Aide-de-Camp

Aide-de-Camp by Brett Biebel

Issue 2.16 | Fiction

Cover Art: L. Erickson

After every execution, the governor of Oklahoma wants to get laid. Technically, he always wants to get laid, but death penalty nights make it seem especially imperative. There are charitable ways to perceive this desire (he needs comfort, he craves human intimacy, there must be some kind of assertion of life against the backdrop of pre-arranged mortality, etc.) and cynical ones (he, like maybe all humans and probably all men, feels powerful and requires a physical assertion of that power, a real and present human body on which to enact his symbolic dominance). Now, because he’s both a reasonably smart guy and a canny politician, he recognizes that facilitating the fulfillment of this desire requires a delicate balancing act. It’s not as simple as just asking for it (or paying for it or going out and trading on his influence in order to get it, there being generally more risk in those approaches than he’s willing to take on). That’s too naked, too desperate. Rather, he must arrange the evening so that sexual congress is suggested but not made explicit, so that the first lady can make the first move. Upon completing said arrangements, furthermore, he must make a kind of truce with his desire so that he is at once open to its achievement and at peace with its denial, thereby simultaneously pursuing it (to make the first lady feel wanted, as well as to remain true to his deepest self) and not pursuing it (so as to avoid the appearance, or even the reality, of being willing to accept only sexual attention as evidence of love and affection). This is difficult, but the governor is well-practiced. Oklahoma executes more people than you think (more than Texas, on a per capita basis). He makes these calculations essentially automatically, understanding intuitively that the best way to achieve all of this is to institute an execution night tradition. A marital date night. A ritual where he and the first lady watch a movie together, thereby opening up space for togetherness and reflection amidst the weight of executive authority. The governor also understands that he cannot choose the movie. It must be selected for him, in order to bolster his standing as a neutral, agenda-less participant. It must be hard-wired and in DVD form, so as to eliminate the potential for paralyzing scrolling, and also unintended triggering (imagine, say, an algorithmic recommendation of The Green Mile or The Life of David Gale, either of which would be certain to be a mood-killer). This curatorial duty is assigned to a young staffer. Call her Isabel. She goes by Izz. She is the daughter of the governor’s first-year college roommate in Norman and therefore someone with various incentives for loyalty, both in terms of career trajectory and family ties.

Does Izz understand what she is doing? Yes. Yes, of course she does. She knows (though she doesn’t like to think about it) that her choice will be judged by whether or not the governor gets laid. She understands that a perfect hitting streak is impossible, but that her batting average must be astronomical (perhaps as high as .500) if her selections are to reflect favorably upon her and therefore make her a more attractive candidate for various promotions and recommendations. She also knows that this end goal, the rubric by which her work will be judged, is something that the governor will never mention because, well, eww. And, also, creepy. And she can’t say anything either because he’s got all the plausible deniability in the world (his desire, after all, is either fundamentally subconscious or else buried beneath so many layers of rationalization as to be pretty much unreachable), and then she’ll be the one who comes out looking like a perv. Nonetheless, it is obvious to her what’s happening. Sex is the main objective. It is not, however, the only objective. Izz is aware of others. In the event, for example, that her choice does not lead to coitus, there is the fallback of it being a good movie. Unexpectedly good, perhaps. What the algorithmic curators would call a “hidden gem,” and maybe this is, like, the equivalent of a sacrifice bunt or something. A productive out. Maybe the movie can be just okay but funny or guilt-assuaging. There are secondary targets, in short, should she fail to hit the primary one.

Then, and this doesn’t hit her immediately, on the day the governor first gives her the task (in the hallway, while running to a budget conference), but, rather, arises later (at “lunch,” which is really just her eating a peanut butter sandwich in the corner of an elevator also carrying half a dozen reporters), there are anti-targets. She could leak it, she thinks. She could find a film that the governor will want to watch, but that will also show a certain callousness (or, conversely, softness) in the face of his Constitutional authority and therefore create an unflattering headline. “Governor Laughs at Bambi after Latest Lethal Injection” sort of thing. Izz is an abolitionist at heart, probably. She’s never acknowledged this to herself, but, if the world were simple, if there weren’t agendas and cross-agendas and appearances and reputations and concrete, American measurements of success and failure, she’d be an abolitionist. She’d say that the state, as an abstract entity capable of committing violence while denuding it of any actual human inputs (as in, nobody has to feel bad because there are multiple switches and, anyway, someone would do it even if you refused), should not be given the authority to end the life of a concrete individual. If things were simple, she’d pick 12 Angry Men or The Zone of Interest or something directly confrontational, something about the banality of evil or all the discomfiting shades of complicity (she’d lose, in short, forfeit by rejecting the very premise of the exercise, by emerging from the dugout and hurling her bat at the pitcher), but, alas, things are not simple. She’s known this forever, probably since she got her first iPhone at thirteen, which was two years later than her best friend, but one year earlier than her sister (a fact still brought up at family dinners). The world is games. Games have rules. Therefore, to have any real power in this situation, she may have to choose a film that paints the governor as a weak-ass, soft-hearted liberal rather than a murder-crazed maniac. Perhaps she should alternate between the two. Find the intersection of aphrodisiac, anesthetic, and subtle mismatch, stockpiling weaponous choices that might prove useful in a variety of different circumstances because, in the end, it’s good to have options. As long as you can pick the right ones.

Most of the time, she probably does. More often than not, anyway. She serves up some sci-fi. The Martian. She likes Catch Me If You Can and other kinds of soft crime. It seems to work. One summer, Oklahoma kills five people, pretty much one every two weeks, and it feels like she’s running a film festival the governor can’t get enough of. He gives her more important tasks, better ones, and she knows he must be getting laid not only because her rising stock is inspiring envy and (vile) conjecture on the part of her (mostly male) colleagues, but also because she catches the eye of the first lady during official events. Across a crowded room. They share a telepathic conversation.

“I hope I’m getting it right,” says Izz.

To which the first lady replies, “Jesus, hon, there is no right.”

“I don’t know who I’m supposed to be playing for. I’m trying to find the proper flow.”

“Look,” says the first lady, eyes darting up to her husband at some dais in front of some fundraising entourage, “I’d fuck him anyway. I’d probably fuck him no matter what.”

“Thank you?” Izz isn’t sure how much to reveal here (appreciation being connected to vulnerability and all), but the first lady smiles.

“No need,” she says, “You and I, we’re in this together,” and gloats a little in a way that makes Izz not want to believe her, even as she recognizes the statement’s absolute truth. The governor is smiling up there, telling the assembled wallets the state’s got justice on its mind. Virtue. Morality. Enforced by a righteous education system and a firm disciplinary hand. There is another execution in two weeks’ time (and the governor may be sexually conditioned at this point, may be half-hard while alluding to it), and the first lady is waving while being whisked out of the room and off to some school or flower garden while Izz watches her move through the door. Izz is not jealous. She is not angry. She is, however (and maybe for the first time), aware that people get chosen. Roles are assigned. Cards are dealt. At that point, Fate is merely a setup. It’s the Indian graveyard sprouting a governor’s mansion and the exclusive, five-star hotel she’s been forced to enjoy.

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Brett Biebel is the author of three collections of flash fiction, 48 Blitz, Winter Dance Party, and Gridlock; and A Mason & Dixon Companion. His work has appeared in many magazines and been selected for Best Small Fictions and Best Microfiction. He lives, writes, and teaches in Illinois.