I’m just as serious as I can be. If you’ll consider the deal at all, let me know what it will cost, and I’ll see what I can do to get up the loot.
Your former outstanding undergraduate,
An answer arrived three weeks later:
Dear Hawkeye:
As Dean of the College, I naturally remember you very well. In my job one has to take the bitter as well as the sweet, and I’ve had my share of both.
My natural expectation is that, if I accede to your request, I will soon have on my hands some illiterate seventy-year-old refugee from a leper colony. Despite the possibility pf your having matured slightly in the last nine years, that is really what I expect.
However, this sort of thing is popular these days. If you feel your boy can do college work and if you can get him over here and supply him with a thousand dollars a year, we will give him a chance. Enclosed is an application for Ho-Jon to complete.
“Boys,” said Hawkeye, “it’s going to cost us at least five or six grand, figuring travel and one thing or another.”
“I know we’ll get it up, but I don’t know how,” said Duke.
Dago Red entered. He had some pictures he had taken of the Swampmen during the winter. At the time Trapper John had been sporting a beard and a large crop of unbarbered hair. Several of the pictures were of Trapper John.
“Look at The Hairy Ape,” said Duke.
“No,” said Red, “he doesn’t look like The Hairy Ape. With that thin, ascetic face and the beard and the piercing eyes, he almost looks like our Blessed Saviour.”
Taking another look, he crossed himself and thought better of it.
“If that’s what He looks like,” said the Duke, “I’m gonna try Buddha.”
“Lemme see that picture,” said Hawkeye Pierce.
He looked. “By Jesus, it does look like Him,” he agreed and lapsed into pensive silence.
A while later Hawkeye sat up, lit a butt, and said, “Hey, Trapper, how fast can you grow that beard back?”
“Couple weeks. What do you have in mind?”
“Money for Ho-Jon.”
“How’s that Yankee growin’ a beard gonna get money for Ho-Jon?” asked Duke.
“Easy. We’ll get a good picture of him, have copies made, and sell actual photographs of Jesus Christ at a buck a throw. If we make out with that, he can make a few personal appearances.”
Trapper looked interested. “Always knew I’d make good,” he said, “but I never thought I’d get to the top so fast.”
“I’m movin’ to another tent,” wailed the Duke. “You crazy bastards are gonna get me in trouble.”
“Now wait a minute, boys. You can’t do this,” pleaded Dago Red.
“Maybe not, Red,” answered Hawkeye, “but we gotta get some money. This idea is crazy, but there are a lot of screwballs in an army. Trapper’s picture will sell, and a lot of people will buy them for laughs and souvenirs. It won’t hurt anybody, and it’s a good cause. All we gotta do is work out the details.”
Two weeks later the beard had grown, pictures had been taken and seven thousand prints made. Trapper John spent two days autographing them. Dago Red was frantic. They were ready for action. The enlisted men were fond of the Swampmen and were delighted to buy pictures of Trapper J. Jesus Christ Mclntyre at a dollar a copy.
“We got us two bills,” said Duke who in a day had unloaded 200 copies. “Let’s go to Seoul and see if we can run it up in a crap game.”
“Hell with that,” declared Hawkeye. “If tomorrow is quiet, we’ll get a truck from the motor pool and hit the sawdust trail.”
At eight o’clock the next morning, the Swampmen ate a substantial breakfast. A truck was obtained. A large cross that Hawkeye had commissioned the supply sergeant to construct was hidden under blankets in the rear. Also hidden under the blankets was a nearly naked, bearded, long haired, fuzzy chested Trapper John, two dozen cans of beer and a thermos jug full of ice. In the cab were six thousand eight hundred photographs bearing the signature: Jesus Christ.
They visited medical corps collecting stations, battalion aid stations, artillery units, and other outfits. As they approached, the cross was erected behind the cab of the truck with straps binding Trapper John in the proper and accepted position. Hawkeye was at the wheel. After a turn or two around an outfit they halted. At nearly every stop, as Trapper peered beseechingly at the sky, an officer would step forward and demand, “What the hell is going on here?”
“Passion play,” Hawkeye would explain. “Raising some dough to send our houseboy to college. For a buck you get an autographed picture of the Man, himself, or a reasonable facsimile thereof.”
Trade was brisk. No one seemed to object to the performance until, late in the afternoon, they hit a Mississippi National Guard outfit. By this time Trapper, spending most of the hot day hidden beneath blankets in the rear of the truck, had consumed a lot of beer. He was still hot and still dehydrated despite the beer, however, when he once again assumed his position on the cross, so while Duke peddled autographed pictures, Hawkeye surreptitiously slipped Trapper a sip from a cool tin of brew. Four Guardsmen, attempting to obtain samples of wood from the cross as souvenirs, and observing this, became indignant. The indignation spread. The Swampmen departed in haste and returned to the 4077th, where the day’s take was found to be a satisfying three grand.
That night they decided to push their luck. The moon was bright, making helicopter flying possible, so the chopper pilots of the Air Rescue Squadron were enlisted. Hawkeye and Duke, with pictures, traveled by jeep to prearranged points where troops were in fair quantity. They announced the availability of personally autographed photographs of Jesus Christ, and their timing was perfect. At each point, as the sales talk ended, a brilliant phosphorus flare would be lit, and a helicopter would appear. Spread-eagled on a cross dangling beneath the chopper and illuminated by the eerie light of the flare was the loinclothed, skinny, bearded, long haired, and pretty well stoned Trapper John.
Any good act swings. The pictures sold. Back in The Swamp at 1:00 a.m. the loot was counted again. They had six thousand five hundred dollars.
“Let it go at that,” said the Duke. “We got what we need.” The next day Hawkeye Pierce arranged for five thousand dollars to be sent to his father, Benjamin Franklin Pierce, Sr., along with a note:
Dear Dad:
This five thousand dollars is for my friend, Ho-Jon,
to go to Androscoggin College. Look after him and the
money until I get home.
Within the next month Hawkeye received two letters. The first was from his father:
Dear Hawkeye:
I deposited five thousand dollars in the Port Waldo Trust Company for Ho-Jon. How come you can send some foreigner to college and leave me to bail your brothers out of jail? I always encouraged you to go to school, and now look what happens. Your brother Joe got took up for drunken driving. Mother is well.
The second letter was from the Dean of Androscoggin College, Dr. James Lodge:
Dear Hawkeye:
We have received Ho-Jon’s application, and his record appears to be outstanding, although somewhat unusual. The letter accompanying his application was particularly impressive and influenced our decision to accept him. My suggestion that you might have written it for him was quickly squelched by members of the English Department who remember you.
Yesterday a truckful of lobster bait, departing from campus roads, drove directly to the front door of the administration building. A large gentleman, who identified himself as your father, disembarked and gave us one thousand dollars on account for Ho-Jon. We killed a pint of Old Bantam Whiskey which he happened to have with him. Today I have a big head, and the building smells like a lobster boat. Nevertheless, we look forward to Ho-Jon’s arrival.