“Catch-22” By Joseph - Khamkoo

“Catch-22” By Joseph Heller 37
his teeth. His rubbery cheeks shook with gusts of anguish. His problem was a squadron
of aviation cadets with low morale who marched atrociously in the parade competition
that took place every Sunday afternoon. Their morale was low because they did not
want to march in parades every Sunday afternoon and because Lieutenant Scheisskopf
had appointed cadet officers from their ranks instead of permitting them to elect their
own.
‘I want someone to tell me,’ Lieutenant Scheisskopf beseeched them all prayerfully. ‘If
any of it is my fault, I want to be told.’
‘He wants someone to tell him,’ Clevinger said.
‘He wants everyone to keep still, idiot,’ Yossarian answered.
‘Didn’t you hear him?’ Clevinger argued.
‘I heard him,’ Yossarian replied. ‘I heard him say very loudly and very distinctly that he
wants every one of us to keep our mouths shut if we know what’s good for us.’
‘I won’t punish you,’ Lieutenant Scheisskopf swore.
‘He says he won’t punish me,’ said Clevinger.
‘He’ll castrate you,’ said Yossarian.
‘I swear I won’t punish you,’ said Lieutenant Scheisskopf. ‘I’ll be grateful to the man
who tells me the truth.’
‘He’ll hate you,’ said Yossarian. ‘To his dying day he’ll hate you.’ Lieutenant
Scheisskopf was an R.O.T.C. graduate who was rather glad that war had broken out,
since it gave him an opportunity to wear an officer’s uniform every day and say ‘Men’ in
a clipped, military voice to the bunches of kids who fell into his clutches every eight
weeks on their way to the butcher’s block. He was an ambitious and humorless
Lieutenant Scheisskopf, who confronted his responsibilities soberly and smiled only
when some rival officer at the Santa Ana Army Air Force Base came down with a
lingering disease. He had poor eyesight and chronic sinus trouble, which made war
especially exciting for him, since he was in no danger of going overseas. The best thing
about him was his wife and the best thing about his wife was a girl friend named Dori
Duz who did whenever she could and had a Wac uniform that Lieutenant Scheisskopf’s
wife put on every weekend and took off every weekend for every cadet in her husband’s
squadron who wanted to creep into her.
Dori Duz was a lively little tart of copper-green and gold who loved doing it best in
toolsheds, phone booths, field houses and bus kiosks. There was little she hadn’t tried
and less she wouldn’t. She was shameless, slim, nineteen and aggressive. She
destroyed egos by the score and made men hate themselves in the morning for the way
she found them, used them and tossed them aside. Yossarian loved her. She was a
marvelous piece of ass who found him only fair. He loved the feel of springy muscle
beneath her skin everywhere he touched her the only time she’d let him. Yossarian
loved Dori Duz so much that he couldn’t help flinging himself down passionately on top
of Lieutenant Scheisskopf’s wife every week to revenge himself upon Lieutenant
Scheisskopf for the way Lieutenant Scheisskopf was revenging himself upon Clevinger.
Lieutenant Scheisskopf’s wife was revenging herself upon Lieutenant Scheisskopf for
some unforgettable crime of his she couldn’t recall. She was a plump, pink, sluggish girl
who read good books and kept urging Yossarian not to be so bourgeois without the r.
She was never without a good book close by, not even when she was lying in bed with
nothing on her but Yossarian and Dori Duz’s dog tags. She bored Yossarian, but he was
in love with her, too. She was a crazy mathematics major from the Wharton School of
Business who could not count to twenty-eight each month without getting into trouble.
‘Darling, we’re going to have a baby again,’ she would say to Yossarian every month.
‘You’re out of your goddam head,’ he would reply.
‘I mean it, baby,’ she insisted.
‘So do I.’
‘Darling, we’re going to have a baby again,’ she would say to her husband.
‘I haven’t the time,’ Lieutenant Scheisskopf would grumble petulantly. ‘Don’t you know
there’s a parade going on?’ Lieutenant Scheisskopf cared very deeply about winning