Greek To Me
Life, Art, and a Strategic Pause
by Michael Raysses
Since the dawn of time, man has confronted Life’s Big Questions, hereinafter referred to as LBQs. In prehistoric times, one of those LBQs was whether you were a saber-tooth tiger person or a fan of the woolly mammoth. That question evolved into the modern day cat-versus-dog-person issue. Personally, I am neither. In fact, growing up, my favorite LBQ was “What do I want to be when I grow up?”
I wanted to be a Gas Station Man. Of course, back then you didn’t have to consult your investment broker to fill your tank. But I was bamboozled by that phenomenon that says if you manifest one dominant trait as a kid then there’s only one profession for you. Because I had the “gift of gab,” I had to become a lawyer.
So I did. I practiced for a small private firm for which I did one jury trial. I was reminded of it awhile ago when I was cast as a lawyer in a TV show
We represented a woman bitten by her landlord’s dog. A sure-fire loser, her case lingered like something stuck to our collective shoe and not surprisingly, being the youngest lawyer in the office, I inherited it. And because the judge was displeased at our inability to settle the matter, he unexpectedly moved the trial date up.
With little time to prepare, I poured over the file trying to come up with something resembling a strategy. The most striking piece of evidence I found was a picture of the perpetrator, an aged Chihuahua named Waffles.
When I contacted our client, she barely remembered the case had even been filed. Possible short-term memory loss due to the trauma of the bite in question, I theorized.
The night before the trial I memorized everything about the case. I anguished over the jurors I’d chosen, feeling stupid at the thought of asking them to return a verdict against someone named Waffles.
I arranged to meet my client outside the courtroom. As sweat poured off my palms, I spotted the opposing lawyer. He looked as if he were holding a winning lottery ticket, and this case was his prize.
My client finally arrived. She was a large woman, as wide as she was tall. She was disheveled and ornery, inspiring me to want to immediately join the heating and air conditioning profession. But the gavel pounded and the trial began.
Here’s what I remember: the landlord, an elderly gentleman, testified that Waffles was twenty-two years old at the time of the alleged bite, the canine equivalent of 140 plus years. Waffles was also blind, had cancer and suffered from diseased gums. Mercifully, he had since died.
On cross-examination, though, the landlord did admit that Waffles was technically ambulatory before he died. Most importantly, he confessed that the carnivorous canine in question did have at least one tooth, so that he was physically capable of inflicting the alleged bite.
Our cause was in dire straits, though, when while being sworn in, my client raised her left hand instead of her right. Without missing a beat, the bailiff told her to raise her ‘other’ right hand. The jury loved that.
The human cube testified that the dog bite was actually a nick. No gaping wound, no pain, no suffering–just a paper cut by a blind, near-toothless mutt named for his favorite breakfast treat.
The highlight of the trial came in the closing argument, though, when I learned the value of a strategic pause.
During my closing argument, I made a dramatic sweeping gesture with my hand, unaware that as I did so, the inside of the cheap pen I was holding came out of its casing and flew across the courtroom, where it lodged in the paneling on the far wall. As it did, I saw the heads of all twelve jurors rise and fall in unison as they followed its arc. When it landed, it actually made that “boing” sound you hear in cartoons.
They gazed back at me with a communal “Did you just see what we saw?” look. All I wanted to do was laugh at how we found ourselves in this place and time, debating the merits (or lack thereof) of this case. Instead, I followed my instincts. I leaned on the railing in front of the jury box, and with great gravity I hung my head, as if pondering the magnitude of what I was about to say. Yet all I was really doing was allowing the laughter within to roll over me. As it passed, I looked straight into the eyes of every juror and asked them to find in favor of my client.
Two hours later, they returned a resounding ‘not guilty’ verdict for the defendant. Afterwards, the judge congratulated me. “Son, if I had been the jury foreman, we’d have rendered a verdict for the defendant in three minutes. You got these people to deliberate for two hours. That’s something.”
I quit being a lawyer not long after that. Time was flying by, with me feeling like I had nothing to show for its passage. And if time was going to race by, I needed to feel that I’d done something worthwhile with it.
Lately, I question whether acting still meets that standard. But when the actress playing the judge ruled in my favor I felt a rush—I just don’t know if it came from that part of me that was a lawyer or that part of me that is an actor.
On my way home from the shoot I stopped to eat at a restaurant that serves breakfast, day or night. When I asked the waitress if the restaurant had any specialties, she asked me if I liked waffles. As the image of an ancient Chihuahua came flooding in I started to answer–then I strategically paused–it would have been Greek to her.
Michael Raysses is a writer/actor/National Public Radio Commentator who lives in Los Angeles. His email address is MichaelRaysses@hotmail.com.