Joseph Heller - Catch-22

“Chaplain, why don’t you come into the hospital with us for a while and take it easy?” Yossarian invited. “You could be very comfortable here.”

The brash iniquity of the proposal tempted and amused the chaplain for a second or two. “No, I don’t think so,” he decided reluctantly. “I want to arrange for a trip to the mainland to see a mail clerk named Wintergreen. Doctor Daneeka told me he could help.”

“Wintergreen is probably the most influential man in the whole theater of operations. He’s not only a mail clerk, but he has access to a mimeograph machine. But he won’t help anybody. That’s one of the reasons he’ll go far.”

“I’d like to speak to him anyway. There must be somebody who will help you.”

“Do it for Dunbar, Chaplain,” Yossarian corrected with a superior air. “I’ve got this million-dollar leg wound that will take me out of combat. If that doesn’t do it, there’s a psychiatrist who thinks I’m not good enough to be in the Army.”

“I’m the one who isn’t good enough to be in the Army,” Dunbar whined jealously. “It was my dream.”

“It’s not the dream, Dunbar,” Yossarian explained. “He likes your dream. It’s my personality. He thinks it’s split.”

“It’s split right down the middle,” said Major Sanderson, who had laced his lumpy GI shoes for the occasion and had slicked his charcoal-dull hair down with some stiffening and redolent tonic. He smiled ostentatiously to show himself reasonable and nice. “I’m not saying that to be cruel and insulting,” he continued with cruel and insulting delight. “I’m not saying it because I hate you and want revenge. I’m not saying it because you rejected me and hurt my feelings terribly. No, I’m a man of medicine and I’m being coldly objective. I have very bad news for you. Are you man enough to take it?”

“God, no!” screamed Yossarian. “I’ll go right to pieces.”

Major Sanderson flew instantly into a rage. “Can’t you even do one thing right?” he pleaded, turning beet-red with vexation and crashing the sides of both fists down upon his desk together. “The trouble with you is that you think you’re too good for all the conventions of society. You probably think you’re too good for me too, just because I arrived at puberty late. Well, do you know what you are? You’re a frustrated, unhappy, disillusioned, undisciplined, maladjusted young man!” Major Sanderson’s disposition seemed to mellow as he reeled off the uncomplimentary adjectives.

“Yes, sir,” Yossarian agreed carefully. “I guess you’re right.”

“Of course I’m right. You’re immature. You’ve been unable to adjust to the idea of war.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You have a morbid aversion to dying. You probably resent the fact that you’re at war and might get your head blown off any second.”

“I more than resent it, sir. I’m absolutely incensed.”

“You have deep-seated survival anxieties. And you don’t like bigots, bullies, snobs or hypocrites. Subconsciously there are many people you hate.”

“Consciously, sir, consciously,” Yossarian corrected in an effort to help. “I hate them consciously.”

“You’re antagonistic to the idea of being robbed, exploited, degraded, humiliated or deceived. Misery depresses you. Ignorance depresses you. Persecution depresses you. Violence depresses you. Slums depress you. Greed depresses you. Crime depresses you. Corruption depresses you. You know, it wouldn’t surprise me if you’re a manic-depressive!”

“Yes, sir. Perhaps I am.”

“Don’t try to deny it.”

“I’m not denying it, sir,” said Yossarian, pleased with the miraculous rapport that finally existed between them. “I agree with all you’ve said.”

“Then you admit you’re crazy, do you?”

“Crazy?” Yossarian was shocked. “What are you talking about? Why am I crazy? You’re the one who’s crazy!”

Major Sanderson turned red with indignation again and crashed both fists down upon his thighs. “Calling me crazy,” he shouted in a sputtering rage, “is a typically sadistic and vindictive paranoiac reaction! You really are crazy!”

“Then why don’t you send me home?”

“And I’m going to send you home!”

“They’re going to send me home!” Yossarian announced jubilantly, as he hobbled back into the ward.

“Me too!” A. Fortiori rejoiced. “They just came to my ward and told me.”

“What about me?” Dunbar demanded petulantly of the doctors.

“You?” they replied with asperity. “You’re going with Yossarian. Right back into combat!”

And back into combat they both went. Yossarian was enraged when the ambulance returned him to the squadron, and he went limping for justice to Doc Daneeka, who glared at him glumly with misery and disdain.

“You!” Doc Daneeka exclaimed mournfully with accusing disgust, the egg-shaped pouches under both eyes firm and censorious. “All you ever think of is yourself. Go take a look at the bomb line if you want to see what’s been happening since you went to the hospital.”

Yossarian was startled. “Are we losing?”

“Losing?” Doc Daneeka cried. “The whole military situation has been going to hell ever since we captured Paris. I knew it would happen.” He paused, his sulking ire turning to melancholy, and frowned irritably as though it were all Yossarian’s fault. “American troops are pushing into German soil. The Russians have captured back all of Romania. Only yesterday the Greeks in the Eighth Army captured Rimini. The Germans are on the defensive everywhere!” Doc Daneeka paused again and fortified himself with a huge breath for a piercing ejaculation of grief. “There’s no more Luftwaffe left!” he wailed. He seemed ready to burst into tears. “The whole Gothic line is in danger of collapsing!”

“So?” asked Yossarian. “What’s wrong?”

“What’s wrong?” Doc Daneeka cried. “If something doesn’t happen soon, Germany may surrender. And then we’ll all be sent to the Pacific!”

Yossarian gawked at Doc Daneeka in grotesque dismay. “Are you crazy? Do you know what you’re saying?”

“Yeah, it’s easy for you to laugh,” Doc Daneeka sneered.

“Who the hell is laughing?”

“At least you’ve got a chance. You’re in combat and might get killed. But what about me? I’ve got nothing to hope for.”

“You’re out of your goddam head!” Yossarian shouted at him emphatically, seizing him by the shirt front. “Do you know that? Now keep your stupid mouth shut and listen to me.”

Doc Daneeka wrenched himself away. “Don’t you dare talk to me like that. I’m a licensed physician.”

“Then keep your stupid licensed physician’s mouth shut and listen to what they told me up at the hospital. I’m crazy. Did you know that?”

“So?”

“Really crazy.”

“So?”

“I’m nuts. Cuckoo. Don’t you understand? I’m off my rocker. They sent someone else home in my place by mistake. They’ve got a licensed psychiatrist up at the hospital who examined me, and that was his verdict. I’m really insane.”

“So?”

“So?” Yossarian was puzzled by Doc Daneeka’s inability to comprehend. “Don’t you see what that means? Now you can take me off combat duty and send me home. They’re not going to send a crazy man out to be killed, are they?”

“Who else will go?”

McWatt went, and McWatt was not crazy. And so did Yossarian, still walking with a limp, and when Yossarian had gone two more times and then found himself menaced by the rumor of another mission to Bologna, he limped determinedly into Dobbs’s tent early one warm afternoon, put a finger to his mouth and said, “Shush!”