“Catch-22” By Joseph - Khamkoo

“Catch-22” By Joseph Heller 11
Orr tittered triumphantly. ‘Because they’re better than horse chestnuts,’ he answered.
Orr was kneeling on the floor of the tent. He worked without pause, taking the faucet
apart, spreading all the tiny pieces out carefully, counting and then studying each one
interminably as though he had never seen anything remotely similar before, and then
reassembling the whole apparatus, over and over and over and over again, with no loss
of patience or interest, no sign of fatigue, no indication of ever concluding. Yossarian
watched him tinkering and felt certain he would be compelled to murder him in cold
blood if he did not stop. His eyes moved toward the hunting knife that had been slung
over the mosquito-net bar by the dead man the day he arrived. The knife hung beside
the dead man’s empty leather gun holster, from which Havermeyer had stolen the gun.
‘When I couldn’t get crab apples,’ Orr continued, ‘I used horse chestnuts. Horse
chestnuts are about the same size as crab apples and actually have a better shape,
although the shape doesn’t matter a bit.’
‘Why did you walk around with crab apples in your cheeks?’ Yossarian asked again.
‘That’s what I asked.’
‘Because they’ve got a better shape than horse chestnuts,’ Orr answered. ‘I just told
you that.’
‘Why,’ swore Yossarian at him approvingly, ‘you evil-eyed, mechanically-aptituded,
disaffiliated son of a bitch, did you walk around with anything in your cheeks?’
‘I didn’t,’ Orr said, ‘walk around with anything in my cheeks. I walked around with crab
apples in my cheeks. When I couldn’t get crab apples I walked around with horse
chestnuts. In my cheeks.’ Orr giggled. Yossarian made up his mind to keep his mouth
shut and did. Orr waited. Yossarian waited longer.
‘One in each cheek,’ Orr said.
‘Why?’ Orr pounced. ‘Why what?’ Yossarian shook his head, smiling, and refused to
say.
‘It’s a funny thing about this valve,’ Orr mused aloud.
‘What is?’ Yossarian asked.
‘Because I wanted—’ Yossarian knew. ‘Jesus Christ! Why did you want—’
‘—apple cheeks.’
‘—apple cheeks?’ Yossarian demanded.
‘I wanted apple cheeks,’ Orr repeated. ‘Even when I was a kid I wanted apple cheeks
someday, and I decided to work at it until I got them, and by God, I did work at it until I
got them, and that’s how I did it, with crab apples in my cheeks all day long.’ He giggled
again. ‘One in each cheek.’
‘Why did you want apple cheeks?’
‘I didn’t want apple cheeks,’ Orr said. ‘I wanted big cheeks. I didn’t care about the
color so much, but I wanted them big. I worked at it just like one of those crazy guys you
read about who go around squeezing rubber balls all day long just to strengthen their
hands. In fact, I was one of those crazy guys. I used to walk around all day with rubber
balls in my hands, too.’
‘Why?’
‘Why what?’
‘Why did you walk around all day with rubber balls in your hands?’
‘Because rubber balls—’ said Orr.
‘—are better than crab apples?’ Orr sniggered as he shook his head. ‘I did it to protect
my good reputation in case anyone ever caught me walking around with crab apples in
my cheeks. With rubber balls in my hands I could deny there were crab apples in my
cheeks. Every time someone asked me why I was walking around with crab apples in
my cheeks, I’d just open my hands and show them it was rubber balls I was walking
around with, not crab apples, and that they were in my hands, not my cheeks. It was a
good story. But I never knew if it got across or not, since it’s pretty tough to make people
understand you when you’re talking to them with two crab apples in your cheeks.’
Yossarian found it pretty tough to understand him then, and he wondered once again if
Orr wasn’t talking to him with the tip of his tongue in one of his apple cheeks.