My Psychic Life
Jury Duty. The State of NY vs.
By Litany Burns
Part I.
The
first time I was notified about serving Jury Duty, the head of the Jury
Program did not seem exceptionally fond of me. In fact, I felt like Jim
Crow being received by the Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. It seems
I made the awful mistake of specifically explaining why I could not
serve on a U.S. jury on my written form. I personally attached a
well-written letter saying that I was a professional psychic and that I
believed more in karma than incarceration, and that I honestly believed
that the judicial system was inequitable to people of color or lack of
finances. Money wins. This did not go over well with the Madame of
Jurisprudence.
A week
later, I received a phone call from her Royal Jurist, to personally
inform me that I ‘would indeed be serving jury duty.” She practically
seethed the words as she attacked me for believing in karma and not the
system. I felt like a street soldier listening to Tony Soprano before my
mob hit. Luckily, or so I thought, the moment when she asked I me f I
‘liked being an American,’ my call waiting kicked in. It happened to be
a friend who, coincidentally, was a lawyer. Confessing my sins to him
like a true believer, he immediately decided that, as a lawyer in good
conscience, he had to contact her superiors because she was a civil
servant- being paid by my tax dollars- that was harassing me. This was
the equivalent of a Nuremberg gone wrong. Before I could have my day in
either court, they both were off my line. So, I did what any other
red-blooded American would do, I postponed my jury service for at least
six months, hoping this bad court TV drama would just go away.
Six
months to the day, I received my second jury notice. Grudgingly I slunk
into an autonomous plastic seat in the claustrophobic jury room on the
appointed morning, feeling like a bad kindergarten child during a
time-out. The Empress of her Domain entered the room and smiling like a
Cheshire cat, announced that there was indeed a trial that day, and led
us to a shining wood-polished courtroom. It felt like a museum. Was
there a trace of a human fingerprint anywhere? I was relieved to be rid
of my executioner in patent leather pumps; her American flag pin tacked
to her dress over her much saluted heart. I leaned back in my chair,
screwed into the floor, beside a table with gold mesh canister on it.
Two suited men, carrying briefcases entered the room. It felt like the
Oscars, until a non-descript woman quietly dropped a bunch of small
paper cards into the canister beside me and manually began cranking it
up. It felt like a bad Bingo fest, where no one was feeling especially
lucky. She grabbed at a card and began calling out numbers. Was this our
sophisticated jury system at work? The room grew still. I could feel
everyone sweating, as I suddenly envisioned myself sitting in the fourth
seat in the jury box, set above the polished courtroom floor.
That’s
exactly where I landed. My psychic abilities were paying off in a very
strange way. Now I was going to have to tell the two lawyers and a
courtroom of unhappy people about my feelings of modern jurisprudence,
something they revered and practiced daily. I felt like a Roman, doomed
to destruction in the lions’ arena.
The
first lawyer quickly began dismissing people seated around the jurors.
This man mowed someone’s lawn on some Sunday, that woman knew someone
who knew someone. Left and right, people were leaving, except the
forlorn jury. Not one of us was mentioned. A woman started cracking her
gum. A man’s stomach growled. It was going to be a long day.
Suddenly I heard the lawyer say, “I have one more person that I’d like
to dismiss. Litany Burns.” I looked at this stranger, wondering how one
person could hold your fate in his hands. He went on to say that he
attended a book signing ten years ago for one of my books on developing
psychic abilities. Although he didn’t personally know me, he felt
because of that incident I should be dismissed. What incident? I didn’t
even know him? Who cares! I was about to be dismissed. The other lawyer
nodded without looking up. People in the jury box were stirring.
“You’re a psychic?” “Where do you give readings?” “Do you have a card?”
“How much do you charge? “ I blotted out every human sound in the room
until his last sentence. “You need to see the person in charge before
you can be dismissed. The Arbitrar of Doom stood in the way of my
leaving these legal portals.
I
walked through the courthouse, my footsteps echoing toward her office.
Mrs. America and I were about to have our final showdown, face to face,
as the courthouse clock ticked high noon. I entered her office, holding
my breath, and handed her my papers. This was it. Would I be condemned
to withstand another trial? Made to wait to polish the courtroom after
court recessed? Or would she simply sneer at me in a Republican way?
“Ah, yes, Litany Burns.” I focused on leaving my body. “You know,” she
began, “There must have been some misunderstanding.” This was it. She
had me in the palms of her patriotic little hands. “You know, I like
Seers.” Translation –‘Some of my best friends are Seers.’ These had to
be her words. No one in the last century called someone like me a
‘Seer’. Maybe she was a closet pagan? A Druid perhaps? She forced a fake
political smile as she quickly filled out my papers and handed them to
me. She had no more hold on me.
I
leaned over her desk, towering above her, trying to avoid the glare of
her costume jewelry, and said, “Don’t ever do that to anyone, again.”
She barely uttered a word as I started to walk away. This was my chance,
my day in court. I stopped without turning, and said, “By the way, I was
dismissed because I was a psychic. Have a nice day.” Ah justice.
