M*A*S*H

Easy. Easy. Are you all right?

I didn't see you till the last second.

You shouldn't play in the road like that.

Wait a minute. I want my bag.

Here. Hold it. You wanna take that.

I was on my way back to camp, you know,

from an aid station.

Not so fast, kids. Easy.

(speaking Korean)

Please don't fight, okay? Don't fight.

Please, I hate coming home to a fight.

I don't suppose anybody speaks English here, huh?

English? You speak English?

You speak English?

I speak a little Korean,

but just enough to get my face slapped.

Can I have that bag, please?

The bag. Yeah. That's it.

That's the one. On the floor.

Right, that. With the red cross.

Thank you.

I'm a doctor. You know? Doctor?

How can I make you understand "Doctor"?

Maybe if I sent you a bill or an old magazine.

Here. Here, look. See? See, I'm with the 4077th.

4077. You know?

American army hospital. G.I. Joe. You know?

The good guys. Doris Day.

Oh, thank you. Thank you.

Look, no offense, ma'am,

but the water here has enough germs in it

you could sell it by the slice.

Please don't holler.

I have an enormous pain in my head.

It's really enormous.

You could sell advertising space on it.

You know? Advertising?

The 4077.

It's about 20 miles south of here in Oijongbu.

Oh. Oijongbu.

Oh. Oijongbu.

Oijongbu.

Oijongbu. Oijongbu. You know?

Oijongbu, Korea. Right?

All right. I'm writing to them.

I'm telling them to come and get me because I'm hurt.

I must be, because I'm a doctor,

and it says right here I'm hurt.

I want somebody to take this note

to the 4077th in Oijongbu.

Oijongbu.

Oijongbu. Oijongbu. Fast.

As fast as you can go.

Please. Go fast.

Go as fast as you can.

Does she know where Oijongbu is?

‐Oijongbu? ‐Oh, great.

Uh‐oh.

Uh, we may have a little problem here, folks.

My head is bleeding. I'm sweating.

My pulse feels like it's playing

"The Minute Waltz."

Oh. Look at him.

And I thought I was in trouble.

What you may have here

is you may have a seat at a public concussion.

I gotta hold on. I don't want to lose consciousness.

I have a feeling if I‐I go to sleep here,

I'm gonna wake up at the family plot in Maine.

People come from all over the state

to look at our tombstones.

The Pierces have been in Maine since 1680.

Some of them are dead now.

1680! Huh.

We came over early.

Alexander Pierce played piano in the cocktail lounge

on the Mayflower.

But getting back to me, concussion‐wise,

just talking off the top of my possibly late, great skull‐‐

Oh, thanks.

I have eight bones in my head.

You do, too. It's not just because I make $400 a month.

But what my problem is now, mainly,

is that one of my bones may have split two for one.

You'd be getting a check soon if you had stock in my head.

Believe me, this hurts me a lot more than it hurts me.

But enough of this technical talk.

Putting it simply,

what has happened is I have suffered a blow

to my occipital bone

right where it articulates with the parietal.

What that's called is that's called a contrecoup.

Ohh.

See, what's happened here is that my brain has sloshed over

to the other side of my skull,

and is right now, even while I'm talking to you,

turning purple.

You may have noticed certain purple patches

of literary excess in my spoken word.

But don't worry.

I'll keep it clean in front of the children.

Actually, class...

it is a medical fact that there is no danger of dying

if you fall asleep while you have a concussion.

But on the other hand,

I have a reason for staying awake,

which is that I'm afraid I'll die

if I fall asleep while I have a concussion.

I'm just gonna keep talking, all right?

I remember at a party once in college

I got sick on beer.

So, what happened was this football player,

this big football player came over to me,

this guy named, uh, Tank O'Melinski.

Big guy. You may remember him.

He was, uh, almost made all‐American.

Yeah. That's the one. So, anyway, uh...

Tank came over and he said, "Hold onto yourself."

He said, "Hang on to reality. Don't get sick.

If you let yourself go, you're finished. Just hold on."

I threw up all over his shoes.

Nice guy.

Beat the hell out of me.

Did I tell you

that th‐the skull has eight bones?

It does, you know. Mm‐hmm. Have I ever lied to you?

The occipital, the temporal,

uh, the frontal, two temporal,

sphenoid, ethmoid, two parietal.

Why do I have the feeling I'm losing you?

Look‐look, forget about my skull.

For‐forget about my concussion.

I mean, uh, a person needs a concussion

like he needs a hole in the head, you know?

Let's keep it light.

I can't dance. My head hurts.

That smells terrific.

You'd laugh if I told you

what I have a taste for right now.

You ready?

A small piece of whitefish...

or some herring in sour cream with onions.

Marinated herring. Mmm.

When I was in medical school,

trying to remember how many bones I have in my head,

I spent an untold number of hours

at the fabulous Sol and Sol's Delicatessen.

Not the Sol and Sol's on Third Avenue.

The original Sol and Sol's.

They were brothers. Sol and Sol.

Nobody could ever figure out

why their parents gave them both the same name.

Anyway, after a day of cutting up the odd cadaver,

and while the parts and organs of the body

were rattling around in my head,

I would dissect a whitefish.

Ah, you may have your moments that you hold dear,

my good sir, madam, ma'am, children,

fellow chickens.

Your hearts may flutter, your flag unfurls.

Your breaths may quicken to your national anthem.

But for myself, I shall never forget the ease,

the grace, the earnestness

with which that whitefish gave itself up to me.

One eye turned chastely toward its plate.

The other staring unconcerned at its consumer: me,

Benjamin Franklin Pierce, M. D. "Mental Deficient."

As casually... almost thoughtlessly...

Yes...

Even wantonly,

I devoured it.

And without a murmur of dissent,

without so much as a whitefish whimper,

it gave itself up to me.

Its very molecules of protein

melding with my own until today,

That whitefish sings to you.

Not bad, huh? You thought I was gonna be lousy.

I always had certain problems with pitch.

Though it's very hard when I'm half dead like this.

I'll be much better later when I'm immortal.

Well, enough about me. Let's talk about you.

How do you like me so far?

I wanted to say something.

What was it? What'd I wanna say?

(speaking Korean)

No, no, I'll think of it. Don't help me.

Uh, Yankee Doodle, occipital, whitefish...

Oh. Oh, yeah. I remember. Sol and Sol's. Yeah.