Out of the Ashes

After they had said their good nights and good-bys, for Ben was pulling out in the morning, Ben walked into the bedroom. “Are you all right, now?”

“Of course, I am,” Salina said, her voice small in the darkness. “I always lie in the dark and bawl and snuffle.”

“You heard everything that was said?”

“I'm not deaf, Ben.”

“Well ... you want to head out with me in the morning?”

“Maybe I like it here.”

“Sure you do. Stay here, and if you're not killed by Parr's mercs, you can marry Kasim and live happily ever after.”

“That is positively the most dreadful idea anyone could offer. Thank you, no.”

“I repeat; would you like to head out with me?”

“Why should I?”

“You might see some sights you've never seen before.”

“Ben, that is a stupid statement for a writer to make. If I haven't seen the sights before, of course I'd be seeing them for the first time.”

“What?”

“That isn't a good enough reason, Ben.”

“Well ... goddamn it! I like you and you like me.”

“That's better. Sure you want to travel with a zebra?”

Ben suddenly thought of Megan. “I'll tell everyone you've been out in the sun too long. But let's get one thing settled; when I tell you to step-and-fetch-it, you'd better hump it, baby.”

“Screw you, Ben Raines!” She giggled.

“I also have that in mind.”

She threw back the covers and Ben could see she was naked. And beautiful. “So come on. I assure you, whitey, it doesn't rub off.”

SIXTEEN

Ben, Salina, and Juno pulled out before dawn, heading east, to Mississippi. Salina thought it best she tell no one verbal good-bys, so she left a note. Both Ben and Salina thought it best. Juno offered no opinion; he just liked to travel.

“I thought I was opinionated,” Ben said. Faint streaks of red mingled with gray in the eastern sky. “With some strong ideas. But Cecil lays it right on the line, doesn't he? I like him.”

“You agree with him, Ben?”

“Yes, I do. We both agree that the root cause for most of this nation's inner problems lies in the home. But ... my solution—as he said—was Orwellian. Other than that, I don't know how to correct it.”

“You could start by killing all the rednecks,” Salina suggested. Ben did not think she was joking.

He smiled, thinking: she may be half-white, and look almost pure white—with a dark tan—but she was raised among blacks. The next few months should be interesting. Or years; the thought came to him, and he was comfortable with it.

“Let me tell you something about rednecks, Salina,” he said.

“I know all I need to know about them. I saw pictures of them in Alabama and Mississippi during the civil-rights movement in the sixties. I saw them putting high-pressure water hoses on little children; saw them throwing rocks and bottles; saw the churches that were bombed and burned; and the bodies of black people who were killed. I've read many accounts of the KKK—night riders.” She shuddered. “Thanks, Ben, but no thanks.”

“If you'd have looked a bit more closely at those pictures, Salina, you'd have seen some fear as well as hate on those white faces.”

She glanced at him. She waited.

“Don't you know that a lot of whites—many more than will admit it—are afraid of black people? The myth of the black man—subhuman species, only a few centuries away from being an ape.”

A very small smile creased her lips. She fought it back. Ben did not ask why the smile. But he hoped she was thinking of Kasim.

“As for rednecks, Salina, allow me to play devil's advocate for a moment. Back when things were normal, if you'd had a flat on the highway—”

“Don't use me, Ben,” she interrupted. “I don't look black.”

“All right, then, two black, black women. Your slick dude in the three-hundred-dollar suit, driving the fancy car is not going to stop to help those ladies—not ninety-nine times out of a hundred. But some ol’ boy wearing a cowboy hat or a ball cap and boots with mud on them, bouncing along in a pickup truck will stop. I've watched that scenario played out a hundred times over the years. And that ol’ boy will work and sweat and bang his knuckles and cuss under his breath. But he will change that tire for those black women.

“Traditionally—and unfortunately, this is changing—your good ol’ boys were the first to volunteer during a war. Call them rednecks if you will—I do—and many of them are. Point I'm making, babe, is this: you look closely at most people, you'll find some good in them. Maybe not much, but some. Unless he's a punk, pure, and then you can search forever and not find anything of redeeming value.”

“Kluckers—KKKers—have redeeming values?”

“I feel certain many of them are good solid family men, hard workers in their churches and on their jobs. Aren't those redeeming values, Salina?”

She reluctantly agreed with a short bob of her head. “I read all your books while at your house, Ben. You never wrote much about the black experience.”

“I don't know anything about the black experience—as you call it. How can I write anything about it?”