Innocence fled long ago. It withered under inflated expectation, schoolroom inanity, war’s insanity, unfulfilled romance, and finally, age. Innocence fled, leaving behind disillusionment, disappointment, and failure, even at this.
I’ve been called four times for jury duty in the last ten years, and each time I receive a summons I think, Hey, great, this time I’ll get a trial for sure. This time I’ll go the distance. But no: again, they reject me. “Thank you for your service,” they say, over and over. And the thing is, unlike most of those who get called, I really actually want to be on a jury.
So here I am again, in the jury room of the King County Courthouse, holding out my forlorn hope. The room is full and faintly stifling with the smell of newly-arisen people, people worried about their jobs, their meetings, their kids, their bosses, their trysts, their cars, their lives delayed, postponed, sabotaged. Our little lives. The worriers hustle up to the reception desk and ask, “How long do you think this will take?” “Where are we supposed to go?” “When do we get paid?” The clerk answers them all patiently, more patiently than I would.
She gets her revenge when she steps up to the microphone to give her orientation spiel. She yells into the mic, “Okay!” then, as if still unsure whether it is working, gives it a loud sniff. Then she shrieks, “Good morning everybody!”
“Good morning,” mutter a desultory handful.
“Oh,” she belts, “we can do better than that!” Oh, great, a fucking social director. I bury my head in my hands.
Hopped-up on caffeine and hopes of being excused, most people play along and belt out, “GOOD MORNING!”
“That’s better!”
Not for me, it isn’t. I hate fake joviality, which is everywhere nowadays. At the bank, the tellers pry: “How’s your day going?” None of your goddamn business.
The clerk does not pick up on my disdain. “How you all DOIN’ this morning?” she cries.
“FINE!”
Rubbish.
“We have no idea how long this will take,” she continues. “You will be called when the judge is ready…You will get your payment in the mail about two weeks after your service is complete…Thank you for your service.”
She will thank us for our service about six times this morning, each time as if she had not done so earlier. I want to slap her, but then, I want to slap everyone here, because her little ditty is barely done when more people go up to the desk and ask how long it will take, and when she thinks they will be called, and when will they get paid. I hate these people, furiously.
This dismal ritual concluded, we settle in for the long wait, shuffling papers and squirming and sipping coffee and fishing around in satchels for breath mints and cell phones. People who habitually go through life unprepared sit and sigh and stare around and fidget and wonder why they were born. Others, abuzz with morning energy, wander around and flip through the magazines and get coffee and snacks from the machines, and rehearse their excuses for why they should be excused.
A tall woman in high brown boots and leggings rises rocket-like from her chair and strides imperiously toward the restrooms. She is flaunting herself, glorying in her superb body and her wonderful legs in their streamlined sheathing. I feel my heartbeat accelerate and keep my eyes covertly peeled for her return trip. A moment later she emerges and strides magnificently back to her seat, opens a laptop, and starts tapping, tap-tap-tap. What’s she writing, a legal brief? A journal entry about what a waste of time jury duty is? Soft-porn? She sits tall, erect, stoic, as if to proclaim I shall remain Buddha-like throughout this ordeal.
Heartened by her example, I, too, resolve to remain Buddha-like. I shuffle through my papers and make some notes and read a New Yorker article, then look around the room again. More precisely, at her, sitting bolt-upright and writing industriously and possibly doing something that will change the world. I envy her in her sleek attire; women can wear such things and stride about without comment, but we men are stuck in our tent-like shirts and baggy pants, the garb of suppression and emasculation. Drinking in her freely and fully flaunted magnificence, I feel an acute hate for my own sex. Few of the guys in the jury room could even remotely be called attractive. One wears a suit and tie; he is forty-ish and graying around the fringes, stiff, upright, and above it all, like the booted woman, striking a blow for tradition and the dignity of the Law.
The Law: Buddha-like, it reigns over all, imperious, imperturbable, impartial. Of course, that’s nonsense, it’s only an ideal. Nevertheless, it’s an uplifting vision, one I prefer to cherish. And here in the jury room, behold the law-givers: the booted woman, ready to kick ass (does she see herself as law’s embodiment? I like to think so); the suited man, eager to proclaim the dignity of justice; and me, hoping this will not once again end in failure but rather that I will be allowed to sit Buddha-like through an entire trial and deliberate and weigh evidence and testimony and, at the end, administer justice. I sigh and try to return to my reading. My eyes will not focus, my mind wanders. I can already smell disappointment.
Moments later, I see something that upends my shining vision of law-giver purity—more precisely, the law-giver purity of the streamlined woman. The clerk has very specifically asked us to please not stand or sit in the aisles, as it presents a hazard in case of fire or other emergency. And yet, the woman is now sitting on the floor, propped against a pillar, tapping on her laptop, legs splayed into the aisle, flaunting them again, actually intruding them into the leg-space of the woman sitting in a nearby chair. If the fire alarm goes off, the woman in the chair will get up and trip over Her Majesty’s splayed legs and fall, then others will fall on top of her, and so on and so on. Hours later, there will be piles of charred, still-smoldering bodies, and the firemen will scratch their heads wondering why they all piled up here.
My estimation of the woman plummets. She is plainly a privileged person, above it all, special in her own mind and a flouter of, if not law, the lawful request of a representative of the law. I’m crushed.
Will the clerk see and ask her to move? No; having relieved herself of her stock morning levity and having thanked us for our service, she feels free to sit, Buddha-like, and text and daydream and ignore the transgression in front of her. In a fire, I suppose she might make it out in time. As for the booted woman: Nothing bad ever happens to her. It wouldn’t dare.
I could get up and remind the woman of the clerk’s admonition, but that would only make a scene, and who wants that? Just the other day I was standing in line at the Allegro Coffee House when a group of youths came in, plopped their backpacks down on a table, and got in line. I saw red: they should have gotten in line first, ordered, then claimed a table. I stood on the precipice of making a fuss, but did not take the plunge. Instead, Buddha-like, I held myself in check and considered the situation, which was: The baristas don’t give a shit, the management doesn’t give a shit, and nobody else gives a shit, so why should I? Oh, I would have gotten some satisfaction in making a valid point about public comportment and correct coffee house procedure, but I would also have aroused general hostility toward me as a troublemaker and crank. And after all, there was no shortage of places to sit. So I let myself settle down, collected my coffee, and found a perfectly good seat. Still, I wondered how long those kids would go on being rude and oblivious to others. As long as people let them. And, is it truly Buddha-like to seethe, even inwardly?
In the jury room, I again restrain myself. The room is calm and peaceful and no one wants a scene. There is no reforming the entire human race. If this bunch would all rather burn, fine. I peer down the aisle, making sure my way to the exit is clear. I glance once more at the woman, who has now tucked her legs up out of the aisle. She sees me looking at her, and looks away.
Almost two hours later, the first call comes in. A judge is ready for us. We stand and shuffle slowly out, heads bobbing from side to side like little human boats. The elevators are slow and small, but eventually we’re all lined up by number in the hallway outside the courtroom, ready. After several minutes the signal comes, and we slow-march into the courtroom under the watchful eyes of bailiffs, attorneys, plaintiff, defendant, and the judge. Like everyone else, the judge is standing out of respect for the jury system and its representatives—us. It’s always a startling sight if you’re not ready for it, and it makes me feel momentarily humble and proud. Now, if only they let me do my job.
But now comes a strange sight: The jury box is already filled with jurors! Who are these people and why are they still here? How many jurors do they need, for cripes sake? I feel failure creeping closer; I know full well only a very small fraction of this incipient mob, duly restrained by the Law, will eventually end up on a jury. The rest of us will be thanked for our service and sent home. I realize that my chances of ending up with the rejects have, once again, soared.
We sit, the judge thanks us for our service, and asks if anyone would suffer a severe hardship by actually serving on a jury. A thicket of hands shoots up. One guy says he has an “important meeting,” another guy is self-employed and will lose a week’s income, a woman is sole caregiver for her kid, blah, blah, blah, boo-fucking-hoo. I want to yell, “Don’t you understand democracy? Don’t you feel your responsibility as American citizens?” We really are one step away from despotism, and half these dopes would be perfectly fine with that.
I’m trying to maintain my inner serenity, but I’m afraid I’m not doing very well. What has fostered my incipient indignation against others? Living my pathetic failure of a life, no doubt. Pick out any one of these clods I’m railing against, and chances are they will be happier and more fulfilled and more successful than I. See? I even use proper grammar and I still fail. This low-grade stewing consumes much of the rest of the afternoon, and I lapse into a melancholy stupor. Nothing happens, voices mumble and cough, and we’re done.
Bright and early the next morning, we’re back. The judge has granted his excuses to pretty much all the hardship cases, and now asks the lawyers to start the voir-dire: the culling-out of the potential jurors. Which of us will, by our clothes or hairstyles or facial expressions the unwitting responses we give to seemingly innocuous question, be eliminated from the pool and be thanked for our service and excused?
The lawyers begin, and I’m struck at once by how shabby they look, so different from the expensively-suited and coifed actors on TV. The defense goes first: he is a large man with a too-small sport coat that does not match his baggy brown slacks and pinches his abundant abdomen. The coat has a visible stain on it and it’s buttoned up and rides up over his fat butt. His sad wide tie is too long and sticks out of the bottom of his buttoned-up coat. He reminds me of a messy, unfunny Oliver Hardy. I’m guessing he’s a public defender, and a relative newcomer at that. He looks in our general direction, looks at his rumpled papers, and starts in: “Juror number—uh, eight, what are your feelings about gun control?” “Uhhh…juror number twenty-three, not to put you on the spot or anything [right!], but how do you feel when someone says, ‘It’s these immigrants who are causing these problems’?”
The prosecuting attorney follows. She is a young woman with greasy, dishwater hair who looks like she didn’t have time for a shower this morning. She asks follow-up questions to Ollie’s, then asks her own questions, then Ollie asks follow-ups, and in this manner we slog on into the pit of afternoon. All this should be harmless enough, but I’m having trouble keeping my eyes open. I don’t want the judge or the attorneys to see me nodding off.
The unwashed prosecutor has an annoying manner of speaking: “I’m going to switch gears, now…,” she says, making me want to yell, “Not ‘switch’ gears, shift gears!” I also want to yell, “Why don’t you take a shower before work?”
I say nothing, and she repeats the inanity, “I’m going to switch gears,” and I move into actively hating her. Presumably she is college-trained and smart, and yet she doesn’t know the English language. She probably mixes up her capital and lower-case letters, and says ‘anyways,’ too. Such low-grade ignorance even among people who, once upon a time, would have been classed as intelligent, has become endemic. Maybe she went to the same school as the jury waiting room clerk and took the class that teaches inane repetition as part of “effective communication.” I want to slap her greasy face.
Trying hard to remain Buddha-like, I close my eyes then jerk them open. I realize that one of the attorneys might notice the eye-closing and make a little tick by my juror number that will ultimately get me thanked for my service and excused. I do not wish to be excused, dammit, I wish to be a juror.
Another hour passes and I idly wonder what would happen if I just quietly stood up and walked out. I’d probably be arrested the next day, if not right then and there. Then I’d get a taste of justice, all right. Was Buddha ever arrested? I don’t know, but this is not what I want, so I don’t walk out. Instead, I sit quietly, trying to maintain a look of placid equanimity on my face, so the lawyers won’t find cause to eject me, and speculate on why the attorneys are such slobs. Overworked, probably. This is what most people don’t understand about lawyers; like ‘em or not, they do actually work their asses off.
Suddenly, the dishwater Hamilton Burger looks at me: “Juror number 42?”
My heart pounds. I raise my eyebrows.
“What does the phrase ‘innocent until proven guilty’ mean to you?”
Okay, I think I can answer that. I look thoughtful and say, “That everyone is presumed innocent under the Constitution…that it’s up to the prosecution to prove guilt—beyond a reasonable doubt.”
What else can one say? I don’t know, but it seems she does: She makes a mark on her page. Shit. What the hell was I supposed to say—“His face has guilt written all over it”?
Jerking your chain, that’s all this is. That’s what they do, lawyers, judges, the whole fucking thing: jerk you around. Oh, sure, the jury system is the bedrock of American justice, sure, why not. And yet, most of these fuckers in here would do about anything to be somewhere else, while I, who really wants to serve, will probably get the boot. Still, I haven’t, yet. Still, there’s a chance. I gaze around at the other potential jurors. There must be close to seventy-five here, and tomorrow more of this fucking voir-dire. Who has the fucking strength? No wonder the lawyers are a mess. Justice is a fucking slave-driver.
Ultimately, none of this matters, because ultimately, I get the tick. I’m out. Half a minute later, dishwater says it: “The prosecution will excuse juror number 42 and thank him for his service.”
Oh, really? Well, fuck you very much.
I stand, take my briefcase, and walk quickly from the room, feeling the eyes of the judge and the slovenly lawyers and the faceless jurors boring into my retreating back. Service? What service? I didn’t get to serve—again! Why do the others get to stay? What, are my eyes wrong? Did I use a wrong word? Shit, I’m just answering your damn questions. You want the truth, right? What makes the ones you pick so goddamn special? What did they say—or, probably more to the point, not say? Yep, this is the real core of American justice: keeping your damn mouth shut and your head down. There are ways to remain Buddha-like in America, and this is one of them.
So once again, the law has failed me, just as I’ve failed life. I get my bus home after only a short wait, and reflect on my latest failure to become part of the justice system. Well, it’s not the end of the world. One can always put one’s mind to constructive use and take it in new directions. Tonight, I may just consider the booted woman: consider that I will have her enforce a law against premature table-grabbing. Buddha will smile.