Joseph Heller - Catch-22

“You don’t like sea gulls, do you?” inquired Yossarian.

“No, not very much,” admitted Major Sanderson with a sharp, nervous laugh and pulled at his pendulous second chin lovingly as though it were a long goatee. “I think your dream is charming, and I hope it recurs frequently so that we can continue discussing it. Would you like a cigarette?” He smiled when Yossarian declined. “Just why do you think,” he asked knowingly, “that you have such a strong aversion to accepting a cigarette from me?”

“I put one out a second ago. It’s still smoldering in your ash tray.”

Major Sanderson chuckled. “That’s a very ingenious explanation. But I suppose we’ll soon discover the true reason.” He tied a sloppy double bow in his opened shoelace and then transferred a lined yellow pad from his desk to his lap. “This fish you dream about. Let’s talk about that. It’s always the same fish, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know,” Yossarian replied. “I have trouble recognizing fish.”

“What does the fish remind you of?”

“Other fish.”

“And what do other fish remind you of?”

“Other fish.”

Major Sanderson sat back disappointedly. “Do you like fish?”

“Not especially.”

“Just why do you think you have such a morbid aversion to fish?” asked Major Sanderson triumphantly.

“They’re too bland,” Yossarian answered. “And too bony.”

Major Sanderson nodded understandingly, with a smile that was agreeable and insincere. “That’s a very interesting explanation. But we’ll soon discover the true reason, I suppose. Do you like this particular fish? The one you’re holding in your hand?”

“I have no feelings about it either way.”

“Do you dislike the fish? Do you have any hostile or aggressive emotions toward it?”

“No, not at all. In fact, I rather like the fish.”

“Then you do like the fish.”

“Oh, no. I have no feelings toward it either way.”

“But you just said you liked it. And now you say you have no feelings toward it either way. I’ve just caught you in a contradiction. Don’t you see?”

“Yes, sir. I suppose you have caught me in a contradiction.”

Major Sanderson proudly lettered “Contradiction” on his pad with his thick black pencil. “Just why do you think,” he resumed when he had finished, looking up, “that you made those two statements expressing contradictory emotional responses to the fish?”

“I suppose I have an ambivalent attitude toward it.”

Major Sanderson sprang up with joy when he heard the words “ambivalent attitude”. “You do understand!” he exclaimed, wringing his hands together ecstatically. “Oh, you can’t imagine how lonely it’s been for me, talking day after day to patients who haven’t the slightest knowledge of psychiatry, trying to cure people who have no real interest in me or my work! It’s given me such a terrible feeling of inadequacy.” A shadow of anxiety crossed his face. “I can’t seem to shake it.”

“Really?” asked Yossarian, wondering what else to say. “Why do you blame yourself for gaps in the education of others?”

“It’s silly, I know,” Major Sanderson replied uneasily with a giddy, involuntary laugh. “But I’ve always depended very heavily on the good opinion of others. I reached puberty a bit later than all the other boys my age, you see, and it’s given me sort of-well, all sorts of problems. I just know I’m going to enjoy discussing them with you. I’m so eager to begin that I’m almost reluctant to digress now to your problem, but I’m afraid I must. Colonel Ferredge would be cross if he knew we were spending all our time on me. I’d like to show you some ink blots now to find out what certain shapes and colors remind you of.”

“You can save yourself the trouble, Doctor. Everything reminds me of sex.”

“Does it?” cried Major Sanderson with delight, as though unable to believe his ears. “Now we’re really getting somewhere! Do you ever have any good sex dreams?”

“My fish dream is a sex dream.”

“No, I mean real sex dreams-the kind where you grab some naked bitch by the neck and pinch her and punch her in the face until she’s all bloody and then throw yourself down to ravish her and burst into tears because you love her and hate her so much you don’t know what else to do. That’s the kind of sex dreams I like to talk about. Don’t you ever have sex dreams like that?”

Yossarian reflected a moment with a wise look. “That’s a fish dream,” he decided.

Major Sanderson recoiled as though he had been slapped. “Yes, of course,” he conceded frigidly, his manner changing to one of edgy and defensive antagonism. “But I’d like you to dream one like that anyway just to see how you react. That will be all for today. In the meantime, I’d also like you to dream up the answers to some of those questions I asked you. These sessions are no more pleasant for me than they are for you, you know.”

“I’ll mention it to Dunbar,” Yossarian replied.

“Dunbar?”

“He’s the one who started it all. It’s his dream.”

“Oh, Dunbar.” Major Sanderson sneered, his confidence returning. “I’ll bet Dunbar is that evil fellow who really does all those nasty things you’re always being blamed for, isn’t he?”

“He’s not so evil.”

And yet you’ll defend him to the very death, won’t you?”

“Not that far.”

Major Sanderson smiled tauntingly and wrote “Dunbar” on his pad. “Why are you limping?” he asked sharply, as Yossarian moved to the door. “And what the devil is that bandage doing on your leg? Are you mad or something?”

“I was wounded in the leg. That’s what I’m in the hospital for.”

“Oh, no, you’re not,” gloated Major Sanderson maliciously. “You’re in the hospital for a stone in your salivary gland. So you’re not so smart after all, are you? You don’t even know what you’re in the hospital for.”

“I’m in the hospital for a wounded leg,” Yossarian insisted.

Major Sanderson ignored his argument with a sarcastic laugh. “Well, give my regards to your friend Dunbar. And you will tell him to dream that dream for me, won’t you?”

But Dunbar had nausea and dizziness with his constant headache and was not inclined to co-operate with Major Sanderson. Hungry Joe had nightmares because he had finished sixty missions and was waiting again to go home, but he was unwilling to share any when he came to the hospital to visit.

“Hasn’t anyone got any dreams for Major Sanderson?” Yossarian asked. “I hate to disappoint him. He feels so rejected already.”

“I’ve been having a very peculiar dream ever since I learned you were wounded,” confessed the chaplain. “I used to dream every night that my wife was dying or being murdered or that my children were choking to death on morsels of nutritious food. Now I dream that I’m out swimming in water over my head and a shark is eating my left leg in exactly the same place where you have your bandage.”

“That’s a wonderful dream,” Dunbar declared. “I bet Major Sanderson will love it.”

“That’s a horrible dream!” Major Sanderson cried. “It’s filled with pain and mutilation and death. I’m sure you had it just to spite me. You know, I’m not even sure you belong in the Army, with a disgusting dream like that.”

Yossarian thought he spied a ray of hope. “Perhaps you’re right, sir,” he suggested slyly. “Perhaps I ought to be grounded and returned to the States.”

“Hasn’t it ever occurred to you that in your promiscuous pursuit of women you are merely trying to assuage your subconscious fears of sexual impotence?”

“Yes, sir, it has.”