Catch-22, is a paradox in rules, regulations, procedures, or situations in which one has knowledge of being or becoming a victim but has no control over it occurring.
Dietmar Frantz not only had the most unusual name on the school’s register but he was arguably the most unusual boy in the school, had they but known it. Inarguably one of the school’s brightest lights he had single-handedly resisted all accusations of being a ‘swot’, a ‘brainbox’ and a ‘geek’ where all before had so singularly failed. Handsome, in a self-deprecating way, he also somehow managed to maintain the appearance of a self-possessed person without any apparent need for a group of worshippers. Neither seeking nor lacking for attention he continued to cut a solitary but never lonely figure throughout his time at Westeven Grammar where his grades hid his complete lack of regard for authority and belied his distrust of celebrity. He was as charismatic as he was enigmatic and no-one could quite penetrate to the source of his obvious power beyond his easy-going charm, affability and self-confident but never arrogant mien. Girls queued-up to genuflect before him and boys who found themselves perturbed with this cult of personality still somehow adjudged him non-threatening though not entirely harmless or defenceless.
Gerry found himself being placed next to this phenomenon of popularity on his first day in his new class and content at least to not be sitting next to an acknowledged geek or boring-old-fart assumed the position of a student with much to prove in his first Latin lesson. Frank Mason, the famously unstable volcano of pithy remarks and heart-stopping threats had assumed his position sitting astride the corner of his well-worn desk and began to read from the mysterious text-book, a copy of which sat on the desk in front of the utterly bewildered Gerry, foreigner to the language his new teacher now spoke.
“Right new boy, what is your name by the way?” he remarked almost half-heartedly.
“Hood” Gerry confirmed for the benefit of all those who now surrounded him.
“Hood what boy?”
“Gerry Hood, sir” he muttered self-consciously to the silent room.
“No boy, I mean what word should you append when answering a teacher’s question?”
“Upend sir? I would have to stand on my head to do that” smiled Gerry, breaking the ice, or so he thought.
“YOU SEE THIS BOILER BOY!” roared the now standing six-foot of gnarled and clearly agitated Latin teacher - “well, it burns bodies! He stared down the new boy who he had deliberately targeted in the whispered knowledge that he had heard which had notified him of the boys wilfulness well in advance of this, their first encounter. Mr Mason had a reputation as a disciplinarian, Glenn having gleefully told Gerry that very morning of an incident concerning Nicky Birch, who having been discovered as the culprit who wrote ‘SPURS’ on the blackboard in Mr. Mason’s hut had then experienced the crusty old gentleman write the exact same legend on the seat of his school trousers and publicly spank it off in front of the entire class.
“When you speak to me in this class you will refer to me as ‘Sir’ on every occasion. Do I make myself clear?”. His voice trailed off into a whispered threat.
“Yes… Sir” Gerry added pausing as long as he reasonably dared to emphasise his actual disdain for the deliberate humiliation he knew he was now being required to take as the rear-end of the pantomime horse Frank Mason had so carefully constructed.
“Now boy. Conjugate the Latin verb to love” added the spiteful teacher smiling the self-satisfied smirk of a tormentor.
“Gerry was just about to confess, as intended, his complete lack of any grasp or vocabulary at all to the smug pedagogue, but before he could walk blindly into the next stage of his ritual humiliation he noticed a carefully hand-written note had appeared between the leaves of the text book he was holding on which was written: amo, amas, amat, amamus, amatis, amant.
Gerry falteringly read the words on the paper and noticed his teacher narrow his stare as the esoteric words tumbled from his mouth and the snare snapped shut without capturing its prey.
“So you do know some Latin then boy?” his rhetorical question bringing only a sullen nod from the intended victim who had now stopped giving his tormentor the eye-contact favoured by the bullying teacher.
“Hmm … we’ll see how much in time, right class, page one-hundred and fifty-seven. Complete the exercise IN SILENCE” he bellowed and the class set about their task with the eagerness of the petrified, apart from his colleague who had made a rather more desultory attempt which seemed to involve special writing and drawing implements of a design hitherto unknown to the already fascinated Gerry.
The lessons passed far more rapidly and easily than Gerry had thought they might and during each of the five periods that day Gerry became acquainted with his new teachers, fellow students and the increasingly eccentric idiosyncrasies of his new co-conspirator. Dietmar Frantz was, it transpired, the most subversive person Gerry had so far encountered. His knack of answering one key question during a lesson, confirming both his attention and comprehension, was studied and deliberate and concealed an utter disregard for the manner in which the lesson was intended to proceed. Diet, as his friend allowed himself to be addressed, learned quickly and thoroughly without the unwelcome attention or intervention of his teachers and provided Gerry with an entirely new model of lassitude to which he clung, at first uncertainly, but with renewed determination and vigour. Notwithstanding the gulf Gerry was required to cross in order to catch-up with his new class mates who were sailing through their subject knowledge - a very different set of demands to those Gerry had previously been exposed - with apparent ease, he clung to this superman’s coattails as if his life and their friendship now depended upon it. He couldn’t be certain where this new dynamism might lead, but he was prepared to find out and had little if anything to lose. Marginalised by his friends because of his involuntary move, Gerry’s bridges had been burnt for him and so all new horizons became his focus and Dietmar his lens.
Gerry met his mother’s enquiries about his latest day at school or his hoped for progress with cautious optimism, fearful at once that his new allegiance would be uncovered as the subversive plot it had already become and to which he readily submitted himself. Dietmar had many talents; he could draw cartoons - which were published on match days in the local football club’s programme - and he was also an excellent writer and humorist. Gerry discovered the foundation to this in the extraordinary collection of Alfred Neumann’s Mad Magazine, Private Eye and Punch magazines which quite literally lined the walls of Diet’s bedroom in the family’s small but spacious bungalow which stood in the hilltop village of Toddington. Diet lived with his quite elderly parents, who having seen their daughters grow-up and pair-off were now barely tolerated by their recently-teenage son. Diet ruled-the-roost and his parents quietly accepted his dominance. They never had family meals, Diet’s were delivered outside his room on a silver tray whenever he rang the small brass bell that sat on his bedside table. Bed-times simply didn’t exist. Diet would sleep whenever his body finally caved-in to the reading, watching of his own television, or playing his electric guitars through his extremely powerful amplifier and speakers, which might happen at any time of the night or day, his preference seeming to be the early hours of the morning. Diet’s youngest sister Dorothy was herself an accomplished and well-known singer, at least in local terms, whose partner was himself a partner in his father’s second-hand musical instrument shop in the city. It was thereby that Diet had obtained a Framus semi-acoustic bass guitar - carefully and liberally stuffed with his sister’s sanitary towels in order to overcome its propensity to feedback - and his latest acquisition a Hofner Verithin semi-acoustic guitar which neither suffered or benefited from such modification. These he played enthusiastically if inexpertly and drove both his parents and neighbours to distraction with high-volume nocturnal performances of Beatles’ songs with which he was currently enamoured. Gerry’s experience of one such moment, when on a sleepover with his new and respectable friend, was so dramatic that it threatened to perforate his eardrums as Diet hammered out the introduction to Paperback Writer at four in the morning. When the cacophony eventually abated Gerry fully expected an explosion of anger from Diet’s father, an ill man with his own concerns who occasionally appeared in a dressing gown from his next door room. In the event he was astonished to hear no more than a polite whimper from Diet’s mother who quietly implored him to “turn it down just a little, if you wouldn’t mind Dietmar?” which was met with another furious salvo from the guitar, the Vox AC100 now turned up to its deafening maximum as he cranked his way through Revolution back-to-back with Day Tripper playing along to his record-player, itself no slouch in the decibel department. Gerry felt liberated around his new chum, effortlessly soaking up his influence and influences until Dietmar exposed a chink in their new relationship by offering to let Gerry borrow one of his books.
Gerry had rather gone off the process of reading under the careless tutelage of Miss Markham and felt immediately intimidated by the huge tome his friend passed him as he pored over the somewhat more alluring periodicals that surrounded him.
“Try this!” said Diet, without looking up from the pornographic magazine he was flicking through distractedly whilst smoking the Turkish cigarette, the noxious fumes from which did not seem to disturb his parents who wafted around the rest of the house but were absolutely forbidden entrance to Diet’s very private domain. Gerry searched the front and rear cover for visual clues as to its contents but was unable to discern anything other than its title Catch-22, the name of its author Joseph Heller, and that it was by all accounts printed on the rear cover, a stunning read. He opened it cautiously and searched for further clues before reading the opening paragraph.
“What’s it about?” he asked, pausing for validation from his friend.
“Oh, you’ll see” replied Dietmar, enigmatically and continued puffing from the oval-shaped barrel of the pungent cigarette which he cradled in the cigarette holder clenched between his perfect teeth. “I’m sure you will find it very interesting.
Gerry did find the book very interesting and both he and his brother Glenn tore through it, comparing notes, until the meaning of Catch-22 was thoroughly apprehended and hotly debated between the boys who, having discovered yet another mutual interest, immersed themselves into counter-culture with the avidness of the new convert to Dietmar’s guru-like aplomb. Never once reproaching or mocking Gerry’s new-found enthusiasm or child-like innocence, Dietmar built new confidence in his friend and founded a lifelong love of literature, a love so nearly stillborn from the counter-intuitive efforts of those actually trained and paid to do that exact job. Cervantes’ Don Quixote quickly followed and even as Dr. Cole, his new and highly knowledgeable tutor of English smothered Dylan Thomas’ Under Milk Wood in the torpid wet blanket of study, Dietmar coaxed Gerry through his own library of classics which one day might produce George Orwell and another J.P. Donleavy.
“Why don’t they give us anything interesting to read at school, or better still, make what we do read interesting with debates and discussions?” Gerry enquired from his friend as they pored over a dull text, apparently selected for its dull prose.
“Because learning is deliberately separated from interest by those who ultimately require us to submit to dull, boring and repetitive labour” Diet replied without looking up from his latest delivery of Men Only which had arrived, on a tray which included sunflower seeds and sliced cucumber, outside his bedroom door minutes earlier.
Gerry didn’t yet know the truth or otherwise of his friend’s assertion but he couldn’t imagine Men Only ever making it to the shelves of the school library in spite of its ability to captivate Dietmar once a week.
“You know I actually thought that attending a Grammar School was going to be a magic-carpet ride to success, well, that’s if you believe what Winwood cracks on about every bloody week in assembly” said Gerry, making public his thoughts in the way which his father described as ‘opening your mouth and the top of your head coming off.
“Grammar School? What Grammar School? Westeven Grammar is a comprehensive in all but name” rejoined Diet before adding “I wonder how many O-levels she has?” before sharing the latest centrefold with his sniggering friend.
Dietmar had recently landed a paying gig in a band, courtesy of his sister but soon tired of the disciplines of dates and repertoires, preferring his own company and choice of material to the three-piece cover band Connexion he had joined. Surprising Gerry one day he spoke almost as an aside “Do you want my job in this band?”. He knew that Gerry had now become very proficient as a bass-player and had been practicing with several local bands, always using borrowed amplifiers and speakers. Gerry was also aware that his father had been less than encouraging about the growing dedication of both of his grammar school attending boys feeling that his own youthful enthusiasms for music had now provided the worst sort of distraction from their studies. Without any income there was no way that Gerry could even contemplate his friend’s remarkable offer prevented as he was from buying the equipment necessary for the task.
“You can borrow my gear and, if you like it, pay me for it over a period” his friend said almost telepathically reading Gerry’s mind.
“Really? You’d let me do that?” asked the astonished Gerry, allowing the centrefold to slide from his grip.
“Yeah, why not” said Diet puffing on his Balkan Sobranie, decided already that music was not the career he sought or desired.
Liberated from the need to even seek his father’s permission Gerry auditioned and was inducted into the band within the week and as he sat in the centre seat of the shuddering Ford Transit van on his way to his first paid gig he wondered whether he hadn’t found a way around the Catch-22 mentality of an education system that seemed determined only to fit him for a future he neither desired nor would be able to fulfil. If all institutions shared the mindless aims and ethics of his school, it was only a matter of when, not if, he would fail to reach the numbers of missions required to obtain freedom from their relentless demands. He was thirteen going-on thirty and had by good fortune discovered an escape route, a loophole to the inevitability of getting a job and earning a wage. No longer required to ask his father for money he was headed for independence and rock n’ roll was his key. Fate had dealt him a lucky card and Gerry wasn’t about to let this one slip through his nimble fingers.
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