Our Gang

measured the hours in which I have engaged in the ordinary human activities of scheming, plotting, smearing and so on, against those I’ve spent having intercourse — well, it could be pretty impressive. And I could use a pointer! At the risk of seeming immodest, I think I can hold my own with any schoolmaster in the country in using a pointer and charts, though of course by training I’m a lawyer, you know… And I’ll borrow a dog!

Well, how does it sound to the rest of you?

POLITICAL COACH: Speaking frankly, Mr. Pres ident, I think we are barking up the wrong tree with this whole idea of using the truth or the dog. We’ve used the dog, of course, and with some success, and though I don’t have my file with me, I’m sure we’ve used the truth some time or other in the past, too. Off the top of my head I can’t remember exactly when, but if you like I’ll have my secretary look — it up in the morning. However, right now it seems to me that, given the hysteria of those Scouts, and the kind of coverage they’re getting, if you were to go on television and say that you have had intercourse only once in your entire life, maybe as some kind of initiation rite when you were in the Navycrossing the equator maybe — and that the whole thing had lasted less than sixty seconds, and you had hated it from beginning to end, and that you had to be held down throughout, and so on, even that would be enough to make you appear guilty of the charges the Boy Scouts are bringing against you.

TRICKY (reflecting): Of course, if you’re going to rule out the dog and truth and so on, maybe the best approach is for me to go on TV and deny the whole thing. Say I’ve never had intercourse.

POLITICAL COACH (shaking his head): Have you seen that mob, Mr. President? They wouldn’t believe you, not at this point.

TRICKY: Suppose I spoke from HEW, with the Surgeon General at my side, and he read a medical report stating that I am not now, nor have I ever been in the past, capable of performing coitus.

SPIRITUAL COACH: Mr. President, at the risk of being politically naive again, you are the father of two children… that is, if that means anything, in this context…

POLITICAL COACH: Politically naive, hell — that was good thinking, Reverend.

TRICKY: But why can’t we just say they were adopted?

POLITICAL COACH: No, no, that doesn’t really solve the problem. Even if we are able to establish you as not only sterile, but one hundred percent impotent, even if we were able to get the American public to believe that these children who resemble you so were adopted — and, mind you, I think we could do both, if it came down to it — you are still going to be compromised, it would seem to me, by appearing to have taken into your home the offspring of somebody else’s sexual intercourse. You are still going to be locked into this fornication issue.

LEGAL COACH: Absolutely. Open and shut case of guilt by association. If I were the judge, I’d throw the book at you. And another objection. If he goes on TV and says he’s impotent, most of the people out there aren’t even going to know what he’s talking about. I don’t doubt that half of them are going to think that he means he’s queer.

POLITICAL COACH: Wait a minute! Wait one minute! How about it, Mr. President?

TRICKY: How about what?

POLITICAL COACH: Going on TV and saying you’re queer. Would you do it?

TRICKY: Oh, I’ll do it, all right, if you think it’ll work.

SPIRITUAL COACH: Oh, but surely, Mr. President —

TRICKY: Reverend, we are talking about my political career! With all due respect, we happen now to be listening to a man whose business is politics, just the way yours is religion, and if he says that in a situation like this one the truth and the dog and so on are not going to get us anywhere, then I must assume he knows what he is talking about. After all, one of. the signs of a great leader is his willingness to listen to all sides of an issue without being blinded by his own prejudices and preconceptions. Now I am a Quaker, as you well know, and consequently it is only natural that I should be prejudiced in behalf of the advice given to me by a spiritual person like yourself. But I cannot run from the facts, just so as to be a better Quaker in your eyes and in mine. We are dealing with a mob of youngsters whose minds have been poisoned with a terrible lie. We are going to have to find a way to restore them to their senses while simultaneously restoring to the office of the Presidency its dignity and prestige. And if in order to accomplish those two important tasks I have to go on TV and say I am a homosexual, then I will do it. I had the courage to call Alger Hiss a Communist. I had the courage to call Khrushchev a bully. I assure you, I have the courage now to call myself a queer! The problem is not my courage to say this or say that; it never has been. The problem, as always, is one of credibility. Will they believe me?

General, will they buy it over at the Pentagon? That should certainly be a good test case.

MILITARY COACH (considering): They might, sir. They very well might.

TRICKY: Would it help if I batted my eyes more, when I talk?

MILITARY COACH: No, no, I think they feel you bat your eyes enough already, sir. Any more and it might not go over too well with some of the old timers.

TRICKY: I take it from what you say that you would positively rule out my wearing a dress. Something simple. A basic black, say.

MILITARY COACH: Not necessary, sir.

TRICKY: How about earrings?

MILITARY COACH: No, I think you’re fine as you are, sir.

TRICKY: The point is I don’t want to come off as just a sissy. Five o’clock ‘shadow and all, I really have to watch myself in that department.

SPIRITUAL COACH: Mr. President, if I may, in. your eagerness to do the right thing for the nation, I. think you may be overlooking a small technical point. Homosexuals have intercourse also.

TRICKY (stunned): They do?. How?

(Here the Spiritual Coach takes Tricky by the handmuch as he might comfort one in bereavementand, leaning forward, discreetly whispers the answer into the President’s ear)

TRICKY (recoiling): Why, that’s awful! That’s disgusting! You’re making that up!

SPIRITUAL COACH: Would that I were, Mr. President.

TRICKY: But — but — (Here he leans forward to whisper into the Reverend’s ear)

SPIRITUAL COACH: I suppose they don’t care about that, Mr. President.

TRICKY (outraged): But that’s bestial! That’s monstrous! This is America! And I’m the President of America! And — and — (turning in bewilderment to the other coaches) listen, do you people realize what’s going on in this country? Do you know what he just told me?

POLITICAL COACH: I think we do, Mr. President.

TRICKY: But that’s grotesque! Uccchhy! It makes my lip crawl!

POLITICAL COACH: To be sure, Mr. President. But nonetheless in terms of the problem that is facing us, it happens to be neither here nor there. The point is this: homosexuals, regardless of whatever else they may do, are in no way involved in the sort of sexual activity that produces fetuses — and that is still what these Boy Scouts are up in arms about. Consequently, if you were to go on TV and say you were a homosexual, in the minds of most Americans you would have cleared yourself of the charge the Boy Scouts are making, that you are a heterosexual activist. You’ll be entirely in the clear.

TRICKY: I see.. I see… Okay — I’ll do it! There — that’s the way to be in a crisis: decisive! Just as I wrote in my book, summarizing what I learned during General Poppapower’s heart attacks, “Decisive action relieves the tension which builds up in a crisis. When the situation requires that an individual restrain himself from acting decisively over a long period, this can be the most wearing of all crises.”

You see, it isn’t even what you decide — it’s that you decide. Otherwise there’s that darn tension; too much, and, I tell you, a person could probably crack up. And I for one will not crack up while I am President of the United States. I want that to be perfectly clear. If you read my book, you’ll see that my entire career has been devoted to not cracking up, as much as to anything. And I don’t intend to start now. Cool, confident and decisive. I’ll do it — I’ll say I’m a queer!

LEGAL COACH: I wouldn’t if I were you, Mr. President.

TRICKY: You wouldn’t?

LEGAL COACH: Nope, not if I were the President of the United States. Why should you? At the time of the Checkers Speech, when you were only a candidate for the Vice Presidency, of course it. was necessary to explain