bette Bang Bang's. And the rapers could be, well, almost anyone who has now, or in the past, fallen from favor, or whatever."
"Goofus MacDuff's been actin' right stemmy lately," Dr. Jones observed.
"Don't be foolish," said Duke. "He couldn't get it up. Let's go. They must be ready for us by now."
At eleven o'clock that night the Emergency Room called to tell me that a rape case had been brought in. The nurse in charge seemed to feel that the case had certain curious aspects since the victim was Graveyard Alice. Priscilla Poissonier was already there when I arrived, in camera with Alice, assuring her that all would be well.
Priscilla Poissonier, fresh from rape school, was gently, sympathetically questioning Alice, who sobbed uncontrollably, interspersing the sobs with "that old sonovabitch."
"Don't be afraid, Alice," purred Priscilla. "The law will protect you. If you'll just tell me who it was, I promise you this will never happen to anyone else."
" 'Twas Doggy done it," she blurted out.
At Miss Poissonier's insistence, Dr. Doggy Moore was arrested an hour later as he left the delivery room. Smiling with modest pride, he was taken downtown, booked and released on ten thousand dollars bail. When asked about this the next day by concerned citizens, Dr. Moore said, "My lawyer has told me not to discuss the case, but I can say this much: Ain't no doubt about it. I done it."
On the afternoon after the rape, Irene (Bull) Benson, coach of Spruce Harbor High's girls' basketball team, chairman of SHARC (Spruce Harbor Anti-Rape Committee), led twenty of her minions in a loud demonstration outside the courthouse to protest Dr. Moore's freedom on bail. And the next day, the protest having been mostly ignored, Bull led her group right up to the hospital and camped in the coffee shop, apparently hoping to picket Doggy. He was quite happy. "Good morning to you, ladies," he greeted them. "Any of you girls want some action, I'll be waiting outside in my station wagon."
SHARC gasped, like all in one breath. Trapper John called Bull aside and said, "Bull, get this passel of wool outa here or we gonna have Spearchucker knock you off one bv one right here on the counter."
Bull hesitated. "Okay, Chucker, we'll hold her down," said Trapper. "You can start reeling it out."
Bull screamed and SHARC retreated, a defeated rag-tag mob. Regrouping outside, SHARC stormed the office of the Spruce Harbor Gazette, where Bull hysterically told of attempted mass rape of SHARC by the surgical staff of Spruce Harbor Medical Center. This kept things stirred up, but SHARC really was a toothless organization and public interest lagged in a matter of days. In fact, the most exciting event of the following week was the elimination of Bull Benson's team from the Class B Girls' Basketball Tournament.
One afternoon well into March I had a phone call about three o'clock. My secretary told me that I was to have the pleasure of speaking to the Stoned Eagle, Mr. Wrong Way Napolitano.
"Big jeezely airplane, like some kinda Army cargo plane, out here," said Wrong Way. "Some general claims he knows you, wants somebody to come get the tents. Better get out here. Christly general's into my booze."
"What's his name?"
There was a lull while, in the background, I heard, "General, watcha say yer name was?"
"Blake, Henry, Major General Army Medical Corps. Tell Hook or Hawkeye or somebody, get them out here."
This came as a slight surprise. Henry Blake, former C.O. of the 4077th MASH, had stayed in the Army and, as suggested by his rank, prospered in a pentagonal way. He may be our nation's premier latrine officer or the head Army clap doctor. Who knows? You ask him, the answer is so long you forget the question. Fact is, here he was at Spruce Harbor International with a planeful of tents and I didn't know why.
I was pretty sure Pierce knew, so I called his office. His secretary, Alice D'Angelo, told me he couldn't be disturbed.
"This is important," I protested. "Is he with a patient?"
"No, he's devoting the remainder of the day to two major efforts. I have the list right here. When I read it to you, I'm sure you'll understand why he cannot be disturbed."
She read: "I am not to be disturbed for the following reasons: (1)1 want to listen to Wolf Creek Pass by C. W. McCall, probably the greatest musical triumph of the century, and I can't listen at home because the house apes won't shut up long enough, and (2) I must observe a half hour of silent mourning for Chief Jay Strongbow whose feathered headdress was torn to shreds by Gorilla Monsoon."
Alice concluded, "Surely now you understand why he cannot be disturbed."
"I'll be right down. He's gonna get disturbed."
I barged into Hawkeye's office in time to hear the stirring end of Wolf Creek Pass in which a runaway truck full of chickens takes out a feed store at the bottom of the Great Divide.
"Tremendous," Hawkeye exclaimed. "What's up, administrative type who obviously has no respect for my privacy, to say zip of the feathered headdress handed down through eight generations to Chief Jay Strongbow."
"Having you put away is on my list, but the immediate problem is that Henry Blake is at the airport with a bunch of tents."
"Finestkind. Things working out okay. Just heard from our old friend Benny Aaron. Wooden Leg and Jocko won two hund
red big ones at baccarat out in Vegas. Benny's having them flown home if his Lear jet can evade about twenty guinea fighter planes. Seems the folks running the game questioned our men's honesty. Let's go out and meet Henry."
I got no more out of him and, since he was driving, there was little opportunity for talk. When riding with Pierce, particularly on ice and snow, one tends to contemplate one's past and reevaluate one's future, if any. We skidded into the parking area behind the home office of the Spruce Harbor & Inter-Island Air Service. Major General Henry Blake, twenty pounds heavier than Korea and holding, came out to greet us.
"How's your GI ass, Henry?" Pierce asked.
"Great. Hi, Hook. Where you guys want these tents?"
"I don't know anything about the tents," I said, "and no one will tell me."
"For chrissake, Hook," Pierce explained, "the tents are the new nut and social service clinic. We gonna run Eatapuss and his crowd outa business. Whadda we owe you for the tents, Henry? Hey, did you bring those space heater rigs we asked for?"
MASH Mania Page 15