My jury duty is outside of my jurisdiction. I have been called to appear in Salem court, 18 miles away with no decent roadway to get in there or out of there, a place where summer traffic means Salem Willows beach and boardwalk fun. Strategic planning, therefore, is needed to locate parking, Dunkins, lunch, and a quick escape.
The empty stairwell leads to an indoor mall, and., at 7:30 a.m, it is deserted. I freak just a little bit, wondering if this is some kind of weird, creepy Salem joke. Salem is, after all, Witch City. I turn around, praying the door has not locked behind me (it has not), hightail it back up one floor, and walk right out the front. I am not going to lie - the situation does nothing to protect my sense of safety.
Passing the old superior court building, I notice it is a construction zone. This is actually good news. Maybe we won't have any cases today because the building might fall down.
No such luck. Everything has been moved into the beautiful new justice complex.
Entering the door, the guard says, "This is just like the airport..." This directive does not help me. I have been TSA Pre-Check since I started flying a few short months ago, so I don't really know what this means. Does he want my shoes? Is he going to x-ray my fat ass?
Apparently, I pass the scan because I'm gathering my stuff and proceeding upstairs in no time at all. As soon as I get into the elevator and the doors close, the doors open again and a gentleman walks in. "Jury duty?" he asks. "Don't worry. All district court today."
When it's time to enter the jury pool room, we discover it is a huge place with tons of chairs. I pick my own row. Everyone picks his or her own row. There are exactly twenty-five of us, and there's room to spread out. Except ... except that I am flypaper for freaks. While the video plays about blah blah civic duty blah blah stars and stripes, a guy sits in my row two chairs away. Then a woman climbs over the chairs from behind and sits on the other side of me.
Let me just mention here that there are still PLENTY OF FUCKING EMPTY ROWS OF CHAIRS.
It gets worse.
Someone near me stinks. He or she smells like raw fish and stale cigarette smoke. It's disgusting, and once the smell is up my nose, no amount of mouth-breathing is going to help. We get a break after an hour and are allowed to go get coffee and snacks, which we are also allowed to bring back into the courthouse. Jurors, apparently, are a privileged bunch. We also are allowed to use our cell phones as long as the judge doesn't enter in his or her robes.
Then, a judge walks in wearing his robe. We all rise and hide our cell phones.
After the judge leaves, the court clerk from the elevator asks us which movie we want to watch: Miracle or the newest Star Wars. The big guy manning the front row to himself yells for the sci-fi then sits and ignores the entire movie, playing on his phone with earbuds in. I am sitting about three feet from a television, working on puzzles and sudokus. Despite the fact that there are five other televisions around the room, a guy sits next to me, spins the chair, and starts watching me and the movie.
Even creepier, I'm reasonably sure this is Juror Zero, the source of the mysterious funky stench.
After the movie ends, the DVD continues to replay the same music and scene choices for thirty minutes, over and over and over and over. Finally I break the silence and say, "Yeah, the movie was great up until about a half hour ago." This is met by multiple sighs of, "I was thinking the same thing!" I go next door to what could be the District Attorney's office, and beg them to call someone to come shut off the movie that has now become like a scratch in a record.
The judge talks on and on about our civic duty (is there no end to their insistence that we are noble?) and then assures us that our presence helped decide seven cases today, including a very serious domestic abuse case, because the parties were told, "We have a jury in the room all primed and ready to go." Apparently, no one's case was particularly compelling enough to risk our Star Wars induced wrath.
Good decision.
Another good decision is when we are told that the jury pool today is small because the last group got seated on a Grand Jury for a case that will last THREE MONTHS. Three fucking MONTHS. Who the hell has that kind of time?
Just past noon, I am free as a bird in old Salem. I could take a walk, have some lunch, meander down to Pickering Wharf, go to the museum, have a flight at Salem Beer Works, drive to the nearby mall, go to the Salem Willows (along with thousands of my "friends"), or I could just go home.
I walk back to my car in the garage, going exactly the same way I came. As I'm leaving, the man operating the garage ticket booth asks, "Jury duty?" It seems to be the only line men will be using on me today. I tell him that yes, I was at jury duty, and he responds with, "Good thing you weren't here last week! Grand jury! Three MONTHS!"
"I know, right?" Now please let me pay and get out of here. It's 91 damn degrees in the shade.
Seriously, though, if I ever need a jury, I certainly hope everyday people, people like me, will be available and willing to serve. After all, watching Star Wars and eating donuts while drinking iced Dunkins coffee is a very, very, VERY tough job, but someone has to do it. Might as well be me.
