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Show Flying - 52 Except in the teletype van, where Thompson and Arkwright are playing nickel-limit blackjack against O'Connell, who is dealing and banking the game. John Henry, with three dollars in cash and Tex's IOU between him and no cigarettes for the rest of the month, sips his coffee and looks on. "When ah gits out of the army," says Arkwright, "ah'm gonna git me a hawg'n a dawg'n a rocking chair, 'n we're all three gonna sit on mah front porch 'n scratch. How's two hundred and three days grab you boys?" "If I had that much time to go," says O'Connell raking in their bets, "I'd shoot myself." "I don't know about that," says Thompson, "but if I had as much time left as John Henry here, I'd sure be looking for a way out." "Like what," says John Henry, interested but without much hope. This is an old subject. O'Connell deals himself twenty-one and collects their nickels. "There's lots of ways, if a man's smart enough and he really wants out." "You could make them think you're queer," says Thompson. "That'd get you out so fast your feet wouldn't never touch the ground between here and the main gate." "You could always go for a section eight; you know, roll around on the ground and foam at the mouth and things like that," says Arkwright. |