Sunday, September 23, 2012

National Sketch Writing Month Sketch #23

Previous Sketches


Jury Duty
by Colin Fisher

INT. HOLDING ROOM

MATT sits in one chair in a row; DEKE sits so there’s an empty chair between them.  They are both listening to RANDOM LAWYER.

RANDOM LAWYER
So that’s it.  If we need to question you about potentially sitting on a jury, we’ll call your name.  Otherwise, feel free to hang out, read, use our wi-fi, chat.  Whatever.

On “chat,” Deke perks up.  Matt sees this and cringes.  He starts rifling through his bag, putting on sunglasses, big over-the-ear headphones, and grabs a book and starts reading.  The lawyer exits.  Deke looks over at Matt, who studiously ignores him.  Deke looks around aimlessly, looks at Matt.  Hopes Matt will look over at him, but it doesn’t happen.  Looks away again.  Looks at Matt for much longer, to no avail.  Finally looks away.  Matt glances quickly at him, at which point Deke whips his head around, smiling, and says

DEKE
Hey neighbor!

Matt’s too polite to ignore direct address.

MATT
Hey.

DEKE
What’s your book about?

MATT
It’s this sci-fi/fantasy hybrid about these monks, and they study math, and one of them seems to know something about an object in space.  I haven’t figured that part out yet.

DEKE
Sci-fi?  Like Transformers?  Cool!

MATT
No, not--

DEKE
I’m Deke!

MATT
I’m Matt.  I’m actually on a really good chapter so--

DEKE
Have you done this before?

MATT
No.

DEKE
Me neither.  Wonder if I’ll get to convict a murderer or something?  That’d be fun.  I’ve never met a murderer before.  Or maybe I have!  Maybe it would turn out to be someone I knew, and I’d be on the jury and I’d be all “That’s Kevin, I never knew he had it in his heart to murder but here I am convicting him,” and I’d explain to the other jury members how Kevin was a nice guy but you can never really know someone so let’s tell the judge he’s guilty, and then I’d have to explain to Kevin’s mom.  That would be sad.

MATT
I don’t think any of it works like that.  At all.

DEKE
Oh.  Oh well.  Did you take the bus down here?  I did and this lady was telling me that Obama was going to cancel that bus service which I didn’t know until today, so maybe I’m going to vote for Mitch Romney now instead.

MATT
It’s Mitt.

DEKE
I thought you said Matt?  I’m sorry.  Hi Mitt!  Cool name!

MATT
No.  No, I’m Matt.  But the Republican nominee is MITT Romney.

DEKE
Oh really?  So he’s got a cool name AND he’s not going to cancel my bus service.  Double votes to Mitt.  I wonder if his dad liked baseball.  Who are you voting for?

MATT
Oh, I’d really rather not talk about politics.

DEKE
Are you one of those uninformed voters?  I never did understand that.  It’s like, if you don’t have any information, why are you voting?  Do you think they’re just picking whoever has the shortest name or something?  That’d be good for Al Cho.  There’s probably an Al Cho running for something somewhere.  And he’ll win too, because all these uninformed voters are like “oh I’m so busy, I can’t read all these long names, I’ll just vote for Al Cho!”

MATT
That is definitely not happening anywhere.  No, I just don’t think it’s polite to talk about politics.  It’s kind of a big social rule.

DEKE
Oh.

Long pause.

DEKE
Where do you go to church?  I go to this really nice little one in my neighborhood.  It’s all in Spanish but I figure as long as I’m showing up somewhere God’s probably happy about it.

MATT
I really don’t think we need to talk about that either.

DEKE
Well come on, if we can’t talk about politics we have to talk about church!  

MATT
I just...I don’t go to church.

DEKE
Oh, is there not one in your neighborhood?  You should come to mine sometime.  There’s a lot of candles.

MATT
I don’t believe in any of that stuff, OK?
DEKE
You mean you’re Jewish?

MATT
No!  I’m an atheist.

DEKE
Is that, like, a European thing, or...?

MATT
It means I don’t believe in god.  I don’t think there’s anything out there that shows us there’s a god.

DEKE
Oh, you’re one of those people!  Cool!  I’ve never met one of you either!  I met an atheist and I’ll probably meet a murderer later, all in the same day!

MATT
Look, I really don’t want to talk about this.  Give me 30 minutes to read and then I promise I’ll talk to you for...five minutes.  OK?

DEKE
Deal neighbor!

MATT
Great.  See you in 30.

DEKE
OK!

Deke pulls a copy of James Joyce’s Ulysses out of his bag.  He opens to a point pretty far in the book and starts laughing hysterically.

END

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