The National Gag Corps

Vinny Colarusso had just stepped off the bus, half a block from work, when he realized he'd forgotten something at home. A movie DVD he'd promised to bring, to lend to a friend at work. Without even thinking, standing there at the bus stop, Vinny cut loose with a loud expletive. Most of the people dispersing from the bus stop paid no attention to the curse word cutting through the early morning air.

But as Vinny looked up, he saw that a young blonde woman standing nearby had overheard him. A young woman wearing a purple beret. A purple beret, with the gold cloisonné pin of the National Gag Corps.

"Before I knew it," says Vinny, "she stepped over and clapped her hand right over my mouth. I went mmmmmphhh, but she only tightened up her grip. And she wouldn't let go! She just stood there, with the palm of her hand over my mouth, and she said, 'Didn't your mama teach you not to have such a potty mouth?'

"I didn't answer. I couldn't, with her hand over my mouth. I just stood there, silent, looking into her eyes."

The woman identified herself to Vinny as Iris Novatny, of the National Gag Corps. Then, without removing her hand from his mouth, she asked him if he worked nearby. By gestures and muffled grunting he indicated the nearby warehouse, and she proceeded to teach him a lesson he wouldn't soon forget. Iris walked Vinny into the warehouse and paraded him in front of his gaping fellow workers, her hand kept over his mouth all the while, her thumb up along the side of his nose. She said to them, "Do you know this guy? Did you know this fellow has a foul mouth? Right out at the bus stop, there could've been children there!"

"It was embarrassing at the time," says Colarusso, 21, a forklift driver at Affiliated Wholesalers in Chicago. "She showed me off to everyone with her hand over my mouth. I could feel my face turning red. But looking back now I can laugh at it. And you can bet, I watch my language now! Especially," he chuckles, "when I see a gal wearing a purple beret!"

The National Gag Corps is back again in the public spotlight. When the American economy suffered an implosion in the summer of 2011, millions more found themselves out of work, and people started calling the recession the Second Great Depression. At the urging of President Obama, the US government brought back programs and federal agencies last seen in the 1930s, including a resuscitation of many old public works projects.

Among these was the National Gag Corps, organized under the authority of the Federal Gag Administration. Just as it did back in the Thirties, the National Gag Corps has afforded a job, a purpose, and a popular role in the public eye to hundreds of thousands of young women who were out of work.

"I was laid off from my job toward the end of June," says Novatny, 24, who had been an office worker in Chicago. Sitting in her efficiency apartment amidst hanging potted plants with trance music playing in the background, Iris Novatny seems an unlikely enforcer for a federal government agency. Demure, with long blonde hair and piercing blue eyes, she looks like the girl next door. Until you see the giveaway: her large smooth long slender hands.

"I guess my hands had a lot to do with it," laughs Novatny. "I'd been laid off, so I went down to the federal recruiting office. A lady there took one look at my hands, and she said, 'Have you considered the Gag Corps? They're bringing it back, you know.' So I filled out an application, and they wanted to take pictures and measurements of my hands. Sort of freaky, I thought. But if you're going to be a gag girl, you need big hands -- all the better to shut someone's mouth with, you know -- and smooth soft attractive hands are part of the Gag Corps public image."

A few days later, Novatny received word that she had been hired. Hired as a member of the National Gag Corps. "It was great," she says. "I had a job again, and what's more, I really love my work!"

Under federal law, the National Gag Corps is open to women between the ages of 18 and 39 who have suitable hands and meet other qualifications. By law they must wear the purple beret and pin of the Gag Corps while on duty, to identify them to the public as gag girls. Depending on their assignment, they may also wear the full uniform of the Gag Corps. "I know some people say it looks like a purple Girl Scout uniform," laughs Iris, "but I think it's cute, and sorta sexy. A nice crisp Gag Corps uniform, you know, it turns heads! And it puts people on their best behavior. Because if they don't behave, I could put my hand over their mouth!" As Iris says this, she laughs and holds her large soft smooth hand up in the air, with her palm toward my face, looking dangerously like la femme Novatny.

She likes low-key assignments in public places best. "A restaurant had been having problems with loud and unruly patrons, so they asked the Gag Corps to send a few girls by. Well, no sooner had we got there, than this fellow at a table was laughing like a big loud jackass, telling a joke to his girlfriend. I mean, you could hear it clear across the room! So I went up behind his chair, and I clamped my hand tight over his mouth to shut him up. You should've seen, he almost had a fit, tossing his head and trying to say something... only with my hand over his mouth, he couldn't! He could only make these funny noises.

"He wasn't settling down very well, so I told him, if you don't quiet up, I'll keep my hand over your mouth until your soup gets cold! I said, I'm Private Iris Novatny of the National Gag Corps, and I'm here to teach you some manners in a restaurant. Then he made some noises a while beneath my hand, couldn't understand what he was trying to say. He finally shut up when his girlfriend told him, she said, 'I'm glad this gag girl has shut you up, I've been trying to get you to shut up for ages! Maybe now you'll learn to keep your voice down!'"

As Novatny's tale illustrates, many of the missions of the Gag Corps have less to do with law enforcement, and more to do with maintaining public order and decorum. Girls of the Gag Corps do sometimes function as adjuncts to local police departments and other law enforcement agencies, as in the recent espionage trial of Roland Hansen, who had to be kept physically silenced by a member of the Gag Corps at all times in public, lest he blurt out national security secrets. But most often the Gag Corps is involved in nothing more serious than handing out citations for disturbing the peace or engaging in disorderly conduct.

"And there's a major public relations dimension to our work too," says Iris. As might be expected of an agency which has become wildly popular across the country! Yes, the National Gag Corps has captured the public imagination, and has also captured the hearts of the American people. "Everybody loves us gag girls!" laughs Novatny. From the guest appearances of Gag Corps members on Bones, Glee, Two and a Half Men, and other TV shows, to the smiling girls in purple berets who have become de rigeur at every Hollywood awards ceremony, the Gag Corps has entered the public spotlight to the cheers of millions of adoring fans.

"They say it's not a complete awards ceremony if a girl in purple doesn't come out at some point and put her hand over the emcee's mouth to shut him up," says Novatny. "Oh, and you've heard about Kim Kardashian? She's an honorary member of the Corps!

"Why, you wouldn't believe, when I'm out in uniform, the perfect strangers who come up to me and ask me to cover their mouth! They want to find out what it's like, they want friends to take a 'gag photo' of me with my hand over their mouth. And you wouldn't believe how many people have 'liked' the National Gag Corps page on Facebook!"

Just as with the original Gag Corps back in the 1930s, today's Corps has caught on fire and become a cultural phenomenon. The girls of the Gag Corps have become America's sweethearts. Stern, with a threatening hand cupped in the air, but young and beautiful, these women have become cultural icons.

The interplay between today's Gag Corps and the old National Gag Corps of the Thirties is evident right in Iris Novatny's apartment. On her wall hangs a poster, one of the most famous and most enduring images from the days of the original Gag Corps: a black and white photo of a smiling gag girl hand-silencing journalist H.L. Mencken at the 1936 Democratic National Convention. "Mencken was quite critical of FDR," explains Novatny, "so that girl thought she'd give the ol' curmudgeon what for!"

Sometimes the interplay with the Thirties surfaces in unexpected ways. "The other day I was out on patrol, in uniform," says Iris, "when a young man came up to me and 'served' a Lucky Hand coin on me. An actual, original silver Lucky Hand coin from the 1930s, minted by the US government! You know, as part of an economic experiment in alternate means of exchange? You didn't spend a Lucky Hand coin, you 'served' it on someone, and then by law they had to hold their hand over your mouth. Well, I was delighted to see an old Lucky Hand coin, minted back in the 1930s. So I held my hand over that fellow's mouth for, must've been half an hour. It was great, just like the good old days!"

What has been Novatny's favorite experience so far, as a member of the National Gag Corps? "Oh, let me think," she says. "That would have to be the time when several of us gag girls went to do a presentation on the Gag Corps, at a public elementary school up on the north side. They had a school assembly, and all the kids were sitting there on the bleachers there in the gym, and it was four of us girls out on the floor doing the presentation. And there was one boy up in the bleachers, he was way noisier than the rest, and he wouldn't stop talking, and his teacher looked at her wit's end in how to deal with him.

"So while the other girls continued our presentation in front of this school assembly, I walked right up into the bleachers, and I clamped my hand tight over this boy's mouth, and I sat down beside him on the bleacher, and I just sat there keeping my hand over his mouth. He quieted down fast! But I wouldn't let go. Well, of course all the other kids noticed, and they started getting unruly, but the other gals from the Corps got them quieted down when they pointed out the roll of wide white cloth medical tape which we always wear on a belt clip, you know, for times when it's a mass crowd control situation, and the other Corps members pointed out to the kids that among the four of us we had more than enough medical tape to shut up every kid in that gym. And how would they like a demonstration? That quieted them down fast!

"Well, I kept holding this boy's mouth for the rest of the school assembly, and afterwards his teacher was so grateful to me, she asked if I could come back to their classroom and do a further demonstration. So I went back to her fifth grade classroom, with my hand still kept fastened over this boy's mouth, and once we got to the room I sat on a chair up in front of the room, facing the entire class, with my hand still clamped over the boy's mouth. And I kept on holding his mouth for probably another 20 minutes in front of the class.

"And afterwards, I had to go, and the teacher said, 'Tommy, I don't think you've learned your lesson about talking yet.' So she had him sit there beside her, by her desk, with her hand firmly over his mouth. And I left her some pamphlets from the Gag Corps, ideas about keeping order in the classroom, such as, if the teacher is too busy to hold a troublemaker's mouth herself, she could have girls from the high school or junior high come down and hold the student's mouth for hours as a form of work study."

Indeed, the ideas behind the National Gag Corps have caught on outside the official boundaries of the Corps itself. Many teen girls who are not old enough yet to enlist in the Gag Corps have taken to enthusiastically wearing the purple beret, and serving as a volunteer auxiliary of the Gag Corps -- in what have unofficially been called "Miley Cyrus Brigades." Friends, classmates, and kid brothers live in terror of the swift smooth mouth holding hands of the Miley Cyrus Brigades!

With the sudden explosive growth of the Gag Corps, coming up to speed in a matter of just weeks in the summer of 2011, there has been a need to draw on seasoned experienced hands for the leadership ranks of the Corps. Many top officers in the National Gag Corps have been recruited from among the prison guards in the federal gag prisons, operated under the authority of the Federal Gag Administration. These women are well experienced in keeping prisoners silenced by hand 24/7 within the walls of the gag prisons, and they bring a wealth of practical hand gagging experience to the ranks of the Corps. "There are men in the gag prisons who have been kept handgagged literally for years on end," explains Iris Novatny. "Those female guards from the federal gag prisons may look pretty, but they're tough shut-you-up bitches, believe you me!"

Others in the leadership of the Gag Corps have come from other backgrounds, such as law enforcement. Novatny's own immediate superior, Sergeant Valerie Thomas, 26, was a Chicago police officer before she joined the Corps. Novatny introduced me to Sgt. Thomas, and I was surprised at the good things that come in small packages. Thomas is short and slight, but wiry, with curling black hair down to her shoulders, and the usual Gag Corps large smooth beautiful female hands.

"Val is great to work with," says Iris. "Of course, she was already notorious for hand over mouth exploits before the Corps was ever reorganized!"

And it seems I remember a minor news story about Valerie Thomas, one of Chicago's finest, from not so long ago. "Yes, it's true," admits Sgt. Thomas ruefully. "I was a rookie policewoman, and my partner and I had been called to the scene of a suspected burglary in progress. We apprehended one suspect and handcuffed him, and then my partner was going back into the house to apprehend the other suspect. And then this man turned and opened his mouth as if he was going to call out and warn his accomplice -- we had reason to think the accomplice might be armed -- so, just on a reflex, I put my hand over his mouth, and I kept it there until my partner returned with the other suspect.

"Well, once I removed my hand from the man's mouth, all hell broke loose. He accused me of having germs on my hand, he accused me of violating his free speech rights, the whole nine yards. It ended up with him lodging a complaint against me, and I got called in on the carpet. In the end I was reprimanded for not securing the first suspect and then accompanying my partner in to apprehend the other suspect. But at the same time, I actually was commended for thinking on my feet and keeping my hand clamped over that first suspect's mouth!"

Sergeant Valerie Thomas laughs. "Hey, it made me a natural when the National Gag Corps was reorganized this summer. I didn't even have to contact them, they got in touch with me and asked me to enlist! Listen, I was the older sister of three boys growing up, I know how the palm of the hand with thumb next to the nose trick works!"

The easy camaraderie between Sergeant Valerie Thomas and Private Iris Novatny is obvious. "The Gag Corps fosters warm relations among its women," says Novatny. "There really is an esprit de corps, you can see it especially when we've just joined together and shut up some drunken public loudmouth, or held the mouth of some loutish teenager who was getting mouthy and talking back to his mother."

The interview is drawing to a close. Iris Novatny wrings her large smooth long slender hands, the beautiful hands of a young woman. She glances up at me mischievously. "Are you sure you don't want a personal demonstration?" I'm slow to catch her drift, and she has to explain that she means, do I want a personal demonstration of her hand over my mouth?

For the sake of the story, I can hardly pass it up. And those large smooth hands, long slender fingers like long thin pencils, long smooth back of the hand soft as the breast of a dove, do look tempting. Novatny reaches up and fastens the warm soft palm of her hand, gently but very firmly, over my lips.

She's got me! I am unable to speak. My mouth is squeezed irremediably shut beneath the soft but strong palm of her hand. Tentatively, I make as if to open my mouth; but I can't. With Iris's hand in place, I am physically unable to get my mouth open. I try to speak, but no words will come; from behind her hand can be heard soft muffled noises, noises that are no words, noises that could never be understood as intelligible speech in a thousand years.

"You see?" she says, with an uncharacteristically girlish giggle. "You see? Do you like it?"

I like it. I like having Iris Novatny's hand over my mouth. There's something heady, intoxicating, almost erotic about the professional but deeply personal way this young woman is holding her hand over my mouth. I like being shut up and physically silenced by this beautiful young 24 year old gag girl. In a flash it comes to me, I understand just why the National Gag Corps have become such pop icons, so universally beloved among the American people.