I have set off the security alarm at the Tulsa County Court House entrance, which prompts a guard, a woman with a small face, to wave a wand over the length and width of my body. She finds nothing on or in me that warrants the alert (not even my artificial hip which was the culprit), so she lets me through. Behind me a man refuses to put his wallet and keys on the x-ray carousel because, I hear him say, “I lost $1300 last time I did something like this, so f**k it. Gimme back my stuff that already went through the machine. I’m going home.”
He picks up his stuff and leaves.
Upstairs, on the second floor, where those called for jury duty gather before being called in for voir dire — pronounced “vwah deer” in most of the civilized world and “vwore die-er” in Oklahoma (it means “to speak the truth”), the occasion at which an actual jury is vetted in criminal and civil cases — I fill out paperwork and sit down near three men and one woman.
“Only reason I registered in the first place was to vote to legalize marijuana,” says a man in a blue t-shirt to the man in a putrid yellow sweatshirt facing him. “When it didn’t go my way, I thought, ‘Well, if Democracy doesn’t work for me, what’s the point?’”
“That ain’t true,” says the man in yellow. “I ain’t registered and they found me.”
“Well, usually they do,” says the man in blue.
“How long do we have to sit here before they let us go?” asks the woman, sitting next to the man in yellow.
She does not look like Kristin Bell.
“Depends,” says the man in yellow. “I had a friend who waited a long time, but I had a friend who didn’t.”
“Hope I’m the guy who gets dismissed,” says the bearded man, across from me.
Man in blue starts talking about a Christian anime series on TV. He has concerns. “It can’t be about man. Gotta be about God.”
Bearded man says he’s learning Greek.
“Old or ancient?” asks the man in blue.
“I don’t know. Both I guess.”
“Believe me,” the man in blue says, “you really only need to know about 500 words in Greek and you have like 80% of the language. You use the word ‘and’ and ‘but’ a lot more than you’ll use ‘astronomy’ or ‘technology.’”
He then says to the woman, “You look a lot like Kristin Bell.”
“I get that a lot,” she says, looking up from her magazine. “Hey, where’s The Bermuda Triangle?”
“Burma or Bermuda?” the bearded man wants her to clarify.
“Isn’t it the same thing?” she asks.
“Let’s look it up,” the man in blue says. He pulls out his phone. “Nope. It’s a country that’s like close to India. It’s called Burma.”
“Burma?” says the bearded man. “Did they change the name?”
I whisper “Myanmar” to myself.
“Maybe they did because the country was called ‘We’re Tired Of Always Getting Murdered,’ so they changed it,” says the man in blue.
The two share a laugh.
Then what’s Bermuda?” asks Kristin Bell.
“I don’t know,” says the man in blue.
“So why do they call it The Bermuda Triangle, if it’s Burmanese?”
“I don’t know, either,” says bearded man.
The man in blue says whether it’s murder or a traffic ticket, he’s not convicting anyone unless he sees the evidence.
Soon, he, the man in yellow, and Kristin Bell are called to come to the front of the room, leaving me and the bearded man.
He takes out his phone; I take out a banana I brought.
Over the loudspeaker, a judge introduces herself and mentions that America is the only nation that has civilians serve on juries and that without such involvement, “Our Democracy will fail.”
“I don’t know about that,” says bearded man. “I know someone in England who did jury duty — unless it was in Wales and it wasn’t really a trial.”
According to a Pew Research Center survey, two-thirds of US adults (67%) said serving on a jury “is part of what it means to be a good citizen,” while the remainder said it didn’t. About 15% of US adults receive summons each year and only 5% sit on a jury.
In Tulsa, the court reimburses jurors $20 per days and 65 cents for mileage.
The three have come back to pick up their things. They have been assigned a trial.
“I live in Claremore,” says the man in yellow, which is about 30 miles from Tulsa, “so I hope I get to deduct my mileage from Claremore, not from where I’m staying in Tulsa.”
“Is the foreman the guy who talks?” Kristin Bell asks the man in blue.
“Yep.”
“Did you ever talk before?”
“Yep. Hey,” he says to the bearded men, “we should meet for lunch. “What’s your number?”
“I’m not comfortable saying it out loud, but yeah.” He mouths the number to him.
“Nine, eight, three,” says the man in blue. “Is that it?”
“Yeah,” says the bearded man, wincing, clearly uncomfortable that everyone in the jury pool now knows his number.
As the man in blue, the man in yellow, and Kristin Bell head to the front again, the man in yellow turns back and says to the bearded man, “I’m learning Greek, too.”
Bearded man gives him the thumbs up.
Barry Friedman is an essayist, political columnist, petroleum geology reporter — quit laughing — and comedian living in Tulsa, Okla. His latest book, “Jack Sh*t: Volume One: Voluptuous Bagels and other Concerns of Jack Friedman” has just been released. In addition, he is the author of “Road Comic,” “Funny You Should Mention It,” “Four Days and a Year Later,” “The Joke Was On Me,” and a novel, “Jacob Fishman’s Marriages.” See barrysfriedman.com and friedmanoftheplains.com.
From The Progressive Populist, November 1, 2023
Blog | Current Issue | Back Issues | Essays | Links
About the Progressive Populist | How to Subscribe | How to Contact Us