Jury Duty (Part 6)
Monday, February 9, 2009 at 8:03PM So comes a reckoning when the banquet's o'er,--
The dreadful reckoning, and men smile no more.
- John Gay
The What d' Ye Call it
Staring directly at the other members of the jury, the word “peer” did not immediately come to mind. Sure, they were American citizens, employed (for the most part), literate (for the most part), had hopes and fears (mostly fears) and wanted nothing more than to serve their government and be the hell out of that courthouse by 5:00 p.m., finished with the case.
I need to describe these offenders. My “peers”. Doug’s “peers”. State Farm’s “peers”.
1.) Old, pinch-faced accounting professor from the local university who was about to retire. You could almost picture him with a crisp white shirt and visor back in the day, his hand pulling on the lever of an adding machine in a dusty, ink-stained, smoldering office in Montgomery without air conditioning. Tsking and tut-tut-ing the errors of people who will make vastly greater fortunes than him in their lifetimes.
2.) Three African-American women of various ages (20s, 40s, 60s) who sat together, remained eerily silent (segregation is still very real here, after all) and had little or no contributions toward the debate, despite me soliciting their opinions at every opportunity. I was really counting on them to be allies in Doug’s struggle. Nothing but silence and head shaking. Fuck it. Enjoy The Man’s thumb. And being under it.
3.) A forty-ish nurse. The worst kind. Bitter about doctors, fellow nursing staff, her prick of a husband, her salary, the degrading nature of her work, putting in a lot of study time for this and most importantly, watching "these types" (meaning Doug) coming into the hospital with fake injuries. All for the insurance money. She’s seen it a million times. Doesn’t matter that someone might be legitimately hurt and due some dough. In her mind they’re all scammers. From the moment they called for that ambulance they probably couldn’t afford. Pathetic.
4.) Privileged Birmingham housewife. A rara avis indeed. Quick with a comment or judgment despite living in reclusive luxury for her entire existence. “You mean to tell me this country is about to elect a negro?” Does not even perform housewifely duties despite never having held a job. For those who have never met one, the affluent Birmingham housewife is a glorified prostitute who never has to fuck anyone except the poor.
5.) The befuddled white-trash waitress. Just doesn’t want to cause a stink, Y’all. Always has a story about a really fucked up relative impertinent to the situation at hand. “My Uncle Junior had him a big ol’ pickup that run over a nigra child, but didn’t totally crush its head, just sorta mashed it a little. He went to jail for that. He was drunk. But that wasn’t why he done it.”
6.) The independent business owner. This douche bag turned out to be my major nemesis. Full of that “can do” and “rub two nickels together” attitude where anyone in this great land of ours can rise above their shortcomings, humble station or race and make something of themselves. “Heck, look at me!”, he crows, “I started with a van and a wrench (an 87 IQ) and $200 from my Daddy and hired me a couple a… ”
Blah, fucking, blah. The kind of ass-hat who decided to dedicate his entire life to the banal pursuit of carpet-cleaning/plumbing/carpentry in the early ’80s and caught a lucky location streak with shallow suburbanites and now thinks himself to be a financial wizard of the highest order because he overcharges clients and makes a bit more money than his lawyer friends by hiring Mexicans who he underpays for labor.
Are Doug’s slipped disks, joint ailments and pain medications the sort of “hurdles” one needs to overcome to prove his manliness and wherewithal in this prick’s eyes?
7.) The hot young chick. She had eyes like a Martian but a smile like Jennifer Love-Hewitt. She even had an uncle who had hurt his back early in life, never got over the pain and committed suicide. That was “simpatico” gold. She ended up being the lone person to agree with me on the whole “Doug thing”. I like to think she felt I was handsome, as well as alluringly virtuous.
8.) The young, married Hispanic student. She thought my Bob Marley book bag was “way cool” but couldn’t come over to the “Doug Experience”. She thought he was faking. She’d seen it plenty of times before in her twenty four years on this planet. Mostly from her brother, Hector.
9.) My khaver, Itzhak “Grits and Kudzu” Perlman, had fallen away from me. Caught up in his duties as foreman, he had forgotten that he and his wife once benefited from a similar case. He was talking about restitution for Doug, but he was too immersed in his newfound social acceptance and power struggle to linger on anything quite so insignificant. He suggested a paltry sum, fit more for a tembel than a mensch. He was dead to me, enamored by the attention from the goyem and forgetting about any true principles he might once have possessed.
It was up to me to make things right. As the conversations were becoming more and more branched and the spirit of the day was waning, I offered that we each write down a monetary figure for Doug on a slip of paper which would remain anonymous. Just to see where we were with THE MONEY.
Nothing could have been more depressing or, in reflection, defeating to the cause.
My figure, accounting for two years of back wages (unpaid by Doug’s company or State Farm) and one future year @ $30,000 per, with an educational stipend, past medical bills of $12,000 along with pain and suffering, amounted to $250,000.
I thought this was low-balling, but it might be something I could force through the clenched teeth (and tight anuses) of my cohorts.
Oh, how wrong I was.
Of the remaining eleven figures offered, the largest was $75,000. The smallest, I will not reveal to you, as it is inhuman and foul to repeat. I will bet that it came from the Republican, small-business owning prick, however. He was just too upset that someone might be getting some money that wasn’t earned through the stock market, his plumbing enterprise or the minimum wage.
The rest of the numbers were all pretty consistent in the $50,000 range. A slap in Doug’s face, a comeuppance to the greed of his lawyer and a rank injustice to the American ideal.
The ideal where you work hard, pay your rent, feed your family and channel a portion of that income into insurance to protect you in case of tragedy. That is the American way. If it isn’t, if the path becomes fouled, there are legal means to combat the injustice. The system provides for this. The one I saw in these odd days of service however, did not come close to fulfilling this promise.
It was permeated with close-minded individuals hell bent on stopping another fellow human from receiving justice from these “poor” insurance companies. The same insurance companies who they complain about, day in and day out for raising their rates. They disconnect on the reality that the rates increase because of bad investments and greed on the part of the companies, not on monies Doug or his ilk are trying to “bilk” from them.
I came away from the entire experience much as I had entered into it.
With the realization that Americans, living in the most advanced financial culture and justice system in the world, know very little about either. Our educational systems are an embarrassment. Particularly in regard to civics, economics and history.
We are forever unable to see through the powerful influences which steer and exploit us. When in a position to right that wrong, we cower like pack animals to the whim of the alpha male.
Doug was fucked in the end. We jurors decided we would take an average of all the figures put into the hat and give him that amount. The highest (mine) and lowest (Business Guy’s insult) were thrown out for statistical balance (a caveat I unfortunately agreed to before the figures were offered) and Doug wound up with about $57,000 for his trouble, his pain and his suffering.
Financial injustice in a nutshell.
The attorneys for State Farm, after our meshuggeneh foreman read the decision, applauded and thanked us. The Ice Queen even cracked a disturbing smile, knowing in the halls of power, she just ratcheted up a notch on the careerist cog wheel of profitable indifference.
I walked out, speaking to no one and headed for the restroom. As I exited and made my way to the elevator, I ran across the other jurists who were confabbing in the hall. I tried to avoid them.
The Business Guy shouted, “Hey, that was quite an argument you put up in there.”
The others agreed.
They expected me to be convivial at that moment I guess. I was not.
I waited for the lift to “ding”, entered the elevator, turned to them and said, “You are some cheap motherfuckers.”
The doors closed.
I walked the two blocks to the garage and found my car.
I would need some drink now. To clear my head. To find some sense in it all.
For me. For Doug. And all the other “Dougs” out there whom I failed so miserably.
In the place where the tree falleth, there it shall be.
- Ecclesiastes (ch. XI, v. 3)
Or, in the overused parlance of our times,
It is what it is.
Res ipsa loquitor.
Reader Comments (2)
Damn skippy. It is what it is. You're in a world of pain now.
Pain is my constant companion, Mr. Pacifico. And tragedy is my sidekick.