Out of the Ashes (15 page)

“That we won't get along? Because we're two different peoples, that's why. That's the main reason. Hey! I'm not a bigot, Ben Raines. Don't think that, because you'd be wrong. Let me tell you this, Ben. In high school, my best friend, and I mean my very best friend, was a Chinese girl named Sue Ling. From grade school up, all the way to graduation, we were inseparable. Then we went to different schools, but we kept in touch. I tried to find her after ... after it happened. But I couldn't.

“Then in college I had friends of different nationalities, lots of them: East Indian, Thai, Vietnamese, Arabs, American Indians ... oh, you know what I mean ... lots of different people.”

Ben waited for her to drop the other shoe.

“But I never had a black friend. Do you know why that is, Ben Raines, big-time-author-of-some-importance? And a general, to boot.”

He laughed. “You tell me, Jerre Hunter, girl-who-broke-the-four-minute-mile-while-being-chased-by-fifty-guys-with-their-peckers-out.”

She giggled, then laughed, then put her hand on his forearm. She sobered. “I'm leveling with you, Ben—I don't know. Lots of reasons, I think. One: I don't like to walk down the halls of my school and have half a dozen black guys say, ‘Hey, baby! You wanna fuck?' And that's happened, Ben. All over this country. But the newspeople, oh, they wouldn't report anything like that. Or maybe it's because when one of us is asked out by a black guy and we say no, we're automatically accused of being a racist. Well, a little of that goes a long way. Does it ever occur to people that the choice of dating is up to the person being asked? That chemistry has a lot to do with it? But Ben, I've seen black guys I'd go out with—but
they
never asked me. It's like the one bad apple, I guess. I don't think you're a racist, but what I've said sure makes me seem like one, and I'm not. I guess ... I don't like to be pushed. I choose my friends—they don't choose me.” She shook her head. “I'm not saying this right.”

“No, Jerre, I don't believe you're a racist. You're not the type.” Is there a
type?
he silently questioned.

“My daddy wasn't a racist; neither was my mother. They both worked with black people and the word ‘nigger' was not in their vocabulary. I said it once and got slapped for saying it. So it wasn't my home life that made me feel . . . however I feel.”

“Tell me about your friends of other nationalities, Jerre. You don't mind if I record this? Good.”

“Well ... Sue was just like me—like you—in the way we think. That's not right. In the way we
act.
So was Rajah, and Mark Little Bear. They were ... were ...” She looked at Ben.

“Western?”

“Yeah! That's it—kind of, but not quite. They acted ...” She again looked at Ben.

“Like us?”

“In a way. They still had their identities, but they didn't try to shove their culture down my throat. What am I trying to say, General?”

“Probably that they conformed to our level of acceptance, but still maintained their own culture. We think alike, Jerre.”

She gazed at him, her eyes serious. “But is our thinking right, Ben? Correct?”

“I don't know, babe.”

“I think we were a nation of bigots, Ben.”

Ben thought of his brother in Chicago, and of the hate of Kasim. “Still are,” he said. “On both sides.”

 

He opened his eyes at the sound of her footfall, and looked at her as she stood in the open doorway to the bedroom.

“You're not like any man I've ever met, General-author Ben Raines. I think you're a tough man, and I think you're also a sensitive man. Funny combination. You're a warrior, I guess. But a good one. That woman, back at the motel—the one who kissed you. She was black, wasn't she?”

“Half and half.” Ben spoke from the bed. “Kasim called her a zebra.”

“Hell with Kasim.” She had not moved from the doorway. “I liked the way you described Cecil and his wife. Lila. They sound like nice people and I believe you liked them. I think I would, too. But just as our race has rednecks and trash, so do the blacks. So that makes Kasim a nigger. But not Cecil and his wife and that other woman. That's what I was trying to say this afternoon, Ben. No matter what race a person might belong to, there are classes of people. Good people and bad people. I just don't believe everybody is equal, Ben. I think people—all people—need education. I think education is the key to solving almost every problem.”

“So do I, Jerre.”

She moved closer to the bed. Ben could smell the clean, fresh soap scent of her.

“I'm confused, Ben. If the war hadn't happened, would the race problem ever have been solved?”

“Not in our lifetime.”

“You sound so certain.” She limped to the bed and sat down.

“I guess I do.”

“I said education is the key to solving problems, Ben. But ... I don't believe you can have one set of rules for some people and another set for other people.”

“Like I said, Jerre, we think alike.”

“But how do you
make
someone learn?”

“Not constitutionally, I can assure you of that. But short of separate nations ... well, let me ask you this: if a baby won't eat, and will starve unless something is done, what does a doctor do?”

“Well ... I guess ... hell, he force-feeds it. But, Ben, no one can
force
a person to learn if that person doesn't want to learn.”

“You can if you have access to the home.”

“Is that what you want to see happen, Ben?”

“No. That would be the ultimate totalitarian society.”

She put her hand on his chest and felt his heart beat against her palm. “I sure would like to sleep with you, Ben. But I sure don't want to get pregnant.”

“I will sure do my best to see that doesn't happen, Jerre.”

So she came to him, all soft and young and full of fire and excitement and very little experience with sex.

Ben opened the shirt she wore to sleep in and kissed her breasts, his tongue tautening the nipples while his hand stroked her belly and slipped downward to the center of her. His fingers found her wet and ready to receive him.

Young slender arms around his neck, she cried out as he entered her, and she met his thrusts with powerful upward lunges as the tight heat of her encircled his swollen maleness. She yelled as her first climax shook her and then they settled into the ageless rhythm of the game with only victors to signify the coming of Omega.

And while the world tumbled in chaos about them, two were not alone.

They spent two days in the house, allowing Jerre's ankle to heal and talking of many things; learning of each other. They played little sex games that enabled Ben to learn when she was ready to receive him: the half-closing of her eyes, grown cloudy with passion; the shallow breathing that turned into hot huffs of anticipation.

“You're really a hot little number,” Ben kidded her. “Must have had a repressive childhood.”

“Either that, or I just like to screw.” She smiled. “You dirty old man.”

When they pulled away from the house by the side of the road, Jerre said she wanted to see Chesapeake Bay. So Ben cut east to Tappahannock and then to Reedville. Then, like a couple of kids (one was), they walked the beaches, pounded by wind and sea, holding hands and playing. They built a sand castle (not a very good one, for the wind blew it apart), and spent the night on the beach, in a large double sleeping bag, huddled in each other's arms. Just before dawn, a hard rain drove them into a Bayside cabin.

In that cabin, for the next three days, they forgot the world existed (not much of it did). Jerre complimented Ben, his chest swelling with pride when she told him he was amply endowed in the male department—she'd never seen one so big. Then, giggling, she told him she'd only seen two before his and he chased her out of the cabin onto the beach. When he had caught her, and they had made love, Jerre allowed as to how if he had any more in that ... certain department, she probably wouldn't be able to take it all.

Then she told him she lied a lot and raced him back to the cabin.

 

The winds turned cold and Ben cast a thoughtful eye at their surroundings. “This cabin's not made for winter occupation, honey. I think we'd best be moving on.”

“Haulin' ass,” she said with a smile.

And it was with sadness that they left. Kind of like a travelogue, Ben thought. And so, friends, it is with a sad heart filled with fond memories that we now leave the quaint village on the tropical isle of Bonda-Bonda.

Ben remembered those travelogues from Saturday afternoon matinees. Jerre hadn't even been born when those were discontinued.

Ben sighed, feeling his age.

 

By now, much of the stench of death had left the land. More than a month had passed, and the rains and the winds and the passing of time had softened the odor. But a faint sickly sweet smell still clung to the earth.

Packs of dogs roamed the countryside, quickly turning wild, reverting to the survival instinct, never quite fully bred out of them: the German shepherd, the Doberman, the husky, the malamute, the pit bull, the boxer, the chow.

Lesser, smaller breeds died for the most part: the little poodles, the Chihuahuas, certain breeds of collie— almost all toy breeds were no more. Working breeds lived.

 

“Be careful and don't get too far away from me or the truck,” Ben cautioned Jerre. “Dog packs are running wild.”

“What else can they do?” she typically asked.

“Nothing. They have to survive. And they will survive. I just don't want them surviving on
us.”

She was thoughtful for a moment, her eyes looking at but not seeing the passing landscape as they drove away from the bay, heading inland. The land had a sameness, an emptiness.

“Will you shoot every dog you see with your guns?” she asked, jaw set, ready for an argument.

“No, Jerre—of course not. But I will shoot any rabid animal we see, and I'll shoot to survive.” He told her of the incident in Morriston. “In a few months, rabies will be a problem, I think. Then I should imagine it will taper off, more or less back to normal, like most animal diseases.”

“I'd like to see your home in Louisiana, Ben Raines. But I don't think I win—at least not this time around.”

He looked at her, more than a glance, for he had not tired of seeing her: the shape of her face, the smoothness of her skin, the wild tangle of her blond hair.

“When I feel I'm getting too attached to you, Ben, I'll leave. Walk away, and not look back, even though I'll want to look back—not go. I'll survive, General—'cause you'll teach me that. If I had any sense, I'd stay with you, despite the difference in our ages. But right now, I'm cute to you. I don't talk like you and I'm young and kind of have a bad mouth. Cute. But that cute would get frayed around the edges pretty quick, I'm thinking.”

Smart kid, he thought.

“So what I want you to do, General, is teach me to survive. 'Cause ... well, I have some things to do after a while. We won't talk about them now. For now, we'll stop along the way and you pick me out a gun, teach me how to shoot it; teach me how to spot those who are going to hurt me—if you can, and I think you have that instinct built in. Then . . . when the time comes, I'll cut out. I'll tell you about it, Ben—when the time is right.”

Ben wondered what she had up her sleeve; he had felt all along she was holding something from him.

“All right, Jerre. I'll teach you what I can, in the time left us. But I'll be honest. I'm going to miss you when you decide to leave.”

She nodded. “I'll miss you, too, General. Believe that.” She touched his arm. “You were dreaming last night, Ben—have for several nights. What were your dreams?”

“Strange dreams, babe. You'll probably think me an idiot.”

“No, Ben. I'd never think you that. But I do think you have a destiny.”

Worry clouded his features for a few seconds. He sighed. “Funny you should say that. That's what the dreams are all about. I've been dreaming of a land that has mountains and valleys and beautiful plains; of cattle and crops and a people living free, under simple laws, a government formed—really formed—of the people and run by the people. The dreams have bothered me.”

“You're going to do something fine and good, Ben. I really believe that.”

He smiled.

“What you thinking about?”

“Stopping this truck and the two of us going over to that picnic table and making out.”

“Then what the hell are you waitin' on, General?”

 

At a sporting goods store outside of Richmond, Ben found a cache of illegal pistols, just as he had in every sporting goods store at which he'd stopped. Obviously, as could have been predicted (and was) not too many people really paid much attention to the gun-control act of Hilton Logan.

He picked out a nine-shot .22 magnum revolver and a belt and holster for her, then handed her the gear. “Get the feel of this. Point it, cock it, dry-fire it, and go boom-boom. If you can point your finger, you can fire a pistol. I'm going to put together a pack for you: ground sheet, light tent, sleeping bag. I'll fix you a stash of dehyd food later on ... when I sense you're ready to pull out.”

He left her going “boom-boom,” and prowled the store. He took all the .45-caliber ammunition (which wasn't much), then opened a compartment in the gun vault, stepped back, and smiled at his discovery.

“Well, now,” he muttered. “Just look at that. I'll just bet that old boy wasn't supposed to have those.”

A pair of Ingram submachine guns, M-10s, 9-mm. There were extra clips for both of them, thirty-two-round clips. Ben looked around the store and smiled gleefully when he found, hidden under a counter, two cases of 9-mm ammo. He picked up, from the same compartment in the safe, two Browning 9-mm automatic pistols, and the leather to go with them. Saying nothing to Jerre, he took the gear to the truck and stowed it. Back in the store, he chose a 7-mm bolt-action rifle that had been drilled for scope, a good scope, and went looking for ammunition.

“You planning on starting a war, Ben Raines?” Jerre asked him.

“No.” He laughed at the seriousness on her face. “But a thought just occurred to me: when is the last time you had a fresh steak?”

She smiled and licked her lips. “Not since all the trouble began.”

“We will tonight,” he promised her.

 

They skirted Richmond, searching the bands on the CB for chatter. The talk was rough: Killin' niggers and killin' honkies and lookin' for pussy.

“That is so sad,” Jerre commented. “The whole world is in a state of chaos; no telling how many millions of people are dead. We don't have a government—nothing, and all those ... fools can think of is old hatreds and prejudices and raping and looting.”

“Those are the bad people, Jerre; they've been here all along. They always surface after or during a tragedy. There are, I believe, lots of good people left alive.”

“Then where are they?”

“Staying low, keeping out of sight, waiting for the trash and the scum to kill each other off.”

“I hope they do!” she said, with more heat in her voice than Ben had ever heard.

“They won't,” he replied. “Hell, they never have.”

 

“You're sure you want to watch this?” Ben asked her. They stood in a pasture between Hopewell and Richmond. A pasture filled with lowing cattle.

“Yes,” she said. “If I'm to learn how to survive, I've got to know it all. The days of me going into Safeway and getting a ribeye are over. And they won't be back for a long time, will they, General?”

Maybe never, he thought. “No, they won't.” He looked over the herd. “Pick your dinner, Jerre.”

She pointed.

“No, that's a bull. Let's leave him to do his thing.”

A cow came up to them, lowing softly, looking at them through soft liquid eyes.

“Oh, Jesus Christ, Ben! I can't watch this.”

Ben cocked his .45 and shot the animal. The cow's legs buckled and she fell to the ground, quivering and dying.

“You son of a bitch!” Jerre cursed him.

When Ben replied, his voice was bland. “Welcome to the Safeway, dear.”

She stood glaring at him, rage in her eyes.

“Can you drive a tractor?” Ben asked.

No reply.

“All right, then stay here. I've got to crank one of those tractors in the shed.”

“Why?” she asked, her voice shaky.

“To drag the cow over there,” he pointed. “We've got to hoist it up, cut its throat, bleed it, then butcher it.”

“Gross,” she said. “The absolute, bottomless pits, man!”

 

The gross, absolute, bottomless pits left Jerre that evening, while Ben was grilling the thick steaks.

“Make mine rare, Ben,” she said. “And I mean, really rare. That smells so good!” Then, at his smile, she laughed. “O.K., Ben, so I got my first lesson in what's in store for me. But, Ben—I'd never seen anything like that before. Lord, I'd sure never seen the
inside
of a cow.”

They were grilling the steaks in the back yard of a farmhouse. Here, as in so many homes Ben had stayed in, from Louisiana to Chicago, to the east, then down through the country to Virginia, there were no bodies, no signs of any trouble.

“Most people haven't,” he told her. “You'd be surprised at the number of people—grown men and women—who don't have the vaguest idea how to even cut up a chicken for frying.”

“I used to love fried chicken and mashed potatoes and gravy. Mamma used to ...” She looked away from Ben, sudden tears in her young eyes.

Eyes that would, Ben felt, grow much older, very quickly, if she was to survive on the road. “You believe in God, Jerre?”

She wiped her eyes and nodded. “Yes, sure. But after all this”—she waved a hand—“it makes a person wonder.”

“Maybe He decided to give a few of us a second chance.”

“I don't understand, Ben. If that's the case, why did He let so many bad people live?”

“I can't answer that, babe. I was simply putting forth a theory, that's all. No proof to back it—none at all.”

“How will people like me survive, Ben? I mean, you told me you haven't hunted for sport in years ... yet, all this seems as natural to you as breathing. All that training you had in the service, I guess. But ... people like me, who have never fired a gun, never butchered an animal, how will we make it in a world that has come down to this: dog eat dog and the strongest survive? I'm lucky, and I know it more and more each day. I found you and you're going to teach me as much as you can. But the others—what about them?”

“People are tougher than even they suspect,” Ben said. “I think we all have a ... hidden reserve in us; a well of strength that only surfaces in some sort of catastrophe. I also believe that in the long run, good will defeat evil.”

She thought about that for a time. “You mean, even if we have to return to the caves for a time?”

“You could say that. Sure. That's what we've done, in fact, in essence.” He grinned to soften the seriousness of her mood. “Dad raised us to be resourceful, but to be kind to those less fortunate, not to be mean to others.” He thought of his brother in Chicago. “Maybe Carl forgot what Dad taught us.”

He turned the steaks and was lost in his own thoughts. As always, the recorder was on. At first it had spooked Jerre, her every word being recorded. But she had quickly grown accustomed to it. She had said, “I guess all writers are kind of nuts.”

She brought him back to the present. “Maybe your brother did, Ben. Forget, I mean. But you're only looking at the bad he is doing, or contemplating doing. I don't agree with what he's doing, but every coin has two sides. Look at the other side.

“Maybe your brother got tired of not being able to walk down the street at night without fear of being mugged, or his wife and daughter being raped. Maybe he got tired of seeing criminals and thugs and street punks being treated like they were something special instead of what they are: just sorry bastards. Maybe he got tired of seeing his taxes go to support criminals instead of their victims. It's a long list, Ben, and you know it as well as I. Criminals being provided extensive law libraries so they can look for a loophole to get out of prison. I think that's wrong. I'm no screaming liberal, Ben. I think if you do the crime, you've got to be prepared to do the time.