Mash (6 page)

The Painless Pole, beyond any shadow of a doubt, was the best-equipped dentist in the U.S. Army Dental Corps. He was the owner and operator of the Pride of Hamtramck. Officers and enlisted men from the entire area frequently visited the 4077th MASH, supposedly to take advantage of the shower facilities, but actually they came in hope of catching a glimpse. In fact, Dr. Waldowski’s dental assistant, a Corporal Jones, significantly enhanced his lowly wages by informing certain troops in advance of the Captain’s intention of bathing. In the shower, popeyed officers and enlisted men viewed the Pride wistfully, and one day a corporal from Mississippi spoke for them all.

“Ah’d purely love,” he said, “to see it angry.”

Unfortunately, about once a month, the Painless Pole underwent a period of depression lasting no less than twenty-four hours and seldom more than three days. The usual activities of the Clinic continued, but except when forced to work, Walt just lay in his sack and stared at the walls. Radar O’Reilly, of course, was able to predict the advent of these episodes several days in advance, so that the clients of the Clinic were forewarned, but it was Hawkeye Pierce who spread the first word of what turned out to be Captain Waldowski’s most serious seizure.

On this afternoon Hawkeye had been working continuously for twelve hours and, having finally finished and found it to be bathing time, he had gone to the shower tent. He undressed slowly. His stethoscope fell out of the rear pocket of his fatigue pants, and he hung it on a nail along with the pants. He stepped under the shower, luxuriated in its warmth, relaxed and dreamed dreams of Crabapple Cove. Returning to reality, he walked back to the bench where he had left his clothes. He found Captain Walter Waldowski, The Painless Pole, sitting on the bench. All the Dental Officer had on was Hawkeye’s stethoscope and a look of great alarm. He was listening to the Pride of Hamtramck.

“What’s the matter, Walt?” asked Hawkeye.

“I think it’s dead,” Walt answered and, in a trance, he walked to the nearest shower with the stethoscope still dangling from his ears.

That evening The Painless Pole entered The Swamp and sat down. He was given a drink, which he accepted with indifference.

“I thought you guys oughta know,” he announced.

“Know what?”

“I’m going to commit suicide.”

There was a moment of silence. Finally Trapper John leaned from his sack and grasped Walt’s hand.

“We’ll miss you, Walt,” he said. “I hope you’ll be happy in your new location.”

“Hey, Walt, how about you all leaving me your record player?” requested Duke.

“When are you making the trip?” inquired Hawkeye. “You oughta give Henry a little warning so he can get a replacement.”

Throughout the interrogation, The Painless Pole sat numbly and made no effort to answer.

“How do you figure to go?” continued Trapper. “You gonna do the .45 between the eyes, or are you planning something a little more refined?”

“That’s what I wanted to ask,” Walt finally said. “What would you guys recommend?”

“The .45 will do it.” Duke answered. “There’s no question about that, but it can be sloppy. How about the black capsule?”

“What’s that?”

“It’s a never miss, easy, pleasant ride,” explained Hawkeye. “You have a few drinks, take the black capsule, and the next thing you know you’re listening to the heavenly chorus singing the Hamtramck High School victory song.”

“You guys got any black capsules?”

“For a buddy like y’all,” the Duke told him, “we’ll sure as hell get some, if that’s what you want.”

“That’s what I want. I gotta go make out my will. Duke, you can have the record player. I’m closing the Clinic in the morning. Tomorrow night is it. You guys come up. We’ll have a few drinks, and I’ll take a black capsule, or maybe two.”

The Painless Pole left. Hawkeye followed him.

“Relieve me in three hours,” he instructed the Swampmen as he departed. “We’d better watch the foolish bastard until he gets over this one.”

The next morning Henry heard about it. He was all upset and making plans to evacuate Painless, and came to The Swamp to discuss it.

“What in hell’s wrong with him anyhow? Why do I have to get saddled with all the screwballs in the whole U.S. Army? Where in hell am I going to get another dentist?”

Trapper was in the Dental Clinic doing guard duty, but Duke and Hawkeye argued Henry out of his evacuation plans.

“Y’all don’t need to get rid of him, Henry,” said Duke. “He’ll get the hell over it.”

“Christ, Henry,” Hawk added, “if you get rid of him, some head-shrinker will just give him shock treatments and probably send him to another outfit. We can give him some shock treatments right here!”

“I’m afraid not, boys,” Henry said. “This sort of thing is dynamite. If he pushed himself over up here, I’d never hear the end of it.”

“Henry, you surely are aware,” Hawkeye continued, “of the immense prestige which the presence of the Pride bestows upon the unit. Furthermore, the Pride is the greatest drawing card any military shower tent ever had. You must realize that the personnel of our hospital and all nearby troops, in their zeal to view the Pride of Hamtramck, have become the cleanest goddam soldiers in Korea. Henry, in the name of sanitation and personal hygiene, will you just give us twenty-four hours to cure Painless Waldowski?”

“Yeah, Henry,” Duke said. “Will y’all just do that?”

“I’m crazy. I’m just as crazy as you guys. Go ahead, cure him, and let me the hell out of here!” he cried, leaving.

“So,” Hawkeye said to the Duke, “how are we going to cure him?”

“Easy,” the Duke said. “We’ll get some kind of black capsule, like we told him, stick about fifteen grains of amytal in it, get him loaded, and give him the capsule. By the time he wakes up, he oughta be O.K.”

“We better have some benzedrine or something around in case he looks like he won’t wake up.”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“We should fancy up the procedure a little, too. We can work that out today. Let’s start by lining up Dago Red.”

They ambled over to the chaplain’s tent, entered and opened two of Father Mulcahy’s beers.

“How they goin’, Losing Preacher?” asked Hawkeye. “Whadda you hear from the Pope?”

“What do you reprobates want?”

“We came to invite y’all to the Last Supper,” explained the Duke.

“The Painless Pole,” Hawkeye explained, “plans to cross the Great Divide about eleven tonight and wishes his friends and cronies to break bread and wine with him beforehand. He has also requested that Losing Preacher Mulcahy come prepared to administer the last rites of the bead-jiggler Church. He has been somewhat slack in his devotion to the Church in recent years and wishes you to grease the skids a little.”

“Why don’t you guys leave me alone? What’s this all about anyway?” Dago asked wearily.

“We’re serious, Red,” Hawkeye said. “Painless has parted his mooring. We don’t want to have him evacuated because he’s a good guy and we like him and we figure we need him. We think we can get him straightened out, but we need a little help.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Just what we said. Come up, have supper, a few drinks, put in one of your well-known fixes, and don’t get annoyed at anything you hear or see.”

“OK, boys, I’ll trust you,” Father Mulcahy agreed, “but I hope the big guy in Rome never gets wind of it.”

“He sure as hell won’t hear it from me,” Hawkeye assured him.

They went to the supply sergeant and commissioned the construction of a coffin.

“Who you planning to kill?” the sergeant asked.

“Nobody. We need the coffin for Painless. He is going to commit suicide.”

“He can’t do that!” protested the sergeant.

“Why can’t he?”

“Dentists we got lots of, but there’s only one Pride of Hamtramck.”

“So what?”

“So what? It belongs to the world! You gotta stop him.”

“Don’t worry, we’re not gonna let him do it. You seen Radar O’Reilly around?”

“Radar went to Seoul to get some blood. He’ll be back this afternoon. Whadda you want with him?”

“We may need him. Send him over to The Swamp as soon as he gets back.”

In the pharmacy a black capsule was prepared. Then the two trooped over to the mess hall and found the celebrated chef, Sergeant Mother Divine. Sergeant Mother Divine was a
Negro boy from Brooklyn who, during his military career, had distinguished himself through a variety of accomplishments, not all of them culinary. As president of the Brooklyn and Manhattan Marked-Down Monument and Landmark Company, and equipped with picture postcards and impressive papers suggesting ownership of various public edifices, statuary and parks, he had, for months, been running a thriving sales business. Just two days before the visit of Hawkeye and Duke, in fact, he had sold the Brooklyn Botanical Garden for two hundred dollars to a Caucasian private from Mississippi.

“Man,” one of his less sophisticated kitchen colleagues had said to him, more in awe than admonition, “how could you do that?”

“Man,” Mother Divine said, “it was easy. That cat wouldn’t buy the bridge because he said he’d heard in the family for years that his grandpappy had bought it a long time ago.”

“Mother,” Hawkeye said to him now, “how would you like to win the Medaille d’Honneur des Chevaliers d’Escoffier de France?”

“Man,” Mother said, “what is it?”

“It’s a gold medal,” Hawkeye said.

“Man,” Mother said.

“It’s awarded in Paris every year,” Hawkeye said, “to the man voted the Chef of the Year.”

“And how do I get voted to that?” Mother asked.

“By preparing for this evening an especially sumptuous …”

“Oh no, man,” Mother said. “I ain’t caterin’ to no special parties. That ain’t in the regulations. In the regulations I just gotta provide three …”

“Mother,” Hawkeye said, “you like Captain Waldowski, don’t you?”

“That’s right,” Mother said. “In fact, there’s somethin’ about that man I greatly admire.”

With that as his cue, and with the Duke nodding assent, Hawkeye launched into an explanation of the emotional and mental state of the Painless Pole and then an impassioned plea. When he finished, Mother Divine agreed to do his part to save the Pride of Hamtramck.

In the Clinic that evening the poker game was stopped, and the poker and pool facilities, along with the dental chair, were removed. Two long tables were transported from the mess hall, candles were lighted and the Swampmen tended bar. The guests – doctors, chopper pilots, enlisted men – began to warm up, but Painless Waldowski sat unhappily in a corner, barely acknowledging the greetings of his friends and admirers.

At the stroke of midnight the Last Supper was served, and no finer meal had ever been prepared at the 4077th MASH. This was due not only to the inspired efforts of Mother Divine but also to the fact that a Canadian supply truck had been hijacked a few miles to the south that very afternoon. As a result, smoked Gaspe salmon was followed by Pea Soup Habitant, roast beef sliced to the individual’s preference, three vegetables, tossed salad, baked alaska, coffee or tea, Drambuie and Antonio y Cleopatra cigars.

Painless drank reluctantly and little, but Duke saw to it that the drinks were high in alcoholic content. Painless ate without appetite and at the conclusion of the meal, as each guest rose to make a short speech of fondness and farewell, he barely acknowledged the tributes and good wishes.

When the speeches had been completed, the coffin was carried in. It was lined with blankets and supplied with three fresh decks of cards, a box of poker chips, a fifth of Scotch, several basic dental instruments and pictures of Painless Waldowski’s three fiancees. For the first time Painless showed some interest.

“What’s that?” he asked.

“The coffin for y’all,” the Duke informed him.

“But I’m not even dead yet.”

“Yeah, but you’re a pretty big guy,” Hawkeye said. “We don’t want to have to lug you around after you take the black capsule. We figured you could get in the box and then take it. Really, Painless, it’ll be a helluva lot more convenient.”