Philip Roth: Our Gang

MR. CATCH-ME-IN-A-CONTRADICTION: Mr. President, what startles me is that up until today you have been characterized, and not unwillingly, I think, as someone who, if he is not completely out of touch with the styles and ideas of the young, has certainly been skeptical of their wisdom. Doesn’t this constitute, if I may use the word, a radical about-face; coming out now for the rights of those who are not simply “young” but actually in the gestation period?

TRICKY: Well, I am glad you raised that point, because I think it shows once and for all just how flexible I am, and how I am always willing to listen and respond to an appeal from any minority group, no matter how powerless, just so long as it is reasonable, and is not accompanied by violence and foul language and throwing paint. If ever there was proof that you don’t have to camp on the White House lawn to get the President’s attention away from a football game, I think it is in the example of these little organisms. I tell you, they have really impressed me with their silent dignity and politeness. I only hope that all Americans will come to be as proud of our unborn as I am.

MR. FASCINATED: Mr. President, I am fascinated by the technological aspect. Can you give us just an inkling of how exactly the unborn will go about casting their ballots? I’m particularly fascinated by these embryos on the placenta, who haven’t even developed nervous systems yet, let alone limbs such as we use in an ordinary voting machine.

TRICKY: Well, first off, let me remind you that nothing in our Constitution denies a man the right to vote just because he is physically handicapped. That isn’t the kind of country we have here. We have many wonderful handicapped people in this country, but of course, they’re not “news” the way the demonstrators are.

MR. FASCINATED: I wasn’t suggesting, sir, that just because these embryos don’t have central nervous systems they should be denied the right to vote — I was thinking again of the fantastic mechanics of it. How, for instance, will the embryos be able to weigh the issues and make intelligent choices from among the candidates, if they are not able to read the newspapers or watch the news on television?

TRICKY: Well, it seems to me that you have actually touched upon the very strongest claim that the unborn have for enfranchisement, and why it is such a crime they have been denied the vote for so long. Here, at long last, we have a great bloc of voters who simply are not going to be taken in by the lopsided and distorted versions of the truth that are presented to the American public through the various media. Mr. Reasonable.

MR. REASONABLE: But how then will they make up their minds, or their yolks, or their nuclei, or whatever it is they have in there, Mr. President? It might seem to some that they are going to be absolutely innocent of whatever may be at stake in the election.

TRICKY: Innocent they will be, Mr. Reasonable — but now let me ask you, and all our television viewers, too, a question: what’s wrong with a little innocence? We’ve had the foul language, we’ve had the cynicism, we’ve had the masochism and the breast-beating — maybe a big dose of innocence is just what this country needs to be great again.

MR. REASONABLE: More innocence, Mr. President?

TRICKY: Mr. Reasonable, if I have to choose between the rioting and the upheaval and the strife and the discontent on the one hand, and more innocence on the other, I think I will choose the innocence. Mr. Hardnose.

MR. HARDNOSE: In the event, Mr. President, that all this does come to pass by the ‘72 elections, what gives you reason to believe that the enfranchised embryos and fetuses will vote for you over your Democratic opponent? And what. about Governor Wallow? Do you think that if he should run again, he would significantly cut into your share of the fetuses, particularly in the South?

TRICKY: Let me put it this way, Mr. Hardnose: I have the utmost respect for Governor George Wallow of Alabama, as I do for Senator Hubert Hollow of Minnesota. They are both able men, and they speak with great conviction, I am sure, in behalf of the extreme right and the extreme left. But the fact is that I never heard either of these gentlemen, for all their extremism, raise their voices in behalf of America’s most disadvantaged group of all, the unborn.

Consequently, I would be less than candid if I didn’t say that when election time rolls around, of course the embryos and fetuses of this country are likely to remember just who it was that struggled in their behalf, while others were addressing themselves to the more popular and fashionable issues of the day. I think they will remember who it was that devoted himself, in the midst of a war abroad and racial crisis at home, to making this country a fit place for the unborn to dwell in pride. My only hope is that whatever I am able to accomplish in their behalf while I hold this office will someday contribute to a world in which everybody, regardless of race, creed, or color, will be unborn. I guess if I have a dream, that is it. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.

MR. ASSLICK: Thank you, Mr. President.

Tricky is dressed in the football uniform he wore during his four years on the bench at Prissier College. It is still as spanking new as the day it was issued to him some forty years ago, despite the fact that when he finds himself at night so perplexed and anguished by the burdens of the Presidency as to be unable to fall off to sleep, he frequently rises from his bed and steals down through the White House to the blast-proof underground locker room (built under his direction to specifications furnished by the Baltimore Colts and the Atomic Energy Commission) and “suits up,” as though for “the big game” against Prissier’s “traditional rival.” And invariably, as during the Cambodian incursion and the Kent State killings, simply to don shoulder guards, cleats and helmet, to draw the snug football pants up over his leather athletic supporter and then to turn his back to the mirror and catch a peek over his big shoulders at the number on his back, is enough to restore his faith in the course of action he has taken in behalf of two hundred million Americans. Indeed, even in the midst of the most incredible international blunders and domestic catastrophes, he has till now, with the aid of his football uniform, and a good war movie, been able to live up to his own description of the true leader in Six Hundred Crises as “cool, confident and decisive.”

“What is essential in such situations,” he wrote there, summarizing what he had learned about leadership from the riots inspired by his 1958 visit, as Vice President, to Caracas, “is not so much ‘bravery’ in the face of danger as the ability to think ‘selflessly’ — to blank out any thought of personal fear by concentrating completely on how to meet the danger.”

But tonight not even barking signals at the fulllength mirror and pretending to fade back, arm cocked, to spot a downfield receiver (while being charged by the opposing line) has he been able to blank out thoughts of personal fear; and as for thinking “selflessly,” he has not been mak ing much headway in that department either. Having run plays before the mirror for two full hours — having completed eighty-seven out of one hundred attempted forward passes for a total of two thousand six hundred and ten yards gained in the air in one night (a White House record) — he is nonetheless unable to concentrate on how to meet the danger before him, and so has decided to awaken his closest advisers and summon them to the underground locker room for what is known in football parlance as a “skull session.” At the door to the White House, each has been issued a uniform by a Secret Service agent, disguised, but for a shoulder holster, as an ordinary locker room attendant in sweat pants, sneakers and T-shirt stenciled “Property of the White House.” Now, seated on benches before the big blackboard, the “coaches” listen carefully as Tricky, with his helmet in his hands, describes to them the crisis he is having trouble being entirely selfless about.