DMV, page 7
Two of the four they were supposed to meet with were there—they’d shared an Uber—and were seated on adjacent chairs, laptop bags next to them. Both stood as they approached.
“This here’s Zal,” Bernard said. “I’m Bernard. And you are?”
“Boo,” said the one on the left, holding up a hand in greeting.
“Boo? Are you trying to scare me or…”
“That’s my name.” He shrugged. “What can I say? My mom was a big fan of To Kill a Mockingbird.”
“So she named you after the retarded guy? No offense,” Bernard added quickly.
“I don’t think Dil would’ve served me much better,” Boo said drily. “Especially in high school.”
“I’m Gary,” the other man said.
“Glad to meet you. We’re still waiting for two more, but it’s not even one yet, so—”
“Oh, they’re not coming,” Boo said.
“Why not?” Zal asked.
“Didn’t feel like it.”
“I think they’re pissed they’re being taken off the project,” Gary added.
“Aren’t you?”
Gary laughed. “I’m grateful. This thing’s a fucking nightmare.”
Boo nodded. “It definitely requires more resources than we have as freelancers. A company like yours has a lot better chance.”
“It’s a monster, though. Really complicated.”
“That’s why we need you to walk us through what you’ve done,” Bernard told them.
Boo picked up his laptop case. “Where do you want to do this?”
“We have a conference room that’s secure. You want to pick up some drinks and snacks first? This could take awhile.”
“I’m good,” Boo said.
“I could do with some munchies,” Gary admitted.
“There’s a Starbucks down the block.”
“Starbucks, huh? Anything else?”
“McDonald’s,” Zal said.
“That’s more my style.”
“Why don’t you two go and pick up what you want,” Bernard suggested. “Bring a large coffee back for me. Anything?” he asked Boo, who shook his head. “Okay, then. Meet us in the conference room.”
Zal’s age or maybe a little younger, Gary had not made even a token effort to dress professionally, wearing a vintage ELO T-shirt and faded off-brand jeans. He picked up his laptop bag and brought it with him as the two of them left the building. “Seems like a cool place to work,” he said. “Are you hiring?”
“Not at the moment,” Zal said. “Not to my knowledge. But with this DMV thing…”
The freelancer smiled. “No thanks.”
Gary wanted fries, an apple pie and a Dr. Pepper. Zal ordered Bernard a straight black coffee and got himself a Coke. By the time they returned, Boo and Bernard were deep in discussion about the design of a more secure but user friendly sign-in screen, which Boo had apparently done a lot of work on but which the project coordinator at the DMV had consistently failed to approve.
Bernard looked up at Zal as they entered. “This is going to be a tough one.”
Gary chuckled. “You don’t know the half of it.”
The four of them pored over changes made and changes-to-be-made on just that single screen for most of the afternoon, and by three-thirty had barely scratched the surface of their small corner of the project. Bernard ran a hand through his hair. “Jesus. This is re-goddamn-diculous.”
“Your company’s paying us,” Boo said. “So we can interface on this for as long as you need.”
“Are you free this coming Monday?”
“I’ll be here.”
“We’ll be here,” Gary said.
Zal and Bernard walked the two freelancers back to the lobby and said their goodbyes. “It’s a bureaucratic nightmare,” Bernard said.
“Which means job security,” Zal pointed out. “That’s what we’re looking for, right?”
Bernard sighed. “Right.”
They turned away from the front door.
“So…” Bernard said as they started walking. He had a slight smile on his face. “Want to take a stroll through Research on the way back?”
“We could,” Zal admitted, unable to keep himself from smiling.
Bernard clapped a hand on his back. “That’s the spirit!”
It was out of their way, but they made it appear as though they were coming from Central Services rather than the lobby so their appearance in the department wouldn’t seem quite so obvious. Violet was sitting in the front at an open desk next to an old-school filing cabinet. She looked up from her computer, smiled when she saw them, and that smile made him feel more hopeful than he had in a long while. He was singularly bad at being able to tell whether someone was interested or not, and while he’d felt optimistic after their conversation at lunch (and was pretty sure Judi had been putting in a good word for him as well), it was impossible to know if Violet had had a similar reaction.
Her smile, though, was real, and instead of doing his usual wave-and-walk-by, he actually approached her desk. There was a flashsecond of panic when he realized he had no idea what to say—his early interactions with women in whom he was interested were ordinarily scripted, each line gone over in his head multiple times before being said aloud—but he was saved from embarrassment when Violet spoke first.
“Nice to see you again.”
He appreciated that welcome. Simple, straight to the point, and not so clever that he felt obligated to come up with a witty response. She also looked genuinely pleased to see him.
“I was just passing through, so I thought I’d say hi.”
“Just a painter passing through, huh?”
Zal wasn’t sure what she meant by that, and his confusion must have been obvious because her face suddenly turned red. “It’s the name of a Gordon Lightfoot album,” she explained. “A Painter Passing Through. Not one of his popular albums, from the Seventies, but one from the late Nineties that I don’t think anyone bought but me.”
He wasn’t really familiar with Gordon Lightfoot, knew only that he was some sort of singer-songwriter, but Zal liked that she liked that kind of music. It seemed like the type of thing she would listen to.
“Sorry,” Violet said. “I’m such a geek.”
He smiled back. “No you’re not.”
The look of skepticism on her face made him revise his response.
“Well, you are,” he amended, “but in a good way.”
They both laughed.
“Actually,” Bernard said, “we weren’t just passing through. He wanted to see where you worked.”
Now it was Zal’s turn to be embarrassed. He wasn’t unhappy that Bernard had outed him, though, and when he saw that she was smiling, he was glad his friend had spoken up.
“Well, this is it. Do you want the tour?” She pointed. “File cabinet. Computer. Desk. Chair.”
“Very nice.”
Violet’s demeanor suddenly became much more serious, and from the corner of his eye, Zal saw a stiff-looking older man in white shirt and tie approaching from the left. He had the air of management, and obviously, being new, Violet couldn’t be perceived as slacking off. She quickly typed something on her keyboard, peering intently at her screen.
“Well, thank you very much, Ms. Benning,” Bernard said loudly. “You’ve been a big help.” He smiled at the approaching man as he and Zal turned to leave. “You people in Research are the best. I don’t know what we’d do without you.”
It was hard to keep a straight face, but Zal made it all the way out of the Research department and halfway down another corridor before letting out a small laugh. “Dude! That was awesome!”
Bernard shrugged.
“I owe you one.”
“You do, junior. You definitely do.”
They checked in with Murdoch and let their supervisor know how the meeting with the freelancers had gone, then returned to their cubicles to finish whatever work they could in the last hour before heading home. Zal got caught up in rewriting a small sub-routine, and by the time he looked up again, it was after five. He stood up, looking around. Several programmers had already left, and those that hadn’t were preparing to do so. Bernard, however, was making no effort to close up shop. Neither, he noticed, was Ken Blum.
Zal didn’t want to remain here any later than he had to. He, Kevin, Yung and Javier had made arrangements to finish Altair Assault tonight, since the beta version was being superceded tomorrow and their access cut off.
He popped his head over the edge of the divider. “How long are you planning to stay?” he asked Bernard.
“I’m just finishing this string, then I’m gone. Alyssa gets pissed if I’m more than fifteen minutes late.”
Zal lowered his voice. “You know Blum’s still here.”
“So?”
“You don’t think it makes us look bad if we bail and he stays here and keeps working?”
“Hell no. It makes us look better. We got our shit done in the time allotted.”
“Maybe he’s doing extra work.”
“He’s not. He’s behind.”
“How do you know?”
Bernard smiled.
“You spied on him?”
“I may have taken advantage of a glitch in the last upgrade to make sure that everyone in our department is doing their fair share. It’s one of my responsibilities as a potential supervisor.”
Zal lowered his voice. “What if you get caught?”
“Doing what?” Bernard said innocently. He pressed the Enter key, turned off his computer and stood, stretching. “Ready to go?”
****
Knowing he had nothing in the freezer or refrigerator, Zal picked up some Chinese takeout on his way home. Before grabbing something to drink and setting up to eat his dinner in front of the computer, Zal quickly sorted through his mail, immediately spotting what he’d been hoping to find. Finally! His car registration and sticker had arrived.
Sort of.
Because when he tore open the envelope, the small glossy rectangle was red rather than yellow.
It was last year’s sticker.
How was that possible? Why would the DMV even have last year’s stickers? Wouldn’t they have disposed of them when the replacements came in?
For a brief second, he thought someone might have screwed up somewhere along the line and printed the new stickers in the wrong color. But, even though it was hard to read, a quick glance at the black numbers against the red background showed him that it was indeed for the previous year.
This was why the DMV needed to have their registration system updated.
He read through the accompanying paperwork. At least his registration was now up to date, and Zal tore off the square sheet so tomorrow morning he could put it in his car. But he was going to have to contact the DMV and get this whole sticker situation sorted out. He’d gotten one ticket thanks to that damn expired tag, and he didn’t intend to get another one just because of an idiotic mistake some clerk or computer had made.
He had already signed up for traffic school and had scheduled it for the Saturday after next. All day. From nine to five. Surprisingly, the cost of traffic school was nearly as much as the fee for his ticket, and he probably would have sent in the money for the ticket and paid the extra amount just for the convenience, but attending class was going to keep the citation from going on his record and upping his insurance fees.
He immediately went online to see if anyone else was having similar difficulties with their stickers. As it turned out, quite a few people were, and judging by the comments, none of them so far had had any luck in getting the problem straightened out. Several had subsequently received tickets—which they were trying to fight—but whether they had gone in to their local DMV office, talked to someone on the phone or attempted to rectify the situation online, none of them had yet obtained the correct tag.
He’d been planning to check out the DMV website and see if there was some way he could expedite the process of getting a current sticker, but after the session this afternoon with Gary and Boo, and after reading about the hell other thwarted drivers seemed to be going through, Zal was pretty sure that there was not going to be an online solution connected to that website.
Opening up his takeout carton and taking a bite of what was now lukewarm chow mein as he signed in to Altair Assault , Zal put on his headphones and said a quick hello to Yung and Javier, who were already engaged in battle. He took a swift sip of beer, then helped Yung ambush an alien assassin.
He’d deal with the DMV in the morning.
EIGHT
The phone rang, and, afraid it was Chyla, Todd didn’t answer but let the machine pick up. It was Robinson again. That was odd. He hadn’t heard from the guy in half a year, at least, and now he’d called twice in as many weeks?
Todd listened to the message as it recorded. His “friend” was warning him that he’d written a review of Todd’s new novel for the Chicago Tribune. “It’s positive overall,” Robinson assured him. “But you know the type of review these papers like. I had to be a little…hard on you in places. Nothing personal, you understand, but I thought I should let you know ahead of time so you’re not blindsided. Talk to you soon.”
Nothing personal.
Right, Todd thought. If he’d any any intention of calling Robinson back, that notion was quashed by the smug and petty arrogance of the call, and while he was irritated that his ostensible pal had trashed him in a review, he wasn’t that surprised and found that he wasn’t even angry. Not really. He honestly didn’t care what Robinson thought, and while Todd regretted the fact that the review might result in a few lost sales, overall he was not that upset.
Apparently, he was becoming more mature.
He was evolving.
It was true, Todd realized, and he thought about how much freer he felt now than he had in college. These days, for example, if he liked something, he liked it. If he hated something, he hated it. He didn’t feel the need to have a reason for his judgments. Back then, though, he’d somehow felt he had to justify every decision, and if he ever had an opinion on a topic, he’d been prepared to defend that position, just in case he was challenged. Of course, he never was challenged, and over the years that sort of useless intellectual self-protection had fallen by the wayside. He had the feeling from listening to that message, however, that Robinson was stuck at that stage, and while Todd knew that meant he should feel sorry for the man, it actually made him feel gratifyingly superior.
Maybe he hadn’t evolved that much.
Why had he even sent that jerk a book in the first place? Todd wondered.
Okay, maybe he hadn’t evolved at all.
Right now, the thing he needed to focus on was the DMV test. His appointment was for one-forty this afternoon, and while he’d continued studying up on the booklet and taking online practice tests, his friend Palmer had told him that the tests these days were much tougher than they used to be. His dad had had to take one recently and had flunked twice before finally passing. “He’s been driving for forty years,” Palmer said, “and the things they asked him were trivial details about things he’d never encountered in his life. So be on your toes, buddy boy.”
The warning worried him a little, and when Rosita had returned home from work a few days ago with the same story, after asking around amongst some of the library workers and volunteers, Todd had redoubled his attempts to cram for the test. Logically, he knew it couldn’t be that hard. Everyone and their mother had a driver’s license, and each day, people who were barely literate passed the test with flying colors. He was not only a longtime driver, but he’d been studying his ass off the past week. He’d probably do fine.
Still, he was going to be thankful when this whole thing was over.
Todd was eating lunch when Rosita called from the library to wish him luck.
“I’m going to need it,” he said.
“Knock that off,” she told him. “It’s the driver’s test. You’re not retaking the SATs. You’ll be fine.”
She was right, he realized, and after eating, brushing his teeth, putting on a decent shirt and combing his hair so his ID photo would turn out halfway decently for once, Todd drove to the DMV office with a renewed confidence.
The lines were much shorter this time—maybe it was better to have an afternoon appointment—and he was at the appropriate window after a mere twenty minutes. The last time he had taken the test, which admittedly was many years ago, he had simply been handed a pen and a page of questions by the clerk behind the counter, and had stood in place, filling in the bubbles that corresponded to what he thought were the right answers. He’d handed the test back, the clerk graded it then and there, marking wrong answers with a big slash of red ink from a felt pen, and seconds later he’d been told that he had passed.
Now, however, Todd was given a tripartite form and directed to a side room behind a white door on which the word TESTING was written in block letters. In the center of the room, a man was seated on a swivel chair in the open inner area of a round desk. Around the edges of the room were study carrels, each containing a bulky old-fashioned computer with a medium-sized monitor. Three of the spaces were occupied. Todd approached the clerk in the round desk and handed over his paperwork.
“Number Four,” the man said, pointing.
