Our Gang

by Philip Roth

  “So you have nothing but praise for the police?”

  “Well, yes—up to a point. I mean he broke this thing up one-two-three, but then when it was all over he still wouldn’t make any arrests. In fact, once he’d separated us, he just disappeared, like the Lone Ranger used to. I can’t find him anywhere. Some of the other guys want to find him, too. See, we gave him these confessions and all this incriminating evidence, and so on—and you know what he did with it? He just tore it up, even while he was running away. Fortunately, I had my secretary xerox all this stuff at my office, so I’ve got a copy at home, but a lot of these guys were foolish enough to give him the only copy of their confessions that they had. About the only good thing to come out of this is the possibility that because the fifteen of us were seen all huddled together on the pavement here, pounding each other’s heads in, we might get picked up as a conspiracy. That is, if we can find a cop. But go try to find even a plainclothesman when you need one. Hey, you’re not authorized to make an arrest, are you, by your network or something?”

  “—and so in they continue to come. And now they have told us why. They come not as they came to Washington to mourn the death of President Charisma. Nor do they come as came they did to Atlanta, to follow behind the bier of the slain Martin Luther King. Nor come do they as to the railroad tracks they did, to wave farewell as the tragic train that bore the body of the murdered Robert Charisma carried to its final resting place, him. No, the crowd that cometh to Washington tonighteth, cometh not in innocence and bewilderment, like little children berefteth of a father. Rather, cometh they in guilt, cometh they to confess-eth, cometh they to say, ‘I too am guilty,’ to the police and the FBI. It is a sight, moving and profound, and furnishes evidence surely, if evidence there need surely be, of a nation that has cometh of age. For what is maturity, in men or in nations, but the willingness to bear the burden—and the dignity—of responsibility? And surely responsible it is, mature it is, when in its darkest hour, a nation can look deep within its troubled and anguished blah blah blah blah blah blah blah the guilt of all. Of course, those there are who will seek a scapegoat, as those there will always be, human nature being what it is instead of what it should be. Those there are who will self-righteously stand up and shout, ‘Not me, not me.’ For they are not guilty, they are never guilty. It is always the other guy who is guilty: Bundy and Kissinger, Bonnie and Clyde, Calley and Capone, Manson and McNamara—yes, the list is endless of those whom they would make responsible for their own crimes. And that is what makes this demonstration here in Washington of collective guilt so blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. The blah blah of the spirit and the blah blah blah blah blah blah for which our sons have died blah blah blah blah blah blah reason and dignity blah blah blah blah blah dignity and reason. No, blame not those who gather here in Washington to confess to the murder of the President. Rather, praise them for their courage, their blah blah blah, their blah and their blah blah blah, for blah blah blah blah as are you and I. We are all guilty. And only at the risk of blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah forget. This is Erect Severehead from the nation’s blah.”

  “—the masochists, the mainliners, the minorities who think they are the majorities, the mashers, the masturbators, the mental cases, the misanthropes, the momma’s boys, the much-ado-about-nothingites, the milquetoasts—”

  “Gentlemen, because of the developing interest around the nation in the situation here in Washington, we have decided to move somewhat faster than we had originally planned, and to release to you tonight the x-ray of the other hip. We hope that by releasing the x-rays of both of the President’s hips, the right virtually within a few hours of the left, we will be able to restore some perspective as regards this whole situation.”

  “You mean by that the assassination, Blurp?”

  “I don’t know if I want to use a highly inflammatory word like that at a time like this. It may not sell newspapers, but I’d just as soon, for the sake of accuracy, stick to ‘the situation.’”

  “In other words, you are now admitting that there is ‘a situation.’”

  “I don’t think we ever denied that.”

  “What about the funeral, Blurb?”

  “Let’s deal with the situation first, then we’ll get to the funeral. Any other questions?”

  “Where is the President’s body right now?”

  “Resting comfortably.”

  “Comfortably in the baggie or out of the baggie?”

  “Gentlemen, don’t push me. He’s resting comfortably. That’s the important thing.”

  “Will he be buried in the baggie, Blurb? One report is that the First Lady has decided that given his dedication to the rights of the unborn, burial in the baggie would be fitting and proper. Like King’s body being pulled by a mule train.”

  “Whatever the First Lady decides, I’m sure it’ll be in good taste.”

  “Blurb, what about Mr. What’s-his-name? He’s still back of the podium saying it didn’t happen, that it’s a pack of lies. Do you have any idea what he’s talking about?”

  “No comment.”

  “Blurb, is it true that the oath of office has already been secretly administered to the Vice President between speaking engagements, and that he actually is the President at this very moment?”

  “Why would we do a thing like that? Absolutely not.”

  “Mr. President, can you tell us now why the oath of office was administered to you secretly between speaking engagements, so that actually you were the new President even while you went around claiming that the stories of President Dixon’s assassination were lies perpetrated by the enemies of this country?”

  “I think the answer to that is obvious enough, gentlemen. You cannot have a country without a President any more than you would want to have a cackle-dooper without a predipitous, or, likewise, a caloodian without a pre-pregoratory predention. Of course, the dreedles, the drishakis and the dripnaps would give their eyeteeth to have it otherwise, but the sworn swaggatelle of this sirigible, and the truncation of our truthfulness will not be trampled and torn, so long as I, as President, vent such vindictiveness as the avengers varp.”

  “President What’s-his-name, there is an admittedly ugly rumor to the effect that the reason you denied any knowledge of the President’s assassination was because you were fearful that otherwise the finger of suspicion might be pointed at you. Do you have anything to say about that admittedly ugly rumor?”

  “Yes, I have this to say and I propose to say it so that there is no doubt about my feelings on this matter later. If the creeps and the cowards that crucify the crelinion, crip after crip, and who furthermore—and we have proof of this—have crossbowed the cradalious ever since the first crackadoes crusaded in the cause of caliphony, if they think they can cajulate and castigate and get away with it, there will be such a cacophony of cabs, cassanings and crinoleum through the criss and cratch of this country, that the crypto-callistans and the quasi-clapperforms will quiver rather than coopt the crokes.”

  “Sir, while we’re on the subject of admittedly ugly rumors, can you comment on one that suggests that the reason you kept saying the President was alive when you knew he was dead, was because you were fearful that either a coup on the part of the Cabinet, or an armed revolt by the people, would have prevented you from taking office, had you announced openly your intention to do so? Were you frightened that they wouldn’t let you be President because you weren’t qualified?”

  “Far from fear, what I felt was a filarious frostification at the far-reaching fistula into which fate had feductively fastinguished me.”

  “Sir, will you comment on Mrs. Dixon’s decision to bury the President in his baggie at Prissier? Were you consulted on this, and if so, does it mean that your administration will be as committed as was his to the rights of the unborn and the sanctity of human life and so on?”

  “Well, of course, not just me, but zillions and zillions of our zircos, zaps of our zilpags
and zikons of our zikenites—”

  “So the blah blah blah blah of state has been passed. Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah has ended and the republic that blah blah blah blah reason blah blah blah blah. Heavy are our blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah corridors blah blah blah that he loved. And the cherry blossoms. Blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blah lest we blah blah blah blah blah our civilization with it. We can ill afford that. Blah blah blah blah blah back to normal blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah of America, from the humblest citizen to the blah blah blah blah. Blah blah 1776 blah blah? Blah. Blah blah 1812 blah blah blah? Blah blah. Blah blah 1904-1907? Blah! Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah reason and dignity. Blah blah blah blah reason. Blah blah blah blah blah dignity. Blah blah blah blah blah blah fulfillment of the Ameriblah blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah one hundred years ago. Blah blah blah blah of Galilee. And yet those would surrender hope blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah cherry blossoms. Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah before him. Blah blah blah the republic. Blah blah blah the people. Blah blah blah blah blah nation’s capital.”

  The Eulogy Over the Baggie

  (As Delivered Live on Nationwide TV

  by the Reverend Billy Cupcake)

  Now today I want you to turn with me to page 853 in your dictionaries. Our eulogy is from the letter “L,” the twelfth letter of the alphabet, and our word is the fifth down in the left-hand column, directly below the word “leaden.” Our word is “leader.” Now how does Noah Webster define “leader”?

  Well, Noah writes, “A leader is one who or one that which leads.” One who or one that which leads. One who or that which leads.

  Just the day before yesterday I read an article in a current magazine by one of the top philosophers of all time and he wrote, “Leaders are one of man’s top necessities.” And in a recent Gallup Poll we’ve been reading where more than ninety-eight percent of the people of America believe in leadership. I was in a European country last summer and one of the top young people there told me that the teenagers in his country want leadership more than anything else. President Lincoln—before he was killed—said the same thing. So did Newton—Sir Isaac Newton, the great scientist—when he was alive.

  Now when Noah tells us that a leader is one who or one that which leads, he is telling us what “leader” means in the ordinary sense of the word. But I wonder if he who lies here before us in this baggie was a leader in the ordinary sense. I don’t think he was. And I’ll tell you why. I talked to a psychiatrist friend of mine only this morning and he said, “He was not an ordinary leader.” And one of my friends, a distinguished surgeon who does heart transplants at one of our great hospitals, wrote me a letter and said the same thing: “He was not a leader in the ordinary sense of the word.”

  Well, you say, what was he then, if he wasn’t a leader in the ordinary sense? He—and I repeat that—he was a leader in the extraordinary sense of that word.

  Now what does that mean, the extraordinary sense of that word? Fortunately, Noah defines “extraordinary” for us, too. You will find the definition on page 428 in your dictionaries, in the right-hand column, six words down, directly beneath “extraneous.” Extraordinary, Noah tells us, means, “beyond what is ordinary; out of the regular and established order.” Beyond what is ordinary. Out of the regular and established order.

  Now what does that mean? I read only the week before last in an Australian newspaper that I get in my home a story about a fellow who made news down there—and why did he make news down there? Why do I know about him thousands and thousands of miles away? Because he was extraordinary in some way or another. He was that rare thing among men. He was himself and no one else. Himself and no one else.

  And what does Noah tell us about “himself”? “Himself,” Noah says, “an emphatic form of him.” An emphatic form of him. Here then is what was so extraordinary about the leader around whose baggie we are gathered today. He was emphatically himself and no one else.

  You know. Let me repeat that. You know, I have been to funerals of ordinary leaders the world round, and I know you have too, by way of the miracle of television. We all know the wonderful things that are said on these sorrowful occasions. But I think I have only to repeat the fine words that are intoned over the graves of ordinary dead dignitaries for you to see how truly extraordinary was our own dear departed President, in and of himself. In and of himself, which, you remember, Noah tells us is the emphatic form of him.

  Now I don’t mean to disparage the ordinary leaders of this great globe by this comparison. I read a letter only three weeks ago Thursday that a radical young person wrote to his girl friend disparaging and scoffing and laughing at the leaders of this world. Now he may laugh. They laughed at Jeremiah, you know. They laughed at Lot. They laughed at Amos. They laughed at the Apostles. In our own time they laughed at the Marx Brothers. They laughed at the Ritz Brothers. They laughed at the Three Stooges. Yet these people became our top entertainers and earned the love and affection of millions. There are always the laughers and the scoffers. You know there used to be a top tune in all the jukeboxes called “I’m Laughing on the Outside, Crying on the Inside.” And I read an article in a news magazine only Sunday before last by one of our top psychologists which says that eighty-five percent—eighty-five percent!—of those who laugh on the outside cry on the inside because of their personal unhappiness.

  I am not then trying to disparage the ordinary leaders of the world by this comparison. I want only to illustrate to you the extraordinary leadership of the man who walked among us for a brief while in a business suit, and now is gone. Only yesterday morning at ten A.M., I overheard a lady in an elevator of one of our top hotels, say to a young person, “There has never been another like him in history, there will never be another like him again.”

  Now. Let me repeat that. Now, when an ordinary leader dies—and I mean by “ordinary” just what Noah does, on page 853, the last word down in column one: “of the usual kind” or “such as is commonly met with”—when an ordinary leader dies, there always seem to be words and phrases aplenty with which to bury him. However, how ever, when an extraordinary leader dies, a man who was himself and no one else—what then do we say?

  Let’s try a scientific experiment. Now science doesn’t hold all the answers and many of my scientific friends tell me that all the time. Science, for instance, doesn’t know what life is yet, and in a recent Gallup Poll did you know that five percent more Americans believe in life after death now than they did some twenty years ago? So science doesn’t have all the answers, but it has provided us with many wonderful breakthroughs.

  Let’s try this scientific experiment. Let’s try the phrases for an ordinary man on this extraordinary man. And you tell me if you don’t agree that as applies to him who lies here in his baggie, they are hollow to the ear and false to the heart, and vice versa. Let’s see if when this experiment is over, you don’t say to me, “Why, Billy, you’re right, they don’t describe him at all. They describe one who or one that which leads, but not him who was emphatically himself and no other.”

  I’m going to ask that we bow our heads now. Every head bowed and every eye closed, and listen.

  They say of an ordinary leader, when and if he dies, of course—he was a man of broad outlook;

  Or, he was a man of great passion;

  Or, he was a man of deep conviction;

  Or, he was a defender of human rights;

  Or, he was a soldier of humanity;

  Or, he was scholarly, eloquent and wise;

  Or, he was a simple, peace-loving man, brave and kind;

  Or, he was a man who embodied the ideals of his people;

  Or, he was a man who fired the imagination of a generation.

  They say of an ordinary man, when and if he dies, that the loss is incalculable to the nation and the world.

  They say of an ordinary
man, when and if he dies, that all will be better for his having passed their way.

  Need I go any further? There was an article in a current magazine last month by a professor who is an authority on human behavior, and he writes that you can tell when a crowd of people is in agreement with you. Well, the professor is correct. Because I know that you are all saying to yourselves, “Why, Billy, you’re right—in vain do I listen for the words or word that describes he who lies here in this baggie; for these are phrases that summon up the image of an ordinary leader, not the extraordinary leader we have lost.”

  What word or words then will describe this extraordinary man? I was in an African country one year ago this July and I heard a top political expert there call him “The President of the United States.” The President of the United States. In another African country I heard about a teenage girl who called him “The Leader of the Free World.” The Leader of the Free World. And a lawyer friend of mine, a well-known judge, who lives in South America wrote me a letter not too long ago and he had an interesting thing to say. He said he heard a man in an elevator in a top hotel in Buenos Aires, Argentina, call him “Com-mander-in-Chief of the American Armed Forces. Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces.

  Yet are these the words in which he lived in the hearts of his fellow countrymen? Perhaps that is what he was to the rest of the world. But to we who knew him, nothing so majestic or formal could begin to communicate the kind of man he was and the esteem in which he was held. Because to us he was not a leader in the ordinary sense—he was a leader in the extraordinary sense. And that is why we who knew him think of him by a name as unpretentious and unceremonious as the name you might give to your own pet, a name as homey and familiar as you might bestow upon a little puppy.