Grisham's Juror

by Timothy Braatz

  -You want to change the world, darling, just love your students. Every one of them is an opportunity to broaden a mind, pry open a heart. Can you do that with math? Can you turn them on?

  -Not without getting arrested.

  That’s probably why she got bored with me—no philosophy. I mean, why teach algebra anyhow? Five to ten thousand students over a career, assuming you don’t quit early to broker home loans or become a chiropractor, and how many will ever have need to solve complex equations? Especially now with computers.

  -That’s the problem with Dana Hills, darling, not enough love.

  I should have known then she was moving on.

  I washed the dishes in the sink, took a shower, opened another beer, slumped into the couch, and didn’t turn on the television. I wanted to finish the Grisham. What is it that makes his books so compelling? I bet I could write one just as good. That’s what I’ll do: take up writing, pump out a couple of bestsellers, and we’ll retire to our beach house in the tropics, Roya + Fletcher, no embezzlement necessary. But how does he do it? What’s the secret formula? Little violence, no sex, so where’s the titillation? Uncovering the master plan keeps you turning pages, I get that, except you can’t really figure it out on your own, there aren’t enough clues, you have to wait for the author to show it to you. Maybe people prefer it that way.

  Out of habit, I kept glancing at the silent television. The ghostly, blank screen’s latent energy unsettled the room. The remote control called to me softly, seductively: Fletcher, put down the book and press my buttons, see what’s on, just for a minute.

  Almost eight o’clock. I could finish this chapter, then catch the sports highlights. There’s nothing else on basic cable worth watching. It’s all sitcom reruns and celebrity gossip and police procedurals on every other channel. If I can’t figure out how to write a Grisham knockoff, I should try a cop show. Or a courtroom drama. And pitch it to my good friend in television, Richard Wilhite. What was it he said?—I know people, I’m a serious man. That was weird. Like halfway between a joke and a threat, trying to impress me, like he doesn’t think people take him seriously. Which makes no sense. It’s someone like me that people don’t take seriously—no wife and kids, no house, an old car, jeans and tennis shoes, hanging out all day with teenagers, no evidence of adulthood on display, an oddball, a goof, and kind of pathetic. Pete takes me seriously, but look at him—the exception that proves the rule. Look at Juror Number Five aka Sir No-Sir aka Cowboy Kevin, with his earnest demeanor. I bet Roya doesn’t think Cowboy Kev needs a Global Positioning Satellite to keep from getting lost in the courthouse. Maybe I should wear a tie tomorrow, like the black MBA—I mean the MBA, the MBA with the beard at jury selection. Everybody liked him, you could tell he was an adult. I have a tie in my closet somewhere. Maybe I should learn how to tie it.

  Fletcher, don’t neglect me. The remote control was whispering again. Fletcher, you might be missing something good.

  Okay, tomorrow, full-on adulthood, arrive early, settle my mind, focus on the testimony, draw no attention to myself. Juror Number One aka Mr. Maturity aka Guillam Fletcher. An adult wouldn’t mind being called Guillam, if that’s his given name, even if the name sounds archaic and reminds him how little thought his parents gave to his feelings, even if he got tired of being called Kill ‘em Guillam as a teenager. Students can call me Fletcher—that’s normal, reducing a teacher to his last name—but adult to adult, it should be Guillam. I should start going by Guillam. Anyhow, it’s just a name. Better than, say, Richard. Better than Dick.

  Psst, Fletch, hit power, turn me on, titillation is just a click away.

  I got up from the couch and took Grisham to bed where we could have some privacy for the final chapter, away from the seductive remote control and the looming tv screen. My bedroom, too, didn’t exactly scream adult. A queen-size mattress atop an old box-spring on the floor. A florescent floor lamp left over from my college days, six feet tall, clouded with dead bugs. All my clothes crammed in the closet, either on hangers or in boxes on the floor, no need for a chest of drawers. No bedside table, either. No bookshelves, no framed prints on the wall. Bachelor minimal. I could tell Marissa didn’t like it, though she never said so. Once again, ex-girlfriend-turned-social-advisor Sharon to the rescue.

  -It’s all about the message, and your room says I’m not sticking around, I’m not settling down.

  -But couldn’t it say I don’t want to buy expensive furniture I don’t really need?

  -Same thing, darling, same thing.

  -Most people sleep on the floor. I mean around the world.

  -You don’t live around the world, you live in Laguna. If you want to date women in Laguna, get a real bed. At least get some new sheets and matching pillow cases.

  She was right. No, she was wrong. I want to be appreciated for who I am, not what I have. If Marissa doesn’t approve of how I live, if Sharon thinks I’m stubborn and clueless, that’s their problem. We’ll see what Roya thinks. Maybe Persians don’t like fancy beds. Maybe that’s why they’re so into carpets.

  I turned the last page. “His journey was over. His past was finally closed.” Another Grisham finished, completion rate up to .400—Cooperstown material—and I had to admit I was wrong, there was a surprise awaiting Lanigan. Two, actually. The first was the torture. He knew they’d press him to reveal the location of his bank accounts, he didn’t know how bad it would get. Still, he had survived, and the plan did work. Until the final step. Beautiful Eva was supposed to meet him in France, they still had tons of money left over, they would live happily ever after. She didn’t show. Surprise number two. She took it all and disappeared, betrayed his trust, gave Lanigan a taste of his own medicine.

  My phone rang from the living room. Marissa? I hurried to answer it.

  -Dude.

  -Dude.

  -I’m sitting here watching tv.

  -That’s great, Pete. Thanks for the update.

  -No, listen, I almost got killed today, and now I’m just watching tv, back to normal, like nothing happened. I could be dead. I could be right now nonexistent. And I wouldn’t even know it. What a trip.

  I hadn’t thought about it like that. Pete could be dead and gone. What would I be doing? Not drinking beer and finishing a Grisham. I suppose I’d be calling people from work. Bill, are you sitting down? Carol, I have some bad news. Or I’d be down at the spot, the fatal curve, to see what? Traffic would be moving, no hint of recent tragedy, only little ash piles from burnt-out traffic flares. It would be surreal, I know—my best friend gone—it wouldn’t sink in right away. I would stand there trying to make sense of the moment, then go home when students started showing up with candles and flowers and all that teenage sentimentality. It probably wouldn’t hit me until the first day of school with Mr. Repetti aka Mr. Spaghetti not in his science room, no balding biology instructor wearing a white lab coat over a floral print shirt, no familiar Repetti smirk when a cute girl, all push-up bra and nascent cleavage, wiggled by.

  -Pete, you’re right, we should mark the occasion. You could have been a goner.

  -Ought to be a national holiday.

  A celebration was in order, only Pete was out one vehicle, I was into my third beer, and driving to his place under the influence probably wasn’t the best way for me to observe National Pete Didn’t Die Day. The risk of tragic irony was too great.

  -We can do something tomorrow, after I get home from jury duty.

  -Yeah, I’m sleepy anyhow. I hate those stupid pills. I’m done with them.

  -Hey, did your life flash in front of you? During the accident.

  -No, I only remember thinking I don’t want to die like this.

  -On Ambien?

  -No, in a minivan. The final humiliation. A minivan crushed by a hot babe in a Hummer. When the insurance check arrives, I’m getting a Porsche. Seriously.

  -You can’t afford to get a Porsche.

  -Dude, I can’t afford not to.

  Pete Repetti wasn’t
dead. His head hadn’t punched through the windshield, his ribs hadn’t splintered into his lungs, there was no internal hemorrhaging, no paralysis, no coma on life support, Spaghetti wasn’t a vegetable. My dinner was stale macaroni with bland sauce, my sort of girlfriend was out with her sort of guy-friend, Patrick Lanigan’s girlfriend had absconded with his millions proving me wrong about Grisham, I was home alone drinking beer in my bare bedroom, and Pete wasn’t dead. It was a good night. This was no Yamaguchi, either. There was no bad luck to speak of. Forget the ruined vehicle—an insured minivan is not a sleeping city. Everything turned out fine. A very good night.

  That might be the Grisham secret. Everything turns out fine for the hero. Always a good person at heart, he was just greedy, greed got the best of him, and greed can be atoned for—greed, suffering, redemption—so long as he never intended to harm anyone innocent, so long as his antagonists were equally greedy and unrepentantly mean. Good versus evil: that’s the magic formula. It’s kind of obvious once you see it. Lanigan, the conniving embezzler, had only good intentions, only robbed the bad guys. The wife he left behind was cheating on him, the daughter wasn’t even his, still he made sure they got a big insurance payout. The ninety million was dirty money, the federal government had been defrauded, and since the feds would have just wasted the money anyhow, when Lanigan returned it, with interest, the taxpayers came out ahead—that’s how Grisham spun it. But what about the charred body in the crushed Blazer? Hadn’t Lanigan killed a teenaged loner and used the corpse to fake his own death? Nope. One of Lanigan’s clients, an old man nobody cared about, had died naturally, Lanigan alone attended the funeral, the corpse he planted in the Blazer was cold and unwanted, the missing teen was alive and well. In fact, with Lanigan’s help, the kid had assumed a new identity and started a new life in a different state, leaving his troubled childhood behind. Lanigan was a good guy, no moral ambiguity, no harm, no foul. He’d paid for his greed, he’d become a better man, an honest man. Jilted at the end, no bank account to his name, he was content to return to simple village life in Brazil.

  An honest man—there’s an idea: no fake identity, no secret plan.

  Would Roya go for blunt honesty? It would be nice to be completely open for a change, not have to be careful and apologetic. Roya, I’m thirty-three years old, I rent a small apartment, I sleep on the floor, that’s who I am. I’ve got a surfboard, but I’m not really a surfer, I don’t catch waves, I just stand up and paddle away from shore. And I’m writing a television screenplay, I mean, I’m thinking about it, I’ve got a pretty good idea going.

  BAILIFF BALDY: What are you going to do about Juror Number One?

  JUDGE SILVERSON: You mean Mr. Fletcher?

  BALDY: I’ve got a bad feeling about the guy.

  SILVERSON: Because of his comment about hair? Don’t worry, he’s harmless.

  BALDY: I overheard him talking to Juror Number Six. The sick dog story was phony.

  SILVERSON: You think I don’t know that? You think all these years on the bench and I can’t detect a lie?

  BALDY: Then toss him out. Better yet, let me lock him up for a couple of nights.

  SILVERSON: No, the guy wants to serve, let him serve.

  BALDY: He’s up to no good, I can sense it. I’ve been at this a long time too.

  SILVERSON: Just keep your eye on him for now. And, Bailiff—

  BALDY: Yes, Your Honor?

  SILVERSON: I like a man with no hair.

  The phone rang again—no doubt Pete with more details on life after not death. I spoke first.

  -Let me guess, you’re still watching tv.

  -What?

  -Marissa?

  -Fletcher, I wanted to say I’m sorry about before. I was in a bad mood. I just…I needed time alone. To think.

  -Oh. Okay.

  She wasn’t out with What’s-his-face. She wasn’t choosing him over me. Yet.

  -I forgot to ask you. Did they get to the confession?

  Here we go. Always about the trial. But at least she wants to talk.

  -No, but get this, the defense attorney—his name is Lawson—he and Richard Wilhite, they drive the same vehicle.

  She waited for more.

  -Same year, same color, everything.

  Still waiting.

  -The defense attorney and the guy paying him—both in a gold Lexus.

  -Is that supposed to mean something? Everyone around here has a Lexus.

  It means maybe it was Lawson after all who I saw entering your friend Sigrid’s front door the night Pete and I snuck into her backyard and broke her tree. But I couldn’t tell her that.

  -It means…there’s just been a lot of strange coincidences. Like the guy at the gas station.

  The guy, not the black guy. The guy at the gas station, and the guy with the MBA at the beach on Sunday morning, and Richard and Sigrid Wilhite, why does the trial keep following me home to Laguna? Marissa, too, always asking about details from court. But Marissa wasn’t interested in coincidences.

  -If the confession was for real, wouldn’t they start with that?

  I’d had the same thought. In his opening statement, Sloan had told us that Bud Jack confessed. But instead of building his case around that, he gives us two irrelevant eyewitnesses and an expert on gangs who specializes in speculation. Makes you wonder. Unless Sloan was like the Honda salesman who, faced with my hemming and hawing—a young teacher buying his first new car—and sensing I was searching for a reason to say yes, suddenly offered to throw in floor mats and soon had me signing on the dotted line. Because of stupid floor mats. Nothing wrong with the car—140,000 miles and going strong—I just hated the thought of having fallen for such an obvious trick.

  -Maybe he’s saving it to seal the deal. The prosecutor. We’ll probably hear about it tomorrow.

  -We should have dinner tomorrow.

  Dinner with Guillam or with Juror Number One? Intimacy or information? Courtship or court? Romance or suspense? Hank-panky or Whodunit? Flirtation or—

  -Fletcher?

  -Yes. Definitely. I’ll call you on my way home.

  All’s well that ends well. Pete didn’t die, Marissa stayed home alone, nothing to worry about after all. That’s it, that’s the formula: Grishams sell because they offer an orderly universe—the plan will work, the good guys will get better, the bad guys will get their comeuppance, just be patient, go along for the ride. What did Marissa need time to think about this evening? Why was I afraid to ask? Don’t worry about it, be patient, go along for the ride. I’m one of the good guys. I’m a public employee who helps young people, I don’t live extravagantly, I’m not greedy, I’ve got nothing to apologize for.

  So why did I lie to The Sophist about my gas mileage? Of course I know my gas mileage, it’s a simple calculation—twenty-six around town, twenty-nine with freeway driving. Better than a Hummer. Not by much, though. Maybe I should get a Prius, fifty miles per gallon or whatever. Except I don’t want to start making car payments, I just got out from under my student loans. But wouldn’t a good person make the sacrifice for the planet—global warming and all that? A Prius—that’s an adult car, that says responsibility. And taking on new debt—think of the message that sends: I’m not going anywhere, I’m not planning to quit my job and join the Peace Corps, I’m in it for the long haul. Hey, ladies, Fletcher Guillam bought a new car, one he can’t really afford, a house mortgage must be next, he might be a family man after all. A family man—I fell asleep thinking about that.

  The phone rang sometime between two and three a.m.

  -Hi, this is Roya, from the jury, sorry to bother you, I heard you were getting the Prius, and I was just wondering what kind of bed you have, a small one I hope.

  Yeah, in my dreams.

  I’d left my phone next to my bed. I could answer it without opening my eyes, without even waking up.

  -Hello?

  -Fletcher.

  -Marissa?

  -I need you at my place right now.

  -
Really?

  I mean, light the candles, pop the champagne, I’m on my way.

  -Yes, really. The cops are here.

  -What?

  -They’ve got a search warrant with your name on it.

  The only shirt I could find was bright pink with the picture of an orange dolphin on the chest. Where did that come from? It was too tight, it pinched my armpits. I cut off the sleeves with a kitchen knife and shoved them into my pants pocket, then grabbed my keys and hurried out. What were the cops looking for? Something connected with Sigrid’s backyard? Evidence of a compromised juror? Were they even real cops? How did they wind up with Marissa’s address?

  I got there fast, told Marissa to fire up her movie camera, and demanded badge numbers. My name was the only one on the warrant, so once the cops were informed that I didn’t live there any continued search was illegal.

  -And, officer, I’m a lawyer, I’ll sue the city, I’ll sue you personally, drive you into bankruptcy, my sort of girlfriend is getting this all on video so smile.

  Legally, it was a stretch, but it worked. They left, the bald one mumbling something like we’ll see you again real soon, dolphin-man.

  Then I woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep. It was an unsettling dream. Eventually, they will come knocking, I guess I was expecting that. Someone caught Pete’s license plate number when we fled Sigrid’s neighborhood or Pete opened his big mouth and told somebody hey, dude, check this out, this woman caught Fletch peeping in her backyard. One day soon I was going to need a really good lie. And the bright pink t-shirt was weird. But there was something even more troubling. Legal technicalities. Threats of litigation. I was dreaming in Grisham.

  7

  I had a college professor who ruined all the historical holidays for me. Labor Day, he insisted, should be May first, international workers day, not some meaningless Monday in September. Columbus Day celebrated genocide. The happy Thanksgiving feast at Plymouth Rock was the beginning of the end for the Indians. I had already developed a serious case of sophomore skepticism, so Professor Hanson’s unapologetic iconoclasm was music to my ears, despite the odd articulation, high-pitched and raspy, with a slight lisp that intensified in his more impassioned moments.