The Juror by George Dawes Green Read Free Book Online Page A

it to me.”
    “A boyfriend?”
    “None of your business. He
wants
to be my boyfriend. And the skull wasn’t a bad idea. Better than flowers anyway.”
    “So do you like him?”
    “You’re an incredibly nosy creep.”
    “Yeah. I am.” He works the hinge of the skull’s jaw and makes the sound of a creaking door. “Yah—ah—ahh. So do you like him
     or not?”
    “How can I like him? He’s a neurosurgery resident. Do you know how incredibly boring neurosurgery residents are?”
    “Uh-uh.”
    “If you have two hours to live, spend it with a neurosurgery resident, it’ll seem like two years. You can keep the skull,
     if you promise not to take it to school or anything. I don’t think it’s legal to own them.”
    “Wow. Thanks.”
    Juliet steps around to the corner of the house and fetches her bike from where she’s hidden it. She says, “Yeah, well, I thought
     your warped little brain would enjoy that.” Again she asks Mom, “So what’s this news?”
    Oliver jumps in. “She got three red spots.”
    Juliet doesn’t get it.
    “That’s it, that’s true,” says Mom. “Three red spots.”
    “And she’s got more coming,” says Oliver.
    Juliet, palms upward: “You have measles?”
    Both Oliver and Mom grinning. The skull also enjoying this. Then Mom makes her announcement. “I sold three pieces.”
    Juliet’s jaw drops. “
Annie
.”
    “To a very influential collector. Who has visions of…” She waggles her fingers. She can’t find the word. “God,
superstardom
for me.”
    Juliet, her mouth wide open, lets fly a shriek. “
Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
”
    “Ssshhhh!” says Mom.
    “
Annie!
”
    Mom’s got one hand on her hip, and she sashays that hip. “Twelve thousand dollars
in my pocket
.”
    “ANNIE!”
    Juliet jumps up and down in place. Hops close to Mom and grabs her cheeks in her big hands and smushes them together so Mom’s
     lips push out like a fish.
    “ANNIE! THAT IS SO… FUCKING… UNBELIEVABLY….”
    “Shh!” says Mom.
    Mom puts both her hands up for a high-ten slap. Juliet pounds at them with her fists. So excited she doesn’t know what she’s
     doing. Mom, laughing, grabs her wrists to restrain her, but Juliet pulls her arms free and then scoops Mom into an embrace. Pummels
     her back. So much taller than Mom, she’s draped over her, banging away at her back and then quitting that and squeezing her.
     She winks at Oliver and stretches out her long long arm like a tentacle, and takes his neck and starts strangling him, forgetting
     that she’s already killed him today.

    T HE TEACHER sits half-lotus in his old one-room schoolhouse. He fixes on the representation of
salagramas
that he’s painted on the shining wood floor.
    The pyramid of red disks.
    He draws a breath.
Puraka
.
    His breath runs down the spiral corridor of his spine, down along the road that Black Elk called the red road, down to the
     dark pond and the spreading white cypress tree.
    Rechaka
. The breath is released.
    He draws another breath.
Puraka
.
    One of the red disks begins to float in front of him. A crimson globe, as light and small as a thistle, and inside of this
     globe is his father. His father is drunk. He’s sprawled on the rug in what they called the “wreck-room,” in the basement of
     the house in Bay Ridge. He’s singing the “Cinta di Fiori” by Bellini. In his lyric baritone, with white spittle at the corners
     of his lips.
    The Teacher breathes out.
Rechaka
. The globe wobbles, floats off.
    Another globe comes floating by. He looks in.
    He sees himself in the kitchen of that Bay Ridge house. Havoc of heaped plates, moldy food. He spreads mustard on a slice
     of Sunbeam Round Bread. In the fridge he finds some old salami. He tears away the edge that’s going bad—the warped rind. When
     he turns, he notices that a roach has crawled onto the bread and is hip-deep in mustard. He moves his hand slowly till it
     hovers above the roach. Then he snaps his wrist and snatches