Lydia Davis - Samuel Johnson Is Indignant

Q.

A. Finally. The woman had a drum with all our names in it. She turned the drum and then picked names out of the drum one at a time to go up and sit in the jury box and be interviewed. This was going to be the interesting part — that’s what I was thinking.

Q.

A. No, we all had to stay there. All the rest of us had to stay there in case the ones being questioned were disqualified or excused. Since it was random, any one of us might be called up to replace them, so we all had to stay.

Q.

A. Again, very gently, very respectfully. And calling them by their first names, gently, like a doctor or a nurse.

Q.

A. There was an unexpected sort of excitement to it. Something ceremonious. The suspense before she called out the name — everyone thinking it might be their name next, of course. Then when the names were called, they had to go up there in front of all these people, and then they had to answer these personal questions with everyone listening and watching them. There were so many of us. We had no idea who all these people were. Then the lives of some of us were gradually revealed, all the rest of us sitting there and listening. We would hear about these people, we would hear their stories. Now we knew the names of some of them. It was like some Indian ritual, some Navajo ceremony.

Q.

A. Oh, some questions you’d expect, some general questions, like, Are you employed? What do you do for a living? Do you have a family? Then more specific questions. Do you drive? Have you ever been in an accident? Do you have any relatives on the police force? Do you have any relatives in the insurance business? Are you familiar with the Palisades Parkway?

Q.

A. The part just north of Exit 11.

Q.

A. It took a long time. I couldn’t hear very well.

Q.

A. Very calmly. They called them by their first names. And there were all these pauses. Question. Pause. One lawyer would consult another lawyer while everyone waited, so quiet, so obedient. These quiet voices, and then long silences, and this expectant atmosphere.

Q.

A. Well, so first they were special, the Chosen. Up in front of everyone. I heard enough of their answers to decide I liked them, or I didn’t like them. One woman was a real estate dealer, divorced, a cold, tense sort of woman. Grim. I didn’t like her. Then there was a tall strong man, an artist, a family man, obviously a nice guy. I liked him right away. There was a college student who was afraid he’d miss too many days of classes, but then they pointed out to him that this was going to be a short trial and he might miss even more if he didn’t go ahead and sit on this jury. So he decided to stay on the jury. And once he was on the jury you had to see him as rather special because he was so young — he was like the child on the jury, the child prodigy, young but wise enough to stand in judgment, who would be taken care of by the older people. And then after a while you even began to dislike him and resent him for being so young, for presuming, for saying in front of everyone that he might not do this thing that he had been asked to do, then for being the child prodigy, so young and bright and being taken care of by the others.

So these ones, who stayed on the jury, they were the Chosen. And the ones who were excused, after all that questioning, when they were excused, when they had to walk back to their seats in front of everybody, they became the Unchosen, they lost all that special prestige, they were ordinary again, they were not special anymore. Or rather, the ones who were rejected for obvious or technical reasons were simply ordinary. But the ones who were rejected for mysterious reasons, for reasons that probably said something not so good about their lives and who they were, they were not just ordinary anymore, now, they had somehow been declared unfit. The others were still sitting up there.

Q.

A. No, not many. Three or four, maybe. One, I think, because he was unemployed and hadn’t driven for eleven years — no, longer than that, not since 1979. He used a bicycle to get around. It also came out that he had been in an accident in 1979, or caused one. He had been sued, but he had won. You only get part of the story.

Q.

A. He was dressed more formally than most of the others, in a dark suit and a tie. But his hair was long, in a ponytail, and he was wearing tinted glasses. They asked him about his glasses.

Q.

A. I wasn’t surprised that they excused him. He was unemployed. And it also turned out that he wasn’t married and had no children. But they don’t have to say why they’re excusing them. I wondered what he was feeling when he went back to his seat, and after that, for the rest of the day. He was so carefully dressed I thought he might have felt proud that he had been called for jury duty in the first place. Then he might have been embarrassed or humiliated that they didn’t want him after all.

Q.

A. Yes, another one was excused because he had a nephew on the police force.

Q.

A. Well, they were all selected by lunchtime, and we were allowed to leave for an hour. They pinned special badges on the ones who had been selected for the jury and instructed them not to talk to anyone, and told us not to talk to them.

Q.

A. Yes. I happened to go to the same café as one of the jurors, and I smiled at her, and she smiled back at me, she knew why I was smiling, she seemed nice, but I didn’t dare even say hi.

Q.

A. Yes, we did see some. I think they were brought in from next door. I think the jail was next door and maybe there was an underground passage. Anyway, as far as I can remember, when I first went in, in the morning, I was waiting for the elevator when a line of them came out of another door in the hallway there, in the basement, and went up the stairs next to the elevator. There was one policeman in front of them and one policeman behind them. Then, when we all went out at lunchtime, going back down in the elevator and back out those side doors, they were also being taken back downstairs again and back through that door in the basement hallway. Then, when we came back in from lunch, they were being taken up again. I didn’t see them when we left in the afternoon. I guess they were in a courtroom.

Q.

A. There were four or five of them, all men, in orange suits. They were wearing handcuffs and each one was carrying a manila folder, holding it in front of him. They weren’t talking, and they looked pretty subdued. They were walking in a line, single file. They all had to keep their arms and hands, and those manila folders, in the same position because of the handcuffs. So they were a little like a show on stage, coordinated.

Q.

A. Yes, it made me feel even more that I was good, or that I was not bad. That it was all very simple, some people were good and some people were not so good. There were people who were proceeding correctly with their lives, and this could be proved by asking them a few questions. And there were people who were not proceeding correctly with their lives.

Q.

A. Though you sensed a bond with the others, when you were all standing around outside during a break. The feeling that you were all in this together, thrown together by chance.

Q.

A. Yes, at lunchtime, when we all went out at once, it reminded me of something and I wasn’t sure what. Then I realized it was ladybugs. You can order a package of ladybugs and you get a few hundred in the package. You keep them in the refrigerator until the warm weather comes, and then you release them to feed in your yard. Some of them stay nearby and feed, and some fly away. That’s how it was. We were released all at the same time into the neighborhood, nearly two hundred of us, most of us not knowing the neighborhood, and we went out and looked for a place to eat. Most of us stayed and ate near the courthouse.