“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.”
