The Jury Man WENDY HERLICH
Ursula nervously watched the doorway to the Jury Man’s office. Soon the black county clerk who shared the space with him exited, en route to her smoke break, her well-padded figure a topography of lumps and bumps covered by a navy blue pantsuit. The swish of her thighs as she walked combined with the tapping of her pack of cigarettes into her palm created a percussive soundtrack to match Ursula’s anxious anticipation for this ritual she’d begun two weeks ago. As soon as the coast was clear, she rose casually and ducked into the now empty office off Jury Assembly Room 1216. There were two desks with name plates on them; the Jury Man’s read “Wilbur H. Nolan” and had a card standing up on it that proclaimed, “Happy Birthday, From All of Us” but was signed by only three people. Ursula set the unopened bottle of water, freshly purchased from the vending machine, on his desk, then impulsively grabbed a ballpoint pen that was sitting alongside a small stack of paperwork and shoved it into her pocket. She was in and out and sitting back in her usual aisle seat in the main room a full two minutes before the Jury Man came sauntering back from wherever he always went at this time of the morning, his beanpole frame bobbing back and forth, his bow tie slightly crooked, and the rebellious bit of hair on the crown of his head refusing to lie down flat. Out of all the citizens in the room, she was the only one who was coming there each day by choice, and the Jury Man was the reason. She had been called to report for duty on January 8th, but 34
Jessica Zheng
Berkeley Fiction Review
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