Chapter 14 – Saeed Kahn’s Gibberish
Thursday morning June 5, 2008 – 5:55 AM
By the time Newlan woke up from his frightening nightmare, his t-shirt was soaked with perspiration and he was utterly unable to fall back into anything more than a light slumber for the remainder of the evening. But even though he tossed and turned in a comatose state of semi-consciousness until the break of sunrise, his internal clock still managed to wake him up just before the alarm went off, as it did every morning.
Oftentimes Newlan didn’t even remember his dreams the next morning, regardless of whether they were beautiful fantasies or haunting nightmares. However, on this fine morning, he vividly recalled the obvious connotation of the words “avenge my death”.
Newlan also recollected shrieking so loudly that he feared he may have woken up his vigilant neighbor, the condo complex’s daytime concierge, Saeed Kahn.
Kahn occasionally had to resort to emphatically banging on the paper-thin walls in an angry request for quiet on the irregular evenings where Newlan found himself entertaining an overenthusiastic lover deep into the night.
“God only knows how he’s gonna react to a blood-curdling scream,” groaned Newlan as he stumbled out of bed.
Newlan was fairly adept at transporting his nightmares back into his subconscious “where they belong” as he often put it, and so by the time he dragged himself out of bed, he was able to shrug off the whirring butcher’s saw, and the rolling skull, and the plea for vengeance, and he attributed the bizarre episode, in its entirety, to a nervous reflex brought on by the start of the trial (sort of like an allergic reaction gone haywire in a fit of uncontrollable sneezing).
After an extended bit of soul-searching, Newlan got himself into gear, and he went through most of his regularly scheduled morning routine as he always did, but he laggardly decided to skip his less-than-grueling workout which consisted of sit-ups, stretching, and lifting a pair of ten pound dumbbells.
On the infrequent days when Newlan was feeling extra motivated, he might even make a trip down to the complex’s fitness room for a run on the treadmill…but not on this morning. No, on this most unordinary of mornings, he just wasn’t up to the challenge of exercising his body when his mind was already worn-out, long before the day had even begun.
Newlan had more important, albeit mundane, things to deal with today, such as deciding exactly what time he should depart for the drive to the courthouse. On the one hand, he had to ensure that he left himself plenty of extra time to make a punctual arrival into the halls of justice. However, it was a tricky barometer to gauge due to the notorious Boston area traffic. The Route 93 to 128 interchange was especially difficult to judge due to the fact that even a minor accident could back up traffic for hours. But on the other hand, he preferred not to leave too early, lest he wind up in a situation where he would be forced to make small-talk with his new colleagues when what he really wanted to do was to just “veg out” undisturbed, until he was called upon to perform in his official capacity as a juror.
Newlan decided on an 8 AM departure which would give him a full two hours to eat breakfast while watching the morning news, followed by the three “S’s” (“shower, shit, and shave, but not necessarily in that order,” as his lifelong friend, Bruce Reardon, had jokingly coined his own daily routine) before getting dressed.
And so after the usual requisite machinations, Newlan made his way out the door at precisely 8 AM sharp, just as he had planned.
Newlan waved weakly towards the ever-present condo doorman, Saeed Kahn, as he passed briskly through the lobby. And as headed down to his car in the garage, he hoped that there wouldn’t be any repercussions from last night’s disturbance…and so far so good.
Kahn, who was a devoutly religious man (or at least that’s what he told Newlan on a regular basis), was garbed in some sort of Arabic robe, and his portable CD player had what sounded to Newlan like the sitar-enhanced warble of Middle-Eastern music blaring in the background. And as an added touch, he had placed a stick of burning incense on the counter of the security desk as well.
As far as Newlan could tell, Kahn appeared to be lost in a meditative trance, since he pretty much ignored his gesturing greeting.
“Go figure,” pondered Newlan. “Saeed either chews my ear off or he ignores me altogether. Anyhow, it’s just as well. On the bright side, at least he didn’t mention my late night screaming and thrashing episode. He probably never even heard me…just me being paranoid as usual.”
Kahn’s odd habits were not a big deal as far as Newlan was concerned. But on the flipside, many of the building’s residents complained vehemently about the erratic doorman’s strange behavior, sometimes until they were blue in the face. Some of them even went so far as demanding that the board of trustees terminate him for practicing his religion and blasting his insipid music in the lobby when he was supposed to be working.
But in reality, the primary reasoning behind the enraged tenants constant consternations was due to the fact that most of them where just plain prejudiced against anyone who was the least bit different from themselves, whereas Newlan took the contrarian view, much to the chagrin of his petition-waving neighbors.
In Newlan’s opinion, Kahn’s eccentric tendencies weren’t the least bit bothersome, and his viewpoint was such that as long as their glorified watchman kept a wary eye guarding the condo complex’s perimeter walls then nothing else really mattered much; and in that regard, no one could question that he took his job seriously.
The fact of the matter was that Kahn watched over the building like a hawk, and truth be told, in Newlan’s opinion, he sometimes did too good of a job policing the property, based on the third-degree interrogations he’d routinely put his friends through whenever they stopped by for a visit.
Although…as far as Kahn blasting his foreign music at the security desk was concerned, Newlan definitely had to agree with his neighbors on that one. The high-pitched chanting came across as pure gibberish to the rock & roll loving Newlan.
Conversely however, Newlan did enjoy the scent of Kahn’s fragrant incense, which never failed in its ability to trigger a few flashbacks to the 1970’s, which in turn reminded him of the countless times that he and his friends lit up a sprig of incense to mask the pungent aroma of marijuana after an all-night pot smoking session in his buddy Bruce Reardon’s basement while Reardon’s unsuspecting parents slept two floors above them.
But Newlan’s likes and dislikes notwithstanding, now that he had gotten past Kahn without incident, he pulled out of the condo parking lot feeling much better about the state of affairs in his life.
However, as Newlan made his way towards the courthouse, the unsettling realization that he had actually been appointed to serve as a juror on a high profile murder trial began to sink in like the Titanic on its maiden voyage, and this sent his skittering mood swinging in the opposite direction.
Apparently Newlan still hadn’t quite come to grips with the fact that he and his fellow jurors had been shackled with the overwhelming burden of deciding a man’s fate. But in the end, he reckoned that they would just have to do the best they could with the evidence that was presented before them.
Newlan should have been comforted by the knowledge that there was going to be a boatload of people helping him to make the final decision, but somehow he had a feeling that before all was said and done, he was going to be clinging to a life raft, alone, as he navigated his way through choppy seas.
It would be fair assessment to say that Newlan’s bearings were being hindered by an attack of bewilderment, and that maybe he was even a little bit scared. And in response to his predicament, he whispered to himself; “in times like these there’s nothing left to do but light up a joint and crank up the tunes.” And that’s exactly what he did.
Before Newlan left his condo, he had picked out a disc by the bluesy, confederate Americana rock group from the ‘70’s known only as “The
Band”; and that disc was now playing in his car’s CD player as the weed kicked in.
And as it turned out, the affects of the marijuana, when combined with the music (the song “The Weight” to be explicit), improved Newlan’s comportment considerably, and he sang along exuberantly as the lofty tune’s theme of lifting the weight off of one’s shoulders jangled through the cabin of his automobile.
Newlan’s attitude was clearly improving again and he was making fairly good time cruising up Route 93, happily stoned, when all of a sudden the traffic came to a grinding halt roughly two miles from the Route 128 interchange. And along with the gridlock, his disposition changed on a dime for the worst, almost as quickly as it took for his vehicle to come to a complete stop.
“Oh fuck, this can’t be good. But don’t panic, it’s only 8:15. There’s still plenty of time to get to the courthouse,” moaned Newlan as he attempted to reassure himself.
After another 15 minutes of crawling through traffic, Newlan decided to turn on the radio in a search for a news channel which ran regularly scheduled traffic reports. And subsequently, when he stumbled upon the eye-in-the-sky details from News Chopper Five, he discovered that the problem was even worse than he imagined; an accident just up the road was the cause of the delay, a major delay at that.
“Just my luck, I’m gonna end up being late for the first day of the trial,” mumbled Newlan, while a not-so-pleasant vision of Judge Gershwin scolding him and holding him in contempt of court danced through his head.
“Oh dear Lord help me. My only hope is that maybe a few of the other jurors are trapped in this mess too. That way I won’t be the only one who’s late,” logically appealed Newlan to the Higher Power up above while at the same time he took a couple of deep breaths and attempted to relax.
Although, try as he might to stay calm, when the clock hit 8:45 and he still found himself a quarter of a mile from the exit onto Route 128, panic kicked in.
“Now I’m officially late. Son of a fuckin’ bitch,” ranted Newlan, and he continued to curse up a blue-streak as he inched on down the road, which, in some strange way, aided him in the relief of his stress.
At some point during the delay, Newlan composed himself and he chalked up his misfortunes to an act of God. And once he reconciled himself to the fact that there was nothing he could do about his circumstances, he cranked the tunes back up and patiently waded his way through the logjam until finally he arrived onto the courthouse grounds at just after 9 AM.
After yesterday’s fiasco, Newlan had a good idea of what to expect as he approached the courthouse entrance, and so he aired out his vehicle well before he reached the parking garage, and he skillfully maneuvered his way past the satellite trucks and the police checkpoint without incident.
However, as Newlan recklessly ascended the ramp up to the fourth floor of the parking garage, he gunned the V6 engine of his old Mercury in a last ditch effort to make up for lost time, and in the process he proceeded to almost run over a motorcycle cop who shot him a dirty look for his troubles.
“What the hell is he looking at? I’m a juror,” boldly taunted Newlan behind the rolled-up windows of his automobile, and for a fraction of a second, he once again felt as if he was an important cog in the wheels of justice.
But regardless of Newlan’s self-purported influential status, with the near-miss of the police chopper behind him, he anxiously made his way up to the top level of the parking garage and he located the blue wooden horses with the words “Jury Parking” painted on them, blocking a section of the parking lot, just as Billy had said they would be.
The juror parking lot was adjacent to a heavily fortified fenced-in parking area which was reserved for judges and attorneys, and the secured juror entrance into the courthouse was located behind this fenced-in area as well.
As expected, a security guard was also situated in the general vicinity of the wooden horses, and when Newlan pulled up his car, the guard politely asked him to produce his juror badge.
“Number 33…go Celtics,” cheered the guard as he pointed out the section of the parking lot that was reserved for jurors.
“Am I late?” asked a nervous Newlan.
“No. Actually you’re one of the first to arrive,” replied the guard with a smile.
“You gotta be kidding me? Here I am thinking I’m gonna get in serious trouble with the judge, and it turns out that just about everyone else is even later than I am,” groused Newlan as he guided his car into one of the many empty parking spots. And then with a shake of his head, he breathed a sigh of relief as he muttered his famous last words; “man, you can’t make this shit up.”