Authors: Philip Roth
beneath the cherry blossoms he so loved, and
in
the
brooding grandeur of this the city which embodies
that which he who has been untimely reaped would
have himself willingly laid down his life for, had of
him it been asked instead of cruelly being stolen in
the night from him by an ill-mannered madman
with a baggie. Yet madmen there have been and
madmen there will be, and still this nation has
endured. And, I daresay, endure it will, while the
madmen pass through these corridors of power and
halls of justice and closets of virtue and
dumbwaiters of dignity and cellars of idealism,
leaving us in the end, if not stronger, wiser; and if
not wiser, stronger; and if, alas, not either,
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OUR GANG
both. This is Erect Severehead with a cogent news
analysis from the nation's capital."
"This is Brad Bathos. I'm down here in the streets
of Washington now, and it is a moving and heartrending
sight I see. Ever since the news first broke
that the President had been found dead in a baggie
at Walter Reed Hospital, the people of this great
country, his people, have been pouring into the
capital from all over the nation. Thousands upon
thousands simply standing here in the streets
surrounding the White House, with heads bowed,
visibly shaken and moved. Many are crying openly,
not a few of them grown men. Here is a man seated
on the curbstone holding his head in his hands and
quietly sobbing. I'm going to ask him if he will tell
us where he comes from."
"I come from here, I come from Washington."
"You're sitting on the curbstone quietly sobbing
into your hands. Can you tell us why? Can you put it
into words?"
"Guilt."
"You mean you feel a personal sense of guilt?"
"
Yes."
"
Why?
"
"Because I did it."
"You did it? You killed the President?"
"Yes."
THE ASSASSINATION OF TRICKY
169
"Well, look, this is important-have you told the
police?"
"I've told everyone. The police. The FBI. I even
tried to call Pitter Dixon to tell her. But all they kept
saying was that it was kind of me to think of them at
a time like this and Mrs. Dixon appreciated my
sympathy and thought it was in very good taste, and
then they hung up. Meanwhile, I should be arrested.
I should be in the papers-my picture, and a big
headline, DIXON'S MURDERER. But nobody will
believe me. Here, here's the notebooks where I've
been planning it for months. Here are tape
recordings of my own telephone conversations with
friends. Here, look at this: a signed confession! And
I wasn't even under duress when I wrote it. I was in
a hammock. I was fully aware of my constitutional
rights. My-lawyer was with me, as a matter of fact.
We were having a drink. Here-just read it, I give all
my reasons and everything."
"Sir, interesting as your story is, we have to move
on. We must move on through this immense crowd
. . . Here's a young attractive woman holding a
sleeping infant in her arms. She is just standing on
the sidewalk gazing blankly at the White House.
Heaven only knows how much anguish is concealed
in
that gaze. Madam, will you tell the television
audience what you're thinking about as you look at
the White House?"
170 OUR GANG
"He's dead."
"You appear to be in a state of shock." "I
know. I didn't think I could do it." "Do
what?"
"Kill. Murder. He said, `Let me make one thing
perfectly-' and before he could say `clear,' I had him
in the baggie. You should have seen the look on his
face when I turned the little twister seal."
"The look on the President's face when you-?"
"Yes. I've never seen such rage in my life. I've
never seen such anger and fury. But then he realized
I was staring at him through the baggie, and
suddenly he looked just the way he does on
television, all seriousness and responsibility, and he
opened his mouth, I guess to say `clear,' and that
was it. I think he thought the whole thing was being
televised."
"And-well, was your baby with you, when you
allegedly-?"
"Oh yes, yes. Of course, she's too young to
remember exactly what happened. But I want her to
be able to grow up to say, `I was there when my
mother murdered Dixon.' Imagine itmy little girl is
going to grow up in a world where she'll never have
to hear anybody say he's going to make something
perfectly clear ever again! Or, `Let's make no
mistake about it!' Or, `I'm a Quaker and that's why I
hate war so
THE ASSASSINATION OF TRICKY 171
much-' Never never never never. And I did it. I
actually did it. I tell you, I still can't believe it. I
drowned him. In cold water. Me."
"And you, young man, let's move on to you.
You're just walking up and down here outside the
White House, very much as though you've lost
something. You seem confused and bewildered. Can
you tell us, in a few words, what it is you're
searching for?"
"A cop. A policeman."
"Why?"
"I want to turn myself in."
"This is Brad Bathos, from the streets of
Washington, where the mourners have come to
gather, to pray, to weep, to lament, and to hope.
Back to Erect Severehead."
"Erect, we're up here on top of the Washington
Monument with the Chief of the Washington Police
Force. Chief Shackles, how many people would you
say are down there right now?"
"Oh, just around the monument alone we've got
about twenty-five or thirty thousand; and I'd say
there are twice that many over by the White House.
And of course more are pouring
in
every hour."
"Can you describe these people? Are they the
usual sort of demonstrators you get here in
Washington?"
"Oh no, no. These people don't want to dis-
172 OUR GANG
rupt anything. I would say they are actually bending
over backwards to cooperate with the authorities.
So far, at any rate."
"What do you mean by so far?"
"Well, we haven't yet had to make any arrests.
We're under orders from the White House not to
arrest anyone under any conditions. As you can
imagine, this is putting something of a strain on my
men, particularly as just about everybody down
here seems to have come for the purpose of getting
himself arrested. I mean I've never seen anything
like it. _ A lot of them are down on their knees
begging to be taken in, and just about every Tom,
Dick and Harry seems to have documents or
photographs or fingerprints, proving that he is the
one who killed the President. Of course, none of it
is worth the paper it's written on. Some of it's kind
of laughable,
in
fact, it's so unprofessional and
obviously a slapdash last-minute job. But still and
all, you got to give them credit for, their fortitude.
They grab hold of my men just like they had the
goods on themselves, and actually try to handcuff
themselves to the officer with their own handcuffs
and get carted off to prison that way. We can't park
a squad car anywhere, without half a dozen
of
them
jumping into the back seat, and screaming, `Take
me
to J. Edgar Heehaw-and step on it.' Now you
can't arrest anybody without taking the proper
procedural steps, but go try to explain
THE ASSASSINATION OF TRICKY
173
that to a crowd like this. We're sort of humoring
them, however, the best we can, and the ones who
just won't quit, we tell them to wait right where they
are and we'll round them up later. What we're
hoping for is a good thunderstorm during the night,
that'll sort of break the back of the whole thing.
Maybe if they stand around long enough in the rain
they'll get the idea that nobody is going to arrest
them no matter how much evidence they produce,
and they'll go home."
"But, Chief Shackles, suppose the rain doesn't
come-suppose they are still jamming the streets in
the morning. What about the workers trying to get
to government offices-?" .. "Well, they'll just have to
suffer a little inconvenience, I'm afraid. Because I
am not subjecting my men to the charge of false
arrest just so somebody can get to his office in time
for
the morning coffee break. And then there are
these orders from the White House."
"Your assumption then is that all these people
here are innocent, each and every one?"
"Absolutely. If they were guilty, they would be
resisting arrest. They would be running away and so
on. They would be screaming about their lawyers
and their rights. I mean, that's how you can tell
they're guilty in the first place. But all these people
are saying is, `I did it, take me in.'
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What sort of law enforcement officer is going to
arrest a person for something like that?"
"This is Brad Bathos. Violence has erupted here
on Pennsylvania Avenue, directly outside the White
House gates where upwards of thirty thousand
mourners have already gathered to bid farewell to a
fallen leader. Even as Police Chief Shackles was
praising this crowd for their obedience to authority
and respect for the law, a free-for-all broke out
among a group of fifteen men in business suits.
Though police intervention was necessary, no
arrests were made. I have here beside me one of the
gentlemen who was involved in the violent episode,
and by all appearances he is still rather upset. Sir,
how did the violence begin?"
"Well, I was just standing here, minding my own
business, trying to confess to an officer about
murdering the President, when along comes this
very fancy guy in a limousine and wearing
a
flower
in his buttonhole, and he just steps in between me
and the officers and he says he did it. And then the
chauffeur gets out of the car and he starts pushing
me back and saying let his boss do the talking, his
boss really did it and he was a very busy man and so
on and so forth and who did I think I was, acting so
high and mighty. So then some colored guy comes
upand I don't have anything against colored guys,