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“Catch-22” <strong>By</strong> <strong>Joseph</strong> Heller 90<br />
need and pulled him along down on top of her as she flopped over backward onto the<br />
bed and enveloped him hospitably in her flaccid and consoling embrace, her dust mop<br />
aloft in her hand like a banner as her broad, brutish congenial face gazed up at him<br />
fondly with a smile of unperjured friendship. There was a sharp elastic snap as she<br />
rolled the lime-colored panties off beneath them both without disturbing him.<br />
He stuffed money into her hand when they were finished. She hugged him in<br />
gratitude. He hugged her. She hugged him back and then pulled him down on top of her<br />
on the bed again. He stuffed more money into her hand when they were finished this<br />
time and ran out of the room before she could begin hugging him in gratitude again.<br />
Back at his own apartment, he threw his things together as fast as he could, left for<br />
Nately what money he had, and ran back to Pianosa on a supply plane to apologize to<br />
Hungry Joe for shutting him out of the bedroom. The apology was unnecessary, for<br />
Hungry Joe was in high spirits when Yossarian found him. Hungry Joe was grinning<br />
from ear to ear, and Yossarian turned sick at the sight of him, for he understood<br />
instantly what the high spirits meant.<br />
‘Forty missions,’ Hungry Joe announced readily in a voice lyrical with relief and<br />
elation. ‘The colonel raised them again.’ Yossarian was stunned. ‘But I’ve got thirty-two,<br />
goddammit! Three more and I would have been through.’ Hungry Joe shrugged<br />
indifferently. ‘The colonel wants forty missions,’ he repeated.<br />
Yossarian shoved him out of the way and ran right into the hospital.<br />
The Soldier in White<br />
Yossarian ran right into the hospital, determined to remain there forever rather than fly<br />
one mission more than the thirty-two missions he had. Ten days after he changed his<br />
mind and came out, the colonel raised the missions to forty-five and Yossarian ran right<br />
back in, determined to remain in the hospital forever rather than fly one mission more<br />
than the six missions more he had just flown.<br />
Yossarian could run into the hospital whenever he wanted to because of his liver and<br />
because of his eyes; the doctors couldn’t fix his liver condition and couldn’t meet his<br />
eyes each time he told them he had a liver condition. He could enjoy himself in the<br />
hospital, just as long as there was no one really very sick in the same ward. His system<br />
was sturdy enough to survive a case of someone else’s malaria or influenza with<br />
scarcely any discomfort at all. He could come through other people’s tonsillectomies<br />
without suffering any postoperative distress, and even endure their hernias and<br />
hemorrhoids with only mild nausea and revulsion. But that was just about as much as he<br />
could go through without getting sick. After that he was ready to bolt. He could relax in<br />
the hospital, since no one there expected him to do anything. All he was expected to do<br />
in the hospital was die or get better, and since he was perfectly all right to begin with,<br />
getting better was easy.<br />
Being in the hospital was better than being over Bologna or flying over Avignon with<br />
Huple and Dobbs at the controls and Snowden dying in back.<br />
There were usually not nearly as many sick people inside the hospital as Yossarian<br />
saw outside the hospital, and there were generally fewer people inside the hospital who<br />
were seriously sick. There was a much lower death rate inside the hospital than outside<br />
the hospital, and a much healthier death rate. Few people died unnecessarily. People<br />
knew a lot more about dying inside the hospital and made a much neater, more orderly<br />
job of it. They couldn’t dominate Death inside the hospital, but they certainly made her<br />
behave. They had taught her manners. They couldn’t keep Death out, but while she was<br />
in she had to act like a lady. People gave up the ghost with delicacy and taste inside the<br />
hospital. There was none of that crude, ugly ostentation about dying that was so<br />
common outside the hospital. They did not blow up in mid-air like Kraft or the dead man<br />
in Yossarian’s tent, or freeze to death in the blazing summertime the way Snowden had<br />
frozen to death after spilling his secret to Yossarian in the back of the plane.<br />
‘I’m cold,’ Snowden had whimpered. ‘I’m cold.’