Closing Time (Catch-22 2)

"You got passing grades anyway, didn't you?"

"As good as those I got when I did apply myself. You've been to college, Mr. Cook? You're an educated man?"

"Yes, I have, sir. I have my graduate degrees."

"Good. I went to college too, you know. We have much in common and should get along--better, I hope"--and here a sound of the querulous crept in--"than I am getting along with those others. I have a feeling they make jokes about me behind my back. Looking back, I should have pursued philosophy and history and economics and things of that sort in college more. I'm making up for that now."

"How--" Noodles started to ask, and changed his mind. "Sir, my experience has been--"

"I'm not going to cry over spilt milk, and that's past."

"My experience has been," Noodles threaded his way onward obsequiously, "as a student, and even when teaching a bit, that people do what they are. A person interested in athletics, golf, and parties will spend time at athletic events, golf, and parties. It is very difficult in later life to grow interested in subjects like philosophy and history and economics if one was not attracted to them earlier."

"Yes. And it's never too late either," said the Vice President, and Noodles did not know whether they were in agreement or not. "Lately I have been studying the Napoleonic Wars, to sort of round out my education."

For a second or two Noodles sat motionless. "Which ones?" was all he could think to reply.

"Was there more than one?"

"That was not my field," answered Noodles Cook, and began to give up hope.

"And I'm doing the battle of Antietam too," he heard the man who was next in line for the presidency continue. "And after that I'm going to have a crack at Bull Run. That was really a great war, that Civil War. We've not had one like it since, have we? You'd be very surprised, but Bull Run is only a short car ride from here, with a police escort."

"Are you preparing for war?"

"I'm broadening myself. And I believe in being prepared. All of the rest of the work of a President is pretty hard, it seems to me, and sort of dull. I'm having all of these battles put onto videocassettes and turned into games where either side can win. Varoom, varoom, varoom! Gettysburg too. Do you like video games? Which is your favorite?"

"I don't have a favorite," Noodles muttered, downcast.

"Soon you will. Come look at these."

On a cabinet beneath a video screen--there was a video screen with game controls in many recesses in the office--to which the Vice President walked him lay the game called Indianapolis Speedway. Noodles saw others, called Bombs Away and Beat the Draft.

And one more, called Die Laughing.

His host gave a chuckle. "I have nine college men on my staff with eleven doctoral degrees, and not one has been able to beat me at any of these a single time. Doesn't that tell you a lot about higher education in this country today?"

"Yes," said Noodles.

"What does it tell you?"

"A lot," said Noodles.

"I feel that way too. There's a new one coming out just for me, called Triage. Do you know it?"

"No."

"Triage is a word that comes from the French, and in case there's a big war and we have to decide which few should survive in our underground shelters--"

"I know what the word means, Mr. Vice President!" Noodles interrupted, with more asperity than he had intended. "I just don't know the game," he explained, forcing

a smile.

"Soon you will. I'll break you in on it first. It's fun and challenging. You would have your favorites and I would have mine, and only one of us could win and decide who would live and who would die. We'll enjoy it. I think I'll want you to specialize in Triage because you never can tell when we really might have to put it into play, and I don't think those others are up to it. Okay?"

"Yes, Mr. Vice President."

"And don't be so formal, Noodles. Call me Prick."