A No-brainer: Play On The Olympic spirit is stronger than a coward's bomb by Tim Layden The rain came down hard on the morning after and brought new life to some struggling vendors who were introducing their new line of umbrellas and ponchos for $5 apiece, two for $8.50. The sidewalk preachers and ticket scalpers returned to the front lines, warning passersby to act now or miss out on eternal life and/or the badminton final. The soldiers and police officers, who probably hadn't gotten an hour's sleep between them, looked fresh and ready despite it all. Elizabeth Martin offered her own brand of disaster relief. photograph by V.J. Lovero It had been nine hours since a pipe bomb had blown a hole in the middle of the Olympic Games, and slowly the tidal wave of humanity returned to the streets. The joy and revelry had been ripped from the heart of downtown Atlanta, but most people were absolutely in step with the Olympic officials who decided not to delay the Games in the wake of the tragic bombing. To play on was the only option, the only answer. A postponement or a delay of any kind would have assured the perpetrator a place in history, an evil asterisk in the Olympic record book. A coward may have killed two people in Centennial Olympic Park early yesterday morning, but as the day wore on, the crowds seemed determined to show that he couldn't kill the spirit of two million more. Most everyone went about their day as if it were their only way to fight back. Mike Brennan, a technical writer from Minnesota, went to the badminton competition in the morning and was headed to the water polo venue in the afternoon. He was forced to wait in a long line in the morning and his camera was thoroughly searched, but like most fans, he wasn't complaining. "You don't want one madman with a single-digit IQ sitting at home thinking, Hey, it worked. I won," said Brennan. "I think every American would say the same thing." The attack occurred in the primary public gathering place of the Olympics, a place without metal detectors or security checkpoints. No money or official credential was required to visit Centennial Park, and as a result, the people simply poured in until there was no room to move. In the aftermath of the TWA Flight 800 disaster, it was impossible to walk through the park and not think, How frightening it would be ... how devastating ... how easy. Of course, the most amazing thing of all about the bombing was that there were only two fatalities, one the result of a heart attack. Naturally, the events of the early morning allowed Atlanta's religious zealots to hit the streets running, shouting even louder and interpreting the attack as an act of God. Patrick Johnston, a medical student from Florida, arrived in town early yesterday and immediately began passing out pamphlets and preaching to the mostly amused masses. "We are doing just what the police did last night," he said. "They gave people warning that a bomb was going off and they saved lives. We are here to warn everyone that Judgment Day is coming." Johnston was joined at the corner of Walton and Spring by his fiancée, Florida State student Elizabeth Martin, who wore an orange sandwich board that admonished "masturbators, fornicators, pot smokers" and other doers of evil deeds. She shouted that the bomb was proof that God "was coming for all the sinners." Passersby stopped and snapped her picture as if she were a tourist attraction, and a large crowd gathered. Behind her, the police stood guard at the barricades marking the perimeter of the crime scene, and everyone in Atlanta wondered what must be done now. Bomb threats continued to be called in for various sites, including the crowded Underground mall, which was immediately evacuated. Some people called for more cops, more security, more fences, more metal detectors, but already an unprecedented force of 30,000 uniformed personnel, the largest peacetime force in U.S. history, protects this city. Already security is frighteningly visible and intimidating. They can close Centennial Park to the general public, but that won't make the crowds disappear. It will only move them back. "Look at this," said Brennan, surveying the mob at the edge of the barricades. "If someone wanted to, they could drop a bomb here. And then what?" And then you hunt the killer down and punish him. Beyond that, all you can do is go on with life and with the Olympic Games. To not play would be to lose.

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