Philip Roth - Our Gang

TRICKY: And then when he’s free, I could have a press conference! Wouldn’t that be something? I could say, “H-e-e-e-re’s Johnny,” and he could come out from behind the curtain and do his cute little golf stroke! He could make jokes about being in jail with the other conspirators. Maybe he could even wear a ball and chain and a striped suit!

POLITICAL COACH: Fantastic! And we could do it on prime time the night before the election. While Musty is boring their pants off about how honest the pine trees are in Maine, we’ll be on TV with Johnny Carson!

LEGAL COACH: And that’s not all, gentlemen. You have not yet heard the name of the fifth conspirator.

POLITICAL COACH: Merv Griffin!

LEGAL COACH: No, not Merv Griffin… Jacqueline Charisma Colossus.

( Stunned silence )

Daring, yes. Absurd? I think not. Consider first, gentlemen, that like the other four conspirators, her Christian name too begins with a “J”. Now you cannot imagine the mileage we can get out of a seemingly nonsensical fact like that. Overnight the newspapers and the TV commentators are going to begin calling them “The Five J’s,” thereby linking them together in the public mind as though they were the Dionne quintuplets, or the New York Knicks. Just by that ruse alone, we will have moved halfway toward a conviction. Inevitably there will be speculation we’ll see to that about the relationship between Mrs. Colossus and Mayor Lancelot. Isn’t it about time that we turned those looks of his to our advantage instead of his? Then too there is the former First Lady’s bitterness toward her own country, as manifested in her decision to marry a foreigner and live in a foreign country.

POLITICAL COACH: Well, it isn’t exactly as though she’s living in Peking or Hanoi, you know.

LEGAL COACH: I’ve considered that, and I think that the wisest course to follow is not to mention the name of the country itself. We’ll just keep saying foreign — suggesting intrigue and despots and shady operations — and hope that nobody will remember it’s only Greece.

POLITICAL COACH: Jackie and Lancelot — I’ve got to admit, we’re going to get the headlines on this one. But why Jimi Hendrix, if he’s dead?

LEGAL COACH: Because we haven’t had a rock performer yet. And personally I think the parents of the country are ready to hang one of those bastards. We’ll start cautiously, however, with a dead one. And if we don’t pick up any flak there, we’ll get ourselves a live one in time for, the election… And, of course, last but not least, his name begins with a “J.”

TRICKY: I must say, from the sound of it, you certainly appear to have thought this through in all its ramifications in only about five minutes. The political advantages to be gained by associating Lancelot and the Charisma name with rock singers and folk singers seem to be inestimable. And indicting and then freeing Johnny Carson is probably just about the most fantastic opportunity for self-aggrandizement I’ve come upon since Hiss.

LEGAL COACH: Thank you, Mr. President.

TRICKY: But — and this is a very big but — there is the rule, of your own devising, that we all agreed to earlier. Yes, I know you see this as “a clear and present danger” to the party — but I happen to see it as nothing short of a tremendous boon.

Consequently, I am not going to allow you to submit these five names. But — and here is an even bigger but — but, because the five are inextricably linked by their first initial, I am going to ask you rather to submit them as though they were one. And to indicate that they are to be tabulated as one and not five, I am going to place a large bracket there in the margin, like so… See? I want all of you to see. I have just done exactly as I said I would. Please take a good long look so that afterwards there is no cause to question the honesty of these proceedings. ( All examine the bracket and agree it is a bracket, just as the President said ) Now then, Professor. Your vote.

HIGHBROW COACH: I cast my vote for Curt Flood and Curt Flood alone. Not only is his a fresh name to a country that is growing pretty weary of the Berrigans and the Panthers — and, with all due respect, is sick to death of Jacqueline Charisma — but on top of that he is, as I said earlier, someone we can slander and vilify without any danger of turning him into a hero or a martyr. In the argot of baseball, he is a natural.

TRICKY: Very good. ( Records the vote ) And, Reverend? Have you reached a final decision? You can’t say I haven’t given you time to make a wise choice.

SPIRITUAL COACH: No, I can’t. Only I’m afraid that having listened to everything that’s been said, I’m really more confused now than when I began. I mean I’m still very much for Jane Fonda. She is still far and away my first choice. but once I get beyond her — well, I just can’t make up my mind. And it really would be terrible to do the wrong thing, wouldn’t it, given the gravity and seriousness of what we’re about…? ( To the General ) Excuse me, but who did you vote for again?

MILITARY COACH: Hanoi and Haiphong.

SPIRITUAL COACH ( to Political Coach ): And you?

POLITICAL COACH: Hanoi, without Haiphong.

SPIRITUAL COACH ( to Legal Coach ): And you have the five-in-one-and what were the others?

LEGAL COACH: Berrigans, Panthers and Flood.

SPIRITUAL COACH ( throwing his hands up ): Oh, this is just impossible! Each one sounds better than the one before! Oh — the heck with it! Eeny, meeny, miney, moe… Okay! Jane Fonda and Curt Flood! Done!

TRICKY: ( Records the Reverend’s vote ) Now that all the ballots have been cast, gentlemen, I am going once again to pass this sheet of paper among you so that you may be certain that your votes have been correctly tabulated. Even the President of the United States, you know, is capable of making a clerical error, and if he has, he certainly hopes that he can be a big enough man to admit it. ( He passes the paper among them )

LEGAL COACH: Jimi Hendrix, Mr. President the first name is spelled J-i-m-i, not J-i-m-m-y, as you’ve written it here.

TRICKY: Well, let’s correct it then, because that is just the sort of error, inadvertently made, that tends to be totally misconstrued by the press. Now I never claimed to know how to spell the names of every colored person in this country, but I will tell you this much: where someone’s name is concerned, colored or not, he has a constitutional right to have it spelled correctly on any indictment that is handed down on him, no matter how absurd or outrageous the charges themselves. And so long as I am President, I am going to make every effort to see that this is done. Now, J-i-m what?

LEGAL COACH: I.

TRICKY: J-i-m-i. There. And I’ll initial the change, just to make clear exactly who is responsible for both the error and the correction. There! Now I only wish that the wonderful colored people of this country could have seen the scrupulosity with which I attended to a matter seemingly so picayune as this one. Oh sure, the media would still find something to carp about, you can bank on that. But I am certain, if I know the great majority of good, hard-working colored people in this country, that the time I just took from my pressing duties as President of the United States and Leader of the Free World to correct a single letter in one of their names would not have gone unnoticed and unappreciated. Call me a dreamer; call me a believer in humanity; call me, as the song has it, a’cockeyed optimist; and be sure to call me a big man too, for admitting to my error; but I am sure that they would understand just how difficult a problem this is for us to solve, given the kinds of ways they spell those names of theirs, and I think they would have that wonderful wisdom, such as comes to people who work in menial occupations, to realize that a job of these proportions is not going to be completed overnight, and that consequently we are not about to be bullied into spelling their names correctly by marches or demonstrations or mule trains parked on the White House lawn. We will spell them right but in our own sweet time, and according to our own secret timetable, on earth as it is in Heaven.