Our Gang

by Philip Roth

  Let’s begin here, with the smallest of the four blades. In the language of those who employ such weapons, it is known as “the bottle opener.” I’ll tell you how it got that name in a moment. You will observe that it is hook-shaped at the end, and measures one inch and one-eighth. It is employed during the interrogation of prisoners primarily to gouge out one or both of the eyes. It is also used on the soles of the feet, which are sliced open, like so, with the point of the hook. Last, but not least, it is sometimes inserted into the mouth of a prisoner who will not talk, in order to slit the flesh at the upper part of the larynx, between the vocal cords. That opening up there is called the glottis, and “bottle opener” is derived from “glottal opener,” the pet name originally attached to the blade by its most cold-blooded practitioners.

  This second largest blade, measuring one inch and three-quarters, tapers to a point and probably looks to you to be a miniature bayonet. Do not be fooled by appearances. It has nothing to do with bayonets such as those our brave soldiers found it necessary to fix to their rifles in self-defense during the two-day Boy Scout uprising. This little blade is known as “the leather punch,” and far from being an instrument of self-defense, it is yet another torture device, along the lines of the bottle opener. As its name suggests, it is used to punch holes in human flesh, or “leather” as the flesh is called by revolutionaries who consider their enemies to be no more than animals. It will come as no surprise to you to learn that it is most frequently driven into the palms of the hands, much the same way that the nails were in the movie The Greatest Story Ever Told.

  Now this third blade, an eighth of an inch longer than the leather punch, is also wider and less tapered, and has a flat rather than a pointed end. It is known as “the screwdriver.” Traditionally, it is inserted into the groove between the nails and the flesh and turned in a rotary fashion, like so. However, we know from intelligence reports that the screwdriver may also on occasion be introduced into bodily apertures, of which the nostrils and the ears are the only ones I shall choose to make mention of on nationwide television. Some of my political opponents may think otherwise—and they have every right to disagree with my position—but I, for one, have never believed it necessary to used bad language to make my point, and I have no intention of resorting to those kinds of tactics in the midst of a major address to the nation.

  This last blade of the four is probably the one you’re most familiar with from your nightmares. Two inches and three-quarters in length, nine-sixteenths of an inch at its widest point, it has a sharp cutting edge that I shall demonstrate for you on this piece of paper.

  Incidentally, it is no accident that printed on this piece of paper is the Preamble to the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the oft-quoted and much beloved Ten Commandments, with their famous “Thou shalt nots.” As you all remember, these same Ten Commandments provided the wonderful and inspiring background for another motion picture of great spiritual value that I am sure the great majority of American families enjoyed as much as our family did. I don’t think I am too far afield when I say that what you see printed on this sheet of paper (close-up of paper) is just about everything we believe in and cherish as a people.

  I want you to watch as I demonstrate what this blade can do in a matter of seconds to all that you and I hold near and dear.

  (He slices the piece of paper into one-inch strips and then holds them up for the audience to see)

  Of course you can peel apples with a blade like this, you can slice your potatoes for frying and you can cut up your cucumbers, radishes, tomatoes, onions and celery for salad. And I am sure that those who would seek to exonerate these three Scouts will maintain that it was only to prepare a delicious salad such as I described that they secreted these weapons upon their belts and carried them hundreds of miles across state lines to the nation’s capital. I am afraid that whether it is knife-carrying Boy Scouts or card-carrying Communists, there will always be a handful of apologists around to come to their defense.

  My fellow Americans, I want to leave it to you, and not to the apologists, to decide. I ask you to look at this knife, with all four of its blades unsheathed, blades capable of inflicting physical torment of a kind that goes all the way back to the Crucifixion and beyond. I ask you to look at this four-pronged instrument of torture. I ask you to look at what just one of those blades was able to do to the Preamble to the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the beloved Ten Commandments. And now I ask you if you think there is anything at all to be said in defense of three Boy Scouts carrying such knives into the nation’s capital.

  And incidentally, in that connection, these were not the only three Boy Scouts in Washington bearing concealed weapons on their belts. These were only the three we happened to kill. In all, a total of eight thousand four hundred and sixty-three knives, each resembling this one in every last detail, were confiscated during the two days the Scouts were here. That means a grand total of thirty-three thousand, eight hundred and fifty-two blades, or enough blades to torture simultaneously every single resident of Chevy Chase, Maryland, including women and children.

  Now you ask, how did we prevent this bloodbath from taking place in Chevy Chase? The answer is by setting up an enclosed camping site for the Scouts who were not shot. The answer is by diverting their attention from violence and lawbreaking by giving them a chance to test their scouting abilities overnight in a wilderness environment without food or shelter.

  And let me tell you something: it is to the very great credit of the scouting movement in this country, that once we were able to get these boys off the streets and into a rugged camping situation—and we have the police to thank for volunteering their help in getting all the boys out there—they showed themselves worthy in every way of their famous motto, “Be Prepared.”

  Let’s take a look at just a few of their accomplishments:

  First, in the absence of toilet facilities, they did a tremendous job in disposing of their waste matter and the leaves they used for personal hygiene.

  Next, what little water they had in their canteens, they shared in an admirable way, or so it would seem from the fact that not a single one of the nearly ten thousand died of thirst. Nor did they make the mistake of drinking from, or even daring to bathe in, the pond at the campsite, so familiar were they with the danger signs of sewage and stagnation.

  Now anyone familiar with Boy Scout training could have expected that they would be able to use their kerchiefs as tourniquets to stop one another’s bleeding, but few of us believed they could ever do the kind of near professional job they did making splints out of vines and branches and shirts torn up into rags.

  As for eating, well, I’m proud to say that by morning they had discovered edible roots and berries we didn’t even know were there. And as for warmth, as you could expect, they managed during the night to start several fires in the classic Boy Scout manner of rubbing two sticks together.

  In all, what might have been a nightmare for the citizens of Chevy Chase, Maryland, was converted into wonderful scouting experience for the boys themselves, and one that I’m sure they’ll remember for a long time to come. I know that when the police vans returned this morning to take them away, many of the boys were reluctant to leave the campsite. So anxious were some to spend another night under the stars, and away from the so-called “comforts” of civilization such as medical attention, lawyers, telephones and food, that it was necessary for the police to chase after them and literally drag them off the premises and into the waiting trucks. With fewer and fewer opportunities available to our youth for “roughing it,” this administration naturally takes pride in what we were able to do for these youngsters last night. Moreover, we have given them every assurance that if and when they ever come to Washington again, we will make every effort to provide them with the same facilities, or ones even more primitive, if we can find any.

  Now I know that many of you out there across the country are asking yourselves why I should be making such a ge
nerous offer to the Scouts. Why do I praise them for their behavior at the campsite? Why am I willing to forgive these youngsters and give them another chance to make a decent start in life? It must seem to those of you who saw the Scouts waving their signs here in the streets of the nation’s capital—signs offensive and insulting not only to me but, what is far worse, to my innocent family—that I more than anyone have a right to harbor a grievance against these ten thousand Boy Scouts; and particularly against the three who are now dead and will never be able to come to me like responsible children and apologize for trying to smear my reputation. Why, you may ask, am I so compassionate, judicious, charitable, tolerant and wise, when it was my very own political career that stood to be most damaged by these signs?

  Well, those are good and intelligent questions. Let me try to answer them as forthrightly as I know how.

  My fellow Americans, it is as simple as this (quickly passes a sponge over his upper lip and slips it back into his breast pocket): I would rather be a one-term President than carry a grudge against a lot of twelve-and thirteen-year-old American kids. Oh sure, somebody else might try to make political capital out of a vendetta against these youngsters, calling them hoodlums and bums and rotten apples, but I am afraid I am just too big a man for that. As far as I am concerned, these boys have learned their lesson, as they proved at the campsite; and that goes for the three dead Scouts as well. Even if those three dead boys don’t come and apologize, as far as I am concerned the past is past and I for one am willing to forgive and forget. For make no mistake about it: while it is true that I am strongly opposed to permissiveness, I am just as opposed to vindictiveness. I no more believe in punishing a wrongdoer to excess than I would subscribe to the liberal philosophy that allows a criminal to go merrily on his way, after he has committed a crime.

  But of even greater importance, I just don’t think we ever cure a disease by treating one of its symptoms. Rather, we must get to the cause of the illness. And certainly you know as well as I do, that the cause of America’s problems is not the Boy Scouts of America. Nobody is ever going to believe that, and that is why I don’t even attempt to make a case for it.

  No, the Boy Scouts of America—and I think this will come as a relief to all of you—are no more guilty of anything than you are or I am. They are just another group of American youngsters who have fallen prey to that small dedicated band of malcontents and revolutionaries who are out to destroy our country by destroying our most important natural resource of all, our wonderful youth. And unless we cut these sources of contagion from our society as swiftly and thoroughly as we would excise a cancer from a living body—and I know we are all united in our opposition to cancer, Democrats and Republicans alike—this disease that has spread even to the Boy Scouts will grow in virulence until it has infected every last child in the land, including your own. And so long as I am President, I am not going to stand idly by while the children of this country come down with cancer, leukemia, or, incidentally in that connection, muscular dystrophy.

  No, it is not the Boy Scouts of America, but the man who incited them to this riot by tampering with their morals who must be made to take the punishment that comes to all who would corrupt the youth of our nation. And that man, my fellow Americans, is the very same fugitive for whom the Pro-Pornography government in Copenhagen is providing refuge at this moment.

  Now I cannot divulge to you over nationwide television the overwhelming evidence compiled by the Justice Department and the FBI, linking Charles Curtis Flood to the uprising of the Boy Scouts. We all know, however, the tremendous influence that major league baseball players have over the minds and hearts of the young boys of this nation. I am sure that anyone who remembers how he himself idolized the great ballplayers of his youth, will not even need the evidence in order to imagine just how Charles Curtis Flood might misuse and mislead these boys for his own subversive ends.

  I am afraid that is all I can say to you tonight about the evidence proving Flood’s guilt. As one who has practiced law, I am particularly sensitive to the Constitutional rights which every defendant is entitled to. And I certainly do not intend to endanger the chances of a conviction by appearing to try this fugitive on nationwide TV. Once he is returned to America, he will be entitled to a fair trial, despite what he has done, and by a jury that has not been prejudiced against him by so august a person as the President of the United States of America.

  Right now, as your President, my duty is to do everything within my power to see that this fugitive from justice is returned to our shores. Of course, we have never expected of Flood that he would voluntarily leave his sanctuary in Denmark, given the kinds of pleasures such a man might feel free to pursue in a country with customs that are hardly those of our own. And if Flood is incapable of tearing himself away from his pleasures so as to face the consequences of his vicious actions, neither has the Pro-Pornography government in Copenhagen done anything whatsoever to force him to surrender himself to the proper authorities for extradition. On the contrary, they have rejected out of hand every legitimate request we have made of them. Even now, with the American Army massed on their borders, the American Navy blockading their coast, and the American Marines firmly in control of “Hamlet’s Castle,” they continue to provide him with the same protection from the law that they provide to pornographers and filth peddlers from around the globe.

  I know that in the face of such profound contempt for American power and prestige, the great majority of Americans would agree that I have no choice but to order our troops onto Danish soil so as to establish the D.A.R. as the freely elected government in Copenhagen. However, I want to tell you this: because of my Quaker background, I have, only two hours ago, made one last valiant effort to bring about a peaceful resolution of our differences with Denmark. I am going to conclude my address to you tonight by recounting in some detail the nature of that effort. It is a story of bravery and devotion to country that every American will be proud of. It is a story that will convince the entire world how very far this great nation has gone in its attempt to avoid the armed confrontation that the state of Denmark seems committed to forcing upon us.

  My fellow Americans, only two hours before coming on television to address you, I gave the order, as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces meeting his responsibilities, for a fleet of helicopters to make a surprise landing on the large Danish island of Zealand at a spot right here (points), only twenty nautical miles from the capital of Copenhagen.

  Now I realized how dangerous such a gallant humanitarian effort might be. So did the brave Green Berets and Rangers who volunteered to carry it out. Not only would they have to fly in at treetop level to avoid detection by the Danish radar system, but there was no precise way of telling the exact size of the arsenal that Flood had managed to assemble, with the approval, if not the outright assistance, of the Danish government. Would he resort to poison gas? Would he dare to employ tactical nuclear weapons? There was no way in which our aerial photography could penetrate this man’s skull, to see just how far he would go in violating the written and unwritten rules of warfare.

  But in that reconnaissance by satellite, as well as by manned and drone aircraft, had established beyond a shadow of a doubt that this was where the fugitive was in hiding; and in that I also knew that there was no way to force the Danish government to return Flood to the United States, short of the armed conflict which I am so opposed to as a Quaker, I proceeded to give the order for this raid to take place.

  Designed to capture Flood, remove him by helicopter to Elsinore, and hence by military jet to America, the mission was named, by me, Operation Courage, and assigned to Joint Contingency Task Force Derring-Do.

  It is with deep pride, my fellow Americans, that I can now tell you that Operation Courage has been carried out to perfection, exactly in accordance with the meticulously rehearsed schedule drawn up beforehand.

  First off, the dangerous flight from Elsinore to the landing site was made in twenty-two minut
es and fourteen seconds, precisely according to the plan. Next, the hazardous search of the farmhouse, the outbuildings and the tilled acreage was accomplished in thirty-four minutes and eighteen seconds; in other words, with two full seconds to spare. The ticklish evacuation proceedings required precisely the seven minutes called for in the schedule, and the daring return flight to Elsinore, at treetop level, was accomplished in twenty-two minutes flat. That is not only four seconds under the time allotted, but I am proud to say, a new record for that distance for a Danish domestic helicopter flight. Moreover, our forces returned to safety without sustaining a single casualty. As at Elsinore, the enemy was so completely taken by surprise that they did not fire a single shot.

  I am proud to tell you that the intelligence on Operation Courage was equally as impressive as the split-second timing with which this perilous mission was accomplished.

  First, the seven blond-haired females who were identified on the aerial photos moving in and out of the farmhouse at all hours of the day were present at the time of the landing. They were found, as expected, in beds scattered throughout the house, and taken immediately into custody for interrogation by the Green Berets, as was the couple claiming to be their “father” and “mother.” The blond-haired females found in the beds in various stages of undress ranged in age from seven to eighteen.

  Second, the dark round objects visible in the aerial photographs and identified positively by intelligence as watermelons, were no longer in the field, or “patch,” at the time of the landing, nor was there evidence any longer of the watermelon vines themselves. This has led intelligence to conclude that only hours before the raid, the telltale watermelons were removed and replaced with the ordinary rocks and potato plants found at the time of the landing. Obviously, this constituted a desperate last-minute attempt on the part of the fugitive to avoid detection from the air.