smile (caught in the machinations of the state)

Last spring, April to be exact, I headed out to the TxDPS on South Gessner to get a new driver's license. My license had expired and, for complex reasons, I could not renew my license on-line, like most people do. I knew that the line at South Gessner would be very, very long, so I packed a stack of student essays and a thermos of coffee, and drove out bright and early, just as the building was opening. I waited in the line to get to the front desk, filled out paper work, sat and graded until my number was called, waited in another line to get my thumbprints and photo taken, was issued my temporary license, and was told my new license would be arriving within four to six weeks. In all, it took about 3 1/2 to 4 hours. But I left relieved, thinking that I would never have to return to the building again.

But I was wrong. Four to six weeks passed, and my license never came. Then my temporary license expired. I was suddenly a driver with no state-issued license to account for my identity. Naturally, I got in my car, and drove, without a license, back to South Gessner. I stood in line for about two hours with everyone else and, when I got up to the counter, I told the woman working that I never received my license. She looked up my case, raised her eyebrows, and disappeared. When she came back, we had this little exchange:

"Did the electricity go out the day you were here?"
"No."
"Are you sure?"
"No. I mean, it didn't go out while I was in the building . . ."
"Okay -- the day you were here, the electricity went out and our computers went down. That means that your license was never processed. Here -- let me give you another temporary license and you'll get your license in four to six weeks."
"O, well, okay . . ."

I took the temporary license and went home. Four to six weeks passed and I received nothing in the mail. I drove back to the DPS again, this time a little angry.

I stood in line and imagined the speech I was to deliver to the new woman working there: "Look," I would say, "this is my third time here. I have waited, been patient, and waited again. If I don't receive my license today," I would say, thumping on the counter for emphasis, "there are going to be hundreds of activists clamoring for a better-run, full-service, clean TxDPS outside in no time, and the media will be all over it!" This, in my imagination, would guarantee that I would leave that day with my license in hand. When I got to the counter, though, my ferocity dissolved. I felt alone and grew nervous, instead. I simply told the worker that I still hadn't received my license and, um, could she maybe help me get it?

She looked up my file and, without saying a word to me, went over and spoke to a police officer while pointing over at me. The cop nodded and came over and sat down where the worker had been, which made me very anxious. The cop looked at the computer screen (which I couldn't see) and asked me if I had recently moved. I said no. She then told me that Austin had tried to deliver my license and that it was returned by the post office. I said, "None of my other mail has been returned," which is actually a lie, because Hank and I have had several problems with the postal system since we've moved in, but that's a totally different story.

So now I'm lying to the cop, and I also realize that she thinks I am only *pretending* to not have had my license delivered, that I must be involved in a racket in which I get multiple licenses sent to my address and -- I don't know, what? sell them to underaged drinkers? The cop looks at me in the eye and, coldly, tells me I need to go have a conversation with my post office about why they are returning my mail. She starts to get up to leave.

Defeated, I almost turned around and left but, in a moment of desperation, I asked, "So, there's *nothing* I can do, here, now, after waiting all this time, to get a new license?" And she replies, "If you have ten dollars, you can apply for a re-issue for a lost license."

Why didn't she say this to begin with?

"Okay," I said, "great -- here's ten bucks," and I shoved a crumpled ten dollar bill that smelled like the floor of Lola's at her and she gave me paperwork to fill out to get a new license. I then waited, further, for my number to be called to get my photo taken.

And this is where it gets weird. When I got up to the counter to get the photo taken, the woman working (note: no men work at this DPS, that I can tell) pulled up my file, and her face turned a dark shade of red. She started wringing her hands and hissing, "God!! This isn't a re-issue! God! I hate it when people don't do their freakin' job!! Jee-zuss!!" and she disappeared. When she came back, she had more paperwork, and explained to me that this was called a "Dropped Case," and that, rather than re-issue the license, Austin had to process the license by hand, and that it was sitting in a file somewhere, along with a bunch of others that needed tending to. Um, okay . . . I signed a form and asked, "How can I be guaranteed that this will be processed? I've been coming here since April, and no one seems to know what's going on." She told me that she would personally call Austin that day and have the license produced and, in a couple of weeks, I should call her directly and ask if the work went through. She wrote down her name and number. I thanked her and left, a bit mad, but relieved that this was going to finally happen.

But, of course, it doesn't. I think this is what Marxists like to call getting caught in the machinations of the state.

Early September, I dutifully call the DPS and ask for this woman. The reply was very curt: "She don't work here no more." When I tried to explain why I was calling, I was interrupted and asked for my license number. I gave it to the woman, and she looked up my file. "There's no record of your license being sent. You have to come in and have it re-issued." As soon as I started to say, "O no, hold on, you see, I've been coming in since April? and I've been getting the run-around? and I've already been 'in' and it doesn't seem to do any good," I realized it was already too late and there was pretty much nothing at all I could do except, once more, to drive down to South Gessner and wait in line.

So, now it is the fourth time I drive down there, on to 59, South Gessner exit, past the little strip malls, the low-income housing, the school, and into the parking lot. Once again, it is an early Friday morning and I have my coffee and a copy of everything dating back to April. Once again, I stand in line for two hours, like everybody else, waiting just to get to the Information Desk. I get up to the front and explain everything all over again. Once more I am told it is a dropped case. When I ask what happened to the woman who "helped" me last time (who had given me her name and number), I was told she freaked out and quit the week I was there and left all her work undone. I was issued another temporary license and go home, fuming.

One afternoon, a couple of weeks later, I get an envelope in the mail from Austin.

It is from DPS! O, happy day!

Unfortunately, it was just a letter on baby blue paper, telling me that there was a computer error and that the processing of my license malfunctioned and, as a result, I needed to bring the letter with me back to my nearest DPS to get another one re-issued.

Great!

I chose the South Gessner office because, honestly, I was beginning to feel right at home with the grey walls, the dirty floors, the stains on the ceilings, the smell of the bathrooms that comes out into the waiting area, the screaming of children as they run past. I enjoyed the socio-economic puzzle that I pieced together about why everyone else in line was, always, a person of color and I was, each time, the only white person, and why, when white people did come in and see the line, they always, always, always, exclaimed, loudly enough for the entire line to hear: "WHAT?! O, please -- I don't have time for this," and left. I wanted to turn around and say, "Hey, listen, I've been coming since April, the line is *always* this big, the waiting room is always that crowded, and there is no "good" time to come to the DPS building. Jerks!" I felt like an expert. Well-seasoned.

So, this time, the fifth time, I get up to the counter in about an hour and a half, and show my Austin-issued letter. The woman pulls up the case. She frowns and says, "You've been waiting for this since April?" I say yes. She has me fill out the familiar re-issue forms. I sign in all the right places. I say, "You know, since this isn't really an error that *I* have made, maybe it would be okay if I don't have to wait in the waiting room?" And she is nice. And she says, "Of course," and writes "Walk Up" on the top of my form and tells me to go ahead on into the line to get the picture taken. This takes a blessedly short five minutes. But, the woman who is supposed to take my photograph is terrible. She raises her voice at me and tells me if I do not have the appropriate receipt I will have to go home and come back again. Feeling infantilized, and slightly criminalized, and trying not to cry, I pull out all of my papers that I brought with me and simply give her the stack. She fills out a form that says I do not have to pay and shoves overthing back at me. She turns to her computer and flatly commands, "Smile."

And, apparantly, I did. The license came in the mail today -- finally.

The smile is not a very happy one. I look sort of scared. In fact, it looks like I am flinching with my lips. It is an uneven smile, pulled up on my right side, just a bit. But my skin is clear, which is nice, and my hair has been freshly cut, but that smile . . . it looks like it has been waiting around since April, at least.