what a rush (part two)

On Friday I could barely eat lunch. I forced down a cracker and a slice of cheese, grabbed some fizzy water to settle my churning stomach, and went to class.

The common law pair went first, and they excelled. The prosecutor barely looked at his notes. He strode back and forth across the room, holding our attention. The defense didn’t walk around the room, but his legal arguments were concise and to the point. My stomach dropped even further.

Then the judge invited me up to the podium. The class looked me expectantly, and my hands started shaking terribly. Not knowing what else to do about that, I pressed them down hard against the podium so the class wouldn’t see. I waited one long second to gather my courage. Then my friend D. smiled encouragingly at me. It was as if bell had sounded.

"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury," I began. And I was off.

When practicing my speech ahead of time, I constantly made mistakes. I found myself unable to remember the text of the statute that I was charging under. I stuttered and I stumbled. I tried to come up with little jokes, but they fell flat when spoken out loud in my empty room. I thought I’d never, ever be able make it through. "Oh well," I told myself, "you aren’t going to be a speaker-lawyer anyhow. Just get through this somehow."

Yet when was up there, something entirely unexpected happened. Out of nowhere, my Secret Lawyer Twin took charge. I felt like I was watching somebody else, somebody who was confident and well-spoken. That person didn’t stumble over a single word. She made all the little funny points I had planned but rejected, and, shock of shocks, they laughed. That person barely looked at her outline, looked the jury in the eyes, and smiled at them. Sentences were complete, not fragmented, and all legal points were hammered home.

I finished with a flourish, arguing for at least manslaughter. "If you think this man has acted merely recklessly, then you must find him guilty of manslaughter. But if you think this man has acted recklessly with extreme indifference to the value of human life, then you must find him guilty of murder!"

I won’t get the results until next week, so I can’t tell you how the class voted. I’ll consider manslaughter a victory; getting a conviction at all out of that crowd is difficult.

However, I've already won the real victory. I didn’t know I had a Secret Lawyer Twin, but I’m very, very pleased to have made her acquaintance.