luck

I’d be willing to ignore it, perhaps, if it hadn’t happened so many times, in so many places. Taken separately, I could dismiss… but here I am, fumbling with words, repeating myself. I have trouble with the implications, really. What it all means for me. But, at least now… now, I’ve come to accept what I think I know. That these aren’t random visions, misled individuals. That all of the testaments that I’ve heard, all the supporting sets of data, they clearly… well, you’ll very soon see.

We already knew, for instance, that strange things could happen to complex systems. We discovered that in Los Alamos. At Lawrence Livermore. We suspected it in every American city. But the first real shock was with the boys and the particle accelerator. I mean, that was a project like any other. You had to prove the potential before you knew the potential. Of course it’s gonna work. We can guarantee results. You see, that’s how you get the funding. There’s no other way. Sure, we can step foot on the moon in time and under budget. The risk will be minimal. All that crap. You know what I mean: you snow em, and hope it works out.

And more than not it does. Think back to growing up. A six pack too many, the corner comes up fast, and you hit the gas pedal even harder, tear into the curve, shrieking wildly, hell-bent on scaring the girls. And the unseen gap between the unseen cars, it slides right in front of you and through you go, a ton and a half of steel a couple of feet on each side of you. Fuck if you planned that. But you took credit, owning up to your own amazing driving skill. How many bullshit times should we each have died? Why do you think we’ve grown so cocky?

Anyway… So we’re under budget and on time and we land on the moon, and America roars. Pride, baby, is deservedly ours. And each man goes to work the next day instilled with a little more undue confidence. The landing was a lark, but we don’t tell them that.

And the working man, chest filled, tells his boss, yeah, if we build it well enough, sure, it will work. I mean, why not? Of course we can do it. Look – I give you my word. We’ll get results.

And the man, call him you, you put together ten thousand parts that each fail every now and then but you have CONFIDENCE in them and you flip the switch and it’s NOT WORKING so you need to tweak a screw and double a frequency and then you flip the switch again, KNOWING it will work, and okay, one more fix, a little oil, and YES. It works, just like you expected. Just like you knew it would. And you chain a thousand of these fuckers together, and that works too. And it’s just like the childhood post-beer thrill.

You made it around the turn. Because you know how to drive.

But how could it be that ten million parts that fail every now and then work together so well? How? Any intelligent individual running a corporation or a family or a country, or some such bullshit, should wonder this every day. And many, I’m sure, do. But it’s so vague, so undefinable a fear, that it’s lost in the bottom of a glass, or swallowed by pride. And only in the last years we’ve been getting the data in – the data that will, in time, help to define the fear, the inexplicable…

But back to the story, the text, our subtext. It’s flowing through our everyday, me and you.

You see, if it’s true, if this feeling has validity, then life changes shape. The animal we are changes. We lose our power but we gain our place. We… we…

Yes, go on.

We must find out… we simply must.

Which brings us to my perfect example, my test par excellence. The phrase is punctuated with the thud of an old model revolver on the table. My grandfather’s piece. A couch hero, him. Or I guess everyone had one then. Found it long ago, kept it as a keepsake. Excuse my redundancy. Some appropriately sized bullets were with it, found damp. He carefully places the bullets on the table, a much lighter thud. So I ask you: if I load this gun, place it to my head, and pull the trigger, will we finally know for sure?

Will we know what for sure?

Will we know whether I can go on. Look – I’ve convinced myself that our very presence in this room is a series of probabilistically indefensible accidents – we simply should not be here. Predestination defeats me. And yet… and yet I must know where I stand. I must know whether to take pride. Do you see? The gun – the gun, it has so many reasons not to… it has so many inherent escapes. The powder, it is old… the mechanism, it is rusty. Look – I can hardly spin the chamber. If the hammer hits and I die, then I die in peace and the world is restored. Because I very much want to live. And if this death-event, this death-event with a very questionable probability, if it kills me, well then, I’m wrong, but at least I’ll know for sure.

Well it seems to me you’ll be dead.

Well, yes, sure… but in the dying I’ll know, I’ll know that my achievements were mine, that I am me, that I can see the things that I see. Don’t you see? If I live and prove to you, and more importantly, myself, that the world is entirely arbitrary, unstatistical, then I will be crushed… but only for a while – and soon, soon I will have the strength, resting on this proof, to get at setting things straight. My conviction will be firm. I will know, and I will be able to do…

The bullet, it goes in like this, yes? And then this goes back like… but wait, will that skew the results? No, no, I don’t think so… So if I were to hold it just so, and if I… if I…

The explosion takes out a good section of his face, and he falls back to the floor, a mess. When the detectives come the doctor explains everything. The detectives look at each other, shaking their heads.

The first mutters coldly: Planes fly, guns kill.

A pause, a response: Yep. Some shame, that.

When the detectives and police leave, the doctor lights a cigarette, and looks at the fallen chair. After a time the cigarette is finished. The doctor thinks: the gun, at that age, with those bullets. It should never have worked.

He cancels the next week’s appointment, and turns off the light, full of respect for the quieted man.