Philip Roth - Our Gang

“No comment.”

“Secretary Lard, did the President have any other visitors aside from yourself?”

“Yes. The Joint Chiefs. And of course the Professor.”

“And they don’t know the secret timetable either?”

“I told you, nobody knows it but him. That’s what makes it secret.”

“Not even his wife?”

“Well, actually, she thought she had it, when we called her this morning. But it was just an old train schedule between Washington and New York. She found it in one of his suits.”

“There’s no other place he might have left it?”

“It doesn’t seem like it.”

“Cut open the mattresses, did you?”

“Oh, all of that. Ripped up floors. Tore out paneling. Turned the place inside out. No sign of anything resembling a secret timetable.”

“Mr. Secretary, everything you say seems to confirm the rumor that the President is dead. If that is the case, what were you and the joint Chiefs and the Professors doing sitting around a corpse, trying to find out vital information?”

“Well, we also had a medium with us.”

“A medium?”

“Oh, don’t worry. She’s worked for us before. Highest security clearance. Top-flight Gypsy.”

“And did she get through to the President?”

“I believe I can say she did.”

“How do you know?”

“Well, she got through to a voice who kept saying he was a Quaker.”

“And what about the secret timetable?”

“He says a secret is a secret, and he owes it to the American people, who have placed their confidence in him, not to betray a sacred trust. He said they can brand and skewer him in Hell, he’s never going to tell a soul.”

“Honest almost to a fault.”

“Well, he had to be, you know, with that sweating problem. Otherwise people tended not always to believe everything he said.”

“Ladies and gentlemen, that was the Secretary of Defense, speaking directly from the lawn outside of Walter Reed Hospital. As you saw, he was distraught and very near to tears throughout the interview, thus appearing to confirm the reports of the President’s death. We return you to the Vice President, who is now addressing the National Sword Swallowers Association.”

“— the psychotics, the sob sisters, the skin merchants, the saboteurs, the self-styled Sapphos, the self-styled Swinburnes, the swine, the satyrs, the schizos, the sodomists, the sissies, the screamers, the screwy, the scum, the self-congratulatory selfcongratulators, the sensationalists, the snakes in the grass, the sex fiends, the shiftless, the shines, the shaggy, the sickly, the syphilitic—”

We go now to the headquarters of the Federal Bureau of Investigation:

“Is it the same knife that the President demonstrated on television last night, Chief?”

“No doubt about it. Here are the four blades. Count ‘em. One, two, three, four. Open-and-shut case.”

“But my understanding was that some eight thousand such knives —”

“We’ve sifted through the eight thousand, don’t worry about that. And this is the one. This is the murder weapon, no doubt about it.”

“Then the President has been murdered?”

“I can’t tell you that right now. But I can assure you that if there has been a murder, this is what did it.”

“And do you have the murderer in custody?”

“One thing at a time. You rush in and say you’ve got the murderer, everybody thinks you picked up the first guy you could find out on the street. Let’s at least get the announcement of a murder, before we start accusing people.”

“How about the kind of murder. Stabbed to death?”

“Well, there again it’s like, ‘Have you stopped beating your wife.’ But of course I will say this much: with a knife, you may very well find that the victim has been stabbed to death, yes. Of course, there are other possibilities as well, and I can assure you we’re looking into them thoroughly.”

“For instance.”

“Well, you’ve got your bludgeoning, of course. You’ve got your various forms of torture such as the President himself outlined on TV the other night.”

“In other words, it’s possible the President’s famous eyes may have been gouged out.”

“I wouldn’t rule that out at this time, no.”

“But by whom? How? When? Where?”

“Look, as we say here at the Bureau, ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies. The important thing right now is that we want to assure the American people, not only that we are actually on top of this case even before it has broken, but that we are keeping them abreast of the facts virtually before there are any. We just don’t intend to come in for the sort of criticism on this assassination of a President that we did on the last one.”

“What sort of criticism do you mean?”

“Well, last time there was just some kind of cloud over the whole thing, wasn’t there? Credibility gap and so on. People thinking they weren’t getting the straight story. Accusing us of covering up and being caught off guard and so on. Well, this time it’s going to be different, I can assure you. This time we have the weapon and a fairly good idea of who did it beforehand, and we’re really only waiting for word that it actually happened, to make an arrest. After a decent interval, of course, just so it doesn’t look as though we picked up the first poor slob we found in the gutter.”

“Is it a Boy Scout? That is, will it be a Boy Seout, if and when?”

“Well, of course I am only a law enforcement officer. I don’t decide who commits the crimes, I just catch them, after that decision has been made by the proper authorities. I will say this, however. We would not have decided on a Boy Scout knife as the murder weapon, if we didn’t think there was a good strong motive to go with it. That was one of the troubles with the last assassination: didn’t have a good strong motive to go with it. After all, we are talking about the assassination of the highest elected officer in the land. People like a good strong motive when something like that happens, and I can’t say that I blame them. That’s why this time we intend to give it to them. Otherwise, you’re just going to get your national disunity, your credibility gap, your doubt, and your cloud over the whole thing.”

“And you honestly think that this Boy Scout knife will clear up such doubt and incredulity?”

“Why? Don’t you?”

“Well, it’s not for me to say. I’m just an objective reporter.”

“No, no, go ahead, say. What do you think? Just because you’re objective doesn’t necessarily make you a fool. You don’t find the Boy Scout knife convincing? Is that it?”

“But what I think isn’t at issue — either this is or is not the murder weapon.”

“In other words, you’re implying that it does seem to you far-fetched. Good enough. What would you think of this, then?”

“That?”

“Yes, sir — a Louisville Slugger. Curt Flood’s very own baseball bat. Let me show you on this model here of the President’s head the kind of damage you can do with one of these things. Remember, before, when I said ‘bludgeoned’? Well, watch this.”

To the White House now, for an important announcement by the President’s Bilge Secretary. “Ladies and gentlemen, I’d like to make the following announcement concerning the President’s health. At midnight last night the President entered Walter Reed Army Hospital for minor surgery involving the surgical removal of the sweat glands from his upper lip.”

“Can you spell that, Blurb?”

“Lip. L-i-p.”

“And the first word?”

“Upper. U-p-p-e-r… Now as you know, the President has always wanted to do everything he could to gain the trust and the confidence and, if it was within the realm of possibility, the affection of the American people. It was his belief that if he could stop sweating so much along his upper lip when he addressed the nation, the great majority of the American people would come to believe he was an honest man, speaking the truth, and maybe even like him a little better. Now this is not to say that people who sweat Along the upper lip are necessarily liars and/or unlikable. Many people who sweat profusely along the upper lip are outstanding citizens in their communities and sweat the way they do because of the many civic duties they are called upon to perform. Then too there are a lot of good, hard-working ordinary citizens who simply sweat along the upper lip as a matter of course That is really all I have to say to you at this hour, ladies and gentlemen. I wouldn’t have bothered to call you together like this, had it not been for the continuing rumors that it was the President’s ‘hip’ that had required surgery. There is absolutely no truth to that whatsoever, and I wanted you to be the first to know. I hope by tomorrow in fact to have available for you x-ray photos of the President’s hip that will make it absolutely clear that it is in perfect condition.”