MASH 14 MASH goes to Moscow

by Richard Hooker+William Butterworth

  (There were those who came up with the $124.80 and still refused to take their own dog back. These animals were transported back to Staten Island, where Siegfried “returned them to nature’s paradise” by turning them loose near the swamp and the pack of wild dogs.)

  Over the three years before Siegfried was caught and brought before the Sanitation Department’s Court of Honor for conduct unbecoming a Grass, Path, and Walkway Sanitary Technician, father and daughter honed their act to a fine art. Their downfall came when the neighbor lady became suspicious about the dwindling size of her herd and employed a private detective to investigate the matter.

  The trial itself went down in Sanitation Department annals as one of the darkest blots on the Sanitation Department’s previously spotless escutcheon. Although there was no doubt whatever in anyone’s mind that Siegfried Rumplemayer had, as charged, wrongly, illegally, and with malice aforethought diverted his garbage-can-on-wheels to his personal profit, the court martial board was unable to reach a unanimous verdict.

  “A scoundrel like that,” one court member said to the Daily News’s Inquiring Photographer, “certainly deserved the greatest punishment provided by law. But I simply couldn’t find it in myself to vote that way, with that horribly ugly child begging for her daddy’s freedom on her knees that way.”

  A compromise was reached. Siegfried was subjected to the public humiliation of being drummed out of the Sanitation Department in Times Square. As the Sanitation Department Band played the “Rogue’s March,” the brass buttons were snipped one by one from his uniform, and his Grass, Path, and Walkway insignia ripped from his sleeve. But that was all the punishment he received.

  The furor quickly died down, after a spate of angry editorials in The New York Times and the Village Voice about the appalling lack of moral fiber in the Sanitation Department’s upper echelons.

  Father and daughter were crushed. Not only was their moonlight income (which had been sufficient for them to travel to Europe and to buy an eleventh-floor deluxe condominium on Florida’s Gold Coast above Miami) gone forever, but the fun in their lives was gone too. Never again would they see the wonderful sight of the pansies being dragged through the flora of Central Park by baying dogs in hot pursuit of one of the Cat Lady’s precious pussy cats.

  But they were resilient. Within two months, they were back on the streets of Manhattan—this time with a wheelchair. Little Gerty, wearing her dark glasses, pushed her beloved Daddy back and forth through Times Square while she sang at the top of her lungs the song about the rainbow which Judy Garland had made famous in the motion picture The Wizard of Oz-

  It generally took no more than two full days of pushing (noon till 11:00 p.m., Little Gerty’s Daddy insisting that a growing girl needed her sleep) before Daddy’s battered old Sanitation Department cap had been filled with enough donations to permit them to take the Eastern Airlines Champagne and Bagels flight to their Florida condominium for the rest of the week.

  The years passed. Dirty Little Gerty blossomed, if that word fits, into young womanhood, and Darling Daddy, it must be reported, acquired a rather disgusting affinity for the bottle. No longer was he willing to put up with being pushed through Times Square with his hat in his lap. He insisted now on stopping off for ever longer periods, for refreshment in various watering places along Forty-second Street.

  “You don’t really need me, child,” he said to Dirty Gerty. “All you really have to do is stand behind the wheelchair and sing ‘Over the Rainbow.’ People will put money in the cap, whether or not it’s in my lap.”

  And for another year, Dirty Gerty did as her Daddy told her, taking such pleasure as she could from saying rude things to passersby who didn’t drop coins or bills in the hat, but gradually she came to realize that Darling Daddy was taking advantage of her. She was doing all the work, and he was drinking up all the profits.

  He was not even willing to compromise when she discussed the matter with him. All she asked for was a fair shake, that one night a week he sit in the wheelchair and sing “Over the Rainbow” while she made the tour of the watering places. When he turned her down, and coldly, she knew that she would soon have to strike off on her own.

  One night, when she was barely twenty, she gathered the necessary courage (mostly by helping herself liberally to the bottle of Old White Stagg blended Kentucky bourbon Darling Daddy kept in the wheelchair against unforeseen exigencies) and left Darling Daddy, once and for all, in the Times Square Topless and Bottomless Steak and Chop House.

  Knowing only that she had to go away, but not knowing where to go, she fled Times Square for the unknown. When she came to Madison Avenue, she liked the smell, and she set up shop, so to speak, outside a tall building sheathed in black marble. She did not then know that the building housed the international headquarters of the Amalgamated Broadcasting System. She knew only that from it emerged, starting at approximately eight-thirty at night, a steady stream of well-dressed gentlemen who, to judge from their unsteady gait and bloodshot eyes, had turned to John Barleycorn to give them the strength to get through the night.

  While it is true that some of these gentlemen (at least until they got her in the light and got a good look at her) did have various business propositions to make to her, most of them were in such condition that all they wanted from the female sex was what Dirty Gerty gave them— a full-blast rendition of “Over the Rainbow.”

  From the first night, there were enough coins and bills in Darling Daddy’s hat to permit a well-earned night’s rest in a small suite at the Americana Hotel. She never returned to Staten Island again. She put that part of her life behind her and from that moment devoted her life to what she thought of as improving her art

  By conducting what is known along Madison Avenue as a demographic survey, she learned that her audience contained a substantial percentage of people of the Jewish, black, and Irish persuasions. To meet the musical tastes of this part of her audience, she added “Oh, How We Danced on the Night We Were Wed,”* “Jesus Loves Me.”** and “I’ll Take You Home Again, Kathleen”*** to her repertoire. From that moment, Dirty Gerty Rumplemayer was able to claim that she offered her art to the whole world without regard to race, creed, color, or national origin.

  (* “Oh, How We Danced,” etc., is based on an old Hebrew melody.)

  (** It was either this or “We Shall Overcome.” The conflict was resolved by the tossing of a coin. “Jesus Loves Me” won.)

  (*** Statistics prove conclusively that 87.5 percent of all Irish males have either a mother, sister, aunt, wife, or good friend named “Kathleen.”)

  It was an Irish gentleman who on one cold and windy night put Dirty Gerty Rumplemayer on step two of the ladder which eventually lifted her to international stardom.

  Sean O’Casey O’Mulligan, often described as Ireland’s gift to the silver screen, was in Manhattan to publicize his latest motion picture epic, a $30 million epic (some said an Arabian cowboys and indians) which had not yet had the attraction to the ticket-buying public its producers had anticipated. Sean O’Casey O’Mulligan was a tall, blond, blue-eyed, and very handsome chap whose appeal to the gentle sex was well known. The producers logically concluded that his appearance on the ABS talk show “Merd Johnson and His Guests” would give the old box office a shot in the arm, and O’Mulligan was imported from Ireland to exchange jolly banter with Mr. Johnson on his program.

  The producers, however, failed to either mention or, if they mentioned it, certainly to properly state Sean O’Casey O’Mulligan’s little foibles. For one thing, without his eyeglasses poor Sean could not see his belly button in clear focus. For another, the magnetic attraction Sean produced in the gentle sex was matched only by the magnetic attraction between Sean and a bottle containing spirituous liquor.

  Furthermore, despite his unquestioned thespian talents, Sean O’Casey O’Mulligan was terrified at the prospect of appearing in public without a script. On the day in question, Sean began taking aboard liquid courage at approximat
ely eleven o’clock in the morning, and by half-past four in the afternoon was apparently unable (if not unable, then certainly unwilling) to rise from the leather couch in the Plaza Hotel’s Oak Room. This situation was brought to the attention of Mr. Merd Johnson.

  Although he had not admitted this, the truth of the matter was that Mr. Johnson had been looking rather eagerly forward to having Mr. O’Casey O’Mulligan on his program, his ratings having sagged practically out of sight in recent weeks. He immediately hopped in his limousine and was carried to the Plaza. As soon as he walked in the room, he decided that he could snatch a television triumph from the jaws of disaster, for Mr. O’Casey O’Mulligan was not drinking alone. With him was his long-time crony, often described as Wales’ Gift to the Stage and Silver Screen, the actor Birdwell Richards. Mr. Richards, when Mr. Johnson walked in, was standing on the bar, holding one of the Oak Room’s glistening spittons in his right hand, and delivering the “Alas! poor Yorick, I knew him....” speech from one of Mr. William Shakespeare’s more popular works.

  All he had to do, Mr. Johnson reasoned, was to exercise sufficient charm upon both of them to (a) get them off the sauce and (b) get them to the studio. Having both Sean O’Casey O’Mulligan and Birdwell Richards on his show at one time (Mr. Richards having often expressed an absolute unwillingness to appear on what he somewhat rudely referred to as the boob tube) would not only cause his ratings to soar, but place Mr. Johnny Carson in the position of having to eat his heart out.

  Mr. Johnson issued instructions to one of his lackeys to have the network immediately start making announcements, on the hour and half hour, to the effect that a very special, superstar-status guest would appear that very night on the “Merd Johnson Show” with Mr. Sean O’Casey O’Mulligan. This spot announcement was to be immediately followed by a special bulletin from the ABS News Department that the actor Birdwell Richards was in town, presumably to be with his long-time professional associate and dear friend, the actor Sean O’Casey O’Mulligan. Twelve-year-old mentality or not, Merd Johnson felt his audience would get the message. Then, fixing his broadest smile on his face, he strode across the room and cheerfully greeted the both of them.

  Chapter Eight

  At approximately 9:00 p.m. an understandably uncomfortable senior assistant producer entered the offices of the network chairman of the board, genuflected, and announced that he had just received word that Merd Johnson had last been seen rather in his cups (at least, that was the logical conclusion to be drawn; otherwise why would he have been swinging from the crystal chandelier in the Oak Room crying “Me Tarzan, you Jane!” to an enthralled group of fans and passersby) and there was some doubt that he would be, as the senior assistant producer euphemistically chose to put it, “in the proper mental attitude to go on the air.”

  The chairman of the board thought but a moment before issuing orders.

  “Don Rhotten* was just in here begging for a chance to show his talents in something besides the news,” he said. “Tell him to stand by to stand in for Merd Johnson.”

  (*Don Rhotten (pronounced Row-Ten), who thought of himself as America’s most beloved young news anchorperson, had achieved national fame as the bottom half on “Waldo Maldemer and the Evening News, starring Don Rhotten.” Details of Mr. Rhotten’s climb to the upper pinnacles of television success have been recorded in M*A*S*H Goes to Las Vegas, M*A*S*H Goes to Morocco, M*A*S*H Goes to Vienna, M*A*S*H Goes to Hollywood, and M*A*S*H Goes to Montreal, all published in the public interest by Pocket Books, New York. Parental guidance is advised.)

  The word was passed down the chain of command to Mr. Rhotten, and he spent the next hour and fifty-five minutes making sure that every last hair of his rug was in place, that his caps glistened like polished ivory, and that his Paul Newman blue contact lenses were not only in place, but that he and they and the teleprompter (sometimes known as the “idiot board”) were in the proper juxtaposition. Without a script, Mr. Rhotten was even more speechless than Mr. O’Casey O’Mulligan.

  Further bulletins from lackeys on the scene at the Oak Room indicated that there was very little chance at all that either Mr. Johnson or his guest, Mr. O’Casey O’Mulligan, would be able to make it out of the Oak Room, much less all the way across town to the studio, so a standby set of famous people was alerted to replace them on the show.

  “I really hate to do it,” the chairman said. “God knows his ego is insufferable as it is, but we can pretend that the very special, superstar-status guest we’ve been announcing all night on the hour and half-hour is Rhotten himself.”

  The chairman, and indeed all those under him, had, however, underestimated the degree to which the most sacred tradition of the Old Vic and Stratford-upon-Avon infested the blood of Mssrs. Sean O’Casey O’Mulligan and Birdwell Richards.

  At 10:45 p.m., in other words, fifteen minutes before Mr. O’Mulligan’s scheduled appearance on the “Merd Johnson Show,” Mr. O’Mulligan suddenly sat erect.

  “Gadzooks, Birdwell!” he said, with remarkable clarity of pronunciation for someone who had ingested as much spirituous liquor as he had. “The very honor of the theatrical profession is at stake! Get our friend down from the chandelier!”

  “What has that,” Birdwell Richards replied somewhat thickly, “to do with the honor of the theatrical profession?”

  “The show, dear boy, must go on!” O’Mulligan said, getting somewhat unsteadily to his feet.

  “Indeed it must!” Richards replied. His pronunciation now was quite impeccable. “To which show do you refer, old companion of the boards?”

  “In fifteen minutes,” O’Mulligan said, “Tarzan up there goes on the air with me as his honored guest. And I intend to be there, or my name isn’t Sean O’Casey O’Mulligan.” He then bent over, picked up a spittoon, and threw it at Merd Johnson to attract his attention and to get him down from the chandelier.

  “Good shot!” Birdwell Richards cried as the spittoon struck Mr. Merd Johnson on the head, causing him to lose what was left of his conscious condition and to tumble from the chandelier into one of the Oak Room’s fortunately softly upholstered couches.

  “You’re just going to have to tag along, old boy,” O’Mulligan said. “Tarzan is out like a light, and he’s far too fat for me to manage all alone.”

  “I will, of course, make any sacrifice for our beloved profession,” Birdwell Richards said. “On the other hand, bear in mind that there are limits to everything. I won’t be forced to perform, will I?”

  Dragging Merd Johnson by his feet, his head bumping along the polished marble corridors, Mr. O’Mulligan and Mr. Richards made their way through the lobby to the entrance, where Mr. Johnson’s limousine and chauffeur patiently waited.

  “To the studio,” Mr. O’Mulligan cried. “And don’t spare the horses!”

  En route to the studio, Mr. Johnson regained consciousness and Mr. Birdwell Richards lost it. When they pulled up outside the studio, studio personnel rushed outside to see just who it was who had driven up on the sidewalk and was obviously seeking entrance to the sacred precincts it was their privilege to guard against the riffraff.

  Sean O’Casey O’Mulligan emerged from the car, stood weaving on the sidewalk, and then cocked his handsome head to one side.

  “Hark,” he declaimed. “A lark!”

  “A what?” Mr. Johnson inquired.

  “A lark, you moron, a lark!” He reached inside the limousine and pulled Birdwell Richards out and stood him on his feet. “Straighten up, Birdwell,” he said. “And pay attention!”

  Having seen the limousine arrive, Dirty Gerty Rumplemayer had been fully prepared, as she thought of it, to put it in high gear.

  “I’ll take you home, again, Kathleen!” she wailed, putting her all in it.

  “Hark, Birdwell,” O’Mulligan repeated, his voice on the edge of breaking up. “A lark.” A tear ran down his leonine cheeks. “My mother’s name was Kathleen,” he said. “God rest her soul!”

  A tear ran down Birdwell Richard
s’ face, too. “I once knew a Kathleen,” he said. “A delightful female. Second hoofer from the right, third row, in the Folies Bergeres.” Sean O’Casey O’Mulligan walked unsteadily over to where Dirty Gerty was singing.

  “How would you like to perform for us, my little Irish nightingale?” he inquired.

  Some time before, as a result of having business propositions made so often to her by the gentlemen exiting the black marble-sheathed building, Dirty Gerty had given the matter some deep thought. She had finally decided that she would be amenable to a proposition providing the offer made was (a) large enough moneywise and (b) that the offerer appealed to offeree. Condition (b) was obviously met, and then some, by Sean O’Casey O’Mulligan. He was, after all, one of the world’s most handsome men, and Dirty Gerty’s heart was all aflutter just being this close to him. That left condition (a).

  “What’s in it for me?” she asked.

  “Remunerationwise, you mean, my wild Irish lark?”

  “Money is what I mean, handsome,” Dirty Gerty replied.

  “Birdwell,” O’Mulligan ordered, “see how much money Tarzan has with him.”

  Birdwell went through Merd Johnson’s pockets and came up with a sheath of bills.

  He gave them to O’Mulligan, who extended them to Dirty Gerty. “I trust this will be sufficient, my little angel?” he asked.