Actions Speak Louder than Words

I finally tore away the long strand of denim hanging from my jeans. I had been working on that sucker since the defendant began talking. Now, don’t go judging a guy (pun intended) for wearing jeans to court. These were my nice jeans, my jury-going jeans, with their bootcut legs and ornamental stitching on the posterior indicating my well-paid-for sophistication. Or so the fashion window promised.

I had grown bored near the end of the trial, if you couldn’t tell by my weird jean rant. A spectacular apology scene caught my interest a half hour ago, but it burnt out fast and went back to lawyerly talk just after.

I rose with the rest of the jury as they filed out of the box seats and into the jury room. Crime and all details to do with it was never my schtick. Thankfully, they gave me enough material for me to see my answer. Rick Walter was not guilty, plain as day or Greek yogurt or however that adage goes. Although Rick admitted from the beginning to the murder of his dirtbag son-in-law and had remained consistent with the details throughout, he enacted a painfully obvious farce, and the theatre had always been more interesting to me than crime.

Dirtbag Matthis Bark was married to Rick Walter’s daughter. Inside their first year of marriage, three domestic abuse reports had been filed against Matthis. Not by Rick’s daughter. By Rick.

Trust me, I would understand if Rick took care of the problem permanently. If anyone forced themselves onto my daughter, my Marna, in any way, the only thing they’d ever be able to force themselves onto again would be a hospital bed. I shuddered. Just the thought of Marna’s arms pinned and unable to chop her right hand down onto her left palm to sign ‘Stop’, fear tearing away her hard work of enunciating sounds she would never hear, so she wails out any kind of siren that could leave her throat. Yeah, I’d take care of that problem permanently. But with all the reason in Rick’s world to take care of Dirtbag Matthis, he simply had not done it.

The truth was as obvious as the empty, scented plugin unable to do its much-needed job, and I lamented it so. The hallway to the jury room, hell, the entire place smelled like business—not that kind of business—but rather the stale fog of fresh-linen spray and burnt coffee and pinstriped attire haunted by smoke.

The jury room smelled no better or worse. I sat down before anyone else got to the table and put my eyes down on the denim strand. I wove it around my fingers, remembering the tricky webs I used to practice as a boy. The things one remembers, I thought. The table stood high enough to keep my fidgeting out of sight from the other jurors, who began sitting around me. Most of them were talking amongst themselves anyhow. No one sat facing me.

Chops’ voice boomed above the rest, making him ninety percent of what I heard, and therefore, the same percent of what I wanted to tune out. He swung his arms in grand circles and oscillated his body as he went on about his methods of Irish breadmaking. I thought of him as Chops because of the unkempt muttonchops dominating his slender face like ivy. They had kept my eyes locked on their patchy red bristles when we spoke before the trial.

Naming people I never expected to see again was a fun game. The woman to my right huffed so much, it seemed as if she were trying to create her own atmosphere to float up into so no one could talk to her. Huffer, I thought. The man to my left stared goose-necked at his phone. Definitely Gooseneck.

A young man, no older than twenty-five, entered the room. He quickly looked away from the attention he’d drawn by being the last one to join the group and sat in the last empty seat. Last One In. That’ll do for him.

But attention on Last One In turned a moment later to the plain wicker basket in the middle of the table. Dashes of white and yellow filled in the gaps between woven layers, hinting at something inside, likely paper, though mints would be better. Everyone tapped their fingers and feet or stared longingly out the window at the sun. We all wanted to return to our gardening, our reading, our gaming. Almighty forbid, perhaps some of us wanted to return to work.

“Shall we vote then? See where we all stand? It’s a cut and dry answer for me and for probably most of you, but we all know the process we have to follow here.” It was a beautiful Latina woman speaking, her voice as sharp as her black blazer. She could go by no other name than Blazer, her real name be damned, whatever it was.

Everyone nodded to vote. I pocketed the denim strand. Gooseneck to the left of me eventually handed down the basket from which I plucked a folded sheet and a tiny golfing pencil before passing the basket on to Huffer. The folded sheet was designed by a second grader, had to be. I stared convinced. We had a checkbox for Guilty and below that a checkbox for Not Guilty. No bother. One round of votes and done. They’ll see through Rick’s show like cheap tulle at a Halloween bash, and I can go home to read.

I shaded in the Not Guilty checkbox and placed it back into the basket with the pencil on its return trip some minutes later. There were fewer pencils returned than papers.

Blazer pulled the filled basket close and started unfolding our votes. She smiled at the first one she read, making me smile confidently back. She set it faceup for everyone to see. I stretched to read it. Checkmark for Guilty. I felt my eyebrow arc as my smile died.

Blazer smiled at five more Guilty votes all in a row. When she read the next vote, which I had to guess was mine considering the newly apparent odds, her smile died and went to the same smile hell as mine had. She set my Not Guilty opposite the Guiltys, alone in its decision and looking quite sad. Blazer finished opening the votes. The mountain of ten loomed imperious over the lone foothill.

“What’s up with that?” I asked. I used a careful tone, but upon breaking the room’s silence, I realized my words could have been sung and still their ears would have heard a song about barbs and teeth.

“Yeah!” other people said. I realized I sounded like a Guilty voter rooting out the joker from the deck—me. Should I admit to hanging the jury? I could play it off, see where it goes. But what would be the point? In the end, my insight will be needed.

“Did anyone listen to Rick Walter?” I asked. “I would think you all heard him, but did you listen?”

“I listened to him admit to killing Matthis,” Huffer beside me answered.

“I listened to Rick explain in way too much detail how he bashed Matthis’ head in with a rock,” mumbled Last One In.

“I listened to the man, and I would’ve done the same! A boy’s hands on my daughter means my hands on that boy’s grave,” said Chops. So many remained silent, either timidly or irritably so.

“No. No. No. That’s hearing,” I said.

“Stop splittin’ hairs,” Chops replied.

“Most people don’t admit to a murder they didn’t commit, especially nowadays. Everyone’s out for themselves,” an old lady said. She’s Betty now, because all white-haired ladies made me think of Betty White.

“No one is arguing that Matthis was a piece of shit, and no one feels sorry for what happened to him, yes?” I asked pointedly.

“Hell yes!” Chops called out. He gave the air a small, victorious punch. Everyone else nodded in agreement, even Betty, who seemed personally accosted by my use of ‘shit’.

“This includes Rick,” I continued. “Rick spoke the entire trial in his too-much detail without a modicum of remorse or emotion spared for his son-in-law. Not unheard of, I suppose. But there at the end when he let go of that sincere, throbbing apology, he wasn’t apologizing or crying for Matthis. Why would he?” Most the jurors shrugged. The rest waited.

“Rick’s feet and torso were turned towards his ten o’clock, which is bizarre. That pivoted him away from the judge. The trial at hand should have had all of his body language direct and center. But it didn’t. His answers were stilted, and he altogether seemed resigned. During Rick’s apology, I followed his eyes to a crying teenaged boy in the stands, who sat at Rick’s ten o’clock. There were others crying and tearing up in the stands, but that boy … he had heavy words in his mouth that Rick shook his head against. It was slight, but it was there. Rick practiced scanning his eyes across the room, but there was only one place they kept going back to.”

“Hmm.” Blazer cocked a sideways smirk.

“That boy,” I said. “I don’t know who he is to Rick or how he could be involved, but he’s exactly that – involved. I believe this is just the peephole into their circus, and Rick’s not the ringleader.”

Betty had her hand soft on her cheek, looking like Shirley Temple in thought. Chops’ face reddened as he stared down at the table, fixed in his own thoughts. I saw a lot of arguments boiling up amongst the other jurors, but I looked to Blazer, for her reaction intrigued me most.

Blazer leaned forward, palms on the table. She gave me the side nod and the mouth quirk that meant touché. “I suggest we call our families and brew up some coffee,” she said.

Blazer and I held a glance, groans and mumbling and chairs scraping the floor in the background. I smiled at her. Not a knowing smile or an I-told-you-so smile. I gave her a genuine ‘Thank You’, and, fortunately (or unfortunately) for Rick Walter, I could tell she read my smile exactly right.