He took a sip of rum, a Samaroli Jamaican Rhapsody that was too big for his wallet. Thankfully, the government was picking up the tab. He rubbed the scar on his sternum, like he’d been doing thirty minutes earlier while he waited for Avery to arrive. The scar still bothered him from time to time, producing a gnawing itch that drove him mad. The doctors promised it would eventually fade, but warned that until it did he should work to identify the triggers that brought on the symptoms and do his best to avoid them. As Walt sat at the Rum House in Times Square he realized that the last time the scar bothered him was a couple weeks earlier when he sat on his front porch pretending to read a John Grisham novel but really contemplating his upcoming trip to New York for the survivors meeting. Was the city itself a trigger, or all the baggage that waited here?

He finished his rum with a final tilt of the glass. This city held the mistakes and pains of his past, and he believed, like most, that to overcome those mistakes and ease the pain he needed to run from them. But that wasn’t true. To make things right, he needed to face things head-on. As he was settling on the best way to do that, out of thin air an operation had developed. His first in years. It was an opportunity to pick himself up, dust himself off, and get back in the saddle. Whether it was an opportunity to put his past behind him or an exercise in procrastination, he hadn’t figured out yet.

He waited another minute and then strolled out of the bar to keep tabs on his new subject—a woman who happened to be one of the most popular television journalists working today. If he hadn’t been making a concerted effort to limit his alcohol intake, he might have thought the rum was getting to him.

CHAPTER 25 - Manhattan, NY Wednesday, June 30, 2021

CHAPTER 25

Manhattan, NY Wednesday, June 30, 2021