Catch-22 (Catch-22 1)

'Then I'll go back into the hospital.'

'You just came out of the hospital ten days ago,' Milo reminded him reprovingly. 'You can't keep running into the hospital every time something happens you don't like. No, the best thing to do is fly the missions. It's our duty.' Milo had rigid scruples that would not even allow him to borrow a package of pitted dates from the mess hall that day of McWatt's stolen bedsheet, for the food at the mess hall was all still the property of the government.

'But I can borrow it from you,' he explained to Yossarian, 'since all this fruit is yours once you get it from me with Doctor Daneeka's letter. You can do whatever you want to with it, even sell it at a high profit instead of giving it away free. Wouldn't you want to do that together?'

'No.' Milo gave up. 'Then lend me one package of pitted dates,' he requested. 'I'll give it back to you. I swear I will, and there'll be a little something extra for you.' Milo proved good as his word and handed Yossarian a quarter of McWatt's yellow bedsheet when he returned with the unopened package of dates and with the grinning thief with the sweet tooth who had stolen the bedsheet from McWatt's tent. The piece of bedsheet now belonged to Yossarian. He had earned it while napping, although he did not understand how. Neither did McWatt.

'What's this?' cried McWatt, staring in mystification at the ripped half of his bedsheet.

'It's half of the bedsheet that was stolen from your tent this morning,' Milo explained. 'I'll bet you didn't even know it was stolen.'

'Why should anyone want to steal half a bedsheet?' Yossarian asked.

Milo grew flustered. 'You don't understand,' he protested. 'He stole the whole bedsheet, and I got it back with the package of pitted dates you invested. That's why the quarter of the bedsheet is yours. You made a very handsome return on your investment, particularly since you've gotten back every pitted date you gave me.' Milo next addressed himself to McWatt. 'Half the bedsheet is yours because it was all yours to begin with, and I really don't understand what you're complaining about, since you wouldn't have any part of it if Captain Yossarian and I hadn't intervened in your behalf.'

'Who's complaining?' McWatt exclaimed. 'I'm just trying to figure out what I can do with half a bedsheet.'

'There are lots of things you can do with half a bedsheet,' Milo assured him. 'The remaining quarter of the bedsheet I've set aside for myself as a reward for my enterprise, work and initiative. It's not for myself, you understand, but for the syndicate. That's something you might do with half the bedsheet. You can leave it in the syndicate and watch it grow.'

'What syndicate?'

'The syndicate I'd like to form someday so that I can give you men the good food you deserve.'

'You want to form a syndicate?'

'Yes, I do. No, a mart. Do you know what a mart is?'

'It's a place where you buy things, isn't it?'

'And sell things,' corrected Milo.

'And sell things.'

'All my life I've wanted a mart. You can do lots of things if you've got a mart. But you've got to have a mart.'

'You want a mart?'

'And every man will have a share.' Yossarian was still puzzled, for it was a business matter, and there was much about business matters that always puzzled him.

'Let me try to explain it again,' Milo offered with growing weariness and exasperation, jerking his thumb toward the thief with the sweet tooth, still grinning beside him. 'I knew he wanted the dates more than the bedsheet. Since he doesn't understand a word of English, I made it a point to conduct the whole transaction in English.'

'Why didn't you just hit him over the head and take the bedsheet away from him?' Yossarian asked.

Pressing his lips together with dignity, Milo shook his head. 'That would have been most unjust,' he scolded firmly. 'Force is wrong, and two wrongs never make a right. It was much better my way. When I held the dates out to him and reached for the bedsheet, he probably thought I was offering to trade.'

'What were you doing?'

'Actually, I was offering to trade, but since he doesn't understand English, I can always deny it.'

'Suppose he gets angry and wants the dates?'

'Why, we'll just hit him over the head and take them away from him,' Milo answered without hesitation. He looked from Yossarian to McWatt and back again. 'I really can't see what everyone is complaining about. We're all much better off than before. Everybody is happy but this thief, and there's no sense worrying about him, since he doesn't even speak our language and deserves whatever he gets. Don't you understand?' But Yossarian still didn't understand either how Milo could buy eggs in Malta for seven cents apiece and sell them at a profit in Pianosa for five cents.

Catch-22

Lieutenant Scheisskopf

Not even Clevinger understood how Milo could do that, and Clevinger knew everything. Clevinger knew everything about the war except why Yossarian had to die while Corporal Snark was allowed to live, or why Corporal Snark had to die while Yossarian was allowed to live. It was a vile and muddy war, and Yossarian could have lived without it--lived forever, perhaps. Only a fraction of his countrymen would give up their lives to win it, and it was not his ambition to be among them. To die or not to die, that was the question, and Clevinger grew limp trying to answer it. History did not demand Yossarian's premature demise, justice could be satisfied without it, progress did not hinge upon it, victory did not depend on it. That men would die was a matter of necessity; which men would die, though, was a matter of circumstance, and Yossarian was willing to be the victim of anything but circumstance. But that was war. Just about all he could find in its favor was that it paid well and liberated children from the pernicious influence of their parents.