What my day was like the day of the OJ verdict

I saw it come down live on a television in the lobby of the Circle Theater in Indianapolis

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With the flurry of reflective essays spawned by the death of OJ Simpson (Peggy Noonan’s column at the WSJ is particularly good), I thought sharing my experience of the day his verdict was read would provide some insight into various layers of cultural significance with which America was fraught at the time, some of which still loom over us.

I had recently become a regular contributor to Arts Indiana magazine. My current assignment paired me with a young photographer. The concept was a look behind the scenes at arts activity in Indianapolis. I’d made the contacts and set everything up. We lined up a day of visiting various places: a metal sculptor’s shop, the sanctuary of an old downtown church, where we interviewed a writer working on a book on sacred spaces in the city, a rehearsal of the Indianapolis Children’s Choir, the costume department of the Indiana Repertory Theater, and, to the point of this essay, a rehearsal of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra.

It was hard for me to put my stress aside that day. My beloved Doberman, Baby, had developed cancer on her wrist, and my wife and I had decided to let her go. But we agreed to wait until I got this day of shoots and interviews done. So I went about the flurry of stops and rides in between with the next day’s long trip to the vet clinic in the back of my mind.

I’d spoken with Carl, the photographer, by phone to coordinate everything, but we met in person the first time that morning.

I am not inclined to be gratuitous about mentions of race, but the fact that Carl was black is pertinent.

Also pertinent is the fact that he wasn’t shy about offering strong opinions to his new acquaintance (me).

At one point, I had a cassette playing (this was the 1990s) and the great New Orleans R&B / jazz singer Johnny Adams was performing “Good Morning Heartache,” a song usually associated with Billie Holliday. Carl asked, “Who is that mangling this song?”

I shrugged it off. We had too much to do, and I had too much on my mind.

Our last stop before we’d scheduled a lunch break was the ISO rehearsal. That went well. I got some good quotes from the conductor, and Carl got some good shots.

As we were making our way to the lobby of the Circle Theater (home of the ISO), we saw a pretty sizable crowd gathered around a television screen. It quickly occurred to us that the occasion was the verdict in the OJ murder trial.

As you might expect, there was dead silence followed by gasps and a cacophony of conversation.

As Carl and I headed to lunch, he said that, while he had no idea whether OJ was guilty or not, he felt it was best for the nation that OJ was acquitted, that it would spare the country another round of racially motivated civil unrest.

Again, I deflected to some other topic of conversation. We still had a busy afternoon ahead of us, and I didn’t need the atmosphere to be clouded by a rift between our viewpoints on that. But obviously, we couldn’t completely get it out of our minds.

After we concluded the day’s visits, we went to a sushi place on Keystone Avenue for dinner.

While partaking, Carl said, “Yeah, this was a pretty good day, but my one regret was that we didn’t include any black artists."

I said, “Well, let’s think about what we might do in that regard.”

After we left, we were headed down, I think, 56th Street, with absolutely no idea how to address Carl’s regret.

Until, that is, we came upon the Jazz Kitchen at 49th and College.

The marquee proclaimed that trombonist Slide Hampton would be performing that night. Slide is among the jazz legends who came out of the Indiana Avenue scene in the 1940s and 50s and went on to international fame. It’s a group that includes guitarist Wes Montgomery, trombonist J.J. Johnson, trumpeter Freddie Hubbard, and bassist Larry Ridley, among others.

Carl and I both started to see possibilities. We went to the club’s entrance and I connected with jazz deejay Chuck Workman, whom I’d interviewed for an earlier article on Indy’s jazz legacy. We explained what we were up to, and that we didn’t want to see the show, but just get a short interview and some photos. He had us meet him at a side door. He ushered us in and stressed that this must be handled quickly.

Slide happened to be conversing with an old friend, alto saxophonist Jimmy Coe, who, after some youthful nationwide activity, had returned to Indy and had been leading a big band for several decades.

I knew Jimmy. He had sat in at several gigs with a blues band of which I was a member. That kind of smoothed the way for a productive encounter. When I wrote up the article, I characterized Slide and Jimmy as the giant who left and the giant who stayed.

When we got back in the car, I said, “Well, Carl, do you feel like we got some black people?”

He was so ecstatic, all he could offer in response was a terse “yeah!”

I never saw Carl again. The article turned out great, including his photos. I occasionally wonder what has become of him.

OJ, as we know, had to commence with the rest of a now-ruined life.

And the next morning, I put Baby in the car for that long ride.

Modern life is. like that, isn’t it? Various claims on our attention and the attendant layers of their significance sometimes collide before us, leaving us to figure out when we’ll be able to sort them out.

The key is to bring what grace we can to such occasions.