by Philip Roth
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 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?
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?
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 inspire, 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. 1: the folk singer, Joan Baez. 2: 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 President 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 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 pa
rents 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 me 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 is 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 here 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.
SPIRITUAL COACH: Amen.
TRICKY: And, my friends, on that sanctimonious note, I am going to call this conference to a close. At ten A.M., we shall meet to settle upon the exact nature of the crime. In the meantime, I will remain here in the locker room, in uniform …
SPIRITUAL COACH: Mr. President, it is nearly dawn. You must get some rest. You must take your helmet off and go to bed.
TRICKY: I couldn’t sleep now, Reverend, if I tried. Not with a smear campaign of this magnitude before me.
SPIRITUAL COACH: But a man has only so much to give …
TRICKY: When it comes to something like this, Reverend, I have to say, immodest as it may sound, I am indefatigable. No, I will remain in uniform, helmet and all, and with the aid of the ballots you have cast here in this free election, I will hammer out, in the lonely vigil of the night, the conspiracy that seems to me most beneficial to my career. I only hope and pray that I am equal to the task. Good night, gentlemen, and thank you.
ALL: Good night, Mr. President. (They rise to leave)
TRICKY: And don’t forget to hand in your uniforms at the door. I won’t mention names, but I understand that last time one of you tried to smuggle his out, under his street clothes, in order to show off at home to his wife and children. Of course, I understand the temptation. How many times have I wanted to address the nation in my shoulder guards! I’ve never told this to a soul, but strictly between us, at the time of the Cambodian incursion, I did go on nationwide TV, unbeknownst to everyone, wearing my regulation National Football League athletic supporter. I just couldn’t help myself. I’d seen Patton and I’d invaded Cambodia, and I guess the whole thing went to my head. Of course, not a word beyond these four walls: if any of my critics found out, well, you know how they like to jump on Dixon. All I have to do is wear a football player’s jockstrap on TV while making a foreign policy speech and the morning papers would have me pegged as a psychopath. Down here in the secret underground locker room, it’s one thing—up there in the real world, banker’s gray!
ALL: You can trust us with your secrets, Mr. President.
TRICKY (moved): I know I can … All right, then. It remains only for each of you, as he passes from the room, to slap me on the behind the way the pros do coming out of the huddle. And don’t forget to say, “Way to go, Tricky D, way to go!”
4
Tricky Addresses
the Nation
(The
Famous “Something Is Rotten in
the State of Denmark” Speech)
Good evening, my fellow Americans.
I come before you tonight with a message of national importance. While it is true that I do not intend to offer you false hope by minimizing the nature of the crisis confronting our nation at this hour, I do not believe there is cause for any such alarm as you may have seen or heard in the news media from those critical of the decisions I have reached in the last twenty-four hours.
Now I know there are always those who would prefer that we take a weak, cowardly and dishonorable position in the face of a crisis. They of course are entitled to their opinion. I am certain, however, that the great majority of the American people will agree that the actions I have taken in the confrontation between the United States of America and the sovereign state of Denmark are indispensable to our dignity, our honor, our moral and spiritual idealism, our credibility around the world, the soundness of the economy, our greatness, our dedication to the vision of our forefathers, the human spirit, the divinely inspired dignity of man, our treaty commitments, the principles of the United Nations, and progress and peace for all people.
Now no one is more aware than I am of the political consequences of taking bold and forthright action in behalf of our dignity, idealism and honor, to choose just three. But I would rather be a one-term President and take these noble, heroic measures against the state of Denmark, than be a two-term President by accepting humiliation at the hands of a tenth-rate military power. I want to make that perfectly clear.
Let me tell you now the measures I have ordered taken to deal with Denmark, and the reasons for my decision. (Picks up his pointer and turns to map of Scandinavia)
First: despite the treacherous manner in which the Pro-Pornography government in Copenhagen has moved against the United States, I have responded swiftly and effectively to gain the military initiative. At this very moment, the American Sixth Fleet, dispatched by my order to the Baltic and the North Seas, is in complete command of the waterways to and from Denmark, as indicated on this map. (Points to the Bal-tic Sea and the North Sea) Aircraft carriers, troop ships and destroyers have been placed in a strategic ring around the Danish peninsula of Jutland (points) and the numerous adjacent Danish islands, all of which you see here colored in red. Taken together these territories make Denmark approximately as large (turns to map of United States) as the wonderful states of New Hampshire and Vermont, famous for their beautiful autumn foliage and delicious maple syrup, and collored here in white.