The Molecule, Day Two: Compression
I arrive at 6:54AM on my own set of wheels, slipping into a vacant spot on the first level of the parking garage across the street from the courthouse. Today I have a wall charger, longer cables, a copy of JP Ahonen's Sing No Evil, all stuffed into a Savotta "assault pack" with its “Finnish Space Force” morale patch (no civilian needs an "assault" fanny pack?). Starbucks again? See if the Charles Manson clone is still pointing at things like Kim Jong Il used to do in state photos of the DPRK?
”Loneliness is the power that we possess to give or take away forever” is the unbidden lyric on the lips. 70’s UK prog rock bubbling up in a moment of predawn in 2025, Jon Anderson’s clarion call to sister bluebird and starship troopers. What am I trying to tell me?
I take the long way around from the parking garage exit stairwell, coughing loudly as I take the stairs down, as I hear voices approaching; giving indirect notice of presence. I walk by the Justice Center on the way to my large latte, words of Washington literally carved into the stone of the building, good governance and application of justice and such, framed between a naked flagpole and a security camera pod. Not quite rain on your wedding day, but feels ironic enough.
No Charlie today, but the same masked barista with the bleached curls takes my order. The same table as yesterday, people-watching. "I can see by your outfit that you are a lawyer." Never mind Laredo, this is Portland (this is madness, no that was Sparta, this is still Portland). There was the guy at the next table at lunch yesterday whose suit looked too large even for his big bones, while the dapper gent picking up his caffeine this morning is a tailored presence. Suits you fine in more ways than one: either barrister or plaintiff or defendant.
7:27 AM, the mutant hybrid line-and-mob outside the courthouse radiates Costco vibes, and once the building opens, the Tuesday queue is a more smoothly self-organizing mechanism, with a decidedly more relaxed flow towards the single metal detector (there were two in operation yesterday, yet the throughput seems about the same). A do-gooder holds the main door open for the line, at some point proclaiming “my work here is done,” and moving on. “Who was that doorman anyway,” one is tempted to ask like a Lone Ranger serial. Portlandia continues to write itself.
I see a fellow Starbucks customer from yesterday ahead of me in line, a few spots behind a figure in Bundeswehr surplus flecktarn that sticks out like the way that camouflage isn’t supposed to. The juror behind me once served on a grand jury for a month, learning first hand how many people in Portland get wasted at a party and wake up wearing literally the wrong trousers-instead of Wallace & Gromit’s robotic pants, they’re the ones with the dope in the pockets. “Yes, your honor, those aren’t my jeans.” “If the pants don’t fit, you must acquit.” The jokes write themselves.
Until you learn about the grand jury that takes on special victims cases, as in what I’ve seen on TV minus Benson, Stabler, and Tutuola. For a month. There should be hazard pay as well as counseling included with that mess. I was thinking of my “red lines” earlier in the morning, and that conversation hits the “refresh” button: harming women, kids, animals.
We’re back in the jury lounge, jockeying for spots at the long desks for access to electrical outlets, homework and work-work sprawling out, like the judicial system’s version of The Breakfast Club. The organism has again self-organized, turning the assembly room into a study hall, and if you imagine just slightly, you’ll see the jock, princess, nerd, and such among the spreadsheets and 2FA login screens.
A regurgitated memory from yesterday’s bus ride home: a passenger intently drawing parallel diagonals on sheet after sheet of printouts with a felt tip marker, studious and methodical, oblivious to the rumble and chug of the motors and gears. What am I trying to tell me?
The morning is an unexpected social blur, a coincidental confluence of personalities that are outgoing just enough to encourage each other to trade stories: time spent living in Houston, a family genealogy expedition to rural Georgia, German pop music and ways to migrate playlists from Spotify to Tidal, change management and how companies still insist on focusing on the tech to reduce headcount to only self-amputate their village knowledge and relationship ecosystems, how traumas of centuries-old conflict calcify into inescapable cultural gravity wells in the Deep South.
By the time lunch break rolls around, yesterday’s musings for Vietnamese food at Luc Lac feels like a nice idea suddenly past its sell-by. The cold, sourdough chicken and pesto sandwich from the courthouse coffee stand is much more immediate, definitely more than adequate. If I’m going to have phő or bun, I’d rather have that with Nancy, although she has band practice this evening, so perhaps tomorrow evening instead.
I call Chris the “jury wrangler.” Throughout the day he mounts the podium and greets everyone, reads out the names of folks picked to go upstairs for further processing (not his wording), and makes the other announcements that logistics and kitten herding require. “Please, take this opportunity to talk to another,” he suggests as part of the post-lunch spiel. You’ll never know whom you’ll meet: the author of the book that you’re reading, a future employer, a future spouse whilst on a murder trial jury. All true stories, killer romance and all.
I slink past Slack to see how things are going at work, prompted by the pull request notifications in my inbox. The big rollout is rolling, and the infrastructure-as-code automation that I’d built is humming along with another engineer at the console. I feel a bit like Wedge Antilles after bailing out of the trench run, but instead of a lone Luke Skywalker making the exhaust port money shot, it’s the rest of my team sans yours truly.
The person to the right of me is doing something on VSCode (PHP? Drupal? Wordpress?) while alt-tabbing to what looks like a job application. The person to my left is doing homework on carbon dating with graduate level math that makes my eyes water. I see more command line and chatbot windows on other laptops. I’m finally reading Sing No Evil.
At 2:30 PM, the jury wrangler doesn’t let the pool go home; he reads out a list of 40 names for a panel. I’m juror #37. We take the elevator to the 15th floor, line up in order, then re-order so that we can sit in a sequence in the courtroom. We then file in, all phones go dark, and when the charges are read, I realize that my red lines have one more entry, and I make that clear to the judge, prosecutor, defense attorney, defendant, and the other 39 panelists.
I won't mention any further details on the case, per the judge's instructions.
The panelists then pass the mic answering what probably is the default questionnaire: what do you do, what are your hobbies, do you have friends or relatives in law enforcement. I get to do my “cloud whisperer who talks with machines all day” schtick. There’s a lot of bachelors degree holders, a few masters, an MD, with the craftsmen and service folks being a minority. Two Blacks, one Hispanic, one Asian.
The defense attorney starts his series of genial and probing questions from juror #1… and stops after #36. He is done with his voir dire. Perhaps he senses that given the charges against his client and the red line I articulated, I may be the first in line with the nails and the hammer, impartiality be damned. It is 4:30 PM. We are sent home. The prosecution will start their voir dire tomorrow morning at 9 AM.
The machine isn’t done with the molecule.