Joseph Heller - Catch-22

“You son of a bitch, you only do it because it hurts me,” Hungry Joe would yell furiously, as Yossarian held him back soothingly with one hand. “That’s the only reason he does it, because he likes to hear me scream-you goddam son of a bitch!”

McWatt crinkled his fine, freckled nose apologetically and vowed not to snap the cards any more, but always forgot. McWatt wore fleecy bedroom slippers with his red pajamas and slept between freshly pressed colored bedsheets like the one Milo had retrieved half of for him from the grinning thief with the sweet tooth in exchange for none of the pitted dates Milo had borrowed from Yossarian. McWatt was deeply impressed with Milo, who, to the amusement of Corporal Snark, his mess sergeant, was already buying eggs for seven cents apiece and selling them for five cents. But McWatt was never as impressed with Milo as Milo had been with the letter Yossarian had obtained for his liver from Doc Daneeka.

“What’s this?” Milo had cried out in alarm, when he came upon the enormous corrugated carton filled with packages of dried fruit and cans of fruit juices and desserts that two of the Italian laborers Major -- de Coverley had kidnaped for his kitchen were about to carry off to Yossarian’s tent.

“This is Captain Yossarian, sir,” said Corporal Snark with a superior smirk. Corporal Snark was an intellectual snob who felt he was twenty years ahead of his time and did not enjoy cooking down to the masses. “He has a letter from Doc Daneeka entitling him to all the fruit and fruit juices he wants.”

“What’s this?” cried out Yossarian, as Milo went white and began to sway.

“This is Lieutenant Milo Minderbinder, sir,” said Corporal Snark with a derisive wink. “One of our new pilots. He became mess officer while you were in the hospital this last time.”

“What’s this?” cried out McWatt, late in the afternoon, as Milo handed him half his bedsheet.

“It’s half of the bedsheet that was stolen from your tent this morning,” Milo explained with nervous self-satisfaction, his rusty mustache twitching rapidly. “I’ll bet you didn’t even know it was stolen.”

“Why should anyone want to steal half a bedsheet?” Yossarian asked.

Milo grew flustered. “You don’t understand,” he protested.

And Yossarian also did not understand why Milo needed so desperately to invest in the letter from Doc Daneeka, which came right to the point. “Give Yossarian all the dried fruit and fruit juices he wants,” Doc Daneeka had written. “He says he has a liver condition.”

“A letter like this,” Milo mumbled despondently, “could ruin any mess officer in the world.” Milo had come to Yossarian’s tent just to read the letter again, following his carton of lost provisions across the squadron like a mourner. “I have to give you as much as you ask for. Why, the letter doesn’t even say you have to eat all of it yourself.”

“And it’s a good thing it doesn’t,” Yossarian told him, “because I never eat any of it. I have a liver condition.”

“Oh, yes, I forgot,” said Milo, in a voice lowered deferentially. “Is it bad?”

“Just bad enough,” Yossarian answered cheerfully.

“I see,” said Milo. “What does that mean?”

“It means that it couldn’t be better…”

“I don’t think I understand.”

“…without being worse. Now do you see?”

“Yes, now I see. But I still don’t think I understand.”

“Well, don’t let it trouble you. Let it trouble me. You see, I don’t really have a liver condition. I’ve just got the symptoms. I have a Garnett-Fleischaker syndrome.”

“I see,” said Milo. “And what is a Garnett-Fleischaker syndrome?”

“A liver condition.”

“I see,” said Milo, and began massaging his black eyebrows together wearily with an expression of interior pain, as though waiting for some stinging discomfort he was experiencing to go away. “In that case,” he continued finally, “I suppose you do have to be very careful about what you eat, don’t you?.

“Very careful indeed,” Yossarian told him. “A good Garnett-Fleischaker syndrome isn’t easy to come by, and I don’t want to ruin mine. That’s why I never eat any fruit.”

“Now I do see,” said Milo. “Fruit is bad for your liver?”

“No, fruit is good for my liver. That’s why I never eat any.”

“Then what do you do with it?” demanded Milo, plodding along doggedly through his mounting confusion to fling out the question burning on his lips. “Do you sell it?”

“I give it away.”

“To who?” cried Milo, in a voice cracking with dismay.

“To anyone who wants it,” Yossarian shouted back.

Milo let out a long, melancholy wail and staggered back, beads of perspiration popping out suddenly all over his ashen face. He tugged on his unfortunate mustache absently, his whole body trembling.

“I give a great deal of it to Dunbar,” Yossarian went on.

“Dunbar?” Milo echoed numbly.

“Yes. Dunbar can eat all the fruit he wants and it won’t do him a damned bit of good. I just leave the carton right out there in the open for anyone who wants any to come and help himself. Aarfy comes here to get prunes because he says he never gets enough prunes in the mess hall. You might look into that when you’ve got some time because it’s no fun having Aarfy hanging around here. Whenever the supply runs low I just have Corporal Snark fill me up again. Nately always takes a whole load of fruit along with him whenever he goes to Rome. He’s in love with a whore there who hates me and isn’t at all interested in him. She’s got a kid sister who never leaves them alone in bed together, and they live in an apartment with an old man and woman and a bunch of other girls with nice fat thighs who are always kidding around also. Nately brings them a whole cartonful every time he goes.”

“Does he sell it to them?”

“No, he gives it to them.”

Milo frowned. “Well, I suppose that’s very generous of him,” he remarked with no enthusiasm.

“Yes, very generous,” Yossarian agreed.

“And I’m sure it’s perfectly legal,” said Milo, “since the food is yours once you get it from me. I suppose that with conditions as hard as they are, these people are very glad to get it.”

“Yes, very glad,” Yossarian assured him. “The two girls sell it all on the black market and use the money to buy flashy costume jewelry and cheap perfume.”

Milo perked up. “Costume jewelry!” he exclaimed. “I didn’t know that. How much are they paying for cheap perfume?”

“The old man uses his share to buy raw whiskey and dirty pictures. He’s a lecher.”

“A lecher?”

“You’d be surprised.”

“Is there much of a market in Rome for dirty pictures?” Milo asked.

“You’d be surprised. Take Aarfy, for instance. Knowing him, you’d never suspect, would you?”

“That he’s a lecher?”

“No, that he’s a navigator. You know Captain Aardvaark, don’t you? He’s that nice guy who came up to you your first day in the squadron and said, ‘Aardvaark’s my name, and navigation is my game.’ He wore a pipe in his face and probably asked you what college you went to. Do you know him?”

Milo was paying no attention. “Let me be your partner,” he blurted out imploringly.

Yossarian turned him down, even though he had no doubt that the truckloads of fruit would be theirs to dispose of any way they saw fit once Yossarian had requisitioned them from the mess hall with Doc Daneeka’s letter. Milo was crestfallen, but from that moment on he trusted Yossarian with every secret but one, reasoning shrewdly that anyone who would not steal from the country he loved would not steal from anybody. Milo trusted Yossarian with every secret but the location of the holes in the hills in which he began burying his money once he returned from Smyrna with his planeload of figs and learned from Yossarian that a C.I.D. man had come to the hospital. To Milo, who had been gullible enough to volunteer for it, the position of mess officer was a sacred trust.