“Catch-22” By Joseph - Khamkoo

“Catch-22” By Joseph Heller 60
‘Terrible,’ Dr. Stubbs answered.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘Sitting.’
‘I thought there was no more sick call.’
‘There ain’t.’
‘Then why are you sitting here?’
‘Where else should I sit? At the goddam officers’ club with Colonel Cathcart and Korn?
Do you know what I’m doing here?’
‘Sitting.’
‘In the squadron, I mean. Not in the tent. Don’t be such a goddam wise guy. Can you
figure out what a doctor is doing here in the squadron?’
‘They’ve got the doors to the medical tents nailed shut in the other squadrons,’ Dunbar
remarked.
‘If anyone sick walks through my door I’m going to ground him,’ Dr. Stubbs vowed. ‘I
don’t give a damn what they say.’
‘You can’t ground anyone,’ Dunbar reminded. ‘Don’t you know the orders?’
‘I’ll knock him flat on his ass with an injection and really ground him.’ Dr. Stubbs
laughed with sardonic amusement at the prospect. ‘They think they can order sick call
out of existence. The bastards. Ooops, there it goes again.’ The rain began falling again,
first in the trees, then in the mud puddles, then, faintly, like a soothing murmur, on the
tent top. ‘Everything’s wet,’ Dr. Stubbs observed with revulsion. ‘Even the latrines and
urinals are backing up in protest. The whole goddam world smells like a charnel house.’
The silence seemed bottomless when he stopped talking. Night fell. There was a sense
of vast isolation.
‘Turn on the light,’ Dunbar suggested.
‘There is no light. I don’t feel like starting my generator. I used to get a big kick out of
saving people’s lives. Now I wonder what the hell’s the point, since they all have to die
anyway.
‘Oh, there’s a point, all right,’ Dunbar assured him.
‘Is there? What is the point?’
‘The point is to keep them from dying for as long as you can.’
‘Yeah, but what’s the point, since they all have to die anyway?’
‘The trick is not to think about that.’
‘Never mind the trick. What the hell’s the point?’ Dunbar pondered in silence for a few
moments. ‘Who the hell knows?’ Dunbar didn’t know. Bologna should have exulted
Dunbar, because the minutes dawdled and the hours dragged like centuries. Instead it
tortured him, because he knew he was going to be killed.
‘Do you really want some more codeine?’ Dr. Stubbs asked.
‘It’s for my friend Yossarian. He’s sure he’s going to be killed.’
‘Yossarian? Who the hell is Yossarian? What the hell kind of a name is Yossarian,
anyway? Isn’t he the one who got drunk and started that fight with Colonel Korn at the
officers’ club the other night?’
‘That’s right. He’s Assyrian.’
‘That crazy bastard.’
‘He’s not so crazy,’ Dunbar said. ‘He swears he’s not going to fly to Bologna.’
‘That’s just what I mean,’ Dr. Stubbs answered. ‘That crazy bastard may be the only
sane one left.’
Captain Black
Corporal Kolodny learned about it first in a phone call from Group and was so shaken
by the news that he crossed the intelligence tent on tiptoe to Captain Black, who was
resting drowsily with his bladed shins up on the desk, and relayed the information to him
in a shocked whisper.
Captain Black brightened immediately. ‘ Bologna?’ he exclaimed with delight. ‘Well, I’ll