19 FEB 06
Still can’t trust the truck to start, so I took the gas-guzzling loaner down to the County Courthouse for jury duty. I'd only been to Freehold once before, years ago, when a realtor showed us a troubled house ("The best of the old with the best of the new") in Bruce Springsteen's former neighborhood.
I get the feeling that many people are more familiar with metal detectors than I am. A limitation of the hermit’s life. I hesitated when the guy in front of me set off the walk-through. Waiting for him to find his overlooked metal, I didn't realize I was being addressed when the guard said, "Ma'am! Ma'am, step through!" (Recognizing myself as "Ma'am" is also kind of a weak spot.)
Once on the in side, I stood gazing for a minute at the x-ray monitor: the new-style color display, image inverted, field white. Then I made my way, with a growing gang of prospective jurors, to the Jury Assembly Room in the basement, pleased to see that some had interpreted "business attire" even more loosely than I had. We stood on a long line and I talked with the woman behind me. Not a first-timer, she filled me in on possibilities. "A friend of mine was picked for a murder trial!" (She was eager to be on a jury and did in fact get picked.)
The line led us finally to the front of the room where a cheerful woman looked at our IDs, greeted each of us by name, and pointed us toward a basket of clip-on plastic items into which we inserted our juror # cards. She told us to keep them on at all times so that lawyers wouldn't discuss a case while we were within earshot.
We sat in plastic chairs in rows. I began to wonder which outcome would be lucky for me. I had hoped to get out of it somehow, but now I found myself thinking that being on a jury might be interesting. When I wasn't part of the first group called, I moved out into the hallway, where there were some small tables and chairs. I'd brought along Yesterday, At The Hotel Clarendon by Nicole Brossard, hadn't started it yet. (Coach House Books. Very handsome.)
When the ice storm plunged us into the cold, I read four essays on antiquity under the most tragic lighting. I'm easily influenced, and it upsets me to realize I'm at the mercy of a statistic, of a proverb, of three chapters I suspect were written under the force of the tidewaters of violence or of deepest despair.
Some people sat down at the next table over, discussing the Winter Olympics. They moved on to how things have changed since some of them were kids around here, then to interest rates, real estate, each topic entered with gusto. "I'll just fix or... enhance the one I have." "You know your house!" At some point I realized they were a jury, selected sometime before today, now back for more. Talk turned to weather, the blizzard. "Right away, Ryan's ready to go sledding--he's standin' there like an Eskimo." ("What is your son charged with?" a woman asked a man as they walked past.)
It doesn't take much to upset me. I read a lot. I've a sharp eye for misfortune. I rarely talk about misery.
Brossard's sentences brought The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge to mind. Something in the sound. But wouldn't the sound be in the hands of the translators? Maybe it was the structure. A guy standing in the door jamb kept saying to his cell phone, "Just sittin' here. I'm just sittin' here, waitin'."
Every so often we'd be summoned back into the Assembly Room. Another group of names would be called. Not mine. I went down the hall to the tiny cafe. When the cashier asked, "What are you having?" I said, "Just this." He looked at the wall behind me and asked, "What is it?" I hadn't noticed he was blind. Then I couldn't think of the word for the food in my hand. "Muffin?" he asked. "Yes!" I replied as if having my fortune told. "Butter?" (He was smililing a little, almost like he knew that "muffin, butter" had another meaning. In our house it's the term for a note we've taken that, when we find it later, we don't know why we wrote it in the first place. *)
I liked the cashier. I liked watching him count the bills. He bantered with the regulars, knowing many voices. He could somehow tell the difference between cartons of plain & chocolate milk. Later he was refilling the vending machines out in the hall, moving confidently everywhere. (I thought of that sentence: "You know your house.")
Hours passed. Back in the room of plastic chairs, I fell asleep with 2 TVs on and chatting all around me. Then suddenly at 3 o'clock we were dismissed, for the week. School's out, forever. We lined up to return the clip-on juror-card holders. People headed for the elevators. I went the other way, having found the stairs when I went for a walk during the lunch hour. As I approached the door, there was the cashier, moving stock on a dolly. He went through, started to let it swing shut, then looked in my direction and caught the door and held it.
"Going out?" he asked. He gave me quick directions to the main doors on the ground floor, and called up as I reached the landing, "See ya in a couple of years..."
. . . .
