Context Versus Destiny

[mallorys_camera]

Amtrak is always an adventure, and adventures are always a mixed bag. Last night, for example, what should have been a three-hour train ride between Philadelphia and Poughkeepsie ended up taking (gulp) seven and a half hours.

I kept myself amused.

Dan had given me a terrific book about the relationship between the strange 19th century genius Edward Muybridge and the railroad magnate Leland Stanford entitled The Inventor and the Tycoon, so I had that to dip into as well as several pounds of Christmas cookies. When I got bored with reading, I chatted with other strangers.

On the leg of the journey between Philly and Penn Station, I chatted with a young financier. Cockiest, most charming kid ever. We talked about money mostly, his 10 year plan. "My parents keep telling me I'm too materialistic, that money doesn't buy happiness --"

"Don't believe them for a second," I said. "Money does too buy happiness!"

"Well, that's what I think --"

"And you're absolutely right!" I said. "Because if you have money, and something bad happens, you can just move someplace new and reinvent yourself!"

He was off to St. Martin's on a New Year's vacation. I'm not exactly sure why he wasn't just flying out of Philly, but he wasn't, and I now know more about the accreditation process for financial planners than anybody who doesn't work for Morgan Stanley oughta know.

Getting on to the train between Penn Station and Albany, I saw a gentleman about my own age struggling with a very heavy suitcase. "Do let me help you," I said. "I'm a big strong strapping lass."

He watched with astonishment as I hoisted his luggage in the overhead rack then took the seat across from me. We chatted amiably all the way to Poughkeepsie. He was, he told me, a Harvard-educated lawyer, mostly retired, but with a few international clients still. In fact, he was returning from a fortnight in Germany --

He spoke with the barest trace of an accent.

"Ah!" I said. "You have dual citizenship --"

"I do!" he said.

His specialty was in intellectual property and his clients were in the entertainment field. He put together complicated production deals a la my erstwhile boss Jeff Berg. In fact, he'd just finished a deal to bring the third sequel to [Name of Your Big 70s Critical and Popular Monster Hit Goes Here] to the screen --

Of course, you did! thought I to myself.

We nibbled on my Christmas cookies. I saw him check out the title of my book, but he didn't ask me about it.

As I was rising to get off the train in Poughkeepsie – he was going on to Albany – zipping my things into my dilapidated knapsack, he said, "You're very attractive and very intelligent, and I would like to like to see you again." So we exchanged contact information.

"Good luck getting your bag back down," I said.

Wonder of wonders: When I looked him up online this morning, I was astonished to find out that most of what he'd told me was perfectly verifiable on Google: Yes, he'd graduated from Harvard; yes, he was an "international financier." No mention of the movie but maybe that's just because it's still in the extended handshake stage.

This presents somewhat of a logistical problemo for me – at least if I do see him again – because I look on strangers I meet on trains as people I can lie to comfortably, by which I mean people I can parade fictional personas in front of. I mean -- why not? It amuses me, and what accountability do I owe to someone I'm never going to see again, right?

When the finance kid asked me what I did, I told him I was an architect. I chatted very knowledgeably about zoning ordinances in Poughkeepsie, making them up as I went along. With Mister International Lawyer, I stuck pretty much to my actual biography but invented a middle son named Eric who was gay --

"Wow," said Mister International Lawyer. "When did you know he was gay?"

"Oh, I knew pretty much from the time he was eight or nine --"

"But, I mean, how did you know?"

I frowned. "You know that stage that boys go through when they absolutely hate girls? Between the ages of six and nine? It's a kind of reverse transference, right? Well, Eric never went through that stage. And I thought, 'Aha! There's no cathexis there.'"

"Cathexis!" Mister International Lawyer smiled.

"So when he came out to me in his second year of high school, I already more-or-less knew --"

"And did it upset you?" he asked.

"Not at all," I said.

Also, somewhere in the midst of these delayed trains and conversations with strangers, Clark called me and asked whether I would like to buy Nadia's Saturn at a terrific price. Which of course, I would, although it does present certain logistic problems, namely it lives in the Bronx and is a manual stick. Now I learned to drive on a manual stick, but I haven't driven one in 25 + years and though I'm quite sure it will all come back to me, I'm equally sure that someone else needs to be conscripted to get it out of the Bronx. L'il Jeremy is my fallback here though there may be others I can trade favors with. Anyway, it's doable.

Unfortunately with all the train delays, I didn't get back to Poughkeepsie until two-thirty in the morning. My throat was sore when I woke up this morning. I think I may have to stay in tonight and watch Bunheads reruns if I don't want to end up with the Killer Cold.



I had a perfectly fabulous time in Philly. Dan and Connie couldn't have been nicer hosts. They fed me and fussed over me, and gave me a beautiful cashmere shawl, and took me to Valley Forge and the old Du Pont estate, Longwood Gardens, to see the Christmas decorations, and the very last day, Dan escorted me on a sightseeing tour to the Philadelphia art museum and Constitution Hall. I kept demurring -- Dan! I've never really seen Philadelphia, so naturally I want to see all the tourist things, but you do not have to go with me -- and he kept saying, Well, I'll just drive you here and take off. But the truth was we enjoyed each other's company. It's a very curious thing to discover blood relatives you never knew you had in later life.

There were a couple of... rippley moments. Dan is my father's half brother. He was naturally very curious about my father.

So when he asks me, "What was Ted like?", what am I supposed to say?

My father was a sociopath.

Dan is not a sociopath; in fact, he's probably one of the nicest guys I've ever met. Smart, smart, smart -- partner at a legal consulting firm, one of the guys you call in when the company is falling apart. Dan flies in, takes a look around, and says, Of course your company is falling apart. You only have acquisitions and merger attorneys in your legal department! In his spare time, he practices Buddhism and organizes Haitian relief efforts.

The fact that my father was a sociopath probably has a lot to do with the fact that he was abandoned as an infant by his father... who was also Dan's father and who did not abandon Dan. Who was, in fact, a very decent father to Dan.

What's the difference between a context and a destiny?

Damned if I know.

Comments

[platofish.livejournal.com]

Buddhist management/legal consultant...... not words you normally see together!

ps. happy new year when it arrives.

[millysdaughter.livejournal.com]

If they had grown up together in the same house, he would have still been a sociopath -- but Dan would have either known this firsthand or willfully chosen to ignore that little detail.

[nodressrehersal.livejournal.com]

I love the playfulness of that final photo in your post - made me smile out loud.