When Ernest Hemingway Renewed his Driver's License

The morning was cold and bright. I rose before the sun because that was the best way to face a thing you did not want to face. I made coffee and drank it standing up. Then I found the old license in my wallet. It was cracked at the corner. The picture looked like a man who had seen too much wind.

The road to the motor vehicles office was empty. I drove with the window down. The air was sharp. It woke me. It reminded me that even a small errand could turn into an adventure if you let it. A license renewal was not war. It was not a hunt. But it was something you had to do with a clear head.

The building stood low against the sky. A long line bent around it, slow as a river in the dry season. People stood with their hands in their pockets, silent. No one wanted to be there. No one wanted to lose a morning. Still, they stayed. That was what you did.

A man in front of me wore a hat pulled low. He did not speak for a long time. Finally he said, "They open the doors late sometimes."

"Yes," I said. "But they open them."

He nodded like a man who had been through this before. Perhaps he had. We all had. That was the strange comfort of it.

When the doors opened, we filed in.

The room was bright with bad lights that hummed. The chairs were the old kind that had known worry and impatience from many people. A woman behind the counter took my number and gave me another number. I sat down.

The number board changed slowly. It was a steady, stubborn thing. You could not rush it. You could only watch and breathe and wait.

In this way, it was like fishing. The river did not care what you wanted. Time in that place did not care either.

A child cried somewhere. A man coughed. A woman sighed as if all the air in her life had turned heavy. The numbers clicked forward.

At last my number came. I rose. There was no victory and no triumph in it. There was only the small motion of standing and moving toward the counter because now it was my turn.

The clerk asked me to look into a machine. The light from it was harsh. It showed everything. It saw you as you were on that day, not as you had been when the old photo was taken. I looked straight into it. There was nothing else to do.

"Blink," she said. I did. She pressed a button.

"Step aside," she said.

I waited again, but the waiting felt lighter now. Soon she brought the new license. The picture showed a tired man, but a true one. A man who had done what needed doing.

I walked outside. The sun was higher. The air had warmed. The line was shorter now, though still long enough to test a person.

I put the new license in my wallet and felt its clean edges. I got in the car. I sat for a moment with my hands on the wheel. Then I started the engine. The engine caught quick and strong.

There was nothing heroic in renewing a license. But it was a thing completed. And sometimes that was enough. I drove home the long way, because the road was open and the day had turned good.

(This text is donated to the public domain.)