This past Thursday, fate stuck her incisors in my ass and I found myself ordered to appear at the Brooklyn Criminal Courthouse for a round of jury duty. I figured that my exile to that gulag of civic duty known as the Juror’s Assembly Room was in some way payback, be it karmic or realistic, for my extreme tardiness over returning that damn juror questionnaire for about four years. This time, I intended to be a good little American and show up on time and get this shit over with. I felt pretty confident that, once meeting during voir dire, no sane lawyer would ever want me to actually sit on a jury. I’ve been the victim of several crimes, one violent. I’m a leech on society and an all-around utterly despicable person. Good luck finding any sincerely redeemable qualities. Go me!

Choosing to heed what I later found to be decidedly unsound advice, I went out drinking the night before and got myself as wobbled and hobbled as any a self-respecting scurvied pirate with a bad case of the dreaded clap could wish for. In the morning, I dragged my still-drunken ass out to the courthouse and collapsed on a bench, lost in a undulating sea of near-vomitous joy. Covered in a light sheen of alcohol sweat, I passed the first couple hours twitching, itching and rocking back and forth like a Hare Krishna gone off the deep end, all to desperately divert my mind from the increasingly urgent fact that my stomach was knee-deep into a virtual Richard Simmons workout of projectile-like proportions. Hell, served clammy and cold on cheap, vinyl seating.

The first order of the day for myself and the other prospective inmates was a short film about the history of the judicial system. Hosted by Ed Bradley and Diane Sawyer of 60 Minutes fame, this cinematic gem featured such glorious moments as a reenactment by a bunch of renaissance fair flunkies of a medieval trial where the defendant is tied and dumped in the river, his innocence or guilt dependent on whether he should float or not. The aim of the film aside from putting food on the table for the lowest tier of out of work actor was to show us a timeline of the judicial history and hopefully make us feel better about our stay in the courthouse, because by golly gee, look how far we’ve come. We wouldn’t want to go back to dunking defendants and crucifixion would we? Well, actually I would be in a much better mood about having to spend an entire day sitting in a room with a whole shitload of strangers if we had some good old fashioned executions to sweeten the moment. How can you be bored when you have a guy with nails through his wrists and feet, hanging from a tree to keep you company?

It’s a fair assumption to say that if you take a hundred or so people and put them in a room, at least one is going to be shit-nuts insane. Normally, I’m resigned to wear that moniker myself. Show me a jar of peanuts and I’ll show you “fucking nuts”. However, that day I was surprised to find that I had some serious competition in the form of an elderly African American lady who for most of the morning, had been sitting quiet and unassuming in her seat near the front of the room.

After the film ended and the person in charge of keeping us in line returned to the room, the old lady sat up and asked for a question and answer session. The court officer rather reluctantly agreed and the woman proceeded to pull out a couple pages of scrawled notes and began shouting, “Why did you lie to us? The court system began in Africa! You stole it! Admit it! You’re a liar! I refuse to recognize this court because it’s based on a lie! Y’all a bunch of thieves and liars! Thieves!”

The court officer, with a look of glazed pain tried to nip it in the bud by informing the lady that the Jurors Assembly Room’s purpose was not to serve as her personal soapbox and that she was welcome to come into his office where he would be happy to hear her complaints and answer any questions she might have. “Hell no! You’re a liar! You’re big, fat and a liar and there ain’t no damn way I’m moving my ass for you! Hell no! You’re a liar and a thief. Admit it!” The court officer quickly retreated from the room and spent the rest of the day addressing us over the PA system, leaving us to fend for ourselves.

At one point in the early afternoon, the doors opened and a group of tourists were led into the room by a guide. Apparently, the Brooklyn courthouse attracts sightseers. A rather large posse of Asians and what looked to be Sikhs came in, cameras flashing. Their guide introduced us as the lovely and patient Brooklyn jurors, happily waiting to do our civic service. Naturally, this was meant as a light joke, but the crazy lady immediately stood up and started screaming, “That man’s a liar! We’re prisoners here. Ask him where the court system originated! He’ll lie to you! He’s a liar! The court system came from Africa!” A swift exodus of the befuddled and slightly terrified tourists was made.

In between trying not to puke everywhere, plugging my ears against this lady’s rants and another man’s wall-shaking snores, I mentally went over my game plan. Surely no court would want me on the jury and only a few questions would bear that out, but just in case, should I sweeten the pot with some choice behavior faults be they true or imaginary? I envisioned myself in voir dire, and the possible questions that could be asked based on my extensive knowledge of the New York legal system à la Law & Order:

Q: “What do you do for a living?”

A: “I make magazines, but my real love is rubbing my genitals against door handles. Hey, gotta love New york!”

Q: “Have you ever been a victim of a crime?”

A: “Yes! The court system was founded in Africa! Y’all a bunch of fathead liars!”

Q: “Based on your experience and knowledge of the crimes the Defendant is charged with, do you feel that you will be able to weigh the facts impartially?”

A: “Well it depends on whether he floats or sinks after we dunk him in the water. Just kidding. Actually, yeah I think I can. I’m wearing clean underwear. Do we get free tinfoil? Anything longer than an hour without being able to rub my junk against a door handle and I have to wrap that shit up, if you know what I mean and I think you do, you dirty, dirty devil.”

For better or worse, all my preparation was pointless. They never called my name. I spent the entire day in that assembly room. At around four-thirty, I was released with a sheet of paper to prove my service and promised that I would not have to repeat it for another six years. I left the building restless, relieved and with the understanding that I’d done my civic duty. I was a fine little American and I didn’t have end up rubbing my nuts on a door handle to prove it.

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.