Are Snakes Necessary?

by Brian De Palma

  “Oh Senator, my Lord, is it really you? Do you know that I helped my mama cast a vote for you when I was just a little girl? She took me in the booth with her and let me pull the lever. I know you’re the only one who keeps us safe from all those terrible terrorists. I’m so looking forward to the debate on Sunday with that, he’s practically a communist, that liberal Crummy or whatever his name is. Would I like to see how you prepare for a debate? Right now? Upstairs in your suite? I would be honored.”

  The next morning Elizabeth walks into Brock’s office. “Check this out,” she says looking like the Cheshire Cat as she offers Brock a selfie that shows her lying naked next to the sleeping senator. She’s carefully framed the photo so her face is cut off but her body doesn’t lie.

  Brock is very pleased. Elizabeth was a good hire.

  Brock tells her to meet his paymaster in the McDonald’s parking lot that evening.

  Brock keeps his eyes on Elizabeth’s bottom as she walks out of the office and closes the door behind her. Then Brock gets up, follows her out the door and takes off towards Rogers’ hotel.

  It’s early morning. Brock, a real pro, is of course familiar with Rogers’ schedule and knows that the senator will be in his room working on debate prep.

  A yawning Senator Rogers opens the door in a bathrobe.

  “Well hello, Mr. Brock. What brings you here so early? Come to concede the election already?”

  “Morning, Senator. Nope. Not here to concede. But I do have something I think you’ll find interesting. May I come in?”

  “Please, please,” says Rogers, who exudes almost unnatural delight at the appearance of his rival’s top operative. “Always a pleasure to see what the opposition has dreamt up. Your push polling has been very instructive.”

  Brock is all business. Though he has something like a mental hard-on as he anticipates Rogers’ reaction to the photo, which Brock holds up on the screen of his iPhone as soon as he’s inside the senator’s room.

  Rogers leans back against the hotel room desk and just smiles. “I guess I’ll be seeing this on Washington Whispers as soon as you leave. Or maybe it’s already there?”

  “No, Senator, the picture isn’t on Washington Whispers…yet. And it could vanish entirely, if you concede the election. I understand your wife has been diagnosed with Parkinson’s. Don’t you think this might be a good time to put your political ambitions aside and go home and look after that magnificent lady?”

  Rogers laughs in Brock’s face.

  Brock is uncomfortable. Has Rogers gone mad? Or has Brock? Having someone laugh at you brings back memories of early childhood and some of its worst horrors.

  “I’m surprised at you, Brock. Pulling a cheap trick like this. Go ahead. Upload your naughty picture. I’ll deny it of course. And when it’s analyzed and discovered to be a fake, guess whose doorstep the media is going to be parked on?”

  “It’s not a fake, Senator. It was taken right here in this hotel room.”

  “You sure, Brock? Do you really want to bet your political career on that?”

  Brock can feel the weight of pennies dropping from his eyes and he doesn’t like it at all. He can’t place it exactly but he definitely has the feeling he’s been taken somehow. He rifles through the options in his mind and sees quickly he has no choice but to play this out.

  “Fake? Why do you say that?”

  Rogers smiles. Actually it’s more of a grin. The haughty grin of a winner who gets that it would be impolite to smile at a man he’s just beaten. “Because we faked it. You know Photoshop, right? Amazing little program. You just push a few buttons. Use the blur tool around the collarbone. It’s my face on another body next to Elizabeth’s.”

  Temporary loss of composure on Brock’s side of the room. “You did this together?”

  “If a whore can be bought once, she can be bought twice. Oops! I wasn’t supposed to tell you about our little deal until you paid her off.”

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck” are the only words going through Brock’s mind.

  Rogers is having fun. “By the way, have you looked at the polling this morning?”

  Brock nods. His candidate is 30 points behind.

  “Brock. Face facts. There is no way that Crump is going to win this primary. You know it. I know it. I quite enjoyed meeting your friend last night. We had a lot of fun creating this picture. It gets real boring on the campaign trail.”

  Brock has been outfoxed. He shoves the phone with the photo into his pocket and starts for the door.

  “Hold on a minute.”

  Brock stops and turns to face Rogers.

  “Crump is a loser,” says Rogers. “But I appreciate a man of your inventiveness. Why don’t you throw in the towel on that guy. Along with everyone else. How about coming to work for me?”

  There is something of the fait accompli in the air even as the words leave Rogers’ lips. If a whore can be bought once, she can be bought twice.

  Elizabeth drives into McDonald’s later that night. She’s here to collect the fifteen thousand Brock promised. True, she’s already collected twenty from Rogers, for changing sides, and that’s nice—but she’s got bills to pay. Plus she likes the idea of collecting from both sides.

  She looks around the lot and is surprised to find it empty, except for a police car. The one that’s often there, two fat cops inside munching Big Macs, “patrolling the premises.”

  One of the officers sees Elizabeth drive up; he watches as she looks around and then makes eye contact with a man in a suit. The suit walks towards her.

  “Do you work for Barton Brock?”

  “Yes,” says the suit.

  “Do you have the money?”

  The suit pulls a brown bag from under his jacket and hands it to Elizabeth. She opens it up and peeks inside. Fat banded stacks of cash. Just like in the movies.

  Reveling in the sight of all that money, Elizabeth doesn’t notice when one of the officers gets out of his car and walks towards her. But she definitely hears him when, holding a badge in front of her face, he says, “Don’t move, ma’am. You’re under arrest.”

  Brock, who really hates to be outfoxed, is a tricky dog. He’s gone an extra mile to make sure Elizabeth is charged with solicitation and blackmail and that the charges stick. Bail is out of the question. Worse, it all hits as she’s about to enter into the grueling eviction battle that could leave her without a home. She hears about Rogers’ landslide in the TV room/smoking lounge at the minimum-security facility in Crawford County where she’s sentenced to a 36-month term.

  A few weeks after she hears the news of Rogers’ victory, a not unfriendly guard tells Elizabeth she has a visitor.

  Elizabeth sits in a bare visitation cell wondering who is coming to visit. She looks charming in her prison suit and, in a way, resembles Piper Kerman, though Elizabeth’s suit is gray and not orange. Is she surprised when the guard approaches, keys jangling, with Barton Brock? Yes, but she doesn’t let on.

  Brock is all business as usual. He wants Elizabeth out of town. He won’t look good—and neither will his new boss, Senator Lee Rogers—if people start asking questions. If Elizabeth can be bought twice, no telling how many other buyers out there might find her story interesting. Brock figures if he sends her out of town, far out of town, with a little cash in her pocket, he can buy her silence. “How would you like to get out of here?” he says.

  “You double-crossing motherfucker.”

  “Look at the pot calling the kettle black. Calm down. Politics is a dirty business. We’re going to get you off the playing field as quickly as possible.”

  This is not a game for Elizabeth. She starts to cry. Not the kind of tears women sometimes deploy in emergency situations (when tears are both unstoppable and also useful), but genuine tears. Misery made liquid. “I lost my home.”

  “Sorry about that. But you shouldn’t have tried to fuck me.” Brock holds up a hand, palm out, when he sees something like anger spark behind her eyes. “I’m not the kind
of a guy to hold a grudge. I think you’ve learned your lesson. I had a talk with the DA, he’s going to drop all the charges if…”

  “If what.” Quiet tears continue to fall down Elizabeth’s cheeks.

  “…you disappear from here and never return. I got you a bus ticket to Las Vegas. One way. I have a friend in the Diamond organization who will give you a job in one of his casinos. All you have to do in return is shut up. Forever. Forget everything about the Rogers campaign.”

  “You fucker, you think you can destroy people’s lives and get away with it.”

  Brock slaps her hard. She falls back into her chair. The guard looks out the window as if something truly amazing is going on just outside the barred glass.

  “Lady, take the ticket, while I’m feeling generous. I could have you sliced and diced in here and no one…” He motions to the guard who is still transfixed by the something, nothing, about the tree outside the window. “…would do one fucking thing to stop it.”

  Brock reaches inside his jacket and hands her the ticket. It is very hard for Elizabeth to look even slightly dignified as she bows her head and takes it. But she does. Elizabeth has an innate grace. And now she has a get out of jail free card in her pocket.

  CHAPTER 3

  Lee Rogers, still flush from victory, marches through the San Francisco airport.

  Another “ideas conference,” another $50K check. Yum.

  A kitchen. Maybe the senator will give the money to the missus so she can do that kitchen renovation she’s been nattering about.

  Fuck. It’s been a long season on the campaign trail.

  Maybe, thinks Rogers, I’ll get this dog a little treat.

  Rogers and Brock march towards the baggage claim.

  Brock, inexhaustible, raises the question of Rogers’ position on fracking.

  “Got to take into account those upstate voters, Senator. Might want to schedule a meet-and-greet up in Pittsburgh. Some badly ruffled feathers up there. Show a little love and we could sock up some early support from Atlas Energy.”

  Yawn. Not a bad idea, but Rogers is a little busy right now, thank you, eyeing the skirt in front of him. Nice ass, he thinks.

  Nice ass stops, checks her watch.

  Squeak squeak. Nice ass has those rubber-soled shoes, the kind stewardesses wear. They squeak when she starts walking.

  Rogers focuses in. Skirt nice and tight. The way he likes. But prim. Crisp blouse. Wait a minute, Rogers thinks, registering the uniform. Isn’t that the Loft Air outfit?

  Loft Air! Squeak! Rogers’ heart races.

  Could it be? Jenny, Jenny, Jenny…oh what was her last name? Jenny Cours! That’s it!

  Why do we never forget the ones that got away? Rogers quickens his pace. And, eyes trained on her ass, he catches up with Jenny Cours.

  She is dark haired and slim and may, in truth, be one of very few people on earth who actually looks good in air hostess garb. Better than good, really. Jenny Cours looks really good, very good, for her age.

  (Why do they say that? Couldn’t they just leave it at Jenny Cours looks good? But no, they can’t. Jenny, at 47, appealing as she is, is also at the age at which “for her age” is the dark coda added to all complimentary remarks.)

  To Rogers the fact that older women bear a certain extra burden is as relevant as the upstate farmer who got a bum deal from the frackers and whose faucet releases poisonous—and also flammable—water whenever he turns the spigot on. Jenny Cours looks fucking fantastic to him; his blood races at the memory of a pleasant heat.

  “Jenny! Jenny Cours, I can’t believe it’s you!” Rogers, in a spruce black suit and Zegna tie, has the disposition of a puppy who has been in the cargo compartment on a long flight.

  “Lee!” Big smile. “How long has it been?” Jenny Cours is cucumber cool, but definitely not unfriendly.

  “Twenty years. It’s been twenty years. Wow, oh wow. Jenny Cours!”

  Jenny smiles. “You look well, Lee.”

  “Fantastic! You look fantastic, Jenny.” The senator beams. Suddenly he remembers his old nickname for her. “Jen Jen. What have you been doing all this time? Still flying, I see?”

  Know this about Jenny Cours. She may be the last happy person on earth. She has lots of grace and poise and, though she was not class valedictorian or anything—not by a long shot—she left high school with a clear sense of who she is, bright, capable, ready, and full of life. Jenny Cours likes who she is, thank you very much.

  She knew early on that she wanted to fly and here she is, an air hostess on Loft Airlines, where she’s worked for over twenty years.

  Flying all over the world sounds exciting and there are ways in which it definitely is—Milan for dinner! London for lunch! It gets routine after a time, but in a comfortable, soothing way that Jenny has come to like.

  “Still flying, Lee. Just came in from Paris with a layover in New York. I’ve been living in Menlo Park and boy am I glad to get home and have a hot bath and get to bed nice and early.”

  Talk of bath and bed warms Rogers’ heart and he is about to pull a line or two from his practiced ladykiller repertoire when a tornado of youthful energy bounds up. “Hi, Mom!” says the tornado. Perkily and without self-consciousness, the young girl at the center of the storm hugs Jenny in her slender arms.

  “Fanny! What are you doing here?”

  In her sudden focus on her young daughter, Jenny has all but forgotten Lee Rogers; this the senator registers with annoyance.

  “Can’t a girl come out to meet her mom?”

  Fanny, 18, is in the full flush of carnality. Neither her vitality and ripeness nor the irrepressible sense of readiness that surrounds her elude the impatient senator.

  “Oh, sweetheart, of course she can!” says Jenny, returning her daughter’s great big hug.

  Fanny explains she thought she’d meet her mom’s plane and surprise her since school is out. “And what do I find?” says Fanny, eyeing the senator and flashing a great big toothsome smile at him. “You chatting with the biggest landslide victor in recent senatorial history?”

  Fanny is a political junkie. Unlike her friends, self-respecting 18-year-olds who spend weekends in bed, binge watching Shameless and Pretty Little Liars, Fanny can’t get enough of politics. She surfs the web for political news, analysis, debate and gossip and may be the youngest member of the senior set who tune into the Sunday news shows.

  Jenny is so excited by Fanny’s surprise appearance she’s forgotten to introduce Lee Rogers.

  “I’m sorry. Lee, this is my daughter, Fanny. Fanny, meet the senior senator from Pennsylvania. Lee Rogers.”

  “My pleasure,” says Fanny, extending her arm and holding Lee Rogers’ hand tight in hers. “What you did in the campaign, with your media strategy, when Crump ran his attack ads…”

  “The pleasure is all mine. I had no idea Jen Jen had such a…vibrant, enthusiastic, knowledgeable daughter!”

  Brock, who has been patiently standing (lurking might be more like it) behind the senator, decides it’s time to wrap up the airport reunion and get the show on the road. Neither the kid nor her analysis of the Crump campaign and the commercials in which he clunked forth on a steel leg could be less interesting to Brock. In fact, Brock registers some alarm at Lee’s interest in this little pop tart and the aging mom.

  But Rogers is in no hurry to go anywhere. Except perhaps for a drink with Jenny Cours and her lovely daughter. “Hold your fire, Chief,” he tells Brock.

  Jenny, however, is entirely with Brock in thinking it’s time to wrap up and get out of here.

  “Let’s hit the road, my dear,” Jenny tells Fanny, prompted by visions of a nice mother-daughter reunion complete with kale salad and chardonnay followed by that bath and bed. Jenny looks at her watch, grabs Lee’s hand and gives it a shake. “Nice seeing you, Senator.”

  Fanny is oblivious to her mother’s interest in wrapping up.

  “Come on, there’s time for one drink!” she says, all bright eyes and bus
hy tail. And then, seizing a moment she knows might not come again, Fanny says, “Senator, do you have room for an intern this summer? I would die to work for you! Really I would.”

  “Fanny! Please! The senator—”

  “Would be very pleased to have an old friend’s daughter on his staff,” he says beaming at Fanny. “Just call me, Jen. Anytime. I’m sure we can set something up.”

  Barton Brock looks like he is going to explode.

  Fanny, flushed, is still saying Wow and Thank you when her mother takes her arm.

  “Goodbye, Lee,” Jenny says, and hauls her daughter off towards the exit and into the warm, jasmine-scented San Francisco night.

  “Senator. Work. Focus,” says Barton Brock, all business, as he nods towards the waiting livery driver with the sign that says SEN. ROGERS & STAFF.

  CHAPTER 4

  “Mom! What the fuck was that about?”

  Jenny is on a determined march to the parking lot and the car and from there to her Menlo Park kitchen where she looks forward to a good, relaxed dinner with her daughter.

  “I don’t know what you are talking about.” Jenny wheels her Loft-issued rolling suitcase with fixed attention, eyes forward.

  “Mom! The guy offers me a job and you give him the brush-off! What did he do? Make a pass at you or something?”

  Jenny puts the key in the Jetta’s ignition and starts the engine. Lee Rogers is not something Jenny wants to talk about with her daughter. Even with the daughter with whom she shares most everything.

  “Yeah yeah, he’s a letch, I saw it on W.W.,” says Fanny, as if everyone in the world is as conversant as she is with Washington’s cattiest gossip blog. “Everyone knows that about him. Wait, did you and he ever…?”

  Jenny pilots the car out of the lot. “He was on a flight of mine, once, a long time ago. We had a nice chat.”

  “A ‘nice chat’? Sorry, Mom, not buying. You ran away like he was a leper or something. What happened with you two? Fess up!”

  “It was a long time ago.” Jenny focuses on the highway.