Out of the Ashes

disagreed with her.

“Why do you think that, Jerre?”

“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.

NINE

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