“Catch-22” By Joseph - Khamkoo

“Catch-22” By Joseph Heller 174
‘How about that other girl of yours?’ Orr asked with a pretense of pensive curiosity.
‘The fat one? The bald one? You know, that fat bald one in Sicily with the turban who
kept sweating all over us all night long? Is she crazy too?’
‘Didn’t she like me either?’
‘How could you do it to a girl with no hair?’
‘How was I supposed to know she had no hair?’
‘I knew it,’ Orr bragged. ‘I knew it all the time.’
‘You knew she was bald?’ Yossarian exclaimed in wonder.
‘No, I knew this valve wouldn’t work if I left a part out,’ Orr answered, glowing with
cranberry-red elation because he had just duped Yossarian again. ‘Will you please hand
me that small composition gasket that rolled over there? It’s right near your foot.’
‘No it isn’t.’
‘Right here,’ said Orr, and took hold of something invisible with the tips of his
fingernails and held it up for Yossarian to see. ‘Now I’ll have to start all over again.’
‘I’ll kill you if you do. I’ll murder you right on the spot.’
‘Why don’t you ever fly with me?’ Orr asked suddenly, and looked straight into
Yossarian’s face for the first time. ‘There, that’s the question I want you to answer. Why
don’t you ever fly with me?’ Yossarian turned away with intense shame and
embarrassment. ‘I told you why. They’ve got me flying lead bombardier most of the
time.’
‘That’s not why,’ Orr said, shaking his head. ‘You went to Piltchard and Wren after the
first Avignon mission and told them you didn’t ever want to fly with me. That’s why, isn’t
it?’ Yossarian felt his skin turn hot. ‘No I didn’t,’ he lied.
‘Yes you did,’ Orr insisted equably. ‘You asked them not to assign you to any plane
piloted by me, Dobbs or Huple because you didn’t have confidence in us at the controls.
And Piltchard and Wren said they couldn’t make an exception of you because it wouldn’t
be fair to the men who did have to fly with us.’
‘So?’ said Yossarian. ‘It didn’t make any difference then, did it?’
‘But they’ve never made you fly with me.’ Orr, working on both knees again, was
addressing Yossarian without bitterness or reproach, but with injured humility, which
was infinitely more painful to observe, although he was still grinning and snickering, as
though the situation were comic. ‘You really ought to fly with me, you know. I’m a pretty
good pilot, and I’d take care of you. I may get knocked down a lot, but that’s not my
fault, and nobody’s ever been hurt in my plane. Yes, sir—if you had any brains, you
know what you’d do? You’d go right to Piltchard and Wren and tell them you want to fly
all your missions with me.’ Yossarian leaned forward and peered closely into Orr’s
inscrutable mask of contradictory emotions. ‘Are you trying to tell me something?’
‘Tee-hee-hee-hee,’ Orr responded. ‘I’m trying to tell you why that big girl with the shoe
was hitting me on the head that day. But you just won’t let me.’
‘Tell me.’
‘Will you fly with me?’ Yossarian laughed and shook his head. ‘You’ll only get knocked
down into the water again.’ Orr did get knocked down into the water again when the
rumored mission to Bologna was flown, and he landed his single-engine plane with a
smashing jar on the choppy, windswept waves tossing and falling below the warlike
black thunderclouds mobilizing overhead. He was late getting out of the plane and
ended up alone in a raft that began drifting away from the men in the other raft and was
out of sight by the time the Air-Sea Rescue launch came plowing up through the wind
and splattering raindrops to take them aboard. Night was already falling by the time they
were returned to the squadron. There was no word of Orr.
‘Don’t worry,’ reassured Kid Sampson, still wrapped in the heavy blankets and
raincoat in which he had been swaddled on the boat by his rescuers. ‘He’s probably
been picked up already if he didn’t drown in that storm. It didn’t last long. I bet he’ll show
up any minute.’ Yossarian walked back to his tent to wait for Orr to show up any minute
and lit a fire to make things warm for him. The stove worked perfectly, with a strong,
robust blaze that could be raised or lowered by turning the tap Orr had finally finished