Catch-22 (Catch-22 1) - Page 83

'You can save yourself the trouble, Doctor. Everything reminds me of sex.'

'Does it?' cried Major Sanderson with delight, as though unable to believe his ears. 'Now we're really getting somewhere! Do you ever have any good sex dreams?'

'My fish dream is a sex dream.'

'No, I mean real sex dreams--the kind where you grab some naked bitch by the neck and pinch her and punch her in the face until she's all bloody and then throw yourself down to ravish her and burst into tears because you love her and hate her so much you don't know what el

se to do. That's the kind of sex dreams I like to talk about. Don't you ever have sex dreams like that?' Yossarian reflected a moment with a wise look. 'That's a fish dream,' he decided.

Major Sanderson recoiled as though he had been slapped. 'Yes, of course,' he conceded frigidly, his manner changing to one of edgy and defensive antagonism. 'But I'd like you to dream one like that anyway just to see how you react. That will be all for today. In the meantime, I'd also like you to dream up the answers to some of those questions I asked you. These sessions are no more pleasant for me than they are for you, you know.'

'I'll mention it to Dunbar,' Yossarian replied.

' Dunbar?'

'He's the one who started it all. It's his dream.'

'Oh, Dunbar.' Major Sanderson sneered, his confidence returning. 'I'll bet Dunbar is that evil fellow who really does all those nasty things you're always being blamed for, isn't he?'

'He's not so evil.' And yet you'll defend him to the very death, won't you?'

'Not that far.' Major Sanderson smiled tauntingly and wrote 'Dunbar' on his pad. 'Why are you limping?' he asked sharply, as Yossarian moved to the door. 'And what the devil is that bandage doing on your leg? Are you mad or something?'

'I was wounded in the leg. That's what I'm in the hospital for.'

'Oh, no, you're not,' gloated Major Sanderson maliciously. 'You're in the hospital for a stone in your salivary gland. So you're not so smart after all, are you? You don't even know what you're in the hospital for.'

'I'm in the hospital for a wounded leg,' Yossarian insisted.

Major Sanderson ignored his argument with a sarcastic laugh. 'Well, give my regards to your friend Dunbar. And you will tell him to dream that dream for me, won't you?' But Dunbar had nausea and dizziness with his constant headache and was not inclined to co-operate with Major Sanderson. Hungry Joe had nightmares because he had finished sixty missions and was waiting again to go home, but he was unwilling to share any when he came to the hospital to visit.

'Hasn't anyone got any dreams for Major Sanderson?' Yossarian asked. 'I hate to disappoint him. He feels so rejected already.'

'I've been having a very peculiar dream ever since I learned you were wounded,' confessed the chaplain. 'I used to dream every night that my wife was dying or being murdered or that my children were choking to death on morsels of nutritious food. Now I dream that I'm out swimming in water over my head and a shark is eating my left leg in exactly the same place where you have your bandage.'

'That's a wonderful dream,' Dunbar declared. 'I bet Major Sanderson will love it.'

'That's a horrible dream!' Major Sanderson cried. 'It's filled with pain and mutilation and death. I'm sure you had it just to spite me. You know, I'm not even sure you belong in the Army, with a disgusting dream like that.' Yossarian thought he spied a ray of hope. 'Perhaps you're right, sir,' he suggested slyly. 'Perhaps I ought to be grounded and returned to the States.'

'Hasn't it ever occurred to you that in your promiscuous pursuit of women you are merely trying to assuage your subconscious fears of sexual impotence?'

'Yes, sir, it has.'

'Then why do you do it?'

'To assuage my fears of sexual impotence.'

'Why don't you get yourself a good hobby instead?' Major Sanderson inquired with friendly interest. 'Like fishing. Do you really find Nurse Duckett so attractive? I should think she was rather bony. Rather bland and bony, you know. Like a fish.'

'I hardly know Nurse Duckett.'

'Then why did you grab her by the bosom? Merely because she has one?'

' Dunbar did that.'

'Oh, don't start that again,' Major Sanderson exclaimed with vitriolic scorn, and hurled down his pencil disgustedly. 'Do you really think that you can absolve yourself of guilt by pretending to be someone else? I don't like you, Fortiori. Do you know that? I don't like you at all.' Yossarian felt a cold, damp wind of apprehension blow over him. 'I'm not Fortiori, sir,' he said timidly. 'I'm Yossarian.'

'You're who?'

Tags: Joseph Heller Catch-22 Classics
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