“Catch-22” By Joseph - Khamkoo

“Catch-22” By Joseph Heller 39
despair of Lieutenant Scheisskopf’s life to be chained to a woman who was incapable of
looking beyond her own dirty, sexual desires to the titanic struggles for the unattainable
in which noble man could become heroically engaged.
‘Why don’t you ever whip me?’ she pouted one night.
‘Because I haven’t the time,’ he snapped at her impatiently. ‘I haven’t the time. Don’t
you know there’s a parade going on?’ And he really did not have the time. There it was
Sunday already, with only seven days left in the week to get ready for the next parade.
He had no idea where the hours went. Finishing last in three successive parades had
given Lieutenant Scheisskopf an unsavory reputation, and he considered every means
of improvement, even nailing the twelve men in each rank to a long two-by-four beam of
seasoned oak to keep them in line. The plan was not feasible, for making a ninetydegree
turn would have been impossible without nickel-alloy swivels inserted in the
small of every man’s back, and Lieutenant Scheisskopf was not sanguine at all about
obtaining that many nickel-alloy swivels from Quartermaster or enlisting the cooperation
of the surgeons at the hospital.
The week after Lieutenant Scheisskopf followed Clevinger’s recommendation and let
the men elect their own cadet officers, the squadron won the yellow pennant. Lieutenant
Scheisskopf was so elated by his unexpected achievement that he gave his wife a sharp
crack over the head with the pole when she tried to drag him into bed to celebrate by
showing their contempt for the sexual mores of the lower middle classes in Western
civilization. The next week the squadron won the red flag, and Lieutenant Scheisskopf
was beside himself with rapture. And the week after that his squadron made history by
winning the red pennant two weeks in a row! Now Lieutenant Scheisskopf had
confidence enough in his powers to spring his big surprise. Lieutenant Scheisskopf had
discovered in his extensive research that the hands of marchers, instead of swinging
freely, as was then the popular fashion, ought never to be moved more than three
inches from the center of the thigh, which meant, in effect, that they were scarcely to be
swung at all.
Lieutenant Scheisskopf’s preparations were elaborate and clandestine. All the cadets
in his squadron were sworn to secrecy and rehearsed in the dead of night on the
auxiliary parade-ground. They marched in darkness that was pitch and bumped into
each other blindly, but they did not panic, and they were learning to march without
swinging their hands. Lieutenant Scheisskopf’s first thought had been to have a friend of
his in the sheet metal shop sink pegs of nickel alloy into each man’s thighbones and link
them to the wrists by strands of copper wire with exactly three inches of play, but there
wasn’t time—there was never enough time—and good copper wire was hard to come by
in wartime. He remembered also that the men, so hampered, would be unable to fall
properly during the impressive fainting ceremony preceding the marching and that an
inability to faint properly might affect the unit’s rating as a whole.
And all week long he chortled with repressed delight at the officers’ club. Speculation
grew rampant among his closest friends.
‘I wonder what that Shithead is up to,’ Lieutenant Engle said.
Lieutenant Scheisskopf responded with a knowing smile to the queries of his
colleagues. ‘You’ll find out Sunday,’ he promised. ‘You’ll find out.’ Lieutenant
Scheisskopf unveiled his epochal surprise that Sunday with all the aplomb of an
experienced impresario. He said nothing while the other squadrons ambled past the
reviewing stand crookedly in their customary manner. He gave no sign even when the
first ranks of his own squadron hove into sight with their swingless marching and the first
stricken gasps of alarm were hissing from his startled fellow officers. He held back even
then until the bloated colonel with the big fat mustache whirled upon him savagely with a
purpling face, and then he offered the explanation that made him immortal.
‘Look, Colonel,’ he announced. ‘No hands.’ And to an audience stilled with awe, he
distributed certified photostatic copies of the obscure regulation on which he had built
his unforgettable triumph. This was Lieutenant Scheisskopf’s finest hour. He won the
parade, of course, hands down, obtaining permanent possession of the red pennant and