Yuletide Reveal: Between You, Me, and the Stove (3/9)
oOo oOo 3: I Will Boast All the More Gladly of My Weaknesses oOo oOo
Dear Sis,
I really shouldn’t make these confessions about confession a regular thing, even if they do get burned as soon as I write them. I’m going to need to ask Radar for more paper if I continue at the rate I’ve been going. I do pray about the confessions I hear, of course. And usually that’s more than enough. God answers our prayers, but He does so in mysterious ways. Sometimes, I just want a letter.
I heard another Protestant confession tonight, Sis. It went better than my disastrous discussion with BJ, if only moderately so. A man came to me in need, and he didn’t walk out after hearing what I had to say. Though that may have more to do with the fact that he’s now passed out on my cot, rather than my skills as a priest.
It all started about midnight, after I had finished in the OR and gotten a shower. It had been a good night, Kathy. Colonel Potter ordered in a film, and though it was badly damaged, we managed to entertain ourselves. I found myself the butt of the ‘Father Mulcahy Sound-Alike’ competition, but it was all in good fun. We even sang in the operating room afterwards.
In those rare, jubilant moments, I try to capture the feeling in a sermon before it goes away. I was sitting at my desk in my tent, jotting down quotes and ideas when I heard a voice behind me. “She was beautiful tonight, wasn’t she?”
I don’t mind telling you, I nearly jumped out of my skin. I hadn’t heard the door open, let alone the quiet pad of feet, but as soon as I heard the voice I smelled the alcohol.
I turned to find Frank Burns standing there in the middle of the room. Major Burns arrived at the 4077th shortly after I did, so you would think I could tell you quite a bit about his personality and his troubles: what makes him a good man and what makes it hard for him to be that good man. But the truth is, I really can’t. The best I can say is that I try very hard to love all God’s children equally, but Major Burns insists on making things difficult.
The Major had no bottle with him, but that was probably because he’d already drunk it all. He looked around the tent with the vacant expression of the sleepless and soused. As far as I’ve been able to tell, Major Burns doesn’t approve of Catholicism, and though he treated me with respect, I never thought he’d consider coming to me for guidance. But there he was, drunk and wobbly. I took one look at him and knew this was going to be a messy one.
“Major,” I said. I stood up and went to him before he fell flat on his face. “Are you lost?”
“Hmm?” It took Burns several seconds to focus on my face, and when he did he stared at my nose. “Lost? Oh, you bet I’m lost. I’m so, so lost.” He blinked and the despair on his face washed away. He looked at me again and smiled. “Fancy seeing you here, Father!”
I considered my options. I could walk him back to the Swamp, but he had come to my tent. Even if it wasn’t his intent to talk to me, he was there and that had to mean something. Like I said about God and mysterious ways. So instead of guiding him back out, I led him to a chair and said, “Sit down, Major.”
“Okay,” Burns chirped, still silly and chipper. He sounded so unlike himself I had a hard time thinking of this man as Major Burns, great believer in rules and regulations. “You hold the chair still and I’ll sit down.” He burst out laughing.
I looked at the chair, but it seemed a long way down, and very small. I could manhandle Frank into it, but I couldn’t guarantee how long he would stay. He looked like he would collapse in a puddle at the slightest breeze. The cot was a safer bet, so I walked him to it. Frank blinked at the cot, then at me, and then giggled and flopped backwards onto it.
“Whoops,” he said, and laughed again.
“Major, did you want something?” I did try to keep any exasperation out of my tone. Being patient with people in camp is part and parcel to being their priest. And again, Frank did his best to make that difficult.
He managed to sprawl on my cot, which is no mean feat considering the small area he had to work with. He looked up at me, and I was put in mind of goldfish and ten-second memory spans. “Who, me?” he asked. “Sure, I want something. I want Donald Penobscot to fall off a cliff. I want Margaret to like me again, like she used to. She did used to like me, you know. That was nice. Not many people do.”
“Now, Major, I’m sure that’s not true,” I said, even though I wasn’t so sure. Major Burns has difficulties interacting with people that make me look socially accomplished.
He also has very blue eyes, and at that moment they were very wide and very earnest. “No, it is true. They think I don’t know, but BJ and Hawkeye don’t like me much at all. Colonel Potter never wants to leave me in charge, and now even Margaret hates me.”
When Major Burns first came in, I admit to thinking uncharitably. I believed I would have to dig very deep in my soul to sympathize with whatever plight Burns had found himself in, but in that moment it was easy to pity Frank Burns.
We are human and fallible, and we misjudge others far more than we hope. I felt I had badly misjudged Frank; that maybe the whole world had misjudged him. He was irritating, but there was something about him that indicated his faults were not entirely his choice.
I was being completely honest with him when I said, “I like you.”
Frank’s expression crumpled, which was not the effect I was hoping for. He sounded less like a grown man and more like a disappointed child when he said, “Oh, you don’t count. You have to like everyone. But she liked me, and she doesn’t like many people. No sir. And now she doesn’t like me any more. She got her fiancée and that was that. Not that we were together in that sort of sense, of course! I know the value of family values, and they are very valuable. But we were friends! And now we’re not. No one likes Frank.”
Drunken confessions are always the most difficult kind, but after the disaster with BJ I was particularly determined. I placed a hand over Frank’s. I waited until he looked at me again, and then waited a bit longer to be certain he recognized me and remembered where he was. “I like you, Frank. God likes you.”
“Oh, He has to like everyone too!” Frank whined.
I was at the end of my rope, Sis. Out of desperation, I resorted to a direct question. “Major, what would make you feel better?”
“I’d feel better if Margaret said she was sorry and that she’d never do it again,” Frank said.
That was less helpful than it could have been. “Is there something I could do that would make you feel better?”
Frank looked at me in confusion. “What do you mean? This is a trick, isn’t it?”
“I really do want to help you, Major. I just . . . I don’t know how to do that.”
Frank looked at me with confusion that began to shade toward fear. It struck me that this might not be a question often put to Frank Burns. Everyone here tells him what to do, no matter their rank. Back when Frank and Major Houlihan were still ‘friends’ she would often do his talking for him. Frank talks about patriotism and duty, but I have to wonder if that is because he couldn’t think of anything else remotely appropriate to say.
Frank became more and more agitated while I fumbled for words. By the time I opened my mouth, he stumbled to his feet and backed away, swaying and nearly falling into my desk. “You’re just trying to trip me up! I know what you’re doing. You get me to tell you what I want and then you laugh at me! Well, I won’t do it, bucko. I’m not going to be your dupe.”
I got to my feet, ready to catch him. I offered a quick prayer that Frank didn’t take a swing at me. I didn’t think he was in any condition to land a blow, but he could easily knock into a support beam and collapse part of the tent. Actually, given what I’ve seen of Frank, that was a strong possibility. Before he could flail the tent down around our ears, I caught his hands.
“How can I help you?” I asked again, and tried to match Frank’s loud panic with quiet calm. I don’t think I succeeded, but I did try.
“I . . . I want . . .”
“Yes?”
“I don’t know what I want.” And quite suddenly Frank was in drunken tears. I managed to let go of his hands and wrap an arm around him as he collapsed, but his elbow caught me in the gut and we both fell onto the cot this time. Frank bounced a little, and then curled up in a miserable ball. I sat there and gasped until I had regained my breath.
When I managed to think about something other than breathing, I found Frank still curled up next to me. Seeing him there, I wondered if Frank Burns wasn’t the embodiment of the whole war: ineffective, pitiful, and so blind he couldn’t find his own way home. There was no decision he wouldn’t balk at, no buck he wouldn’t pass, and not nearly the resources a man like him would need in a place like this to do half of what was expected of him. The army deposits so many men in Korea who have no capacity for handling their experiences. I’ve seen them come through, broken and disbelieving in post op. I try to help, but by the time I reach most of them they have thousand-yard stares, and nothing I say touches them.
If the world had been kind at all, Frank Burns would have a private practice and a home where nothing ever happened and nothing beyond his ability was ever expected of him. I have a hard time believing he would be happy there, or anywhere really, but he would be safe. Maybe he would even be content.
Frank’s sobs trailed off. “You aren’t going to tell Pierce and Hunnicutt I cried, are you? This is like confession. You can’t tell anyone.”
“I won’t tell,” I said.
Frank sniffled against the pillow.
Oh, Kathy, I want to believe that I was sent to Korea to mend people, but I can’t fix the entire war, and I couldn’t fix Frank for the same reasons. I know that I failed him too, even if my failure was less glaring than it was with BJ.
The only thing I could offer was a safe place to sleep without fear of practical jokes. “Go to sleep, Major,” I said. “Know that you’re being watched over.”
“Really? That would be swell . . .” Frank’s silly smile was back. He snuggled against my pillow. “And maybe this is all a dream, and tomorrow things will be all right again.”
He was snoring in seconds. I climbed off the cot and sat down at my desk. After taking a moment to collect myself, I looked at my sermon. The jubilation of the night was gone. Maybe I’ll reuse the one about Jonah. That always gets good responses. After I’ve burned this letter, of course.
Your Brother,
Francis
Chapter 4: One Day is as a Thousand Years