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angryhausfrau-writes · 3 years

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The Year is 1958 - Chapter 3

Radar's a farm boy born and bred, so it's early to bed and earlier to rise. Which might've made him kinda a party pooper last night, missing out on a fair bit of the reunion. But Patty'd come off a long shift Friday and then traveling and everything so she hadn't minded heading upstairs at ten, right about when the real wild stuff started.

And Radar don't mind it neither, except for that he's awake before pert near everybody else, including Patty. But she's sleeping so peaceful next to him that he don't mind just setting there in bed with her, seeing how perty she looks with her hair all spread out over the pillow and him still not hardly believing that she's married to him. That she'd chosen him, outta everyone in the world.

Ok, maybe not the whole world. But at least the outta the Iowa-Missouri border counties.

Looking at her is maybe the best thing Radar can think to do, especially on a morning like this when he's doing his level best not to spy in on Trapper creeping through the halls from Ginger's hotel room to his. Or on all the folks in bed with all the other folks.

It ain't none of his business, who's keeping company with who.

That's the thing, though, about being so close to everyone from the 4077 again. He got so close to them all. So used to hearing them – so used to needing to hear them, in case they needed something, or were hurting in a way he could help fix. So it's hard keeping them out, now they're all civilians. Now there ain't the background noise of the guns and the terror and the pain roiling around like oatmeal on the stove. A sinking morass that'd trap you sooner'n quicksand.

But here, in Chicago, the fancy hotel's almost empty of distraction. And they're all a hell of a lot closer together than they've been in years.

Back home, standing in the middle of a cornfield, he's far enough away from most of 'em that he don't get nothing from them if he ain't actively listening. Like he'd used to do near on everyday once the war ended. Needing to know who'd made it home. Who else was laying at the bottom of the ocean, never coming home again. Who might be drowning in a completely other way.

But over the years he'd back off on it. It ain't right for him to be sticking his nose in other people's business. And seeing most of 'em at Dr. Winchester's wedding – and then his own just a few months later, when the harvest was in and they could think about settling down together for a long winter – well, he'd been reassured seeing 'em all whole and happy. And there'd been enough background noise from all of Dr. Winchester's other guests – or Radar's fixing on Patricia, looking so beautiful in her wedding dress he couldn't'a looked away if'n he'd wanted to - like she was the only other person on the planet – he din't really get the full effect of having them all there.

But here's different. There ain't really that buffer to keep everyone out. Or Radar outta everyone.

So he keeps fixed on Patty as she's sleeping. Keeps from thinking on Park Soon in Max and Soon Li's room, talking to their Grandmother like she's kin, them sitting close like they're all that's keepin' the other upright while they talk. Keeps from thinking on all the nurses and all the doctors and all the enlisted all in each other's beds. Keeps from thinking on whatever the fuck Trapper's thinking about – something about a shower that Radar shuts down real quick cuz it ain't none of his business and he don't wanna know nothing more about it.

Park Sung rises early. He had stayed up late, talking with Soon Li and Max Klinger and halmeonim in their hotel room after the party ended. And when he had begun yawning and half falling asleep against the small sofa in the room, Max and Soon Li had invited him to stay overnight on that sofa so he would not disturb Radar and Mrs. O'Reily when he came back to their room.

He is glad they let him be an imposition, because he got to hear Max and Soon Li take turns with telling Seong and Jae Klinger stories.

They are not stories Park Sung knows. They are not the stories he grew up hearing or the stories Radar and Mrs. O'Reily read from pastel colored books with baby animals on the cover.

Spot The Dog is an almost mythical figure in their household, meant to teach children vocabulary, as Park Sung understands it. The repetitious call for Spot The Dog's aid and lenience of judgment what allowed Rose O'Reily to attend kindergarten this coming September.

Park Sung had done much the same with the farmers almanacs that fill the O'Reily farm house's single bookshelf. Poring over book after book in hopes of learning the secrets of this new place. A treasure trove of information about when to plant and when to harvest, the rhythm of his new life, so different from the old, printed in fading ink on yellowed pages.

They are stories more useful than are contained in the Holy Bible, which is not to be touched or breathed on, for fear of harming it. Stories that Radar and Mrs. O'Reily and Park Sung must listen to every week at the Methodist Church so that the other farmers know they are Goodly and Dependable and God Fearing. So that they will understand that Park Sung is one of them, despite being from the Heathen East.

But the stories Max and Soon Li tell are not any of these stories.

They are stories of family members, aunts and uncles, grandmothers and grandfathers, cousins and brothers and sisters across two different oceans. They are the stories of mother and mother before they met one another on a battle field. They are the stories of brother and brother growing up in a strange land, with the traces of other lands familiar in their faces and in their words and in their ears.

Park Sung has never heard any stories like these. He has never needed any stories like these. But now he has heard stories like these, and he does not know how he will go back to the almanacs and Spot The Dog and the untouchable Holy Bible.

Halmeonim must know. She rises with Park Sung and they sit in the gray dawn on the small sofa. She invites Park Sung to the city of Toledo so that she may sit with him on the sofa there and so that he may hear more stories spoken by Max and Soon Li into the less than patient ears of Seong Klinger and the too-small ears of Jae Klinger.

So that Park Sung may speak his own stories into all of their ears, including his own.

Lorraine made plans to have breakfast with Ginger that next morning in the hotel dining room, but she's a little surprised to see her, bright and early – well, nine o'clock in the morning is early after the sort of night they'd had – especially since Ginger had disappeared from the party with Dr. McIntyre. And she's got that sort of smug, self-satisfied smile that speaks to it having been a very enjoyable night.

“Have fun?” Lorraine asks teasingly when Ginger sits down next to her.

She just looks even more smugly mysterious, a gleam in her eye.

“Oh, don't get her started!” Baker exclaims, joining their little group with her plate of breakfast from the hotel buffet. “She'll be insufferable the whole morning.”

Ginger sniffs. “Just as well a lady never kisses and tells.”

“Since when were you ever a lady?”

“Are they always like this?” Lorraine asks Kelly, who's come over to join them as well.

She laughs. “Worse, usually. Like a whole high school class made up of gossips.”

“And here comes the headmistress,” Baker adds, waving Lieutenant Colonel Margaret “Hot Lips” Houlihan over. Along with that delightful friend of hers. Who's saying something about that being quite the picture.

“Don't make me get my ruler, Lieutenant Baker.”

“You want to know something?” Baker asks. “I don't think you would. I think you got a whole lot nicer over the last five years.”

“Yeah,” Ginger grins. “Just a big old softy.”

“Didn't even try and call the MPs on Trapper for taking Ginger upstairs for a nightcap.”

Lorraine gasps. She wouldn't!

“She would and she did,” Kelly whispers.

Well!

“He's a civilian now, I doubt it would've done any good.”

“Ginger's not,” Kelly points out. “And jurisdiction over half a tryst isn't anything to sneeze at.”

“I've actually been thinking about that...”

“About Maggie calling the MPs on you in the middle of your evening?” Kat interrupts. “You've got a hell of an imagination.”

The table dissolves into some pretty unladylike giggling.

“No. No!” Ginger hushes them all, and they fall into line, eventually. “No, I've been thinking about becoming a civilian.”

There's a low oooh that makes its way around the table.

Lorraine doesn't really understand what the big deal is about quitting the army. But then, she'd never really thought all that much about the army until Henry had been drafted, not having any brothers or male cousins to sign up to go show the Germans what was what. Though her neighbor had, Billy Johnson, in her year in high school and on the football team, he'd joined up, now she thinks about it. And her mother's ladies group had all volunteered with the Red Cross, of course, organizing blood drives and things.

But when the war was over and everyone came home that'd been the end of all of that.

All of these women have stayed in the army, even when the men – with the exception of Lieutenant Commander Burns – had gone back to their normal lives. And Lorraine doesn't understand why such beautiful, accomplished, fun women couldn't have done so themselves.

“You find a man or something?” Baker asks.

“Must be serious if you're breaking up with the Army.”

Dish laughs. “At least you got one final hurrah with Trapper.”

“I think that's the marines,” Baker interjects.

Kelly elbows her in the side.

Margaret shakes her head, laughing. “Terrible, just terrible. The whole bunch of you.”

“Everybody shut up, I want to hear about Ginger's civilian husband-to-be.”

Ginger laughs. “There is no civilian husband-to-be – at least not yet. So stop planning my wedding!”

Kelly shakes her head in regret. “Too bad. We were on a real roll for a while there.”

“So no new beau to give you a life of luxury and civilian-ity?”

“Unfortunately not.”

“Then what's the scoop?”

Ginger sighs. “I just spent the past five years at the Chicago VA and I'm sick of it. I want to work in a maternity ward, I think. See all those sweet little babies in their bassinets, help deliver life into the world instead of telling another kid who got his leg blown off why he can't get another appointment for three months. Or that the Army won't cover treatment for something it caused. I've got kids with burns over most of their bodies and all I get told is, can't do nothing about it. I'm just sick of it!” Ginger wipes at her eyes with a napkin.

There are sympathetic nods all along the table. Everyone there is familiar with what it means when the boys come home. Especially the ones who don't – who can't - sign up for another tour. Especially especially when they don't have a CO for a father and a whole mess of brass on their chest.

“And all the doctors are terrible, too. I could do a better job as surgeon.”

“At least you got plenty of practice with old Ferret Face,” Dish says. “You ought to be used to surgeons who can't tell the business end of a scalpel.”

Baker keeps up the joke. “Only reason there hasn't been a homicide in the OR, I bet. After Frank Burns even some guy off the street's gotta look like the height of competence.”

“And of course, we all know how to make mediocre surgeons look like gods.”

“First day of nursing school,” Kelly says with a laugh. “Bedpans, hospital corners, and how not to show up the surgeons.”

Ginger laughs, but it's a weak and teary one. “Yeah, you learn that one real quick.”

Surprisingly, it's Hot Lips who makes the first move to physically comfort her, standing with her arms held open towards her.

“Oh, hon. C'mere.”

Ginger stumbles into her arms, a look of surprise and disbelief on her face. Well, that's to be expected. Margaret never had been the one to go to for comfort.

She wraps Ginger up tight in a hug and holds on.

“Colonel?” she asks, after a while.

“Margaret. Please.” She smiles at Ginger, a little teary herself. “Since you're going to be a civilian and all.”

Ginger blinks away tears and smiles up at her. “Ginger Bayliss, civilian. Pleased to meet you.”

They shake hands solemnly, fighting laughter. And then Ginger goes around shaking everyone else's hands. Including Lorraine, who offers to come up to visit sometime, jokes about showing her the ropes of non-army life.

“And you'll be at the next reunion, of course,” Kelly says. “Just to lord it over all us career Army gals how much better life on the other side is.”

“And to have another go with Trapper,” Dish says, elbowing her in the ribs.

“Oh, hush.”

And they're all laughing as they finish breakfast and split up to go all their separate ways, with promises to write and visit and to see each other all again in five years. Even Lorraine gets dragged into promising all of that, since she's apparently been adopted into this crazy, ridiculous, ragtag little family.

And she's very, very glad she decided to make the trip to Chicago, to be there in Henry's stead. To know she's welcomed back in her own right next time.

BJ's waiting in the hotel lobby for Peg and, unfortunately, Trapper, to come meet him and Hawkeye for lunch. Hawkeye's been waxing rhapsodic about the bar-b-q restaurant he wants to go to, and BJ is feeling a bit hungry what with having skipped breakfast for another round with Hawkeye – and then for laying with him in rumpled sheets, sweat cooling on their skin as they held each other for what is likely to be the last time for a long time.

So BJ's hungry, and grumpy for a variety of reasons, when a whole gaggle of nurses passes by, giggling and fluttering and just making one hell of a twittering racket. It makes BJ's skull feel like it's splitting in two and he's about to give birth to Athena right there in the hotel lobby. He might be slightly hungover. And his mood is not improved by the fact that when the nurses finally pass by, there's Trapper, lounging in at noon on the dot, insouciant, like he just had the best fuck of his life.

And it's none of BJ's business if he had, it's really not. Not when he's the reason Trapper didn't spend the night with Hawkeye.

But it's not Nurse Bayliss that follows Trapper into the hotel lobby, not when she was one of the nurses handing out telephone numbers and addresses and cheek kisses as they all go their separate ways. It's not Nurse Bayliss smirking as if to say, yeah, I'm the cause of all that just-been-fuckedness. Me.

No, it's not a nurse at all. It's that Dr. Jones fellow – the football player who'd left the MASH well before BJ'd showed up. Stationed in Tokyo, the lucky bastard.

So BJ's feeling hungry and grumpy and uncharitable towards Trapper, who's making them wait in the bright, echoing, overcrowded lobby – never mind that Peg's not quite done saying her goodbyes to Father Mulcahy and the nurses and whoever else either.

It's easy for BJ to feel pretty damn uncharitable towards Jones, too.

And then he throws an arm around Trapper's shoulders, who's a little bit taller than him. And his shirt's not buttoned all the way, so it sort of pulls off his shoulder a little, showing more of his broad, muscular chest than is really appropriate in a place like this.

And then Jones leans in to listen to something Trapper's saying. Throws his head back in a laugh. Slaps Trapper's shoulder hard enough Trapper gets nudged forward half a step. And Trapper's got the biggest, brightest grin on his face. None of that half-smirk bullshit he's always got around BJ. A big, bright, genuine smile.

And then he's turning that smile on BJ and Hawkeye. And Jones is turning with him, hand still on Trapper's shoulder.

“Heya, Hawkeye. BJ.”

Jones echoes the greeting, formally introducing himself to BJ, who probably says some sort of pleasantries in return.

Hawkeye is much more chipper. “Morning Trap. Oliver keeping you out of trouble?”

He smiles down at Trapper, where he's sort of tucked himself into Jones's shoulder, making himself smaller against his bulk even though he's an inch or so taller. It's an indulgent, amused sort of smile. “Don't know if anyone's capable of that.” He laughs, and it's like velvet. “Wore him out enough he ought to be fit for polite company, at least.”

Trapper looks up at him like he hung the moon.

“Don't know that we'd ever be described as polite company,” Hawkeye says, like this is normal. “But I appreciate the effort.”

“Happy to help,” Jones says. And he practically caresses Trapper's neck with his thumb.

“Can I talk to you for a sec, Hawk? In private?” BJ feels like his voice is maybe a higher pitch than it should be, but he's too... something... to care right now.

Hawkeye looks to Jones since Trapper's still busy making cow eyes at him.

“Fine with me. We've got to check out, anyway.” And then he leads Trapper over to the check out desk, arm still slung over his shoulder, stars still in Trapper's eyes like BJ's never seen before.

“What the fuck is that?” BJ hisses, once he and Hawkeye are suitably secluded.

“What?” Hawkeye asks, like he's an idiot.

BJ gestures towards the checkout desk where Jones still has an arm around Trapper's shoulder and Trapper's leaning into him like it's the only thing keeping him upright.

“Ohhh, you mean Trapper and Oliver.”

“Yes I mean Trapper and Oliver.”

It's Hawkeye's turn to look at BJ like he's an idiot. “Well, I don' know if you picked up on this, BJ, but they fucked.”

How can one man be so fucking infuriating?

“Yes, I had picked up on that, thank you.” BJ throws his hands up in exasperation. “Just. Doesn't that make you upset?”

Hawkeye looks genuinely taken aback. “Why would it?”

And BJ knows Hawkeye and Trapper aren't exclusive – he's proof enough of that. But it looks like. It looks like Trapper's in love with Jones. Maybe more in love with him than he is with Hawkeye.

The kind of sappy, first crush kind of love that BJ's never seen Trapper show towards Hawkeye. Because with Hawkeye he's almost... well, he isn't the domineering sort of fellow BJ'd thought he was. He's not callous or cruel. He just – everything feels very ordinary, between the two of them. Like they've been married for years. No surprises left, not like how Peg still manages to surprise BJ even after all these years. There's no spark, no fireworks like BJ still feels every time he looks at Hawkeye.

But Trapper clearly feels that spark with Jones.

Once upon a time, the idea would have made BJ happy. If Trapper left Hawkeye, then BJ could be the one to sweep in and pick up the pieces. The one to comfort Hawkeye in his grief. Offer him a fresh start on the West Coast, maybe. Have Hawkeye in his life the way Trapper has him now – well, not quite the same way, but right there beside him, all the time, for the rest of his life.

But Hawkeye – BJ loves Hawkeye. Enough that he wants him to be happy, whatever that takes. And for some unknown reason, Hawkeye's happiness involves Trapper.

Who's really not such a terrible guy, BJ's willing to admit. Grudgingly, and never in earshot of the man himself. He's a good doctor and occasionally funny and Peg likes him, so he can't be all bad.

But if he's leaving Hawkeye, if he's hurt Hawkeye, then BJ's going to have to do something about it.

“Well, because Trapper and Jones – they've got – well, they're in love, aren't they?”

Hawkeye laughs. “Oh, BJ. You're such a romantic, you know that?”

“So... so you're saying they're not in love? Because I hate to break it to you, Hawk” and BJ does, he genuinely does “but I know what that look means.” He uses a shoulder to gesture – subtly - over to where Trapper and Jones are still being disgustingly sappy.

Hawkeye laughs again. “That look means Trapper just got fucked to within an inch of his life and he's still on cloud nine about it.”

BJ's brain breaks a little trying to imagine what, exactly, that would look like.

His face must look... something because Hawkeye rushes to reassure BJ that, “I know we might not still be in the, well, the honeymoon period, so to speak. But Trapper isn't about to leave me, I can guarantee that!”

Hawkeye pauses.

He takes hold of BJ's hand, here in the secluded archway they've found behind some decorative planters. “Ginger and Oliver and whoever else Trapper might sleep with from the MASH. They're family. There's nothing – he couldn't cheat on me with them, cuz we're all... we're all in this thing together. All bound together by what we went through. By the fact that no one else – no one back home, or stationed in Tokyo, or wherever else - can understand what going through all that meant. They weren't there, on the front lines, in the mud and the shit and the blood, trying to stitch kids too young to shave back together just to send them back out to get shot. They weren't the ones clinging to one another to try and get through it all – just to try and feel something that wasn't hopeless despair.”

Hawkeye takes a breath and BJ puts a hopefully comforting hand on his shoulder.

“Sorry, just. I think seeing everyone again after so long has me thinking about things I haven't thought about in a while.”

BJ squeezes Hawkeye's shoulder a little tighter.

“Anyway,” Hawkeye says brightly, “Trapper and I might not be in that shiny new sort of relationship-”

The kind Hawkeye and BJ have, despite having known each other for years now. Probably because of distance. But also possibly because it took BJ so long to get his head out of his ass. Something that still stings, if he's being honest.

“-but we went through all that together. And that means something.”

Means, maybe, that Trapper won't leave Hawkeye like he left his wife.

BJ doesn't think he could ever be so cavalier about extramarital affairs – or well, not extramarital in Hawkeye's case. But he'd marry him if he could. And it would rip him apart if either Peg or Hawkeye decided that they didn't need him anymore. That they wanted to be with someone else instead.

But if Hawkeye's ok with how everything works between himself and Trapper, and Oliver Jones, apparently, then it's really none of BJ's business.

“Sure, Hawk.” BJ pats his shoulder a little awkwardly and then turns to where Trapper has met up with Peg and the children, clearly waiting for him and Hawkeye to get a move on. “Lets go eat some ribs, huh?”

Sidney watches Hawkeye and his little entourage sweep out the door of the hotel. The silence, the emptiness left behind feels almost deafening. He always was the heart and soul of the MASH, although Margaret Houlihan seems to have stepped into that role with the nurses, it's a newer, fragiler thing. A positive development, psychologically speaking, but a new one.

Hawkeye's been the center of this little group of misfits and miscreants. The one who kept everyone together. The one at the center of the laughing, chattering crowd. The life of the party. The one with the most reminiscences and stories.

An almost mythic figure, so interwoven with the stories of the 4077 that he doesn't feel completely real. Not fully human. More than just the too-skinny, too-wild man who'd done his best to hold them all together with both blood stained hands. A figure unreal enough that even Sidney had gotten wrapped up in the mythos, the story.

And with his exit, it feels like the reunion is over. Nothing left to do now but sweep up the confetti and go home.

It's possible Sydney's feeling a little melancholy, now that his favorite band of miscreants has broken up. All going their separate ways, back to their separate lives, until it's time to do this all again, five years from now.

Sure, he'll see Hawkeye and Trapper and Margaret and Charles a few times over the next few years. He'll get letters and postcards. There will be back room poker games, played for literal peanuts. But it's not quite the same, is it?

Having been stationed at Tokyo through the majority of the war, and in a psychological facility rather than a general hospital, Sidney missed out on the more tightly knit unit of doctors and nurses and orderlies that the MASH units enjoyed. It had been part of why he'd spent so much time at the front – though the official reason had been that that was where the patients were. But really, deep down, visiting the front, participating – even as an outsider - in the camaraderie of the units stationed there, that had been what drove Sidney to venture to the active war zones again and again and again.

And he finds himself missing that, in civilian practice. Everyone so isolated from each other. So wrapped up in petty lives and petty problems. So divorced from the realities of life, the reasons for living that extend beyond material consumption and showing up one's neighbors.

Still, they get to have this, this party, this family, this sense of community every five years. And that's worth something.

“I'll give you this, Father, you sure know how to throw one hell of a party,” Sidney says and signs, the one train of thought he's willing to share.

Father Mulcahy leans back against the same wall where Sidney has chosen to wait out the chaos of goodbyes. “That's wonderful to hear, so to speak.” He smiles, and it's the soft, self-depreciating smile he's worn like a shield ever since Sidney's known him. “I'll admit, I was a bit worried about trying to coordinate something of this magnitude. Especially as an encore to Dr. Winchester's wedding reception.”

Sidney laughs. “I think anything would pale in comparison to that, at least in terms of glitz and glamour.”

“Though that's not really the important part, is it?”

No. No it's not.

#mash #the year is 1958 #chapter 3

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