Closing Time (Catch-22 2)

"But there are good thoughts and bad thoughts," snapped Leon Shumacher, "so let's go on working. Were you ever in the navy with a man named Richard Nixon? He thinks he knows you."

"No, I wasn't."

"He wants to come check you out."

"I was not in the navy. Please keep him away."

"Did you ever play alto saxophone in a jazz band?"

"No."

"Were you ever in the army with the Soldier in White?"

"Twice. Why?"

"He's on a floor downstairs. He wants you to drop by to say hello."

"If he could tell you all that, he's not the same one."

"Were you ever in the army with a guy named Rabinowitz?" asked Dennis Teemer. "Lewis Rabinowitz?"

Yossarian shook his head. "Not that I remember."

"Then I may have it wrong. How about a man named Sammy Singer, his friend? He says he was from Coney Island. He thinks you may remember him from the war."

"Sam Singer?" Yossarian sat up. "Sure, the tail gunner. A short guy, small, skinny,

with wavy black hair."

Teemer smiled. "He's almost seventy now."

"Is he sick too?"

"He's friends with this patient I'm looking at."

"Tell him to drop by."

"Hiya, Captain." Singer shook the hand Yossarian put out. Yossarian appraised a man delighted to see him, on the smallish side, with hazel eyes projecting slightly in a face that was kindly. Singer was chortling. "It's good to see you again. I've wondered about you. The doctor says you're okay."

"You've grown portly, Sam," said Yossarian, with good humor, "and a little bit wrinkled, and maybe a little taller. You used to be skinny. And you've gotten very gray, with thinning hair. And so have I. Fill me in, Sam. What's been happening the last fifty years? Anything new?"

"Call me Sammy."

"Call me Yo-Yo."

"I'm pretty good, I guess. I lost my wife. Ovarian cancer. I'm kind of floundering around."

"I've been divorced, twice. I flounder too. I suppose I'll have to marry again. It's what I'm used to. Children?"

"One daughter in Atlanta," said Sammy Singer, "and another in Houston. Grandchildren too, already in college. I don't like to throw myself on them. I have an extra bedroom for when they come to visit. I worked for Time magazine a long time--but not as a reporter," Singer added pointedly. "I did well enough, made a good living, and then they retired me to bring in young blood to keep the magazine alive."

"And now it's practically dead," said Yossarian. "I work now in that old Time-Life Building in Rockefeller Center. Looking out on the skating rink. Were you ever in that one?"

"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 & M Building, with M & M Enterprises and Milo Minderbinder. Remember old Milo?"

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