Catch As Catch Can

by Joseph Heller

  “What’s the water for?”

  “To cool the smoke. We smoke strong tobacco. Hashish. Do you know what hashish is?”

  “It’s a drug, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” she said. “It’s a drug. Do you want some?”

  He stepped back quickly and shook his head. The man entered the room and joined them at the table.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “I’m offering junior some of our tobacco. With boys who know tobacco best, it’s hashish two to one.”

  The man took the pipe from her and set it down. “Are you crazy?” he said quietly. “He’s a minor.”

  “He’ll still be a minor when we put him to work,” the woman said.

  “All right, Skelly. Please shut up. Go inside. And hurry up. We can’t keep him here all day.”

  She handed him her cigarette and walked from the room. The man turned to Sidney and smiled. He was somewhere in his late forties, with deep, serious eyes, and his face, clean shaven with a tiny blood spot behind his jaw bone, was marked with deep lines running down from the sides of his nostrils to the corners of his mouth. His voice was soft and smooth, calm and serious. He led Sidney to the center of the room and they sat down facing each other.

  “Do they mind if you stay out long?” he asked.

  “I can’t stay too long,” Sidney said.

  “Can you fix it up someway if we keep you?”

  “I don’t know,” the boy answered.

  The man reached into the pocket of his dressing gown and removed two bills. He held one out. Sidney took it, smiling shyly, and put it away, noting, as he folded it, that it was a ten-dollar bill.

  “That’s for waiting so long,” the man said. “I’ll give you the other one when you do what we want.”

  “What do you want me to do?” the boy asked suspiciously.

  “Didn’t Skelly tell you?”

  “No.”

  “Well, don’t worry about it. It isn’t anything much.” He poured a drink. “Do you want one?”

  “No, thanks,” the boy said. “What do you want me to do?”

  “We’ll tell when she comes in.” He swallowed the whiskey, making a wry face, and set the glass down. “What do you think of her?”

  “She’s very attractive,” the boy answered.

  “She’s beautiful,” the man said. “Do you like her?”

  The boy nodded cautiously. “She’s very pretty.”

  “She’s beautiful,” the man repeated. He seemed very distressed, very tired. He started to pour another drink, stopped himself, and set the bottle down. “She’s an actress,” he said.

  The boy was pleased. It was a new experience talking to an actress and he was appropriately thrilled. “Are you an actor?”

  “I’m on the radio,” the man said. He stared thoughtfully before him for several moments. “She’s very unhappy,” he said, slowly, looking up. “We’re both very unhappy.”

  The boy listened with interest.

  “That’s why we called you. It’s an experiment. Would you want to help us?”

  “I’d like to if I can,” the boy said.

  “All right. Maybe you can. How old are you?”

  “I was just seventeen.”

  “Just a kid. A happy, oblivious kid. You’re a good-looking boy. I’ll bet you make out all right with the girls.”

  The boy didn’t answer.

  “You can talk to me,” the man said. “I’m not a woman. Have you had much experience with girls?”

  “I go with them a lot,” the boy admitted.

  “Are they fast?”

  “Some of them are,” Sidney answered. “Some aren’t.”

  “Do you like the fast ones?”

  Sidney grinned sheepishly. “What do you think?”

  “Are they pretty?”

  “A few are. Most of them aren’t.”

  “You’ll find that all through life. Are any of them as pretty as Skelly?”

  “No,” the boy said. “None are that pretty.”

  The man leaned forward. “She’s really a beautiful girl, isn’t she?” he asked, watching the boy closely.

  “Yes,” he answered. “She is.”

  “How would you like to make love to her?” the man asked.

  The boy turned away quickly. There was a strong undercurrent of intensity in the man’s behavior, the same desperate emotion that stirred beneath the woman’s manner. It was a strange, threatening current, and he was afraid because it was new to him and he did not know what it meant. The man’s eyes were fixed upon him as he waited for a reply.

  “I’d like a girl as pretty as her,” the boy admitted, in a low, hesitant voice.

  The man watched him silently for a while. Then he leaned back in the chair, drumming his fingers slowly on his knee. “Do you ever get lost when you’re working?” he asked.

  “I used to at first,” Sidney said. “I still do sometimes when they send me uptown.”

  “It’s a hell of a feeling, isn’t it?”

  “It isn’t so bad. The first time I was a little scared. Now I just ask somebody. It sure is a big city.”

  “It’s a hell of a feeling being lost in a great city,” the man said slowly. “And the world is full of great cities.” His voice was

  deep and solemn. He spoke slowly, staring straight ahead, and his words seemed to emanate from a trance. “The human mind is a great city in which the individual is always lost. He spends his lifetime groping, trying to locate himself.”

  The boy listened solemnly, too impressed to reply.

  “We’re still strangers when we die,” the man continued. “Lost in a great big city.”

  He stood up and walked slowly to the window. He stared out at the lost afternoon without moving, and the boy felt that he had forgotten his presence. The man said quietly:

  “It’s a horrible picture when you think of it that way. A naked arm in every brain groping its way through a great, black city. Can’t you just see a world full of naked, groping arms?”

  He turned and looked at the boy. He had his hand to his forehead, running his fingers slowly around his temple. “I can feel the arm in my own head. I get headaches. I can feel the fingers probing through the tissues.” He looked at the boy with surprise, as though just discovering he was there. “Do you know what I’m talking about?”

  “I think so,” the boy said.

  “No you don’t. You’re too young. And it’s just as well.” He walked into the foyer. “God damn it, Skelly. Hurry up. The kid doesn’t have all day.”

  He walked across the room and seated himself in a chair facing the sofa. He poured some whiskey into a glass and held it between his legs, staring down at the floor. After a few seconds, the woman returned. The boy sat up with surprise when he saw her. She had changed into a blue dressing gown and slippers, and when she walked across the room and sat down on the sofa, he could see the lithe, round lines of her body rippling beneath the film of material.

  “Well?” she asked, looking at the man.

  “Tell him,” he said. “This is your idea.”

  “I thought you were going to.”

  “Do you want me to?”

  The woman nodded. The man raised the glass to his lips and drained it. The boy watched his face curl into an expression of distaste as he swallowed, waiting expectantly as he felt himself in the center of a strange, elastic puzzle. The man set the glass on a table and turned to the woman.

  “You do it,” he said.

  “All right,” the woman said, and turned to Sidney. “Have you ever seen a naked woman?”

  The boy looked away sharply. He felt the silence grow in the room and start to tingle and then ring in his ears.

  “For chrisakes, don’t be coy. Have you or haven’t you?”

  “No,” the boy answered faintly.

  “Would you like to?”

  Through the corner of his eye, the boy watched the folds of her gown, terrified, not knowing what she was going to do.
He felt panic rise within him, and the seconds crawled ominously.

  “All right, Skelly,” the man said. “I’ll do it. You have no tact.” He turned and looked at the boy. “Here’s what we want you to do. We want you to make believe that Skelly is one of your girl friends.”

  The boy’s breath caught in his throat. “What do you mean?”

  “You know what I mean. Sit down and neck with her.”

  The boy leaped to his feet. His face was hot and damp, his body cold with terror. “No!” he said, blurting the word out. “I won’t do it. Here.” He groped in his pocket. “Here’s your money back.”

  “Forget the money,” the man said. “That’s yours. Why won’t you do it?”

  “Because it isn’t right, that’s why.”

  The man shook his head slowly and smiled. “You don’t understand. It isn’t anything wrong.” He pointed to the photograph of the boy in football clothes. “You see that boy?” he asked. Sidney nodded. “That’s our son. Mine and Skelly’s. He’s

  dead now. Skelly misses him. You know how mothers are. We just want you to kiss her, to sort of take his place.”

  The boy remembered what the woman had told him, and knew the man was lying, but the fear left him slowly. He remembered how the man had turned from the window with his fingers on his forehead.

  “You mean you want me to kiss her like she was my mother?” he asked.

  “No. Just make believe she’s one of your girl friends, the one you like best. That’s all.”

  Sidney glanced at the woman. She was watching him with a tight, hopeful expression. The man leaned forward, waiting with hopeful impatience for the boy to decide.

  “All right,” the boy said. “I’ll kiss her if she says it’s all right.”

  The woman smiled weakly and nodded. “It’s all right.”

  The man stood up and walked to the liquor tray. The woman rose, beckoning the boy to approach, and he walked to her slowly. Behind him he heard the light splash of whiskey spilling into the glass. He came to a stop before her. She was an inch or two taller, and he looked up at her, trembling with fear and uncertainty. She held up her arms.

  The man stood to the side, motionless, watching with rigid attention. “Go ahead,” he said, when the boy glanced his way. “It’s all right.”

  The boy swallowed nervously. He leaned forward and kissed her on the mouth. The woman slid her arms around him. The boy raised his hands slowly to her shoulders. As he felt his fingers touch her, he pulled his face away quickly and stepped back with alarm.

  “What’s the matter?” the man demanded.

  “He’s afraid,” the woman said.

  “No wonder. You look like you’re gonna scratch his eyes out. Smile at him.”

  The woman turned to the boy and smiled. Her face grew soft and appealing, and deeply sorrowful. The boy felt touched with tenderness, and he smiled back slowly. He stepped near her. She took his arms and placed them around her. She pulled his face against her own and slid her arms around him in a tight grip. Then she began kissing him about his mouth. The boy was too frightened to move.

  “He’s not doing anything!” the woman cried, tearing her face away and throwing it back against his neck. Her shoulders shook and the boy knew she was crying. He felt the giant sobs roll through her body beneath his arms.

  The man ran up behind him and beat his hands on his back, shouting, “Kiss her! God damn you! Kiss her!”

  He pushed him hard with both hands, and they tumbled to the sofa. The woman’s sobs were piercing his ears and he opened his eyes. Her face was wracked with despair. Suddenly, she put her hands on his shoulders and pushed him away violently. He fell to the floor on his knees. He rose quickly and scooted across the room, away from the man who was glaring down at the woman with a wild, fiery expression.

  “It’s no use!” she cried. “He’s too young.”

  The man whirled upon the boy. “Go back to the office,” he shouted. “Tell them to send an older boy. Do you understand? An older boy. We want an older boy.”

  The boy nodded. He ran to the table and grabbed his cap, glancing quickly at the woman, whose loud, hysterical cries were tearing through him in waves of pain. The man caught him when he started to the door.

  “Wait a minute. Don’t tell anybody anything. Forget what happened. Do you understand?”

  “Tell them!” the woman cried. “Tell everybody!”

  “Shut up, Skelly. For God’s sake, shut up.”

  The woman rose and ran to the boy, her face haggard with hysteria. “Tell everybody, Sidney,” she sobbed. “Tell the whole

  damned world.” Her words stumbled over her sobs and she began to shriek.

  “Skelly, shut up,” the man pleaded, catching her shoulders. “Please shut up.”

  The boy watched her, unable to move. Her face was like chalk, shaking and cruelly distorted as she struggled to break away.

  The man raised his hand and slapped her across the face, stunning her with surprise. He backed her up slowly and let her collapse in a chair. He looked down at her sadly for a moment. Then he turned to the boy and walked him to the door.

  “Don’t tell anyone a thing,” he said. He pushed the other bill in the boy’s hand. “Forget all about it. Do you understand?”

  The boy could hear the woman sobbing softly, and behind the man, he could see her shoulders shaking in the chair.

  “Remember now. Don’t tell anyone. Okay?”

  The boy nodded.

  The man opened the door. “You’ll forget all about it, won’t you?”

  The boy nodded again and stepped into the hall.

  The door slammed shut.

  MACADAM’S LOG*

  The captain’s first voyage, the beginning of a long and distinguished career on the high seas, had taken place a number of years earlier when his sister, the last surviving relative of his own generation, had sailed back to Scotland to die. She did not give that as her purpose, of course, substituting instead some obstinate nonsense about a girlhood friend now alone and in failing health; but the Captain, whose recollection of the many vast and shambling decades behind him remained surprisingly acute, remembered clearly that he himself was but nine years old when his father, a burly shipwright with a ringing laugh that sounded frequently now in the Captain’s thoughts, had uprooted his mother, his wife, and his seven “bairn” in one gigantic impulse that carried them all swiftly from Glasgow over the ocean to Portland, Maine, and that his sister was little more than an infant at the time and could not possibly have severed any close relationships.

  The Captain, saddened by her gray and thin appearance, did not raise this objection. He gazed at her with the kindest of expressions, asked only the most innocent questions, and in secret tried vainly to understand. It was twenty years since they had seen each other, five since they had written, and the occasion of their last contact had been the death by heart failure of a brother in Tucumcari, New Mexico. She had married early and settled with her husband in Richfield, Minnesota, where a sturdy procession of children had come from her during her fertile years, six sons and three daughters in all, not one of whom, it appeared, was able to free himself even temporarily and insist strongly enough upon accompanying her to New York.

  It was the day she sailed that first provided the Captain with the grand inspiration that ultimately sent him to sea. The Captain had not been aboard ship since that eventful time nearly fifty years before, and he was left breathless now by the sudden spectacle of the broad and massive vessel with all its ornate luxury glittering endlessly in every direction and its noble air of dignified and compact strength. He was reluctant to go further when, with Neil and Cynthia, he was at last standing on the pier.

  “I don’t think she’ll come to the rail,” Neil said, with a meaningful glance at his watch.

  “No,” murmured the Captain regretfully, recalling that they were busy people, his daughter and his son-in-law. “I suppose not.” Still, he lingered. “You two go on,” he advised
finally. “I have to stay in the city anyway.”

  He waited patiently as Cynthia kissed his cheek and straightened his tie with a reproving frown. Then, when they had gone, he moved back to where the guests of the other passengers had collected excitedly against a wooden barrier. A daring humor came over him, and he began waving gently toward the figure of a strange woman he had picked out on the topmost deck. Of course, there was no response. He would have been terrified if there had been. Serene and contented, he remained there, beaming benevolently at his anonymous and unsuspecting friend until the ship began to move.

  The people about him were soon dispersing, but the Captain stayed on until it was no longer in sight. Across the river, which glistened in places with filthy slicks of oil, the Jersey bluffs were tranquil and clear in the soft daylight. Above them a noiseless

  flock of clouds dozed like sleeping swans. Slowly it all dissolved, and he could see the open ocean, its vast, blue grandeur rolling calmly and majestically before him into the timeless deep and distance, and it was with this bright vision in mind that he finally turned away.

  After that it was only a matter of time before the Captain went to sea.

  In the suburban home he shared with Neil and Cynthia and his two grandchildren, there was little to keep him occupied. The Captain had accepted superannuation gracefully—not without regret, it is true, but submissively and without protest. Twenty-seven unstinting years in the hardware business had bred in him a need for purpose and activity, and his retirement, effected by illness and increasing fatigue, found him unprepared for idleness. He was restless and bored, distressed by things he had never before had time to notice, and he was quick to consider the diversion which his sister’s departure had suggested.

  Even the children did not claim much of his time. He was there whenever they required him, if only to be the victim of their sometimes painful pranks, but he never imposed his presence, and he would have reacted violently to the mere suggestion of ever trying to extract affection from them. They were both spoiled, Nevil, who had been named in tribute to Neil’s father, and little Nan, both given to veering moods and raucous displays of temperament. Nan already suffered from harrowing nightmares and would fill the house regularly with her tortured cries. On these occasions it was the Captain who rose and went to her room and shook her gently awake and soothed and consoled her. She was afraid of the darkness, and what she really wanted was someone to share the room with her; but Nevil was of different sex, and Neil and Cynthia resolutely opposed the Captain’s solution of allowing them to dwell together.