Identity Crisis
My passport is currently my only form of identification. I like to carry it around with me and whip it out at prudent times, such as when asked whether I want soup or salad with my meal, in order to show that I am not only an American citizen but also a cultured and well traveled man of the world.
Somewhere between El Paso and Oregon, I lost my driver’s license. The thought that such a vital item in my life, the one certifiable piece of proof (besides my hair) that I am unlucky enough to be Truman Capps, might be languishing in the El Paso airport is sort of disturbing to me. Tony Bennett left his heart in San Francisco, and I left my ID in El Paso. Tony Bennett unequivocally comes out on top, because nobody’s ever made me show them my heart before letting me into an R rated movie. Given a chance, I’d gladly trade places with Tony Bennett, because while I’m definitely not using my heart right now, it would really be handy to have a driver’s license. Especially Tony Bennett’s.
I last saw my driver’s license when I showed it to the cop at the El Paso airport before getting on the plane – I remember this because right afterwards I turned around and shouted, “SO LONG, SUCKERS!” to everyone else behind me in the terminal, and then grabbed my crotch and snapped my fingers twice. So sometime between then and arriving back at my house, when I discovered that it was missing, my driver’s license got away from me. If you’ve found it, please do let me know – it’s a small, laminated, driver’s license sized card, with ‘OREGON DRIVER’S LICENSE’ written on the top, and then ‘TRUMAN CAPPS’ below that, and then a tiny picture of me that, like all driver’s license photos, sucks. In my defense, they took the picture five minutes after I finished my driving test, so I look about like a woman who’s just given birth: sweaty, stinky, and possibly having soiled herself, yet triumphant in having overcome a very painful and unpleasant process.
I worked hard to get my driver’s license, which is why losing it stings so much. In Oregon, prospective drivers must first take a test to get their learner’s permit – which is sort of the training bra of driving – and then certify that they’ve driven for 100 hours with a legal guardian over the age of 21 before applying for their license, which lifts and separates and entitles them to the privilege of driving without their mother in the passenger seat, gasping and stomping at an imaginary break pedal every time the teen driver approaches a red light at any higher speed than reverse. However, if the teen takes a state certified driver’s ed course, he only has to spend 50 hours listening to his mother whimper and crush her armrest in fear instead of 100, and thus I took driver’s ed as soon as possible.
Just for the record – I love you, Mom.
They held driver’s ed in the evenings up at my high school, and twice a week for two months of my sophomore year I’d spend two hours examining the swastikas and profanity that some previous scholar had carved into my desk while a disorganized, sweaty beanstalk of an instructor stumbled through two hour long free-form lectures about hydroplaning and the importance of snow tires. Sometimes he’d show videos where glib teen actors with all the vitality of Keanu Reeves would perform skits that highlighted the importance of safe driving with the gut busting humor that made Gulf War-era after school specials so memorable. For actual hands on driving instruction, we were either supervised by our instructor or by his assistant, a fat, greasy, Hawaiian shirt loving man with a penchant for shaking his students to their very cores with inflammatory and intricate tongue lashings for such infractions as not coming to a complete stop or not turning according to his standards, which were markedly different from what we were being taught in class. My time in driver’s ed really paid off: when I took my DMV test a few months later, I very nearly killed the instructor and myself by attempting to make a left turn from the center lane, which, had the instructor not grabbed the wheel and yelled, “CANCEL!”, would have resulted in us getting smashed by the pickup truck that was passing us on the left at the time. Sure, I hadn’t checked my rear view mirror, but I’m pretty sure that the truck was hanging out in my ‘No Zone’*, which a public service announcement in class had strictly warned us not to do.
*Interestingly enough, I’m pretty sure that when they showed us the standard, “Don’t let yourself get molested, kids!” video in elementary school, they referred to our genetalia as ‘no zones’, and it was implied that nobody should be hanging out there either.
On the second try I was successful in getting my license (the key is to honk before you take the shortcut across the playground, not while you do it), and for the three and a half years since I’ve prided myself on making the pothole ridden streets of our sales tax-free state considerably less safe. The fact that I could lose my driver’s license at all suggests that maybe I’ve started to take it for granted, and that I could do so in El Paso is truly an insult to such an old and loyal friend. At this very moment, a gang of drug smugglers could well be using it to… I don’t know… Drive places. And get into porno theaters. And maybe pretend to be underage so they can’t get liquor.
In the course of writing this entry, Truman Capps briefly lost his cell phone, which should give you an idea of his devotion to the art of being a moron.