• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 7417 0

be afraid of that he was sometimes tempted to turn himself in to the hospital for good and spend the rest of his life stretched out there inside an oxygen tent with a battery of specialists and nurses seated at one side of his bed twenty-four hours a day waiting for something to go wrong and at least one surgeon with a knife poised at the other, ready to jump forward and begin cutting away the moment it became necessary. Aneurisms, for instance; how else could they ever defend him in time against an aneurism of the aorta? Yossarian felt much safer inside the hospital than outside the hospital, even though he loathed the surgeon and his knife as much as he had ever loathed anyone. He could start screaming inside a hospital and people would at least come running to try to help; outside the hospital they would throw him in prison if he ever started screaming about all the things he felt everyone ought to start screaming about, or they would put him in the hospital. One of the things he wanted to start screaming about was the surgeon’s knife that was almost certain to be waiting for him and everyone else who lived long enough to die. He wondered often how he would ever recognize the first chill, flush, twinge, ache, belch, sneeze, stain, lethargy, vocal slip, loss of balance or lapse of memory that would signal the inevitable beginning of the inevitable end.

He was afraid also that Doc Daneeka would still refuse to help him when he went to him again after jumping out of Major Major’s office, and he was right.

‘You think you’ve got something to be afraid about?’ Doc Daneeka demanded, lifting his delicate immaculate dark head up from his chest to gaze at Yossarian irascibly for a moment with lachrymose eyes. ‘What about me? My precious medical skills are rusting away here on this lousy island while other doctors are cleaning up. Do you think I enjoy sitting here day after day refusing to help you? I wouldn’t mind it so much if I could refuse to help you back in the States or in some place like Rome. But saying no to you here isn’t easy for me, either.’

‘Then stop saying no. Ground me.’

‘I can’t ground you,’ Doc Daneeka mumbled. ‘How many times do you have to be told?’

‘Yes you can. Major Major told me you’re the only one in the squadron who can ground me.’ Doc Daneeka was stunned. ‘Major Major told you that? When?’

‘When I tackled him in the ditch.’

‘Major Major told you that? In a ditch?’

‘He told me in his office after we left the ditch and jumped inside. He told me not to tell anyone he told me, so don’t start shooting your mouth off.’

‘Why that dirty, scheming liar!’ Doc Daneeka cried. ‘He wasn’t supposed to tell anyone. Did he tell you how I could ground you?’

‘Just by filling out a little slip of paper saying I’m on the verge of a nervous collapse and sending it to Group. Dr. Stubbs grounds men in his squadron all the time, so why can’t you?’

‘And what happens to the men after Stubbs does ground them?’ Doc Daneeka retorted with a sneer. ‘They go right back on combat status, don’t they? And he finds himself right up the creek. Sure, I can ground you by filling out a slip saying you’re unfit to fly. But there’s a catch.’

‘Catch-22?’

‘Sure. If I take you off combat duty, Group has to approve my action, and Group isn’t going to. They’ll put you right back on combat status, and then where will I be? On my way to the Pacific Ocean, probably. No, thank you. I’m not going to take any chances for you.’

‘Isn’t it worth a try?’ Yossarian argued. ‘What’s so hot about Pianosa?’

‘Pianosa is terrible. But it’s better than the Pacific Ocean. I wouldn’t mind being shipped someplace civilized where I might pick up a buck or two in abortion money every now and then. But all they’ve got in the Pacific is jungles and monsoons, I’d rot there.’

‘You’re rotting here.’ Doc Daneeka flared up angrily. ‘Yeah? Well, at least I’m going to come out of this war alive, which is a lot more than you’re going to do.’

‘That’s just what I’m trying to tell you, goddammit. I’m asking you to save my life.’

‘It’s not my business to save lives,