And suddenly there were those former friends who belonged to no group at all: the boy without personality, the girl who was homely and could not live with that knowledge, the odd ones, the quiet ones, the crippled ones who could not play ball or dance the Lindy. These were the friendless ones who had been left behind, although they were still there to say hello to.
Life was turning cruel and ugly in other ways as well. Some boy we had grown up with would finally die of his “weak heart” or of a rare disease we had never heard of before. Another childhood friend would turn unaccountably mean and vicious and begin hanging around with hoodlums from another neighborhood. Girls we had never even wanted to kiss in kissing games would become pregnant and force boys several years older into unwanted marriages. The kid we had teased as a sissy back in elementary school would indeed turn out to be a homosexual. Many of us were already working after high school classes at jobs we liked only a little. Others were dropping out of school as soon as the law allowed to find jobs they did not like at all. We were staying up late enough in summer now to see the litter of watermelon rinds and chewed corncobs and to realize that Coney Is land is a dirty place when the lights go out. In winter, we found it was a lonely, icy place for people too old to roller skate or play tag.
During the War, I came home on furlough once in winter and was so depressed after three days that I ran away to a hotel in the mountains to be with strangers. I was discharged from the Army during a beautiful week in spring, and ran down Surf Avenue in my civies looking for any old friend to rejoice with. Suddenly I spied Davey Goldsmith, whom I hadn’t seen in over three years and who was still in his khaki uniform. We hugged each other jubilantly and hurried down to the amusement area in search of our childhood. We ate some hot dogs and knishes, and that was easy and it was just like old times. But when we went on the parachute jump, I was afraid. We went on the Cyclone, and I came off with a pounding headache and a wrenched neck, and all at once I realized it was over. I was twenty-two and knew I was too old. And, like someone very old, I felt that something dear had been lost forever.
That was seventeen years ago, and I have not been on a ride at Coney Island since, except to take my children on the carousel or the “dodg’em,” those small, electric bumping cars that are always fun. When friends who have never been there ask to go, I lead them directly to Nathan’s for a hot dog and then head for the Cyclone, which they can ride to their hearts’ content while I wait on the sidewalk. After the Cyclone, which I explain is the best of the roller coasters, I head for the parachute jump. When they have had their fill of that, I try to get them out of the Island as quickly as possible, either back to Manhattan or to Lundy’s in Sheepshead Bay, a huge, excellent seafood restaurant that never fails to astound anyone seeing it for the first time. When I go to Coney Island with people with children, I go directly into Steeplechase. Those same factors that were disappointing in the past make Steeplechase ideal now. The rides are all safe, and I can sit with the other fathers while the kids go running from one ride that moves around in a circle to another that does the same thing.
I almost never go there anymore unless it is to drive out to Nathan’s to eat. Almost everyone I know from Coney Island has moved somewhere else. No one I know who has lived there wants to move back. It is almost as though we all share a common revulsion, and this in a way is strange, for we spent what I’m sure were happy childhoods there. On the other hand, the explanation may be perfectly simple: it may simply be that Coney Island is a poor and decrepit place, and we know that now.
Whenever I drive through, I am uncomfortable. Whenever I leave, it is with a sense of relief. But whenever I’m there, I am impressed by the children, by the great quantities of children I see on every block, by more children having more fun playing in the street than children I ever see anywhere else. But children can be happy anywhere.
*“Ever Fall in Love with a Midget?”
* Atlantic Monthly,vol. 172, August 1948, pp. 66–70.
* Esquire,vol. 30, August 1948, pp. 73, 129–30.
*In Great Tales of City Dwellers, ed. Alex Austin (New York: Lion Library Editions, 1955).
* Gentlemen’s Quarterly,vol. 29, December 1959, pp. 112; 166–76, 178.
* Playboy,vol. 16, December 1969, pp. 181–82, 348; reprinted in A Catch-22 Casebook, ed. Frederick Kiley and Walter McDonald (New York: Crowell, 1973).
* Playboy,vol. 34, December 1987, pp. 144–46, 184, 186.
* Smart,no. 9, May 1990, pp. 81–96.
* The Nation,vol. 250, 4 June 1990, pp. 779–85; originally published as “The Day Bush Left the White House” in The Guardian (Manchester), 12–13 May 1990, pp. 4–6.
*Previously unpublished; written between 1946 and 1949.
*Previously unpublished; written between 1950 and 1952.
*“A Man Named Flute.”
*Previously unpublished; written between 1946 and 1949.
*Previously unpublished; written between 1946 and 1949.
*Previously unpublished; written between 1946 and 1949. The typescript for this story has been heavily edited, presumably by Heller’s instructor. The story is printed here, without the edits, as Heller wrote it.
* Crawdaddy,August 1973, pp. 45–54.
* Holiday,vol. 41, April 1967, pp. 44–60, 120, 141–42, 145. Reprinted in A Catch-22 Casebook, ed. Frederick T. Kiley and Walter McDonald (New York: Crowell), 1973.
* Audience,vol. 2, July–August 1972, pp. 48–55.
* The Sixties,ed. Lynda Rosen Obst (New York: Random House/Rolling Stone Press, 1977), pp. 50, 52.
*“‘I Am the Bombadier!’” The New York Times Magazine, 7 May 1995, p. 61.
* Show,vol. 2, July 1962, pp. 50–54, 102–3.
*The final revised script for the movie version of Catch-22 is in the Joseph Heller Collection at the Thomas Cooper Library, University of South Carolina.
†“Girl from Greenwich.”
‡“Nothing to Be Done.”
* Story,vol. 27, September–October 1945, pp. 40–44; reprinted with new head-note by Heller in Story, Spring 1992, pp. 116–20.
* Esquire,vol. 27, May 1947, p. 98.
* Apprentice,vol. 11, January 1948, pp. 3–4.
* Atlantic Monthly,vol. 171, March 1948, pp. 52–55.
* Esquire,vol. 29, June 1948, pp. 40–41, 142–43.
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