William Johnstone - Out of the Ashes

“You’re a complex man, Ben Raines.”

“Maybe. And maybe I’m just a man who doesn’t want to get too far away from the basic concepts of living.”

“What if a drunk driver ran over and killed a loved one of yours, Ben—what would you do?”

“Now?”

“No. I mean, back when things were normal.”

“My first inclination would be to kill him. But that would be wrong for several reasons. Our laws—back when things were normal, as you put it—were far too lenient on most criminals, especially the drunk driver involved in fatal accidents. So how can you blame the guy for drinking when the penalty for getting caught really, in many states, almost encouraged the drunk driver? No, education and stiff laws are the answer, and then gradually, over a period of years, as people become accustomed to those laws, and a generation grows with them, that’s when you get tough with those who flaunt the law. Not abruptly. Not unless everybody in that state, and I don’t mean fifty-one percent of the population, I mean about ninety percent of the population, agrees with those harsh laws. This fifty-one/forty-nine plurality is now and always has been, to my way of thinking, a crock of shit.”

“How about those people, say, to use your figures, that ten percent—what happens to them? Those who disagree with it?”

“They can live with it, or leave.”

“That’s hard, Ben.”

“Yes.”

April was silent for several miles; miles that passed in silence, with only the humming of the tires on concrete and the rush of wind.

“All this…” She waved her hand, indicating the emptiness of highway, the silence of the land all around them. “All this doesn’t really bother you, does it? I get the impression you’re looking forward to rebuilding.”

Ben thought about that question. “I guess I am looking forward to the rebuilding, April. As to it bothering me? No, I guess it really doesn’t. Not to the extent it should, I suppose.”

“Why?” She glanced at him. “You don’t believe all this is God’s will, or something hokey like that, do you?”

“Hokey? Well, yes. I have to admit I’ve wondered about the hand of God in all this. Haven’t you?”

“I don’t believe in God,” she said flatly. “I think it’s a myth. I think when you’re dead, you’re dead. And that’s it.”

“That is certainly your right.”

“Not going to give me a lecture about it?”

“Not me. Believe what you want to believe. That is your right.”

“How about prayer in public school?”

He laughed out loud. “You’re really hitting all bases, aren’t you? All right, April. Fine, for those who want to pray. Those that don’t could whistle ‘Dixie’ if they so desired.”

“And take a lot of abuse and bullshit from the kids and the teachers, too, huh?”

“Root cause, honey.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Root cause. Ignorance, prejudice, thoughtlessness, all those things will never be stamped out unless and until we attack the root cause. And that’s in the home.”

“Total state control, Ben? That’s just a bit Orwellian, don’t you think?”

“Yes, it is. But if our present method of education isn’t, or wasn’t, eradicating the inequities, what would you suggest as the course of action?”

“What inequities? Give me an example.”

“One kid wants to play sports, another kid wants to study music: the piano, the violin. Each should be able to do as he or she wishes without being ridiculed for making a particular choice. But it didn’t work that way. The kid who chooses to pursue a life of music is often—ninety-nine percent of the time—subjected to taunts and jeers and ridicule for his choice, while the kid who wants to play sports is adored and given honors. The sadness of it, April, is this: the kids who ridicule and jeer have to have learned it at home; their parents have to be condoning it. Perhaps not knowingly, but still condoning it. If they do no more than refuse to broaden intellectual horizons, they’re condoning and passing their ignorance on to their kids.”

“Ben… do you want a perfect society?”

“No,” he said. “Just a fair one.”

And he thought of the mountains. And of the Rebels. Waiting. Something stirred deep within him.

April looked at the man; took in his lean ruggedness. How fast he was, to react to a deadly situation. He had a… dangerous look about him. She said, “You look the type to spend Sunday afternoons in front of the TV, watching football.”

“I did, for years,” Ben admitted. “Still think it’s a great sport. Played it in high school. But it’s gotten—had—out of hand. I began to open my eyes and my mind and to look and listen to all that was happening around me; with my friends and others; what they were teaching their children. I was at a friend’s house one evening, watching Monday-night football. I heard my friend tell his boys that anyone who didn’t play sports was a sissy and probably a queer. I thought, what a terrible thing to tell a child, and told my friend so—in front of his kids. That man hasn’t spoken to me since.”

“And never will again,” April reminded him.

Ben glanced at her. “I don’t consider his death any great loss to the world.”

Ben had pulled off the interstate just a few miles south of Fort Valley and headed east. “Just wandering,” he told April. “We’re not on any timetable.”

At a small town located on a state highway, Ben pulled over when he saw a group of elderly people gathered on and around the porch of a general store. When they saw the truck stop, they ran as if in a panic.

“Why are they afraid of us?” April asked.

“There is a certain type of filth in this world that preys on the old. I think these folks have been the victims of those types of slime. Let’s see.”

But when Ben opened the door to the truck, he found himself looking down the twin barrels of a shotgun. It was, he thought, like looking down a twin culvert. He lifted his eyes to meet those of the man standing on the porch, behind the shotgun.

“I didn’t stop to harm anyone,” Ben said. “I’m a writer, traveling the nation, attempting to chronicle all that has happened. If you people are in some sort of difficulty, perhaps I can help?”

“Lower the shotgun, Homer,” a woman’s voice said. “He speaks as though he has some degree of education.”

The shotgun was lowered to Ben’s legs. “One funny move, sonny,” Homer said, “and I’ll shorten your reach considerable.”

Ben forced a grin and told Juno to please stop growling. Juno licked him in the ear. “I can see where that 12-gauge would definitely do it, sir.” He cut his eyes to the door of the general store. An elderly woman stood looking at him. Ben nodded. “Ma’am.”

The woman asked, “Where did you attend school, young man?”

“The University of Illinois, ma’am. For about twenty minutes. I didn’t like college.”

She laughed. “What books have you written?”

Ben began reeling off titles and the various names he wrote under. She waved him silent.

“That’s enough. Some of those books were pornography, Ben Raines. Filth. The sex acts were too descriptive. We’re all adults; we know how the act is done.”

Ben laughed. “But I’ll bet you read every word, didn’t you, ma’am?”

She grinned and moved out onto the porch. “I taught English for fifty-five years, Mr. Raines. You need to learn about the positioning of adverbs and the splitting of compound verbs.”

“And don’t forget who and whom and me and I.”

“Yes,” she said, sitting down in a chair. “That, too.” She pointed to April, sitting in the truck. “Are you and that young lady married, Mr. Raines, or are you living in sin?”