“Perfectly, sir.”
“Now what is this about martial law?”
“The military put you in office, sir. They can remove you just as easily.”
“No, sir,” Ben replied with a smile. “They sure as hell cannot.”
“Would you be so kind as to explain that?”
“Gladly. The Joint Chiefs of Staff will be going on nationwide TV within a week. They will publicly divorce themselves from any participation in the running of the government of the United States of America. The Supreme Court—all of you—will be present as witnesses. The next night I will be on TV, explaining as many of my policies as I have worked up by that time.
“I will be in office for four years, sir. And only four years. During that time, my people will be reclaiming the area known as Tri-States. You do remember that area, don’t you, sir?”
“How could I forget it, Mr. President?” the Chief Justice’s reply was thick with sarcasm.
“Just so we know where the other stands, sir,” Ben said with a smile. “After four years, I shall step down—sooner, if at all possible, and I will return to the Tri-States. There I shall live out the remainder of my years.”
The Chief Justice’s look was both wary and full of admiration. “All well and good, sir. But I wonder how many citizens of the United States will die during your four-year reign?”
“Just as many as choose not to respect the basic rights guaranteed any law-abiding citizen of this nation. That’s how many, sir.”
“Should be an interesting four years, Mr. President. And a totally unconstitutional period.”
“Depending entirely upon your interpretation of the constitution, sir. But then, I’ve always felt any literate, law-abiding, tax-paying citizen had as much right to bend the constitution as you people on the high bench.”
That stung the Justice. “I resent the charge that we of the court ever ‘bent the constitution’!”
“I guess the sadness in that is you really don’t believe you ever did.”
Ben walked away, to hold his first press conference as president of the United States.
Taking into consideration how he felt about the press, and how the press felt about him, it was a lively one.
Only the first of many.
* * *
The people of America, on a whole, could not have cared if Big Bird occupied the Oval Office, as long as he did something to pull the ailing nation back together. Or, perhaps, that should have been: Most of the people of America. For no matter how hard one person, or a group of people try to attain what they not only felt, but knew, from years of observing the world around them, from years of laborious study of the history of civilization, or from just having the good sense to know one does not attempt to pet a rabid dog (one shoots it), there will be those who will proclaim, as loudly as possible, that they are not getting their due; that they are being discriminated against (and race has nothing to do with it); that they are being denied due process; that they are not being paid what they think they are worth. Et cetera. Ad nauseam. Puke.
One week after Ben was sworn in as president, the groups began surfacing.
And as is so often the case, they were not made up of those who fought and bled and were tortured by Lowry’s agents; nor those who made up the underground train supporting Ben’s Rebels. These people are usually made up of those men and women who “just know” they are going to be a success someday; it’s a little vague just how that is going to happen, since these people never seem to do much of anything toward achieving that goal—except bitch about how the world owes them something.
But they are loud—Lord have mercy, are they loud!
* * *
“Have you seen the headlines?” Cecil asked.
“Yes! Where in the hell is Ike?” Ben asked, more than a note of exasperation in his tone.
“Gone off to find Captain Gray. And then they will attempt to find Jerre. They…”
“Goddamnit, Cecil! I need as many of the old bunch around me as possible at this time. Where in the hell does Ike get off…”
“Whoa!” Cecil yelled. “Jesus Christ, Ben—calm yourself. You know Ike wouldn’t be happy sitting around Richmond, no matter what position you placed him in. Ben, all Ike has ever been is a farmer or a warrior—that’s all he’ll ever be happy at. Now, I ask again: have you seen the headlines in today’s paper?”
“Which ones?” Ben asked sarcastically. “The ones that accuse me of being a racist because I told the president of the NAACP to get the hell out of this office because I was tired of listening to him bitch? Or maybe the one where the AFL-CIO has accused me of being anti-labor because I ordered that pack of assholes down in Florida to either get back to work or get off the job and I’ll put someone in there who would work? Or maybe it’s the goddamn teachers this go-around? Eh? Oh, and let us not forget that blazing headline in the Richmond Post about me being a baby-killer because I made the statement that whatever a woman wishes to do with her body is her business and nobody else’s. Huh? Which one is it this time around?”
Cecil sat calmly and sipped his coffee, letting Ben get it all out of his system. He knew Ben had not wanted the job; and felt pangs of guilt because he had been one of those who pressured him into taking it. But he had to smile at that, recalling just a few hours after Ben had been sworn in.
* * *
“Well, Cec,” Ben had said, walking up to him at the reception. Cecil had thought the smile on Ben’s face sort of resembled a tiger’s smile. “What plans do you have for your immediate future?”
“Going to go back to Tri-States and get the schools and colleges open again,” Cecil said, not quite comfortable with that odd smile grinning at him.
“Oh, no, you’re not,” Ben’s smile had broadened.
“I beg your pardon, Ben?”
“You folks been complaining for years you don’t have enough people in elected positions of power; that you don’t have enough blacks in high government positions. Well, guess what, old buddy, old pal?”
“I don’t like the way you’re smiling at me, Ben.”
“Don’t want to play guessing games, Cec?”
“No! Why are you smiling like that? You’re grinning like Lady Macbeth after a hard night with the knife.”
Ben leaned close and whispered in Cecil’s ear.
Cecil recoiled like he’d been touched with a cattle prod. “Not this nigger, you ain’t!”
“Cec! Shame on you. I’ve never heard such language from a Ph.D. in all my days. The Reverend James Watson would be ashamed of you.”
“Fuck the Reverend James Watson, and fuck his brother, too. You’re not putting me in that hotseat. I know what you plan to do with it.”
“That’s right,” Ben said soothingly, but still with that smile. “We discussed it, didn’t we?”
“Ben—I’m warning you.”
But Ben had already turned around and was calling for silence in the reception hall.
“All right, people! Could I have just a moment of your time? Thank you. Now you all know what I plan to do with the vice presidency—the president and the VP will share equal power over an equal number of departments. One will not interfere with the other. And you know I have been giving considerable thought to the man or woman who would fill that slot. I have made my decision. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the new vice president of the United States: Doctor Cecil Jefferys.”
While the applause was still thundering in the hall, Cecil leaned to Ben and whispered, “You honky motherfucker.”
But he was smiling, and his smile was full of love and admiration for the man who stood by him.
* * *
“No, Ben,” Cecil said. “Those aren’t the headlines I was referring to.”
“Well, for God’s sake, Cec, what else could it be?”
“The doctors. They don’t like this plan of yours for a national health care program.”
“Cecil,” Ben said, drumming his fingertips on the top of his desk, �
�that is your baby. You asked for it, you got it. What we had in the Tri-States will work anywhere if the people will just give it a chance. Not all of what we had there,” Ben amended. “But a great deal of the programs will. You enforce that program in any manner you choose. But make it work.”
“If I have to, Ben, I’m going to get nasty with it,” the first black VP in the history of America told Ben. There was a grim look on his face.
Ben noticed the age in the man’s face—for the first time he really noticed the gray in Cecil’s hair, the deepening lines in the man’s face.
“What are you holding back, Cec?”
“Still read me like a good book, can’t you, Ben?”
Ben smiled. “What are you thinking about, Cec?”
“That time back in Indiana—about a thousand years ago.”
* * *
After visiting his brother in the suburbs of Chicago, and having bitter words with the man—a man Ben felt he no longer knew—he drove fast and angry, crossing into Indiana, finding a motel. He prowled the empty rooms, finding the east wing free of stinking, rotting bodies. He gathered up sheets and pillowcases and was returning to his chosen room when he saw the dark shapes standing in the parking lot.
About a half dozen black men and women. No, he looked closer, one of the women was white—he thought.
Ben made no move to lift his SMG, but the click of his putting it off safety was very audible in the dusky stillness.
“Deserting your friends in the suburbs?” a tall black man asked. Ben could detect no hostility in his voice.
“I might ask the same of you,” Ben replied.
The man laughed. “A point well taken. So… it appears we have both chosen this motel to spend the night. But… we were here first—quite some time. We were watching you. Which one of us leaves?”
“None of us,” Ben said. “If you don’t trust me, lock your doors.”
The man once again laughed. “My name is Cecil Jefferys.”
“Ben Raines.”
“Ben Raines? Where have I heard that name? The writer?”
“Ah… what price fame?” Ben smiled. “Yes. Sorry, I didn’t mean to be flip.”
“I didn’t take it that way. We’re in the same wing, just above you. My wife is preparing dinner now—in the motel kitchen. Would you care to join us?”
“I’d like that very much. Tired of my own cooking.”
“Well, then—if you’ll sling that Thompson, I’ll help you with your linens.”
Ben did not hesitate, for he felt the request and the offer a test. He put the SMG on safety and slung it, then handed the man his pillows. “You’re familiar with the Thompson?”
“Oh, yes. Carried one in Vietnam. Green Beret. You?”
“Hell Hound.”
“Ah! The real bad boys. Colonel Dean’s bunch. You fellows were head-hunters.”
“We took a few ears.”
They walked shoulder to shoulder down the walkway. Cecil’s friends coming up in the rear. Ben resisted a very strong impulse to look behind him.
Cecil smiled. “Go ahead and look around if it will make you feel better.”
“You a mind reader?” Ben laughed.
“No, just knowledgeable of whites, that’s all.”
“As you see us,” Ben countered.
“Good point. We’ll have a fine time debating, I see that.”
They came to Ben’s room.
“We’ll see you in the dining room, Ben Raines. I have to warn you though…”
Ben tensed; he was boxed in, no way to make a move.
“…The water is ice cold. Bathe very quickly.”
* * *
Ben didn’t trust black people. He didn’t know why he didn’t trust them. He just didn’t. He despised the KKK, the Nazi Party… groups of that ilk. And he asked himself, as he bathed—very quickly—have you ever tried to know or like a black person?
No, he concluded.
Well, you’re about to do just that.
As he walked to the dining area, the smell of death hung in the damp air. But it was an odor that Ben scarcely noticed anymore.
The dining area was candlelit. Cecil smiled as Ben entered and offered him a martini.
“Great,” Ben said. A martini-drinking black? He thought most blacks drank Ripple or Thunderbird.
Come on, Raines! he chastised himself. You’re thinking like an ignorant bigot.
He sat down at the table. Moment of truth. He smiled a secret smile.
“Something funny, Mr. Raines?” he was asked.
“Sad more than anything else, I suppose.”
“Ever sat down to dinner with blacks?” a woman asked. Her tone was neither friendly nor hostile… just curious.
Hell, Ben thought—they are as curious about me as I am about them. “Only in the service,” he replied.
“Well, I can promise you we won’t have ham hocks or grits,” she said with a grin.
“Tell the truth,”—Ben looked at her—“I like them both.”
A few laughed; the rest smiled. An uncomfortable silence followed. The silence was punctuated by shifting of feet, clearing of throats, much looking at the table, the walls. It seemed that no one had anything to say, or, as was probably the case, how to say it.
They talked over dinner, the conversation becoming easier on both sides. Ben began putting names to faces; his attention kept shifting to the woman called Salina. He still wasn’t certain what nationality she was. Just that she was beautiful.
He liked her immediately.
He hated the black called Kasim just as quickly, and felt the vibes of hate blast toward him from Kasim.
Kasim confirmed the mutual dislike when he said, “How come you didn’t stay in the city with your brother and his buddies and help kill all the niggers?” His eyes were dancing with hate.
Salina shook her head in disgust. Cecil’s wife, Lila, sighed and looked at her husband. Cecil summed up the feelings of all present by saying, “Kasim, you’re a jerk!”
“And he’s white!” Kasim spat his hate at Ben.
“Does that automatically make me bad?” Ben asked.
“As far as I’m concerned, yes,” Kasim replied. “And I don’t trust you.”
“And maybe,” Salina said quietly “he is just a man who sat down to have a quiet dinner. He hasn’t bothered a soul—brother.” She smiled at her humor.
Kasim didn’t share her humor. “I see,” he said, his words tinged with hate. “Zebra got herself a yearning for some white cock?”
Salina slapped him hard, hitting him in the mouth with the back of her hand, bloodying his lips.
Kasim drew back to hit her and found himself looking down the barrel of a .44 magnum. Cecil jacked back the hammer and calmly said, “I would hate to ruin this fine dinner, Kasim, since raw brains have never been a favorite of mine. But if you hit her, I’ll blow your fucking head off!”
Kasim could not believe it. “Cecil… you’d kill me for him?”
Cecil nodded.
“You know what those white bastards did to my sister.”
“Ben Raines wasn’t one of them.”
“He’s still white!”
Ben rose to leave. “I’d better leave.”
Cecil surprised him by agreeing. “I’m sorry, Ben. I was looking forward to some intelligent conversation later on.”
Ben spoke to Cecil. “Perhaps we’ll meet again?”
Kasim summed it all up. “You put your white ass in New Africa, motherfucker, it’ll be buried there.”
“I will make every effort to avoid New Africa,” Ben said. “Wherever that might be.”
“Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana,” Kasim said. “A black nation.”
Ben smiled. “My home is in Louisiana, Kasim, or whatever your goddamned name is. And I’ll give you a bit of advice. I’m going to my room and get some sleep. I’ll put out just after dawn tomorrow. I will start no trouble in this motel. But if I ever see you again—I’ll kill you.”
/> Kasim sneered at him. “Words. Big words. How about trying it now? Just you and me?”
Ben smiled. “Drag your ass out of that chair, hotshot.”
“Cool it, Kasim,” Cecil warned. “You’re outclassed with Ben. Let it lie.”
Ben spoke to Mrs. Jefferys. “It was a delicious meal. I thank you.”
She smiled and nodded.
Ben’s eyes touched Salina’s. She smiled at him.
He walked out into the rainy night, leaving, he hoped, the hate behind him.
He was loading his gear into the truck at dawn, tying down the tarp when he heard footsteps. He turned, right hand on the butt of the .45 belted at his waist.
Salina.
“We all feel very badly about last night, Mr. Raines. All except Willie Washington, that is.”
“Who?”
She smiled in the misty dawn. A beautiful woman. “Kasim. We grew up on the same block in Chicago. He’ll always be Willie to me.”
In the dim light he could see her skin was fawn-colored. “Does he really hate whites as much as it seems? All whites?”
“Does the KKK hate blacks?”
“They say they don’t.”
“Right. And pigs fly.” They shared a quiet laugh in the damp dawn. “Kasim’s sister was… used pretty badly when he was young. Raped, buggered. He was beaten and forced to watch. The men were never caught. You know the story. It happens on both sides of the color line. He’s about half nuts, Ben.”
“I gathered that.”
“There are a lot of differences between the races, Ben. Cultural differences, emotional differences. The bridge is wide.”
“I do not agree with what my brother and his friends are doing, Salina. I want you to know that.”
“I knew that last night, Ben. I think… we need more men like you and Cecil; less of Jeb Fargo and your brother.”
“Who in the hell is Jeb Fargo?”
“His name is really George, but he likes to be called Jeb. He came up to Chicago about five years ago—from Georgia, I think. Head of the Nazi Party.”
Fire in the Ashes ta-2 Page 21
