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Penn Station

Various Octobers

In which we hear from Uncle Albert and from J.V. Cunningham; and take a train to New York City.

What we almost always fail to account for is that we cannot make an accurate accounting. We don’t have enough numbers. Some of the numbers we do have are wrong. And, the equations we are using can’t be inde-
pendently verified; there is no way of telling whether they are useful – whether they adjust for missing and wrong numbers, for example – or completely void of sense.
            – another of Uncle Albert’s sentences

. . . the elected [sic] of God and the elected of themselves
are scarcely distinguishable . . . – J. V. Cunningham.

And neither care to make the distinction. Both are certain that their election is of God.

****

On the train to New York City, October 2012:       

          Wondering why? Does Roz need my help to visit her older child? I need to slow down – thus, the train; but we are on the way to giddy-up.

          Bart is in that generation (x, x', y?) of giddy-up: it may be good sometimes, if rarely, to stop, but it is never good to slow down.

On the train, I am reading Schopenhauer and re-considering Murphy’s Law. Isn’t it true that as soon as we say, “Everything that can go wrong will go wrong,” something must go disastrously right or the law invalidates itself?

I look up. We must be approaching D.C. Those of Bart’s generation are zipping their laptops into their cases, picking out the earbuds that attach them to their phones, and, suddenly untethered, are gawping nervously about, looking like untrained seals.

          “Alexandria comin’ up,” the conductor barks. We are only at hell’s outer gates. As we get closer, will we catch a glimpse of the Pentagon, squatting, massive five-headed Cerberus, beside the river?

As the train slows, conversation begins. Young black tasseled loafers, dark suit, $150 haircut says something solemn and sage about George McGovern’s death. The other, about my age, scuffed around the edges, bangs off on an eager disquisition on the Corn Palace, then stopping mid-sentence, interrupts himself: “Oh, I was thinking of George Mitchell.” One puts on his hesitant, so as not to appear condescending, smile. Two rushes on to ask, “Or was it Bobby I was thinking of?” A hair moves; the wheels underneath the haircut are turning . . . Bobby? . . . Mitchell? Click. He begins, “Sonny Jurgensen . . .” Scuff interrupts again, “Or, Dennis? Was it Dennis?”

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