DMV, page 6
In a thousand different ways, the loss of his father was brought home to him and impacted his life and made Danny realize just how much he not only missed his dad but relied on him.
He had still not gone back to take his driver’s test and was not sure when he would be able to do so. It would definitely be more convenient for his mom if he were able to drive and help out a little more, but he was afraid to ask her to take him to the DMV, and she hadn’t brought it up herself, so for the time being, things remained as they were.
He’d actually had a nightmare about the DMV, a nightmare whose premise continued to haunt him through his waking hours. In the dream, he had been at the counter, watching the old man sort through his paperwork. “People have to sacrifice for the opportunity to have a driver’s license,” the clerk told him. “You have to sacrifice.” And in the omnipotent manner of dreams, he had seen his father die, falling lifeless to the kitchen floor while pouring himself a cup of coffee, as Jill stood there screaming.
What he was unable to get out of his head was the timing. Because his dad probably had had his heart attack at about the same time Danny was talking to the clerk. He’d gone over it all a million times in his head. Jill had not called his mom until after she had dialed 911 and told everything to a dispatcher. Before that, she had been in her bedroom, texting with her friend Kerry, and by the time she had gone out to the kitchen to get a bottled water, their dad was already crumpled on the floor, dead. She hadn’t seen him collapse, as in his dream, and because of that, it seemed far more likely to Danny that his dad had died at about the same time he’d been inside the DMV.
Sacrifice
It made no logical sense, but the thought was embedded in his brain nonetheless, and even though he knew it was stupid, Danny felt guilty, as though he had caused his dad’s death, as though that was the sacrifice required in order for him to obtain his driver’s license.
Which he didn’t even have yet.
And maybe didn’t want anymore.
After all, it was better for the environment if he used public transportation, and services like Lyft and Uber meant that he didn’t need to drive himself if he wanted to go somewhere.
But if he didn’t get a driver’s license, did that mean his dad had died in vain?
Sacrifice
Intellectually, Danny knew this was all just a coincidence, but emotionally it didn’t feel that way, and it made his dad’s heart attack seem not just a random natural occurrence but a purposeful result of his attempt to take the driving test. Of course, if that was the case, his parents’ licenses must have been bought with some type of personal sacrifice. And he was pretty sure nothing like that had happened.
Before and After.
The world had changed, and Danny would give anything to have his life go back to the way it had been, but there was no way that was going to happen. He was stuck here in this new confusing, chaotic existence, with these dark crazy thoughts. Irrationality might be his new normal, and if he was going to get through it, he would just have to adapt.
But nothing was ever going to be the same.
SIX
The library was still down three full-time employees, which put pressure on the rest of them to take up the slack. Rosita’s hours had been shifted, and while she was happy she no longer had to work until nine on Monday and Wednesday nights, those hours had been moved to Saturday, which meant that she was now working six days a week.
For some reason, she discovered, more homeless people hung out in the library on Saturday than on weekdays. There were also far more kids. The library in general was a lot more crowded, and she spent much of her morning acting as traffic cop rather than assisting people at the Reference desk, her preferred activity.
Later in her shift, after a short lunch break, just after she’d finally gotten herself ensconced at the Reference desk, Brenda Kim, one of their high school volunteers, walked up and said, “Ms. Hamel told me to come over and get you. She said she needs help with someone renewing their library card.”
Sighing, Rosita walked over to Circulation. John Moore, who was in charge of card issues and renewals, was at lunch, and Grace Hamel, a part-time aide who usually worked in the Children’s Room, had been temporarily assigned to take over for him. Grace was seated on the opposite side of the counter from a heavyset middle-aged man with a ponytail and a graying soul patch, looking at her computer.
Rosita moved next to the aide. “What seems to be the problem?”
Grace pointed to the screen in front of her. “It says here that in order to renew a card, a patron must show two valid forms of ID.”
“Which I did,” the man interrupted. “What’s the problem?”
Grace ignored him. “The problem,” she said to Rosita, “is this driver’s license. He says it’s real, but I’ve never seen anything like it, and the system won’t let me enter it because there aren’t enough digits in his license number.” She passed Rosita the card.
Rosita had never seen anything like it, either.
Below the name of the state and the words Driver License, was the license number: six digits rather than the usual eight, with no letter at the beginning. Underneath was the man’s name, Tyson Buddrick, and his address, followed by identifying personal information. Except… instead of height, weight, eye color and other ordinary signifiers, the information included shoe size (10), biggest fear (spiders), favorite color (purple) and IQ (127). Beneath the words, a sort of blue watermark on the otherwise off-white card, was the faint outline of a truly horrific face, that of a toothless laughing crone. On the left side of the license, instead of a photograph, was a cartoonish depiction of Mr. Buddrick. Brightly colored and goofily cheerful, it looked like an avatar from a children’s video game.
“This isn’t a real driver’s license,” Rosita said.
Frustrated, Mr. Buddrick ran a hand through his tightly pulled hair. “Yes it is. It’s what they gave me. And I’ve gotten two tickets with it, and neither of the cops said anything about it. It’s real.”
“Well, I’m sorry. We can’t accept it,” Rosita said. She looked at the other form of ID Grace showed her: Mr. Buddrick’s Costco card. “But if you bring in something with your name and address on it, like a utility bill, we can reinstate you.” She handed back both IDs.
“So I can’t check anything out?”
“Not until your library card is renewed.”
He put the cards in his shirt pocket as he stood. “Then fuck both you bitches.”
Grace gasped.
“Sir…” Rosita began.
“I know, and I’m getting the hell out of here. Thanks for nothing.” He dropped the book he’d been planning to check out on the floor and walked away.
Rosita watched to make sure he left the library, prepared to signal for the security guard if he didn’t, and, once he was out of the building, walked around to the other side of the counter and picked up his book: Mass Shootings and Their Aftermath. After what had just transpired, the title gave her pause, and she decided to put it into the reshelving pile herself without letting Grace see it.
“Thanks,” Grace said. “I wasn’t sure what to do.”
“No problem,” Rosita told her. She pointed toward the Reference desk. “I’ll be right over there if you need me.”
The rest of the afternoon was busy but far less crazy.
Thankfully, she was not required to close and so was able to leave precisely at five, rather than stay after and usher people out. On her way home, she passed by the closed DMV office, glancing at its empty parking lot as she drove by. According to Beverly, Jorge had not merely applied for a job at the Department of Motor Vehicles, he’d gone off to some sort of training camp. Neither of them had ever heard of such a thing, and Rosita had been meaning to look up what she could about it, but so far hadn’t been able to find the time.
It was an odd coincidence that both her husband and brother had become entangled with the DMV recently, Todd in his so-far futile attempt to renew his license, Jorge on the other side of that divide, seeking employment. The split was symbolic, Rosita thought, since she was always walking a fine line between her husband and her brother. Todd and Jorge had never really gotten along, and she was forever defending one to the other, smoothing over disagreements and misunderstandings that would never have been resolved were it not for her intervention.
Often, Rosita wished that her parents had not returned to Mexico. She understood that they wanted to move back to where they’d been raised, and spend their retirement years with relatives, but a morbid part of her couldn’t help thinking that they were crawling home to die. Besides, those relatives in Mexico were old, except for a younger generation whom they did not even know. Mama and Papa should have stayed here, where she and Jorge could take care of them once it got to the point where that was necessary.
And where they could have helped keep her brother in line when needed.
The door to Todd’s office was closed when she arrived home, which meant that he was writing, so Rosita loudly announced that she was back and left him to his work.
He emerged an hour or so later, hungry for dinner, and since neither of them had planned anything, they ordered a pizza, which Todd went to pick up. As they ate, she told him about the man with the crazy driver’s license at the library.
“At least he has one.”
“So your test got rescheduled. Waah. Suck it up and quit whining.”
Todd shut his mouth.
She took a deep breath. “I’m telling you, this guy’s ID had a cartoon for a picture and listed his shoe size. And he said it was legitimate, he’d gotten it from the DMV, and had even shown it to a policeman when he got a ticket.”
“You didn’t let him use it, so obviously you didn’t believe him.”
She looked at him. “The thing is, I kind of did.”
Todd raised an eyebrow.
“I can’t explain it.” Rosita shrugged. “He was belligerant and hostile, but it didn’t seem like he was lying. At the very least, I think he believed it.”
“So when I finally do get my new license, I can expect the picture to be a Mii version of myself?”
“Who knows?” She took a bite of pizza. “But it was weird. The whole thing’s weird.”
After dinner, they went for a short walk around the neighborhood.
It was cool outside and cloudy, which meant that it was going to be a cold night. The thought made Rosita happy. There was nothing she loved more than snuggling in a warm bed when the weather was cold.
“Magic beans night,” she told Todd. Magic beans were dried pinto beans that had been sewn up in a cloth bag the size of a small pillow. After being heated up in the microwave, the bag was placed under the blankets near the foot of the bed, where the toasty beans warmed up cold feet. Beverly had discovered them years ago at some craft fair and for Christmas had bought magic beans for everyone she knew. It was one of Rosita’s all time favorite gifts.
Smiling, Todd put an arm around her. “Sounds nice,” he said.
In bed, he nodded off before she did, since she wanted to see the end of “Chopped” and find out who won, while he had no interest at all in the show.
Once she did fall asleep, she dreamed that Tyson Buddrick returned to the library with an automatic weapon and unlimited ammunition, and started shooting the place up, killing the night custodian, destroying shelf after shelf of books, shattering all the windows, blowing apart every computer.
She awoke early, before the alarm rang, overcome by the disquieting notion that when she turned on the local early morning news, she would see a reporter standing in front of a line of yellow police tape blocking off the library.
Mass Shootings and Their Aftermath
But there was a traffic report and a weather report, and then news of a suspected gang shooting that had occurred at a party in a poor neighborhood overnight. She kept the TV on in the kitchen as she made herself breakfast, but, thankfully, there was no indication that anything bad had happened at her library.
There was police tape blocking the entrance to the DMV parking lot when she drove past, but she was still thinking about her encounter yesterday with Tyson Buddrick, and her horrifying dream, and by the time she pulled into her spot on the side of the library, she had forgotten all about it.
SEVEN
The woman sitting next to Judi in the break room was young and attractive, and Zal felt his face heat up as he and Bernard walked in to get their lunches. He knew exactly why she was there, and was mortified that Judi had taken it upon herself to play matchmaker. Part of it was his own fault—he’d made no effort the past few days to visit the Research department and check out the lay of the land—but that still didn’t excuse this aggressive intrusion into his personal life.
The woman smiled at him, and he wasn’t sure whether to ignore her and pretend he hadn’t seen her, or smile back and acknowledge her presence. His face was probably as red as Rudolph’s nose, and he was pretty sure that his confused and inconclusive reaction was some type of grotesque grimace, but Bernard, as usual, had no such hesitancy. “Judi,” he said. “Who’s your new friend?”
They all knew the answer, but the question opened up an avenue of conversation, and Judi said, “This is Violet Benning, from Research.”
“Hi,” Violet said shyly.
“The older fatter one is Bernard,” Judi told her. “That handsome drink of water is Zal. They’re programmers.”
“Who are you calling old?” Bernard said, taking his lunch out of the refrigerator.
Zal had gotten a can of Coke out of the machine and had not yet decided what he was going to eat, but he noticed that Judi had taken one of the large tables, with four seats, and not wanting to reward her for her interference, he sat down at a two-person table nearby, waiting until Bernard sat across from him before getting up and picking out a red chile burrito.
“Why don’t you sit with us?” Judi suggested. “There’s plenty of room.”
Bernard caught his look, and gave Zal a small acknowledging smile. “We’re manly men,” he announced. “We need our space.”
Zal was gratified to see Judi’s look of disappointment as he popped his burrito into the microwave.
Still, they were the only ones in the break room at the moment, and conversation was soon flowing naturally between the two tables. As annoyed as he might be with Judi, Zal had to admit that the coder was right about Violet. She’d been hired as a research assistant to do grunt work for the company, but she seemed to know a lot about a lot of things. The two of them were about equally matched in social awkwardness, and though Zal considered her way out of his league, she gave no indication that she shared that view.
Hu arrived later. “Sorry,” he said. “Still working on that stupid cleanup.”
“I saved you some gumbo,” Judi told him. “It’s still in the fridge. All you have to do is heat it up.”
Zal and Violet had been talking around Bernard about idiotic cliches used by news anchors and television reporters, and when Hu sat down next to Judi, Violet got up, tossed the remnants of her lunch, and brought her bottle of sparkling water over to Zal’s table. “Mind if I sit here?” she asked. She glanced quickly toward Bernard. “Only if it’s okay with both of you, I mean. I don’t want to—”
“The more the merrier,” Bernard told her.
“There are two different theories about language,” she said, continuing their conversation as she sat down. “One is that language has specified rules and standards that need to be followed. The other is that language is always evolving, that it can’t stand still or it becomes ossified.”
“You know, my parents had this book about that. I found it on their bookshelf after they died. It was called Strictly Speaking.”
“By Edwin Newman!” she said.
“Yes!”
“Great book. Although I don’t really agree with it. I’m of the language-is-always-evolving school.”
“Okay, I have one for you,” Bernard said, jumping into the conversation. “‘Sooner than later.’”
“Isn’t it ‘sooner rather than later?’” Zal asked.
“Used to be. And that was stupid enough. Why not just say ‘soon?’ But lately I’ve heard newscasters say ‘sooner than later,’ which is idiotic because literally any time is sooner than later except ‘later,’ which is not only vague and unspecified but isn’t even a quantifiable time.” He shook his head. “Programmers need to rule the world. Things would be so much more logical.”
Violet and Judi had to go back to work before the rest of them, having begun their lunches earlier, but the break room seemed dead after they were gone, and after a few minutes, Zal and Bernard decided to head back to their cubicles, leaving Hu alone with a couple of technical writers who’d shown up.
“Looks promising,” Bernard said as they headed down the corridor.
Zal didn’t reply.
“Violet, I mean.”
Zal still didn’t respond.
“I take that as agreement.”
The teams assigned to work on specific elements of the DMV project were to meet with their counterparts over the next few weeks, and while they were still finishing up work on the county payroll system, he and Bernard had arranged a meeting this afternoon with the independent contractors who had been redesigning the same units that they would be tackling. The meeting had been officially scheduled for one-thirty, and it was only twelve-fifty, but before the two of them had even returned to their work stations, Megan, the department secretary, intercepted them and said that the other programmers had already arrived and were waiting out in the lobby.
