Out of the Ashes

“Of course not, little liberal. The kids take off because they don't want to fool with the old folks. What was good for their daddy isn't good enough for the modern-day youth. The state can't provide because they're too busy spending money keeping up with government rules and dictates—most of which are no business of the federal government. Our central government was far too busy handing out billions of dollars each year protecting the rights of punks, funding programs that never should have been started in the first place. They were too busy seeing to it that rapists, muggers, murderers, child molesters, armed robbers, and others of their dubious ilk were not overcrowded in jails and prisons; that they received free legal assistance—at taxpayers’ expense, I might add. That a committee was always present in Europe to speak out on the standardization of the screwhead—and that is no joke; and all sorts of other worthwhile tasks. Hell, they didn't have time to worry about a bunch of goddamned old people. What the hell, little liberal ... priorities, you know.”

Ben felt her hot eyes on him. “You conservatives really piss me off, you know that? It's so easy for you people to find fault with social programs, isn't it?”

“I thought helping the elderly was a social program, April. I'm all in favor of that. Or have you forgotten what we were discussing?”

She folded her arms across her chest and refused to look at him. “I was going to ask what you would have done, Ben—but I think I know. Able-bodied welfare recipients would have been forced to work, wouldn't they, Ben?”

He looked straight ahead, up the highway. Let her get it all out of her system, he thought.

“Women who birthed more than two illegitimate children would have been sterilized, right? The death penalty would be the law of the land. Chain gangs and work farms and convict labor. You people are sick!”

How to tell her she was right to a degree but way off base in the main? Ben kept his mouth shut.

“Damn it, Ben, talk to me! It's all moot now, anyway, isn't it?”

He sighed. “No, April, it isn't moot. Not at all. Someday ... some way, we'll pull out of this morass and start to rebuild. That's the way people—especially Americans—are. And we'll do it. I just don't want us to make the same mistakes all over again.”

“But you want tough, hard laws, don't you?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Don't you think criminals have any rights, Ben?”

“Damned few. They sure as hell don't show their victims any rights, do they?”

“I will never, ever, forget the way those boys cried back there, Ben. And you helped hang them!"

“They were not boys, April. They were men. You think I would have hanged a thirteen or fourteen-year-old? What kind of monster do you think I am?”

Miles rolled past before she spoke. “How far is Macon, Ben?”

“Twenty-five or thirty miles west of us.”

“There is a college there.”

“Wesleyan. I would imagine there might be some people there. Would you like me to drop you off, April?”

“Yes,” she said softly. “I would, Ben.”

Actually, there was quite a gathering of professors and young people at the school. And actually, Ben was more than a little relieved to be free of April.

Jerre, he figured, had more sense in her big toe than April had gleaned from her years at college.

Which is very often the case.

Ben headed up the interstate, toward Atlanta. The truck was running rough, black smoke beginning to pour from the tailpipe. But Ben whistled as he drove. Somewhere around Atlanta, he thought, I'll prowl the dealerships and get me a truck that's got a tape deck in it, get me a bunch of symphonies, and keep on trucking. Literally.

Juno and me. See the country. His thoughts drifted to Jerre, as they often did since the day he had left her. He wondered how she was faring; had she found herself a nice young man? He hoped he would see her again. And he felt he would. With that thought, his mood lifted and he clicked on the cassette recorder and began taping. Suddenly, with an unexpected and unexplained warmness, he thought of Salina.

He cut off long before he reached Atlanta and using state and county roads, he took a winding route around the city. But he saw no one as he drove. No signs of life for more than sixty miles of traveling through the Georgia countryside. That puzzled him.

South of Atlanta, there had been hundreds of survivors, but the closer he drew to the city, the more it appeared that no one had survived. His curiosity finally got the better of him and at Lawrenceville he cut toward the interstate and headed into the city.

He stopped at two dealerships before, at the third dealership, he found the truck he wanted. This one had been ordered for a local sheriff's department and had all the equipment Ben felt he would need. He walked through the parts department, found a cassette player, and installed it.

He installed a new battery, changed the oil, and patted the accelerator. The pickup fired at first crank. “American workmanship isn't dead,” Ben muttered. “Just most Americans.”