WEBVTT

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So now I'm going to
move into fiction.

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Since again, I continue
to write poetry,

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but in the last
seven years, I've

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written two books of
stories, and two novels.

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Yeah, it's a lot, I'm
going to slow down now.

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I'm getting tired.

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But what I thought I would
do is read a very short story

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from my latest collection,
called Signs of Devotion.

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The collection is called that,
the story itself is called "Jury

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Duty."

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And then I'll finish by reading
a few pages from the novel I

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just finished and is
hot off the computer,

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I guess is what
you'd say these days.

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So this story is "Jury
Duty," it's the first in this

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collection, Signs of Devotion.

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"Jury Duty."

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"I had spent the first part
of the summer distraught,

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writing a story about a woman I
know, a lesbian, who had a baby.

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I wanted to do the
story justice, nothing

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preachy or high toned,
just honest observation

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and discussion.

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The story was boring.

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It was boring to me
when I was writing it,

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and I assumed it would be boring
to anyone who might read it.

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Brenda and Mary were
portrayed as loving, concerned

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future parents.

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The problems of pregnancy
discussed with sympathy.

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Integrity was my byword.

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In my story Brenda was
fertilized at a medical center

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by a doctor she called
The Inseminator.

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The best scene
involved the couple

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sitting at the breakfast
table, sharing a muffin,

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telling insemination jokes.

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They weren't male
stand up comic jokes,

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like someone like Tom
Dreesen might tell,

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but a scenario involving
a series of movies

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called The Inseminator.

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Arnold Schwarzenegger would
fertilize whole cities,

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metropoli, continents.

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This was the comic relief.

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In art as in life,
accidents happen,

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and Brenda lost her baby.

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I kept hoping, as
I wrote the story,

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that I wasn't punishing her by
resolving the plot in that way.

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I went through the list of all
my friends who had miscarried,

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and felt reassured that,
at least in real life,

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justice plays no role.

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Then two things happen.

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First, my good
friend Lois told me

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that the woman on
whom I'd based Brenda

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had fallen in love with the
man who'd gotten her pregnant.

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In real life, Brenda hadn't
gone to a doctor at all.

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She'd gone to the Drake Hotel,
and when her basal temperature

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was perfectly adjusted, had
made love to her friend's friend

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Mark, a book designer.

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She's the kind of
person who cuts corners.

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Her night of
heterosexual passion

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led to Kyle who's
now almost two,

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and is said to resemble Mark
more strongly than Brenda.

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Meanwhile Mark
had begun to call.

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It was only natural that he'd
be interested in his son.

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They had dinner a few times,
and one thing led to another.

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Now Brenda is wearing makeup
again, seeing Mark regularly,

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and having very little
to do with Mary,

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the woman with whom she was
supposed to be raising Kyle.

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Lois spared no details.

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The makeup she can accept.

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After all, who doesn't
want to look nice?

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Why should women deny themselves
what's best from the past

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to make a statement
about the present that's

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finally puritanical?

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"No, the makeup is
great," Lois said.

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"Besides, even men
wear makeup these days.

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My butcher wears something
that keeps his skin looking

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tight and young.

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It's her damned shoes."

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"The shoes?"

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"She buy shoes to match
all her outfits now.

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She's a regular Imelda.

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And the hair, it's
sleek, it's contemporary,

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it could co-anchor the news
without a face to hold it up."

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"Good for her," I said, thinking
that my story was probably too

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weighty and moralistic.

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"As long as she's happy."

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"Good for Kyle that the
father's interested," Lois said.

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"Old Brenda's too ditzy to
raise that child herself."

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So it's a happy ending?

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Not really, it's a crying shame.

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Why is it that it's always
love that changes women, even

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in the highest art,
even in Jane Austen?

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Why can't it be nautical
adventure, or politics,

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or ideas?

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I was thinking this
over Monday morning

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when I arrived for jury duty.

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It was the municipal
court where I

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hoped I might get involved in
a short, interesting case that

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would yield a story.

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12 weeks on Claus
von Bülow didn't

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appeal to my immediate
sense of my future self.

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I had stories to
write, dinners to cook,

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a tennis backhand to improve.

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Give me a small murder,
an unambiguous kidnapping.

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Give me a purse thief
with musical abilities,

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or a man who pruned
his neighbor's

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tree while high on angel dust.

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Let me be out of
here by rush hour.

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I spent nearly the
entire week of jury duty

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sitting on the bench.

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Twice I was asked not to read.

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Many potential jurors
snored blissfully around me,

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none was asked not to sleep.

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The third time I began
reading, nobody bothered me.

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I was set in my ways.

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Besides, the book
was nonfiction,

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I was a serious person.

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The book's cover was navy
blue, the title was engraved.

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While sitting on the bench
waiting to be called,

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I spend part of each day
staring at a pregnant woman.

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She was small and dark,
maybe Indian or Pakistani,

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and sweated profusely.

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I wondered if she really
had to endure the week,

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or could have used her
pregnancy as an excuse.

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I wondered if she would have
liked my story about Brenda.

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I began thinking of pregnancy
itself as a form of jury duty.

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I remembered when I had my first
child, the nurse held her up

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to my face, but because
I wasn't wearing glasses,

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and was groggy from
labor, I thought

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the nurse's elbow was part of my
daughter's back, a protrusion.

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Really, it's horrible.

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She's beautiful, they assured
me, but I was overcome by fear,

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and unable to ask
what I suspected

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until a second viewing.

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At the time of my jury duty, I
was on medication for my nerves.

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I'd been having panic
attacks in unlikely places.

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One, for instance, had been in
a woman's locker room at a YMCA.

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Its origin remained a mystery.

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The others before
lecturing to my class

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on deconstruction,
while driving to work,

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while visiting my mother at
the hospital, I could explain.

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Not understanding my
latest one sent me

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straight to my physician.

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"Can you help me?" was
all I wanted to know.

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Before he answered, he made
his eyes small and meaningful,

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and told me about his own panic.

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Panic while giving a medical
paper on liver disease,

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panic at his father's funeral.

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"Did your father
have liver disease?"

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I asked.

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"A boating accident,"
he replied,

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and wrote me a prescription
for a new drug that nips panic

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in the bud.

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No more adrenaline
coursing through my system

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like a commuter train to Tokyo.

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It was his simile,
and I thanked him.

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The trial on which I actually
served as an alternate

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involved a gang
shooting in February.

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I mention the month
because crimes of passion

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seem barely plausible in winter.

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A bloodless killer, I
concluded, a sociopath.

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Even before the gun with his
fingerprints had been introduced

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and the witnesses had
given their testimony,

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my mind was made up.

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I'd rewrite the story,
Mary would kill Brenda

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for having betrayed her.

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It was plausible,
it was justice,

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it would happen in August."

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Thank you.

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[APPLAUSE]

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