“So you need a suit?” Dad asked.

  “Yeah. Or something formal. Suits suck.”

  “I know kid, I know. But it’s just one day. You can suck it up for a little while, yeah?”

  “I guess.”

  “Well, let’s go see what we can find.”

  So into the truck we went. Dad had to drive out of the small three town area we were in just to get to a store that sold formal wear in my size. It was a store filled with cheap suits that would give the appearance I needed, but had none of the frills—or comfort—of something made bespoke. I didn’t have time for that kind of thing. I needed it in the next week—which really meant today.

  The store was empty aside from us and a salesman who sat behind the checkout counter. I guessed suits weren’t the most popular things in the morning on a weekday. The salesman had on a cheap and gaudy suit to match the ones he was selling. Overall, he seemed like a sleazy guy.

  “How can I help you gentlemen?” asked the sleazy salesman.

  “Kid needs a suit,” Dad said.

  “Wedding? Funeral? Confirmation?”

  “Formal event, but none of those.”

  “Ok. So classic black? Maybe a pinstripe? Or do you think a dark blue would be better?”

  “Black, I think,” Dad said.

  “Alright. Let me measure the young man and we’ll try some on.”

  He took a tape measure from a pocket inside his suit jacket and proceeded to measure everything. It was not the sort of measuring a man would want—certainly not from a salesman. Still, I stood there and suffered as the man’s hands and tape went about their work.

  When he finished measuring me, he left to get some to try on. He returned a minute later with three suits. One was solid black, another was a shade lighter with medium gray pinstripes, and the final option was the same as the first but looked to be cut differently—a thinner collar being the biggest difference.

  “Let’s start with this one,” he said, taking the jacket off the first suit.

  I sighed and looked at Dad. His face held no sympathy. The salesman helped me put the jacket on. It was a little itchy but overall not terrible. The same couldn’t be said of the fit. I could barely raise my arms to be even with my shoulders without running the risk of ripping the jacket. I pointed this out to the salesman.

  “This is the closest to your size we have in stock,” he explained. “We can do alterations, but those take time. I’m not sure when the event you have coming up is, but it would take about two weeks to make the jacket fit better.”

  “That won’t work,” Dad confirmed.

  “There’s the other style, which might fit better,” he suggested, taking the jacket from me.

  The next one I tried was the differently-styled black suit. I put it on—with help—only to be disappointed. It pinched in weird places that made it far less comfortable than the first one had been.

  “Not this one,” I said. “It’s worse.”

  “Alright. Dad, do you want him to try the pinstriped black one?”

  “Sure,” Dad said.

  It fit about the same as the original black suit had. The cut of both was the same, so it came down to looks as to which we would get.

  “I like it,” Dad told me.

  “Better than the solid black one?” the salesman asked.

  “Definitely,” he confirmed before turning to me. “How does this one feel?”

  “About the same as the first one,” I said with a shrug. “Not super comfortable, but at least it isn’t pinching me all over.”

  “Great!” the salesman said. “Let’s try on the pants now.”

  He led me to the changing room in the back of the store. I walked inside, where I was able to put on the pants he’d hung from a hook in the back. I nearly tripped over the pants walking out of the changing room for Dad to have a look.

  “Too long,” I said.

  “Looks good, but yeah. Too long.”

  “Try these on next,” the salesman said. “I took them from another size of suit. They should fit better.”

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  I went back inside the changing room and switched one pair of pants for the other. This one was slightly tight on me. Not horribly so, but just enough to be marginally uncomfortable. The length—at least—was better.

  “Length looks good,” Dad said. “How does it feel?”

  “A little tight.”

  “Do you have something in between the two?” he asked.

  “I’ll be back with that one,” the salesman said.

  He returned a minute later with yet another pair of pants. I did the changing room switcheroo. The length was maybe a little long, but not so long it would be much of a problem. The biggest thing was that the size around my waist was much, much better.

  “How does it feel?” Dad asked.

  “Better.”

  “Length’s not too bad,” he muttered.

  “Everything good?” the salesman asked.

  “I think so. We’ll take these pants and the jacket. He’ll need a shirt for underneath and a tie, too.”

  “A tie?” I complained.

  “Yeah. It’s not a suit without a tie.”

  “Ugh. I hate ties.”

  “Who doesn’t,” Dad laughed.

  The salesman looked away so as not to get involved. I distinctly got the impression that he liked ties. He wasn’t just sleazy but a traitor to men, too!

  I went through the same song and dance with the shirt. What color? Light blue. Pinstripes? No—the suit already had them. The tie? Red with navy stripes. The only thing we hadn’t picked up were the shoes.

  That—it turned out—was next on the list. While ties were terrible—they should be burnt—shoes were worse. Well, formal shoes were worse. They never fit right. They rubbed everywhere or else my foot slipped through their grasp. At the end of the day, they were simply leather torture devices!

  Dad tried to tell me it was because they weren’t made for my foot. I countered with the truth that sneakers were the far superior option. Tastes needed to change what was formal so that it was what people actually wanted to wear. What good was tradition when everyone hated it?

  I was oh so glad when the shopping excursion was completed. I knew I would have to wear them in a couple weeks, but that would—hopefully—just be a single day of torture. There was no way I was going to put up with multiple days of something like that.

  Two weeks later, I put on my suit before dawn. Dad had to help me put the tie on. The devil insisted that it needed to be tightened down so it looked right. All it really meant was that I was getting choked while my feet were imprisoned by the shoes. It was already not looking like a fun day.

  Melissa pulled into the driveway just as the sun was peeking over the horizon. I sighed and trudged to her car. Due to my small size, I was banished to the back seat where—in addition to the choking and foot-imprisonment—I would also get car sick if I wasn’t careful.

  En route to the courthouse building where the interview would take place, Melissa went over everything I needed to be aware of. And what to expect.

  “The most important thing is to say that you aren’t going to answer the question,” she tole me. “Your right to remain silent is important. Don’t let the other lawyer intimidate you. I’ll be right by your side the entire time.”

  “Ok.”

  “So when we get there, we’ll go through security then up to the fifth floor. We’ll sit in the waiting area for a while until they call us. The room we’ll go in will have a couple of chairs and a microphone. There will be about twenty people on the other side, not including the state’s lawyer. The lawyer will introduce you, ask some baseline questions—which you can answer—then move onto the other things—which you should not. Does that make sense?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Alright, let’s practice…”

  For the rest of the car ride, she forced me to practice how to answer the questions. Namely, don’t. Well, how to say no in a legally rigorous manner. A bit of a pain, if you ask me. Eventually, she parked the car in a lot three blocks away from the courthouse.

  “Follow me,” she said. “And remember what we talked about. First, is security. Oh, and please leave your phone in the car. They’re strict about that.”

  She led the way and I walked a step behind. The city was in the midst of its morning rush hour, so the streets were filled with commuters trying to get to where they were going. As we were waiting for the little light-man to tell us to walk across the road, I began to feel the pressure of what was coming. Each crossing made my heart beat faster as nervousness finally set in.

  “It’ll be ok,” she said with a light pat of my back. “We’ll get through this and back home as quickly as we can.”

  I said nothing but continued to follow her to the courthouse. The building looked to be around ten stories tall. I could tell that it had been built a long time ago from the brutalist architecture of its design. The glass front doors looked tiny against the massive concrete building. Melissa opened the door and ushered me inside.

  The inside had little room to maneuver. Immediately upon entering, I was met with a guard station that had an x-ray machine and a metal detector. Melissa handled signing us in and getting us through security. We were handed visitor badges with clips on the back. I attached mine to the breast of my suit jacket upon her insistence.

  Then came the elevator to the fifth floor. The elevators were smaller than I thought they should be. Maybe that came with the age of the building, or maybe the government was sadistic like that. Either way, we spilled out onto the fifth floor moments later.

  Melissa led me down the narrow halls, past a court room, and through a closed, heavy door. On the other side, I got a look at the state’s attorney. He was a thin, older man who looked like he would make a terrible basketball player—even before age had shrunk him some. He directed us to a small room with chairs where we were to wait until he called us.

  I figured that call would come quickly, but it didn’t. Without my phone there to distract me, I was very bored. There wasn’t a good place to lie down—not that I would have gotten any rest. The suit was very much a cocoon. No, all I could do was sit there and wait. And wait. And wait some more.

  By the time I was so sick of waiting that I was sure the world had already come to an end, the state’s attorney came in to get us. I stood up and shuffled after him. Melissa followed close behind me. My heart was racing as I marched down the hallway. Sure, she’d told me what to expect, but that wasn’t real experience. I didn’t trust it until I saw it for myself.

  At the end of the hall was a door that I was ushered through. Inside was a large screen with a chair in front of it. In front of the chair was a table with a microphone. To the side of the table was another chair. Then, in front of the table was a gap before a sloped seating area with rows that reminded me of a college classroom.

  Looking at me from those rows were around twenty faces. They were of all ages, genders, and occupations. Most were dressed nicely, but there were others who clearly were there against their will. I didn’t blame them. I had no love for serving on a jury either—having done it once before all of the time travel stuff happened.

  “Please have a seat, Mr. Teller,” the state’s attorney said.

  I sat down on the seat behind the microphone. Melissa sat on the chair to the side of the table.

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