MASH Goes To Maine by Richard Hooker

Author:Richard Hooker
Language: eng
Format: azw
Published: 2012-01-13T19:36:28+00:00

9

FOUR months before the opening of the clinic and the completion of the new Spruce Harbor General, Trapper John McIntyre arrived. He had left the city forever and would, he said, devote himself to supervising the construction and outfitting of the cardiovascular unit.

Three days after Trapper’s arrival Lucinda Lively, Dr. Pierce’s secretary, submitted her resignation.

“Trapper works fast, I guess,” said Hawkeye with an attempt at cheerfulness.

“I like him a lot and I’m going to be with him and work for him and have fun.”

“Vaya con Dios, babe. Trapper got a place to live?”

“Oh yes,” chirped Lucinda. “We’re going to live in a tent on Thief Island.”

“That should be fun for the summer,” said Hawkeye. “You’ll he sort of tented up, I take it.”

“Oh, very funny. And it’s not just for the summer. Trapper says he’s going to get a stove like you guys had in Korea and a wooden floor and something to cook on and a refrigerator and this and that and we’re going to live there the year around.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that, Dr. Pierce,” said Lucinda, who kissed him and walked out without looking back.

Hawkeye Pierce had been working hard and it would take a while to find a new secretary so he declared himself on vacation. He left word that Trapper John would cover him for necessary chest surgery and that he was going to spend a month at home, on the golf course and on his boat.

Two weeks into vacation, Hawkeye heard that Trapper was growing a beard and frequently appeared at the hospital barefoot and clad only in the briefest of swimming trunks. Furthermore, the word was that Trapper’s companion, Lucinda Lively, now wore only a bikini.

One morning Sue Taylor, the OR supervisor, called Dr. Pierce’s home and proclaimed, “You’ve gotta do something about that boy of yours. I won’t have him coming into my OR in swimming trunks and I won’t have him training that floozy as a scrub nurse, either.”

“Sue, baby,” purred Hawkeye, “you haven’t been watching the scoreboard. It’s not your OR anymore. Duke, Trapper, Spearchucker and Hawkeye have bought you out. We got it going for us so you and everybody else are going to play our rules. It doesn’t matter how Trapper dresses. All that matters is how he works and if he wants to train Lucinda as a scrub nurse it’s none of your goddamn business.”

“I’ll resign,” proclaimed Sue.

“No, you won’t. Why don’t you get a bikini? If you look good in it, I’ll give you a try.”

“You’re disgusting. He smells like a haddock. That damn fool Wooden Leg is teaching him to fillet fish. He could at least wash the scales off before he comes to the hospital.”

“I think you may have a point there, Sue. You tell Trapper I say to take a shower before’ doing surgery, or I’ll burn down his tent.”

Sue Taylor had the bit in her teeth. An impulsive, determined, capable, well-meaning, somewhat unexposed forty-year-old product of Tedium Cove, she could not cope easily with change.

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