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July 2012

When the tiny two-table farmer’s market was selling sweet corn last week, I jumped at the chance to pick up a few ears and grill them. I’d talked to a few people who did it, and they said it was something to be tasted. Now, I’m not a big fan of the traditional grilled taste. I’ll never understand the appeal of eating charred, carbon-coated burned victims, but our new grill has been doing a nice job of cooking things perfectly without that off-putting aspect.

For the corn, I was advised to soak the entire ear – husk and silk and all intact – for at least an hour, then grill it on a medium setting for twenty minutes, turning once or twice. That’s the kind of simple instruction I can get on board with, and after the twenty minutes was up, I started to shuck the corn and check out the results.

They were better than expected. The grilled (or “charred”) bits were shucked off and thrown away, and what was left was a juicy corn cob, not watered down, and with none of the flavor leached out. It was so much better than the boiled version I had known all my life. It’s a good moment when you try something new and it turns out to be such an improvement.

After posting a pic on FaceBook a few people said the next thing to try was to partially husk it, slather with flavored butter, then wrap it back up and grill from there. That does sound good, but might be one step too far. It’s always better to keep things simple, especially in the summer.

Perhaps, as we say in America, I wanted to find myself. This is an interesting phrase, not current as far as I know in the language of any other people, which certainly does not mean what it says but betrays a nagging suspicion that something has been misplaced. I think now that if I had had any intimation that the self I was going to find would turn out to be only the same self from which I had spent so much time in flight, I would have stayed at home. 
– James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room

A good book is a treasure, a sanctuary from an often-cruel world. It softens the blows and eases the soul. At my darkest moments, I always found solace in a book. I remember a stretch of lonely nights back when I lived in Boston. I was just starting to find my way, but I hadn’t made any serious friends, and I certainly didn’t have a boyfriend. After a day at work and an evening jog, I’d return to an empty room, and panic with nothing to do. The idea of wasted time scared me. The notion of moments spent waiting, of unproductive minutes lost and never to be regained, repulsed me. Reading a book was never a waste. Reading was a worthwhile endeavor. No matter how meaningless or superficial the latest copy of ‘Vanity Fair’ was, no matter how insignificant or outdated a Broadway Playbill became, there was always something worthwhile to be found in the way other people used words. And books – those that withstood the test of time – were an entry into a world of beauty.

Those that spoke to me early on – Edith Wharton, F. Scott Fitzgerald – would become old friends. Not a year goes by that I don’t find myself re-reading The Great Gatsby (usually just as Spring is about to arrive) like some tried and true reference to life. My latest find is Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin, and just a few pages in I realized this was destined to be another classic. Only halfway through it, I’ve already earmarked a dozen pages, underlining as many passages, and re-reading choice bits because there is so much to elicit a rare spark of understanding – the thrill of recognition.

He looked at me and I saw in his face again something which I have fleetingly seen there during these hours: under his beauty and his bravado, terror, and a terrible desire to please; dreadfully, dreadfully moving, and it made me want, in anguish, to reach out and comfort him. – James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room

I’m sipping a vodka stinger, enjoying a quiet moment at the bar, when this asshole from Arizona walks in, high on his haunches, and acting like he’s so above it all. (I know that stance, I’ve walked it before. I did not, however, keep my sunglasses on as he does.) He makes a pitch for his band to play at the bar, but the bartender says he’ll need to speak to the owner. It turns the guy off, and he goes into further douche-like behavior, acting like it’s so absurd that anyone would turn his band down.

He comes from Phoenix, but is stationed in Gloversville and Johnstown, and he plays at the Coffee beanery in Amsterdam, NY. Yes, that is indeed the big-time, so when he starts slagging off Albany and Washington Park and the parking issue, it’s all I can do not to go ballistic.

Now, admittedly, I’m the last person to call anyone out on haughty behavior, but there’s a way to do it with charm, and there’s a way to do it with condescension. One is pretty and the other is not. The way he talks to bartender is despicable, and I see no reason for such attitude. His suit and tie date back to the 80’s, and not in any sort of self-aware retro way either – I honestly think he was wearing it back then. The sunglasses remain perched on his nose, and the fact that it’s happening in a darkened bar just makes him look more ridiculous.

No matter who you are, there’s never a reason to treat others as if they are beneath you. I’ve always maintained that you can tell what a person is really like in the way they treat wait-staff and retail workers. Having done a tiny bit of the former (bus boy) and a whole lot of the latter (Structure slut), I can say that it’s a pretty good gauge.

(Example: I once tried helping Nancy Kerrigan in the Faneuil Hall Structure store and let’s just say she got what she deserved.)

For the first two days following the trial, I feel on the very verge of crying. For someone who doesn’t cry that often, being in that state constantly for two days was a shock in itself. Now, on this beautiful sunny Saturday, the guilt has moved in. Not over our decision – as I said, I will always stand behind that – but over the fact that I’m enjoying a life while two boys aren’t. In the darkest and worst way, it’s as if the trial sucked every little joy out of life, because every time I reach towards a moment of fun – a splash in the pool, a Madonna song, a flower in bloom – I check myself with the thought of those boys.

I’ve cancelled two parties, a Gay Pride event and a weekend in Boston and the Cape. My heart is not in it. I’m sure it will be one day – maybe even soon – but not just yet.

There is also a residual emptiness and longing; in some strange, possibly sick way, I mourned because I didn’t want it to be over. I didn’t want to go back to what I knew before. Maybe part of me missed the other jurors. Two weeks was the stuff of summer camp and vacations, a period of time just long enough to make someone matter, then take them away without a scar, but with a memory. But what is a memory if not a scar?

I seek out my favorite person on the jury – a self-professed ‘fruit fly’with a gaggle of gay friends – who just happened to be our foreperson. I feel like she is the only one who might understand what I’m going through. Otherwise, I’m probably going to have to talk to a professional because the darkness from this trial isn’t lifting.

I stop by the bar where she works a shift, but she is on vacation until next week. I make some small talk with the other bartender, but I am still lost, still wishing for a connection with someone who has seen what I have seen. There are so few of us in the world.

In some sad way, the joy of living, as precarious as it always was, has been snuffed out. Slowly, I am getting it back, I feel certain I am on that path, and the laughs will come more readily in the following days, but it will take time.

For now, I have written enough on it. As raw as it remains, it’s time to end this chapter, to put my jury duty behind me and move on. I have let it out and done what I know how to do. The rest is not for paper or documentation. The rest I have to figure out in my head and heart. The rest is the hard part.

I walk into the courthouse feeling good about our progress from the previous night, but things quickly take a decidedly darker turn, and this is our most difficult day of deliberation. Reaching our verdict is a soul-seering process, and only now do I allow a few tears to come to my eyes, blinking them away and looking down to avoid eye contact.

After watching the video a few more times, we come at last to unanimous agreement. It is not an easy decision. No one will win – we have all only lost. Even those of us who had no choice in serving on this jury have lost, even when we haven’t done anything.

Up until now I have worked solely towards focusing on the case, the evidence, the testimony, and then coming up with a decision and working to convince others that the decision is the right one. I am not alone in my determination, but we are somewhat split on which charge is most fitting. Once that debate is done, once we have agreed, I have no more to focus on other than the situation at hand, and our role in it. Then and only then does it hit me, and all those moments when others had taken the time to cry and let it out come flooding over me. I am shaking as we make our way into the courtroom for the last time. Our foreperson walks behind me, and I look back and ask if she’s okay. She’s the one who will have to recite the verdict to the judge.

We line up and march in, and for the first time I look every person I see in the eyes: the lawyers, the defendant, the families, the spectators, the sheriffs and the judge. We have made the fairest decision we could, based on what we were given. And we were a good group of people who took the time and care to purposefully deliberate. We challenged one another, we came around to the truth, and in the end we did the best we could do. I will always stand by that.

Our foreperson reads the verdict: Guilty of Manslaughter in the 1st Degree. Each juror is polled and asked if this was our decision, and we all say ‘Yes’. Then it is over. We are dismissed. We walk out of the courtroom.

We are asked to leave our ‘Juror’ lanyards on the jury room table before being escorted out for the last time. That’s it. That is all.

That night, it hits me. Having held everything in for the previous two weeks, I now sob uncontrollably, curled up in the fetal position on the floor of the guest room, inconsolable by both Andy and my Mom. It is all suddenly too much – too much pressure, too much relief, too much emotion. I did not ask to be on this jury, I did not ask to be the determining fate for someone else’s life, the avenging force for someone else’s death. The night falls, and I cannot stop crying.

There are strict instructions and guidelines for those serving on jury duty. There are procedures and rules and laws we must abide. There is no such guidance for what to do when your jury duty is over, no advice on how best to decompress, how to reconcile your decisions with the aftermath of reality, no helpful word on how to forget.

I thought it would be easier to shake than this.

I am afraid I will be haunted.

And no one understands.

I write this at 9:45 PM, following another endless day of deliberation. Apparently our 4:30 PM note asking the judge for a discussion on our ability to continue deliberating for the day could only be taken at face value, and the judge declaratively stated he could not discuss that with us. Legally, I suppose we worded it inappropriately. (I wanted to rephrase it along the lines of, “We are unable to reach a verdict today. Would it be possible to come back tomorrow?” In the manner that we wrote it, it was not up for discussion and we were sent back in for dinner and deliberation. And though it sounds exactly like something I would do, it was not my idea to send that note to the judge, I swear.)

I don’t usually get stir-crazy when forced to sit still for any length of time. There are people who can’t stand it, who get claustrophobic and panicky, but I’ve always been able to retreat within my mind and pass the minutes solely through imagination. Yet even I was having a tough time being confined to a single room for twelve hours straight, with only an adjoining bathroom to offer brief escape. You don’t realize the importance of a lunch break outside until it’s taken away, and those moments of solitude I have always cherished were replaced with elbow-to-elbow company.

While initially put out by the judge’s decision (he had actually been the one to plant the idea that we would not be staying late, as all sorts of overtime had to be requested and granted) it turned out for the best, as I believe we got some good work done, and a decent headway of progress to set us up for the next day, so maybe he wasn’t entirely wrong about it.

At this point I have to say something about trials and juries: everything I ever thought I knew is wrong. Unless you are on the jury, presented with the evidence, and locked in a jury room to deliberate for days, you have no idea what it’s like. What we see is nothing like what the public sees, or thinks they see (and given the news reports we would later see and laugh at, the news media usually gets most of it wrong).

I will never second-guess or assume anything about any trial ever again. The system is designed that way, and to that end I have to believe it provides the fairest way of insuring each and every person’s assumption of innocence until proven guilty. There are underlying reasons that may prevent that from happening, but at its essence I can’t think of a more effective means of judgment. 

By the end of the day we are exhausted and drained on every level. As we pack up for the evening and the sheriffs enter to escort us out again, one of the jurors says it feels good to be with a good group of people – and I can honestly repeat that I have come to genuinely like each of them. That sort of thing doesn’t happen every day, or very often, especially when you consider there are twelve of us. Even with that, the next morning will prove to be the toughest, and I will think back to the innocence of that night as one of those moments you don’t realize is the last until another one fails to appear.

The few hours of sleep we got were not enough to fully decompress and replenish. We are all not quite ready for this day, even if it’s a shorter one. I think it’s finally starting to take a serious toll on some of us. There is less laughter, less energy to push ahead. It’s a day I push away. It’s a day in which we don’t decide.