Fire in the Ashes

“You know, Lamar, I did some research on that back when I was making my living pounding the keys of a typewriter. Close as I could figure, that phrase originated about 1949."

“I can't tell you how impressed I am with your knowledge of phrases, Ben. You wouldn't be implying I'm over the hill, now would you?"

“Not as long as you can get it up!"

Both men shared a laugh at the crudeness. Lamar sobered and said, “Ben—get this nation right side up again, then hand it over to someone else. You should be able to do it in two, maybe three years. I think you're probably the only man who could do it—that's why I pressed you so hard to take the job. At least, Ben, you'll have the knowledge and the satisfaction that every man, woman, and child in this nation will have all the rights afforded them by the Bill of Rights.

“I'm an old bastard, but I'm going to hang on to watch you do these things, Ben—all the while helping to re-form the Tri-States. When you're done here, come home, back to your dream, and sit with me on the front porch of my house and we'll talk of things dead and past while we watch my...” he smiled, “...little daughter or son wobble around."

“Why, you old bastard!” Ben laughed. “That's why you're going back."

“Yeah. I should be ashamed of myself, I suppose; but I'm not. I'm damn proud."

“You should be. Congratulations. Lamar, you sound as though you believe no matter what I accomplish here, it won't last."

The doctor fixed wise eyes on the revolutionary dreamer. “You know it won't, Ben. It will work for us in the Tri-States, but not for the majority—you said it yourself, back in Tri-States. You're a student of history, Ben, just as I am. You know that many—too many—Americans don't give a flying piece of dog shit what's good for the nation as a whole. We gathered the cream of the crop back in ‘89, friend; the best we could find to populate Tri-States.

“Out here,” the doctor waved his hand and snorted, “hell, you know the majority of Americans—even after all the horror we've been through—don't care for anything except themselves or their own little greedy, grasping group or organization. Americans are notorious for wanting to run other people's lives.

“No, Ben, for two or maybe three years, if you're lucky, you'll see all Americans being treated equal—for the first time in more than seventy-five years. Just think, Ben. Why, a citizen will be able to turn on the TV set and view any damn program he or she chooses to watch, without some so-called Christian organization screaming bloody murder because someone said ‘hell’ or ‘damn’ on the air."

“The best censor in the world has always been a parent turning off the set or changing channels,” Ben muttered.

“Why of course it has!” Chase said. “Or simply telling the kids they can't watch a certain program and then belting the hell out of them if they disobey. We know that, Ben. Thinking, rational adults have always known it. But there again, ol’ buddy, comes the truth: people simply cannot stand it if they're not butting in someone else's life."

Ben laughed and shifted his butt in the chair, knowing Lamar was just warming up to his topic. He waited.

“Right now, Ben—this minute—you have done more in two weeks in office than anyone else in the more than a decade since the bombings. You just jerked the lazy folks off their asses and told them if they didn't work they weren't going to eat. That should have been done fifty years ago."

“Yeah, but don't think I haven't got a bunch of civil rights groups down on my ass for doing it, either. And the ACLU is screaming that everything I'm doing is unconstitutional."

Lamar muttered something very uncomplimentary under his breath and Ben laughed at him.

“It isn't funny, Ben—not really. It's tragic that some people—and I'm not singling out the aforementioned group—can't see, won't see, what is good for the entire nation just might step on the toes of a few.” He shook his white head and sighed. “Let's say it, Ben. First, when are the twins due in?"

“Tomorrow. Ike tracked them down and is having them flown here."

“Ben—have you thought that Jerre might be dead?"

“It's crossed my mind."

“But you reject it."

“Yes. I don't know why, but I just know she is alive. Hartline is holding her—why, I don't know. Probably as a lever to use against me."

Lamar looked at him. “The new Moral Majority is yelling about the president of the United States living in sin with a woman."

Ben grinned. “I wonder how much they'd scream if I was living in sin with a man?"

“Get serious, Raines! Are you going to marry the lady?"

“No.” His answer came quickly.

“Do you love her?"

“No.” Just as quickly.

“She loves you?"

“I ... don't think so, Lamar.” Ben leaned forward, propping his elbows on the desk, his chin in his hands. It made him look like a schoolboy. “Can I talk to you man to man, Lamar?"

“Shore."