Letting go of the Past (Port)

The Engineer sets the human bundle down on the little stool and the clerk motions for the boy to look at the camera.  He’s survived one revolution around the sun and still looks tiny and dazed in his red Hawaiian shirt worn for this special family occasion.

Ruff, ruff, ruff!  I utter, hoping the boy will look up at me from his round perch and smile. 

He does, but the clerk snaps the photo right as his grin fades into just-booked-into-prison stoicism. He’ll be stuck with this passport for five years but somehow the mug shot seems calculated and cool.

The Engineer walks E over to play with some toys while I contend with the paperwork. We’re both in need of a new passport and so I pull out my official documents and a checkbook and prepare to finish the deal. E’s paperwork is a breeze. The clerk is friendly and efficient and she’s had a full night of sleep.  I have not.

So it says here that your former passport was stolen, she offers. When was it stolen?

Not quick enough on the draw, I pause. Not stolen but lost.

She adds: And on this other document it says that the passport was mutilated?

Uuuuh, yes.

Was it lost or mutilated?  she clarifies.

Mutilated and then lost, I add.  

Behind the desk she jots down notes on my application. She’s on to me but I won’t relinquish it. The State Department stamps a hole to render old books unusable but I can’t risk the thought of a lost-in-the-mail kind of tragedy. Take the car, the house, but keep your mitts off the little blue history book.

Do you remember the passport number? she asks, raising her eyebrows.

I do. I begin to recite the digits and she interrupts:

You know it by heart. Posed as both question and response.

Yeah, I sigh.  I loved my passport.  Past tense.

The Engineer listens from across the room and what’s worse or maybe better is that he knows this is a charade. For a brief moment I worry that he’ll turn me in to the authorities.

Do you have a passport photo?  the clerk asks.

I do. I hand her the tiny photos.

She scrutinizes one image and asks, Do you see this little gray line on the white background of your photo?


I strain to see it but don’t.

The State Department might not take this photo.  Was the picture taken by a professional?

Yes, I reply.  Not a lie. The Engineer snapped it himself.

To be safe you could have a photo taken here. Otherwise, you may be contacted and asked for a new picture, which might delay the process.

Thanks, but I’ll take my chances, I add. A sleepy smile. No hard feelings.

Maybe the clerk understands this desperate display of middle-aged vanity.

I arrive home and in the back of my drawer pull out a tattered blue book with my name in it. It has stamps and stickers and memories of long flights and a bad, bad, bad photo of my younger self, all crooked smile and matted hair.  

Erma Bombeck once said: There is nothing more miserable in the world than to arrive in paradise and look like your passport photo.

My older self disagrees.  There is far greater misery in the world.  And in 6 weeks we'll have just the tickets to get us There.