by Bill Kent

I had a moment last night when I wondered if my life would go this way, or that.

Remember how we used to have these moments? Or, at least, we thought we did?

In high school, so much was about this or that girl agreeing to go out with me. Most of them didn’t, but the right one did.

Remember those tests we needed to pass in order to get into college, and have other people call us a genius? I took them all, and scored badly. But I got into a college and later, I learned the tests were biased against “over thinkers” like me. I also learned that life isn’t kind to most people who are called geniuses.

When I was younger, I hoped a regular life changing moment would happen if the next minute, hour or day, my parents would stop fighting and get along. They never did, even after they divorced.

Did you panic when you had to take your Driver License test? On the day I needed a car, my mother refused to give me the keys to her Plymouth Fury because she thought I’d track dirt into it the front seat foot well, which, for my mother, was worse than wrecking it. My father gave me his Cadillac, which was so big I couldn’t see the parallel parking cones.

I passed.

In college I thought I would sit down at the right dining hall table, get into a vibrant discussion about the Way Things Are and no longer experience intellectual doubt. Didn’t happen. Like most undergrads, I experienced some earnestly intoxicated moments, whose only change was to make me wish to never be so intoxicated again. That college course that everybody said would transform my consciousness, didn’t. I remember the professor’s jokes were good.

Most writers need a day job to support their literary ambitions. I got some. They brought me to those depths when I’d ask myself, what if, for my entire life, I NEVER do anything more than unpack books, bubble milk for cappuccino at a French cafe, saute vegetables in a restaurant kitchen, make sandwiches at a deli, sell lamps and lighting fixtures and apply industrial butter on buckets of movie theater popcorn?

Though it is said in the martial arts that the way you do one thing, is the way you do everything, after I did my one thing with writing, I wasn’t much good at anything else. For most of my life, writing has been my day, night and weekend job.

During a trip to a strange place, I wondered if this adventure might shape how I see the rest of my life and, perhaps, furnish some expertise so that when I become a REAL writer I would be known for distinctive stories about people who live in strange places, like Ernest Hemingway in the Caribbean, Damon Runyon in Manhattan, or Raymond Chandler in Los Angeles, rather than the anodyne suburban sprawl that nurtured my unremarkable life.

Nahh. After a lifetime of travel, and travel writing, I can say with certainty: no matter where you go, wherever you think you are, you’re…not. The reason it’s called fiction is that you’re SUPPOSED to make it up.

I got into the martial arts because I was certain it would change my life. I learned a lot of things that have nothing to do with fighting, or being strong, or doing a trick like breaking a board that impresses people. One bit of wisdom is that perseverance ever-so-slowly makes failure disappear. Perseverance also makes the reasons you got into something unimportant. I flunked my first black belt test and felt even worse when nobody would tell me why. Ten years later, when I was teaching the 6 a.m. morning karate classes, it didn’t matter.

One thing DID matter in my life: marrying the right person. That changed everything until–

I got a form letter telling me I had been selected for jury duty at the county courthouse. I had to call a phone number or check on a website the night before I had to show up, in order to find out if they still wanted me. If they did, I had to park in the special parking spaces, bring the form letter with me, arrive before 8 a.m. and dress respectfully. I could bring a paperback book but I had to leave my phone or any “recording device” at home.

Several years ago, before everybody had cell phones that could be used as recording devices, I was summoned to the county courthouse. I remember going into a drab room filled with other people doing their best to show the world how much they didn’t want to be there, and then being told I wasn’t needed and that I wouldn’t be needed ever again.

My wife told me that she was once summoned. She went, was not selected, but she said she found it interesting. So, this time, I decided that going down to the courthouse might not just be interesting. Might a collaboration with American jurisprudence bring something new into my life?

I spent the month thinking about what I should wear that would be respectful. I imagined myself on an interminable, nightmare trial that would never end. Might I be subjected to the rigorous, if not wholly speculative, character analysis as jury members are on that trial-fixing TV show “Bull”? Did the courthouse have a cafeteria, or would I develop a seasoned familiarity with the dreary dives I’d never visit with my wife?

Finally, with so much freezing air blowing around, would my car fail to start on the day of my summons?

At 6:30 p.m., I looked on-line, and then called the phone number: I was not among the chosen. 

And that was it for this almost 71-year-old. Three-score-and-ten years is the cut-off for jury duty. Below that Biblical terminator, you must sit quietly, listen and still yourself with the knowledge that someone’s fate in your hands. Turn 71 and I guess they think you take too many bathroom breaks, fart loudly, drool all the time or are so ugly nobody wants to look at you.

So I woke up with dogs barking and my wife downstairs in the kitchen, running the electric buzzsaw coffee grinder. One of the dogs came up and licked my face. I rolled out of bed and did some martial art stretches. I didn’t think about what I’d wear. I went to the closet and pulled out an old shirt I’d had so long I didn’t remember when I bought it. I put it on and it felt good.

I put on some old bluejeans. My socks were a bit worn but still functional. I went downstairs to a breakfast of poached egg on avocado toast and reminded myself that maybe, just maybe, I’m a very lucky guy.