Our Gang (24 page)

beneath the cherry blossoms he so loved, and
in
the

brooding grandeur of this the city which embodies

that which he who has been untimely reaped would

have himself willingly laid down his life for, had of

him it been asked instead of cruelly being stolen in

the night from him by an ill-mannered madman

with a baggie. Yet madmen there have been and

madmen there will be, and still this nation has

endured. And, I daresay, endure it will, while the

madmen pass through these corridors of power and

halls of justice and closets of virtue and

dumbwaiters of dignity and cellars of idealism,

leaving us in the end, if not stronger, wiser; and if

not wiser, stronger; and if, alas, not either,

168
OUR GANG

both. This is Erect Severehead with a cogent news

analysis from the nation's capital."

"This is Brad Bathos. I'm down here in the streets

of Washington now, and it is a moving and heartrending

sight I see. Ever since the news first broke

that the President had been found dead in a baggie

at Walter Reed Hospital, the people of this great

country, his people, have been pouring into the

capital from all over the nation. Thousands upon

thousands simply standing here in the streets

surrounding the White House, with heads bowed,

visibly shaken and moved. Many are crying openly,

not a few of them grown men. Here is a man seated

on the curbstone holding his head in his hands and

quietly sobbing. I'm going to ask him if he will tell

us where he comes from."

"I come from here, I come from Washington."

"You're sitting on the curbstone quietly sobbing

into your hands. Can you tell us why? Can you put it

into words?"

"Guilt."

"You mean you feel a personal sense of guilt?"

"
Yes."

"
Why?
"

"Because I did it."

"You did it? You killed the President?"

"Yes."

THE ASSASSINATION OF TRICKY
169

"Well, look, this is important-have you told the

police?"

"I've told everyone. The police. The FBI. I even

tried to call Pitter Dixon to tell her. But all they kept

saying was that it was kind of me to think of them at

a time like this and Mrs. Dixon appreciated my

sympathy and thought it was in very good taste, and

then they hung up. Meanwhile, I should be arrested.

I should be in the papers-my picture, and a big

headline, DIXON'S MURDERER. But nobody will

believe me. Here, here's the notebooks where I've

been planning it for months. Here are tape

recordings of my own telephone conversations with

friends. Here, look at this: a signed confession! And

I wasn't even under duress when I wrote it. I was in

a hammock. I was fully aware of my constitutional

rights. My-lawyer was with me, as a matter of fact.

We were having a drink. Here-just read it, I give all

my reasons and everything."

"Sir, interesting as your story is, we have to move

on. We must move on through this immense crowd

. . . Here's a young attractive woman holding a

sleeping infant in her arms. She is just standing on

the sidewalk gazing blankly at the White House.

Heaven only knows how much anguish is concealed

in
that gaze. Madam, will you tell the television

audience what you're thinking about as you look at

the White House?"

170 OUR GANG

"He's dead."

"You appear to be in a state of shock." "I

know. I didn't think I could do it." "Do

what?"

"Kill. Murder. He said, `Let me make one thing

perfectly-' and before he could say `clear,' I had him

in the baggie. You should have seen the look on his

face when I turned the little twister seal."

"The look on the President's face when you-?"

"Yes. I've never seen such rage in my life. I've

never seen such anger and fury. But then he realized

I was staring at him through the baggie, and

suddenly he looked just the way he does on

television, all seriousness and responsibility, and he

opened his mouth, I guess to say `clear,' and that

was it. I think he thought the whole thing was being

televised."

"And-well, was your baby with you, when you

allegedly-?"

"Oh yes, yes. Of course, she's too young to

remember exactly what happened. But I want her to

be able to grow up to say, `I was there when my

mother murdered Dixon.' Imagine itmy little girl is

going to grow up in a world where she'll never have

to hear anybody say he's going to make something

perfectly clear ever again! Or, `Let's make no

mistake about it!' Or, `I'm a Quaker and that's why I

hate war so

THE ASSASSINATION OF TRICKY 171

much-' Never never never never. And I did it. I

actually did it. I tell you, I still can't believe it. I

drowned him. In cold water. Me."

"And you, young man, let's move on to you.

You're just walking up and down here outside the

White House, very much as though you've lost

something. You seem confused and bewildered. Can

you tell us, in a few words, what it is you're

searching for?"

"A cop. A policeman."

"Why?"

"I want to turn myself in."

"This is Brad Bathos, from the streets of

Washington, where the mourners have come to

gather, to pray, to weep, to lament, and to hope.

Back to Erect Severehead."

"Erect, we're up here on top of the Washington

Monument with the Chief of the Washington Police

Force. Chief Shackles, how many people would you

say are down there right now?"

"Oh, just around the monument alone we've got

about twenty-five or thirty thousand; and I'd say

there are twice that many over by the White House.

And of course more are pouring
in
every hour."

"Can you describe these people? Are they the

usual sort of demonstrators you get here in

Washington?"

"Oh no, no. These people don't want to dis-

172 OUR GANG

rupt anything. I would say they are actually bending

over backwards to cooperate with the authorities.

So far, at any rate."

"What do you mean by so far?"

"Well, we haven't yet had to make any arrests.

We're under orders from the White House not to

arrest anyone under any conditions. As you can

imagine, this is putting something of a strain on my

men, particularly as just about everybody down

here seems to have come for the purpose of getting

himself arrested. I mean I've never seen anything

like it. _ A lot of them are down on their knees

begging to be taken in, and just about every Tom,

Dick and Harry seems to have documents or

photographs or fingerprints, proving that he is the

one who killed the President. Of course, none of it

is worth the paper it's written on. Some of it's kind

of laughable,
in
fact, it's so unprofessional and

obviously a slapdash last-minute job. But still and

all, you got to give them credit for, their fortitude.

They grab hold of my men just like they had the

goods on themselves, and actually try to handcuff

themselves to the officer with their own handcuffs

and get carted off to prison that way. We can't park

a squad car anywhere, without half a dozen
of
them

jumping into the back seat, and screaming, `Take

me
to J. Edgar Heehaw-and step on it.' Now you

can't arrest anybody without taking the proper

procedural steps, but go try to explain

THE ASSASSINATION OF TRICKY
173

that to a crowd like this. We're sort of humoring

them, however, the best we can, and the ones who

just won't quit, we tell them to wait right where they

are and we'll round them up later. What we're

hoping for is a good thunderstorm during the night,

that'll sort of break the back of the whole thing.

Maybe if they stand around long enough in the rain

they'll get the idea that nobody is going to arrest

them no matter how much evidence they produce,

and they'll go home."

"But, Chief Shackles, suppose the rain doesn't

come-suppose they are still jamming the streets in

the morning. What about the workers trying to get

to government offices-?" .. "Well, they'll just have to

suffer a little inconvenience, I'm afraid. Because I

am not subjecting my men to the charge of false

arrest just so somebody can get to his office in time

for
the morning coffee break. And then there are

these orders from the White House."

"Your assumption then is that all these people

here are innocent, each and every one?"

"Absolutely. If they were guilty, they would be

resisting arrest. They would be running away and so

on. They would be screaming about their lawyers

and their rights. I mean, that's how you can tell

they're guilty in the first place. But all these people

are saying is, `I did it, take me in.'

174
OUR GANG

What sort of law enforcement officer is going to

arrest a person for something like that?"

"This is Brad Bathos. Violence has erupted here

on Pennsylvania Avenue, directly outside the White

House gates where upwards of thirty thousand

mourners have already gathered to bid farewell to a

fallen leader. Even as Police Chief Shackles was

praising this crowd for their obedience to authority

and respect for the law, a free-for-all broke out

among a group of fifteen men in business suits.

Though police intervention was necessary, no

arrests were made. I have here beside me one of the

gentlemen who was involved in the violent episode,

and by all appearances he is still rather upset. Sir,

how did the violence begin?"

"Well, I was just standing here, minding my own

business, trying to confess to an officer about

murdering the President, when along comes this

very fancy guy in a limousine and wearing
a
flower

in his buttonhole, and he just steps in between me

and the officers and he says he did it. And then the

chauffeur gets out of the car and he starts pushing

me back and saying let his boss do the talking, his

boss really did it and he was a very busy man and so

on and so forth and who did I think I was, acting so

high and mighty. So then some colored guy comes

upand I don't have anything against colored guys,