MASH 14 MASH goes to Moscow (15 page)

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 approximately 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’Mul
ligan
. 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.

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.