Authors: Philip Roth
later I didn't even remember what it
28
OUR GANG
was I'd endorsed. That my political opponents
could now be so desperate to oust me from powerso
disrespectful, not simply of me, but of the
august office of the Presidency, to take those few
utterly harmless and totally meaningless words that
I spoke that day, and turn them into this monstrous
lie!
Gentlemen, I am no newcomer to the ugly
game of, politics. I have seen all kinds of chicanery
and deceit in my day-falsification, misquotation,
distortion, embellishment, 'and, of course, outright
suppression of the truth. Nor am I what you would
call a babe-in-the-woods when it comes to the
techniques of character assassination. Years ago I
looked on in disgust and horror when they
crucified Senator Joseph McCatastrophy just
because he kept changing his mind as to the
number of Communists there were
in
the State
Department. I saw what they did only recently to
judge Carswell. I saw what they did to judge
Haynsworth. Why, just last month look what they
tried to do to Secretary Lard, when he held up that
phony piece of pipe before the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee and said it was from Laos
instead of Vietnam. Five miles away-and they're
ready to hang him for it!
But, I must admit, never in my long career of
dealing with falsehood have I come upon a lie so
treacherous and Machiavellian as this one my
enemies are trying to pass off about me ... What
TRICKY HAS ANOTHER CRISIS
29
did I say? Let's look at the record. I said nothing!
Absolutely nothing! I came out for "the rights of the
unborn." I mean if ever there was a line of hokum,
that was it. Sheer humbug! And as if it wasn't clear
enough what I was up to, I even tacked on, "as
recognized in principles expounded by the United
Nations." By the United Nations. Now what more
could I possibly have said to make the whole thing
any more inane? Maybe I was supposed to have told
them "as recognized in principles expounded by the
American Automobile, Association." Maybe I
should have given the whole speech in Pig Latin,
and made funny faces while I was at it! Maybe I
should have come out to make the statement in a
clown's costume! But I did not do that-because I
refuse to talk down to the American public. I refuse
to pull my punches. I refuse to believe that the
people of this great nation are incapable of
recognizing the most outrageous kind of hypocrisy
or sniffing out the most blatant contradictions
imaginable . . . And yet this, this is my reward, for
my faith in America. The Boy Scouts of America
screaming to the TV cameras that Trick E. Dixon
favors sexual intercourse. Favors fornicationbetween
people!
POLITICAL COACH:
Of course, as of now, it's still only
the Boy Scouts, Mr. President.
TRICKY:
Today the Boy Scouts
(here he
sinks down
onto the bench before the blackboard,
30
OUR GANG
barely restraining a sob)-tomorrow the world! ...
And what about my wife-what is she going to think?
What if she starts to believe it? What about my
children? WHAT ABOUT THE VOTERS!
SPIRITUAL' COACH:
Here, here, Mr. President. I
sympathize with your chagrin, particularly as it
relates to your fine family. But, frankly, I do not
believe that the American people who see you on
TV, any more than those who know you at
firsthand, are going to be taken in by such a blatant
fabrication. If ever a man, in his every word and
deed, his every movement and gesture, his glance,
his sneer, his very smile, put the lie to such a
slanderous accusation as this one, it is you.
TRICKY
(visibly moved) : Reverend, I thank you for
that tribute. Surely I have tried to give no indication
whatsoever to the people of this country that I even
know what sexual intercourse is. Futhermore, I have
instructed my family that they must under no
circumstances allow it to appear that any of us have
ever in our lives been. infected by desire or lust, or,
for that matter, an appetite for anything at all,
outside of political power. This may sound
immodest of me, but I happen to pride myself on
the fact that if it weren't for my perspiring so on
television, the American people would probably
have no way in the world of telling that under my
clothes I
TRICKY HAS ANOTHER CRISIS
31
am flesh. And, of course you all know, as a result
of a decision I reached here during a lonely vigil in
the locker room only a few nights ago, this disorder
will very shortly be corrected when I enter Walter
Reed Hospital to undergo a secret operation for the
surgical removal of the sweat glands from my
upper lip. You see, gentlemen, that is how
dedicated I am to dissociating myself from
anything remotely resembling a human body.
But now to accuse me of this! As though to be
for the rights of the unborn was prima facie
evidence-that is, evidence sufficient to establish a
fact, or to raise a presumption of fact ... that's what
we lawyers mean by that phrase ... as you know,
before entering the White House I was a lawyer, and
so I know phrases like that ... as though that were
prima facie evidence that I was also in favor of the
process by which the unborn come into existence in
the first place. To accuse me, because of a perfectly
innocuous statement like that, of encouraging
people to have intercourse in order that they should
have unborn, in order that those unborn should
have these rights -that don't even exist! And that I
wouldn't care about, even if they did! How could I?
Here I am, President of the United States and
Leader of the Free World, working and slaving with
every fiber of my being, night and day, three
hundred and sixty-five days a year, for the sole
purpose of
32 OUR GANG
getting myself reelected-where would I find the
time to worry about the rights of anything?
Haven't they any idea what this job is all about?
The whole thing is so patently absurd! And yet
there are those Boy Scouts, in uniform,
marching in the streets of the nation's capitaland
those signs:
GO BACK TO CALIFORNIA,
SENSUALIST, WHERE YOU BELONG
POWER TO THE PENIS? NEVER!
REPRESSION-LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT!
SPIRITUAL COACH (solemnly, taking the arm of
the shaken President) : Mr. President, forgive them,
they know not what their signs say. TRICKY: Oh,
Reverend, Reverend, I assure you, under ordinary
circumstances I would bend over backwards to
forgive them. I like to think that I am the kind of
man who can find it in his heart to forgive his worst
enemy. Why, not only have I forgiven Alger Hiss,
but when I was elected President, I sent him an
anonymous telegram expressing my gratitude for all
he had done in my behalf. And that man was a
perjurer! Listen, I would actually have forgiven
Khrushchev himself, yes, right there in that kitchen,
if it had
TRICKY HAS ANOTHER CRISIS 33
been politically expedient to do so. Just look what I'm
up to right now: I'm in the very process of forgiving
Mao Tse-tung, who by my own estimate has enslaved
six hundred million people!
But I am afraid, Reverend, that where these Boy
Scouts are concerned, we are fighting for a principle so
fundamental to civilized life, that even a man of my
magnanimity must rise up and say "No, this time you
have gone too far." Reverend, they are trying to
prevent me from winning a second term!
SPIRITUAL COACH: I see . . . I see . . . I must
confess that I had not thought of it quite that way.
TRICKY: It is not a pleasant way to have to think
about it. All of us would prefer to look with charity
and respect upon our fellow human beings, whatever
their race, creed, color or age, and to treat them
according to the tenets of our religious beliefs.
Certainly no one in this country wishes to appear more
religious than I do. But sometimes, Reverend, people
just make being religious impossible, even for
someone who stands to gain as much from that
posture as I do. SPIRITUAL COACH: But if such is
the case, if these Boy Scouts, for some
incomprehensible reason, are out to destroy your
political career by casting doubt upon your Sunday
school morality, perhaps it would be best for you to go
on televi-
34 OUR GANG
sion and give the people the facts as they really are. As
you did when they accused you in the 1952 election of
being the recipient of an illegal political fund. The
Checkers Speech. TRICKY (intrigued) : You mean
give it again?
SPIRITUAL COACH: Well, perhaps not the very
same speech.
TRICKY: Why not? It worked.
SPIRITUAL COACH: True. But I wonder, Mr.
President, if it addresses directly the issue at hand.
TRICKY: Maybe not. But you know, Reverend, when
you're dealing with wild and reckless charges like
these, when you're in the midst of a crisis such as this
one, that could snowball overnight into political
disaster, then you sometimes have to do what works,
and leave things like the issues themselves for later.
Otherwise, I'm afraid there might not be any later.
SPIRITUAL COACH: Well, I'm not a politician, Mr.
President, and I must admit that I may be hopelessly
naive to believe that The Truth Shall Make Ye Free.
But I do think that if instead of giving the Checkers
Speech again, instead of itemizing your earnings over
the years and telling how much money you owe your
parents and so on, you were now to make a similar
address, in which you presented to the nation an
itemized account of your sexual experiences, giving
exact dates from your appointment calendar-when,
TRICKY HAS ANOTHER CRISIS 35
where, and with whom-you might well feel secure in
leaving it to the American people to judge whether or
not you are an advocate of fornication.
TRICKY: You mean, go on TV with the appointment
books ...
SPIRITUAL COACH: Yes, and leaf through them
page by page, until at last you come upon an item to
read aloud. I would think the long silences will in
themselves be the most eloquent part of the broadcast.