The Odyssey (Homer, eat your heart out)

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 23^rd 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 10^th floor. So I got up to the 10^th 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 10^th 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.