FOREMAN (to EIGHT). How about sitting down? (EIGHT doesn’t hear him.) The gentleman at the window. (EIGHT turns, startled.)
FOREMAN. How about sitting down?
EIGHT. Oh, I’m sorry.
(He heads for a seat.)
TEN (to SIX). It’s tough to figure, isn’t it? A kid kills his father. Bing! Just like that. Well, it’s the element. They let the kids run wild. Maybe it serves ‘em right.
FOREMAN. Is everybody here?
TWELVE. The old man’s inside.
(The FOREMAN turns to the washroom just as the door opens. NINE comes out, embarrassed.)
FOREMAN. We’d like to get started.
NINE. Forgive me, gentlemen. I didn’t mean to keep you waiting.
FOREMAN. It’s all right. Find a seat.
(NINE heads for a seat and sits down. They look at the FOREMAN expectantly.)
FOREMAN. All right. Now, you gentlemen can handle this any way you want to. I mean, I’m not going to make any rules. If we want to discuss it first and then vote, that’s one way. Or we can vote right now to see how we stand.
SEVEN. Let’s vote now. Who knows, maybe we can all go home.
TEN. Yeah. Let’s see who’s where.
THREE. Right. Let’s vote now.
FOREMAN. Anybody doesn’t want to vote?
(He looks around the table. There is no answer.)
Okay, all those voting guilty raise your hands.
(Seven or eight hands go up immediately. Several others go up more slowly. Everyone looks around the table. There are two hands not raised, NINE’s and EIGHT’s. NINE’s hand goes up slowly now as the FOREMAN counts.)
FOREMAN. . . . Nine . . . ten . . . eleven . . . That’s eleven for guilty. Okay. Not guilty? (EIGHT’s hand is raised.) One. Right. Okay. Eleven to one, guilty. Now we know where we are.
THREE. Somebody’s in left field. (To EIGHT) You think he’s not guilty?
EIGHT (quietly). I don’t know.
THREE. I never saw a guiltier man in my life. You sat right in court and heard the same thing I did. The man’s a dangerous killer. You could see it.
EIGHT. He’s nineteen years old.
THREE. That’s old enough. He knifed his own father. Four inches into the chest. An innocent nineteen-year-old kid. They proved it a dozen different ways. Do you want me to list them?
EIGHT. No.
TEN (to EIGHT). Well, do you believe his story?
EIGHT. I don’t know whether I believe it or not. Maybe I don’t.
SEVEN. So what’d you vote not guilty for?
EIGHT. There were eleven votes for guilty. It’s not so easy for me to raise my hand and send a boy off to die without talking about it first.
SEVEN. Who says it’s easy for me?
EIGHT. No one.
SEVEN. What, just because I voted fast? I think the guy’s guilty. You couldn’t change my mind if you talked for a hundred years.
EIGHT. I don’t want to change your mind. I just want to talk for a while. Look, this boy’s been kicked around all his life. You know, living in a slum, his mother dead since he was nine. That’s not a very good head start. He’s a tough, angry kid. You know why slum kids get that way? Because we knock ‘em on the head once a day, every day. I think maybe we owe him a few words. That’s all.
(He looks around the table. Some of them look back coldly. Some cannot look at him. Only NINE nods slowly. TWELVE doodles steadily. FOUR begins to comb his hair.)
TEN. I don’t mind telling you this, mister. We don’t owe him a thing. He got a fair trial, didn’t he? You know what that trial cost? He’s lucky he got it. Look, we’re all grownups here. You’re not going to tell us that we’re supposed to believe him, knowing what he is. I’ve lived among ‘em all my life. You can’t believe a word they say. You know that.