Through the Plexiglass

My drivers license is about to expire, and I am trying not to dwell on my recent decision to cut bangs. For the first time in two decades, I have to renew my license in-person. I pull into the Department of Motor Vehicles, I park my car and assemble the papers that sit on the passenger seat. I am optimistic and photo ready. I go inside and get in line. I am here, I tell the clerk at the check-in desk, to get a Real ID.

Due to a catchy push for drivers to “Skip the Trip” and renew their licenses online, my current license photo is almost twenty-two years old. In that time, I have moved out of New Jersey and back again. I’ve had three children; I’ve sent two to college. But now there is a looming federal deadline for travelers to have a Real ID–a different type of license–which requires a more rigorous background check. And a new photo.

The state website has a complicated flow chart, assigning each personal document a specific number of points. An unexpired passport, for example, is worth four points. A utility bill, one point. Some documents have to prove identity, some have to prove a residential address. There’s a formula to the requirements and too many of one type of document will not work. Before my appointment, I sift through my file cabinets at home and run my finger down the computer screen, ticking the math in my head. I do my hair and make-up. I wrap a scarf around my neck to cover a softening chin. If I keep this photo for another twenty-two years I’ll be in my seventies; it’s hard not to be a little vain.

Right away, I hit a snafu. I’d never officially switched my last name on my social security card when I got married. Now, twenty-four years after the wedding, the state of New Jersey no longer allows my birth certificate and marriage license to tell the story.

“You have to go to Social Security,” the manager at the DMV tells me. Because I am a white, suburban woman of a certain age, I want to tell you that I did not ask to speak to a manager. The agent at Window Eleven called her over for me.

“Go now. Get this resolved and come back,” the manager says. “Your name will be updated in the system in twenty-four hours.”

I’m about to leave when she adds, “But, listen, we only work eight hours a day. So, that’s three days.”

I nod as she speaks, as if any of this makes sense, and I do as I’m told.

*

On my second visit to the DMV, I have my bangs pinned back and my hair in a ponytail. In the parking lot, I do a quick swipe of lipstick. I have my documents still clipped together from my first visit. I fix my collar as I walk in and assess the line. I check-in, take my seat, follow directions.

One of the funny things about Motor Vehicles is that once you are called to a window, that becomes your window until your situation is resolved. Or in perpetuity. Whichever comes first. Window Eleven is my window.

As I wait, I listen to snippets of conversation of people cycling through the agency. Expired licenses. Lost licenses. Revoked licenses. Dog-chewed licenses. I watch as most patrons leave successfully. My favorite are the teenagers, one after the other, triumphantly waving the paper that says they passed their road test. They giggle over their new photos. I envy their confidence. The feeling that the world is in their control, while their parents stand beside them, knowing better–clinging and smiling nervously.

The televisions mounted to the ceilings in the waiting area play a pre-recorded news loop. There’s passing mention of an active shooter still at-large in Maine. I search the internet for updates, but information is sparse. When I google How to style bangs, on the other hand, there are pages and pages of instructional videos.

Window Eleven calls my number. She holds out her hand. I slide my pile of papers through the opening in the plexiglass, and watch her sift through my information as her fingers click across her keyboard. Her silence is making me sweat. While I wait, the man next to me is getting his picture taken. He asks the agent at Window 10 if his hair looks okay. She tells him he looks great. He flirts a bit, saying, “You’re paid to say that.”

Window Eleven speaks, without looking away from her computer screen, “Did you change your name recently?”

I want her to recognize me, want some semblance of connection. Instead I just answer, “Yes.”

“When?”

“Four days ago.”

“It’s not updated.”

I want to point out that I’ve followed instructions. That it’s been over twenty-four-hours. More than three eight-hour workdays. She spins the monitor to face me. “See that big red line?” Tapping her fingernail on the screen, she says, “There is nothing I can do until that goes away. You gotta go back to social security.”

*

On my third visit to the DMV, I am back at Window Eleven. I am mid-sentence when the agent holds her index finger in the air, her closed palm facing me, giving the universal sign for Wait.

“The computers are down,” she says. “Nothing I can do right now.” For the first time, I think I see her smile.

“Does this happen a lot?”

“It happens.” She spins her chair so her back is to me, as if I can’t still see her through the hazy plexiglass. I overhear her coworker say that the entire system is down, “All of New Jersey.”

I have questions, but I know that the DMV does not answer questions; it speaks in riddles. The chairs, which are placed on duct-taped squares spaced six feet apart, are filling with bodies. The room is warming with the breath of disgruntled humanity. I take a seat as close to Window Eleven as possible and open my book.

I text my husband, Do you think it’s a cyber attack? I google DMV computers down and find nothing. There are dozens of conversations happening around me at once, but no one is talking about the computers.

I’m still not completely sure what a Real ID is, or what makes it more real than, say, the stack of identifying documents I clutch less optimistically at each DMV visit: my birth certificate, social security card, current license, current passport, marriage license, insurance card, and utility bill. These all feel real. But real, it seems, is subjective.

I search How long is a license photo good for in NJ? and I’m directed to the DMV website which urges me to Skip the Trip.

An hour later, the computers are working again. Eventually, I’m called to Window Eleven. And, eventually, I leave the DMV unsuccessful once again for reasons I don’t fully understand.

I’m tempted to tell you that going to the DMV is a metaphor for being a woman of a certain age. Frustrated, invisible, a little confused. Fatigued by the news loop. Disoriented by a shifting body, a shifting identity, and a shifting reality that, it seems, everyone around her accepts as normal.

But, the DMV is not a metaphor. It’s just a squat building set off of a jug-handle on a New Jersey thoroughfare, set between a near-empty shopping mall, a Chick-Fil-A and a Home Depot. Nothing more than a government agency with long lines and unpredictable outcomes.

*

On my fourth trip to the DMV, I know the routine. I know that I’ll stand in one line to check-in, then be corralled toward a bank of Formica desks with stacks of applications. I know that, as I fill out an application for the fourth time in eight days, an employee will yell the same message over and over: “Write neatly!” and “All letters must be inside the boxes!” I know that, when I get to the front of that line, that same employee will glance at my application and run down a checklist of items I should have.

I’ll say yes to all of her questions, follow all instructions, but I know that doesn’t mean I’ll have what I really need.

I know at the next window, I’ll tell a representative why I’ve come and they’ll paperclip my documents into neat, but seemingly arbitrary piles and assign me a number. I know I’ll find a chair and try to read. I know that today’s newsreel won’t mention the Maine shootings. The lockdown ended four days ago, which in the collective consciousness is a lifetime.

I know I’ll wait to be called to Window Eleven, where I will meet the blonde representative, and one of us will act as if this is our first meeting. I know that I will feel like I’ve entered another world.

On my fourth visit to the DMV, I get my license. Kinda. With the same documents, the same name, and the same agent at Window Eleven—but without any acknowledgment that I’ve been here before—I’m told to take off my glasses, to look at the green dot on the camera, and “Don’t show your teeth if you smile.” I get my picture taken. My hair is back, my face is exposed, my eyes are unfocused and a little uneven, which happens when I’m tired or worried. It’s real, I’ll give it that much.

Window Eleven asks if I like my picture, but the monitor closest to me isn’t working and I have to squint to see through the plexiglass. I say, “It’s fine.” I’m eager to be finished. “Hopefully I won’t be showing too many people my license, right?”

She laughs. And, for a moment, I feel triumphant. Then, she hands me an unofficial-looking piece of paper. A temporary license.

My Real ID, Window Eleven tells me, will take a little more time. It will come in the mail in seven to ten business days.

-Jennifer Gallo Gaites

Jennifer Gallo Gaites is a writing instructor at Project Write Now, a nonprofit writing center, and a Peer Artist Leader at book inc (bookinc.org), a writing collective for memoir and novel writers. She is working on a novel and writes essays about identity and motherhood. Her work has been published in Riverteeth’s “Beautiful Things,” WOW Women on Writing, Hippocampus and Literary Mama. She lives in New Jersey with her husband and three children.