I had jury duty today. I can't talk about the case, and really, the case itself is meaningless—except of course to the, um, to the participants I guess. But what I can talk about is the people in the courtroom.
What theatre! What drama! What cheese! Man these people are ripe; virtually full of ripeness. Plump wheels of rolling Limburger cheese are they. I will start with one attorney. I won't name names, nor will I even indicate whether the attorney is for the plaintiff, or for the defendant. So there. But this guy! Oh, this guy! We'll call him Butterfingers. I was, and I swear on several stacks of bibles, various coin operated video games and my mother's sweet and sour pork, I was literally biting my tongue not to burst out laughing. The pressure, oh the pressure to make snide, cynical, sarcastic comments was sooooo great. Hoover Dam restrains less raw force.
I digress. Butterfingers has a client, we'll call the client Pinky. Butterfingers has a witness's video taped deposition: the witness's name we'll say is Abbot. Butterfingers would be looking at the jury and refer to his client as Mr. Abbot. And I mean, once every five minutes he refers to his client by the wrong name.
"You will see evidence that points to my client Mr. Abbot’s responsibility in this matter."
"Mr. Abbot claims the other side is lying."
"Mr. Abbot likes cheese."
The last statement he did not say. I admit that. I am employing a comic device there for laughs. But what kind of lawyer cannot remember their client's name? Come on. Mr Butterfingers has had "privileged conversations" with Pinky in small rooms with no windows and a guard outside and reams of paper with Pinky's name on them as well as six or so other people in a Court of Law using Pinky's God Given Name and he can't keep it straight. The client Pinky seemed entirely inured of this. He didn't flinch. Maybe he knew he was doomed.
Butterfingers actually did refer to the other side as the ‘other side’ however. Twice. I can say other side now because I am not in a courtroom. I can say it on the internet because the internet is a base and lowly thing that is mostly a garbage heap of information and the trolls who live there. But in the courtroom you have to say “the Plaintiff,” or “The Defendant.” Not Mr. Butterfingers, no. He was “folksy.”
Butterfingers also tried to tug on my heartstrings. I saw him. He reached up close to my chest and actually pinched at the thread--all while smiling dopishly, innocently. Oh-HO-NO, Mr. Butterfingers. You’re not some doe eyed waif from the orphanage. You’re a bumbling lawyer with a bad combcover. You may tug no heartstrings here. An example: he walks by the jury sporting a photograph of something important that has emotional weight with the purpose of showing it to a witness. The photo, I understand, cannot be shown to the jury for the precise reason (I assume) that it carries emotionally charged images that might sway an objective opinion. As he walks, he waves the card around slightly, using flamboyant, but slow, gestures to point out that he is laying Pinky’s Exhibit 12 here, on the table, this table, this Exhibit, here, 12, now. Oops did I drop that? Meanwhile we’re all watching this photo bouncing before our eyes, these eyes, the jury’s eyes, my eyes, tearing up from the pain of locked down laughter.
Then Mr. Butterfingers took out more photos, these a little less emotional mostly because they were more difficult to make out exactly what was going on. But he proceeded to ask pointed questions about the subject and images on the photo in such a manner to be evocative. “Let’s see,” he might have said, “so in your professional opinion these are the actual--my but they are large--teeth that bit deeply and painfully into the leg?”
Ah jurisprudence. Fraught with objectivity. What a heavy burden.
But there is another lawyer. Let’s call him Arch Villain. I gave Arch Villain his name from a perfectly eeevil pose he held while listening to Mr. Butterfingers. He sat for some time slightly reclined, legs crossed, and his hands in front of his face tapping his fingertips together as if contemplating his very next move in this civil court case which would be to RULE THE WORLD! I am dead serious here. Not only did the man tap his fingertips together, but his flat, predatory stare bored an actual hole in the wall behind me. It was that focused. Arch Villain had a mission, and no one, not even the inept Mr. Butterfingers was going to stop him. Whenever Mr. Butterfingers would bumble through endless, digressing testimony, the boredom reached such a state that I would lose interest, I would look over at Arch Villain and have to suppress my urge to lean to the old man sitting next to me and whisper comic-book referencing aspersions.
To make matters worse, Arch Villain wore a suit so sharp that I swear the chair he sat in was in pieces when he rose. He made a slicing *swish* when he walked. Every gesture was curt, fell within respectful norms within the court, and cut to the chase. His hair was tight on his head like a beanie, his ears poked out on the tops like, yes, horns. See! Arch Villain. And like Arch Villains, he was smart. He was informative, quick and precise, and most convincing of all, he remembered people’s names, even ones he’d just met. He referred to his client by name. Amazing. Witnesses by name. Unbelievable!
The judge was a brick. I would look up at the man and he would be sitting in his chair staring at something on his desk. Just staring. A few minutes later I would look and his head had turned but his face was still in the same expression. He said nothing. He did nothing. He barely even moved. I suspect he was actually a left over animatronic experiment from the Chuck-E-cheese factory--I hear there are other failed models of the same line that included Toll Booth Operator, Librarian and President (that one was never found though… hmm). Seriously, the man said a bunch of stuff at the beginning and then just stopped like he ran out of quarters or something.
Stuck in the middle of this were the Plaintiff and the Defendant. They were silent, which is sad because I am sure they were probably very comical too. To be involved in that courtroom you’d have to be a complete and utter parody of come caricature. One did look a bit wooden, and the other did look a bit worn out. They played their parts as best they could, I am sure.
But jury duty. Man. People, you need to do this. It is fun and it’s free. If you don’t count the lost wages for those wage slaves out there. So much fun that I am going back tomorrow. Heh. Is this the greatest country or what? Such entertainment the law is!
