Free Dark Don't Catch Me by Vin Packer

would be heading with their trays back from the table on the left, which was their special spot. Some of them would cut this afternoon and head off to the poolroom to hear the Series play-off. A lot of them were for the Dodgers because of Willie Mays, but Millard had his dollar on the Yankees, because they could play better ball sitting on their hands. There’d be a lot of excitement at the poolroom. What the hell!
    Millard sees the woman who had been sitting beside him go through Gate 7 up the stairs, out of sight. For the first time this afternoon, he realizes a slight pang of loneliness. He reaches forward in the pocket of the seat in front of him for the cellophane-wrapped folder with the words:
“Your Souvenir of This Trip”
printed upon it in black letters. Rifling through it he takes out the stickers, looks at them, imagines how they’ll look stuck to his cardboard suitcase, and places them carefully on the inside of his suit pocket. Then he searches through his trousers for a pencil to write on the postcards.
    Passengers start pouring down the aisle, and Millard cannot concentrate on the message to his friend, Toe-in Funk, chief of the Panthers. So far he has written only Toe
-
In’s
address and the words:
“Hey, Square, how’s it hanging?” …
    He leans back and looks up at the people going by him. Soon everyone seems to be seated but one gross man carrying a briefcase and a gray fedora. Millard hears the door of the plane slam shut. The man stands looking around him, then at the empty seat beside Millard. He frowns, throws his fedora up in the rack; then slumps his heavy body down into the seat, sighing, and fastening his belt, not looking at Millard.
    The smoking sign blinks on; as the plane’s engines roar.
    â€œHello, sir,” the hostess says to the fat man. “Have you eaten?”
    â€œNo, I haven’t.”
    Millard notices how tense his voice sounds, sees his fingers drum the leather arm rest.
    â€œI’ll serve you as soon as we’re aloft, sir,” the hostess says.
    The man does not answer, grunts, and still frowns.
    As the plane taxies out on the field, Millard thinks of the way he had felt at Newark that morning and compares his own nervousness then with the man’s actions now. He pities the guy; weeping Jesus, poor sucker.
    Millard says, “Is this your first flight?”
    The man does not answer; perhaps does not hear Millard above the engine’s noise.
    Louder, leaning closer to the man, Millard says, “Once we get up you’ll feel better.”
    Then the man glares at Millard, his eyes narrowed.
    â€œNo kidding,” Millard tries again. “As soon as we get up you’ll feel better … I know how you feel … I felt the same way myself.”
    Millard hears him cuss as he looks away.
    Weeping Jesus, the goddam bastard’s got the shit scared outa him!
    Millard smiles to himself and feels good; flying in a goddam DC-6 is Endsville. Who’s scared, f’Chrissake. Not Millard Post.
    But the man beside him looks like he’ll bust a gut over something.

8
    R EVEREND Joh Greene says, “Dixer, you’re a fine boy, Dix. You got a good head on those shoulders.”
    In the background the ball game goes on; Yankees and Dodgers tied. Dix Pirkle crosses his legs, lifts the glass of beer and sips it, wondering what the Reverend’s building up to; thinking, no it’s impossible. Not that, not yet. Eventually, though, he supposes. Like
she
said: “We won’t be able to keep it a secret, Dix. You know that.”
    Christ, the sweetness of it, the great big sweetness of it; and the thought that when they do find out — those in Paradise — what will they make then of the gentleness and sweetness between him and her now?
    Dix sinks his lanky body further into the worn leather armchair in the vestry. He thinks, He can’t know about it — not so soon.
    Dix is husky; with thick