Playing to Win by Avery Cockburn

Author:Avery Cockburn [Cockburn, Avery]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2015-09-17T22:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINETEEN

DESPITE HIS RELATIVE sobriety, Andrew struggled to keep up with Colin as they sprinted through Lower Manhattan. The athlete in his companion—or perhaps the young lad who’d run from bullies—had taken over. Andrew shouted ahead to Colin, directions to turn here and there, hoping to make it not worth the police’s effort to follow them.

Colin turned the next corner and stopped short. “Fuck.”

Andrew came to a grateful halt, panting hard, hoping that Colin’s shock was due to their location, not a phalanx of NYPD officers out to rid the city of indecent exposers.

“Is that what I think it is?” Colin whispered, gaping up at the immense skyscraper a few streets away.

“Ground Zero. Yes.” He hadn’t consciously directed Colin here, but now that they’d arrived, Andrew thought perhaps it would be good for him. “The memorial park is closed for the night, but we can get closer.”

They crossed Broadway—which here was called Canyon of Heroes, apparently—and made their way past St. Paul’s Chapel. “George Washington prayed here after his first inauguration,” Andrew said. “He had his own pew. Also, see that bell?” He pointed past Colin into the churchyard. “A gift from the Lord Mayor of London on the first anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.”

Colin gave a soft grunt of acknowledgment, his eyes fixed on the gleaming silver tower at One World Trade Center. As they passed the churchyard, Colin held out his arm like a child, letting his fingers drift over the vertical bars of the wrought-iron fence. The soft, rapid thump-clangs of skin against metal sounded strangely melancholy to Andrew.

They stopped at the end of the street leading to Ground Zero. Colin went to the low concrete wall outside the churchyard fence and slumped down onto it. Then he jumped up quickly. “Och, my baws. I keep forgetting.” He smoothed the back of his kilt beneath himself as he sat again, carefully this time.

Andrew sat beside him and leaned back against the fence. There were still a few pedestrians about, but the street had a hushed quality, as if every passerby walked more slowly, spoke more softly, out of reverence for what had happened here over a dozen years ago.

Colin sat forward, elbows on his knees, head bowed as if in prayer. Andrew waited, knowing there was nothing to be said. The white roses growing on the other side of the churchyard fence released their heady scent into the humid summer night air.

“This doesnae make it okay, you know,” Colin said finally.

“Make what okay?”

“The wars.” The word came out a strangled whisper. “Aye, they got attacked, but did they have to ruin the world?”

“Well, there’s loads of evidence that President Bush would’ve invaded Iraq no matter what. 9/11 was just an excuse. There was no connection.”

“I know.” Colin rubbed his forehead. “And we had to join his madness because of our ‘special relationship.’”

“That, and the fact it was down to us Iraq was a mess to begin with.”

“How?”

“Britain drew Iraq’s boundaries to keep the oil away from the Turks.

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