Chapter 26

There was a diner, of sorts, on the first floor of the building. It served pre-packaged sandwiches and salads. There were also hot soups, Polish sausages, hot dogs, kraut and the like.

Maggie wasn't interested in the fatty foods, so she chose a bowl of mushroom soup, with lemonade, and took it to one of the small tables that were scattered around. She sat in one of two chairs at the table.

She was joined by Helen, who asked if she could sit in the other chair. Neither woman seemed to be interested in conversation. Reggie approached a few minutes later, laden down with two cardboard trays, one containing a huge Polish sausage on what looked like a tiny bun. It was covered with sauerkraut and mustard. The other held a regular hot dog on a bun, drenched with chili and sprinkled onions with cheese. He balanced those on one hand, and carried a 32 ounce soda in the other.

He set them on the table without invitation, and got a chair from another table and sat down.

"How can you eat that?" asked Helen, wrinkling her nose. "That stuff will kill you."

"Like you care," said Reggie. He used a plastic fork to worry a huge bite of the Polish sausage loose and then stuffed it, dripping kraut, into his mouth.

"That's disgusting," said Helen, looking away.

"Manf's godda eet," mumbled Reggie.

"Behave yourself!" said Maggie sternly. "You're acting like an animal."

Reggie chewed and swallowed. He looked unconcerned. "White people think blacks are animals anyway," he said. "Don't make no difference how I eat."

"Why did you sit with us, then?" asked Maggie. She actually wanted to know, to her surprise.

"If I sit alone, people will think I'm casing the joint," he said easily. "If I sit with you, they don't pay no attention to me."

"Do you really believe that?" asked Maggie, shocked.

"Sometime I'll sit alone and you just watch what happens," he said. "There will be security guards all over the place within minutes."

"That's awful," said Maggie.

Reggie looked at her. She wasn't quite what he'd expected when he'd first seen her. He'd expected her to keep her distance, and ignore him as much as possible. This was twice now that she'd seemed to actually be interested in something he said.

"I'm used to it," he said. "It's just part of being black."

"Well you're welcome to sit with us any time," said Maggie.

"I can't believe you said that," said Helen.

"What kind of stick you got up your butt?" asked Reggie. "I expected HER to be a racist, but you looked cool."

"My only objection is that the way you eat makes me ill," said Helen. "My four year old is more polite when he eats than you are."

"She's right," said Maggie, leaning toward Reggie. "You'd get a lot further with people if you were more civilized."

Reggie stared at her. She was an odd one. One minute she was friendly as could be, and the next she was calling him uncivilized. But rather than antagonize her, he let it pass.

He put a smaller bite of the chili dog in his mouth, chewed, swallowed and washed it down with some Coke. "So," he said. "How about that wild orgasm stuff, huh? I never heard no shit like that before. Is that true?"

Helen looked at him with a frown. "Why do you think we'd know something about that?" she asked.

"I don't think we're supposed to be discussing the trial," Maggie reminded them.

"You're women," said Reggie simply, ignoring Maggie's warning.

"I do not believe this," snorted Helen. "You think everybody else is racist, and in the meantime, you're sexist."

"Well," said Reggie, leaning back and taking not the least offense at being called sexist, "the way I see it, I'm a man, right? I know what a man feels. But I can't know what a woman feels, right? Cause I'm not a woman. So I didn't think there was any problem with asking a woman how a woman feels. If that makes me sexist, then I guess I'm sexist."

Down the street, at a Subway restaurant, Jane Quincy and Rick Brown sat across from each other. Rick had seen her looking around uncertainly at the front doors of the courthouse. He had recognized his opportunity to approach the MILF and took it.

"There's a Subway down there," he said, smiling.

"Oh," she said, as the attractive man approached her. "I don't need much. I guess that would be fine."

As they sat, eating, he tried to work his magic. He was affable and smiled at her. He told her a little about himself, but asked a lot more questions than she did, getting her to talk about her own life more than they talked about his.

The ice had been broken, and he moved on.

"So," he said. "This jury duty thing is a pain, huh?"

"Oh I don't know," said Jane. "I think it's kind of exciting." She frowned. "Or I did. Some of the things I've heard are making me want to throw up." She put her sandwich down and stared at it.

"Yeah, I guess so," he said. "There's some strange people in the world. That's for sure. She's guilty as sin, that one. She sits over there looking all calm and collected, but she burned that guy to death, sure as anything."

"I guess you're right," said Jane. "I don't understand how a woman could do that." She wrinkled her nose. "Burning a man to death! That's so awful!"

"I mean I get why she did it," said Rick. "A guy does something like that to her ... I guess any woman would hate a guy like that and want to kill him."

"Not me," said Jane. "I could never kill anybody."

"Well, it doesn't matter anyway. The law is the law and she did it and that's that. You know what they say. Don't do the crime if you can't do the time."

He grinned, even though there was nothing to grin about.

"You need to eat," he said. "A good looking woman like you needs to keep herself healthy for her man."

He was pleased that she blushed, instead of taking offense. He'd have to work slowly, but it was already looking like he might have a decent chance to bang her.

Danny saw some of the others going into the diner. He wasn't interested in chit chat with them. So he limped down the street to a McDonalds on the corner, where he engaged in his favorite pastime, watching people. He'd gotten into that by necessity, in Iraq. He'd had to learn to recognize the signs of the terrorist who was nervous as he prepared to negotiate an attack of some kind. His natural curiosity had helped, and he'd become somewhat of an aficionado at guessing what people were thinking about as they went about their daily business.

He'd been watching the woman during the trial. She was a good looking woman, but he ignored that. Physical beauty meant nothing. Instead he'd watched her react to the various testimony. She'd looked sad at times, and uncomfortable at others. But when that cop was on the stand, she'd just lit up. There was something going on there. The cop had testified that he'd "bumped into" her. And they'd been together again, at least once, because she'd confessed to him that she torched the poor son of a bitch in the car, too. He shuddered. He'd seen too many burned bodies. He'd heard the screams of men burning to death.

Suddenly, he wasn't all that hungry any more.

Waldo was still pouting about the fact that he hadn't been elected foreman. He needed some affirmation, though he wouldn't have thought about it that way. As they left he chose Hank as the man most likely to align with him, even though the man hadn't said a word yet in the jury room, other than to introduce himself.

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