by Parnell Hall
The last highlight was the best. It was getting on toward the end of the week, I’d just won yet another turkey raffle, and as I followed the parade down the corridor to the right of the counter/desk, I was very apprehensive. Please, whatever it is, don’t put me on it.
I walked into the juror examination room, took one look, stopped short, and burst out laughing.
The attorney for the plaintiff was Richard Rosenberg.
7.
DISASTER.
No, don’t get me wrong. The disaster wasn’t Richard Rosenberg—that was a piece of cake. Richard just stated that he knew me and that we had a business relationship, and he and the other attorney excused me by mutual consent. No, the disaster came much later, and in a wholly unexpected manner.
It was Tuesday, the second day of the second week of my incarceration, my seventh day overall. By then things were looking up. I’d weathered the worst of it. And I’d totalled enough jobs before and after jury duty that I wasn’t really taking it on the chin. And I’d augmented it by doing signups on Saturday, something I don’t usually do, but which I’d done this time just to make me feel better. I’d done three of ’em, and while I still wasn’t close to breaking even, I’d at least cut my losses by more than fifty percent.
Plus, it was my buddy’s ninth day. He still hadn’t been called, but by now that no longer mattered. By the end of tomorrow he’d be gone. In fact, from what I could gather by chatting with some of the other jurors, if he hadn’t been called by the end of the day, they’d probably just give him his ballot and send him home. Because even if he got called, it wouldn’t be fair to start him on something on his tenth day. That made pretty good sense to me, and I was praying it was true, because I couldn’t wait to be rid of his malevolent presence.
And I was feeling pretty good because I was in the second week of service myself, and while I wasn’t as far along as my buddy, it was still as if I could almost see the light at the end of the tunnel.
It was 11:30 Tuesday morning. I know because I’d just been in the men’s room to check my beeper, and was now looking forward to sneaking out at twelve o’clock to feed ten quarters into the parking meter. Having responsibilities gives you a good sense of time. I hadn’t been beeped, but I was thinking of calling the office anyway, because I didn’t have a job for this afternoon yet, and I was going to tell Wendy/Janet it doesn’t have to be Manhattan, give me one for Brooklyn, Queens, New Jersey, the Bronx, hell, I don’t care.
I was on my way to the phone booth to call the office when College Boy held another turkey raffle, and guess who won? No, it wasn’t my buddy, thank god for that. I’d have felt terrible if he won one now. Much better they ignore him and send him home. But luckily he didn’t win.
I did.
I took all by belongings (none), and followed the procession past the counter/desk and down the corridor into a jury examination room. I was an old hand at the game by now, so I knew that this meant a civil case.
That didn’t please me. I figured the odds of me getting put on a civil jury were slightly higher than getting put on a criminal one. Which still wasn’t that bad, since I figured my odds of getting put on a criminal case at zero. But even so, it made me apprehensive, being in my second week and all.
I was one of the last names called, so the room was crowded by the time I got in.
Very crowded.
In addition to the sixteen jurors, there were four, count them, four lawyers.
This was something new. I frowned. Shit. Maybe this was a bigger case than usual.
If this had been a tag-team wrestling match, it wouldn’t have been fair. It also would have been fixed, but that’s beside the point. At any rate, what I mean is, it wouldn’t have been two-on-two. Three attorneys were sitting on one side of the room, and one on the other.
The three attorneys sitting together were two men and a woman. The men appeared to be somewhere in their forties. They were completely bald on top, but the hair on the sides of their heads was still dark. And the shorter of the two had a dark moustache.
The woman seemed slightly younger. She had straight blonde hair, cut in bangs. She sat between the two men.
The grouping was unfortunate. I knew they were lawyers, but all I could think of was Peter, Paul and Mary.
The attorney sitting alone was something else. He looked slightly older than the other two men, but that might just have been his hair. He had more of it than the two of them combined, but what he had was all gray. And was it groomed. It swept back from his forehead in flowing waves. It wasn’t held in place with grease or hairspray, but it wasn’t dry and brittle, either. Just sleek, flowing, silver hair. Topping the effect were razor-cut silver sideburns, fashioned to a point.
The face wasn’t bad, either. A silver moustache and goatee, cut short and severe, surrounded the firm line of the mouth. Straight nose, broad face, aggressive chin out and slightly up. And piercing sky blue eyes, completing the image, told you this was a person to be reckoned with. Intelligent, alert, sly, cunning—that was the picture I got. I didn’t know who he was, but I immediately dubbed him the Silver Fox.
I also immediately revised my initial estimate upward. If he were involved in this case, it must be even bigger than I thought.
It wasn’t.
When we were all assembled, Peter spoke first. Or maybe it was Paul. I must confess, with Peter, Paul and Mary, I’m not sure which is which. I know which one is Mary. It’s the other two I’m not sure of. Now I’m sure this wouldn’t please them, and it is with all due apologies that I confess my ignorance, but at any rate, the short one with the moustache spoke first, and whether that’s Peter or Paul, you got me.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said. “This is a case involving a rather large sum of money. When you hear the case, it may sound rather boring and trivial. But with a large sum of money involved, the outcome is quite important to the various parties.
“Let me introduce those parties to you now.
“The plaintiff in this action, Dumar Electronics, is represented by Mr. Pendergas.”
He indicated the Silver Fox. Mr. Pendergas nodded and smiled, but those ice blue eyes remained hard.
Peter/Paul went on. “The defendants in this action are Veliko Tool and Die, represented by Mr. Wessingham.”
Here, if he was Peter, he indicated Paul, and if Paul, Peter.
“The City of New York, represented by Ms. Cunningham.”
Indicating Mary.
“And Delvecchio Realty, which I represent. I’m Mr. Feingarten.”
He took a breath. “Now, this is a case involving a fire.”
Well. That sounded more interesting than a sum of money.
He went on. “Now, you must understand, this is not involving a death, or any personal injury. We are concerned here only with property damage.”
Wrong again. It is dull as dishwater.
As if he were reading my mind, Feingarten said, “But please don’t think this is a dull case, and therefore unimportant. There is, as I said, a large sum of money involved. So I ask you to treat this case with just as much diligence as you would one involving a serious personal injury.
“And, it is of no less importance just because it happens to be eight years old.”
Good lord. Peter/Paul Feingarten must be one hell of a lawyer. If he couldn’t make a better presentation than this when he got into court, his client was sunk. There were audible groans in the room when he said eight years. Plus his harping on the fact that the case wasn’t unimportant, had the effect of convincing every juror in the room that it was exactly that.
Not that he could really help it. You take a property damage case that had been dragging on for eight years, and probably the best lawyer in the world couldn’t make it sound interesting.
Feingarten went on. “We have been selecting jurors for some time now.”
Here he shot a look at the Silver Fox, who rolled his eyes to the ceiling, which I thought was a good move, probably ingratiating hi
m with most of the jurors who were thinking the same thing.
“And so far,” Feingarten said, “we’ve selected six jurors. We are looking for two alternates.”
He turned to the court officer, who was holding the ballots. “So let’s call two names here, and maybe we’ll get lucky.”
They called two names, and guess who got lucky? Me, and a black woman about sixty, whom I could tell was plump when she stood up, and could tell wore too much perfume when she sat down, seeing as how she sat down next to me.
The attorneys then proceeded to interrogate us. Which was short, because there were only two of us, and long, because there were four of them. Of course, each one of them had to have his say. Or her say, in the case of Mary. Who was, incidently, sharp as a tack, and asked what I felt were the most pertinent questions regarding my detective work.
Which was no mean feat, because the Silver Fox was no slouch either. I actually felt uncomfortable being interrogated by him. Which was silly, because I wasn’t on trial. But those blue eyes seemed to bore right through me, and I actually found myself defensive and apologetic about my answers, such as, “No, I never carry a gun,” or “No, I never worked for an insurance company, it was always for the other side,” and, “Yes, I have photographed fire scenes, though the primary reason was for showing the cause of personal injury.”
As I said, I felt uncomfortable answering his questions, but I was also happy to be answering them, because they all seemed good reasons why I shouldn’t be put on that jury.
All in all, the black woman handled her questioning better. She was calm, unruffled and completely self-assured. It turned out she was a token clerk for the Metropolitan Transit Authority, and she fielded questions such as, “Would the fact that you happen to be employed by the City of New York in any way affect your ability to judge a case in which one of the defendants happens to be The City of New York?” by answering matter of factly that she didn’t see why one thing had anything to do with the other.
So, all in all, the questioning went pretty smoothly, but what with there being four lawyers and all, by the time they were finished it was a quarter to one, so they broke and told us all to come back after lunch.
That didn’t please me. I would have been happier to have been dismissed then and there. But I wasn’t really worried, because after the attorneys left, the prospective jurors all started talking, and the general consensus of everybody in the room was that when we got back from lunch they’d take the woman and reject me.
They didn’t.
They took both of us.
8.
I WAS DEVASTATED. It was hard to believe. I mean, yeah, I’d been winning turkey raffles, but this was like winning the lottery. The odds were astronomical. There was no way they should have taken me. I should have been out the door, scot-free. But no, for some perverse reason which I couldn’t possibly fathom, a sixties folk-rock trio and an aging matinee idol had elected to throw reason to the winds, and make a decision that on the surface made no sense.
My head was spinning. How could they have been that stupid? Maybe it was like Peter/Paul said. Maybe they’d been selecting jurors for some time now and, weary of the whole process, they just wanted to get it over with. If so, it was pretty shoddy practice. Surely their clients deserved better. Maybe the bar association should hear about this.
I sat there stunned, thinking all this and watching my life rush before my eyes, a drowning man going down for the third time, while around me, everything was a flurry of activity. The other jurors, delighted they hadn’t been picked, were chatting and laughing and making their way out, and the lawyers, happy as clams that the selection process was finally over, were packing up their briefcases and saying something about hunting up the judge and getting going this afternoon, and before you knew it, all the jurors had filed out with the lawyers hot on their heels, leaving the two winners, the black woman and me, sitting alone and forgotten in the empty room.
We looked at each other. I must have looked terrible, because she said, “Are you all right?”
I blinked. “I guess so. I’m just. . . I mean, they took me.”
She smiled. “Yeah. Wasn’t that a surprise?”
“I’ll say.”
“Nobody thought they’d take you, you bein’ a detective and all. Now me, I thought they’d take me.”
“Yeah.”
“I’m lucky. This is only my second day.”
“It’s my second week.”
“Oh? Bet you thought you’d never be called.”
“Yeah.” I sighed. “So what do we do now?”
“Didn’t you hear? They said to wait for the court officer.”
I hadn’t heard. I’d been in my own little world. They could have told me to stand naked on a chair and recite the Gettysburg Address and it still wouldn’t have registered. All my plans, all my schemes down the drain. Put on a case, and what a case. Besides being totally dull, with four lawyers on the case it could last forever. After all, it had been eight years already, what’s a few more months? Another year, even.
I was saved from farther musings by the arrival of the court officer.
Now let me say, in the seven days I’d been led around all over the building by them, I had found the court officers to be a most genial group of people. Despite the fact they wore uniforms and carried guns, they were in no way intimidating. They were more like grownup Boy Scouts, trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind and all that. Or is that Cub Scouts? At any rate, if I had to point to one bright spot in my first week of jury duty experience, I would have to say it was the attitude of the court officers.
Which is why this one was such a shock. I’d never seen him before. I was sure. If I had, I’d have remembered him. He was a sour-faced little man with no neck, who looked as if he wanted to bite someone. A rather pissed-off bulldog.
He came in carrying two ballots. He eyed us suspiciously, looked at the ballots and said, “Hastings and Abernathy?”
We each said, “Yes.”
“Let’s go,” he growled, and turned and walked out the door.
Mrs. Abernathy and I looked at each other. She smiled, shrugged and got up, no mean feat, being so large. After a moment I got up and followed her out.
The sour court officer was standing in the hall. He had his arms folded and was glaring at us. He was not tapping his foot impatiently, but he might as well have been. He certainly gave that impression.
As soon as we were out the door he turned and marched down the hallway and back through the Juror Assembly Room. Mrs. Abernathy waddled after him, but there was no way she could keep up, and by the time he reached the corridor we had fallen way behind. He stood there, just outside the doorway, arms folded, watching us come up the aisle. This time he did tap his foot. As soon as we cleared the doorway he stamped off down the corridor to the elevators. By the time we got there he had already rung the bell, caught an elevator, and was holding the door open despite the protests of some of the people in it.
“Court business,” he snapped. “Hold your talk. Jurors entering.”
Mrs. Abernathy and I stepped in, he released the door and we rode up to four.
“Out,” he said, and held the door once again, making sure we got off. When we did, he released the door and said, “Follow me.”
Instead of leading us to the main corridor, he turned and marched to a door in the far wall between the two elevator banks. He pulled out a key from a chain on his belt, unlocked the door and held it open. His having to unlock the door gave us time to catch up. We went through it and he closed it behind us, making sure it was locked.
We were now in a narrow back hallway. He led us down it, turned a corner, led us down another narrow hallway past several doors, all of which were closed, turned another corner and stopped in front of a door. He pushed it open, said, “In here,” and stood aside to let us pass.
Mrs. Abernathy and I went in. It was a small room with a long table in the center with a dozen chairs ar
ound it. Six people sat at the table. The court officer pointed to it and said, “Sit down.”
Mrs. Abernathy plopped into the nearest chair available. The one next to it was vacant, but remembering the perfume, I opted for the one at the far end of the table instead.
The court officer watched impatiently, tapping his hands together, as if to say, “Christ, can’t people just sit down?” When we were settled to his satisfaction, he said, “All right, now listen up. Take out a pencil and paper and take this down. I am your court officer. My name is Ralph. Write that down.”
There was a pause while we all fumbled for pens, pencils, papers, notebooks, whatever, and wrote down the name Ralph.
“All right,” he said. “Get this and get this clear. Up till now you have been responsible to the Juror Assembly Room. That is no longer true. From this point on, you are responsible only to me. You will report to me, you will listen to me, you will do what I tell you.
“When you report in the morning, you will not, I repeat, not, report to the Juror Assembly Room. We are now on the fourth floor. When you arrive in the morning and when you return after lunch, you will wait on this floor in the corridor by the elevators for me to come and get you. You will be on time. If you are told to report at ten o’clock, you will not show up at five minutes after ten, you will show up at the latest at five minutes before ten, so at ten o’clock when I am here, you are here. And the only place that you will be is in the corridor next to the elevator. I will pick you up there and bring you back to this jury room. And don’t think you can arrive late and find the jury room yourself. The door is locked. You can’t get here. The only way you can get here is if I bring you.