Joseph Heller - Closing Time

The second private detective was succeeded by two more, who appeared to be strangers to each other, one of whom seemed as mysteriously curious about investigating all the others as in keeping track of Yossarian.

He wondered what they hoped to find out about him that he would not be willing to tell them outright. If they wanted adultery he would give them adultery, and he began to grow so troubled about Melissa MacIntosh's good heart and precarious economic future that he began to worry about his own future as well and decided to demand the oncologist back for some tip-top guarantees about a major killer and to hear him discourse further perhaps on the supremacy of biology in human activities and the tyranny of the genes in regulating societies and history.

"You're crazy," said Leon.

"Then get me the psychiatrist too."

"You don't have cancer. Why do you want him?"

"To do him a good deed, dope. Don't you believe in good deeds? The poor little fuck is just about the gloomiest bastard I've ever laid eyes on. How many patients do you think he sees in a week to whom he can bring good news? That guy's disasters are among the few around me I might be able to avert."

"They aren't mine," said the joyless oncologist, upon whose small features a foreboding aspect seemed to have settled as naturally as the blackness of night and the gray skies of winter. "You'd be surprised, though, how many people come to believe they really are my fault. Even colleagues don't like me. Not many people want to talk to me. It may be the reason I'm quiet. I don't get enough practice."

"I like that spirit," said Yossarian, who could not see that he had much. "Does it buck you up to know that sooner or later you are likely to play an important role in my life?"

"Only a little." His name was Dennis Teemer. "Where would you want me to begin?"

"Wherever you want to that is without pain or discomfort," Yossarian answered cheerily.

"You haven't a symptom anywhere that might suggest closer investigation."

"Why must we wait for symptoms?" queried Yossarian, talking down to his specialist. "Is it not conceivable that since we concluded our last explorations something may have originated that is blooming away hardily even as the two of us sit here procrastinating complacently?"

Dennis Teemer went along, with a shimmer of animation. "I guess I have more fun with you than I do with most of my other patients, don't I?"

"I told Leon that."

"But that may be because you're not really my patient," said Dr. Teemer. "What you conjecture is conceivable, of course, Mr. Yossarian. But it is no more likely to be happening to you than to anybody else."

"And what difference does that make to me?" countered Yossarian. "It is not much solace to know we all are susceptible. Leon thinks I'll feel better knowing I'm no worse off than he is. Let's get started."

"Suppose we begin with another chest X ray?"

"God, no!" cried Yossarian in mock alarm. "That might just get one started! You know how I feel about X rays and asbestos."

"And tobacco too. Should I give you a statistic I think you'll relish? Did you know that more Americans die each year of diseases related to smoking than were killed in all of the years of World War II?"

"Yes."

"Then I suppose we might as well go ahead. Should I hammer your knee to test your reflexes?"

'For what?"

"For free."

"Can't we at least do a biopsy?"

"Of what?"

"Of anything that's accessible and simple."

"If you will find that reassuring."

"I will sleep easier."

"We can scrape another mole or another one of your liver spots. Or should we test the prostate again? The prostate is not uncommon."

"Mine is unique," Yossarian disagreed. "It's the only one that's mine. Let's do the mole. Shumacher has a prostate my age. Let me know when you find something wrong with his."

"I can tell you now," said Yossarian's favorite oncologist, "that it will give me great pleasure to inform you that the results are negative."

"I can tell you now," said Yossarian, "that I will be happy to hear it."

Yossarian yearned to go deeper with this depressed man into the depressing nature of the pathologies in the depressing world of his work and the depressing nature of the universe in which they had each been successful in surviving thus far and which was growing more unreliable daily-there were holes in the ozone, they were running out of room for the disposal of garbage, burn the garbage and you contaminate the air, they were running out of air-but he was afraid the doctor would find that conversation depressing.

All of this cost money, of course.

"Of course," said Yossarian.

"Where is it coming from?" Leon Shumacher wondered out loud, with a palpable snarl of envy.

"I'm old enough for Medicare now."

"Medicare won't cover a fraction of this."

"And the rest is coming from a terrific plan I have."

"I wish I had a plan like that," Leon sulked.

It came, explained Yossarian, from the company for which he worked, where he was still on the books in a semi-executive capacity as a semi-retired semi-consultant and could remain for a lifetime provided he never tried to get much done.

"I wish I had a job like that. What the hell does it mean?" Leon mimicked in sneering derision: "Yossarian, John. Occupation: semi-retired semi-consultant. What the hell are our epidemiologists supposed to make of that one?"

"It's been another one of my careers. I work part of the time for all of my fee and no one listens to more than half the things I say. I would call that a semi-retired semi-consultant, wouldn't you? The company pays for everything. We are as large as Harold Strangelove Associates and almost as lovable. We are M amp; M Enterprises amp; Associates. I am one of the associates. The other people are enterprising. I associate, they enterprise."

"What do they really do?"

"Whatever makes money and isn't dishonestly criminal, I suppose," Yossarian answered.

"Is one word of this true?"

"I have no way of knowing. They can lie to me as well as to everyone else. We keep secrets from each other. I'm not making it up. You can check. Tie me back up to that heart machine and see if it skips a beat when I tell a lie."

"Will it do that?" Leon asked with surprise.

"I don't see why it wouldn't."

"What do you do there?"

"I object."

"Don't get so touchy."

"I'm answering your question," Yossarian informed him pleasantly. "I object to matters that are not up to my ethical standards. Sometimes I work very hard at objecting. Then they go ahead or don't. I am the conscience of the company, a moral presena, and that's another one of the things I've been doing since I dropped by there more than twenty years ago for illegal help in keeping my children out of the Vietnam War. How'd you keep yours out?"

"Medical school. Of course, they both switched to business administration as soon as the danger was past. By the way, my grapevine tells me you still seem to be having a pretty hot time with one of our favorite floor nurses."

"Better than I'm having with you and your associates."

"She's a very nice girl and a very good nurse."

"I think I've noticed."

"Attractive too."

"I've seen that also."

"We have a number of very fine specialists here who tell me frankly they'd like to get into her pants."

"That's crude, Leon, really crude, and you ought to be ashamed," Yossarian rebuked him with disgust. "It's a most obscene way of saying you'd all like to fuck her."

Leon was sheepish and Yossarian manipulated this momentary loss of self-possession into a favor involving a No Visitors sign outside the door, which was in place before the next one came by to disturb him.

The knock was so diffident that Yossarian hoped for an instant the chaplain was back as a free man from wherever it was that he was being lawfully detained unlawfully. Yossarian was out of ideas to aid him and just about helpless there too.