Palimpsest

            [Translator’s note: The following document, partly in modern Hebrew, partly in classical Aramaic, was found sealed in a twentieth-century earthenware jar in a cave in the hills east of Jerusalem. The passages originally in Aramaic are printed in Italic type. I thank Professor Hobart Brindsley for his help with the Aramaic.]

                        11 Tishri 5739

                        12 October 1978

            I am a double-minded monster. In my body lives again Johoshua ben Aram, a young zealot and former Temple priest who hid and thus preserved his Teacher’s writings. But Johoshua’s reincarnation has not erased my gentle modern self, Levi Aaronblut, whose mind is filled with effete Hellenist doubt. Closer than Siamese twins, each of us is horrified, bemused, touched, astonished, shamed, amused, and maddened by the other; each is aware of the other’s every thought, every nuance of often disgusting feeling; each wrestles with the other for control.

            What caused this monstrous association? It was my exposure to the Dead Sea Scrolls. I first heard of the Scrolls in 1967. Reader, I do not know who you may be. Possibly, you are as remote from me in time as my contemporaries are from the era when the Scrolls were written. I shall shortly tell what befell me when I first viewed one of those ancient Scrolls. First, however, I provide the setting for that extraordinary occurrence.

            Reader, again G-d is about to punish the Jewish people for their lack of observance of His commandments. The punishment will make the so-called holocaust seem mild. I have come to warn the Jews and the rest of the world of the destruction to come. Do you dare read on?

            The times when I write these words are times when people like to consider themselves skeptics, and so question much inherited Wisdom, while they credulously accept much current folly, blind to how often they unthinkingly mistake for fact what is actually foolish opinion. In these times, nearly all would disbelieve what I am about to report. Most would regard it as the ravings of a deluded old man. Reader, if you, too, are of such an unbelieving bent, it is better that you stop reading now and, I beg you, restore this manuscript to its innocent waiting. Let it continue to be preserved until one comes who will believe.

            My wife, Sarah, and I, Levi Aaronblut, lived then in a snug, sun filled Jerusalem apartment that lacked mezuzahs. We had immigrated to Israel in 1951, when ill health forced my early retirement from my position as senior brewmeister for a Shanghai brewery. To Shanghai I had come as a gangling youth, accompanying my parents. They were moderately prominent German intellectuals and literary figures seduced by the Epicurean heresy, wise or lucky enough to flee Nazism before it was too late. In Shanghai, my father found a position as assistant instructor in a fashionable French school for European children; my mother worked part-time as a voice teacher, rubbing her patience threadbare against the spoiled daughters of diplomats. We lived modestly but comfortably, though more quietly – I surmise – than my parents would have liked. Our one luxury was the size of our home, which was large enough not only for spacious living quarters but also for my parents’ study. In that lovely airy studio they carried on their endless correspondence with literary and academic personages worldwide, correspondence largely devoted to furthering their cognate ideologies of liberalism, pacifism, and vegetarianism. And what of Jewish observance?

            The years in that peaceful household run together in my memory. Despite war and economic turmoil, my home was always quiet and calm, like my parents. If my childhood and youth were a bit lacking in emotion or excitement, they did provide a core of stability I have sorely needed in this, my life’s strange finale.

            Unlike many other Jews, my parents were not embittered by the holocaust, but it did reinforce their rejection of the absolute religious dogmas of our ancestors. Who were they to dare to judge G-d’s will? If my parents’ emphasis on ethical relativism, if the lack of moral rigidity in my upbringing left me unable to burn intensely for any cause, perhaps the flexibility this gave me has saved my sanity, so beset since my exposure to the Dead Sea Scrolls. See how they ruined his capacity to be devoted to G-d!

            My marriage to Sarah hardly altered the regularity of my life. My parents’ health had begun to fail, and so Sarah and I shared their home, where we could be available when, as happened increasingly often, they needed care. Our marriage brought my wife and me contentment, albeit not much in the way of passion. If there was a paucity of intimacy, it was not for lack of mutual respect. We were both reserved, gentle people. We liked each other for being that way. We had neither desire nor need for more.

            That first fateful mention of the Scrolls came in a letter from my father’s old friend, Professor Brindsley of the University of Auckland. The kindly old scholar wrote: “I hesitate to presume upon a relationship so remote and tenuous, but the wonder and excitement of the occasion, I confess, has overwhelmed my poor defenses of conscience and reticence. I trust you recall how years ago, when I visited Shanghai, your dear departed father so ably and generously assisted me in my research on the possible Semitic roots of the Ainu language. In return for that help, alas, I was never able to secure for him the academic appointment at the University he so richly deserved. I had to content myself and – I hope – him with the expression of gratitude I placed in my book, Lost Tribes or Hidden?

            “Now, again, I turn to your family for help in a scholarly endeavor.” He then recounted the wondrous story of the discovery, after nearly two thousand years, of Scrolls hidden from the Roman infidels by members of a Jewish sect who fled the urban depravity of cosmopolitan Jerusalem for the rude simplicity of life in the, then as now, desolate region to the east. He begged me to try to get photocopies of the Scrolls – or at least to view them myself and send him “as complete a description” as I could. He explained that his most urgent pleas to both Israeli and Jordanian authorities had been of no avail. This did not surprise me. I had long been familiar with how bureaucracy amplifies collective stupidity while suppressing collective wisdom. Professor Brindsley hoped that I might do better than he had, since I was at least close to the scene and acquainted with the local languages and customs.

            Though I have inherited a bit of my parents’ scholarly diathesis, my erudition has necessarily been limited by the exigencies of earning enough to support not only myself but also, for many years, my elderly parents, whose poor health necessitated ongoing expenditures. By 1967, moreover, I had begun to face much the same continuing demand on scarce resources because of my own increasing debility and that of my dear Sarah.

            For many years I have felt chagrin that I have contributed neither to the world of letters nor to scholarship, despite the fond hopes and fine example of my parents. The preceding few words anent my personal situation seek to explain and, in a way, apologize.

            I should explain that Professor Brindsley was too discreet to be explicit in a letter that, in this war- and intrigue-ravaged region, might be read by others than to whom it was addressed.

            Professor Brindsley had often been a guest in my home when I was a child, and he had taken an interest in me. His letter spoke of a “tenuous” relationship, but this was an understatement. He had helped with my ancient history homework, and he had encouraged me to tell him my childish speculations about my people’s past, my childish notions about what was real and what was myth. He knew, therefore, that he could count on the affection that had grown between us. Moreover, early in my childhood, I had demonstrated to him that, like my father, I have a photographic memory. Therefore, in his request that I transmit as complete a description of the Scrolls as possible, I inferred a suggestion that I endeavor to memorize them, should I be permitted to view them but be forbidden to take photographs. Further, I considered his mention of both the Jordanian and the Israeli authorities as an indirect reference to my contacts with both sides of the conflict between the descendants of Abraham’s two sons. Despite my genetic connection to one side, I have no sympathy for the jingoism of either side in this fratricidal struggle. Disgusting! When Jews strive to reclaim the Holy Land, they are obeying G-d’s will. As my father would have said: always to side with Jews because I was born a Jew would tend to make Hitler’s lies seem true. Therefore, I was one of the few Jews who had access to and friendships with both Israeli and Jordanian authorities.

            Thus, several months after my receipt of Professor Brindsley’s letter, the great archaeologist, Professor Yadin, allowed me to view the few Scrolls in Israeli possession; and the very same week, a certain Jordanian functionary permitted, for a modest remuneration, a brief but sufficient glimpse of certain priceless copper Scrolls that dated from before the destruction of the Second Temple. Note how the descendant of Ishmael demanded a bribe, while the descendant of Isaac cooperated out of natural generosity.

            Perhaps by chance, the first ancient document I viewed was “The War between the Children of Light and the Children of Darkness.” G-d leaves nothing to chance. I had scarcely read the first few lines when I remembered having read the Scroll before. It seemed to me that with my photographic memory I could see beyond the first copper panel; I could recall the panels not yet uncovered. Yet, I knew, this was not possible. Mortal eyes had not viewed these Writings for two millennia. Moreover, what my inner vision saw was not today’s crumbling copper. Rather, I saw the glistening metal as it was when I inscribed those words; it was as if a long sealed door in my mind had swung creakily open, and my inner eye gazed into an antique room where ancient furnishings were preserved, uncorrupted by the centuries.

            Are you still reading? I repeat: I saw in my mind the glistening copper on which I transcribed the words of our Teacher, the Teacher of Righteousness. I remembered how I humbly prayed for Divine aid. I remembered searching out a hiding-place for the Scrolls, to preserve them from the idolatrous Romans. Thus, when – as our Teacher prophesied – a future generation of Jews would one day reconquer the land, they would find my Scrolls and realize that G-d writes the script of history.

            As I read the thundering, bone-rattling poetry I inscribed so long ago, the Faith, the Certainty of 2000 years ago reawakened. Suddenly, I was no longer a hyper-intellectual modern skeptic; another self looked through my eyes, scanned my memories, and was sickened by my debasement, by how far I had fallen from the True Path of Light.

            I marvel at the grim appropriateness of the awful chastisements the stern Master of the Universe has wreaked upon the neglectful descendants of Jacob. They whine about the holocaust, but forget that they had ceased to observe the strict laws of the only true G-d. How does the holocaust differ from the plagues and wars He visited upon us when we were disobedient in the days of the Prophets?

            I also feel joy and awe that I have been granted this second life in the future, this Confirmation of my Faith. How wondrous this confirmation of the truth of Prophecy, how awesome my private miracle, and how generous the Judge who granted me this glimpse of the mighty machinery behind reality!

            The past decade of struggle between us has been for both of us a time of agony. Only when we both will the same act do we get respite from our exhausting wrestling. For example, we both cooperated in sending Professor Brindsley a full translation of the Scroll Johoshua wrote. Better to spread the Word through a gentile than not spread it at all!

            We have also cooperated in hiding our double-mindedness. I am a dybbuk, a soul who occupies another’s body. I fear exorcism if I am discovered. I suppose that I, Levi, have roughly the same fear. I am unsure what I am, but it seems not unlikely that I am insane. I fear psychiatric treatment, involuntary incarceration in a place inhabited by madmen; demeaning, even destructive probing of my private feelings. Also, until recently, I feared to leave Sarah alone and uncared for.

            G-d placed me in this modern, decadent time to help bring the Jewish nation back to the ways of my Teacher. Resisting the sinner, Levi, I have struggled to devote our body to G-d’s service, to bring the word of the L-rd to the Nineveh that this modern land of Israel is, to preach of the destruction sure to come unless Jews return to the strict, ancient ways.

            And what do I, Levi Aaronblut, want? Proof, perhaps. Is Johoshua the shadow of my guilt for failing to live up to my parents’ ambitions for me? Is the Scroll a replacement for the literary work, the social criticism I should have published? Was there a day in my childhood when I screamed and kicked and smashed a toy or struck a playmate, and felt my parents’ disapproval and rejection? Is Johoshua a djin escaped from a bottle long filled with childhood rage? Are Johoshua’s fanaticism and certainty my long suppressed emotions, suppressed by my parents’ demand that I, like they, always be calm, always be rational?

            Johoshua demands that we be fully observant. It is G-d’s will. The observance he demands is not even that of modern Judaism, but rather that of his cult. His calendar does not even correspond to that of today’s Jews. The religious holidays, the celebrations, the fast days all fall on different dates. As my Teacher taught, the beginning of Israel’s straying from G-d was miscalculation of the calendar, mistakenly following the rhythms of the lesser light, the moon, rather than those of the greater light, the sun. We could not even explain our observance by pretending that Levi, in his old age, has become religious.

            Moreover, men and women may come together in conjugal union only after the most careful rites and ablutions. Therefore, I insisted that we avoid any contact with Sarah. Fortunately, such intimacies were already rare between us, and in her ill health, she mistook this avoidance for consideration and sensitivity.

            I am a habitual compromiser. For example, I offered to arrange for Johoshua to give a series of public lectures, at which he could set forth his doctrine. I hoped, thus, to put an end to the sudden diatribes that would erupt at passers-by, shopkeepers, bank tellers, bus drivers, postal employees, the family physician, and others. I simply tried to persuade the physician to implore G-d to forgive his patients. How else could they recover? As for the others, I merely tried to help them avoid sinking deeper into sin. For example, I explained to bank tellers that each time they handled money they contaminated themselves with the taint clinging to the coins and bills because of the abominations on which they had been spent. Their only hope, I explained, was to wash their hands and say a prayer of contrition after each transaction. But though Johoshua eagerly made use of the opportunity to lecture publicly (shocking – I must add – those liberal, cultured friends of Levi who came to hear him speak), he nevertheless would not control himself at other times. Why should I forgo any opportunity to spread the Word? Only my strongest exertions of will, coupled with our shared fear of incarceration in an asylum, have more or less restrained Johoshua from extreme outbursts.

            Last month, Sarah finally passed away. How patient she was these past few years as her strength ebbed, as she endured her husband’s increasingly erratic ways. Poor thing, she thought it was due to my grief over her illness. Like a pagan, Levi arrogantly refuses to accept G-d’s will about her death. He ignores the fact that she was just one more unobservant Jew, undeserving of the gift of life!

            We both now recognize that our decrepit body will soon follow Sarah to the final resolution of all mysteries. Today, the day after Yom Kippur, Levi and Johoshua do not wrestle. Together, we have written this document and shall hide it much as 2000 years ago I hid others.

            In this life, there can be no resolution for Levi Aaronblut of the question: Is this madness or miracle? But, for you, reader, this document may be the door to faith and redemption. Is there a Third Temple in Jerusalem? Are there still Jews in the world? If the Messiah has already come, if there is a Temple, then Johoshua and Levi agree: there is no need for this document – Faith is triumphant.

            However, if there are still Jews in the world, but they are still in exile, if the Messiah has not yet come, then this document may serve a high purpose. The Scribe of the Great Scroll may have placed this manuscript here for you, to return you to the True Faith – a sufficient reason for any miracle. Consider: Is it reasonable that by chance alone Jews could have survived until your era, that this most ancient faith could have outlasted the rise and fall of empires and dynasties, the slow crumbling of ancient hills, the slow spread or shrinkage of desert and forest? I, Levi, think: “Perhaps; it is possible.” But even Levi recognizes how unlikely it is, how it can only be miraculous (Levi: almost miraculous).

Palimpsest by H. G. Gerjuoy is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Theodore Roosevelt's speech August 31, 1910, to Civil War veterans at the site of John Brown's raid, Osawatomie, Kansas

I think the speech below by Theodore Roosevelt is directly relevant to today's politics.

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We come here to-day to commemorate one of the epoch-making events of the long struggle for the rights of man – the long struggle for the uplift of humanity. Our country -- this great Republic -- means nothing unless it means the triumph of a real democracy, the triumph of popular government, and, in the long run, of an economic system under which each man shall be guaranteed the opportunity to show the best that there is in him.  That is why the history of America is now the central feature of the history of the world; for the world has set its face hopefully toward our democracy, and, O my fellow citizens, each one of you carries on your shoulders not only the burden of doing well for the sake of your own country, but the burden of doing well and of seeing that this nation does well for the sake of mankind.

There have been two great crises in our country's history: first, when it was formed, and then, again, when it was perpetuated, and, in the second of these great crises – in the time of stress and strain which culminated in the Civil War on the outcome of which depended the justification of what had been done earlier, you men of the Grand Army, you men who fought through the Civil War, not only did you justify your generation, not only did you render life worth living for our generation, but you justified the wisdom of Washington and Washington's colleagues.  If this republic had been founded by them only to be split asunder into fragments when the strain came, the judgment of the world would have been that Washington's work was not worth doing.  It was you who crowned Washington's work, as you carried to achievement the high purpose of Abraham Lincoln.

Now, with the second period of our history the name of John Brown will be forever associated, and Kansas was the theater upon which the first act of the second of our great national life dramas was played.  It was the result of the struggle in Kansas which determined that our country should be in deed as well as in name devoted to both union and freedom: that the great experiment of democratic government on a national scale should succeed and not fail.  In name we had the Declaration of Independence in 1776, but we gave the lie by our acts to the words of the Declaration of Independence until 1865, and words count for nothing except in so far as they represent acts.  This is true everywhere, but, O my friends, it should be truest of political life.  A broken promise is bad enough in private life.  It is worse in the field of politics.  No man is worth his salt in public life who makes on the stump a pledge which he does not keep after election; and, if he makes such a pledge and does not keep it, hunt him out of public life.  I care for the great deeds of the past chiefly as spurs to drive us upward to the present.  I speak of the men of the past partly that they may be honored by our praise of them, but more that they may serve as examples for the future. . . .

As for the veterans of the Grand Army of the Republic, they deserve honor and recognition such as is paid to no other citizen of the republic, for to them the republic owes its all; for to them it owes its very existence.  It is because of what you and your comrades did in the dark year that we of today walk, each of us, head erect, and proud that we belong, not to one of a dozen little squabbling contemptible commonwealths but to the mightiest nation upon which the sun shines.

I do not speak of this struggle of the past merely from the historic standpoint.  Our interest is primarily in the application today of the lessons taught by the contest of half a century ago.  It is of little use for us to pay lip loyalty to the mighty men of the past unless we sincerely endeavor to apply to the problems of the preset precisely the qualities which in other crises enabled the men of that day to meet those crises.  It is half melancholy and half amusing to see the way in which well-meaning people gather to do honor to the men who, in company with John Brown, and under the lead of Abraham Lincoln faced and solved the great problem of the nineteenth century, while, at the same time, these same good people nervously shrink from, or frantically denounce, those who are trying to meet the problems of the twentieth century in the spirit which was accountable for the successful solution of the problems of Lincoln's time.

Of that generation of men to whom we owe so much, the man to whom we owe most is, of course, Lincoln.  Part of our debt to him is because he forecast our present struggle and saw the way out.  He said

I hold that while man exists it is his duty to improve not only his own condition, but to assist in ameliorating mankind.

And again

Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital.  Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed.  Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves the higher consideration.

If that remark was original with me, I should be even more strongly denounced as a communist agitator than I shall be anyhow.  It is Lincoln's.  I am only quoting it; and that is one side; that is the side the capitalist should hear.  Now, let the workingman hear his side.

Capital has its rights, which are as worthy of protection as any other rights.  Nor should this lead to a war upon the owners of property.  Property is the fruit of labor. . . . property is desirable, is a positive good in the world.

And then comes a thoroughly Lincolnlike sentence:

Let not him who is homeless pull down the house of another, but let him work diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built.

It seems to me that, in these words, Lincoln took substantially the attitude that we ought to take; he showed the proper sense of proportion in his relative estimate of capital and labor, of human rights and property rights.  Above all, in this speech as in many others, he taught a lesson in wise kindliness and charity, an indispensable lesson to us all today.  But this wise kindliness and charity never weakened his arm or numbed his heart.  We cannot afford weakly to blind ourselves to the actual conflict which faces us today.  The issue is joined, and we must fight or fail. 

In every wise struggle for human betterment one of the main objects, and often the only object, has been to achieve in large measure equality of opportunity. In the struggle for this great end, nations rise from barbarism to civilization, and through it people press forward from one stage of enlightenment to the next.  One of the chief factors in progress is the destruction of special privilege. The essence of any struggle for healthy liberty has always been, and must always be, to take from some one man or class of men the right to enjoy power, or wealth, or position, or immunity, which has not been earned by service to his or their fellows.  That is what you fought for in the Civil War, and that is what we strive for now.

 

We are face to face with new conceptions of the relations of property to human welfare, chiefly because certain advocates of the rights of property as against the rights of men have been pushing their claims too far.

 

At many stages in the advance of humanity, this conflict between the men who possess more than they have earned and the men who have earned more than they possess is the central condition of progress. In our day it appears as the struggle of free men to gain and hold the right of self-government as against the special interests, who twist the methods of free government into machinery for defeating the popular will. At every stage, and under all circumstances, the essence of the struggle is to equalize opportunity, destroy privilege, and give to the life and citizenship of every individual the highest possible value both to himself and to the commonwealth.  That is nothing new.  All I ask in civil life is what you fought for in the Civil War.

 

I stand for the square deal.  But when I say that I am for the square deal, I mean not merely that I stand for fair play under the present rules of the game, but that I stand for having those rules changed so as to work for a more substantial equality of opportunity and of reward for equally good service.  One word of warning, which, I think, is hardly necessary in Kansas.  When I say I want a square deal for the poor man, I do not mean that I want a square deal for the man who remains poor because he has not got the energy to work for himself.  If a man who has had a chance will not make good, then he has got to quit.  And you men of the Grand Army, you want justice for the brave man who fought, and punishment for the coward who shirked his work.  Is not that so?

 

Now, this means that our government, National and State, must be freed from the sinister influence or control of special interests. Exactly as the special interests of cotton and slavery threatened our political integrity before the Civil War, so now the great special business interests too often control and corrupt the men and methods of government for their own profit. We must drive the special interests out of politics.  That is one of our tasks today.  Every special interest is entitled to justice -- full, fair, and complete – and, now, mind you, if there were any attempt by mob violence to plunder and work havoc to the special interest, whatever it may be, that I most dislike, and the wealthy man, whomsoever he may be, for whom I have the greatest contempt, I would fight for him, and you would if you were worthy of your salt.  He should have justice.  For every special interest is entitled to justice, but not one is entitled to a vote in Congress, to a voice on the bench, or to representation in any public office.  The Constitution guarantees protection to property, and we must make that promise good.  But it does not give the right of suffrage to any corporation.

 

The true friend of property, the true conservative, is he who insists that property shall be the servant and not the master of the commonwealth; who insists that the creature of man’s making shall be the servant and not the master of the man who made it.  The citizens of the United States must effectively control the mighty commercial forces which they have themselves called into being.

 

There can be no effective control of corporations while their political activity remains.  To put an end to it will be neither a short nor an easy task, but it can be done.

 

We must have complete and effective publicity of corporate affairs, so that people may know beyond peradventure whether the corporations obey the law and whether their management entitles them to the confidence of the public.  It is necessary that laws should be passed to prohibit the use of corporate funds directly or indirectly for political purposes, it is still more necessary that such laws should be thoroughly enforced.  Corporate expenditures for political purposes, and especially such expenditures by public service corporations, have supplied one of the principal sources of corruption in our political affairs.

 

It has become entirely clear that we must have government supervision of the capitalization, not only of public service corporations, including, particularly, railways but of all corporations doing an interstate business. . . .

 

I believe that the officers, and, especially the directors, of corporations should be held personally responsible when any corporation breaks the law.

 

Combinations in industry are the result of an imperative economic law which cannot be repealed by political legislation.  The effort at prohibiting all combination has substantially failed.  The way out lies, not in attempting to prevent such combinations, but in completely controlling them in the interest of the public welfare.

 

The absence of effective state and, especially, national, restraint upon unfair money-getting has tended to create a small class of enormously wealthy and economically powerful men, whose chief object is to hold and increase their power. The prime need is to change the conditions which enable these men to accumulate power which it is not for the general welfare that they should hold or exercise. We grudge no man a fortune which represents his own power and sagacity, when exercised with entire regard to the welfare of his fellows.  Again, comrades over there, take the lesson from your own experience.  Not only did you not grudge, but you gloried in the promotion of the great generals who gained the promotion by leading the army to victory.  So it is with us. We grudge no man a fortune in civil life if it is honorably obtained and well used.  It is not even enough that it should have been obtained without doing damage.  We should permit it to be gained only so long as the gaining represents benefit to the community.  This, I know, implies a policy of a far more active governmental interference with social and economic conditions in this country than we have yet had, but I think we have got to face the fact that such an increase in governmental control is now necessary.

 

No man should receive a dollar unless that dollar has been fairly earned.  Every dollar received should represent a dollar's worth of service rendered -- not gambling in stocks, but service rendered.  The really big fortune, the swollen fortune, by the mere fact of its size, acquires qualities which differentiate it in kind as well as in degree from what is possessed by men of relatively small means. Therefore, I believe in a graduated income tax on big fortunes, and in another tax which is far more easily collected and far more effective -- a graduated inheritance tax on big fortunes, properly safeguarded against evasion and increasing rapidly in amount with the size of the estate.

 

The people of the United States suffer from periodical financial panics to a degree substantially unknown among other nations which approach us in financial strength.  There is no reason why we should suffer what they escape.  It is of profound importance that our financial system should be promptly investigated, and so thoroughly and effectively revised as to make it certain that hereafter our currency will no longer fail at critical times to meet our needs.

 

Of conservation I shall speak more at length elsewhere.  Conservation means development as much as it means protection.  I recognize the right and duty of this generation to develop and use the natural resources of our land, but I do not recognize the right to waste them, or to rob, by wasteful use, the generations that come after us.  I ask nothing of the nation except that it so behave as each farmer here behaves with references to his own children.  That farmer is a poor creature who skins the land and leaves it worthless to his children.  The farmer is a good farmer who, having enabled the land to support himself and to provide for the education of his children, leaves it to them a little better than he found it himself.  I believe the same thing of a nation.

 

Moreover, I believe that the natural resources must be used for the benefit of all our people, and not monopolized for the benefit of the few, and here again is another case in which I am accused of taking a revolutionary attitude.  People forget now that one hundred years ago there were public men of good character who advocated the nation selling its public lands in great quantities so that the nation could get the most money out of it, and giving it to the men who could cultivate it for their own uses.  We took the proper democratic ground that the land should be granted in small sections to the men who were actually to till it and live on it.  Now, with the water power, with the forests, with the mines, we are brought face to face with the fact that there are many people who will go with us in conserving the resources only if they are to be allowed to exploit them for their benefit.  That is one of the fundamental reasons why the special interests should be driven out of politics.  Of all the questions which can come before this nation, short of the actual preservation of its existence in a great war, there is none which compares in importance with the great central task of leaving this land even a better land for our descendants than it is for us, and training them into a better race to inhabit the land and pass it on.  Conservation is a great moral issue, for it involves the patriotic duty of insuring the safety and continuance of the nation.  Let me add that the health and vitality of our people are at least as well worth conserving as their forests, waters, lands, and minerals, and in this great work the national government must bear a most important part.

 

The right to regulate the use of wealth in the public interest is universally admitted.  Let us admit also the right to regulate the terms and conditions of labor, which is the chief element of wealth, directly in the interest of the common good.  The fundamental thing to do for every man is to give him a chance to reach a place in which he will make the greatest possible contribution to the public welfare.  Understand what I say there. Give him a chance, not push him up if he will not be pushed.  Help any man who stumbles; if he lies down, it is a poor job to try to carry him; but if he is a worthy man, try your best to see that he gets a chance to show the worth that is in him.  No man can be a good citizen unless he has a wage more than sufficient to cover the bare cost of living, and hours of labor short enough so after his day’s work is done he will have time and energy to bear his share in the management of the community, to help in carrying the general load.  We keep countless men from being good citizens by the conditions of life by which we surround them.  We need comprehensive workman’s compensation acts, both State and national laws to regulate child labor and work for women, and, especially, we need in our common schools not merely education in book-learning, but also practical training for daily life and work. We need to enforce better sanitary conditions for our workers and to extend the use of safety appliances for workers in industry and commerce, both within and between the States.  Also, friends, in the interest of the workingman himself we need to set our faces like flint against mob violence just as against corporate greed, against violence and injustice and lawlessness by wage workers just as much as against lawless cunning and greed and selfish arrogance of employers.

 

National efficiency has many factors.  It is a necessary result of the principle of conservation widely applied.  In the end it will determine our failure or success as a nation.  National efficiency has to do, not only with national resources and with men, but it is equally concerned with institutions.  The State must be made efficient for the work which concerns only the people of the State; and the nation for that which concerns all the people. There must remain no neutral ground to serve as a refuge for lawbreakers, and especially for lawbreakers of great wealth, who can hire the vulpine legal cunning which will teach them how to avoid both jurisdictions.  It is a misfortune when the national legislature fails to do its duty in providing a national remedy, so that the only national activity is the purely negative activity of the judiciary in forbidding the state to exercise power in the premises.

 

I do not ask for overcentralization; but I do ask that we work in a spirit of broad and far-reaching nationalism when we work for what concerns our people as a whole.  We are all Americans.  Our common interests are as broad as the country.  I speak to you here in Kansas exactly as I would speak in New York or Georgia, for the most vital problems are those which affect us all alike.  The national government belongs to the whole American people, and where the whole American people are interested, that interest can be guarded effectively only by the national government.  The betterment which we seek must be accomplished, I believe, mainly through the national government.

The American people are right in demanding that New Nationalism, without which we cannot hope to deal with new problems. The New Nationalism puts the national need before sectional or personal advantage. It is impatient of the utter confusion that results from local legislatures attempting to treat national issues as local issues.  It is still more impatient of the impotence which springs from overdivision of governmental powers, the impotence which makes it possible for local selfishness or for legal cunning, hired by wealthy special interests, to bring national activities to a deadlock.  This New Nationalism regards the executive power as the steward of the public welfare. It demands of the judiciary that it shall be interested primarily in human welfare rather than in property, just as it demands that the representative body shall represent all the people rather than any one class or section of the people.

If our political institutions were perfect, they would absolutely prevent the political domination of money in any part of our affairs.  We need to make our political representatives more quickly and sensitively responsive to the people whose servants they are.  More direct action by the people in their own affairs under proper safeguards is vitally necessary.  The direct primary is a step in this direction, if it is associated with a corrupt practices act effective to prevent the advantage of the man willing recklessly and unscrupulously to spend money over his more honest competitor.  It is particularly important that all money received or expended for campaign purposes should be publicly accounted for, not only after election, but before election as well.  Political action must be made simpler, easier, and freer from confusion for every citizen.

The object of government is the welfare of the people. The material progress and prosperity of a nation are desirable chiefly so far as they lead to the moral and material welfare of all good citizens. Just in proportion as the average man and woman are honest, capable of sound judgment and high ideals, active in public affairs -- but, first of all, sound in their home life, and the father and mother of healthy children whom they bring up well – just so far, and no farther, we may count our civilization a success.  We must have – I believe we have already – a genuine and permanent moral awakening, without which no wisdom of legislation or administration really means anything; and, on the other hand, we must try to secure the social and economic legislation without which any improvement due to purely moral agitation is necessarily evanescent.  Let me again illustrate by a reference to the Grand Army.  You could not have won simply as a disorderly and disorganized mob.  You needed generals; you needed careful administration of the most advanced type, and a good commissary – the cracker line.  You well remember that success was necessary in many different lines in order to bring about general success.  You had to have the administration in Washington good, just as you had to have the administration in the field, and you had to have the work of the generals good.  You could not have triumphed without that administration and leadership, but it would have been worthless if the average soldier had not had the right stuff in him.  He had to have the right stuff in him, or you would not get it out of him.  In the last analysis, therefore vitally necessary though it was to have the right kind of organization and the right kind of generalship, it was even more vitally necessary that the average soldier should have the fighting edge, the right character.  So it is in our civil life.  No matter how honest and decent we are in our private lives, if we do not have the right kind of law and the right kind of administration of the law, we cannot go forward as a nation.  That is imperative, but it must be in addition to and not a substitution for the qualities that make us good citizens.  In the last analysis, the most important elements in any man's career must be the sum of those qualities which, in the aggregate, we speak of as character.  If he has not got it, then no law that the wit of man can devise, no administration of the law by the boldest and strongest executive, will avail to help him.  We must have the right kind of character -- character that makes a man, first of all, a good man in the home, a good father, a good husband -- that makes a man a good neighbor. You must have that, and, then, in addition, you must have the kind of law and the kind of administration of the law which will give to those qualities in the private citizen the best possible chance for development.  The prime problem of our nation is to get the right kind of good citizenship, and to get it, we must have progress, and our public men must be genuinely progressive.

Street Crime

Dramatis Personae

Y is preferably male, but need not be. He is neither young nor old. He is either rather effeminate, or he is exceedingly masculine, looking like a macho biker. He wears chino slacks and a T-shirt with the chest slogan, “Support Your Local First Responders.” On the back, the World Trade Towers are burning. His slacks’ pockets should be large and deep enough for all the items that will come from them.

X (KRIS LEECHER) is preferably female, but need not be. She, too, is neither young nor old. She is dressed conservatively, carries a conservative leather handbag and a cell phone, which may be clipped to her dress or purse, or may protrude from a pocket of her mannish jacket. Her outfit is far from being a chador, but her skirt is quite long, and she wears a scarf that covers her hair.

FIRST POLICEMAN wears a dark blue uniform, complete with badge and ID strip. On his sleeve is one small chevron. A nightstick, a cell phone or walky-talky, handcuffs, and a pistol holster hang from his belt. A pistol protrudes from the holster. He is young, clean-shaven, slight, with neatly combed black hair cut in a military style. He wears steel-rimmed spectacles. His voice is thin, nasal, and slightly effeminate.

SECOND POLICEMAN, too, wears a dark blue uniform, but with a noticeably different cut and a much larger badge. His uniform’s cap looks vaguely naval. Under his badge is a ribbon that looks military. He is about six feet tall, muscular, blue-eyed, clean-shaven, blond, and clean-cut; he has a large, square jaw and gleaming white, very even teeth. The two sides of his face are perfect mirror images of each other. In a showy, over-dramatic way, he is quite handsome. He looks like the hero of a late-nineteenth-century melodrama, the “Jack” of whom the heroine might say, “If only Jack were here!”. A walky-talky, a PDA, a whistle, and a holster with a pistol in it hang from his belt.

THIRD POLICEMAN (Al) is a poorly preserved African-American in his late forties. His uniform is similar to SECOND POLICEMAN’s. He is about 5’ 10”, chubby, with graying temples. His forehead has deep horizontal lines.

* * *

Time: Summer 2004

* * *

The curtain rises on an almost bare stage, except for a suggestion along stage front of a sidewalk with paving blocks, and just behind the sidewalk a slight depression, i.e., a curb. The backdrop shows a stylized cityscape: store fronts, advertising signs, distant multistory buildings. Traffic noise, including frequent distant emergency-vehicle sirens, never ceases. Usually soft, occasionally it is louder, suggesting a passing car or truck. The lighting suggests early afternoon on a cloudy summer day.

A light breeze blows from the back of the stage toward the audience. Now and then, the wind briefly gusts strongly.

As the lights come up, Y is lying on his back in the street parallel to the proscenium a few feet from the curb, his head toward the right, his arms under his head, their elbows projecting sideward. He is looking up, seemingly staring at the sky.

X enters from the left, walking on the sidewalk. She is absorbed in her thoughts. At first, she does not see Y. When she does, she is startled. She steps off the sidewalk and bends over him, checking to see whether he is alive and conscious. Their eyes meet, and she immediately straightens, but continues to stare down at him, frowning slightly.

Y: I am lying here trying to rest. Why are you bothering me?

X: Because you are lying in the street. A car could come and run you over!

Y: So what business is that of yours?

X: Suicide is a crime. It’s my duty not to be an accessory.

Y: How nice, Miss Prissy-Prissy. I suppose you’re the kind who tattled to the teacher about who talked while she was out of the room. I bet you’re even the kind who reports kids who buy cigarettes before they turn eighteen.

X: If you don’t get up at once, I’m going to call the police.

Y: If you call the police, that will be your problem. You’ll see.

X: What do you mean? What are you going to do?

Y: Aha! So you scare easily! OK, you’d better be scared! You won’t like what I’m going to do!

X: What are you going to do?

Y: Call the police, and you’ll find out.

X: You’re bluffing because you’re afraid I’ll call the police. Well, here goes. [She presses buttons on her cell phone, eliciting variously pitched beeping sounds.] [Pause.] [She looks questioningly at Y.]: Well, what are you going to do now?

Y: You haven’t called the police.

X: I just did.

Y: You dialed the number, but you didn’t press the button that makes the connection.

X: How can you be so sure?

Y: You didn’t say anything, dummy.

X: The police are listening right now. They are listening to me say that you are lying in the street with traffic coming, and you won’t get up.

Y: I’ll make you an offer.

X: No offers. Get up.

Y: If you lie down, I’ll get up.

X: Why should I lie down? It’s dangerous lying in the street.

Y: After you lie down and see me get up, you can get right up again. You’ll only be down a few seconds. There’s not much danger. Well, maybe a little. After all, we’ve been talking for minutes, and no car has hit me.

X: Cars have been going by; they see me standing here, and they swerve to avoid me.

Y: So they’ll swerve to avoid me.

X: Why should I trust you?

Y: Better: Why should I trust you? You just lied to me.

X: I did not!

Y: Ah, ah, ah! Temper! Temper temper temper. Temper temper temper temper temper. [Sings] I love you, for tempermental reasons. You really must believe me. I’ve given you my hard on.

X: That’s disgusting! You’re disgusting! What do I have to do to get you to get up?

Y: If I take out my penis and you look at it, I’ll get up.

X: [She hesitates, then decides. As she does so, she steps back away from him, her body language suggesting that her decision is far from wholehearted.]: OK. But you have to get up right away.

Y: OK. Here goes. [He reaches into his fly and pulls out an invisible or imaginary penis.] Are you looking?

X: Yes, but I don’t see anything.

Y: Do you realize that if you had said you saw my penis I would have gotten up?

X: OK. I do see your [hesitates] penis. I’m looking at it right now.

Y: You’re lying again. Don’t you realize how pathetic you are? If the police were really listening, you never would have said that.

X: Yes, I would! The police would understand that I’m just trying to humor you.

Y: That’s great psychiatry. Tell the crazy man you think he’s crazy and you’re trying to humor him. I’ll tell you what: If you show me your penis, I’ll get up.

X: Good bye. [She starts to walk away toward the right, hesitates, turns back, turns away again, hesitates again, and walks off.]

[Y rolls over from supine to prone, then rises up on his elbows and stares after X, smiling broadly. After about 30 seconds, he shakes his head, “No!”]

Y: Uh-oh!

X re-enters from the right, walking in the street.

X: This time, I did call the police. [She steps sideways onto the sidewalk.] They’ll be here any minute. They told me to stay on the sidewalk. I’ll just wait until the police arrive.

Y: You didn’t. . . . You didn’t, did you? . . . Well, did you?

X: We’ll see. Just be patient.

Y: No, I need to know right now. If the police are coming, I’ve got to leave immediately.

X: Why?

Y: I’m on their wanted list. They’ll hold me incommunicado. No one will ever hear from me again. They’ll execute me without even a trial.

X: That’s not the American way.

Y: [Sings.] Oh, yonder John Ashcroft, I’m a prisoner singing, oh, how could you treat a poor alien so?

X: I admire Bush. I think he’s a second Reagan.

Y: If he gets Alzheimers, how will they be able to tell?

X: You are disgusting. I hope a car does hit you, or a truck. I sure don’t want to see your penis.

Y: I don’t have one. I’m a butch lesbian.

X: [Not wanting to be, but nevertheless somewhat amused.] No, you’re not.

Y: Well, for once, you’re right. I guess it takes one to know one.

X: I am not a lesbian!

Y: I meant: It takes a liar to recognize a liar.

X: Oh, sorry. You were ambiguous.

FIRST POLICEMAN rides onto the stage from the right. He is on a bicycle (or, perhaps, a light motorcycle).

FIRST POLICEMAN [To X]: Did you call for help?

Y leaps to his feet and runs a few feet toward FIRST POLICEMAN, so that he is directly between FIRST POLICEMAN and X, about two feet from FIRST POLICEMAN.

Y: I phoned. That man [pointing at X] knocked me down and grabbed my cell phone right after I phoned for help.

X [enraged]: He’s lying! I phoned for help. I gave my name. It’s Kris Leecher.

FIRST POLICEMAN consults a small notepad he takes out of his shirt pocket.

FIRST POLICEMAN [To Y]: I have a report that you were lying in the street, constituting a traffic hazard and a danger to yourself.

The wind starts to gust strongly.

Y: No, no. I’m Kris Leecher. He has my wallet. Look at my photo ID. Does it look like that fairy or does it look like me?

X: Officer, you are welcome to look at my ID. [She opens her handbag and removes a large wallet. Opens, then closes, various wallet compartments, rushing more and more as her search continues unsuccessful. She puts the wallet back in the handbag and rummages till she removes a second, smaller wallet.]

Y [To FIRST POLICEMAN during X’s search]: Doesn’t she look guilty?

By now, X is trembling. Her movements are spastic. She opens the smaller wallet and starts to remove something, but somehow drops the wallet, spilling its contents, including several folded greenbacks and some small slips of paper that look like credit-card purchase receipts. The wind blows them toward the orchestra pit.]

Y: Here, let me help.

X, Y, and FIRST POLICEMAN rush about, trying to gather up the blowing papers. Y slams his foot down onto an item. As FIRST POLICEMAN and X rush about, they almost collide.

X: Oh! I’m sorry!

FIRST POLICEMAN: Excuse me!

Y: I have the ID under my foot.

Y bends, and removes from under his foot a plastic card the size of a credit card. He hands it to FIRST POLICEMAN. FIRST POLICEMAN examines the card, then looks first at X, then at Y.

FIRST POLICEMAN [To X]: This appears to be your photograph. [To Y]: I’m afraid I have to place you under arrest for obstructing traffic, creating a disturbance, and attempting to interfere with an officer.

Y: Excellent! [He produces a microphone. To FIRST POLICEMAN]: Would you like to say a few words to the audience? How do you feel about what has been taking place?

FIRST POLICEMAN: What audience?

Y: You may get to see yourself next fall on our satellite network. [He produces two 8.5-by-11-inch stapled multi-page printed forms, and hands one to FIRST POLICEMAN and the other to X.] Here you are. Please sign these releases everywhere there’s a red X.

During the following conversation between Y and FIRST POLICEMAN, X is absorbed in reading the form she has been handed.

FIRST POLICEMAN: Just a minute. You can’t engage in this kind of activity in this city without first getting a permit. Where is your permit?

Y: We only need a permit if we’re filming or videotaping. All we’re doing is sound recording. Provided we get participants’ permission to use the recordings, we don’t need a permit.

FIRST POLICEMAN: In any case, you’re still under arrest. You can’t just lie down in the street and create a disturbance. You could have caused an accident. It will be up to a judge to decide whether this is acceptable behavior, television show or no television show.

X: Just listen to this! Here’s how it begins [She reads from the form.]: “In the name of Allah, the all-powerful, the all-knowing, the eternal, the merciful, greetings. We, the undersigned, agree to submit wholly and absolutely to the will of Allah. We shall henceforth obey all His commands and precepts, and pledge our lives and souls to His service. We utterly and forever abjure all belief in and submission to false idols and prophets, such as those worshipped by infidels. We renounce all allegiance to any government that does not acknowledge the supremacy of Allah and his laws and commandments.”

FIRST POLICEMAN places his hand on his pistol, but does not remove it from its holster. Peering at Y, he glances at his copy of the form, then stuffs the form into one of his pants’ pockets. He takes his pistol out of its holster; holding it in his right hand; with his left hand steadying his right arm, he points the pistol at Y.

FIRST POLICEMAN [To Y]: Lie face down on the sidewalk, please. [Y does so.] Clasp your hands behind you at your waistline. [Y does so. FIRST POLICEMAN handcuffs Y, then places one foot lightly on Y’s neck. He takes out his walky-talky (or cell phone), presses some buttons, then says]: This is Officer four-nine-two. I have a Situation Ninety-nine, and I urgently need backup and a conveyance for a prisoner at Twenty-second and L.

As FIRST POLICEMAN is speaking, a police cruiser drives onto the stage from the left, and a police officer (SECOND POLICEMAN) emerges from the front door on the passenger side, leaving another officer in the cruiser’s driver’s seat.

[In the following, FIRST POLICEMAN continues to point his gun more or less toward Y, but rather carelessly, letting his hand swing somewhat as he speaks.]

SECOND POLICEMAN: What’s going on here? [To FIRST POLICEMAN]: Who are you?

FIRST POLICEMAN: I have the same question for you: You aren’t wearing a regulation uniform. Unless you can produce identification and an explanation, I’m going to place you under arrest for impersonating an officer. [During the next few minutes, he appears to grow less and less aware of where he is pointing his gun.]

SECOND POLICEMAN [To his walky-talky]: Al, call headquarters and get emergency backup immediately.

The police cruiser’s lights flash.

FIRST POLICEMAN [To X]: I may need your help. This may get ugly. Get as far away as you can from here, as fast as you can. If something happens to me before my backup arrives, call police headquarters and tell them what happened.

X: How will I know whether it’s your backup or their backup?

SECOND POLICEMAN [To X]: An excellent question, Ma’am. My backup will be wearing the same kind of uniform I’m wearing. [To FIRST POLICEMAN]: Please put that gun away and get your foot off that gentleman’s neck, Sir.

THIRD POLICEMAN emerges from the cruiser’s driver’s door. He is carrying a double-barreled shotgun. He walks rapidly around the front of the cruiser, then toward the other characters, and takes a position behind and upstage from SECOND POLICEMAN. He points his shotgun at FIRST POLICEMAN.

THIRD POLICEMAN [To SECOND POLICEMAN]: Are any of these jokers giving you trouble? What’s with the guy with the gun?

FIRST POLICEMAN [To X]: I told you to go away. Now, get moving!

THIRD POLICEMAN: Hold it! Nobody goes anywhere until I sort all this out.

[To FIRST POLICEMAN]: Put that gun down right now! Take your foot off that gentleman’s neck! Be careful! If you point your gun at anybody, I’m going to consider that a deadly threat, and I’ll use my weapon to disable you before you cause injury or death to anyone.

FIRST POLICEMAN puts his pistol back in its holster.

FIRST POLICEMAN: I am Officer four-nine-two of the South Plains Municipal Police. As a police officer, I have the right to employ deadly force if necessary to keep the peace. Who are you? I don’t recognize your uniform or your badge.

THIRD POLICEMAN: I don’t know where you think you are. We’re in the city of Ulan. My partner and I are police officers in this town’s police force. I’ve never heard of South Plains. Now, take your foot off that man’s neck!

FIRST POLICEMAN [To X]: Show those men the paper form that man handed us.

X hands the paper form to SECOND POLICEMAN. He starts to read it.

THIRD POLICEMAN: I have a very short fuse. Take your foot off that man’s neck now!

SECOND POLICEMAN: Just a minute, Al. You’d better first look at this paper. [To Y]: Is this paper yours?

Y: I don’t know what you’re talking about. This guy with his foot on my neck told me I was under arrest. Then, this woman came along. She seems to know him.

X: This is crazy! [To SECOND POLICEMAN]: May I see some ID or proof you are really a police officer?

THIRD POLICEMAN: You are in no position, Lady, to be asking anybody for ID. I’m in charge here, and I’m rapidly getting to the point when this friend of mine [he nods toward his shotgun] will speak for me.

Y suddenly twists out from under the leg that is on his neck. Simultaneously, he thrusts upward and sideways with his handcuffed arms, striking the leg over him. FIRST POLICEMAN falls heavily with his left forearm under him, dropping his gun. He tries to rise up on his two arms and immediately falls back prone with a groan, his left arm now no longer under him. His left sleeve is torn, and a trickle of blood flows from under his sleeve onto his left wrist and hand. (It continues to dribble slowly till the end of the scene.) Y stands up.

Y: [To SECOND POLICEMAN]: Quick, take his gun!

SECOND POLICEMAN does so, checks to ascertain that it is not cocked, stuffs it into one of his pockets, and puts his foot gently on the back of FIRST POLICEMAN’s neck. Then, he draws his pistol and points it at X.

SECOND POLICEMAN: You, you, and you are all under arrest. I assume you know your rights, but I’ll remind you of them, just to be sure. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you do say may be used as evidence against you.

X: What am I under arrest for?

SECOND POLICEMAN hands the printed form to THIRD POLICEMAN.

THIRD POLICEMAN reads it until the next time he speaks.

SECOND POLICEMAN: [To X]: Suspicion of conspiracy to commit terrorist activity.

FIRST POLICEMAN [Weakly; he is in pain.]: You heard me say that I am a South Plains Police Officer. Ma’am, you heard them say they were officers from some town with a name like “Lulu.” Where do you think we are right now, Ma’am?

SECOND POLICEMAN [To Y]: Did you hear this guy with the weird uniform claim he was a police officer?

Y: I sure did.

SECOND POLICEMAN: [To FIRST POLICEMAN]: To any other charges, I’m adding impersonating a police officer.

X: May I use my cell phone to telephone home?

THIRD POLICEMAN: Not now. Later, when we’re in the station, you’ll be given an opportunity to make a telephone call. Please hand me your cell phone, now, Ma’am. I am taking it as possible material evidence. We’ll see to it that you get a receipt for this and any other property we have to confiscate.

He takes her cell phone.

X: I may be crazy to say this now, but I know that I am in South Plains, and I never heard of this “Lulu” you say you’re from.

SECOND POLICEMAN: It’s Ulan, Ma’am. We’re not far from the capital.

Y: I think it’s time I showed my ID. My wallet is in my left rear pocket.

THIRD POLICEMAN: I’ll get it.

THIRD POLICEMAN steps behind Y and carefully pats him down, checking all his pockets and all of his body from his neck to his ankles. During this, he never lets go of his shotgun, which he carefully holds behind him, out of Y’s reach. He removes a wallet from Y’s left rear pocket, opens it, and removes an ID card. He looks at it and hands it to SECOND POLICEMAN.

SECOND POLICEMAN: Why didn’t you tell us?

Y: I wasn’t sure who was who, with both sides claiming they were local law enforcement.

SECOND POLICEMAN: Do you plan to take them into custody?

Y: Perhaps eventually, but not right now. You should let headquarters know.

THIRD POLICEMAN presses several buttons on X’s cell phone, eliciting beeps.

THIRD POLICEMAN [To the cell phone]: Hello, this is Igor, Dr. Frankenstein’s assistant. The monster has come to life. Please send a response team to Twenty-second and L. The local police will be expecting you. If I’m not here when the team arrives, I’ll be pursuing Count Dracula.

X: Can I say what happened before you got here?

THIRD POLICEMAN: Sure.

X: I was walking. I saw this man [points to Y] lying in the street. I asked him to get up because he was a traffic hazard and in danger. He refused and made obscene suggestions and gestures. I called the police and gave them my name, Kris Leecher. This man [points to FIRST POLICEMAN] came and said he was a policeman. Then, the other man said he was me, and I was a homosexual man. He claimed that the photograph on my ID card would show that he was Kris Leecher. The man I thought was a policeman looked at my ID and agreed that it was my picture. Then the other man said he was working for television, and he handed each of us the form you both just looked at. [While she speaks, FIRST POLICEMAN groans.] The man I thought was a policeman tried to arrest the other man, but I noticed he didn’t tell him his rights. Then you came along. I still don’t understand where you are supposed to be from.

Y: I guess I’d better explain. They and I are government agents in an undercover task force. I am their superior, and so I know about them, but they have never met me and didn’t know who I was. I was lying there because that was the recognition signal for certain terrorists we were trying to contact. I was impersonating one of their agents whom we recently apprehended. This South Plains “Police Officer” [his tone makes the quotation marks obvious] is one of the terrorists we’ve been trying to catch. Unfortunately, your arrival almost upset our plan. Now, if you don’t mind, you can go with my colleague. At the station, they’ll need to ask you a few questions, and then you’ll be released. I’m sorry, but you’ll have to ride in the back of the police cruiser, like a prisoner, because that’s where we’re required to put someone who’s not one of us agents. [He nods to THIRD POLICEMAN, who hands her her cell phone.] There you are. You really aren’t under arrest any more.

[FIRST POLICEMAN groans again. SECOND POLICEMAN speaks into his walky-talky.]: Send an ambulance suitable for conveying a dangerous suspect.

SECOND POLICEMAN [To X]: This way, Ma’am.

X and SECOND POLICEMAN walk to the police cruiser. SECOND POLICEMAN gets into the driver’s seat, and X gets into the back seat. The cruiser drives off.

THIRD POLICEMAN [To Y]: Let’s use his pistol.

Y: Good idea.

THIRD POLICEMAN transfers his shotgun to his left hand and takes FIRST POLICEMAN’s pistol out of FIRST POLICEMAN’s pocket and cocks it.

THIRD POLICEMAN [To Y]: It’s amazing, how they believe anything we tell them, if we say it’s to help fight terrorism.

Y: Not really. I just happen to be good at this.

THIRD POLICEMAN puts the pistol to FIRST POLICEMAN’s head. FIRST POLICEMAN tries to raise himself on his hands and knees, but is unable to do so. He groans and falls back. THIRD POLICEMAN kills him.

Immobility; darkness; curtain.

Street Crime by H. G. Gerjuoy is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.