06-Juror

by Parnell Hall

  He smiled, the way people do when they feel slightly put upon, but they’re gonna say yes. He took the envelope. “Yeah, sure,” he said.

  “Thanks a lot,” I said. “You’re a lifesaver.”

  “Hey, no problem. It’s my third day, I haven’t been called, I got nothing to do.”

  “Great,” I said. “If you get called for a case and you can’t do it, no hard feelings, thanks for trying.”

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “If I get called for a case, I’ll pass it on to someone else.”

  As he said that, a man emerged from the direction of the men’s room and came walking up the aisle.

  It was my buddy. Damn. They hadn’t excused him. They’d called him back for his tenth day.

  He saw me, stopped short, glared, turned, and slouched into a chair. It was like a specter, haunting me. Christ, even the back of his head looked malevolent.

  I thanked the guy again, beat it out of there, and caught the elevator upstairs.

  I got up there at five minutes after ten. Of course, the hall was empty. Sherry Fontaine and the rest of the jurors had already been escorted in. And now the door was locked, and there was nothing for me to do but stand and wait.

  Ralph showed up five minutes later. He stuck his head out the door and snarled, “All right, come on.”

  I walked over. Ralph didn’t open the door for me, however. He stood in it, blocking my path.

  “You’re late,” he said. “I told you not to be late. I told you if you were late, you couldn’t get in.

  “I told you something else, too. I told you if you were going to be late, to call and let me know you were going to be late. Then I would know, and I could tell the court. If you don’t call, I don’t know, and I can’t tell the court. I have the judge and the lawyers and the witnesses all sitting around waiting on you. I came out here just now, I didn’t know if you’d be here. And if you hadn’t been here, I wouldn’t know what to tell them still. Did you lose the number I gave you to call?”

  “No.”

  “Then why didn’t you call it?”

  “I didn’t have time.”

  “You had time to be late. Next time take time to call. But there better not be a next time. From now on, be on time.”

  With that, Ralph threw the door open wide and let me pass. As I followed him meekly down the corridor to the deliberation room, it occurred to me this was entirely typical of the syndrome. I had left time to get here. Sherry Fontaine was the one who’d been ten minutes late. But, of course, she’d gotten away with it. She hadn’t been late. She’d simply made me late. It was entirely her fault, and yet I was the one in trouble.

  Ralph opened the door of the juror deliberation room, and stood there sternly holding it as I marched in, as if he were the truant officer, and I were the naughty pupil he’d caught.

  As I walked in, I wondered if Sherry Fontaine would expect me to sit with her, since we were friends. That seemed a little much. I looked around and everyone seemed to be sitting where they were before. I went and took my place at the head of the table.

  As I sat down, Ralph gave me one final glare, and went out, closing the door behind him.

  The Professor looked at me, rubbed his index fingers together and said, “Bad, bad boy.”

  Everyone in the room cracked up. Jurors who had been silent as the grave when Ralph was in the room, now all began jabbering at once, and I gradually got the story.

  I had not noticed it, but College Boy was not in the room. He’d phoned in sick this morning, and had to be replaced. Mrs. Abernathy, as first alternate, had been elevated to the rank of juror. Chuckles, as the other jurors persisted in calling Ralph, had taken this as a personal affront, and was in a particularly foul mood, even for him. My coming late on top of all that was simply the last straw.

  It was also wholly unimportant in the workings of the higher order of the universe. For, despite what Ralph had said, if the judge and the lawyers and the witnesses were all in court waiting on me, then Ralph must not have told them I arrived, because he didn’t come back for us until after eleven. So we had over an hour in the juror deliberation room to cut up Ralph, and shoot the shit, and just generally get acquainted.

  I began sorting other jurors out. I mean, aside from the arbitrary designations I had given them. Here, as usual, my observations had been somewhat less than accurate.

  College Boy, no longer with us, was not a college boy at all, but an assistant manager at Burger King. It was Eraserhead who was the college boy. He was, in fact, in law school at Columbia, and was actually happy to be on the jury and get some firsthand courtroom experience. He turned out to be bright, sharp and articulate, and was probably gonna make a damn fine lawyer someday, if his hair style didn’t hold him back. I realized the last thought was just prejudice on my part, that I’m just a old fogy who can’t relate to the kids of today any more than my parents could relate to me as a long-haired hippie, and that it was Eraserhead who was hip, cool and with it, and I was the one out of step.

  I also found out his name was Ron, which was good, because then I could stop thinking of him as Eraserhead. Ron was our foreman too, by the way, by virtue of sitting in seat number one, and it occurred to me that was fortuitous, because when the jury finally got down to their deliberations, he’d be on top of things and be a good leader and move things along.

  Only I wouldn’t see that. For as the alternate, while I had to sit through the trial, I didn’t have to stay for the deliberations. As soon as the jury was sent to deliberate, I’d be excused. Thank god for small favors.

  As to the other jurors, I already knew Mrs. Abernathy, and I already knew Sherry Fontaine. That left the Professor, Hoop Earrings, and Business Woman. Hoop Earrings foxed me by wearing small studs today, which left me up in the air as to just what to call her. Fortunately, her name turned out to be Maria, which is one of those names I can remember—Maria, I just met a girl named Maria.

  Business Woman’s name was one of those I can’t remember, so I missed it again, but I did learn that she wasn’t a business woman at all, but a housewife and the mother of three. It was Hoop Earrings who was the business woman. She turned out to be a buyer for a large textile company. So Hoop Earrings, who was a business woman became Maria, and Business Woman, who wasn’t a business woman got pushed into limbo and became the Nameless Mother.

  That left only the Professor. He turned out to be a clerk at OTB.

  At eleven-fifteen, Ralph Chuckles came and got us and we marched into court.

  I am pleased to announce that we found our respective seats without incident. Of course, with College Boy dropping out, Mrs. Abernathy was now in the second row, which meant I only had to count up to one, but I still took pride in the accomplishment.

  When we were all seated I looked around the courtroom. Judge Davis, the Silver Fox, and Peter, Paul and Mary were all in place, but today we had an added starter. There was a man sitting in the spectators’ section in the very back of the courtroom. An old Hispanic, dressed in work clothes. He looked oddly out of place in the courtroom, as if he’d been looking for the Department of Motor Vehicles and come in the wrong door.

  But he was in the right place, all right. After Judge Davis called court to order, she turned to the Silver Fox and said, “Mr. Pendergas, call your first witness.”

  Pendergas rose and said, “Your Honor, I call Hernan Medina.”

  The old man in the back of the court rose and shuffled up to the witness stand. After he’d been sworn in, the Silver Fox said, “What is your name?”

  “Hernan Medina.”

  “And what is your occupation, Mr. Medina?”

  “Custodian.”

  “And where do you work?”

  Medina gave an address in Brooklyn.

  “I see,” Pendergas said. “And how long have you worked there?”

  Medina shrugged. “Two, three years.”

  “I see. And can you tell us where you were working on February 15, 1982?”

&
nbsp; “Yes.”

  There was a pause, then Pendergas said, “Please do.”

  “What?”

  “What was the address?”

  “Oh.” Medina thought a moment, then gave the address of the office building on 26th Street.

  “And you were working there in what capacity?”

  Medina frowned. “What?”

  “What was your job?”

  “Oh. Same job. Custodian.”

  My interest picked up somewhat. Medina appeared as if he would at least make a colorful witness. As custodian he must have discovered the fire. We would hear tales of smelling smoke, rushing up, seeing the flames, calling the fire department, the arrival of fire engines, police, and the whole shmear.

  Wrong again. None of that happened. It truly was the most boring case in history. There had been no alarms, no fire engines, in fact, no firemen at all. The fire had occurred over the weekend while the building was locked up. Apparently it had started on the third floor at Veliko Tool and Die, spread to the fourth floor where it had damaged some of the equipment of Dumar Electronics, and then burned itself out. Medina had indeed smelled smoke in the building, but not while the fire was burning. He had smelled smoke when he’d come into work Monday morning. He’d investigated, opened the offices of Veliko Tool and Die and Dumar Electronics, and discovered that there had indeed been a fire. And he had been on hand to report that to the owners of those respective companies when they had showed up later that morning to open up for business.

  Hernan Medina’s story was dull as dishwater.

  And we got to hear it four times, because when the Silver Fox was done, Peter, Paul and Mary led him through it again. Trust me, it did not improve with repetition.

  There were, however, some bones of contention. Veliko Tool and Die had a die-press machine that had been consumed by the fire. Pendergas tried very hard to get Medina to say that in his estimation the fire had originated from that machine. Not in those words, of course, but the general idea. Medina, however, held firm. There’d been a fire, he’d seen the damage, but he didn’t know how it had started or where it had started. That wasn’t his job.

  Pendergas did get Medina to say that he’d seen no water on the floor, and as far as he knew, nothing seemed wet. He tried to get Medina to say that in his opinion the sprinkler system had not gone off, but Mary objected on the grounds that that was a conclusion on the part of the witness, which he was not qualified to give, and Judge Davis sustained her on the point.

  If you find any of that at all interesting, that’s ’cause it only took a minute to tell it. Try listening to it for close to two hours, ’cause that’s what we did. At which point it was one o’clock, and Judge Davis mercifully broke for lunch.

  As we filed back into the deliberation room, we all looked slightly numb.

  Ron, formerly Eraserhead, blew out a breath and said, “Lawyers.”

  I smiled. “I thought you were in law school.”

  OTB Man, formerly the Professor, grinned and said, “What’s the matter, Ron? Havin’ second thoughts?”

  Ron shook his head. “Naw. It’s just like they teach you in law school, you can argue either side of anything. That’s why everyone’s always suin’.”

  I frowned. “Excuse me, but what do you mean?”

  Ron jerked his thumb in the direction of the courtroom. “Pretty Boy’s suin’ everyone because the sprinklers didn’t work so his equipment burned, right?”

  “Yeah. So?”

  Ron smiled. “Think about it. If the sprinklers had gone off, his equipment would have got wet, and he’d be suin’ everyone for water damage.”

  14.

  I DIDN’T WANT TO HAVE LUNCH with Sherry Fontaine. I mean, it would have been okay if a bunch of us jurors had gone out together, but I didn’t want to have lunch with her alone. In view of the whole controversy about driving the car, I didn’t want to have to tell Alice I’d gone out to lunch with the woman. If you can’t understand that, all I can say is you’re probably single. At any rate, if Sherry had asked me what I was doing for lunch, I was gonna tell her I was busy.

  She didn’t though. As soon as we were released, she sailed out the door without so much as a backward glance at me.

  That pissed me off. Which was strange. I mean, I didn’t want to have lunch with her. I just would have liked to have been given the option.

  At any rate, I really was busy. First I had to run out to the parking lot to see if the guy had put my quarters in the meter. He had, and at the right time too. By my calculations, he’d put the money in at five of twelve, meaning the meter’d run out at five of two. Perfect.

  I’d already checked my beeper on the way to the parking lot, so I knew the office wanted me. I called in and Wendy/Janet already had a case for tomorrow morning and one for tomorrow night, again both in Harlem. All right. So far things were working out.

  I ran across the street and got a cheeseburger and a can of soda to go, went back to the parking lot and ate ’em sitting on the hood of my car. I tried eating them in my car, but every two minutes someone would pull up behind me and honk to see if I was going out, so I gave that up.

  I finished my lunch, disposed of my garbage in the proper receptacle, and hung out in the parking lot until a quarter to two. That was early, of course, but I wasn’t taking any chances of being late. I fed ten quarters into the parking meter, making it good until a quarter to four, and hotfooted it back to 111 Centre Street.

  Sherry Fontaine was just crossing the street as I got there. She saw me and waved. I waved back, but halfheartedly. Seeing her was like an omen. I had a flash that somehow, someway, she was going to make me late.

  “Going in so soon?” she said. “We still got fifteen minutes.”

  I wasn’t gonna be distracted. “I gotta find someone to put quarters in my parking meter.”

  “That’s how you’re workin’ it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay. I’ll go with you.”

  Again, I felt a portent of doom. Somehow, some way she was gonna fuck me up.

  “Fine,” I said. “Let’s go.”

  I expected her to stall, somehow, but she didn’t. She went right inside and got in the elevator. We went up to three and down to the Juror Assembly Room.

  It couldn’t have been better. The guy I’d given the quarters to was sitting right there in the same chair reading a book.

  I walked up and said, “Hi.”

  He looked up, said, “Hi,” then cast an appreciative glance over Sherry Fontaine.

  “Hi,” she said.

  “Listen,” I said. “I want to thank you for putting the quarters in the meter, and if it’s not too much trouble, could you do it again?”

  There was no way the guy was gonna say no. He couldn’t take his eyes off Sherry Fontaine. And he sure wasn’t gonna be a grouch with her smiling at him. He was a nice guy, and I’m sure he would have done it anyway. But with Sherry there, it was a lock.

  He smiled. “Sure thing,” he said. “How’s the case going?”

  “We’re not really supposed to discuss it,” I said.

  “Don’t be silly,” Sherry said. “How can you not discuss it?”

  “You on the jury too?”

  “Sure thing,” Sherry said, smiling. She slipped her arm through mine. “Me and Stanley are the super jurors. The best jurors on the best jury on the best case in the whole system. We’re lucky to be on it.”

  The guy was grinning like a zany, and it flashed on me my worst nightmare would be Sherry would stand there flirting with him until she made us late.

  No, there was a nightmare worse than that. At that moment, my buddy came walking in from the hall just in time to see me standing there with Sherry on my arm, and her sayin’ how great it was for the two of us to get put on this great jury together. Here he was on the afternoon of his tenth day of doing absolutely nothing, and he had to hear that. If looks could kill, his would have.

  But aside from that, it went smoothly. The guy
accepted the quarters, agreed to put them in at three-thirty, and I managed to spirit Sherry away from him and pilot her upstairs by five of two.

  The others jurors were already waiting in the hall. Maria, formerly Hoop Earrings, attempted some innuendo by giggling, “Where did you two go for lunch?” and OTB Man winked and whispered, “You sly dog, you,” which was slightly embarrassing, but could not dampen my spirits at the relief of not being late for Ralph.

  Ralph showed up at two on the dot, seemed not at all pleased to find all of us there, led us back to the deliberation room, and eventually into court.

  If the morning session was dull, the afternoon session was torture. In the morning, at least we had a witness. In the afternoon we had nothing. See, since the case was eight years old, some of the witnesses were not available. But they’d all been questioned at prior hearings. So the afternoon session consisted of the Silver Fox reading their depositions into the record.

  The depositions consisted of two former employees of Veliko Tool and Die, and two former employees of Dumar Electronics, all of them reporting what they saw when they came to work on the morning of February 15, 1982.

  The Silver Fox tried to read with expression, but even so, I have to tell you, I thought I was going to die. When Judge Davis finally adjourned court at ten to five, it was an incredible relief.

  I’d gotten through the day. And I hadn’t gotten a parking ticket. And on the ride home, Sherry Fontaine didn’t ask me to do anything illegal. And Alice only put up a mild argument about me driving the car, since everything had worked out today, leaving her with no ammunition. And Tommie cooperated and was easy to put to bed. And Alice cooperated and was easy to put to bed—the sexist pig strikes again.