When the tiny two-table farmer’s market was selling sweet corn last week, I jumped at the chance to pick up a few ears and grill them. I’d talked to a few people who did it, and they said it was something to be tasted. Now, I’m not a big fan of the traditional grilled taste. I’ll never understand the appeal of eating charred, carbon-coated burned victims, but our new grill has been doing a nice job of cooking things perfectly without that off-putting aspect.

For the corn, I was advised to soak the entire ear – husk and silk and all intact – for at least an hour, then grill it on a medium setting for twenty minutes, turning once or twice. That’s the kind of simple instruction I can get on board with, and after the twenty minutes was up, I started to shuck the corn and check out the results.

They were better than expected. The grilled (or “charred”) bits were shucked off and thrown away, and what was left was a juicy corn cob, not watered down, and with none of the flavor leached out. It was so much better than the boiled version I had known all my life. It’s a good moment when you try something new and it turns out to be such an improvement.

After posting a pic on FaceBook a few people said the next thing to try was to partially husk it, slather with flavored butter, then wrap it back up and grill from there. That does sound good, but might be one step too far. It’s always better to keep things simple, especially in the summer.

“Perhaps, as we say in America, I wanted to find myself. This is an interesting phrase, not current as far as I know in the language of any other people, which certainly does not mean what it says but betrays a nagging suspicion that something has been misplaced. I think now that if I had had any intimation that the self I was going to find would turn out to be only the same self from which I had spent so much time in flight, I would have stayed at home.”
– James Baldwin, ‘Giovanni’s Room’

A good book is a treasure, a sanctuary from an often-cruel world. It softens the blows and eases the soul. At my darkest moments, I always found solace in a book. I remember a stretch of lonely nights back when I lived in Boston. I was just starting to find my way, but I hadn’t made any serious friends, and I certainly didn’t have a boyfriend. After a day at work and an evening jog, I’d return to an empty room, and panic with nothing to do. The idea of wasted time scared me. The notion of moments spent waiting, of unproductive minutes lost and never to be regained, repulsed me. Reading a book was never a waste. Reading was a worthwhile endeavor. No matter how meaningless or superficial the latest copy of ‘Vanity Fair’ was, no matter how insignificant or outdated a Broadway Playbill became, there was always something worthwhile to be found in the way other people used words. And books – those that withstood the test of time – were an entry into a world of beauty.

Those that spoke to me early on – Edith Wharton and F. Scott Fitzgerald – would become old friends. Not a year goes by that I don’t find myself re-reading parts of ‘The Great Gatsby’ (usually just as spring is about to arrive) like some tried and true reference to life. My latest obsession is ‘Giovanni’s Room’ by James Baldwin, and just a few pages in I realized this was destined to be another favorite. Only halfway through it, I’ve already earmarked a dozen pages, underlining as many passages, and re-reading choice bits because there is so much to elicit a rare spark of understanding – the thrill of recognition.

“He looked at me and I saw in his face again something which I have fleetingly seen there during these hours: under his beauty and his bravado, terror, and a terrible desire to please; dreadfully, dreadfully moving, and it made me want, in anguish, to reach out and comfort him.” – James Baldwin, ‘Giovanni’s Room’

I’m sipping a vodka stinger, enjoying a quiet moment at the bar, when this asshole from Arizona walks in, high on his haunches, and acting like he’s so above it all. (I know that stance, I’ve walked it before. I did not, however, keep my sunglasses on as he does.) He makes a pitch for his band to play at the bar, but the bartender says he’ll need to speak to the owner. It turns the guy off, and he goes into further douche-like behavior, acting like it’s so absurd that anyone would turn his band down.

He comes from Phoenix, but is stationed in Gloversville and Johnstown, and he plays at the Coffee beanery in Amsterdam, NY. Yes, that is indeed the big-time, so when he starts slagging off Albany and Washington Park and the parking issue, it’s all I can do not to go ballistic.

Now, admittedly, I’m the last person to call anyone out on haughty behavior, but there’s a way to do it with charm, and there’s a way to do it with condescension. One is pretty and the other is not. The way he talks to bartender is despicable, and I see no reason for such attitude. His suit and tie date back to the 80’s, and not in any sort of self-aware retro way either – I honestly think he was wearing it back then. The sunglasses remain perched on his nose, and the fact that it’s happening in a darkened bar just makes him look more ridiculous.

No matter who you are, there’s never a reason to treat others as if they are beneath you. I’ve always maintained that you can tell what a person is really like in the way they treat wait-staff and retail workers. Having done a tiny bit of the former (bus boy) and a whole lot of the latter (Structure slut), I can say that it’s a pretty good gauge.

(Example: I once tried helping Nancy Kerrigan in the Faneuil Hall Structure store and let’s just say she got what she deserved.)

For the first two days following the trial, I feel on the very verge of crying. For someone who doesn’t cry that often, being in that state constantly for two days was a shock in itself. Now, on this beautiful sunny Saturday, the guilt has moved in. Not over our decision – as I said, I will always stand behind that – but over the fact that I’m enjoying a life while two boys aren’t. In the darkest and worst way, it’s as if the trial sucked every little joy out of life, because every time I reach towards a moment of fun – a splash in the pool, a Madonna song, a flower in bloom – I check myself with the thought of those boys.

I’ve cancelled two parties, a Gay Pride event and a weekend in Boston and the Cape. My heart is not in it. I’m sure it will be one day – maybe even soon – but not just yet.

There is also a residual emptiness and longing; in some strange, possibly sick way, I mourned because I didn’t want it to be over. I didn’t want to go back to what I knew before. Maybe part of me missed the other jurors. Two weeks was the stuff of summer camp and vacations, a period of time just long enough to make someone matter, then take them away without a scar, but with a memory. But what is a memory if not a scar?

I seek out my favorite person on the jury – a self-professed ‘fruit fly’with a gaggle of gay friends – who just happened to be our foreperson. I feel like she is the only one who might understand what I’m going through. Otherwise, I’m probably going to have to talk to a professional because the darkness from this trial isn’t lifting.

I stop by the bar where she works a shift, but she is on vacation until next week. I make some small talk with the other bartender, but I am still lost, still wishing for a connection with someone who has seen what I have seen. There are so few of us in the world.

In some sad way, the joy of living, as precarious as it always was, has been snuffed out. Slowly, I am getting it back, I feel certain I am on that path, and the laughs will come more readily in the following days, but it will take time.

For now, I have written enough on it. As raw as it remains, it’s time to end this chapter, to put my jury duty behind me and move on. I have let it out and done what I know how to do. The rest is not for paper or documentation. The rest I have to figure out in my head and heart. The rest is the hard part.

I walk into the courthouse feeling good about our progress from the previous night, but things quickly take a decidedly darker turn, and this is our most difficult day of deliberation. Reaching our verdict is a soul-seering process, and only now do I allow a few tears to come to my eyes, blinking them away and looking down to avoid eye contact.

After watching the video a few more times, we come at last to unanimous agreement. It is not an easy decision. No one will win – we have all only lost. Even those of us who had no choice in serving on this jury have lost, even when we haven’t done anything.

Up until now I have worked solely towards focusing on the case, the evidence, the testimony, and then coming up with a decision and working to convince others that the decision is the right one. I am not alone in my determination, but we are somewhat split on which charge is most fitting. Once that debate is done, once we have agreed, I have no more to focus on other than the situation at hand, and our role in it. Then and only then does it hit me, and all those moments when others had taken the time to cry and let it out come flooding over me. I am shaking as we make our way into the courtroom for the last time. Our foreperson walks behind me, and I look back and ask if she’s okay. She’s the one who will have to recite the verdict to the judge.

We line up and march in, and for the first time I look every person I see in the eyes: the lawyers, the defendant, the families, the spectators, the sheriffs and the judge. We have made the fairest decision we could, based on what we were given. And we were a good group of people who took the time and care to purposefully deliberate. We challenged one another, we came around to the truth, and in the end we did the best we could do. I will always stand by that.

Our foreperson reads the verdict: Guilty of Manslaughter in the 1st Degree. Each juror is polled and asked if this was our decision, and we all say ‘Yes’. Then it is over. We are dismissed. We walk out of the courtroom.

We are asked to leave our ‘Juror’ lanyards on the jury room table before being escorted out for the last time. That’s it. That is all.

That night, it hits me. Having held everything in for the previous two weeks, I now sob uncontrollably, curled up in the fetal position on the floor of the guest room, inconsolable by both Andy and my Mom. It is all suddenly too much – too much pressure, too much relief, too much emotion. I did not ask to be on this jury, I did not ask to be the determining fate for someone else’s life, the avenging force for someone else’s death. The night falls, and I cannot stop crying.

There are strict instructions and guidelines for those serving on jury duty. There are procedures and rules and laws we must abide. There is no such guidance for what to do when your jury duty is over, no advice on how best to decompress, how to reconcile your decisions with the aftermath of reality, no helpful word on how to forget.

I thought it would be easier to shake than this.

I am afraid I will be haunted.

And no one understands.

I write this at 9:45 PM, following another endless day of deliberation. Apparently our 4:30 PM note asking the judge for a discussion on our ability to continue deliberating for the day could only be taken at face value, and the judge declaratively stated he could not discuss that with us. Legally, I suppose we worded it inappropriately. (I wanted to rephrase it along the lines of, “We are unable to reach a verdict today. Would it be possible to come back tomorrow?” In the manner that we wrote it, it was not up for discussion and we were sent back in for dinner and deliberation. And though it sounds exactly like something I would do, it was not my idea to send that note to the judge, I swear.)

I don’t usually get stir-crazy when forced to sit still for any length of time. There are people who can’t stand it, who get claustrophobic and panicky, but I’ve always been able to retreat within my mind and pass the minutes solely through imagination. Yet even I was having a tough time being confined to a single room for twelve hours straight, with only an adjoining bathroom to offer brief escape. You don’t realize the importance of a lunch break outside until it’s taken away, and those moments of solitude I have always cherished were replaced with elbow-to-elbow company.

While initially put out by the judge’s decision (he had actually been the one to plant the idea that we would not be staying late, as all sorts of overtime had to be requested and granted) it turned out for the best, as I believe we got some good work done, and a decent headway of progress to set us up for the next day, so maybe he wasn’t entirely wrong about it.

At this point I have to say something about trials and juries: everything I ever thought I knew is wrong. Unless you are on the jury, presented with the evidence, and locked in a jury room to deliberate for days, you have no idea what it’s like. What we see is nothing like what the public sees, or thinks they see (and given the news reports we would later see and laugh at, the news media usually gets most of it wrong).

I will never second-guess or assume anything about any trial ever again. The system is designed that way, and to that end I have to believe it provides the fairest way of insuring each and every person’s assumption of innocence until proven guilty. There are underlying reasons that may prevent that from happening, but at its essence I can’t think of a more effective means of judgment. 

By the end of the day we are exhausted and drained on every level. As we pack up for the evening and the sheriffs enter to escort us out again, one of the jurors says it feels good to be with a good group of people – and I can honestly repeat that I have come to genuinely like each of them. That sort of thing doesn’t happen every day, or very often, especially when you consider there are twelve of us. Even with that, the next morning will prove to be the toughest, and I will think back to the innocence of that night as one of those moments you don’t realize is the last until another one fails to appear.

The few hours of sleep we got were not enough to fully decompress and replenish. We are all not quite ready for this day, even if it’s a shorter one. I think it’s finally starting to take a serious toll on some of us. There is less laughter, less energy to push ahead. It’s a day I push away. It’s a day in which we don’t decide.

It is about 10:30 PM and we have just gotten out of our first few hours of deliberation. I am exhausted, drained, and wiped out, and it won’t hit me until the next morning when we have to do it all over again.

When the defendant finished his testimony, we were given the closing arguments of both sides, and the video was played again. It is near the end of the day, or so we thought, but the judge sends us into the jury room to order dinner and deliberate. After three aborted attempts (no one believes that Downtown Albany rolls up the sidewalks after 5 PM on a Monday) we finally find a real restaurant and our food arrives.

I think back to one of the first days of the trial, when the lawyer for the defense explained that jury duty for a murder trial was like a marathon. Not that I have ever come close to running a marathon, but I’d guess it is just as grueling. And all the while I still have in my head the gnawing guilt of complaining over something like this when someone is already dead, and someone is still on trial.

After this full day of testimony, closing statements, and judge’s instructions, we are told to deliberate until 10 PM. By that time, we have gotten nowhere, but there is some minor relief in finally being able to talk about what each of us has wanted to talk about since day one. That said, all we seem able to do is talk and release, with only the minutest bit of progress.

I find myself wishing for a more concrete outline for us to follow, some handbook on how to most productively go about this process. We are a room of somewhat powerful personalities, each confident and set in his or her beliefs, and I’m not sure how many of us will be swayed from what we each believe.

By ten o’clock we aren’t even near a verdict. My foolish and insane dreams of a possible five-minute deliberation were dashed hours ago. This will be even harder than I thought. My head hurts. My stomach is unsettled. It is time to depart. The sheriff escorts us to our cars, or in my case the lobby of the hotel where Andy will pick me up. The news crews arrived earlier. Their lights wind high into the night sky, illuminating the front of the court house.

The evening is beautiful, but dark.

I’m still shaking off the stupor of a sunny weekend spent decompressing by the pool, and a Father’s Day filled with family, when the defense calls its last witness – the defendant himself. Dressed in an outfit that seems two sizes too large for his frame, he is all but swallowed up in a billowy white dress shirt, baggy khakis, and dress shoes in which he doesn’t seem the slightest bit comfortable. In such ill-fitting clothes he looks more like a boy playing dress-up than a young man, but it is a known fact that he has killed someone. The only question that remains is to his intent.

After watching and studying his profile for a week, we finally get to hear him speak. For each answer, even a simple ‘Yes’ or ‘No’, he leans forward to speak audibly into the microphone, the leather witness chair squeaking with every motion. It is the rest of his life on the line -he’s already taken the victim’s. We listen to determine what his motivation was. It is far from an exact science. There are few, if any, absolutes.

My mind jumps to the jury room and the deliberation ahead. I don’t know about anyone else, but this will not be an easy decision for me to make. The fact that New York State doesn’t employ a death penalty offers only the slightest of solace. I think of this as the defendant recounts his history with the victim.

Most of us grew up with a person or two we might consider an enemy or adversary – someone who rubbed us the wrong way, someone we knew we’d never get along with, no matter what. Some work to avoid that person at all costs, steering clear of any potential conflicts or run-ins by ignoring and leaving them alone. Some choose to engage and antagonize, poking and prodding at the problem until it comes to some sort of head. I’ve done a little of each over the years. It’s never ended in death.

Is that what happened here? Did it just get momentarily out of hand, at the entirely wrong moment? I don’t know. I will never know.

For the frigid tundra of the courtroom, and in spite of my newly lackadaisical attitude toward what I wear, I’ve donned a sports jacket for the day. I’m also here on what should have been a pass day for me – a glorious, sunny pass day that should rightfully be spent by the pool. Unless you’re the defendant, or the victim.

Today the Defense calls their witnesses, and first up is the defendant’s little brother. He is only twelve years old. Soft-spoken and barely audible, he gives his answers in a feathery almost-adolescent voice, and I can’t imagine having to get up in front of this courtroom and doing this at his age. At any age, actually, but especially for someone so young.

I glance at the defendant as his brother speaks, and notice something that I think falls out of his mouth. Only then do I see the tears falling down his face in tiny rivulets. He wipes them with a tissue and I look away. On the stand, the eyes of his little brother well up.

The next witness to be called is the defendant’s mother. I expect further waterworks, but there are none, just a mother fighting valiantly for her son to be free, perhaps saying whatever needs to be said.

Later in the day, the defendant’s father takes the stand, as does his fifteen-year-old cousin – a little girl who cries repeatedly while giving her somewhat mixed testimony.

The judge’s odd oral fixation, which is more than the passing nibble on the end of a pen, veers dangerously into deep-throating territory, as he devours pens and markers like a champion. It’s an odd juxtaposition – a murder trial, tears, and the occasional desire to burst into inappropriate laughter.

When I pass the family members outside at lunch, I keep my head down. When they’re at the pizza place where I stop, I take my pie outside. Downtown Albany is a small place, with limited lunch options and scant places to hide.

During the lengthy breaks in the jury room, we are louder and more boisterous today – each of us seemingly comfortable with everyone else – and I realize I could easily, and genuinely, get along with every one of the other jurors. I wonder how the deliberation will play out. I wonder if we will still get along then. As the judge put it, we are the only fourteen people in the world having this particular experience. There is something both comforting and distressing about that.

At the end of the day, the judge will repeat his admonitions, and mention that we are not to even say Hello or Good Morning to any of the lawyers or witnesses. It has been a long, albeit interesting, week of jury duty, more subtly life-changing than I expected, but the weekend is more than welcome, and I am hopeful to return to a life where the most stressful thing is figuring out how many people are coming over for Father’s Day.

My thoughts turn to the witnesses of the day – the doctors, the friends, the detectives, the officers – and I am both touched and moved by the parade of life that marches through the courtroom. Each one of them has their own story, their own multitude of stories, but for this day we each play a small part in the victim’s and defendant’s stories.

Compounding the inherent tragedy of the case is the fact that I cannot talk about it. Normally, when keeping secrets, this doesn’t phase me, but in some way it would be such a relief to explain what we were going through to someone. Instead, I am forbidden to speak to my husband, my family, and even the other jurors until it’s time to deliberate. Mostly I want to talk to Andy, who, up to a certain point, has been largely supportive. He knows all about the process, he knows what to ask, what to look for, but beyond vague general logistics, which I don’t know enough about to even begin to question, I can’t say anything.

Part of me knows it’s bugging him to not be able to ask about it, but his police officer background prohibits him from even subtly tempting me to talk – and to be completely honest (because this won’t be posted until after the fact) if he asked I would probably tell all.

(A side-note to illustrate his police officer mentality: when Andy and I first met I asked him whether he’d let me go if he had pulled me over for speeding. He said no. I sweetened the hypothetical deal with the offer of a blow-job. He said doubly no, and he’d probably charge me with whatever a propositioned blow-job would merit. That’s my husband. In our home the law comes before love. That comes with its own maddening repercussions, but that’s another diatribe for another day.)

All I know is that after this fourth day of jury duty, I have already been changed in some small way. This evening, a strange thing happens. Normally I pick out my outfits the day before I wear them (with the exception of special events or vacations, which are sometimes planned months in advance – as evidence, I am currently plotting what to wear for events in October and November of this year). Tonight, I don’t feel like selecting what to wear for the next day. It feels like such a ridiculous concern – a meaningless exercise of pointless futility in the face of more pressing matters – life and death matters, in fact – and though I know that appearance definitely counts for something, it only matters, well, when it matters, and what I wear the next day will have no bearing on the defendant or the victim. It will change nothing.

In the past I would have said I would fight to the death for the right to be fashionable, and for the importance of how people present themselves to the world – and one day I may take up that baton again – but for now I am not inspired. Tonight that sort of reckless hyperbole seems inappropriate and in dismal taste.

I know this will not last.

I know this momentary raised consciousness will dissipate, and I selfishly welcome the day it does. One doesn’t take kindly to having one’s happily ignorant delusions shattered. The term ‘disenchanted’ is largely misunderstood. I don’t want my enchantments dispelled. No one should. And somehow, this is what the trial is doing – whether I want it to or not.