Our Gang Read Online Free PDF Page B

upon an item to
    read aloud. I would think the long silences will in
    themselves be the most eloquent part of the broadcast.
    TRICKY: What about charts though? What about a
    graph? You see, I don't know if people are going to sit
    around all night in front of their television sets waiting
    for me to say something. But if we had a graph where
    we 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
    36 OUR GANG
    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
    TRICKY HAS ANOTHER CRISIS 37
    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.
    38 OUR GANG
    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