Fingers crossed under oath by A. Dakala

I truly didn’t give a damn about telling the truth under oath; I raised my right hand with pride put left hand on the Bible and told God to forgive me silently as I close my eyes. I wanted to be picked as a juror as badly as I wanted to hit the lottery. I had some inside connections at the courthouse that made sure my application was put upfront. So when they sent me the letter in the mail; I said yes the day has come for my family to get Justice for my cousin Jelly. See my nickname was peanut butter and anytime you seen me, you seen jelly; peanut butter and jelly, we we’re different but one in the same. The man who murdered my cousin street name was Breadman; Street Hustler, con man, pathological liar but he also was jealous of everything Peanut Butter and Jelly did in the streets. So we set him up and planted evidence that would only make him the prime suspect.

I meant I was nervous the first day the all of the jurors had to check in at the courthouse. I prayed that if they ran a background check on me that I didn’t have any type of open warrants that resurfaced from the years of dirt that me and jelly did growing up. I didn’t care what anybody else in the room decided or did if they was chosen to be a juror, my mind was already made up that his ass would get convicted. I knew this wasn’t going to be a case of a hung jury. I was going to make sure that his ass did his time and if anybody felt like he wasn’t guilty they was going to have to deal with me. I had a back-up plan for a back-up plan that backed up my backup plan. I’ve already spotted out the weakest link in the room some dusty old ass lady hair whiter than snow looking at me from the corner of her eyes. Then there’s this white guy who wouldn’t make eye contact with me probably voted for Donald Trump acting like he was scared as hell, he had bit all of his finger nails down to the fingers.

As they passed around the questionnaire application for everyone to fill out. I raised my head and scanned around the room just to see who was really into filling out the paperwork who I need to keep my eye on. These questions would determine if you would be a good fit or not; I lied on every question that was asked even down to my ethnic group. Hell know I wasn’t just African-American today; no not today. Today I was African-American mixed with whatever the hell they wanted me to be mixed with; I was going to become a juror.

As we all got separated in groups I made sure I did not communicate with a soul in the room. I had my shirt button to the neck like a nerd, I wore reading glasses that I could barely see out of and make sure I didn’t make any eye contact with the deputy that kept peeping his peasy ass head in and out of the door checking on everyone. “Where’s Cabana Sienna?” He asked. I raise my eyebrows and look over the top of my glasses staring at the deputy and slightly raised my finger the signal that I was him. “Come with me” he said. The little dusty ass lady made some sound gesture as I walked by; I looked back at her and rolled my eyes. I wanted to pat my ass at her but she turned looked in the opposite direction.

“Cabana Sienna is everything on your application truthful to the best of your knowledge” the judge said. I had my fingers crossed as my left hand was stuffed in my front pocket; and my right hand raised. The judge gave me a stamped document and a name tag that had my name on it and I was officially Juror number 1 1 1 7.

I had made it to the final stage and considered an official juror in the murder case of De’Angelo “Jelly” Sienna.

On the first day of the murder case this will be the first time that I had seen Jelly’s murderer face to face in court. As I stared at him without blinking an eye; he notice me and in his own words silently uttered the words Butter you up next.

Lawyers for both sides presented their evidence; they either was going to spare his life or take his life and my job was to take his life by all means necessary.

Day two and day three passes with more evidence; more finger pointing and a lot more work that I needed to do. He had no alibi; there was no witnesses.

On the fourth day unexpectedly we were dismissed; there was no evidence presented this day but they did announce that they had a witness that came forward my heart dropped.

On the 5th day as all the jurors who was selected gathered together to talk about the evidence on the murder case; there were a few cops who I didn’t quite remember or recognize that was on the scene 5 years ago. Also the old Dusty lady, the silent racist white guy who couldn’t make eye contact with me and some Asian chick who didn’t have on a name tag, but had a note pad and pen in her hand were the chess pieces of the game. Maybe the Asian chick was there just taking notes or she could have been one of the jurors who knows, who cares I had a job to do; I needed to get somebody’s ass convicted of Jelly’s murder. I was nervous, I started to sweating wondering who was this witness. As I replayed that night back in my head there couldn’t have been a witness it was only me, Breadman and Jelly.

On the 6th day I was pissed because the whole room was undecided; pretty much a split down the middle of a conviction. I stood my ground and tried to convince others who didn’t want to convict, the reason why a conviction was necessary. After nearly six hours, It seemed to have worked as I had planned. Everybody talked as if a conviction was the best solution in the murder case. We were just waiting to give the judge our vote.

We could hear the Deputies walking down the hallway towards the room that we were waiting in. Then the door open an a Deputy stuck his head in the room and said “Butter, Judge Gotcha’ass needs to have a word with you immediately.”