On Tuesday, June 25, I left the DMV without a driver license
yet again. That disappointment
balanced out Monday,
a day of joy. The check I’d been waiting for to cover my summer expenses
finally came and my driver license
abstract arrived from California about three weeks early. GO CALI!!! I also
developed an abscess near that tooth that had needed to come out for so long
but that was fine. Now I had the
money to fix it. That was
Monday. On Tuesday I decided to
start with the DMV then go to the dentist.
At the DMV I waited in a longish line before finally
arriving at Window 5 and gleefully whipping out my driver abstract along with
the other sixty million forms of identification I had gathered. The clerk started to look through my
documents: “Certificate of Naturalization, check, license abstract, check,
social security card, che . . . hey, wait a minute, your names don’t match,”
she said. My social security card still had my married name on it.
“I know,” I replied. “I’m also doing a name change. See?” I pointed to my certificate of
naturalization, my actual proof of birth as a citizen in this country, the
document that should trump all documents, and it had my maiden name on it. Then I whipped out a copy of the
divorce decree that gave me back my maiden name. She flipped through the pages. “This isn’t an
original.”
“I know . . . I can’t find the original,” I sighed, but I do
have the original property settlement document and, see, they’re filed on the
same day, by the same judge . . .” She was shaking her head.
"We can’t use
this.” My shoulders slumped. “If your social security card matched
your certificate of naturalization we could do it.”
Aha! I thought.
I had seen a sign for the Social Security Administration Office right
next door. This could be
done.
“So, I go next door?” I asked the clerk hopefully.
“No,” she answered, “they’ve moved down town,” and she pulled out a map. My
shoulders slumped further. But,
wait, the address was not difficult to get to. Fine. I would go to the Social Security Office and get a card in
my own name. I gathered up the
sixty million pieces of identification I had lain out on the counter and
marched resolutely out the door.
I am Zulu (well, Ndebele, really, but . . . details) and we
are a tenacious people. We did let
the Brits and the Afrikaners walk all over us for a while (mainly because we
are also an essentially polite people) but eventually they all discovered just
how tenacious we are (Amandla!). I
would not be deterred.
I slapped
on my sunhat (did I mention that it was noontime and sizzling?) and walked the
half block to the subway station.
I took the 4 train going down town. I got off at Fulton Street and three blocks later I found
William Street and the Social Security Administration office. Inside the building, the sweetest man
ever told me which floor to go to and I got on the elevator. I couldn’t believe this. I still had to go to the dentist.
A security guard at the doorway to the waiting room handed
me a number and a form to fill out.
They wanted my mother’s full name and both of my parents’ social
security numbers. I called my mom who enjoyed a hearty laugh at my ridiculous tale
of woe. She was still chortling
when my number was called over the intercom. I approached window 25 and went
through the now ritualistic process of laying my identity out on the counter.
The young woman at the window looked at my documents.
“Your social doesn’t match your certificate of
naturalization,” she said. I let
the crickets chirp for a moment and then said, “Yes. I’m here to fix that,” and whipped out the divorce
papers. “This isn’t an original,”
she said.” That again. But I had a
certificate of naturalization in my name issued by the USCIS – another federal
agency. How could that not mean anything?
She looked at the documents again. “Do you have a passport?” I’ll admit it.
I started to cry. That
question is pretty much guaranteed to reduce me to tears. I am still very, very angry about how
my passport got disappeared and I think I will be angry about it until I get it
replaced. I explained to the clerk
what happened. She nodded and then
started typing something. I wiped
away tears and apologized and explained some more. Soon she handed me a printout. “Please verify the information here,” she said. She was
going to do the change!
I started to read through the document. My name was spelled correctly, my date of birth was fine,
but for sex it said: “M”. “Oh!” I
giggled to the clerk, not wanting her to feel bad about her mistake, “I’m
actually a girl!” I grinned broadly. She looked at the paper and then said,
“Well, that’s how your record comes up in the system.” The crickets chirped
again.
“What?!”
“It must be a typo,” she said nonchalantly and I thought, "I am a man?"
The last time I had made any changes to my Social Security
card was when I made that regretful decision about twelve years ago to go ahead
and hyphenate my last name. That
meant that I had been a man for at least 12 years if not more. With nothing to show for it! That’s what made me mad. Where were my privileges?! And my penis?! The clerk was speaking.
“Normally,” she said, it would take us two weeks to issue
you a new card but now it is going to take us four weeks to verify your
information.” Oh, I couldn’t.
Seriously. Another four weeks? Was
I really going to wait another four weeks to get a driver license? I had been
trying to get one for about a month-and –a-half and now I was being told that
it would take another month? And I still had to go to the dentist.
I handed the forms back to the clerk and was resigning myself
to another long wait when I remembered: The divorce papers. I could still get
an original copy of my divorce judgment. So resolved, I took a quick trip to
the bathroom before heading to the dentist. I was on the six train heading up to 23rd street
when I realized that I had left my sunhat in the bathroom.
In my state of relative penury my best choice for a dentist
was a student. I opted for NYU
Dental School because I figured that, being close-ish to the Village, they
would be less likely to be judgmental and arrogant. I had lived through a
rather unpleasant experience at another dental school way uptown (which was an
underlying reason for why it had taken me so long to get this tooth taken care
of). I was right. Student Doctor Sharma was amazing. A quick x-ray
confirmed that the tooth had to be extracted immediately. He gave me an appointment for 9am the
next day. I went home.
The next morning, I arrived on time, and, soon after signing
in, I met Student Doctor Manny. He
would be performing the extraction. He, too, was super friendly and stayed with
me through the administrative process. After filling out the forms telling me that I could be maimed for life, he sat me in the chair and got to
work.
First he numbed me really, really well. Then he picked up a
medieval-looking instrument and grasped my tooth with it. Or something. I
really couldn’t tell. All I knew was that it felt as though he might pull my
entire maxilla apart. But I liked Student Doctor Manny and trusted him, so I
closed my eyes and focused on my breathing. Ujjayi!
After a while of tugging,
Dr. Manny said, “I think I should get some help.”
“Ooohhhayy” I mumbled, praising him for his wisdom and
wishing that I had wimped out and gotten the gas after all.
Student Doctor Manny brought reinforcements. I can’t lie. I
felt relieved to see the shock of white hair and the crinkly bespectacled face
of the supervising dental surgeon. He looked (and behaved) like he had been at this
for quite a while. It took forty-five minutes of very determined tugging
before the tooth finally gave up its perch. Dr. Spectacles put in two stitches
and stuck some gauze between my teeth to help stop the bleeding. Student Doctor
Manny stayed with me as I recovered and we chatted a bit (I figured out the
mumble around the gauze thing and he somehow deciphered my muttering). Despite
everything, it was the best trip to the dentist that I can remember, quite
frankly. I didn’t want to leave. But I had to. I was determined: I would be a
licensed New York State driver by the end of the day.
I took a swing by the Social Security Administration office
where I retrieved my hat, hoping I wasn’t drooling while I got the sweetest
greeting from the desk guard in the lobby. Then I headed for Newark via New Jersey
Transit at Penn Station. At the Essex County Family Court building I entered
what surely is a maze designed to experiment on the people who go there.
First I was directed to room 111 but I noticed a sign there
saying that documents could be obtained on the 10th floor. So I got
up to the 10th floor where I was given a form to fill out. After
that I was sent back down to room 111 to pay for the documents. Then, with the
receipt in hand, I was sent back up to the 10th floor to retrieve
the documents. Really. The clerk handed me the new originals and I flipped to
the back page with the seal and stamp on it.
On the day I got divorced, my attorney stood before the
judge and read my social security number out to everyone in the court room and
onto the record. The judge was as exasperated as I was. He admonished my
attorney and ordered my social to be redacted. My original copy of the judgment
indeed had my social quite blacked out.
Unfortunately, the judge’s copy, which the clerks in room
1068 used to create another original, only had my social scribbled out. Anyone
could still read it. I asked the clerk at the window whether I could get it
properly redacted. “You’ll have to
file a motion,” she said.
Crickets. This
was now much too familiar.
“What?” I asked,
allowing the full measure of my incredulity to show as much as it could, considering that half of my face was still quite numb.
“Yes,” she said, “You’ll have to file a motion to amend the
document.”
“But I’m not amending the document.”
“You’re making a change to the document. You’re amending it.” Kafka, I thought,
would be proud.
And then I thought, fine. This Zulu is ready. “How do I file
a motion?” I asked. The clerk handed me a packet. I glanced at the top page. $30.00. I looked at the clerk. I was starting
not to care anymore, which isn’t good.
“Seriously,” I said, “I’m going to have to pay $30.00 so
someone can use a marker to black out
. . . you can see that the judge intended . . . where’s the judge?” He had
retired. Whatever. I would find
another judge. I stood there, contemplating how to storm this Bastille, when the clerk said,
“Ok. I’ll ask my supervisor.” Some murmuring behind the door ensued
and soon the clerk was back. Then another woman appeared at the door with the
documents. “We blacked it out.” She said. I called her an angel and meant it. Did everything
have to be so hard?
Documents in hand, I got back on the train to New York City then took the subway uptown then switched to the bus to get to the DMV. At the
DMV I waited in an hour-long line before arriving (again!) at window 5. I whipped
out documents. I (in my mind) dared the clerk to tell me something was wrong.
“Your social and your diver license abstract don’t match,”
she said. “AHAAAA!” I crowed in my
head as I pulled the original divorce document from the pile. “See!” I said and turned to the last
page. There was the seal and there
were the judge’s words giving me back my name. “Hmmm,” she said.
What HMMM!!! HMMM???? There
is no HMMMM! She started counting.
Each document counts for a certain number of points. The certificate of naturalization
counts both for points and for proof of birth (since me standing there in front
of the window isn’t sufficient . . . but, hey). After a few minutes of counting
and recounting she finally said, “Ok.
I think this will work.” I refrained from weeping and shouting glory
hallelujah – but just barely. She
told me to stand in front of the camera.
Thankfully the lidocaine from the extraction had worn off by this time. Still, I know I must look like hell in the picture but I don’t mind. It is an accurate depiction of what I
endured to get my license.
After I signed the signature card, the clerk put all my
paperwork together and gave me a number.
I sat down to wait. Another
twenty minutes and I was called up to window 15 where I met Ms. Hung. “Your
documents don’t match,” she said. If I didn’t like her droll manner (which I just
knew hid a wicked sense of humor) I might have considered climbing over the
counter and snatching her bald. Again I went through the dance of explaining.
“Well, we have to issue you the driver license in this name,” and she pointed
to the name on my California driver license abstract. “But I’m trying to get rid of that name!” I wailed. She looked at me as though I were a
petulant child. “And then,” she said, peering at me over her glasses, “we will do
the name change and issue you another license in the other name.”
You know what? I’m happy with the result. Never mind the utter silliness of it
all. In two weeks, I will, once
again, have a state-issued photo ID with my very own name on it. And, two weeks
after that, I will be a woman again. Now I have to register the camper. Have mercy.
