The kid on the plane
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Sean of the South
Sean Dietrich
This story was told to me. And now I am telling it to you.
The young man was boarding a plane. He was pierced with all manner of shiny rings, covered in a quiltwork of tattoos. His hair was long. He wore black leather. Lots of zippers. He looked like an outsider. And he went to a lot of trouble to look that way.
He stowed his bag in the overhead bin. He took his aisle seat next to an old guy who was looking out the window. Not reading a magazine. Not writing on a notepad. Not doing any work. Just looking.
The older man noticed the younger, and he smiled.
The young man smiled back, but it was an awkward facial exchange. The young man was not much of a smiler.
He’d been going through a hard time. He had just attended his mother’s funeral. He had been estranged from her for years. He’d been living in a way his mom and dad didn’t care for. A lot of issues there.
“That’s a nice leather jacket,” the smiling older man said.
The young man said nothing at first. Was this guy being sarcastic? Nice leather jacket? Was this some kind of joke?
“Thanks,” said the young guy.
“That jacket has a lot of zippers, I’ll bet you have lots of compartments to store things.”
The young guy was still trying to figure this cat out. He just stared at the old man, trying to read his face.
“Uh, yeah,” said the kid.
“Zippers are so wonderful,” said the old guy.
“Right.”
The kid tried to retreat into his mental cocoon and disappear. He did not want to have a conversation with this guy. He put headphones on his ears and listened to his Walkman.
“That’s a neat cassette player,” the old man said.
The kid just ignored him.
“You can listen to music whenever you want,” the old guy added. “That’s so wonderful.”
The kid was annoyed now. He looked over at the old man and thought about saying something less than kind. But it was hard to be unkind to someone so genuinely friendly.
“I’m trying to listen,” said the kid.
“I’m sorry. I won’t interrupt you again.”
“Thank you.”
“What kind of music are you listening to?”
“Culture Club.”
“Oh, I love listening to music, don’t you?”
“Yeah, well, I don’t think you’d like these musicians,” said the kid with a private laugh.
“Really?”
The kid shrugged. “You wanna hear for yourself?”
The man smiled. “If you don’t mind.”
The kid snickered again. He removed his headphones and placed them onto the older man’s ears.
The grinning old man spoke in a loud head-phone-wearing voice: “These are very talented musicians!”
This time, the kid laughed. He shook the old man’s hand. Defenses were lowered. They did a lot of talking on the flight. When the kid got to the part about his mother dying, he began to weep. That was when the old man gripped the young man’s hand and wept with him.
When the flight was over, the young man and the older man parted ways with a hug.
And as the young man was rushing off the plane, the captain was standing near the exit, bidding farewell to each passenger.
The captain greeted the young man, and said, “I see you were the luckiest passenger on our flight today.”
The young man asked what the captain meant.
“You sat next to Mister Rogers,” he said.
