PROOF OF IDENTITY by K. C. Eib
I tuck my dress shirt, a solid blue button‑up, into my pressed gray slacks and double-check my fly. The money drawer has been counted twice for safe measure and all the computers are up and running; I now have full authorization to peruse the Missouri Department of Revenue database at will. My co‑worker checks the number dispenser and confirms the next number matches the electronic display on the wall by giving a thumbs‑up. A voice calls out from the far end of the office, “Here we go!” as the glass doors swing open. A mob of customers rushes into the lobby, jockeying for position at my counter. “Take a number,” I call out to the crowd before helping my first customer.
“I’m sorry, sir,” I tell him in the matter-of‑fact voice I’ve adopted over the past year, “but I can’t renew your driver’s license under the name of Michael. Your birth certificate shows your name as Mason.”
I slide the certified paper under the partition, but he’s not happy and not about to relent without words. “I’ve never gone by that name – Just look in your computer – I know you’ve got my picture in there – My name has always been Michael.” I stand and stare at him without the slightest movement. He huffs. “This is a bunch of crap.” I take a deep breath, prepare to recapitulate, but the words are rolling out of his mouth again, spittle gathering around the corners of his lips. “I can show you my school records – medical records – credit cards – all my banking accounts – I’ve got my social security card – my work ID – just look at all my mail – what more do you want, man? It’s pretty fucking obvious who I am!”
Inappropriate. Unacceptable. These are the words my co‑workers have taught me. These are the words I use to refuse service to whomever I see fit. My finger is poised against the red security button under the counter but first I have some parting words of calm customer service: “Yes, sir, it’s obvious who you are. But the only way we can legally change your name is with your name as it appears on the birth certificate, passport or a court document showing proof of a legal name change.” I smile a wry have-a-nice-day and glare at him, unwilling to give in to his booming antics, unwilling to yield my position of authority.
“That’s bullshit.” His voice sounds frighteningly low to me, as if this exchange is something personal between the two of us that will be finished later – outside, alone. “All these new laws are fucked and so are you, man.” His finger presses hard, reverberates against the Plexiglas guard between us. “Where’s your supervisor? We’re going to get this straightened out.” I offer a nod to the entrance where security has come to escort him from the building.
* * *
Around the age of six, my sister Michelle danced at a studio down the street from our house. The studio was a basic square room lined with blonde hardwood floors and a row of mirrors paneling its back wall. To look at, the room was nothing out of the ordinary; but the energy that pulsed when class started and the girls began dancing stirred a desire within me to join them. I watched intently as the dancers spun and leapt and stomped their feet, arms uplifted and stretching as if they could somehow soar beyond the physical limits of their bodies. I wanted to be a dancer too.
I was not allowed to dance. Dad wouldn’t have it. Dancing was for girls.
One day, Dad pulled me into the living room and showed me the scars on his knuckles. “You see these?” I stared at his clinched fists. They looked strong, solid. “When I was in school I knocked out some kid’s teeth for mouthing off at me.” I waited in stillness for what might come next. He threw a couple of off-balance punches into the air, looked down at me and said, “It’s time you learned to fight.”
He called Michelle into the room and stood her across from me, the two of us squared toward each other like Rock ’Em Sock ’Em Robots. “It’s easy,” Dad boomed, “just ball up your fingers real tight, bend a bit at your knees and raise your arms up in front of you.” We did. We followed each step exactly as Dad commanded. His voice eased into laughter with our attempts to placate him. We bounced on our toes, our heads bobbing up and down, giving a call and response of oh yeah? – oh yeah? All of a sudden, Dad yelled out, “Hit her!” I hesitated briefly before my right arm flailed toward Michelle’s gaping mouth.
There are several versions of what happened next. Michelle begins her side of the story, “Remember that time you gave me a black eye?”
“Oh I did not.”
“Yes you did. When Dad was teaching us to box.”
“I don’t think I ever hit you, did I?”
“You gave me a black eye.”
“No no no,” I tell her, “You gave yourself a black eye, remember? That time you ran across Blue Ridge with your bike. And when the bike hit the curb you kept running – right into your handlebars.”
“Whatever,” she protests with good humor pinched in the squints of her eyes, both playful and scolding. “That’s a different story and you know it.”
I confess, I probably gave my sister a black eye; which is typically how the story goes in our family.
From that day on, I knew my sister would never measure up to me in Dad’s eyes, no matter what she did. Even so, a few years later she convinced Dad to let her play baseball on my boy’s little league. Maybe she didn’t know Dad made me play every year. Maybe she didn’t know I wanted desperately to dance instead. Maybe she didn’t really want to play baseball either. Nonetheless, she found a way of competing for Dad’s attention. If only she knew I didn’t want his attention; she could have it. Not that Dad could ever offer the same attention to a daughter as he could a son.
I thought with Michelle playing baseball, it might offer me leverage, but boys were not allowed to dance. I hated being the boy. If becoming a man meant becoming my father, I didn’t want it. At some point, I decided I would rather become a woman.
* * *
Eyes have a tendency to change color. Some people say it has to do with their mood or the color of clothes they’re wearing, but I’m surprised to learn that brown eyes can lose their pigmentation and eventually become blue.
An older black man requests I change his eye color from brown to blue. At first I think he’s pulling my leg – he must have put in contact lenses as a sort of joke. But after looking closely into his eyes, I see the so‑claimed outer ring of blue encroaching into an inner brown – a brown that is undeniably his original eye color. Brown is losing the battle to blue. “Hmm . . . you’re right,” I say, “they are blue. Let me update that for you.”
I’ve noticed other black men, especially older black men, who still show their eye color as brown on their ID but have bluer eyes. “Would you like to change your eyes from brown to blue?” I ask. There is usually a pause, some uncertainty that may come from being looked directly in the eye but more likely from trying to figure out if I’m pulling his leg. Or maybe he’s attached to the belief that a black man’s eyes should be brown.
It’s difficult to understand how something assumed to be a constant identifier could change so slowly we hardly take note. That is, if we manage to take note at all.
* * *
Moving has never been my strong point, though I’ve had plenty of practice.
“Everything’s in order,” I assured Ray, my latest boyfriend. “Don’t be afraid of the piles of odds and ends, they wouldn’t fit in a box.” I concealed my knowledge of a small populace of shoes cavorting in the closet.
Ray, not wanting to miss anything, poked around the nooks and crannies of the apartment before we carried out our first load. “Why do you have so many women’s shoes? You told me you’d given that up.” Given it up, I mused, sure – as in a daily fare. But there remained the weekend sneak or a midnight fancy that couldn’t help prancing a bit before bed. It wasn’t like I wanted to go out in public in them, but I wasn’t prepared to throw them out either. Stories lived in those shoes, stories that I wasn’t ready to quit telling myself.
I tossed my voice back, as if it meant nothing. “Get some trash bags and we’ll throw them in the back of the truck.”
“Come on, now, seriously. Throw them in the dumpster. You know you’re never going to wear them again.”
I held up the two-inch spike heels with an adjustable ankle strap. “But Queen Devil Bitch – ”
“Trash.”
“Drag Race – ”
“No.”
“Miss Hell on Heels?”
“Get rid of them.”
So I said goodbye to Priscilla’s four-inch Platform Boots with the lace‑up strings. Goodbye to the black leather Italian Mules I paid too much for on sale, my Capezio’s Ballet Slippers from college and the generic Fake Orgasm Flats I bought from Wal-Mart at the last minute. The Ass-Kicker zip‑up ankle boots (that for some reason got more attention from women than men) and clear high-heeled house slippers with marabou (that for some reason got more attention from men than women). Goodbye to the spray-painted Plan Nines (silver) turned Tooth Fairy (pink) that started out as Miss Hell on Heels (black) who earned enough money in the 3” latex knee-highs to pay rent on a studio apartment in Springfield, Missouri. Goodbye comfy, casual, cork-heeled Mall-Chick and everyday No-Nonsense. Goodbye to Miss Evie Adams, my female alter ego. Goodbye blistered heels and baby-can-you-rub-my-feet. Please and just a little bit longer. We won’t be having any more of that. For the last time, goodbye.
Alone in my new place, the cardboard boxes and plastic bags and piles of random odds and ends all secured, I realized the extent of what I purged. I knew I would’ve disposed of the drag regalia in my own time, but another piece of my past went by the wayside before its time: a small VFW briefcase of my dad’s.
It had been more than ten years since Dad died during my freshman year of college. I mentioned to a group of friends, Ray included, I didn’t need to cling to the briefcase any more, but somehow it remained with me over the years. Its contents included Dad’s hospital gown, iodine swabs, gauze patches, syringes with disposable needle tips, surgical tape, plastic tubing, disposable gloves, hand lotion, a soap case with a skuzzy bar of soap still inside, band-aids of every size and shape.
The moment I noticed the briefcase gone, I wanted it back. A week, a day: my mourning for the memorabilia commenced much sooner than I expected. And as much as I blamed Ray in my mind, I knew better. The past didn’t go away quickly or easily once I relinquished my dad’s artifacts; it haunted me from one apartment to the next, chased me from lover to lover, and became a theme in all the renderings I devised about myself. It left marks found later in memory.
The past resurfaced in my stories.
* * *
Sending customers away is never my intention, but when Hazel hobbles up to my counter with her family album and a Chopper Shopper grocery card, I have to explain to the eighty-year-old woman that her photo memories are not adequate proof of identity. I’m glad when I see her return several weeks later with her daughter and the requested paperwork.
Her daughter starts in on me before Hazel reaches the counter. “I’m so disappointed you made my mama get her birth certificate. Look at it!” I assume there must be an error and scan the document for an obvious misspelling on the name, a scratched out date of birth or a race of Negro (which I have been informed no longer exists). “Look at where she was born!” And there I see it in perfect penmanship: Niggertown. Just outside Tulsa. Given Hazel’s age and the number of birth certificates I’ve scanned, the moment of astonishment at the word is short-lived.
“Apparently Oklahoma hasn’t updated their database.” I manage saying it all in one breath, feeling the struggle with the words tightening in my throat. I don’t dare tell them I have no idea how Oklahoma operates or why this birth certificate remains in the original handwriting, but instead place my hopes in the resonance of my voice and professional attire to assuage the daughter’s feelings toward the document. I’m talking more to fill the space between us than anything. “A brand new birth certificate should have been printed with Tulsa as the place of birth. It was probably cheaper to photocopy the handwritten version.” I shake my head as if I know something about the history when in fact all I know are books and stories, nothing that might compare with the firsthand knowledge Hazel must firmly store in her memories. “I can’t help or change the history from that time.”
But I can imagine Hazel’s past through her face, which seemed at first glance complacent in its expressionless gaze. Hazel’s countenance is anything but complacent. Brightness remains in her unblinking eyes, as if she listens through what she sees. I can’t imagine what a black girl must have witnessed growing up in a place called Niggertown, but I see the grown woman’s crow’s feet branching out from her eyes in a myriad of directions: messengers of tears and anger and fear and laughter too. The creases flow back into salt and pepper hair, straightened and pulled back on a high forehead. Grays for the daily struggle in both herself and for her family, at home and in the world; grays for changing times. Grays because that’s what happens, as we grow older. Hazel’s age tells stories on her. I may not know the details of her past, but every dotted freckle and mole rising up on her thin-skinned cheekbones holds a lifetime’s worth of telling. Though Hazel may not say more than a few words to me, her tacit tongue speaks volumes.
“I’ll update Hazel’s information in our computer and we won’t ask to see her birth certificate again.” But there is no guarantee. I do not tell them nothing has changed in the computer; I have only verified the information provided from her birth certificate against our records already on file. In Hazel’s case, everything matches. I am acutely aware of my false persona in our exchange. I put on a good face for the customers knowing that I am simply following someone else’s directives, one of many in a chain of command.
Hazel maintains her reserve through all of this – lips relaxed, eyes wide. Her daughter, however, stares at me with reddened, watery eyes. I remind myself I can do nothing to change what remains outside my control, there is no room for emotional involvement with my work or customers; the nature of my work requires me to inure myself to the sometimes-disagreeable details found on birth certificates.
“Come around the corner for your new photo, Hazel.”
* * *
It was the summer of 1976. I would begin first grade and full days of school come fall. Mom and Dad worked during the day so my oldest sister, Kim, babysat us younger ones. We played dress‑up for lunch, made a tea party of baloney sandwiches on refrigerated white bread with stale piles of potato chips and red Kool-Aid in Tupperware stained from summers past. Rummaging through Mom’s closet for something fun to wear brought an excitement to the middle of the day which otherwise would have been any other lunchtime. It created in me a peculiar sense of belonging with the girls, as if miraculously, with a dress and makeup, I might become one of the girls for a few fleeting hours.
One day, we found Mom’s Polaroid on her dresser and decided to take pictures. My sister Michelle and cousin Laurie posed with me along the outer edge of the circle drive. Our ranch house stood behind, a white box with black shutters. Untrimmed branches from waist-high shrubs bordered us on both sides. Directly in front of us, a wooden sign displayed our family name painted in crackling gold so everyone driving down the four-lane boulevard would know our name: The Eibs.
The girls dolled themselves up with gaudy makeup. It smeared in broad strokes across their faces. Short, tight-fitting party dresses hugged their pre-teen bodies. They smiled and postured like Vegas showgirls, basking in the exposure. I stood rooted by their side with arms dangling from a sleeveless polyester dress, a hideous pea-green draping clear down to my ankles. My head hung to conceal my countenance, also thick with makeup, from the gaze of the camera.
The photo proved important over the years. At some point, I told myself if I became a woman I’d finally feel at home with both my world and myself. But the photo colors this rationale in a much different light. It reveals an embarrassment I couldn’t recall without the image in hand; there must be more to my memory than what I’ve told myself. The photo doesn’t lie, but it’s certainly not the story I’ve been telling myself. Holding it in my hand, my childhood reverie becomes tainted with a compunction I hadn’t felt before.
* * *
Roberta approaches my window, her face soft and round; breasts voluptuous in a low-cut V‑neck. Her silky voice does not indicate she was born male but once I spot the name Robert on her birth certificate I scrutinize the document. The computer registers her as female, but the birth certificate shows male. I know I’m supposed to follow new rules with the Patriot Act, but I hesitate – wonder who’s going to know the difference if I say I didn’t detect anything out of the ordinary. There’s a momentary flash in my mind before I default to my government training.
“Oh, you’ve made a change,” I say, aware of the spike in my voice with this revelation. “Do you have any medical records to verify the change in your sex status?”
She tells me she’s been through this before. “Your supervisor knows all about it. Can I please talk to her?” Her voice drawls slow and nasal.
I nod knowingly, am confident with my authority and take matters into my own hands. “Let me call Central Office instead. It’s just a procedure. They should have your information on file.” I want to get this right – don’t want to go to my office supervisor or call attention to any of my co-workers or customers waiting behind her. I want this to be easy for her.
She purses her lips in agitation. “I don’t know why I can’t talk to your supervisor.”
The phone cradles against my ear, pen and paper on the countertop before me. “This will be quicker.”
I don’t tell her how Nikki Lee confided in me that she couldn’t go through with the surgery. I don’t tell her how Jo Jo broke down when he no longer recognized himself with newly formed breasts and flushed all his hormone pills down the toilet. Or how Cody wasn’t allowed to perform as a female impersonator once she became a full-fledged woman, a lifelong dream of hers. Roberta doesn’t know I have my own story.
I explain Roberta’s situation to Central Office. Nothing shows up in her records. Roberta’s account does not have any additional documents, not even a note in her files that might warrant a change in the sex. The situation does not bode well for Roberta. Central Office blocks my computer from issuing Roberta any type of identification showing the sex as female until she produces an original doctor’s report or an amended birth certificate. I know neither of these documents will be easy to obtain. My instinct is to scream or cry or cave in on myself, but my training reminds me emotions cannot get in the way of work. Inappropriate. Unacceptable.
Roberta watches me closely, her eyes concentrating on the notes I’m making next to a series of doodles on scrap paper in black ink. “What’re they telling you?”
I don’t look up from my notes right away. “This is going to take longer than I thought, but we’ll make sure it gets done right.” Roberta fusses in her purse. Pulls out a pick and starts combing out the ends of her hair with short brusque strokes. I don’t know how I’m going to tell her. I hang up from the call and say, “Let me go talk to my supervisor.”
“I’d like to talk to her too,” she says again, impatience rising with volume in her voice. “I need to know what’s going on.” Customers fill all the available chairs in the lobby, and I notice my co-workers stealing furtive glances at the wall clock as I turn from my station and stride toward my supervisor’s office.
I used to tell myself I could never submit to a career in a field that told me how to dress or act; I wanted to have complete authority over my decisions, all day every day, and my employers could take me or leave me just as I was. But defining the world in my words – I’m going to live as a woman – didn’t stand up to the reality of my life; nothing is completely white or black, masculine or feminine, no or yes – making a commitment to being only one thing or another was unimaginable. I didn’t want to be a permanent version of anything. One day I’d enjoy tweezing my eyebrows and the next I’d want to grow a beard. Once, a Country Western bar disqualified me from a fake orgasm contest when I told the emcee I was a man. The college-town cowboys gathered around the urinal with groans of, “Yep, he’s got one, what a waste!” Two years later, a gay bar in Chicago disqualified me from their drag contest. Something about eating dicks cut from Playgirl centerfolds didn’t set well with the judges.
In Roberta’s case, I’m not sure to what extent I have become her judge and juror – perhaps I have been relegated to mere witness; regardless, I am complicit. I review my notes one last time before entering my supervisor’s office.
“I’m sorry, Tammy, I really fucked up.”
She sets her pen down on the desk and sits up in her chair. When I explain Roberta’s situation, Tammy knows her story already, remembers working with her before. “We’ve been through this,” she tells me, “I worked with Central Office myself. It should be taken care of in the computer.”
Taken care of, I think, until I stepped in. “Patriot Act,” I remind her, “I was working from the birth certificate.”
Tammy spins in her chair, picks up the phone and dials Central Office herself. “What have you done with her records – I know the laws have changed, but you should still have her records on file – There should at least be a note in your archives – So you’re saying you lost her records – I know because I shipped them myself – Unbelievable, just unbelievable.”
Another ten minutes pass. Nothing changes.
I know I shouldn’t take this personally, but I feel like I’ve betrayed Roberta, that any power I held has been usurped because I relinquished it to Central Office – an entity that doesn’t have a proper name to make the process more personal, more human – an entity that is a voice and only a voice, miles away – an entity that doesn’t have to show its face, doesn’t have to fear being known at the end of the day when the office closes and the shirt and tie come off – an entity that has a final say over all that I do, especially when I am not careful with the sort of information I provide them – an entity I can’t get around once I make the call.
Tammy and I both return to my station. She talks to Roberta while I call Central Office once more. I want Roberta to know that these are not my words, but those from above. It also offers a chance to make a final plea, one that challenges the authority of Central Office by pressing for more information. I tell them I don’t understand how the sex on a birth certificate can be amended to show female when she was born male. Would any hospital allow this? Nor do I understand why it has to be a report from the practicing surgeon; no photocopies or faxes or hospital records will suffice: original from doctor only.
Roberta’s voice rings clear despite her short audible breaths, fighting-back or working‑up to tears. “Why are they doing this to me, again?”
As much as I disagree, I keep asking Roberta questions posed from Central Office. “Do you have a way of contacting your doctor?”
“I had my surgery twenty years ago in Mexico. That doctor is dead now.” Once the tears start, Roberta no longer resists them; her heaving sobs take over. A middle-aged woman passes my station on her way to the cameras, offers a tissue from the shallows of her clutch purse without saying a word. “Thank you, honey.” Roberta dabs the crumpled tissue like a powder puff at her face without turning to face the woman. The eyes of those waiting in the lobby face forward, ears pricked up.
As a final effort, I tell Roberta to consult a legal advisor. I don’t know what else might help. Tammy thumbs through a notebook, jotting down phone numbers on the back of a business card. She tells Roberta these contacts will offer the legal consultation she’ll need to legitimize her case with the state. At this point, I’m not sure what that means: legitimize. Or what Roberta will really need to do next.
I’m unsure how much our unfolding scene influences Central Office, but after an hour’s worth of insistence Central Office relents by offering a temporary driving privilege, which they fax ahead. The faxed paper allows Roberta ninety days of driving until she can acquire the proper documents requested. Perhaps Central Office grew tired of the conversation, their ears closing as the end of another workday approached. Perhaps the suggestion for Roberta to pursue legal consultation frightened them more than they wanted to admit. It’s hard to know what motivates any actions from Central Office. Ninety days allows everyone involved the time to think about what happens next. Ultimately, Central Office holds the authority in the keystrokes on their computers. This will probably not be the end of Roberta’s battles with the state, but for now it’s out of my hands.
* * *
Glass doors lock behind the last customer. I run end-of‑day-reports and count down the money. Cash only. The money is damp and dirty with sweat and urine and some days I can smell pot absorbed thick in the bills. Once the money is accounted for and the computers have all been shut down, I rub my hands with clear antiseptic from a pump-dispenser and take a deep breath before exiting the building through its back door.
The walk home takes me past the County Jail, Gigi’s Wig Shop, Slabotsky & Sons fine clothing for men, the Federal Courthouse, and a hole-in‑the-wall bar called The Zoo. I find comfort from men passing in suits with briefcases, women in dress skirts, the street vendors still packing up their beer brats and foot-long dogs as the inner-city evacuates its workaday world – a world where I almost belong. Within a half-hour, one-way streets lined with cars and buses will abandon the city to a standstill of vagrants and wanderers, random shouts from alleyways and silhouettes of construction equipment against buildings slated for demolition. I do not want to be caught out in my workskin after the city changes face.
At home, the eighth floor of a converted bank, I turn the shower faucet to hot. Strip off the business uniform and throw my wadded clothes into a red plastic tub. The water is slow to heat. I stand in the full-length mirror, examining my face and body for anomalies.
TJ, my new lover, is expected for dinner. He has confessed his attraction to my masculine demeanor. What he perceives or means when he says masculine confounds me; I find myself laughing at the idea. Sure, the older I get the more I look like my father: pooching stomach, hairier chest. Balding patterns. It’s hard to believe it’s been fifteen years since I considered having a sex change. At thirty-five years old, frilly clothes and girly shoes no longer hibernate in my closet. I keep my only hard evidence, a box of photos, stashed in the corner of the closet. I haven’t shared the photos from my drag life with TJ, though I keep going back to them for myself.
One photo, in particular, turns over and over in my mind. I am drawn to the one of me in a dress with my sister and cousin. My cousin went on to become Miss Teen Missouri and is now a stay at home mother with two boys. Michelle moved to Vegas where she teaches kindergarten and moonlights as a showgirl. Somehow, my mind can make the jump from the childhood photo and where they ended up with their lives, but me? I struggle reconciling my past with my current version of self. There are too many gaps in my stories – too many fragments of memories to make all the connections, but I keep asking: who do you want to be and who are you really?
It’s only a matter of time before TJ finds me out. I question whether I should bother with the photos at all. Maybe I should simply explain to him that people change with time. Who you see today may not be the person I am tomorrow. But he is going to see me on his own terms, through his own eyes. There is nothing for me to do about that.
I know the water is ready when the steam rises above the shower curtain. I step into the heat and let the water run over me.
“Proof of Identity” is K. C. Eib’s first essay published in a national literary magazine.