Nately's Whore

Again, if you have not read Catch-22, bookmark this post, go read the book, then come back and read this. (ANNA ... THIS MEANS YOU.) You'll appreciate it more. Or if you like being confused and having the best part of something SPOILED for you, go right ahead. I'm serious. I'm going to give away one of the best moments in the book, and if there's any chance you're going to read it, then go away now. You'll thank me later. (Believe it or not, Joseph Heller is a better writer than I am.) This post is selfish and self-loathing, but I'm going to write it anyway. Whenever you're ready ... let me tell you about Nately's whore.

Catch-22 is the story of a bomber squadron stationed off the coast of Italy during World War II. All you need to know for the purposes of this post is that the pilots spend a great deal of the book visiting Rome and sleeping with prostitutes. Except for one young man named Nately. He visits Rome all right, but he never gets laid, because he's in love with a whore who won't sleep with him. He follows her everywhere and gives her every dime he makes in order to spend time with her. She takes the money but doesn't sleep with him, because he bores her. Everything bores her, but she still sleeps with anyone who pays ... except Nately.

As you can imagine, this makes Nately completely miserable because he's madly in love with her, and nothing makes a man in love more miserable than knowing that the girl he loves is fucking someone else. And not just someone else, but a lot of someone elses. One of the other officers in his unit even makes it a point to bang Nately's whore every chance he gets, just so he can go back and tell Nately all about it and make him "eat his liver." But Nately still goes to Rome and follows her around and gives her all his money and sulks while she gives it up to other guys and even babysits her obnoxious kid sister who hates him more than anyone. (Stay with me, this is going somewhere.)

Toward the end of the book (after a series of events you'll just have to read about) Nately's whore goes to sleep and when she wakes up, she is in love. With Nately. All his kindness, all his persistence, all his caring pays off. All she needed was a good night's sleep. So he makes plans to get her off the streets, marry her and take her back to America.

Of all the scenes and stories that hit home while reading this book, this one hits the closest. I've spent way too much of my life waiting for girls who aren't interested in me as they date/make out with/fuck seemingly anyone who comes along, excepting, of course, me. Yet I keep following these girls around, constantly wondering what they're up to, doing anything to be a part of their lives, and eating my liver whenever I hear about or see them with someone else.

Why do I do this? Well, it's a sickness. And I've been misled by a lifetime of movies, tv shows, books, songs and every other bit of fairytale nonsense in which the good guy always gets his girl. Usually through some crazy scheme ... the crazier, the better. The moral of these stories is that here is no obstacle between a man and the woman he loves that cannot be overcome by refusing to give up. If you suffer enough, you will earn her love. (I don't need to tell you that this is bullshit.)

This book is no different. I don't know anyone in literature who suffers more than Nately, and you never feel better for anyone than you do for Nately when his whore wakes up and falls in love with him. He doesn't give up on his love when everything in the world told him he should, and in the end he gets what he deserves.

Of course, there's a reason why the book is called Catch-22 and there's a reason why it's the best book ever written. Even though he has flown the required number of combat missions and could return to the U.S. and leave the war, Nately refuses to go home without his girl. So he keeps flying. On his very next mission he gets killed.

Why? Because unlike it is portrayed in the movies, life is pointless and stupid and cruel and risking it for anything other than yourself is a sure-fire way to end up dead. And then where would you be? I'm sure I'll never stop dreaming like Nately, but I also sometimes worry that I will one day find utter joy and happiness in my life ... and then immediately be run over by a bus. That's life and that's what Catch-22 demonstrates better than anything I've ever read anywhere.

Of course, it also understands that just because life is pointless and stupid and cruel, that doesn't mean you should roll over and let it destroy you. There's a lot more to this book than the simplistic interpretation I've hinted at here. (It's really much better than I made it sound.) Everyone may be trying to kill you, but that doesn't mean you should let them. Maybe I'll write about that tomorrow.