Wednesday, March 16, 2005, 5:50pm
Wednesday, March 16, 2005, 5:50pm
“Is this the Worcester train?”
“Maybe, not sure, though… a lot of people are hoping it is…”
“This train goin’ to Wista?’
“Hope so!”
As might be gathered from the overheard banter, I’ve boarded what I expect will be the Worcester Express well ahead of the once-again tardy platform announcement. Enough is enough, and if they aren’t going to bother with announcements, I’m not going to give up a shot a good seat – nor I am not alone in this opinion as the train fills at nearly the rate as if announced.
It seems there are two basic risks when taking any chance.
The expected danger is in what might happen if a danger is ignored and action is taken. This may result in foreseen consequences or even greater dangers I hadn’t expected.
When the Atlanta police were chasing Brian Nichols, they decided to swarm though a particular parking garage. He managed to evade early capture because of this, even though they would have corned him easily if they’d simply guarded a junction point for all exiting traffic. Nichols simply walked out the only way out while those chasing him were deep inside the building.
Aggressiveness in this instance seems to have been far less effective than measured and strategic coordination.
Later Nichols was captured because a kidnapped woman used strategy — her only real option — offering to cook breakfast for him. With a full stomach he allowed the woman enough freedom to phone the police without objection then surrendered without a fight.
The better response to danger is not always obvious, and perhaps sometimes a gentle touch does more good than anything else.
This is not to say that Churchill was wrong about the need to apply maximum effort when the stakes are highest. When the battle hangs in the balance and when the cost of failure is intolerable – that is when generals must commit their reserves and mount the most severe attack or counterattack possible. Yet such is more than automatic flailing. Strategic thought and planning must be undertaken ahead of time so that resources are committed where they do the most good.
Was ‘calming the beast’ by cooking a pancake breakfast a better solution than filling that same beast full of lead? In this one particular case the answer was yes. Will it be the right choice in some future situation of this sort? That is hard to say and the better answer might be to role play enough scenarios of this sort to learn what actions by default are the best places to begin.
This evening we drift towards Back Bay Station. An inbound train blocks my view for the moment until sliding by without incident. Soon we plunge into the tunnel itself.
Only faint and distant voices drift through this cabin as Back Bay passengers board and settle during those first few moments of uncertainty with open seats scanned and vacancies assessed. Any indecision gums up the works — but not for long. Soon we exit the tunnel rolling westward with the Back Bay crowd fully integrated as far as I can see.
At maybe 30mph we roll past Fenway Park silhouetted against failing twilight, its light towers dark and its peculiar roof line stark against the horizon. Fenway is a slumbering beast soon to awaken for its first official ball game just four weeks from today. With light towers lit, some nights the place will be a more obvious way-point home instead of just another part of the amorphous nighttime gloom. This and a host of other guideposts tell me all I want to know about the passing miles of the early evening where in a few weeks it will be mostly daylight aboard even the 6:05pm train. By then the dismally dark dreary dimness of winter will fade to yet another memory melting with the onset of spring.
At this tail end of the train, the young conductor is finishing his rounds. He works the aisle heading my way, chewing gum while he works completely relaxed as he quotes ticket prices, collects cash, makes change, punches a new ticket, and then moves on to the next seat where he inspects a round trip ticket sold earlier in the day. His right forearm shows an elaborate tattoo down to his hand. A closer look at his face reveals stubble that is too short to call a beard but too long to be accidental. The younger generation seems to regard shaving as optional – both in frequency and location, with shaved heads these days so common that a white supremacist might want to consider a new motif to replace his trademark skinhead shtick.
We are making good time beside Route 135 traffic flashing the other way. We easily overtake those traveling alongside heading west. This is Wellesley already – almost to Natick – and as I write, an eastbound train rushes past much faster than the train we met near Back Bay Station.
Into Natick, I hear Chinese of some sort spoken with conviction and humor from somewhere inside the crowd already forming beside my seat among those waiting for West Natick to arrive – waiting for their next steps home. With even a thousand lessons I doubt I could tell the difference between Mandarin and Cantonese. Yet I do understand human emotion and it’s clear to me how this man and woman are enjoying their conversation very much. Human emotion has its own universal language.
The crowd shuffles away with scuffs of grit between shoe soles and dried mud embedded into the rubberized flooring.
Then the crowd is gone leaving only the ever-present and ubiquitous noise of ventilation fans filling the space once filled by the sounds of human life and the sense of human warmth.
“Framingham is next.”
