They called me for Jury service, and as I sat there the words “In God we trust” in big-bold lettering on the wall which every juror faced. We were in a church sermon and we awaited the words of the great leaders. One of them was a man who’s blazer jacket was too tight, I think he had both buttons fastened to stop the jacket from flaring out like a dress, and both stretched. He had a tough-guy voice and as we were told that we’d be paid forty dollars and that we had to serve for twenty-two days or be called back, he gloated that he loved his job, and some of the peasants around me chuckled. His voice even got stern when “admitting” us to use the restroom. We were given a choice, serve on the jury or serve in nine months. I asked if we postponed would we be guaranteed to be called in nine-months? I’m planning to marry in nine months, and as people elected to serve he clapped and congratulated them, after I agreed to serve reluctantly or risk moving the wedding date, and unflinchingly called the next name.
We were corralled into the hall and ushered into the elevators two by two. I guess the CoronaVirus is still murdering people by the numbers, we can meet friends who we haven’t seen in years maskless and heavily exhaling at a dirty bar, but only two silent and masked people per spacious elevator. I guess who knows where “they’ve” been. I had the honor of standing in the elevator with the badged juror escort and I didn’t say a word. He said “we’re waiting for everyone at the bottom”, and I nodded. I didn’t speak because I didn’t want to, it’s important that you behave as you feel is necessary at every given time, or you might forget how to and mime until you're dead. At the bottom he attempted to joke with two officers standing around and they ignored him with more tough-boy behavior. It’s semi-difficult to relay such behavior in text, it’s more of an attitude, and I felt a tingle of sadness for my captor.
In the next building we all sat and forced forward, this was a bigger courtroom with less wood and more marble, and the God text was the same but this time engraved in a huge marble slab to convey enormity. I just noticed the extra shirt fabric looming behind one of the authorities. We all raised our right hand to be sworn into position then the judge walked in and sat on in the big God chair. There’s an old joke: If you walk into the doctor’s office, they’d better be wearing a white doctors coat, otherwise why am I paying all of this money? He told everyone that we’re going to hear many cases, and that we cannot talk about them for the month we’re conducting the jury service, and for the rest of our lives. That blew my mind. Forever? Until death? If we tell anyone we’re technically breaking the law? So, I show up to the building, and leave with a secret that could land me in jail? No thanks.
I told the clerk-man that I didn’t feel comfortable keeping a secret, especially one that if I uttered I could go to jail, and served whatever bureaucratic slop they manufacture. I told the man and he informed me that he’ll tell the judge. Thirty minutes pass and we begin to hear the shaking of the pepper of secrets, and before we begin to see any of the cracked corn I called over the clerk-man, he gets peppy and tells me the judge is busy. I was worried that I’d hear some crucial element of some drug crime that I never wish to ever know. The judge re-entered and preached to the audience regarding any concerns with the oath taken, which we strangely had to agree to before hearing the terms, which I noticed and felt comfortable shaking that loose promise. He called juror number one, which was my new name, and I walked up to the stand. I leaned against the judges table and he looked down on me and asked if I’d feel uncomfortable avoiding sharing what I heard in the courtroom. I looked at him and said, “I don’t feel comfortable being told information that I’d then have to keep secret, for not just a month but my entire life, it makes me anxious and uncomfortable”. He asked if I could do it, and I responded, no. He told me that I was excused so I turned and walked away and as I sat in my area I heard them discuss how they’ve never heard that before.