Philip Roth - Our Gang

MILITARY COACH: But without our firing a shot!

HIGHBROW COACH: The country isn’t going away, General.

TRICKY: Sounds interesting, Professor. But why only one of the five? That strikes me as highly unusual.

HIGHBROW COACH: Well, perhaps, but I was just wondering if we haven’t gone the route with the conspiracy business.

TRICKY: Oh, but it’s so much fun when you get to choose two or three. Each person picks his favorites — and then all the wheeling and dealing, until we come up with the conspiracy that suits everybody.

LEGAL COACH: And, of course, Mr. President, to put in a word here in behalf of the cause of justice, the more choice you’re allowed, the greater the chance of catching the right culprit. My feeling is that just to stay on the safe side, each of us should choose a minimum of three.

SPIRITUAL COACH: I know I’m outside my baili wick again, but if it is going to improve the chances for justice being done, why can’t we choose all five?

MILITARY COACH: Mr. President, I am growing more and more exasperated by the moment. Here we sit, in the comfort and spendor of this fully equipped underground locker room, in full football regalia, deliberating over the niceties of justice, while, with every passing moment, those Boy Scouts are readying themselves for battle against my men. I think it is high time we reminded the Professor that he is no longer up there in his ivory tower, where you can talk yourself blue in the face about this one’s rights and that one’s rights and how many rights fit on the head of a pin. There is an angry mob of Boy Scouts out there, Eagle Scouts among them, and they are growing angrier and more threatening by the moment. I say shoot ‘em and shoot ‘em now!

TRICKY: General, you are a brave soldier and a loyal American. But, I must say, I sense in your remarks a certain disregard for fundamental constitutional liberties such as I have pledged myself to uphold in my oath of office.

MILITARY COACH: Mr. President, I have the highest regard for the Constitution. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have devoted my life to fighting to defend it. But the fact of the matter is, we are playing with a time bomb. Right now it is still only the Boy Scouts. By morning, and I can guarantee you this, their ranks are going to be infiltrated by dissolute Brownies and Cub Scouts looking for adventure. Now it’s one thing to ask my men to mow down Eagle Scouts; it is another for them to have to deal with little boys and girls half that size. Those kids can run like the dickens, and they’re small. As a result, what right now would still be a routine street massacre, will be converted into dangerous house-to-house fighting, in which we are bound to sustain heavy losses by way of our soldiers shooting mistakenly at each other.

TRICKY: I think you know, General, that nobody wants to save the lives of our boys — by that I mean, of course, our men — any more than I do. But I repeat: I will not do so by trampling upon the Constitution. I campaigned for this office as a strict constructionist where the Constitution of this country is concerned, and if I were now to take the course that you suggest and acted to prevent this group from voting in open and honest elections on the Professor’s list, then the American people would have every right to throw me out of office tomorrow.

And let me make one thing perfectly clear: nobody is ever going to do that again. They have thrown me out of office enough in my lifetime! I will not be cast in the role of a loser — of a war, or of anything. And if that means bringing the full firepower of our Armed Forces to bear upon every, last Brownie and Cub Scout in America, then that is what we are going to do. Because the President of the United States and Leader of the Free World can ill afford to be humiliated by anyone, let alone by third- and fourth-graders who have nothing better to do than engage the United States Army in treacherous house-to-house combat. I don’t care if we have to go, into the nursery schools. I don’t care if our men have to fight their way through barricades constructed of lanyards and hula hoops and bubble gum, under a steady barrage of toys being grossly misused as weapons — I, as Commander-in-Chief, will not run from the battle. Not when my prestige is at stake! If I have to call in air strikes over the playgrounds, I will do it! Let’s see them try to bring down B-52’s with their bats and their balls! Let’s see them try to flee from my helicopters on those little tricycles of theirs! No, this mighty giant of a nation of which I am, by extension, the mighty giant of a President, will not have its nose tweaked by a bunch of little brats who should be at home with their homework in the first place!

( All applaud )

Now, as to the voting. Since I am a decisive man, as you can see from my book Six Hundred Crises, I am now going to decide how many of these five enemies of America each of you will be allowed to choose to charge with the crime. Of course, we still have to decide which of the three crimes that the Professor mentioned we’re going to use, but in that it is getting on to morning, perhaps we can put that off to a later date. In the meantime, we will come to a decision as to who is guilty. ( Impish endearing smile ) That’s the best part, anyway!

Now ( back to serious business ), we will proceed in the following manner: the Professor will read his list, and each person present will select as many as he wants, up to three… No, two… No, three… Uh-oh, my lip’s sweating — uh-oh, I think I’m having another crisis! Two! Two! Say two!

POLITICAL COACH: Good going, Mr. President you’ve weathered it!

TRICKY: Wow! That makes six hundred and two crises! Wait’ll I tell the girls what Daddy did!

LEGAL COACH: Mr. President, in that we are to be allowed only two of the candidates from the Professor’s list, may I ask if we can each add two names of our own, should we think we have more that warrant suspicion?

TRICKY:, Well, let me ask you a question. Is this a deal you want to make?

LEGAL COACH: Well, if you want to think of it that way, that’s okay with me.

TRICKY: I’d prefer to. Otherwise it might seem that I was changing my mind because I’m indecisive. But if it’s just a matter of a payoff for something or other you’ll deliver in the future, I think everybody here will understand.

LEGAL COACH: Suits Me.

TRICKY: There we are then. Two from the Professor’s list and two of your own choice.

HIGHBROW COACH: To the list then, gentlemen. is Hanoi. z: The Berrigans. 3: The Black Panthers. 4: Jane Fonda. 5: Curt Flood.

ALL: Curt Flood?

HIGHBROW COACH: Curt… Flood.

SPIRITUAL COACH: But — isn’t he a baseball player?

TRICKY: Was a baseball player. Any questions about baseball players, just ask me, Reverend. Was the center fielder for the Washington Senators. But then he up and ran away. Skipped the country.

HIGHBROW COACH: He did indeed, Mr. President. Curt Flood, born January 18, 1938, in Houston, Texas, bats right, throws right, entered big league baseball in 1956 with Cincinnati, played from ‘58 to ‘69 with the St. Louis Cardinals, presently under contract at a salary of $110,000 a year to the Washington Senators, on the morning of April 27, 1971, with the baseball season not even a month old, boarded a Pan Am flight bound from New York to Barcelona, giving no explanation for his hasty departure other than “personal problems.” Though Flood is known to have purchased a ticket for Barcelona, he apparently disembarked in Lisbonwearing a brown leather jacket, bellbottomed trousers and sunglasses — there to make connections with a flight for his final European destination… The question, gentlemen, is obvious: why, a week to the day before the uprising of the Boy Scouts in Washington, D.C., why did Mr. Curt Flood of the Washington baseball team find it necessary to leave the country in so precipitous and dramatic a fashion?