"We're not Assyrian," Michael reminded. "We're Armenian. I'm only half Armenian."
"I said Assyrian to be funny, jerk. They took it as fact." Yossarian looked fondly at him, "Only Sam Singer caught on why. wI bet I could be Assyrian too,' he said to me once, and I knew just what he meant. I think I was an inspiration to him. When the showdown came, he and I were the only ones who declined to fly any more than the seventy missions we had. Shit, the war was practically over. wFuck my superiors,' I decided, when I saw that most of my superiors were not superior. Years later I read where Camus said that the only freedom we have is the freedom to say no. You ever read Camus?"
"I don't want to read Camus."
"You don't want to read anything?"
"Only when I'm really bored. It takes time. Or when I feel all alone."
"That's a good time. In the army I never felt all alone. Singer was a bookish little prick and began to act like a comic smartass with me once he saw I would let him. wWouldn't it be better if the country had lost the Revolutionary War?' he asked me once. That was before I'd found out they were slamming people into prison for criticizing the new political party. Michael, which is farther west-Reno, Nevada, or Los Angeles?"
" Los Angeles, of course. Why?"
"Wrong. That's another thing I learned from him. In South Carolina one night a big drunken bully from somewhere began to knock him around for no reason. It was no contest. I was the; officer, although I had taken my bars off to get a midnight meal in the enlisted men's mess hall. I felt I had to protect him, and as soon as I stepped between them to try to break it up, the guy began beating the shit out of me." Yossarian broke into hearty laughter.
"Oh, God," moaned Michael.
Yossarian laughed again, softly, when he saw Michael's dismay. "The funny part is-and it was funny: I almost laughed even when he was hitting me, I was filled with such surprise-that none of it hurt. He was punching me in the head and face, and I didn't feel pain. In a little while I tied up his arms, and then people pulled us apart. Sam Singer had jumped on him from the side and this other gunner with us, Art Schroeder, had jumped on his back. When they quieted him down and told him I was an officer, he sobered up fast and nearly died. The next morning, even before breakfast, he showed up at my room in the officers' barracks to beg forgiveness and got down on his knees. I mean that. I never saw anyone cringe like that. And he just about started to pray to me. I mean that too. And he wouldn't stop, even after I told him to go away and forget it. I think I might have gotten into trouble too for taking off my lieutenant's bars just to eat in the enlisted men's mess hall, but he didn't think of that. I didn't tell him howl much it disgusted me to see him cowering that way. That's when I hated him, that's when I got angry and ordered him away, never want to see anybody so abject again, I like to tell myself." Michael was through eating after that story. Yossarian changed plates with him and finished his chicken and mopped up the leftover rice and bread. "My digestion is still good too, thank God."
"What isn't good?" said Michael.
"My sex drive."
"Oh, fuck that. What else?"
"My memory, for names and telephone numbers, I can't always find the words I know I know, I can't always remember what I meant to remember. I talk a lot and say things twice. I talk a lot and say things twice. My bladder a little, and my hair," added Yossarian. "It's white now, and Adrian tells me I shouldn't be satisfied with that. He's still trying to find a dye to turn it gray. When he finds it I won't use it. I'm going to tell him to try genes."
"What's in a gene? It's in your talk a lot."
"That's because of my genes, I guess. Blame that on Teemer. My God, that fistfight was forty years ago and seems like only yesterday. Everybody I meet now from way back then has back problems or prostate cancer. Little Sammy Singer, they called him. I wonder now what ever became of him."
"After forty years?"
"Almost fifty, Michael."
"You just said forty."
"See how fast a decade passes? That's true, Michael. You were born a week ago-I remember it like it was only yesterday-and I was born a week before that. You've no idea, Michael, you can't imagine-yet-how laughable it is, how disorienting, to walk into a room for something and forget what you came for, to look into a refrigerator and not remember what you wanted, and to be talking to so many people like you who have never even heard of Kilroy."
"I've heard of him now," Michael argued. "But I still don't know a thing about him."
"Except that he was probably here in this restaurant too," said Yossarian. "Kilroy was everywhere you went in World War II- you saw it written on a wall. We don't know anything about him either. That's the only reason we still like him. The more you find out about anyone, the less you're able to respect him. After that fight, Sam Singer thought I was the best person in the world. And after that, I wasn't ever afraid to get into a real fistfight again. Today I would be."
"Were there others?"
"No, almost one, with a pilot named Appleby, the one I flew overseas with. We never got along. I couldn't navigate and I don't know why they expected me to. One time I got lost on a training mission and gave him a compass heading that would have taken us out over the Atlantic Ocean toward Africa. We would have died right then if he hadn't been better at his job than I was at mine. What a schmuck I was, as a navigator. No wonder he was sore. Am I talking too much? I know I talk a lot now, don't I?"
"You're not talking too much."
"Sometimes I do talk too much, because I find I'm more interesting than the people I'm talking to, and even they know that. You can talk too. No, I never had to actually get in a fistfight again. I used to look pretty strong."
"I wouldn't do it," Michael said, almost proudly.
"I wouldn't do it either, now. Today people kill. I think you might anyway, if you saw brutality and you didn't take time to think about it. The way that little Sammy Singer jumped at that big guy when he saw him beating me up. If we took the time, we'd think of calling 911 or look the other way. Your big brother Julian sneers at me because I won't get into an argument with anyone over a parking space and because I'll always give the right of way to any driver that wants to take it from me."
"I wouldn't fight over that either."
"You won't even learn to drive."
"I'd be afraid."
"I'd take that chance. What else are you afraid of?"
"You don't want to know."
"One thing I can guess," said Yossarian, ruthlessly. "You're afraid for me. You're afraid I will die. You're afraid I'll get sick. And it's a fucking good thing you are, Michael. Because it's all going to happen, even though I pretend it won't. I've promised you seven more years of my good health, and now it's more like six. When I reach seventy-five, kiddo, you're on your own. And I'm not going to live forever, you know, even though I'm going to die trying."
"Do you want to?"
"Why not? Even when sad. What else is there?"
"When are you sad?"
"When I remember I'm not going to live forever," Yossarian joked. "And in the mornings, if I wake up alone. That happens to people, especially those people like me with a predisposition to late-life depression."
"Late-life depression?"
"You'll find that out too, if you're lucky enough to last. You'll find it in the Bible. You'll see it in Freud. I'm pretty much out of interests. I wish I knew what to wish. There's this girl I'm after."
"I don't want to hear about it."
"But I'm not sure I can ever really fall in love again," Yossarian went on, despite him, knowing he was talking too much. "I'm afraid that might be gone too. There's this vile habit I've gotten into lately. No, I'm going to tell you anyway. I think of women I've known far back and try to picture what they look like now. Then I wonder why I ever went crazy over them. I've got another one I can't control, one that's even worse. When a woman turns, I always, every time now, have to look down at her backside before I can decide if she's attractive or not. I never used to do that. I don't know why I have to do it now. And they all of them almost always get too broad there. I don't think I'd ever want my friend Frances Beach to know I do that. Desire is starting to fail me, and that joy that cometh in the morning, as you'll read in the Bible-"