injury duty ( 07.20.08 )

last time i was called for jury duty, jhumpa lahiri had just published one of her stories in the new yorker. i know because i asked her during one of the jury selection breaks if she had published anything. she said yes. i didn’t know who she was when i asked that question. i found out later that evening on the uptown 6 flipping through my new issue of the new yorker.

so i was extra vigilant as soon as i got through security at 100 centre, determined not to get caught flat-footed by another literary celebrity sighting. however, after about 5 minutes in the 15th floor jury pool room with 179 other people and a smart-ass court clerk who’s clearly been doing the job too long, i was completely engrossed in the parade of people, and the notion that i will know more about some of them before the day is over than some co-works and friends i had known for years.

because trial lawyers have the option to pick jurors they feel would be most sympathetic to their case, often these “challenges” rested on perceived personality as much as actual beliefs and experience. it’s not uncommon for the a.d.a. or the defense attorney to probe for reaction to things most of us would probably not easily share with people we know, much less strangers we met just that morning.

for instance, i learned:

• a heavily made-up middle aged woman was the victim of physical, sexual and emotional abuse by her ex-husband.
• a guy who “hates christmas” was robbed 5 times while living in l.a., all either right before or after christmas.
• a woman’s brother was tried and acquitted for attempted murder. she said the police botched it.
• a l.e.s. thug busted 5 times in the past 2 years for “smoking weed,” but insisted he was an “innocent bystander” at least once, simply at the “wrong place at the wrong time.”
• a woman who came to new york because she had a “bad boyfriend” who pulled a gun on her.

i also noticed that there appeared to be an over-representation of wives of investment bankers. i counted as least 6 out of my pool of 90. i didn't know civic duty was so popular among the trophy set.

in general, i liked what i saw and heard. personal history notwithstanding, all of them claimed they could be fair and impartial. while i’m not sure all of them would’ve served gladly, at least there was a sense they were willing to do their part.

there was only one person who plucked my nerve: a young accountant with no affect and a painful-looking ponytail. she told the judge she couldn’t return a guilty verdict if there was no fingerprints, dna, or other csi-type of evidence linking defendant to the crime.

the judge tried to walk her through an example of “beyond reasonable doubt”: “say you walk out of this courthouse and while the sky is sunny, the streets are completely wet and water is still dripping off the building. what happened?”

a reasonable answer would have been, “it rained.”

she said, “i don’t know, a street washer came by?....”

“what about the dripping water?,” added the judge, sounding annoyed.

“probably a window washer”

girl with a message ( 06.10.08 )

i’ve been away for work for almost a week and was more than anxious to get home to daphne and the kids. ian, the driver taking me to heathrow, was the jovial, gray-haired sort that reminded me more than a little of benny hill.

barely a block away from the hotel, his cell phone rang and he told me it must be his 14 y.o. niece. “the crudest kid i know,” he said with obvious pride. “she sends me rude jokes everyday.”

then with me watching the road nervously, he began reading off the tiny screen.

“what’s a clit?” “a special tickle spot on a woman”

“what’s a cunt?” “the rest of her,” he chortled.

“a older woman seduced a young man and convinced him to 69 on the sofa. after a while, she told him to get up and move to the bed where they can be more comfortable. the lad started putting on his pants. confused, the woman asked what’s going on. zipping up his pants he said, “not doing 68 more times of that.””

har, har, har…

then, out of nowhere, ian told me the girl's dad was killed in a motorcycle accident a year ago.

“i can’t remember how many times he divorced over that bike. he spent all his time and money on it...but it was a really beautiful machine.”

“she’s a good kid,” he continued, “i’m going to retire in january and then my lady and i will spend more time with her.”

“i’ve only had two jobs my entire life, the royal navy and driving, and this will be the third,” he said looking at me. “it’s important to love what you do.”

court dining ( 05.28.08 )

it’s been almost a year since i’ve been to doha, and i have had more caviar in the past 3 days than i’ve had in the past 3 years. i had it for three lunches, one dinner, and on two qatar airways flights. this gastronomic decadence was but one example of the vast oil and natural gas wealth that is rapidly transforming this tiny land jutting into the persian gulf like a big thumbs up.

out of a total population of about a million people, only 20% are actual qataris. like other gulf countries, a majority of the workforce are expats from the middle east, north africa, and asia. the stewardesses on my qatar airways flights, for instance, were almost all indonesian.

regardless, the entire peninsula seems to be in the grip of olympicsmania. not the games this summer in beijing, but the 2016 games that qatar had bid on. it’s easy to be cynical about the way sports has now been integrated into public life: giant 2016 bid posters hang from billboards and skyscrapers, gala dinner held on the basketball courts of the humongous aspire stadium, and drivers eagerly chatting me up about archery and judo, sports popular there. who knew?

but the excitement, however loud and extravagant, seemed too genuine and sincere to be dismissed as mere propaganda. there’s a palpable sense of pride that went beyond nationalism. it’s as if by making this bid to host an competitive event steep in symbolisms of peace and friendship, qatar is announcing the emergence of a new arab culture, one that aims to redefine a historical dynamic stretching from the wars of darius and xerxes to dubya's fuck-ups.