Unavoidable
Kings Borough Jury Duty: Episode #3
To play him in a movie, all Philip Seymour Hoffman would have needed to do was replace his black suit from the movie Doubt with a faded grey one and a pea green tie. The clerk had pale, soft cheeks like the underbelly of a pregnant pig. Light orange hair like a watermark receded from his crown. He shuffled papers behind the judge’s desk in the front of the airplane hanger of a waiting room filled with a few hundred Brooklynites.
Tomato juice, no ice, Julie a flight attendant judged. He looked like the type that drank salt and retained a river under his plushy skin, she decided. She sat 8 rows away studying his every move, as though he were an actor in a mystery providing the audience with a subtle but important clue. Sitting in her pleather chair for nearly three hours, she was desperate for a sign about what was going on, what would happen next.
The clerk sat at the desk and moved the long, thin microphone down to his ruddy, rubber-band lips. “If I call your name, please collect your belongings and walk through this door to my right, your left. There’ll be someone there to tell you what to do next.” He picked up a two-inch-tall stack of note cards.
Julie thought she recognized the paperwork. The stack looked like the perforated portion of the jurors’ summons that each person had ripped off and handed to a clerk at the start of the day. Hers could be included in the pile. This could directly affect her. She held on to her Blackberry just a little bit tighter preparing to text Roger about the news.
“Christine Khang,” he read. A thick-bodied Korean woman raised her hand. “Collect your belongings and go through the door,” he said pointing to his right.
She stood up and left a light-weight jacket and tote bag behind her in a pile on her chair, as she shimmed past the few people in her row. “I told you to take your belongings,” the clerk said still using the microphone.
No privacy in here, Julie thought.
The tidy Asian man finished a cold sip of his grande Americano and began to rush toward Christine. “Mu-ŏ-sŭl do-wa-dŭ-ril-kka-yo?” he shouted out.
She instinctually paused and turned toward him.
“I don’t think she speaks English!” Destine called out to the clerk from her seat.
“Thank you. I can see that,” the clerk said. “You two,” he said to Christine and her new translator. “Go stand over here. Sir, even if I call
your name just wait right there.” He pointed to his left and the momentary lapse of entertainment passed.
“John Mulberry. Vincenzo Valentino. Leonard George. Shelby Granowksi. Destine Copland.”
“That’s me. Off I go!” Destine announced to the room. Someone in the background applauded. “What a poor, miserable soul,” she thought. But she chose to say, “Watch’em call your name next!” The comeback wasn’t good enough on Brooklyn standards to elicit even a grunt of approval from the crowd.
“Kathryn Bould. Antonio Ricci. Muhammad Akram Khosa. Jennifer Bland. Marilyne Walker. Julie Smith.”
Julie’s blood which had long been pumping to the steady, slow, natural beat of her heart jumped to attention and hurried to her face, knees and hands. She trembled as she zipped her Blackberry into her purse, smoothed her hair, draped her trench coat over her arm, walked to the front of the room, and hoped no one could see the line of her underwear through the back of her slacks.
When she opened the door, a bailiff and another clerk directed her into a smaller waiting room. This one had about 50 seats and resembled an overcrowded classroom. Destine was already there chatting away with her new neighbors, two women. Julie watched her bend her head down and dig into her scalp to show the women the seams of her weave. Julie sat as far as away as possible from her on an aisle seat.
People continued to file into the room. The bailiff took a seat at the front facing the crowd.
“Is it good or bad that we’re in this room?” Destine hollered at him from the third row back.
The bailiff, a slight man with 5 o’clock shadow at only 11 am, chuckled. “That depends on you.”
“I see. I gotcha,” Destine said.
But Julie didn’t understand what Destine thought she understood. It was a totally cryptic, meaningless answer, thought Julie—and she knew meaningless answers. Whenever someone asked her why they had to turn off their electronics for take-off and landing, she would say, “For the safety of everyone on board.” Then she’d walk away before the agitator could ask for a real answer.
By the time this secondary waiting room was full, Julie had had to shift in her seat 6 times to let people into her row. One man had body odor, an uneven shave and hair so greasy and speckled with dandruff, he appeared almost homeless.
Julie did not consider herself squeamish of the public. Every day on her flights, she would touch the sticky rims of hundreds of dirty plastic glasses and damp napkins. She would look for seatbelts between the creases of clothing and the gross overflow of American bellies. But her passengers were never this type of public. This jury duty level of public didn’t fly on airplanes. They took the Greyhound, she figured.
The bailiff stood up once everyone was in. “Ok, now. We’re going up to the 24th floor. We all won’t fit in one elevator so we’ll have to go up in groups. And there’s only one of me. This means that I can’t lead every single one of you up there. I’ll make sure you get into the right elevator. When you get up to the 24th floor walk out and wait in the hall. Don’t go anywhere.”
“What if I have to go to the bathroom?” Destine asked.
“You’ll have the opportunity to go up on 24. They’ve got all the amenities you need.”
“Do they have coffee?” she asked.
“Ha ha, you got me there,” he said showing his good nature, patience and charm. “No, but there is a drinking fountain.”
“Oh well then why didn’t you say so?” Destine joked.
Julie rolled her eyes and sighed, “Oh for Christ’s sake,” just like one of Destine’s teenage daughters would have done. Destine heard her and yelled out, “Kill ‘em with kindness,” as she gave Julie a broad, gummy grin.
