MASH 14 MASH goes to Moscow by Richard Hooker+William Butterworth Page B
Authors: Richard Hooker+William Butterworth
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received.
The furor quickly died down, after a spate of angry editorials in The New York Times and the Village Voice about the appalling lack of moral fiber in the Sanitation Department’s upper echelons.
Father and daughter were crushed. Not only was their moonlight income (which had been sufficient for them to travel to Europe and to buy an eleventh-floor deluxe condominium on Florida’s Gold Coast above Miami) gone forever, but the fun in their lives was gone too. Never again would they see the wonderful sight of the pansies being dragged through the flora of Central Park by baying dogs in hot pursuit of one of the Cat Lady’s precious pussy cats.
But they were resilient. Within two months, they were back on the streets of Manhattan—this time with a wheelchair. Little Gerty , wearing her dark glasses, pushed her beloved Daddy back and forth through Times Square while she sang at the top of her lungs the song about the rainbow which Judy Garland had made famous in the motion picture The Wizard of Oz-
It generally took no more than two full days of pushing (noon till 11:00 p.m., Little Gerty’s Daddy insisting that a growing girl needed her sleep) before Daddy’s battered old Sanitation Department cap had been filled with enough donations to permit them to take the Eastern Airlines Champagne and Bagels flight to their Florida condominium for the rest of the week.
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 furor quickly died down, after a spate of angry editorials in The New York Times and the Village Voice about the appalling lack of moral fiber in the Sanitation Department’s upper echelons.
Father and daughter were crushed. Not only was their moonlight income (which had been sufficient for them to travel to Europe and to buy an eleventh-floor deluxe condominium on Florida’s Gold Coast above Miami) gone forever, but the fun in their lives was gone too. Never again would they see the wonderful sight of the pansies being dragged through the flora of Central Park by baying dogs in hot pursuit of one of the Cat Lady’s precious pussy cats.
But they were resilient. Within two months, they were back on the streets of Manhattan—this time with a wheelchair. Little Gerty , wearing her dark glasses, pushed her beloved Daddy back and forth through Times Square while she sang at the top of her lungs the song about the rainbow which Judy Garland had made famous in the motion picture The Wizard of Oz-
It generally took no more than two full days of pushing (noon till 11:00 p.m., Little Gerty’s Daddy insisting that a growing girl needed her sleep) before Daddy’s battered old Sanitation Department cap had been filled with enough donations to permit them to take the Eastern Airlines Champagne and Bagels flight to their Florida condominium for the rest of the week.
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
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