The Eleventh
How many elevenths of September can a man stand? Jack Pendleton had lived through, how many, well, probably ten at least by now, yes, in fact it was ten, and this would be the eleventh. Eleven elevenths, that should make a whole something, so perhaps this would finally bring the matter to its conclusion. The confounding thing in Pendleton's mind was that, hell's teeth, you find yourself somehow time traveling in a little time warp where you're reliving a certain day over and over again, and it's not as if you'd particularly choose that day over all other potential days if you were given a choice. Except it's true he did sort of choose it, except he didn't really and he certainly never thought time warps were real.
Had somebody come up to him, some mysterious stranger, or an angel, or some satanic gentleman of some sort, and said hey Jack Pendleton, we've got something special worked up for you, how would you like to go back to any date in history and relive it over and over again, each time as different as you like mind you, and it needn't be a date from your own lifetime, you can go back to any date in history as far back as the beginning of the earth, as far back as when the earth's atmosphere settled out into a convivial mix of oxygen and nitrogen allowing you to breathe and all, what date'll it be pal, he'd not have picked that day, that eleventh. That's all I'm saying. He might have picked, jesus, who knows, who could answer a question like that, the mind would reel.
What about going way back to see some dinosaurs? What about going back again and again to the day of an especially filthy sexual experience, or maybe back to the summer of '69, maybe the day of Game Three when Tommy Agee saved five runs with two miraculous catches and the Mets seized control of the Series? What about going back and checking out this Jesus fellow in his own element, or, you know, the Buddha or Mohammed, what about checking any of these guys out and seeing if they were anything like they've gotten cracked up to be? Or what about going back to February 10, 1941, to see a young Willie Mosconi run 125 and out in his first inning on George Kelly in half an hour flat, the most perfect game of pool ever played?
What about trying to change something?
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