Joseph Heller - Catch-22

“To whom?” Yossarian shot back. “Open your eyes, Clevinger. It doesn’t make a damned bit of difference who wins the war to someone who’s dead.”

Clevinger sat for a moment as though he’d been slapped. “Congratulations!” he exclaimed bitterly, the thinnest milk-white line enclosing his lips tightly in a bloodless, squeezing ring. “I can’t think of another attitude that could be depended upon to give greater comfort to the enemy.”

“The enemy,” retorted Yossarian with weighted precision, “is anybody who’s going to get you killed, no matter which side he’s on, and that includes Colonel Cathcart. And don’t you forget that, because the longer you remember it, the longer you might live.”

But Clevinger did forget it, and now he was dead. At the time, Clevinger was so upset by the incident that Yossarian did not dare tell him he had also been responsible for the epidemic of diarrhea that had caused the other unnecessary postponement. Milo was even more upset by the possibility that someone had poisoned his squadron again, and he came bustling fretfully to Yossarian for assistance.

“Please find out from Corporal Snark if he put laundry soap in the sweet potatoes again,” he requested furtively. “Corporal Snark trusts you and will tell you the truth if you give him your word you won’t tell anyone else. As soon as he tells you, come and tell me.”

“Of course I put laundry soap in the sweet potatoes,” Corporal Snark admitted to Yossarian. “That’s what you asked me to do, isn’t it? Laundry soap is the best way.”

“He swears to God he didn’t have a thing to do with it,” Yossarian reported back to Milo.

Milo pouted dubiously. “Dunbar says there is no God.”

There was no hope left. By the middle of the second week, everyone in the squadron began to look like Hungry Joe, who was not scheduled to fly and screamed horribly in his sleep. He was the only one who could sleep. All night long, men moved through the darkness outside their tents like tongueless wraiths with cigarettes. In the daytime they stared at the bomb line in futile, drooping clusters or at the still figure of Doc Daneeka sitting in front of the closed door of the medical tent beneath the morbid hand-lettered sign. They began to invent humorless, glum jokes of their own and disastrous rumors about the destruction awaiting them at Bologna.

Yossarian sidled up drunkenly to Colonel Korn at the officers’ club one night to kid with him about the new Lepage gun that the Germans had moved in.

“What Lepage gun?” Colonel Korn inquired with curiosity.

“The new three-hundred-and-forty-four-millimeter Lepage glue gun,” Yossarian answered. “It glues a whole formation of planes together in mid-air.”

Colonel Korn jerked his elbow free from Yossarian’s clutching fingers in startled affront. “Let go of me, you idiot!” he cried out furiously, glaring with vindictive approval as Nately leaped upon Yossarian’s back and pulled him away. “Who is that lunatic, anyway?”

Colonel Cathcart chortled merrily. “That’s the man you made me give a medal to after Ferrara. You had me promote him to captain, too, remember? It serves you right.”

Nately was lighter than Yossarian and had great difficulty maneuvering Yossarian’s lurching bulk across the room to an unoccupied table. “Are you crazy?” Nately kept hissing with trepidation. “That was Colonel Korn. Are you crazy?”

Yossarian wanted another drink and promised to leave quietly if Nately brought him one. Then he made Nately bring him two more. When Nately finally coaxed him to the door, Captain Black came stomping in from outside, banging his sloshing shoes down hard on the wood floor and spilling water from his eaves like a high roof.

“Boy, are you bastards in for it!” he announced exuberantly, splashing away from the puddle forming at his feet. “I just got a call from Colonel Korn. Do you know what they’ve got waiting for you at Bologna? Ha! Ha! They’ve got the new Lepage glue gun. It glues a whole formation of planes together in mid-air.”

“My God, it’s true!” Yossarian shrieked, and collapsed against Nately in terror.

“There is no God,” answered Dunbar calmly, coming up with a slight stagger.

“Hey, give me a hand with him, will you? I’ve got to get him back in his tent.”

“Says who?”

“Says me. Gee, look at the rain.”

“We’ve got to get a car.”

“Steal Captain Black’s car,” said Yossarian. “That’s what I always do.”

“We can’t steal anybody’s car. Since you began stealing the nearest car every time you wanted one, nobody leaves the ignition on.”

“Hop in,” said Chief White Halfoat, driving up drunk in a covered jeep. He waited until they had crowded inside and then spurted ahead with a suddenness that rolled them all over backward. He roared with laughter at their curses. He drove straight ahead when he left the parking lot and rammed the car into the embankment on the other side of the road. The others piled forward in a helpless heap and began cursing him again. “I forgot to turn,” he explained.

“Be careful, will you?” Nately cautioned. “You’d better put your headlights on.”

Chief White Halfoat pulled back in reverse, made his turn and shot away up the road at top speed. The wheels were sibilant on the whizzing blacktop surface.

“Not so fast,” urged Nately.

“You’d better take me to your squadron first so I can help you put him to bed. Then you can drive me back to my squadron.”

“Who the hell are you?”

“Dunbar.”

“Hey, put your headlights on,” Nately shouted. “And watch the road!”

“They are on. Isn’t Yossarian in this car? That’s the only reason I let the rest of you bastards in.” Chief White Halfoat turned completely around to stare into the back seat.

“Watch the road!”

“Yossarian? Is Yossarian in here?”

“I’m here, Chief. Let’s go home. What makes you so sure? You never answered my question.”

“You see? I told you he was here.”

“What question?”

“Whatever it was we were talking about.”

“Was it important?”

“I don’t remember if it was important or not. I wish to God I knew what it was.”

“There is no God.”

“That’s what we were talking about,” Yossarian cried. “What makes you so sure?”

“Hey, are you sure your headlights are on?” Nately called out.

“They’re on, they’re on. What does he want from me? It’s all this rain on the windshield that makes it look dark from back there.”

“Beautiful, beautiful rain.”

“I hope it never stops raining. Rain, rain, go a-“

“-way. Come a-“

“-again some oth-“

“-er day. Little Yo-Yo wants-“

“-to play. In-“

“-the meadow, in-“

Chief White Halfoat missed the next turn in the road and ran the jeep all the way up to the crest of a steep embankment. Rolling back down, the jeep turned over on its side and settled softly in the mud. There was a frightened silence.

“Is everyone all right?” Chief White Halfoat inquired in a hushed voice. No one was injured, and he heaved a long sigh of relief. “You know, that’s my trouble,” he groaned. “I never listen to anybody. Somebody kept telling me to put my headlights on, but I just wouldn’t listen.”

“I kept telling you to put your headlights on.”

“I know, I know. And I just wouldn’t listen, would I? I wish I had a drink. I do have a drink. Look. It’s not broken.”

“It’s raining in,” Nately noticed. “I’m getting wet.”

Chief White Halfoat got the bottle of rye open, drank and handed it off. Lying tangled up on top of each other, they all drank but Nately, who kept groping ineffectually for the door handle. The bottle fell against his head with a clunk, and whiskey poured down his neck. He began writhing convulsively.