So all of you Trespassers, Hoverers, Talkers, and Primpers, beware. I’m waiting for you, ready to pounce from inside my favorite stall. And just because I haven’t seen your face, it doesn’t mean a thing.
I know your shoes.
Going Courtin’
It was 6:17 in the morning. I did not deserve this.
I don’t even think the sun gets up that early, but there I was, listening to the radio as the alarm went off, fumbling through four empty cigarette packs before I hit gold. I had seven little soldiers left. Not enough.
It was going to be a long day.
The night before, I hadn’t fallen into bed until four, and two hours’ worth of tossing and turning certainly wasn’t going to be enough to soften the blue bags under my eyes. What the hell, I thought, who do I have to impress? The court reporter? The bailiff? The judge?
I passed on dolling myself up, even left off the eyeliner. I searched the floor of my bedroom for my best Janis Joplin outfit (my groovy vest, my pants with the ripped-out butt, and my boots held together with electrical tape), shook off the majority of the cat hair, and got dressed. I slopped on the Secret and smoked a second soldier while I fed the Farm and started for the glory of morning traffic.
I was off to jury duty.
The summons had arrived at my parents’ house several weeks before, and my mother was thrilled. She waved the envelope at me as excitedly as her smile was wide. I knew why. Nothing, not a package from QVC, not her new Miracle Mop that has a handle so she doesn’t have to wring out the sponge with her hands, gets her as worked up as the possibility of one of her daughters encountering a balding, sexually repressed twenty-seven-year-old attorney strangled in a Perry Ellis necktie. She doesn’t understand that the only way I would get close enough to a creature like that is if I were the defendant.
“Look what came today!” she exclaimed. “It’s a job, Laurie, a job! You’ll make twelve dollars! It’s a very rewarding experience! And think, maybe, if you brush your hair, you’ll meet a nice young lawyer, and then you can get married to someone who has a job like your sister is going to!”
I snatched the envelope out of her hand.
“Make sure you pack a lunch,” she continued. “That cafeteria has horrible food. The ham is fatty. It was disgusting. I have never eaten a four-dollar sandwich like that in my life. I’ll tell you, they have no business charging that price for food I wouldn’t feed to my dogs or your father. The tuna looked good, but who the hell knows what they put in it? Remember, I was on a jury once.”
Oh, I remembered. She spent two weeks convinced that she was a character out of a Susan Lucci Monday night movie who was involved in the most judicially important case in the history of the United States. Every night at dinner she would sit down and say, “Don’t ask me about the Case. Don’t ask me. I’ve taken an oath in front of God. Pass me the ashtray. I can’t smoke in that goddamned courthouse, and I just have too many facts to think about in the Case.”
My sisters and I deduced that the Case was probably something really cool like the trial of a transvestite multiple-personality serial killer or a kiddie-porn ring involving clowns that entertain at children’s birthday parties, but it wasn’t. It didn’t even involve one single death. The Case was just all about some guy who hit an old lady in a crosswalk, bounced her off the car a couple of feet in the air, flattened her two-wheeled grocery cart, and then broke her hip. We were all very disappointed.
But not as disappointed as I was when I found out that I had to be at the jury assembly room at 8:30 A.M., coinciding with my deepest REM sleep patterns, which is usually when I dream of winning the cigarette lottery, that all of my pubic hair has just fallen out so that I never have to shave again, or that Gregg Allman asks me to be his old lady, we get drunk, and he tells me that Cher had more body hair than a silverback.
There I was, though, stuck in traffic and assaulted by a Journey rock block, smoking the third soldier and thinking that this was why I couldn’t hold on to a real job.
I found the courthouse without any problems, probably because I’ve been there many, many times before for reasons I won’t go into now. As I approached the steps, a woman jumped out of a station wagon and ran toward me, a brown bag in her hands. This is pretty brazen, I thought. Someone is going to try and sell me drugs in front of superior court. “Miss! Miss!” she cried, waving at me as she ran. “Are you hungry?”
Why, yes, I thought, I am, and nodded my head. I had run out of Pop-Tarts the day before, fed the dogs the last remaining three slices of bread that morning, and attempted to drink the last of the milk until I discovered that it had become Brie overnight. Sure, I was hungry.
“Well, here,” she said, shoving the bag toward me. “Here’s something to eat, it’s a sandwich and an apple.”
Wow, I said to myself, my mother didn’t tell me about this. I don’t need the cafeteria, obviously my mother didn’t know about the Juror Free-Lunch Program. She couldn’t have complained about fatty ham then.
“Thank you,” I said as I took the bag. “This is really cool.”
She smiled and nodded. “Anything we can do to help. Where did you sleep last night?”
What a curious question, I thought. Who are you, the Morality Police? Where did I sleep last night? Sure, give me a sandwich and expect me to spout off my entire sexual history so you can get your kicks.
“Probably in a bed,” I answered a little snottily.
“You don’t remember?” she asked in a softer voice, tilting her head in a subtle action of pity. “It was in a bed? Was it at the women’s shelter?”
What the hell? Then it hit me.
“OH MY GOD, YOU THINK I’M HOMELESS!” I said, throwing the bag back at her. “I am not homeless, I just didn’t take a shower today, that’s all. I didn’t want to deal with eyeliner, OK? I am not homeless. I’m just dirty. I am just dirty. My parents live in Scottsdale, I swear. My mother gets her nails done. She was once on a jury, here, in this very building, really she was. I’m not homeless, for Christ’s sake. I’m wearing deodorant.”
And then I ran as fast as my lungs would let me up the stairs and into the building, into the juror’s assembly room. I sat down, took a deep breath, and figured maybe I was reading too much Bukowski, and it was beginning to show.
Then I looked around. The assembly room looked like a trade show for Metamucil or Polident. I was the only person in the room that wasn’t alive when a Roosevelt was in office. Boy, this was going to be a fun day, well worth the twelve dollars I was going to make.
I had to fill out a biographical form and watch a video hosted by Channel 13’s Linda Hurley, who informed me that if I am dismissed as a juror, I mustn’t take it personally, because, I was told, somewhere, in some courtroom, I am the perfect juror.
That’s right, I thought to myself, my friend Junior is coming up for trial for allegedly selling acid to an undercover cop at a Sonic Youth concert, assaulting a police officer, and then resisting arrest. I’d be the perfect juror for that. And then I wondered if Junior was going to put all of his teeth in when he went to trial, to try to impress his jury. I thought that would probably be a good idea, especially because I’ve seen him without his teeth, which he considers optional, since he has to take his partial out when he eats. It’s not very pretty.
After I thought about Junior, I sat there. And sat there. And sat there. I sat there while everybody else got called to a courtroom and got a juror’s badge. I sat there while the woman next to me, Dottie, babbled incessantly about how she was a nanny and how she was a widow and how those kids just fill up her life now that her son is married to a public-relations person and just doesn’t call her anymore. Dottie was happy that she got called for jury duty, because she felt good for being able to serve her country as a citizen, it was an honor and that she didn’t see any better way that she could help her fellow citizens than to get drug dealers off the street. She looked at me and shook her head. I prayed for Junior.
At 3:47 P
.M., while I was completely immersed in a show about lesbians who stole men’s wives on Jenny Jones, my name was called just as a woman from the audience asked if all three of the involved parties had ever had sex together.
Damn! I thought as I stood up (before the lesbians could answer—damn!) and took my place with the other forty potential jurors, and I found myself standing smack next to Dottie.
Half of us filed into the elevator, standing shoulder to shoulder. Dottie’s blue polyester rubbed against my cat hair, and I noticed that she smelled an awful lot like the ointment aisle at Target, topped by eau de Mother-of-God-you-really-need-to-sink-those-choppers-of-yours-into-a-fizzling-bath-of-Efferdent. As more people crowded into the elevator, her odor became more and more apparent until I thought I was going to be sick. When the doors started to close, however, Dottie shrieked and held up her hand.
“Oh no, oh no, oh no,” she chanted. “I can’t do this, I can’t be this close to people! I can’t! I’m losing my breath! This is too much! There’s too many of you in here! I’m claustrophobic! I can’t breathe! Oh no, oh no! I’m going to be sick!”
This is not happening, I told myself, this is not real. This old stinky-denture woman is not going to throw up on me. What did she have to complain about, I thought, she’s the one that smells like a rest home.
“You must be a lot of fun on road trips,” I mumbled to her.
With the imminent threat of all twenty of us, especially me, being doused with a firehose spray of vomit, the crowd in the elevator split in two, and with help from my not-so-gentle hand, Dottie was shoved to the front. She then placed her head up against the wall and took deep breaths in between trying to jump off the elevator every time it stopped, forcing the bailiff to drag her back in.
Unbelievably, we made it to the courtroom without bearing witness to the terrifying apparition of any type of bodily fluids. We took our seats, and I got stuck in the jury box. I could tell right away that the prosecutor hated me; I looked far too, well, homeless. The public defender, however, looked at me and just smiled a smile that said, “Oh, yeah, you look like the kind of girl whose man has done time. Let me see your tattoos. I’ve got Bart Simpson on my back. You’re my kinda juror, sister woman.”
Then the bailiff stood up. Her job was similar to that of Paul Shaffer’s—a sidekick or straight guy of sorts—and introduced the judge. Dottie burst forth with a hearty round of applause. The judge strutted in, sat down, and then started asking us questions, just like David Letterman. It was like a talk show, but we didn’t have any lesbians on that I knew of. Did I have a problem with prosecutors? Had any of them treated me unfairly? Was a member of my family a police officer, sheriff, deputy, or security guard at K mart? Had I ever been on a jury before? Did my husband work for the county attorney’s office? Boring, boring, boring.
Then from out of nowhere, the judge belted out, “This case concerns a DUI. Do you know anyone that has a drinking problem?”
I don’t know anyone that doesn’t have a drinking problem.
“Do you know anyone that has been involved in Alcoholics Anonymous or an addiction recovery program?”
That’s how I met my second-to-last boyfriend.
“Do you know anyone that has been involved in a DUI?”
Uh-oh.
The college-aged, clean-cut law student in the back row raised his hand.
“I was involved with a DUI several years ago, but the charges were reduced, and I did community service.”
What a nice boy, the rest of the jurors thought, community service. Now that’s respectable, he’s paid for his sin by mowing church lawns. He’s all right with us.
The slightly older, thirtyish-looking man in the button-down, pressed, and starched white oxford raised his hand.
“I was involved with a DUI approximately ten years ago, but I’d rather discuss that in private.”
A little suspicious, the jury considered to themselves, but he’s obviously ashamed of what he’s done, since he doesn’t want to talk about it. It was probably all a mistake, anyway, he looks so upstanding. He’s probably a good person.
The girl in the front row raised her hand. She’s wearing all black, her pants are ripped, her hair isn’t brushed, and she smells like cigarettes. She looks like a bag lady.
“Um, I was pulled over for a DUI three weeks ago, I failed the Field Sobriety test, but they let me go anyway. Oh, and I wasn’t drunk.”
All seventy-eight eyes of the jury turn to the girl in black, the DRUNK GIRL, she’s the reason society is crumbling, she’s the epitome of our decaying morals, we want to know where she slept last night. Sure, she wasn’t drunk. Wonder what she had to do to get out of that DUI. We know. WE know it all, DRUNK GIRL. And you think you can come in here and be on a jury with us regular folk? Think again, Whore of Babylon. Go back to the bar.
Dottie nodded her head as she looked at me. She knew she was right about that girl the minute she’d laid eyes on her. She wished she could sentence me, what better thing could she do to service her fellow citizens?
I didn’t care, and when my name wasn’t called during civic duty first cuts, I wasn’t surprised. The public defender, however, looked at me with sadness in his eyes. He knew the Drunk Girl probably would have voted to have his client walk.
Who knows?
All I know is what Linda Hurley told me; that I should not take it personally. Dottie didn’t know shit, because somewhere, in some state, in some county, in some courtroom, I was the perfect juror.
Yep, I was the perfect juror.
Just as long as I dressed in an Ann Taylor suit, washed my hair, and lied straight through my unbrushed teeth.
The Speech
Relationships suck.
They suck hard.
Sometimes, in the middle of the night, when my bedroom is as black as death, and the sheets on half the bed are as cold as a five-day-old corpse, I think
All I ever wanted to be was someone’s Old Lady.
I want to be the ball and chain.
I need to be somebody’s squeeze.
I float in this for a minute, in this bed that is too big for me, and feel a little bit lonely when all of a sudden the wheezing, flopping noise from my lungs wakes me up and shocks me back into Relationship Reality, and I realize
The empty side of the bed does not fart in its sleep.
The empty side of the bed does not attempt to sodomize me while I am sleeping.
The empty side of the bed does not make me look at the turd as big as my leg grounded in the toilet and then ask aloud, “Dude, do you think it will go down in one flush?”
The empty side of the bed does not wrestle me to the floor, pin me, and then straddle me, in order to do the Spit Torture, dripping saliva out of its mouth over my face, then sucking it back up; dribbling it out, then sucking it back up; dribbling it out, then letting it fall right near my mouth.
The empty side of the bed IS NOT, I repeat, IS NOT a MAN.
And for that, I am thankful.
I want a man as nice as my retarded dog, but one that doesn’t crap on the floor. I want a man who will only cheat on me a little and who will call me once a week. I want a man who will buy his own drinks and who will hold back my hair when I puke. I want a man who is unconfused regarding his sexual identity. I want a man who has never heard of or practiced the Speech.
I will never find him. He has never been born.
The last time I got my walking papers, it was over the phone. “It” had lasted about five months, the longest-standing Relationship Record I had held in this decade. Well, it wasn’t even a “relationship.” I called it the “thing.” He didn’t call it anything. He thought I wanted to get married tomorrow, have seventeen kids, buy an Isuzu Trooper, and then staple his scrotum to the living-room couch. All I really wanted was one phone call per solstice.
Anyway, the conversation was off to a running start when he cleared his throat and said,
“I am not ready and will not be ready to activel
y get involved with anyone for at least three to five years.”
“Why?” I asked. “Are you going to prison?”
“No. What I am saying is that I’m not ready to commit to anything, either way.”
“Either way? You mean you can or cannot commit to committing or not committing?” I said, growing suspicious and confused. “Are you giving me ‘the Speech’?”
“I think we should concentrate more on the ‘Friends’ part of our—well, you know.”
Suspicions confirmed. I gasped.
“You ARE giving me the Speech! You just gave me the Speech! That was the Speech!” I cried.
So I got the Speech, which automatically drops you to the lowest point in life, it’s like throwing the self-esteem balloon on a cactus. You become such a small specimen of existence that you could probably mate with yourself, which would actually be such a terrific advantage.
I guess I took it well. I didn’t set anything on fire, practice any voodoo, or listen to sad songs. No, this time I just sat at the bar and drank, sneering and growling at all of the men except my friend Dave.
“How’s it going?” he asked.
“Well, I got the Speech today,” I said.
“Oh no. Not the Speech,” he said. “Did he use the ‘F’ word?”
I nodded.
“Oh God.” Dave sighed. “The ‘F’ word is low. Low down.”
“Yep,” I said. “Friends. He said, ‘We’re just Friends.’ ”
I don’t understand the Speech and how men learned about it. Was it a part of boys’ eighth-grade PE class, did the gym teacher make them say it to one another over and over in the showers so they would be good at it?
“Okay, now how does it go?”