“Catch-22” By Joseph - Khamkoo

“Catch-22” By Joseph Heller 46
harsh and stunning realization that was forced upon him at so tender an age, the
realization that he was not, as he had always been led to believe, Caleb Major, but
instead was some total stranger named Major Major Major about whom he knew
absolutely nothing and about whom nobody else had ever heard before. What
playmates he had withdrew from him and never returned, disposed, as they were, to
distrust all strangers, especially one who had already deceived them by pretending to be
someone they had known for years. Nobody would have anything to do with him. He
began to drop things and to trip. He had a shy and hopeful manner in each new contact,
and he was always disappointed. Because he needed a friend so desperately, he never
found one. He grew awkwardly into a tall, strange, dreamy boy with fragile eyes and a
very delicate mouth whose tentative, groping smile collapsed instantly into hurt disorder
at every fresh rebuff.
He was polite to his elders, who disliked him. Whatever his elders told him to do, he
did. They told him to look before he leaped, and he always looked before he leaped.
They told him never to put off until the next day what he could do the day before, and he
never did. He was told to honor his father and his mother, and he honored his father and
his mother. He was told that he should not kill, and he did not kill, until he got into the
Army. Then he was told to kill, and he killed. He turned the other cheek on every
occasion and always did unto others exactly as he would have had others do unto him.
When he gave to charity, his left hand never knew what his right hand was doing. He
never once took the name of the Lord his God in vain, committed adultery or coveted his
neighbor’s ass. In fact, he loved his neighbor and never even bore false witness against
him. Major Major’s elders disliked him because he was such a flagrant nonconformist.
Since he had nothing better to do well in, he did well in school. At the state university
he took his studies so seriously that he was suspected by the homosexuals of being a
Communist and suspected by the Communists of being a homosexual. He majored in
English history, which was a mistake.
‘English history!’ roared the silver-maned senior Senator from his state indignantly.
‘What’s the matter with American history? American history is as good as any history in
the world!’ Major Major switched immediately to American literature, but not before the
F.B.I. had opened a file on him. There were six people and a Scotch terrier inhabiting
the remote farmhouse Major Major called home, and five of them and the Scotch terrier
turned out to be agents for the F.B.I. Soon they had enough derogatory information on
Major Major to do whatever they wanted to with him. The only thing they could find to do
with him, however, was take him into the Army as a private and make him a major four
days later so that Congressmen with nothing else on their minds could go trotting back
and forth through the streets of Washington, D.C., chanting, ‘Who promoted Major
Major? Who promoted Major Major?’ Actually, Major Major had been promoted by an
I.B.M. machine with a sense of humor almost as keen as his father’s. When war broke
out, he was still docile and compliant. They told him to enlist, and he enlisted. They told
him to apply for aviation cadet training, and he applied for aviation cadet training, and
the very next night found himself standing barefoot in icy mud at three o’clock in the
morning before a tough and belligerent sergeant from the Southwest who told them he
could beat hell out of any man in his outfit and was ready to prove it. The recruits in his
squadron had all been shaken roughly awake only minutes before by the sergeant’s
corporals and told to assemble in front of the administration tent. It was still raining on
Major Major. They fell into ranks in the civilian clothes they had brought into the Army
with them three days before. Those who had lingered to put shoes and socks on were
sent back to their cold, wet, dark tents to remove them, and they were all barefoot in the
mud as the sergeant ran his stony eyes over their faces and told them he could beat hell
out of any man in his outfit. No one was inclined to dispute him.
Major Major’s unexpected promotion to major the next day plunged the belligerent
sergeant into a bottomless gloom, for he was no longer able to boast that he could beat
hell out of any man in his outfit. He brooded for hours in his tent like Saul, receiving no
visitors, while his elite guard of corporals stood discouraged watch outside. At three