Jury of Peers

by Troy L Brodsky

  Ravish Ramadeep sat still. Outside, the wind rattled against the windows. The guy deserves this, he thought as he watched Meek ease into sleep. He needs to see this end. I need to see it end. Lots of people do. Can I sacrifice three people to see it through?

  Five minutes later Ray stood, crept down the steps, and pocketed the bottle of pepper–gel. He didn't have to sacrifice everyone in order to see this through. Not really.

  Chapter Sixty–Eight

  Trope

  “You sure you wanna get out here?” the old trucker asked. He didn’t mind getting the stinky bastard out of his truck, but it was the middle of the night, and it was snowing. Hopefully the guy remembered his own house.

  “Goddam it, I said here!” Hack slammed his fist down on the dash.

  “Alright, alright.” The man checked his mirrors and eased the truck to a stop. “You want out, get out.”

  Hack fought with the door until it opened, and then nearly spilled out unto the pavement below. The truck ground into gear and pulled out of the sleepy suburb.

  He looked around as the truck’s lights faded off into the snow. It was quiet here in the shelter of Roos’ apartment building, almost peaceful. But it wouldn’t be for long. He needed a car. Soon. He examined the roster posted at the front door, and punched #33. He popped open the little vial of emergency coke, dipped a little on his pinky nail, and snorted it while he waited.

  “Yeah?” came the sleepy voice.

  * * *

  “You know, each one of them is a teeny tiny individual,” Tonic said as he leaned up close to the windshield.

  “Shut up.”

  “No really, every snowflake is different, calming.”

  “Shut up.”

  “You don’t like snowflakes?”

  “I like calm, shut up,” Finn said. He was fretting over whether or not they should have followed the FBI. They’d had no word, and they hadn’t even come back for their scope. It was heavy, it had to be expensive. They should have come back for it. He checked his watch, again.

  “Maybe we should write a song about snowflakes.”

  Finn let out a groan. Tonic knew how to push him through frustration and into rationality. “I just don’t like sitting here on our asses while this all goes down.”

  “Yeah, but here we are, so shut up.”

  Finn grabbed the dash and pulled himself forward. “I don’t believe that they’re all different.”

  A phone rang. Both detectives went for their cells: It was Finn’s.

  “Finn.”

  Tonic could hear most of the conversation without translation, Roos the Internet vampire from the John Hancock Standard building was very excited. Finn finally held the phone between them and flipped it on speaker, which was almost redundant.

  “…took my fucking car!”

  “Where is he?” Finn asked.

  At first, Roos just blathered on, but the question finally caught up to his rant. "He said he was gonna kill that Ray dude.”

  “Who?”

  “The guy on TV, Ray. Said he’s gonna off him. He had a fuckin’ gun man, stole my car!”

  They calmed the kid down and finally got the make and model. A brown El Camino, which somehow was just right for Roos. “You call the cops yet?” Tonic asked.

  “Aren’t you the cops?” the kid screeched.

  “Yep, you’re a smart lad,” Finn scribbled the information on his hand. Tonic already had them moving. “Stay there at your house Roos,” Finn said. “We’ll get back to you, calm down and… think about snowflakes or something.”

  “What?” was the last thing they heard from Roos.

  “So where we going?” Finn asked.

  “Dunno, I think better driving.”

  “So all that frosty introspection shit was what?”

  Tonic turned up their scanner. "Why don’t you call Hop and let him know...”

  “In a second.” Finn was thinking too. “Alright. Hack’s drunk. He does, however, think that he knows where Meek’s at. Let’s assume that’s true. How do we get close?”

  “The closest we know is the place he wrecked his last car.”

  “Yep.”

  Tonic made to spin the car around, but on the glossy streets it went all the way around and ended up pointing in the same direction.

  “Very nice,” Finn said in the calm that followed.

  This time Tonic granny turned trying not to further embarrass himself. It just made it worse.

  “Snowflakes are calming,” Finn imitated Tonic’s drawl.

  "Shut up."

  Part III: The End

  “We are all inclined to judge ourselves by our ideals; others, by their acts.”

  Harold Nicholson

  Chapter Sixty–Nine

  Habile

  “Seth?” Ray said. He didn’t even stir. Again he called his name, softly. “Hey Seth, it’s time.”

  Meek’s eyes opened, blinked, and then he sat up straight.

  “It’s time. Close to eleven.”

  Seth blinked again, looking at Ray. “I was asleep?” he asked, still coming to grips with reality.

  “Yeah,” Ray said. He turned the computer back to Seth. "It’s about time.”

  “I’m glad you’re still here.”

  Ray shrugged. "Gave me time to cast my vote.”

  A strange look crossed Meek’s face just then, the kind you might expect from a man on death row who’d been awakened from a dream of the wide blue ocean. “Yeah. Right. It’s time.” He focused on the laptop and brought up the command terminal screen, and then, without a word, he rose and stepped outside into the wind.

  He activated the last of his throw away telephones and dialed the number from memory. He let it ring and considered the next hour or so of his life. The playground phone had been found in minutes, but it had been left transmitting. The other one had been thrown into a westbound tractor–trailer rig to make it appear that he was on the run. But… really, it wouldn't matter much now.

  "Hello?"

  "It's about over… I just wanted to say thank you."

  "Seth?" Marley said, sitting up in bed, her computer in her lap.

  "Yeah. I'm… well, it's about over."

  "I know. I'm watching. I've been watching it all. You don't have a bag full of soap do you?" she asked.

  He looked up into the falling snow, "I don't. I doubt that it'll matter much in an hour though."

  "Maybe, but know that you've made your point. Jesus did you ever. You've made it for everyone. It's incredible."

  "You're a terrible counselor," Seth said out of the blue. He could hear her smile.

  "I think I did pretty well judging by the state of the world."

  "Yeah, me too. One way or the other, I wanted to call. I wanted you to know that I tried to make it count. Thanks."

  Silence, and then, "Seth?"

  "Yeah."

  "You haven't come to a session yet. You owe me twice a week," her voice cracked.

  "It's time for me to bring this all to an end."

  "I know. But you know that it isn't ever really going to end, not really. You don't have to do anything more. You don't have to kill anyone. You don't have to…"

  "Thank you Marley. I won't." He ended the call and stepped back inside. Now… it was time.

  Chapter Seventy

  Howff

  “Again with the snow,” Finn said as they pulled off at the exit that Hack had been trying to make a night earlier. “Always with the snow.” By Midwestern standards, this was flurries but by D.C. standards it was nearing blizzard status.

  Tonic pulled them to a stop under the overpass where they could keep the snow off of their windows and see which way Hack turned if he tried to retrace his route.

  “He might not even remember how to find this place,” Tonic said.

  “Hell, he might be drunk. He might not make it this far. He might not have even seen where Ray went if he even turned here. Of course, he might have already blown right through, right? Who the
fuck knows?”

  “Better than sitting still though… isn’t it?” Tonic gripped the steering wheel as if he were still traveling down the road.

  “Go back to snowflakes, that was better.”

  “Well, when you get bored tell me,” Tonic pointed at the Smokey’s sign just down the street.

  Finn followed his gaze. “Yeah, well at least we…” He stopped, squinted.

  Tonic looked too. "What?”

  “Tell me that’s a fucking El Camino.”

  Tonic yanked the car into drive. Their traction held until they pulled out from under the overpass where there was no longer any shelter from the elements; at which point wheels spun, the car spun, and the detectives within spun… into the ditch.

  Finn didn’t wait. He was out of the car and skating down the street in his three hundred dollar shoes. Tonic caught him easily, smiled as he eased past, and slid to a stop at the rusty El Camino long before his partner arrived.

  “I run better than you drive,” Finn panted after he too thumped to a stop against the car. “Same plate?”

  “This is our guy,” Tonic confirmed as he searched through the window with his penlight. “Fuck.”

  “Think he just saw the sign last night and got thirsty?” Finn started walking toward Smokey’s.

  Tonic was right on his heels. "Well, whatever. He’s our best shot, maybe he still knows somethin’.”

  They hit the doors and burst inside, but few looked away from the televisions. The place was packed, but hushed with the reverence of a rowdy Super Bowl crowd waiting for an injured player to get to his feet.

  “I thought you guys were gonna miss it,” Smokey said from the bar. Every screen showed Meek’s face. Grave and tired. He held a sheet of paper and read from it in his usual melancholy voice. The detectives just stood there – everyone was transfixed.

  “The Grand Jury has come to a decision,” Meek began. “As I’ve said, any and all of these charges are subject to the death penalty so far as this court is concerned. All ballots have been tallied, and the verdict has been arrived upon.”

  * * *

  Finn and Tonic still stood in the doorway. In fact, Tonic’s hand was still on the door’s handle, letting little snakes of snow slither in on the wooden floor. Meek looked at them from all angles around the bar. "Now… the verdict has been reached and balloting is closed. In the case of Siclo vs. Meek, Mr. Derek Siclo, a minor, was charged with three counts of sexual assault or rape. You… the Grand Jury for this case, have found him guilty on all counts. Additionally, he was charged with three counts of first–degree murder. Again, you have found him guilty on all three counts." Meek paused, anticipating the frenzy.

  * * *

  FOX and MSNBC cut away from Meek organizing his papers like a news anchor to show reactions around the country. Congregations wore their horror and outrage for the cameras, the NAACP group sat huddled on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial sat in silent prayer seemingly oblivious to the bitter cold or Siclo’s fate... they were waiting for word on Saul.

  A crowded pub in Chicago lifted toasts and cheered.

  The ACLU refused to allow cameras into their headquarters, though they issued a press release within moments of the verdict. It wholeheartedly condemned Seth Meek for his abuse of the legal system, sighting in pre–fab paragraph after paragraph the rights of the accused. It spoke of the case itself as if it were quite possibly the low point in the history of Democracy, as if civilization might never rebound.

  A handful of congressmen shook their heads in disbelief as the cameras circled and live feeds broadcast their reactions around the globe. One of the Senators compared Meek’s actions to those of a domestic terrorist, though when pressed for elaboration she merely smiled.

  From screen to screen the reactions were polarized; it was either an unparalleled injustice or a triumph for the weak and downtrodden – a true wake up call for the American justice system.

  CNN brought up a split screen featuring Saul’s mother sitting near a television on one side, the face of her beaten son on the other. The woman was weeping, and pointing a hand full of tissues at her television. "My baby, my baby.” Her friends closed in around her, comforting and stealing glances at themselves on the screen. One waved to the camera.

  “In the case of Brown vs. Meek, Mr. Saul R. Brown, a minor, was charged with three counts of conspiracy to commit sexual assault. He is found not guilty on each of these counts. He is also charged with three counts of conspiracy to commit murder. The Grand Jury has found him not guilty on all counts." Seth paused again, waiting.

  * * *

  Saul’s mother burst into tears at the mention of the words not guilty, lifting her hands to the heavens as those around her did the same, shouting praises and turning circles.

  * * *

  "Regarding the last count of attempted murder, namely mine, you the Grand Jury, have found Saul Brown… guilty."

  * * *

  Upon the guilty verdict, Saul's mother fell suddenly silent and searched the faces of those who crowded into her little apartment for comfort and wisdom. There was little on hand, and finally she focused upon the camera, begging the question aloud. “Why, why?”

  Her contorted face was broadcast around the world while others pondered a slightly different version of the question, when, when?

  * * *

  “He’s not here,” Tonic said as the room erupted into a hundred different opinions. They stepped through the extra tables and chairs that had been pulled up on the main floor and waved Smokey over.

  “I don’t think so,” Smokey said in reply to their description. “I’m pretty good with faces, pretty sure he ain’t been in here.”

  “How sure are you?” Finn said. He was almost yelling across the bar now.

  “Go look around if you want,” Smokey said. He pointed to the back rooms. Straightaway the room fell into murmurs as Meek reappeared on the screen.

  "It is now 11:50pm. The prisoners are scheduled to be executed at midnight. In this there will be no delay. Court is adjourned until 11:55pm.” The screens went black and the pundits returned in force.

  * * *

  They raced through the back rooms, bathrooms, even the tiny utility closet, and ended up surveying the patrons in the main room again. “Well where the fuck is he then?” Finn said.

  Outside the snow swirled through the parking lot lights carried along on the wind. The cars in the lot were covered in a quarter inch of fluff, but the El Camino was still there. There were two–dozen storefronts however, all within walking distance of Hack’s car. They were out of time.

  Chapter Seventy-One

  Huibrastic

  “Well Gentlemen,” Meek said in his quiet voice, "it’s time.” He flipped on the lights and went live. Millions watched in real time; this was the height of the media storm – in the history of broadcasting nothing had come remotely close.

  Bolo’s eyes were broad yellow bowls, pupils wide with fear. Saul’s face was more serene, but his limbs trembled. "What’s that mean Mr. Seth?”

  “It means that people voted. They think you're guilty. And that means that at midnight…” he looked down on them, "it happens.”

  Bolo’s chest began to quiver. “Aw, com’on now. This ain’t right… I didn’t mean all that,” he whimpered. His lips, dry and split, pulled back tight in a mask of panic and dread like a chimpanzee. They began to bleed unto his teeth. “I was just kiddin' 'round," he whimpered.

  "Kidding?" Seth asked. He couldn't muster the emotion to sound dubious.

  "Yeah," Siclo said. The idea resonated and he latched on, "Yeah… I didn't mean it."

  Seth knelt and looked at Saul.

  Tears streamed down his face, “I’m sorry Mr. Seth.”

  Bolo kept whining, “Ain’t right. I wanna lawyer, I got rights…”

  Meek shifted his complacent gaze, closed his eyes, and then exhaled. When he opened them again Bolo’s voice was rising in pitch. "This ain’t right, I got rights motherfucker.”


  Meek wrenched back his arm, his fist balled into white knuckles, and drove it into Bolo’s face. Once, twice as the head snapped back and rebounded forward… a third time feeling teeth give way and cut his fingers. His rage had brought him full circle, given him this chance to exact any sort of retribution that he desired, he was free – utterly and completely free now to give that rage full reign. To finish what he had let happen. Tears came, and the fourth punch lost it’s authority. His fist glanced off of the blood–slick face.

  Bolo groaned, an open mouthed, bloody moan of pain and fear. Mucus and blood were strung from one lip to the other. "No more…” And in that one unaccountable moment, Seth Meek understood that rage wouldn't keep its promise; it had carried him, blindly to this point in time – this singular moment in his existence that would define so much… and then abandoned him. Suddenly he was empty, and the white–hot fuel from which he had drawn was utterly gone. Finally, after all of this… Seth understood that he would have to walk this last mile on his own.

  He rose unevenly, staggered to the sink and washed his hands. They shook as he tried to pick the tiny white shards out of his fingers; he splashed water into his face, and turned to look at Ray.

  Ravish just stared, his skin cold. His fingers were numb, but he clutched his pen. If he could write his way through this, maybe he could keep it at arm’s length, maybe he could keep the nightmares at bay.

  * * *