Grisham's Juror

by Timothy Braatz

  From the box, I could now see the defendant’s face. Jack looked to be in his thirties, six feet tall, lean—not all that different from me, actually, if I were wearing a coat and tie, not jeans and a polo shirt, and if I were a black man accused of shooting someone, not a white guy being accused of indifference. He was sitting at Lawson’s table and staring, I swear, right at me. Stone cold. Like my future is in your hands, asshole, and you’re playing with your cell phone? I’m usually suspicious of cops, but the two burly uniforms by the door were suddenly a comfort. I could easily imagine Jack with a handgun, no, a shotgun, and the same cold eyes watching his victim fly backward across the hood of a car. I looked away. I’d love to stick around and hear your side of the story, Jack, hear all the lurid details, hear your big regret, but it’s seventy-five and sunny at the beach and summer vacation goes by in a flash.

  Mr. Sloan wanted to hear more lurid details from my illustrious career.

  -How long have you been teaching?

  -Ten years.

  -Would you agree that student behavior has gotten worse over time?

  -I don’t know. People say that.

  -Do you consider yourself a disciplinarian?

  -What do you mean?

  -Well, do you tolerate student tardiness?

  Okay, Sloan liked my bias against the defendant, thought I was a keeper, he just wanted to make sure I wasn’t too forgiving. Time to shift gears.

  -Students are going to be late. There’s no point making a big deal out of it.

  -Do you assign detentions?

  -Rarely.

  -What if a student is disrupting class?

  The truth is, students don’t disrupt my class because they know I’ll send them out, call their parents, have them suspended, see them kicked off sports teams. And for tardies, same thing, zero tolerance. It’s the only way to survive. But never mind.

  -I usually ask a disruptive student to solve a few equations on the board. That calms them down.

  If only.

  -So let me ask you this. Would you be able to find someone guilty, even if it meant sending him to prison for life?

  Competing mantras. Lawson says his client made a mistake he regrets. Sloan tells us to send the accused to prison for life. Judge Silverson must have understood what they were doing, trying the case in advance, yet she didn’t halt their foreplay, their premature enunciations.

  -I guess if I were truly honest, I’d say that life imprisonment is a waste of taxpayer money. Why keep a senior citizen locked up?

  Sloan frowned and gave up. Fish Number One isn’t a keeper after all. The only question that remained was who would excuse me first, Sloan or Lawson?

  Well, there was one other question: had I committed a crime? Before jury selection began, we had all sworn to answer accurately and truthfully, failure may subject you to criminal prosecution. My responses to the attorneys now were definitely not in the spirit of the whole truth and nothing but. But did I actually lie? It would be tough to prove. They had mostly asked about my opinion, and opinions change. Did I really assume the defendant was guilty? Probably. Probably I probably did, I can’t be sure. Was I really skeptical about life imprisonment? In the context of public expense, probably. With regard to justice and deterrence, probably not, but again, I’m not certain. If they had framed more succinct questions they could have pinned me down. Sloan hadn’t asked for my opinion on the value of life sentences. He had asked if I could find someone guilty, my answer was a non sequitur actually, and he let it slide. It’s not my fault, Your Honor, if these bumbling lawyers didn’t help me clarify my thoughts on issues I don’t normally contemplate. That’s it: I wasn’t being dishonest, I was confused.

  As it turned out, no one was concerned about my possible perjury. As it turned out, my ambiguousness wasn’t interpreted as evasive or hostile. At least so far as I could tell. At the other end of the box, my friend The Sophist was far better behaved. He was cooperative and forthcoming, kept his cynicism under wraps. He presumed innocence but was willing to convict. He rejected vigilantism. He didn’t know any policemen, agreed they could make mistakes, but had called them when his car was stolen and sure was grateful when they recovered it without a scratch two hours later. He managed a family restaurant and coached Little League baseball. Mr. Sloan sent him home.

  -Juror Twelve may be excused.

  Judge Silverson nodded. The Sophist shrugged and departed.

  But neither the particular Mr. Sloan nor the brilliant or incompetent Mr. Lawson saw fit to dismiss the math teacher with the attitude. They were both sitting down, Sloan shuffling papers, Lawson whispering to Jack. It took a moment to sink in. I gave up on Lawson, but kept expecting Sloan to rise up and end my misery. Come on, buddy, you don’t want a wild card like me, I’ll hang your jury, I swear I will. Nothing. The clerk called two new numbers to replace The Sophist and one other lucky escapee. I stopped paying attention. It was over. I wouldn’t be at the beach tomorrow, or the next day, or the day after that. I would be sitting in a stale courtroom, bored to tears, while Sloan, Lawson, and Silverson debated some arcane point of order.

  My phone vibrated. A text from Marissa: Bud Jack? Get on the jury!

  Well, there’s a murder mystery for you, sports fans. Marissa rarely leaves bucolic Laguna Beach, avoids newspapers because they’re too depressing, works in the hushed spa of a resort hotel tending to the aches of the rich, tan, and pampered, and somehow knows the name of a black man accused of murder sitting in the bustling county courthouse in Santa Ana, twenty freeway miles and a world away.

  -Juror Number One, is that a cell phone? Sir?

  Busted!

  -I’m sorry, Your Honor. I—

  -Perhaps you’d like to spend a night in lockup?

  Busted, like my students say, big-time!

  -No, I—

  -I won’t tolerate this.

  -My dog is sick.

  Where did that come from?

  -I don’t care. Is that clear to everyone? No cell phones in my courtroom. How sick? Mr. Fletcher?

  -What?

  How did she know my name?

  -How sick is your dog?

  -I took her to the vet last night. She was vomiting. And bleeding from the other end. It was pretty bad.

  If you’re going to lie, lie big, right? My heart was going a mile a minute. My face was on fire.

  -Why didn’t you say something earlier?

  -I don’t know. I thought it would be okay. But I just got a message from the vet. They needed my permission to run more tests. They said it was urgent, so I….

  Judge Silverson looked out at the remaining jurors beyond the bar, then back at me. Her frown was gone. Maybe she’s a dog person and knows what it’s like when your little darling is hanging by a hair. Maybe I’m a better liar than I thought.

  -Would you like to be dismissed?

  That, then, is how you avoid sitting on a jury: lie through your teeth, perjure like a politician. Plan A was right from the get-go. Not that I’m proud of it. Not that I knew what I was doing. The dog story wasn’t premeditated. I’ve never even owned a dog. Inspector Clouseau flashed to mind: Eet’s naht mah dahg. The irony, too, was unintended. After all the calculating, all that agonizing, I’d finally found the way out, only there was one problem.

  -No, Your Honor, I wish to serve.

  2

  After the jury selection, after they had sworn us in again and dismissed us for the day, I drove back to Laguna, taking the canyon road as it cuts narrowly through the hills then opens up to downtown and the beach. The canyon is beautiful, especially in spring when the hillsides are green and yellow with wild mustard, but the canyon road has become an industrial strip. Downtown Laguna is reserved for luxury—art galleries, hair salons, fashion shops, and quiet restaurants beyond the reach of a high school teacher. The lower canyon is home to the Pageant of the Masters, an enterprise I don’t understand. Why would someone volunteer to get dressed up and stand motionless, night after night, in livi
ng, breathing, life-size re-creations of classic paintings, and why would someone pay to look at them? But they do, and they come by the busload. The few practical shops in town—auto repair, surfboard shaping, hardware store, lumber yard—crowd against the steep slopes farther up the canyon road. Behind the businesses, where the canyon widens, there is a small residential area. Driving toward the beach after, say, a long day in court, turn left at the used car lot, follow the road as it winds into a side canyon, and park in front of the first yellow house on the right. There’s an old wood-frame guesthouse around back, hidden from the street by a beat-up fence and a stand of bamboo wrapped with morning glory vines.

  Marissa opened the door with a frown. She didn’t like me coming by without warning.

  -I’m sorry. I tried calling. Your phone—

  -I was taking a nap.

  Does the beach painter get the same cold greeting, or is he allowed to show up unannounced?

  -I’m in.

  -What?

  -I’m on the jury.

  She hugged me tightly. That’s more like it.

  -Thank you. I’m so happy.

  -I’m happy you’re happy.

  Inviting myself in, I stepped past her into the living room. Futon couch, Mexican blanket, throw pillows with third world designs—she knew how to dress up a dumpy place. On one wall, a framed Van Gogh print announcing the dates of a museum show. On another wall, shelves with music CDs, a few ceramic pieces, one for burning incense, and books—new age self-help, Neruda poetry, Grishams.

  -He needs your help.

  -Who does?

  -Bud Jack. It’s a case of mistaken identity. He’s not a violent person.

  -Says who? How do you—?

  -Sigrid. My client.

  That would be Sigrid who had her breasts enlarged and quit her job as a community college art instructor when she remarried, Sigrid who knows all the local gallery owners and organizes an annual fundraiser for the sea mammal rescue foundation. And her new husband is in television. And they have a house in Laguna. Just a small house, Sigrid says, we live modestly and I don’t understand these people with their mcmansions ruining the village atmosphere, it’s not right. Her husband spends three nights a week at his apartment in LA near his work, but no way he’s cheating on her, he calls every night from the apartment to say he loves her, and anyhow there was no prenuptial, if he ever tries anything Sigrid will dump him in a heartbeat and leave him with nothing. And the maid lives in Santa Ana, so when her bus to Laguna gets stuck in morning traffic, Sigrid ends up late for pilates class. She can’t just leave a list of chores because the maid, bless her heart, has trouble reading English, you just have to give specific instructions if you want things done properly. And the gardeners are supposed to come and go in the late afternoon when Sigrid is off playing tennis, but they often arrive unfashionably early with their screaming leaf blowers and desecrate the sacred quiet of Sigrid’s meditation hour.

  I knew all this—late maid, early gardeners, small house, big breasts—because one morning a week, once the maid understood her marching orders, Sigrid had her middle-aged skin scrubbed, peeled, oiled, and kneaded while she poured out her troubles and explicated her life. A massage therapist—the licensed professional, not the forty-dollar-an-hour Prettiest Asian Girls! advertised in the back of the sports pages—must be confidante and confessor. It’s part of the process, Marissa insisted. The body work opens up emotional blocks, and her clients—sometimes they laugh, sometimes they cry—you have to let them flow.

  I knew all this because a week earlier, the last time I’d seen Marissa, it was all she talked about—Sigrid and her stress.

  -I’m like, Sigrid, just relax, that’s why you come here. And she’s all, I know, I know, but I’ve got to vent. She says this time her neighbors submitted an architectural design that doesn’t totally block the ocean, they would still see Catalina Island but they lose their whitewater view, the beach and everything. She went on for like twenty minutes about view equity. I wanted to strangle her.

  -Why didn’t you?

  -That’s one of the rules. Don’t kill the clients. Ever since the new management.

  Marissa can be funny—if she’s had a little wine.

  -What’s view equity?

  -I don’t know. It’s like your neighbors have as much right to see the ocean as you do, so you can’t stop them from putting on a second story. She’s like I don’t understand it, we welcomed them to the neighborhood, had them over for dinner, they even admired our picture window and they never said a word about planning to remodel. That is pretty cold, you have to admit. And then her husband got into an argument with them and kept shouting, I’m a very serious man, I’m a very serious man.

  How much of human communication is complaining? Sigrid complained to Marissa about the help, Marissa complained to me about Sigrid, and then I complained to Pete about Marissa.

  -I mean, she says she can only stay a few minutes or she’ll be late to yoga, and then I swear she spends the whole time talking about her clients’ problems. I guess they’re more interesting than a math teacher.

  -Sigrid’s the one, you said, with the big—?

  -Yeah. Would you say we’re serious men? I mean, more serious than some guy who paints beach balls, right? We’re teaching the youth of America.

  -We’re very serious.

  -So why doesn’t Marissa take me seriously? She takes Sigrid seriously.

  -How big are we talking?

  -Honkers.

  I’d never met her, never seen the woman, but according to Marissa, when Sigrid was face down on the massage table, she was propped up. Which apparently was the scenario—Sigrid propped up and flowing, Marissa working her lower back—when the topic of my jury duty came up.

  -Yeah, because I just got your text message before her session started, and she asked what the case was about, and I said what you said, some guy named Jack or whatever, no big deal, and then like fifteen minutes later her head pops up and she goes, is it Bud Jack? I’ve never seen her like that, like agitated or, I mean, even when she’s complaining about the neighbors, she’s usually laughing, but now she was like, Marissa, the trial, the jury, is it for Bud Jack? I said maybe, because your text just said Jack.

  I sat down on the couch, hoping she would join me. No such luck.

  -And then she has to call her husband. She knows we don’t allow phones in the spa, but this was like a big emergency all of a sudden, and she leaves and comes back and goes, Marissa, listen to me, this guy Bud Jack, his trial is starting today, he’s accused of murder, but it’s not true. Turns out her husband knows someone who insists there’s no way the guy would shoot anyone or even own a gun. He lives with his grandmother in Long Beach. He supports her. He has his own business, the kind that washes your car in your own driveway.

  -You shouldn’t be telling me this.

  I could still hear Judge Silverson ordering us not to discuss the trial. I could still see her chastising glare.

  -I know, but if he goes to prison, his grandmother will lose the house. He’s a normal guy, not like some gang-banger.

  -A normal guy?

  -That’s what Sigrid said. Why?

  -Let’s just say if he knocked on my door and offered to detail my car, I think I’d keep the door closed.

  -Because he’s black?

  -No, because he’s scary looking. His eyes.

  She gave me an irritated look. Whenever she and I talked about race, I always ended up sounding racist, at least according to her, so I quickly changed my answer.

  -Okay, he’s not scary. He’s…he looks like a point guard.

  -What’s that?

  -A basketball player.

  Another irritated look. Here it comes.

  -Of course. How could a black man be anything else?

  She went into the bathroom and shut the door.

  To be honest, she might have had a point, only it’s not my fault. I happen to live in a white community. I just happen to have been hi
red at Dana Hills High, with almost no black students—under one percent, I think. There was one black woman I used to encounter regularly in Laguna. She was frail and weather-beaten, skin like leather, she panhandled in front of a downtown grocery store, my guess was she slept on the beach. The only other black women I ever see in town are gorgeous, usually in the passenger seat of a large SUV, usually with a white man driving. The only black men I see regularly are athletes on television, basketball players especially, you see them up close and personal—muscles, tattoos, facial expressions. So they’re a point of reference for me. But that doesn’t make me racist. Point guard isn’t a value judgment.

  -Who else is on the jury?

  -Marissa, please.

  She was still in the bathroom. Should I sneak another Grisham off the shelf?

  -It’s not like it’s a secret. Are there any blacks?

  I wanted to talk about the case, just to spite Judge Silverson. It didn’t feel right though. In the courthouse parking lot, I had run into The Sophist, and he was still going on about the race issue.

  -You see how it works, man? They should’ve cut you loose after that song and dance you gave them. Any trouble with drugs?—no, they’re experts. That busted me up. But they should’ve cut you loose.

  -Yeah, I was kinda—

  -You’re the only one who said you thought my man was guilty. The only one. And they keep you on the jury. Presumption of innocence, my ass. I could’ve been justice herself, blindfold, scales, and they still excuse me.

  That’s when we shook hands. The normal handshake at first, then you rotate the heel of your hand down and your fingers up into more of a clasp. This requires a deeper elbow bend, bringing the two people closer together, tighter. I doubt he was expecting it from a white math teacher in a polo shirt, but he went with it.

  -Alright now.

  And the way he said it was cool: Alright now. I felt a connection, even if we never exchanged names. So I know I’m not racist.

  Marissa came back into the room.

  -So it’s all whites?

  -There’s a Hispanic woman.