"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 that 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?"