Yossarian Survives

If my memory is correct, no episodes or characters were deleted when the first typed manuscript of Catch-22 was reduced in the editing from about 800 pages to 600. My memory is not correct. Shortly after the novel was published in late 1961, a friend who had read the original deplored the omission of a series of letters from Nately to his father. Subsequently, those eight or ten pages were published in Playboy under the title Love, Dad (December 1969).

I should state that all of the cutting had been for the sole purpose of obtaining more coherence and effectiveness for the total work.

More recently, on the 25th anniversary of the publication of the novel, two officers at the U.S. Air Force Academy doing research on the work wanted to know why I had removed an entire small chapter dealing with a physical-education instructor and with the application of calisthenics and other exercises as preparations for combat and survival.

My reactions of surprise were contradictory: I had forgotten I had written it; I was positive I had left it in. "Do you mean it's not there?" I exclaimed. "That line 'Don't just lie there while you're waiting for the ambulance. Do push-ups'?"

They assured me that the entire chapter had been excluded, that they felt it was good, still timely, and that it ought to be published.

Checking on my own, I find them correct on all points. That chapter is not in the novel; I think it ought to be published.

Here it is.

--Joseph Heller

Actually, Yossarian Owed his good health to clean living--to plenty of fresh air, exercise, teamwork and good sportsmanship. It was to get away from all of them that he had gone on sick call the first time and had discovered the hospital.

At Lowry Field, where he had gone through armament school before applying for cadet training, the enlisted men were conditioned for survival in combat by a program of calisthenics that was administered six days a week by Rogoff, a conscientious physical-education instructor. Rogoff was a staff sergeant in his mid-30s. He was a spare, wiry, obsequious man with flat bones and a face like tomato juice who was devoted to his work and always seemed to arrive several minutes late to perform it.

In reality, he always arrived several minutes early and concealed himself in some convenient hiding place nearby until everyone else had arrived, so that he could come bounding up in a hurry, as though he were a very busy man, and launch right into his exercises without any awkward preliminaries. Rogoff found conversation difficult. He would conceal himself behind a motor vehicle if one were parked in the vicinity or hide near the window in the boiler room of one of the barracks buildings or underneath the landing of the entrance to the orderly room. One afternoon, he jumped down into one of ex-Pfc. Wintergreen's holes to hide and was cracked right across the side of the head with a shovel by ex-Pfc. Wintergreen, who poured a stream of scalding abuse after him as he stumbled away in apologetic humiliation toward the men waiting for him to arrive and put them through his exercises.

Rogoff conducted his exercises from a high wooden platform between two privates on the ground he called his sergeants, who shared the same unquestioning faith in the efficacy of exercise and assisted him by performing each calisthenic up front after he himself had stopped to rest his voice, which was reedy and unpredictable to begin with. Rogoff abhorred idleness. Whenever he had nothing better to do on his platform, he strode about resolutely, clapped his hands in spasmodic outbursts of zeal and said, "Hubba, hubba." Each time he said "Hubba, hubba" to the columns of men in green fatigues on the ground before him, they would say "Hubba, hubba, hubba, hubba" right back to him and begin scuffing their feet and shaking their elbows against their sides until Rogoff made them stop by unctuously raising his hand high in an approving kind of benediction and saying, as though deeply moved, "That's the way, men. That's the way."

Hubba, hubba, he had explained, was the noise made by an eager beaver, and then he had laughed, as though at an extraordinary witticism.

Rogoff conducted them through a wide variety of obscene physical experiences. There were bending, stretching and jumping exercises, all executed in unison to a masculine, musical cadence of "One, two, three, four, one, two, three, four." The men assumed a prone position and did push-ups or assumed a supine position and did sit-ups. The men learned a lot from calisthenics. They learned the difference between prone and supine.

Rogoff named, then demonstrated, each exercise he wanted done and exercised right along with them until he had counted one, two, three, four five times, as loudly as he could, at the top of his frail voice. The two privates he had promoted to be his sergeants continued doing the same exercise after he had stopped to rest his voice and was pacing spryly about on the platform or clapping his hands with spirit.

Occasionally, he would jump down to the ground without any warning, as though the platform were on fire, and dart inside one of the two-story barracks buildings behind him to make certain that no one who was supposed to be outside doing calisthenics was inside not doing them. The men on the athletic field would still be bending, stretching or jumping when he darted back out. To bring them to a halt, he would begin bending, stretching or jumping right along with them, counting one, two, three, four twice, his voice soaring upward almost perpendicularly into another octave the first time and squeezing out the second set of numbers in an agonized, shredded falsetto that made the veins and tendons bulge out gruesomely on his neck and forehead and brought an even greater flood of color to his flat red face. Every time Rogoff brought an exercise to an end, he would say "Hubba, hubba" to them, and they would say "Hubba, hubba, hubba, hubba" right back, like the bunch of eager beavers he hoped from the bottom of his heart they would all turn out to be.

When the men were not bending, stretching, jumping or pushing up, they were taught tap dancing, because tap dancing would endow them with the rhythm and coordination necessary to do the bending, stretching, jumping and push-ups that would develop the rhythm and coordination necessary to be proficient at judo and survive in combat.

Rogoff emoted the same ardor for judo as he did for calisthenics and spent about ten minutes of each session rehearsing them in the fundamentals in slow motion. Judo was the best natural weapon an unarmed fighting man had for coping with one or more enemy soldiers in a desert or jungle, provided he was unarmed. If he had a loaded carbine or submachine gun, he would be at a distinct disadvantage, since he would have to shoot it out with them. But if he was lucky enough to be trapped by them without a gun, then he would be able to use judo.

"Judo is the best natural weapon a fighting man has," Rogoff would remind them each day from his pinnacle in his high and constricted voice, spilling the words out with haste and embarrassment, as though he could not wait to be rid of them.

The men faced one another in rows and went through the movements slowly, without making contact, since judo was so destructive a natural weapon that it could not even be practiced long enough to be learned without annihilating its students. Judo was the best natural weapon a fighting man had until the day the popular boxing champ showed up as a guest calisthenics instructor to improve their morale and introduced them to the left jab.

"The left jab," said the champ without any hesitation from Rogoff's platform, "is the best natural defensive weapon a fighting man has. And since the best defensive weapon is an offensive weapon, the left jab is also the best natural offensive weapon a fighting man has."

Rogoff's face went white as a sheet.

The champ had the men face one another in rows and counted cadence while they learned and practiced the left jab in slow motion to a dignified four-beat rhythm, without making contact.

"One, two, three, four," he counted. "One, two, jab, four. Now the other column. Remember, no contact with the left jab. Ready? Jab, two, three, four, jab, two, jab, four, one, jab, three, jab, jab, two, three, jab. That's the way. Now we'll rest a few seconds and practice it some more. You can't practice the left jab too much."

The champ had been escorted to the athletic field in his commissioned-officer's uniform by an adulating retinue of colonels and generals, who stared up at him raptly from the ground in lambent idolatry. Rogoff had been bumped aside off his platform and was completely forgotten. Even the honor of introducing the champ to the men had been denied him. An embarrassed little smile tortured his lips as he stood off by himself on the ground, ignored by everyone, including the two privates he had made his sergeants. It was one of these sergeants who asked the champ what he thought of judo.

"Judo is no good," the champ declared. "Judo is Japanese. The left jab is American. We're at war with Japan. You figure it out from there. Are there any more questions?"

There were none. It was time for the champ and his distinguished flotilla to go.

"Hubba, hubba," he said.

"Hubba, hubba, hubba, hubba," the men replied.

There was an awkward hush after the champ had gone and Rogoff had returned to his desecrated platform. Rogoff gulped in abasement, failing abysmally in his attempt to pass off with casual indifference the shattering loss of status he had just suffered.

"Men," he explained weakly in a choked and apologetic voice, "the champ is a great man and we've all got to keep in mind everything he told us. But he's been traveling around a lot in connection with the war effort, and maybe he hasn't been able to keep up to date on the latest methods of warfare. That's why he said those things he did about the left jab and about judo. For some people, I guess, the left jab is the best natural weapon a fighting man has. For others, judo is the best. We'll continue concentrating on judo here, because we have to concentrate on something and we can't concentrate on both. Once you get overseas to the jungle or desert and find yourselves attacked (continued on page 184) Yossarian (continued from page 146) by one or more enemy soldiers when you're unarmed, I'll let you use the left jab if you want to instead of judo. The choice is optional. Is that fair? Now, I think we'll skip our judo session for today and go right to our game period instead. Will that be OK?"

As far as Yossarian was concerned, there was little in either the left jab or judo to justify optimism when confronted by one or more enemy soldiers in the jungle or desert. He tried to conjure up visions of regiments of Allied soldiers jabbing, judoing and tap-dancing their way through the enemy lines into Tokyo and Berlin to a stately four-beat count, and the picture was not very convincing.

Yossarian had no need of Rogoff or the champ to tell him what to do if he ever found himself cornered without a gun by two or more enemy soldiers in a jungle or desert. He knew exactly what to do: throw himself on his knees and beg for mercy. Surrender was the best natural weapon he could think of for an unarmed soldier when confronted by one or more armed enemy soldiers. It wasn't much of a weapon, but it made more sense than left jabbing, tap dancing or judoing.

And he had even less confidence in calisthenics. The whole physical-exercise program was supposed to toughen him for survival and save lives, but it couldn't have been working very well, Yossarian concluded, because there were so many lives that were being lost.

In addition to exercising, tap dancing, judo and left jabs, they played games. They played games like baseball and basketball for about an hour every day.

Baseball was a game that was called the great American pastime and was played on a square infield that was called a diamond. Baseball was a very patriotic and moral game that was played with a bat, a ball, four bases and 17 men and Yossarian, divided up into one team of nine players and one team of eight players and Yossarian. The object of the game was to hit the ball with a bat and run around the square of bases more often than the players on the opposing team did. It all seemed kind of silly to Yossarian, since all they played for was the thrill of winning.

And all they won when they did win was the thrill of winning.

And all that winning meant was that they had run around the square of bases more times than a bunch of other people had. If there was more point to all the massive exertions involved than this, Yossarian missed it. When he raised the question with his teammates, they replied that winning proved that you were better. When he raised the question "Better at what?" it turned out that all you were better at was running around a bunch of bases. Yossarian just couldn't understand it, and Yossarian's teammates just couldn't understand Yossarian.

Once he had grown reasonably familiar with the odd game of baseball, he elected to play right field every time, since he soon observed that the right fielder was generally the player with the least amount of work.

He never left his position. When his own team was at bat, he lay down on the ground in right field with a dandelion stem in his mouth and attempted to establish rapport with the right fielder on the opposing team, who kept edging farther and farther away, until he was almost in center field, as he tried to convince himself that Yossarian was not really there in right field with a dandelion stem in his mouth, saying heretical things about baseball that he had never heard anyone say before.

Yossarian refused to take his turn at bat. In the first game, he had taken a turn at bat and hit a triple. If he hit another triple, he would just have to run around a bunch of bases again, and running was no fun.

One day, the opposing right fielder decided that baseball itself was no fun and refused to play altogether. Instead of running after a ball that had come rolling out to him between two infielders, he threw his leather baseball glove as far away from him as he could and went running in toward the pitcher's mound with his whole body quaking.

"I don't want to play anymore," he said, gesticulating wildly toward Yossarian and bursting into tears. "Unless he goes away. He makes me feel like an imbecile every time I go running after that stupid baseball."

Sometimes Yossarian would sneak away from the baseball games at the earliest opportunity, leaving his team one man short.

Yossarian enjoyed playing basketball much more than he enjoyed playing baseball.

Basketball was a game played with a very large inflated ball by nine players and Yossarian, divided up into one team of five players and one team of four players and Yossarian. It was not as patriotic as baseball, but it seemed to make a lot more sense. Basketball consisted of throwing the large inflated ball through a metal hoop horizontally fastened to a wooden backboard hung vertically high above their heads. The team that threw the ball through the hoop more often was the team that won.

All the team won, though, was the same old thrill of winning, and that didn't make so much sense. Playing basketball made a lot more sense than playing baseball, because throwing the ball through the hoop was not quite as indecorous as running around a bunch of bases and required much less teamwork.

Yossarian enjoyed playing basketball because it was so easy to stop. He was able to stop the game every time simply by throwing the ball as far away as he could every time he got his hands on it and then standing around doing nothing while somebody else ran to get it.

One day, Rogoff sprinted up to Yossarian's basketball court during the game and wanted to know why nine men were standing around doing nothing. Yossarian pointed toward the tenth man, who was chasing the ball over the horizon. He had just thrown it away.

"Well, don't just stand there while he gets it," Rogoff urged. "Do push-ups."

Finally, Yossarian had had enough, as much exercise, judo, left jabs, baseball and basketball as he could stand. Maybe it all did save lives, he concluded, but at what exorbitant cost? At the cost of reducing human life to the level of a despicable animal--of an eager beaver.

Yossarian made his decision in the morning, and when the rest of the men fell out for calisthenics in the afternoon, he took his clothes off and lay down on his bed on the second floor of his barrack.

He basked in a glow of superior accomplishment as he lay in a supine position in his undershorts and T-shirt and relaxed to the rousing, strenuous tempo of Rogoff's overburdened voice putting the others through their paces just outside the building. Suddenly, Rogoff's voice ceased and those of his two assistants took over, and Yossarian heard his footsteps race into the building and up the stairs. When Rogoff charged in from the landing on the second floor and found him in bed, Yossarian stopped smirking and began to moan. Rogoff slowed abruptly with a look of chastened solicitude and resumed his approach on tiptoe.

"Why aren't you out doing calisthenics?" he asked curiously when he stood respectfully by Yossarian's bed.

"I'm sick."

"Why don't you go on sick call if you're sick?"

"I'm too sick to go on sick call. I think it's my appendix."

"Should I phone for an ambulance?"

"No, I don't think so."

"Maybe I'd better phone for an ambulance. They'll put you in bed in the hospital and let you rest there all day long."

That prospect had not occurred to Yossarian. "Please phone for an ambulance."

"I'll do it this very minute. I'll--oh, my goodness, I forgot!"

Rogoff whirled himself around with a bleat of horror and flew at top speed down the long boards of the echoing floor to the door at the end of the barrack and out onto the tiny wooden balcony there.

Yossarian was intrigued and sat up over the foot of his bed to observe what was going on.

Rogoff jumped up and down on the small porch, clapping his hands over his head.

"One, two, three, four," he began yelling downward toward the men on the ground, his voice struggling upward dauntlessly into his tortured and perilous falsetto. "One, two, three, four. Hubba, hubba."

"Hubba, hubba, hubba, hubba," came back a sympathetic mass murmur from his invisible audience below that lasted until Rogoff raised his hand high in a formal caricature of a traffic cop and choked it off.

"That's the way, men," he shouted down to them, with a clipped nod of approbation. "Now we'll try some deep knee bends. Ready? Hands on hips ... place!" Rogoff jammed his own hands down on his hips and, with his back and neck rigid, sank down vigorously into the first movement of a deep knee bend. "One, two, three, four, one, two, three, four."

Then Rogoff sprang up, whirled himself around again and flew back inside the building toward Yossarian and zipped right past him with a chin-up wave of encouragement and pounded down the stairs. About ten minutes later, he came pounding back up the stairs, his corrugated red face redder than a beet, zipped right past him with a chin-up wave of encouragement and flew down the full length of the building again and out onto the balcony, where he yanked the men out of their deep knee bends, hubba-hubbaed them a few seconds and flung them back into straddle jumping. He was showing signs of the heavy strain when he returned to Yossarian. His spare, ropy chest was pumping up and down convulsively in starving panic, and fat, round drops of sweat were shivering on his forehead.

"It will take--I ain't getting any air! It will take the ambulance a little while to get here," he puffed. "They have to drive from all the way across the field. I still ain't getting any air!"

"I guess I'll just have to wait," Yossarian responded bravely.

Rogoff caught his breath finally. "Don't just lie there while you're waiting for the ambulance," he advised. "Do push-ups."

"If he's strong enough to do push-ups," said one of the stretcher-bearers, when the ambulance was there, "he's strong enough to walk."

"It's the push-ups that make him strong enough to walk," Rogoff explained with professional acumen.

"I'm not strong enough to do pushups," Yossarian said, "and I'm not strong enough to walk."

A strange, regretful silence fell over Rogoff after Yossarian had been lifted onto the stretcher and the time had come to say farewell. There was no mistaking his sincere compassion. He was genuinely sorry for Yossarian; when Yossarian realized that, he was genuinely sorry for Rogoff.

"Well," Rogoff said with a gentle wave and finally found the tactful words. "Hubba, hubba."

"Hubba, hubba to you," Yossarian answered.

•

"Beat it," said the doctor at the hospital to Yossarian.

"Huh?" said Yossarian.

"I said, 'Beat it.'"

"Huh?"

"Stop saying 'Huh?' so much."

"Stop telling me to beat it."

"You can't tell him to beat it," a corporal there said. "There's a new order out."

"Huh?" said the doctor.

"We have to keep every abdominal complaint under observation five days, because so many of the men have been dying after we make them beat it."

"All right," grumbled the doctor. "Put him under observation five days and then throw him out."

"Don't you want to examine him first?" asked the corporal.

"No."

They took Yossarian's clothes away, gave him pajamas and put him to bed in a ward, where he was very happy when the snorers were quiet, and he began to think he might like to spend the rest of his military career there. It seemed as sensible a way to survive the war as any.

"Hubba, hubba," he said to himself.

"If he ever found himself cornered without a gun by enemy soldiers, he knew what to do: beg for mercy."