When I got home from work yesterday, there was a letter waiting for me in the mailbox from the Brooklyn city courts. Apparently I’d failed to respond to two previously mailed juror questionnaires and the letter was informing me that I was to present myself at the courthouse within ten days of the letter’s date or face a fine of one-thousand dollars and possible imprisonment.

Unfortunately, the letter was mailed to my old address and Brooklyn mail being what it is, took three weeks to get to me. So, since the letter was dated September first, my mind was suddenly filled with the horrid thoughts of unreasonable fines or worse, being the ass-toy of whoever has the most cigarettes on the cell block to buy me. Not my idea of fun. This kid is far too pretty and way too skinny for prison. I was never much into sports and at this stage in my life, it’s really not in me to embark on a professional career as a shower room soap-picker-upper.

I tried calling the courthouse, but they were closed for the day, so I was left to stew in my own neurosis until the next morning where, assuming I survived the night, I could run my ass straight down there and try and sort things out. I lay awake till four in the morning, running through every scenario ranging from indignant and righteous ranting at the court and mail system to lying prostrate and whimpering before the judge, begging for leniency towards my poor, withered self.

Of course, my mind and paranoia being the state that it is, I started thinking about imprisonment. Specifically, jail time in the New York City correctional system. What if they threw me in the slammer for not responding to jury duty and/or for just being a shifty degenerate leech on society? Could I handle it? Would I be able to just walk in there just like Paul Newman in “Cool Hand Luke” and gain the respect my fellow inmates by bucking the system and refusing to bow to the “man”? Not likely, seeing as I’m not particularly charismatic, nor do I have a likable smile, backbone or the hard-boiled egg eating prowess that Luke commanded.

What about gangs? Should I join one for protection? I think my IQ would be too high for the Aryan Brotherhood. Biker gangs are out, unless it’s a bicycle gang and even then, I don’t ride anymore and any gang that might have a name like “Schwinn’s Angels” doesn’t seem too fear inspiring. Bloods are out. So are the Crips, unless they let you in for being mentally crippled. The Mafias out, unless they have a Irish/French Canadian branch that I don’t know about.

Perhaps I could start my own prison gang? Do they have ones for disaffected, twitchy and neurotic weirdos that have semi-erotic dreams about talking penguins? If so, would we command fear?

All I know of prison is from movies and six long seasons of OZ and if any of it is to be taken as fact- skinny, antisocial white guys have two possible scenarios: dead or wearing lipstick and braiding the hair of some big dude who considers them his personal anal pincushion. Things do not look good for the tweaky white boy.

All these fearsome thoughts kept me awake until sometime before dawn, when I managed a few hours of fitful sleep away from the horrid visions of myself as the branded, bikini wearing bitch of a Rikers Island cell block.

When I awoke, I took a moment to gather my courage before calling and prepared my strategy. If the shit hits the fan, I’d shave my head, grow a beard and tattoo “Gerome” on my forehead (an added touch to confuse “The Man”) and skip the fuck out of Dodge to someplace remote, peaceful and safe like Montana where I’d head to the mountains, living off the land and befriending bears and shit like that dude from that 80’s TV show “Grizzly Adams“.

This time, my call to the courthouse was answered and I was transferred to the Jurors department. When a lady answered the phone there, I proceeded to gush, practically verbally vomit my situation through the phone line and all over her morning bagel and coffee. Dear sweet woman, I reasoned, can you not find it your heart to understand that I am not to blame in this error? I have the yellow forwarding sticker showing the dates!!! I come from a good family but along the way, I admit that I have erred at times, but if shown this one little bit of mercy, I swear I will reform my ways to live a life of upstanding honesty and morality. No more evil, pinky swear!

Somewhere in the midst of my pleading and ranting, the lady said something along the lines of “Jesus Christ, will you calm down? Just come here, fill out the questionnaire and we’ll take care of it”. I stumbled over some profuse thanks and she hung up on me.

That was all. It was over. I filled out the form and went to my job in the city, a little bit older, a little bit weirder, but at least not about to be incarcerated anytime soon.

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