facing the consequences

im wanted by the law.

they sent me a letter. it was official, the kind that comes folded into itself, with perforations along the edges that you must tear off in order to open and read. there was no signature or greeting. there was no salutation either. there were just instructions in big red letters explaining that they were at the end of their rope and that i must report to the courthouse within a particular time frame. they said it was urgent. mandatory. that their would be consequences if i didnt comply.

see, i missed jury duty. a few times.

the thing is, they send a letter to report for jury duty a month before youre supposed to be there. the letter gets lost in the piles of other letters i ignore. then it gets recycled with all the junk, all the bills and catalogs and take out menus and solicitations, that sit on the dresser near the door. so i read the letter, i consider it for a second, then i throw it in a pile and forget it ever came.

then the date comes and goes and i dont even recognize it. this happened twice. or maybe three times, im not sure.

the letters, as far as i know, are at the bottom of a bag that is filled with other letters. and the bag is at the bottom of a bin filled with other bags that are filled with other letters. possibly, by now, these bags are now at the bottom of a pile, crushed beneath a thousand other bags filled with other letters, waiting to be sorted and processed and used again for more letters or more bags. this is somewhere far from park slope. possibly a landfill or dump site in long island. im not sure. im not an expert on these things.

the letter with the big red font does not say what the consequences will be were i to miss this date at the courthouse. it could be a fine. it could be jail time. it could be community service. picking up trash along the highway for 8 hours a day, every weekend for three to six months. wearing an orange jumpsuit. maneuvering a long rod with a sharp point at the tip along the busy expressway, stabbing at discarded fast food wrappers and ripped up cardboard ends and empty soda cans. same ol thing every weekend the entire summer.

so today i will go to the courthouse. there is no way out of it this time. cant recycle this letter. cant miss this show.

im not sure what will happen there. its not your usual jury duty date. they told me to be there in between the hours of 9am and 4pm. i have a feeling i will be sitting in a waiting room for a few hours, waiting for my scolding. there will be others there. law breakers that also ignored their jury duty letters. they will be annoyed, silent. pissed off they had to take a day from work.

ill bring some school work with me. my ipod. a book. ill try to keep myself busy, i have a lot of work to get done. it shouldnt be hard.