Grisham's Juror

by Timothy Braatz

  -Say not guilty.

  -Don’t do it. Seriously.

  -What about the physiological certainty?

  -What about the smell of egg salad?

  -Honey, are you okay?

  Gramma Jamma was touching my forearm again. I needed to say something.

  -I’m undecided.

  It just came out.

  -Way to stand up for what you believe in, Guillam.

  -I’m concealing my hand.

  -That’s just rationalizing.

  -No, it’s a strategy. Let The Elephant take the heat. Let them think I see both sides.

  -Be honest. This is really about a need for control.

  -Be honest. This is really about Roya.

  I leaned in and whispered to her.

  -I guess we’re in the same boat.

  She leaned toward me, we brushed shoulders, and I caught a strong whiff of her fragrance. Wow. No telepathy, but she knows how to send a message. When I started listening again, Gramma Jamma was depositing her two cents.

  -He seems like a nice young man, cleaning up after supper, taking his grandmother to church, washing people’s cars for them. I don’t see how he could kill someone. Isn’t it possible they confused him with somebody else?

  Okay, the updated tally: assuming Chad follows his moderate pals, that’s seven for guilty, Elephant, Mouse, and Gramma J. for not guilty, one undecided dental hygienist with shiny black hair and dark glittery eyes, and one awkward math teacher physiologically certain of the defendant’s innocence but pretending to be undecided in order to a) avoid eating lunch with The Elephant, b) appear open-minded and unbiased, and/or, depending on which part of his schizoid mind you choose to believe, c) establish common ground with the uncommon Miss Undecided.

  -Can I say something about that, Chad?

  It was Moderate Mike. Or was it Mark? They looked alike—unfashionable glasses, slouching shoulders, graying hair—and now I couldn’t remember who was whom.

  -Go ahead.

  -I just figured something out. This guy’s a neat freak. His house. His car. You see how he dresses. Maybe that explains the clean crime scene.

  The other moderate agreed.

  -Yeah, the guy’s a professional cleaner.

  The Elephant unfolded her massive forelimbs with a snort.

  -You want to convict a guy for murder because he cleans his room?

  -I was just raising the question.

  I leaned toward Miss Undecided.

  -Can you believe those guys?

  -I know.

  Another shoulder touch, another whiff of perfume. Maybe a long deliberation won’t be so bad.

  Chairman Chad interrupted my swoon.

  -Folks, sounds like we’ve got some talking to do. How about we break for lunch, give everyone a chance to think a little, then come back and really hash this thing out, see if we can’t finish up in one day?

  I leaned in again.

  -Did you bring a sandwich today?

  -No. Sorry.

  -That’s okay. You want to go find a restaurant?

  -Actually, I told Kevin I’d have lunch with him.

  -Oh.

  I pretended to be preoccupied as the room cleared out, then opened my lunch bag—just like back in junior high, eating peanut butter and jelly by myself in a lonely corner of the cafeteria where I wouldn’t get pushed around by some eighth-grade bully or teased for having a sack lunch with a milk when all the cool kids bought a hot lunch and can of soda. Sometimes I would find a handwritten note in my lunch bag: I love you, Guillam, hope you’re having fun. I never told my mother I wasn’t having fun. I didn’t want her to know I wasn’t the superstar she imagined me to be. Anyway, what could she do to change things? The cheerleader I liked was having lunch with the tough kid who had his own dirt bike, and I’ll just hang out here until the vice principal, two-way radio in hand, chases the stragglers out to the playground.

  -Mr. Fletcher, you can’t stay in here. I’m locking up.

  I gathered up my lunch and, carefully avoiding eye contact, stepped past the imperious bailiff.

  -You’ll find the cafeteria on the third floor.

  Yeah, the cafeteria and The Elephant and Chatty Chad. I found an empty bench in the hallway instead, and checked my phone: one text message from Marissa: Just woke up. Hangover.

  Around five a.m., with daylight coming on and neighborhood traffic picking up, she had emerged from her coma long enough for me to coax her out of the backseat and get her tucked into my bed. Then I took a shower, ate a bowl of cold cereal—breakfast of champions—assembled my lunch, and when I checked on her before leaving, she was back in never-never land.

  I texted a reply: Trial done. Almost immediately, my phone rang.

  -You’re finished?

  She sounded draggy.

  -We’re in deliberations. How’s your head?

  -Does anyone think he’s guilty?

  -Marissa.

  -My head’s not happy.

  -Did you throw up?

  -Sort of.

  -Did you make it to the bathroom?

  -Sort of.

  My sort of girlfriend.

  -Are you okay now?

  -Yeah. Just tell me, how many are holding out for guilty? One?

  -Marissa, I can’t—

  -Two? Give me a number.

  -Seven.

  -For guilty?

  -So far.

  -Fletcher, you’ve got to do something. I’m counting on you. Oh God.

  -What? Marissa? Hello?

  I waited a few minutes, then called back. Nothing. No doubt too busy puking luscious tart all over my bedroom. At least it’s biologique.

  Speaking of puking, why does Roya want to hang out with Mr. I-don’t-got-a-problem-with-duh-confession? Who talks like that? Who thinks like that? Bud Jack, a hard-working businessman, struggling to make ends meet, gets accused of murder because a white fireman and his police friends think a black man at night looks suspicious, and that makes sense to people on an all-white jury, people like Moderate Mike and Mark and Cowboy Kev.

  I leaned my head against the wall. I wanted to fall asleep, but when I closed my eyes, there was Cow-pie Kev, yellow grease dripping down his tough-guy goatee, chewing and chewing on a bean burrito while he talked to Roya: you see his eyes, he musta did something, and how ‘bout letting me finish off that quesadilla for you? Is she sharing her food with him? Is she letting him pay? I bet he asks her to dinner, offers her a ride on his motorcycle, and she’ll sit behind him, arms tight around his waist, black curls flowing out from under her helmet.

  To chase that cruel image from my mind, I pulled out the purloined Grisham and skimmed the last fifty pages. The plan was working. The evil CEO got the election result he’d paid for, the new judge swung the state supreme court against big liability claims, and the forty-one million dollar decision against the chemical company would soon be overturned. So a) the plan works, and b) greed pays. But wait, there’s one final twist. The judge’s young son is injured in a baseball game, hit in the head by a wicked line drive off a high-powered aluminum bat, and there’s a liability issue. The baseball bat had been banned as too dangerous. The umpire and the coach should have prevented its use. The sporting goods company, which understood the danger, should have recalled the model. You could see what was coming: personal tragedy causes the judge to discover the wisdom of huge fines levied against negligent corporations. Carefully avoiding subtlety, Grisham tacked on medical malpractice—a screw-up in the ER left the young baseball player with brain damage. So the plan works, it’s fundamentally sound, only a last-second, one-in-a-million accident disrupts its flawless execution. Call it an act of God, but at least greed didn’t pay: a, but not b, and therefore c—it’s a Grisham after all!

  But wait again, you’re not going to believe this, the final twist was a feint. Despite the illegal bat, the medical malfeasance, the brain-damaged son, and the looming medical bills, the judge’s change of heart is tentative, he can’t reconcile hi
s new-found sense of justice with his old political instincts—he was elected, after all, on the promise to tame these big lawsuits—so he splits the difference, votes against a negligent nursing home but casts the deciding vote to toss out the case against the chemical company. The evil CEO wins big. Greed pays. Call it an act of Grisham.

  I closed the book, closed my eyes, leaned my head back. I guess this ending was more realistic—rich people get what they want. The CEO was narcissistic and mean, yet he had a young, sexy wife. I try to be considerate and kind—I spent the whole damn night in the front seat of a car, for God’s sake—and what do I have to show for it? The CEO’s trophy wife had fake breasts and patronized the arts with her husband’s money, just like Sigrid, only the trophy wasn’t interested in art, it was just her way of staying in the spotlight. Sigrid isn’t like that, she’d been a college art instructor after all. Maybe that’s what captured her attention—the way I appeared to be admiring the paintings in her house—and then she caught a glimpse of me naked, and, bored with little Richard, she called me a hottie and whispered in my ear: I saw you out back. She 1b) knew what she wanted, and what Sigrid wanted she usually got, at least ever since she’d acquired her in-television husband and escaped from the public-employee middle class. She’s living large in her big house and resort backyard—heated pool, gurgling waterfall, jacuzzi running day and night—the desirable Laguna lifestyle it’s called in the glossy real estate ads. I could see Bud Jack and Double E Reed scrubbing the Lexus in her driveway. Whoosh-whoosh, whoosh-whoosh. I could see Sigrid sunbathing on her patio, face down but propped up, bikini top untied, summoning me over to rub lotion on her back.

  -Hey, buddy, I think it’s time.

  I opened my eyes: narrow-toed boots, clunky belt buckle, goatee. Cowboy Kev. And the cowpoke was all by his lonesome. Maybe lunch didn’t work out.

  -Oh. Thanks.

  How long had I been asleep?

  -You reading Grisham?

  -Not really. Just killing time. Someone left it in my car.

  I stood up.

  -You were smart staying indoors. It’s insane hot out there. Like walking into a furnace.

  Yeah, smart, because the last thing I’d want to do is go have a hot lunch with a hot juror on a hot day.

  -Oh, did you go somewhere to eat?

  -That sushi place across the street. Great sashimi. Have you been there yet?

  What kind of cattleman eats raw fish?

  -Hi, Fletcher.

  Roya had appeared. She smiled at me, and I pretended to be pleased to see her standing next to him. He checked his watch.

  -We better get back.

  They left together, walking side by side down the hall. At least they weren’t holding hands. Yet.

  I collected my things—phone, remains of lunch, stolen book. It all made sense to me now. The story of the sickened town, the vile CEO, the judge for hire—a fictional tale, yes, but the situation was all too real, or so said the author in a personal note on the last page. When I read that, I finally understood: that’s why he’d compromised his moral formula, that’s why he let the greedy guy, without comeuppance or redemption, win in the end. The book was one long discourse, Grisham was making a point: private money in judicial elections corrupts the courts. Which is what I needed to do—not corrupt the courts, but come up with a sustained argument that would carry the day, with clear and cogent logic even smug moderates couldn’t refute. Enough with the phony indecision which has gotten me precisely nowhere, it’s time for an impassioned plea that will sway the jury, rescue Bud Jack from cowboy justice, and fill Miss Undecided with admiration and longing for this sturdy champion, this bold mathematician aka Juror One aka Guillam Fletcher, because if John Grisham can make a stand for fairness and truth, so can I.

  11

  I was juiced, inspired, ready to rumble, as I trailed Roya and Cowboy Kev down the hall. I had a bounce in my step, fire in my eyes, my mind was focused, my quarrelsome cortices worked as one. I was fixing to face down the forces of evil—until I took my seat in the airless jury room and, within minutes, like I’d been drugged, my head fogged up and my eyes glazed over, the fire went out. Sorry, Grish.

  -Alright, folks, let’s figure this deal out.

  When Chairman Chad launched the afternoon session, I was half asleep—not closed eyes and snoring like a spent and abandoned Bailiff Baldy in Judge Silverson’s bed, more like a somnolent dolphin. Yes, dolphins do sleep, or so I’d been told.

  -They’re mammals, dude, they have to sleep. But they’re also conscious breathers, so like, yo, I can’t sleep because I’ll forget to breathe and I’ll drown, and the only thing more embarrassing for a dolphin than death by drowning is life in Sea World, so half their brain sleeps at a time and the other half stays awake enough to breathe and hold one eye open for sharks and jerks on paddleboards.

  That was me—not a jerk on a paddleboard, a half-conscious mammal—surfacing for air then drifting under. Not even Roya’s perfume could stir me from my post-lunch haze—fifth-period paralysis we call it at school. The best I could manage was two eyes halfway open and the occasional head shake to keep my chin off my chest and my mind from floating away. Whoosh-whoosh, whoosh-whoosh. There were sharks in the water—great white moderates prowling for blood—a dolphin has to stay alert. At the moment, though, the sharks were closing in on the three for not guilty, and mostly left us undecideds (real and pretend) alone, probably figuring Roya and I would drop like dominoes once they’d toppled The Elephant.

  The Mouse was the first casualty. He held out for a while, stayed out of sight. I could smell him, of course. How many cigarettes can one little rodent puff down in a lunch break? He nodded his head twice. Yeah, right, Smokey, I’m guessing at least four. But if nicotine is calming, maybe he should have lit up a few more, because once the sharks started circling, when the cats crouched to pounce, he panicked and scampered into the open.

  -Maybe you’re right, but…I just…what if he…the defendant…I don’t know.

  The Mouse was squeaking. Moderate Mike (or was it Mark?) and Moderate Mark (or was it Mike?) kept squeezing.

  -Let’s go through this one more time. They arrest the guy for drug trafficking, right? They don’t tell him about the murder, don’t put him in a lineup, he’s just sitting there, that’s what they said, they waited, and then he tells the other prisoner he already killed one Mexican.

  -Yeah, what’s the saying? Murder will out.

  The Mouse looked trapped. Bear down, Smokey. He squeaked again.

  -Yes, but police…they could have made….

  -Made a mistake. That’s true. They’re not perfect. Believe me, I know. They gave me a traffic ticket for nothing. But they still try to find the right guy, don’t they? Because if they get the wrong guy, the killer’s still out there. So do you really think they’d testify under oath if they had doubts? Would they really coerce a confession?

  -Yeah, what’s their motive?

  -I mean, unless this is like some movie where all the cops are dirty.

  The Mouse teetered.

  -Probably no, but…I just…probably you’re right.

  -If the rest of us agree to guilty, could you go along with that?

  The Mouse tottered.

  -I probably…I guess so.

  Ka-thump. The Mouse falls. That’s eight for guilty, and they’ll go after Gramma Jamma next. I felt bad for her, a trusting soul, she’s got no chance in this shark tank.

  -Anyone else still skeptical about the confession?

  Chairman Chad scanned the room. Avoiding his eyes, I looked over at The Elephant, strangely quiet. Did she have a strategy, or was it just another case of afternoon lethargy? Do elephants sleep like dolphins, one eye looking out for lions? As I watched, she hunched the thick folds of her shoulders and came to life.

  -I think that’s a great point—would the police have a motive to frame the wrong guy?

  Are you kidding me, Elephant? Are you agreeing with those guys?

 
-But like I said before, Victor Ruiz did have a motive. Bud Jack threatened him.

  That’s more like it, Heffalump. But her body language was different now—no defiant arms, no set jaw. Was she softening? The gallant knight saw an opening.

  -I accept that, Cheryl. But if he wanted to frame him, how did he know to say he killed a Mexican? That’s my point.

  -You’re right, that would be quite a coincidence.

  Are you friggin’ kidding me? Did The Elephant just give up the fight? Come on, Dumbo, what about him being drunk, what about reasonable doubt? Nothing. I had noticed her chatting amiably with Chatty Chad as they returned to the jury room after lunch. I bet he’d sat down next to her in the cafeteria, and that was enough to win a sympathetic hearing. Either way—ka-thump—it sounded like nine for guilty and, at this rate, two more weren’t far behind.

  Okay, this is it, I should come up for air and say something, make my impassioned plea—hey, everybody, he’s innocent, trust me, physiological certainty, I can feel it in my bones.

  -They’ll think you’re loony.

  -Maybe I am loony.

  -I just want to sleep.

  Chairman Chad offered me a way out.

  -Why don’t we take a vote, see where we stand now. Let’s do secret ballot. Everyone needs a slip of paper.

  If I voted guilty, I could go home and sleep, my head could sink deep into the cool pillow, my burning eyes could finally close. Now I know why CIA torturers use sleep deprivation. I took a deep breath, filled my lungs, and I stood up. Whoa! Head rush! I grabbed the back of my chair to steady myself.

  -You okay, Fletch?

  -Just getting sleepy.

  I handed him my ballot and turned on my phone. Marissa had sent another text: You can do it! Yeah, right.

  -Well, folks, I think we’re making progress.

  The unfolded ballots lay face up on the table in front of Chairman Chad—a dozen white butterflies tacked to a board. There was a joke in there, but my bushed brain couldn’t find it. Chad swept the slips over to Lady Yoga for a recount. She was quick about it.

  -Nine for guilty, one for not guilty, and two put undecided.