Our Gang (11 page)

Number 4: Jane Fonda, the movie actress and

antiwar activist. Number 5: Curt Flood, the

baseball player. Any questions, before we proceed

to the vote. Reverend?

SPIRITUAL COACH:
Jane Fonda. Has she ever

appeared nude in a film?

HIGHBROW COACH:
I can't honestly say I

remember seeing her pudenda on the screen,

Reverend, but I think I can vouch for her breasts.

SPIRITUAL COACH:
With aureole or without?

HIGHBROW COACH:
I believe with.
SPIRITUAL

COACH:
And her buttocks?

HIGHBROW COACH:
Yes, I believe we've seen

her buttocks. Indeed, they constitute a large part

of her appeal.

SPIRITUAL COACH:
Thank you.

HIGHBROW COACH:
Any other questions?
POLITICAL

COACH:
Well, about the Black Panthers-do you

really think that the American

i

72 OUR GANG

people will believe that the Black Panthers are

behind the Boy Scouts? That really does require

quite a bit of imagination.

TRICKY:
Now I take exception there. I don't want to

influence the voting, but I do want to say this: let's

not underestimate the imagination of the American

people. This may seem like old-fashioned

patriotism such as isn't in fashion any more, but I

have the highest regard for their imagination and I

always have. Why, I actually think the American

people can be made to believe anything. These

people, after all, have their fantasies and fears and

superstitions, just like anybody else, and you are

not going to put anything over on them by simply

addressing yourself to the real problems and

pretending that the others don't exist just because

they are imaginary.

HIGHBROW COACH:
I agree wholeheartedly, Mr.

President. May we proceed to the voting?
TRICKY:

By all means ... Of course, gentlemen, these
are

going to be free elections. I want it to be perfectly

clear beforehand that I wouldn't have it otherwise,

unless there were some reason to believe that the

vote might go the wrong way. And I am proud to

say I don't think that's possible here in this locker

room with men of your caliber. You may vote for

any two candidates on the list, and you may, in the

interest of justice, add any two names of your own

choosing. I will write down the votes cast for

TRICKY HAS ANOTHER CRISIS
73

each candidate and tabulate them on this sheet of

paper.

Now you'll see that this is an ordinary sheet of

lined yellow paper such as you might find on any

legal pad. I was a lawyer, you know, before I became

President, so you can be pretty sure that I know the

correct manner in which to use this kind of paper.

In fact, I should like you now to examine the paper

to be sure nothing has been written on it and that it

contains no code markings or secret notations other

than the usual watermark.

HIGHBROW COACH:
I'm sure we all can trust

your description of the piece of paper, Mr.

President.

TRICKY:
I appreciate your confidence, Professor, but

I would still prefer that the four of you examine the

paper thoroughly beforehand, so that afterwards

there cannot be any doubt as to the one hundred

percent honesty of this electoral procedure. (He

hands the paper
around
to each) Good! Now for a

free election! Suppose we begin with you, Reverend.

SPIRITUAL COACH:
Well, really, I'm in a tizzy. I

mean, I know for sure that I want to vote for Jane

Fonda-but after her I just can't make up my mind.

Curt Flood is so tempting.

HIGHBROW COACH:
Vote for both then.

TRICKY:
Or suppose you think it through a little

longer and we'll come back to you. General?

74

MILITARY COACH
(belligerently): Hanoi and

Haiphong!

TRICKY:
In other words, that's your write-in vote,

Haiphong.

MILITARY COACH:
Mine, and every loyal American's,

Mr. President!

TRICKY:
Fair enough. (Records vote) Next.

POLITICAL COACH:
I'll take Hanoi, too.
TRICKY:

With or without Haiphong?

POLITICAL COACH:
I think I like it just by

itself.

TRICKY:
And, anything else?

POLITICAL COACH:
No, thank you, Mr. President-I

stick.

TRICKY:
Okay, time to hear the voice of Justice.

LEGAL COACH:
The Berrigans, the Panthers, Curt

Flood.

TRICKY:
Slowly, please, slowly. I want to be sure to

get it right. The Berrigans . . . The Panthers .. . Curt

Flood ... But that's three. You're allowed only two.

LEGAL COACH:
I understand that, Mr. President.

But in that my predecessors have each used only

one from the Professor's list of five, it did not seem

to me a violation of the spirit of the law, if I took

up some of the slack. I am a great believer, as I

think you are, sir, in the spirit of the law, if not the

letter.

TRICKY:
Well, okay, if that's the reason: Do you want

now to add any names of your own?

TRICKY HAS ANOTHER CRISIS
75

LEGAL COACH:
As a matter of fact, Mr. President, I

do.

TRICKY:
One or two?

LEGAL COACH:
As a matter of fact, Mr. President,

five.

TRICKY:Five? But you were the one who made
up

the rule about only two.

LEGAL COACH:
And I stand by it, Mr. President

or would, under the circumstances such as existed at

the time I suggested it. But I am dealing at this

moment with what I can only call "a clear and

present danger." I am afraid, Mr. President, that if I

were to submit only two of these
five
names that I

have just this minute come up with, this

administration would be in the most serious clear

and present danger you can imagine of appearing to

be out of its mind. If, on the other hand, the five

names are submitted together, thus suggesting some

kind of plot,
a
charge that might otherwise have

appeared, at best, to be an opportunistic and vicious

attack on two individuals we don't happen to like,

will take on an air of the plausible in the mind of the

nation, such as it is.

Surely, Mr. President, you will permit me at least

to read the names of the five. This is, after all, a free

country where even the man in the street can say

what's on his mind, provided it isn't so provocative

that it might lead somebody in another state, who

doesn't even hear it, to riot. It would be a sad irony

indeed, if the man who is this nation's bulwark

against those very riots that such freedom of speech

tends to
in
spire, was to be denied his rights under

the First Amendment.

TRICKY:
It would, it would. And you can rest assured

that so long as I am President that particular sad

irony-if I understand it correctly-is not going to

happen.

LEGAL COACH:
Thank you, Mr. President. Now

try not to think of the five individually, but rather as

a kind of secret gang, protected, as much as

anything, by the seeming disparateness of individual

personality and profession.
I:
the folk singer, Joan

Baez: the Mayor of New York, John Lancelot. 3: the

dead rock musician, Jimi Hendrix. 4: the TV star,

Johnny Carson ...
ALL:
Johnny Carson?

LEGAL COACH
(smiling) : Who better to be acquitted?

It's always best, you see, to have one acquitted,

especially if he appears to have been unjustly

accused in the first place. It provides the jury with a

means of funneling all their uncertainty in one

direction, makes them feel they've been fair about

the whole thing. Makes the convictions themselves

look better all around. And, of course, freeing

Johnny Carson, you'll be freeing the most popular

man in America (besides yourself, Mr. President).

Why,' we can even, midway through the trial, have

the Pres

TRICKY HAS ANOTHER CRISIS
77

ident step in and make a statement in Carson's

behalf. Exactly as he did about Manson, only the

other way around this time. Imagine, the whole

country crying "Free Johnny!" and the President

going on TV and casting serious doubt on the

charges raised against this great entertainer.
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

78
OUR GANG

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 thatabout

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?