snapshots from the 4077th [M*A*S*H, drabbles]
TITLE: Hands
CATEGORY: M*A*S*H, BJ
SIZE: Extra Small
Hands
His hands were raw from scrubbing. His cuticles frayed, his nails oxidized with white half-moons from malnutrition, crinkled and peeling from his fingers like claws. He tried borrowing Charles' strange, fragranced soap, but the smell was tell-tale and the lather just dried him out. He stuck with petroleum jelly, a tub hidden in his footlocker and he'd nurse his knuckles each night, but it didn't help.
Some days he'd scrub in fifty, sixty times in twelve hours, slip in to suffocating rubber and drying talc, dig his hands deep into some kid's gut and come out in the middle of the night to see red fingers, chafed and cracked, wrapped around the stem of a martini glass.
It was like Lady Macbeth, but he'd been here a year and his hands would never be the same. He hated them; he didn't want to look, didn't want to see the gnarled creature Korea had made him, scarlet and arthritic and calloused.
And at night, wrapped around that martini he'd think of his hands and imagine the day he'd get to go home, the first time he'd kiss Peg, the first time he'd reach out to take Erin in his arms. And it always winds up the same.
Erin takes one look at those hands and screams. Daddy went to Korea a man, but he came home a monster.
::
TITLE: People Out in the Snow
CATEGORY: M*A*S*H, Margaret
SIZE: Extra Small
People Out in the Snow
It's cold enough that I caught myself jealous of BJ today, wrist-deep in the guts of a split-open soldier. While the doctors worked, I warmed my hands over the body. I could see the steam rise from where I suctioned away blood.
All Dad said, really, was call the Red Cross. Call HQ Seoul. You have a lawyer? he asked. You want me to put in a call for you? General Thomas and I go way back.
No, I say, and I wish I hadn't called at all.
I'll get through this one myself, I say, and O'Reilly looks over at me from the file cabinet, wads of cotton stuffed between his ears and his earphones. Everything okay, Major?
Everything's fine, I say. If Donald calls, tell him I don't want to talk to him. Tell him to expect a call from HQ. Tell that bastard I want my money back. But I don't say that part out loud. Radar shrugs.
He died, the boy BJ was working on. Made it to post-op, but the infection burned through him like white phosphorus, and he only stuck it out another hour before Klinger bagged him and moved him outside into the snow.
It was the infection that kept him so warm tonight, and I flex my knuckles, because my hands have gotten cold again. I think of that boy, and I make a mental note to clean the freezers tomorrow.
We can't just leave people out in the snow. It's not proper. It's not fair. It's not done.
::
TITLE: They Shelled Rosie's
CATEGORY: M*A*S*H, Hawkeye
SIZE: Extra Small
They Shelled Rosie's
They shelled Rosie's again yesterday, and then BJ spent two hours up to his elbows in a business girl, cleaning shrapnel from her gut. When he was done, she was all sort of purple and yellow, and he'd put in a hundred and nine stitches.
So now we've got a business girl in post-op in pressure dressings and a truss, and she wants to put her kimono back on. Look at it, she says, showing a bundle of silk to the nurses. It is purple and yellow. Admire the fine stitchwork, she says.
Okay, I tell the nurse. Okay, as long as you help her. As long as you change her dressings first, wash away the blood. Make sure she doesn't pull her stitches getting into those big sleeves.
And then Margaret comes and brings lipstick and a hairbrush and a mirror, and she sits on the edge of the bed and brushes the business girl's hair and smiles at me when she catches me staring.
And I think how strange Korea is, all this beauty and no place to put it.
::
TITLE: When Mildred Came to Tokyo
CATEGORY: M*A*S*H, Colonel Sherman Potter
SIZE: Extra Small
When Mildred Came to Tokyo
When Mildred came to Tokyo they'd spent the evening in the hotel bar, listening to a negro kid play piano. God, she was a sight, finest woman he'd ever known, her eyes shining like a new penny and the two of them dancing to the kid singing "Smile, Smile, Smile."
About an hour before midnight she'd started to cry, so he asked her why. Music was starting and he looked over at the piano, saw that dreamy look, couples dancing cheek to cheek as the boy started in on "I'll Be Home For Christmas."
"Not this song," Mildred had said, steering him up to their room. "It's been too many years."
"It's been too many years," she said, kissing him on the cheek, and they both tried not to listen to the words, pressing that button, waiting for the elevator.
"I'll be home for Christmas," the boy sang.
Potter took Mildred in his arms, held her close. They were tired of being lied to.
CATEGORY: M*A*S*H, BJ
SIZE: Extra Small
Hands
His hands were raw from scrubbing. His cuticles frayed, his nails oxidized with white half-moons from malnutrition, crinkled and peeling from his fingers like claws. He tried borrowing Charles' strange, fragranced soap, but the smell was tell-tale and the lather just dried him out. He stuck with petroleum jelly, a tub hidden in his footlocker and he'd nurse his knuckles each night, but it didn't help.
Some days he'd scrub in fifty, sixty times in twelve hours, slip in to suffocating rubber and drying talc, dig his hands deep into some kid's gut and come out in the middle of the night to see red fingers, chafed and cracked, wrapped around the stem of a martini glass.
It was like Lady Macbeth, but he'd been here a year and his hands would never be the same. He hated them; he didn't want to look, didn't want to see the gnarled creature Korea had made him, scarlet and arthritic and calloused.
And at night, wrapped around that martini he'd think of his hands and imagine the day he'd get to go home, the first time he'd kiss Peg, the first time he'd reach out to take Erin in his arms. And it always winds up the same.
Erin takes one look at those hands and screams. Daddy went to Korea a man, but he came home a monster.
::
TITLE: People Out in the Snow
CATEGORY: M*A*S*H, Margaret
SIZE: Extra Small
People Out in the Snow
It's cold enough that I caught myself jealous of BJ today, wrist-deep in the guts of a split-open soldier. While the doctors worked, I warmed my hands over the body. I could see the steam rise from where I suctioned away blood.
All Dad said, really, was call the Red Cross. Call HQ Seoul. You have a lawyer? he asked. You want me to put in a call for you? General Thomas and I go way back.
No, I say, and I wish I hadn't called at all.
I'll get through this one myself, I say, and O'Reilly looks over at me from the file cabinet, wads of cotton stuffed between his ears and his earphones. Everything okay, Major?
Everything's fine, I say. If Donald calls, tell him I don't want to talk to him. Tell him to expect a call from HQ. Tell that bastard I want my money back. But I don't say that part out loud. Radar shrugs.
He died, the boy BJ was working on. Made it to post-op, but the infection burned through him like white phosphorus, and he only stuck it out another hour before Klinger bagged him and moved him outside into the snow.
It was the infection that kept him so warm tonight, and I flex my knuckles, because my hands have gotten cold again. I think of that boy, and I make a mental note to clean the freezers tomorrow.
We can't just leave people out in the snow. It's not proper. It's not fair. It's not done.
::
TITLE: They Shelled Rosie's
CATEGORY: M*A*S*H, Hawkeye
SIZE: Extra Small
They Shelled Rosie's
They shelled Rosie's again yesterday, and then BJ spent two hours up to his elbows in a business girl, cleaning shrapnel from her gut. When he was done, she was all sort of purple and yellow, and he'd put in a hundred and nine stitches.
So now we've got a business girl in post-op in pressure dressings and a truss, and she wants to put her kimono back on. Look at it, she says, showing a bundle of silk to the nurses. It is purple and yellow. Admire the fine stitchwork, she says.
Okay, I tell the nurse. Okay, as long as you help her. As long as you change her dressings first, wash away the blood. Make sure she doesn't pull her stitches getting into those big sleeves.
And then Margaret comes and brings lipstick and a hairbrush and a mirror, and she sits on the edge of the bed and brushes the business girl's hair and smiles at me when she catches me staring.
And I think how strange Korea is, all this beauty and no place to put it.
::
TITLE: When Mildred Came to Tokyo
CATEGORY: M*A*S*H, Colonel Sherman Potter
SIZE: Extra Small
When Mildred Came to Tokyo
When Mildred came to Tokyo they'd spent the evening in the hotel bar, listening to a negro kid play piano. God, she was a sight, finest woman he'd ever known, her eyes shining like a new penny and the two of them dancing to the kid singing "Smile, Smile, Smile."
About an hour before midnight she'd started to cry, so he asked her why. Music was starting and he looked over at the piano, saw that dreamy look, couples dancing cheek to cheek as the boy started in on "I'll Be Home For Christmas."
"Not this song," Mildred had said, steering him up to their room. "It's been too many years."
"It's been too many years," she said, kissing him on the cheek, and they both tried not to listen to the words, pressing that button, waiting for the elevator.
"I'll be home for Christmas," the boy sang.
Potter took Mildred in his arms, held her close. They were tired of being lied to.