Joseph Heller - Closing Time

"I sure was," said Singer, with recalled affection. "I remember that skating rink. I had some good times there."

"It's now the new M amp; M Building, with M amp; M Enterprises and Milo Minderbinder. Remember old Milo?"

"I sure do." Sammy Singer laughed. "He gave us good food, that Milo Minderbinder."

"He did do that. A better standard of living than I had before."

"Me too. They were saying afterward that he was the one who bombed our squadron that time."

"He did that too. That's another one of the contradictions of capitalism. It's funny, Singer. The last time I was in the hospital, the chaplain popped in out of nowhere to see me."

"What chaplain?"

"Our chaplain. Chaplain Tappman."

"Sure. I know that chaplain. Very quiet, right? Almost went to pieces after those two planes collided over La Spezia, with Dobbs in one plane and Huple in the other and Nately and all the rest of them killed. Remember those names?"

"I remember them all. Remember Orr? He was in my tent."

"I remember Orr. They say he made it to Sweden in a raft after he ditched after Avignon, right before we went home."

"I went down to Kentucky once and saw him there," said Yossarian. "He was a handyman in a supermarket, and we didn't have much to say to each other anymore."

"I was in the plane when we ditched after the first mission to Avignon. He took care of everything. Remember that time? I was down in the raft with that top turret gunner Sergeant Knight."

"I remember Bill Knight. He told me all about it."

"That was the time none of our Mae Wests would inflate because Milo had taken out the carbon dioxide cylinders to make ice cream sodas for all you guys at the officers' club. He left a note instead. That was some Milo then." Singer chuckled.

"You guys had sodas too every Sunday, didn't you?"

"Yes, we did. And then he took the morphine from the first-aid kit on that second mission to Avignon, you said. Was that really true?" "He did that too. He left a note there also."

"Was he dealing in drugs then?"

"I had no way to know. But he sure was dealing in eggs, fresh eggs. Remember?"

"I emember those eggs. I still can't believe eggs can taste so good. I eat them often."

"I'm going to start," Yossarian resolved. "You just convinced me, Sammy Singer. It makes no sense to worry about cholesterol now, does it?"

"You remember Snowden then, Howard Snowden? On that mission to Avignon?"

"Sam, could I ever forget? I would have used up all the morphine in the first-aid kit when I saw him in such pain. That fucking Milo. I cursed him a lot. Now I work with him."

"Did I really black out that much?"

"It looked that way to me."

"That seems funny now. You were covered with so much blood. And then all that other stuff. He just kept moaning. He was cold, wasn't he?" thing, "Yes, he said he was cold. And dying. I was covered with everything, Sammy, and then with my own vomit too."

"And then you took off your clothes and wouldn't put them on again for a while."

"I was sick of uniforms."

"I saw you sitting in a tree at the funeral, naked."

"I had sneakers."

"I saw Milo climb up to you too, with his chocolate-covered cotton. We all kind of always looked up to you then, Yossarian. I still do, you know."

"Why is that, Sam?" asked Yossarian, and hesitated. "I'm only a pseudo Assyrian."

Singer understood. "No, that's not why. Not since the army. I made good friends with Gentiles there. You were one, when that guy started beating me up in South Carolina. And not since those years at Time, where I had fun and hung around with Protestants and my first heavy drinkers."

"We're assimilated. It's another nice thing about this country. If we behave like they do, they might let us in."

"I met my wife there. You know something, Yossarian?"

"Yo-Yo?"

Sam Singer shook his head. "After I was married, I never once cheated on my wife, and never wanted to, and that seemed funny to people everywhere, to other girls too. It didn't to her. They might have thought I was gay. Her first husband was the other way. A ladies' man, the kind I always thought I wanted to be. She preferred me, by the time I met her."

"You miss her."

"I miss her."

"I miss marriage. I'm not used to living alone."

"I can't get used to it either. I can't cook much."

"I don't cook either."

Sam Singer reflected. "No, I think I looked up to you first because you were an officer, and back then I had the kid's idea that all officers had something more on the ball than the rest of us. Or we would be officers too. You always seemed to know what you were doing, except when you were getting lost and taking us out across the Atlantic Ocean. Even when you were going around doing crazy things, it seemed to make more sense than a lot of the rest. Standing in formation naked to get that medal. We all got a big kick out of seeing you do that."

"I wasn't showing off, Sam. I was in panic most of the time. I'd wake up some mornings and try to guess where I was, and then try to figure out what the hell I was doing there. I sometimes wake up't lat way now."

"Baloney," said Singer, and grinned. "And you always seemed to be getting laid a lot, when the rest of us weren't."

"Not as much as you think," said Yossarian, laughing. "There was a lot more of just rubbing it around."

"But, Yossarian, when you said you wouldn't fly anymore, we kept our fingers crossed. We'd finished our seventy missions and were in the same boat."

"Why didn't you come out and walk with me?"

"We weren't that brave. They sent us home right after they caught you, so it worked out fine for us. I said no too, but by then they gave me a choice. What happened to you?"

"They sent me home too. They threatened to kill me, to put me in prison, they said they would ruin me. They promoted me to major and sent me home. They wanted no fuss."

"Most of us admired you. And you seem to know what you're doing now."

"Who says that? I'm not sure of anything anymore."

"Come on, Yo-Yo. On our floor, they're saying you've even got a good thing going with one of the nurses."

Yossarian came close to a blush of pride. "It's traveled that far?

"We even hear it from my friend's doctor," Singer went on, in a merry way. "Back in Pianosa, I remember, you were pretty friendly with a nurse too, weren't you?"

"For a little while. She dumped me as a poor risk. The problem with sweeping a girl off her feet, Sammy, is that you have to keep on sweeping. Love doesn't work that way."

"I know that too," said Singer. "But you and a couple of others were with her up the beach with your suits on that day Kid Sampson was killed by an airplane. You remember Kid Sampson, don't you?"

"Oh, shit, sure," said Yossarian. "Do you think I could ever forget Kid Sampson? Or McWatt, who was in the plane that smashed him apart. McWatt was my favorite pilot."

"Mine too. He was the pilot on the mission to Ferrara when we had to go around on a second bomb run, and Kraft was killed, and a bombardier named Pinkard too."

Were you in the plane with me on that one too?"

"I sure was. I was also in the plane with Hungry Joe when he forgot to use the emergency handle to put down his landing gear. And they gave him a medal."

"They gave me my medal for that mission to Ferrara."

"It's hard to believe it all really happened."

"I know that feeling," said Yossarian. "It's hare to believe I let myself be put through so much."

"I know that feeling. It's funny about Snowden." Singer hesitated. "I didn't know him that well."

"I'd never noticed him."

"But now I feel he was one of my closest friends."

"I have that feeling too."

"And I also feel," Sammy persevered, "he was one of the best things that ever happened to me. I almost hate to put it that way. It sounds immoral. But it gave me an episode, something dramatic to talk about, and something to make me remember that the war was really real. People won't believe much of it; my children and grandchildren aren't much interested in anything so old."