Fire in the Ashes

Roanna Hickman and Jane Moore sat talking in the NBC offices in Richmond. Other reporters and commentators sat quietly, listening. All of them had a hard decision to make. Unpleasant either way they went.

“Have you been back to see Sabra?” Roanna asked.

“I can't go back there; can't look at her,” Jane replied. “It's ... I just want to cry."

“The doctors say she's going to be all right—in time."

“She'll never be back here,” Roanna said bitterly. “Never. We all know that. But we're dancing around what we gathered to speak of. And it wasn't Sabra's mental health. Let's discuss our ... president,” she softened the last word.

“Son of a bitch is not my president,” a man spoke. “High-handed bastard is a dictator."

“Is he?” Jane “Little Bit” Moore asked. “Seems to me it's taken him less than a month to do more than anyone else has accomplished in a decade since the bombings."

“And everything he's done has been accomplished by spitting on the constitution,” the man countered.

“Oh, fuck the constitution!” Roanna lashed out, surprising no one. She had been a staunch supporter of Ben Raines since her return from the Smokies.

Several of her male colleagues wondered if Raines had gotten into her panties. Several other female colleagues wondered if she might have fallen in love with the Rebel general. The more objective of the group wondered if she saw something in the man they might have missed.

“Goddamnit, Jim,” Roanna continued, “he's making things work again. He's feeding the very young and the very old; he's opening factories and creating jobs; he's..."

“No one is denying any of that, Roanna,” a black reporter said calmly. This reporter had survived the bombings of ‘88 and continued to go about his business of gathering news and reporting it, fairly and objectively. “There is no in-between with Ben Raines ... not among the people I've spoken with. It's either love or hate. But the point is: Do we—as reporters and commentators—condone what he is doing, in other words ignore the gross violations of the constitution and the Bill of Rights, or do we report on those violations as we see them, without giving the man's credits equal time? I certainly don't agree with everything he's done and doing, but by God, he's got to be given some credit. And I, for one, intend to do just that."

“Len,” a woman spoke. “Could the fact that he appointed a black VP have anything to do with your decision?"

She wilted under the man's steely, unwavering gaze. “I won't even dignify that with a reply, Camile. If you care to recall, sixty percent of those men and women he had hanged or will hang in the near future, are black."

She sat down, but another woman picked it up. “Len, that is another point that can't be ignored. He..."

“Ms. Daumier,” Len's voice stopped her in midsentence. “Those people were murderers, rapists, terrorists—scum! They were not acting out of survival; not out of self-defense—they were behaving in a manner not even befitting a rabid dog! I, for one, do not care to return to the days of the ‘60s and ‘70s, when those types of people were slapped on the wrist and given sentences so light as to be ludicrous. Now, I have had my say. I will report on the president's excesses and accomplishments. I am not being paid to editorialize or find fault. Good day.” He walked out of the room.

“I could not believe my ears when the president of the United States said, day before yesterday, if a person is attempting to break into your home, be it tent or mansion, feel free to shoot his ass off, because crime is not going to be tolerated in this nation.” The reporter allowed his outrage to overcome his overt liberalism. “Jesus Christ!” he blurted. “The son of a bitch is no more than a savage himself."

“And you're as full of shit as a Christmas goose!” Roanna told him.

“I beg your pardon!” the man's eyes widened.

Roanna got to her feet. “I said..."

“We all heard what you said,” a man's voice stopped the dispute before it got out of hand. The president of network news had entered the room quietly, without being noticed. Robert Brighton was another of the survivors of the bombings of ‘88—a man in his early sixties. Brighton was another of the objective-type of reporters. He had once stated, publicly, that anyone who satisfied themselves solely with TV news, would probably grow up to be a half-wit.

“We didn't know you were flying in from Chicago, Mr. Brighton,” a reporter said.

“I didn't fly in,” Brighton said. “I drove. I wanted to see for myself some of the horrors our president has perpetrated—according to some of my news reporters, that is."

Several men and women began taking more careful note of their shoes, the ceiling, the walls, anything except the eyes of Robert Brighton.

“But, by golly, gang—guess what I saw?"

More shuffling of feet and averting of eyes.