About the Car ( Part 2 )

About the Car

Part 2

License To Drive

One always requires a driver’s license to drive. That rule goes around pretty much everywhere.

The driver’s license in USSR literally was called - “The Right to Drive”. And just like any other human rights, that right wasn’t assured.

It was conditional on permission from the government. And that permission wasn’t granted easily.

In the USSR for the most part, a driver or chauffeur was a profession and a great one. To become a chauffeur, you should qualify educationally as well as morally. Getting that qualification required special education and practice.

While in the USSR, as you learned from my previous story, I never had an automobile.

I, however, went through the driver’s education class and earned a valid license, just in case. I paid some extra fees and bribed the clerk to receive a special international license to drive.

- Why? - you may wonder.

- Just because, like most people, I liked exceptional things and special status.

Special status I didn’t get, but my feeling was pretty special.

That document was a bright red pocketbook that looked like an American passport. It had my photograph, several stamps, and signatures. Everything in that document was written not in Russian, but in French. It was an absolutely cool thing to have, even though I didn’t really drive the car.

As we were leaving the country the soviet officials forbade me to take that special driver’s license with me.

We weren’t allowed to bring across the border any original soviet documents. Those documents were considered the property of the state. Office of the internal affairs confiscated all of our legal papers and replaced those with special legalized copies. Those copies, and we still have them somewhere up at the attic, were all uniformly gray. Perhaps as the whole people's living was in the USSR.

By the way, to copy and legalize all those papers wasn’t free, and the officials made us pay for that quite expensively.

The driver’s license, however, wasn’t permitted to be legally copied, therefore wasn’t permitted to be taken with us. Even though it was an international one, in the French language, and intended for driving abroad. That was an iron-hard soviet logic not to be understood, but to be followed.

I realized, however, that was a very particular document that was necessary for me to have. I took the risk of being arrested for contraband.

If caught, I would be charged for the unauthorized transportation of legal documents with the intention of spying for the foreign government.

I risked being put in jail for that. It was silly, but I thought that was important for me to have. I hid the license in the shoe and walked through the soviet customs with it as we left the country. Needless to say that our departure was so terribly convoluted, complexed and dangerous, that I actually totally forgot about that special red book as it was making a big red dent at the bottom of my foot.

***

Life prepared many paradoxes for me. That was just one of those. I never had a car in USSR, but I had a driver’s license. In America, I learned very quickly that the car is not a luxury, but an essential, basic necessity. I had an International License to drive, but I didn’t have a car.

My father-in-law had a very beautiful car. It was a big, blue, and altogether wonderful automobile. He proudly called it ‘Moiya Furia’. It was a 1972 Fury Gran Sedan with 4-doors, auto transmission, A/C, and with hidden headlamps that would open as needed.

It was a big wow!

Immigrants used to buy those big American cars very cheaply. The 1970s oil crisis changed the entire American auto market. Nobody wanted those huge gasoline gulpers anymore. Most gave away the luxury of the big car for the economy of the small ones. For us who came from the land of “have-nots”, cheap, big, and beautiful sounded preferable.

That was what we liked!

A few days after our arrival in the US, Lily’s father asked me if I knew how to drive.

- I have an International driver’s license, - I replied evasively.

P1-1

It was, however, a very honest answer. I got that license in the USSR.

Just like most of everything there, it wasn’t what it pretended to be.

I didn’t really know how to drive, but the license I got.

I learned how to drive a big military truck. I completed 20 hours of practice on it. Most of these hours I spent listening to my instructor.

He was one of those a non-stop swearing sorry excuse for a man who was disappointed with his life and satisfied himself by bullying his students. He made me change the water in the truck’s radiator twice daily. That was before and after the actual driving time. The weekly class was one hour long. The first 20 minutes was radiator filling time. There was no water hose, but an old tin bucket and the water faucet a block away. Then there were 5 minutes for review and 10 minutes for a smoke break. Then 10 minutes of driving following with another review time, smoke break, and radiator draining and refilling. That’s all.

My instructor preferred me to do all that rather than worry about actual driving. I completed 20 days of that class and then took a written test there. I have passed the test and was issued the license. I gave my swearing instructor some extra money, and he arranged for the international one to be received a month after my so-called graduation.

And now I stood there in Des Moines, Iowa. In that special town with the french sounding name in the very middle of the United States of America.

I was standing at the edge of the actual test.

To my horror, it was a real one, in a foreign country, on the beautiful but humongous foreign totally unfamiliar car, and with my wife’s father by my side.

- Let’s go, why don’t you drive - he said and welcomed me to drive his magnificent beauty.

I got inside quickly, acting calm and demonstrating my extreme confidence. The seats were very hot from the unforgiving July’s heat. But my entire body was even hotter and very tense.

My body understood what an adventuristic venture I was pressing it to perform. My body knew I didn’t consult with my head.

But there was no way back for me.

I looked around.

There were a lot of buttons all around me. Even the steering wheel had a bunch of buttons on it. I have never seen so many buttons in a car.

- Even Russian airplanes had fewer buttons, - I thought nervously.

- Never mind the buttons, - Lily’s father caught my wonder.

- Two pedals on the floor and a steering wheel, that is all you need. - he smiled.

If he only knew how much more I needed at that moment...

He showed me how to start the car. I put the gear in to drive and so we went!

- Yield! - he directed me. - Do you see that triangle?

It was the triangular traffic sign; he called - The Yield, meaning go, in his interpretation.

- Go! and Go fast! - he emphasized, and I understood that I have a lot of stuff to learn...

I squeezed my eyes and entered the driving world of the Americas.

***

Des Moines, Iowa in 1980 wasn’t particularly the driving capital of the world. For me, there were a lot of cars on the road, and all of those were extremely large and driven too close one to another. The car I was driving was humongous. I saw its front that was too far ahead, and the rear was really too far behind me. Yet when I turned the steering wheel, the car followed my intentions and went exactly as I wanted. It was amazing. I was driving! And it wasn’t that difficult after all.

- Pull over and park - asked Lily’s Dad. - Now we are going to get you a real driver’s license. Do you have all your papers with you?

P1-2

Ever since my confusion at the airport ( see my story The Independence Day) I always had my papers with me.

- What are you talking about? I don’t believe I am ready. Do I need to pass the test in English? - that and many other questions were running through my mind.

- Don’t you worry,- He said, like he read my mind - I’ll give you my dictionary and introduce you to my system,- he chuckled.

The vehicle registration office was full of people. We got a number from the bright green dispenser on the wall and sited down to wait. Lily’s Dad passed me his big Russian-English dictionary.

- America is a country of honest people, - he asserted in a quiet voice. - Let me introduce you to my system!

He explained to me that the test was rather complicated, especially if you didn’t know the language. He tried many times himself, to the point that everyone knew him there. And he failed every time. To memorize those rather complicated English words and terms was too much for him. That was why he came out with the ingenious idea of how to cheat the system.

If English wasn’t your primary language, they were allowed to use the dictionary during the test. He figured out how to code the pages in his dictionary to the correct test answers. He failed the test repeatedly once and again. He went so many times, just to fail again, and to collect all available test variations. He recorded all the correct multiply choice answers and codded them in his big 800 pages dictionary. He marked pages from 1 to 100 for test number 1. He marked pages 2 to 200 for test number 2. And so on, using the following page numbers for the question number and the highlighted letters on the page for the correct answer. That was a genius secret code!

He actually learned that method while in soviet prison. He was involved in organizing a semi-private enterprise in the USSR. The government encouraged that work at first to improve the failing economy. Then, when the business became successful, the Communist Party shut it down and imprisoned organizers for being too efficient. There was another example of the iron-hard logic of the socialistic reality.

I knew he meant well.

I looked at him, and at the big green Russian-English dictionary in his hand, at the surrounding people... I looked at the ones who had sat at the desks already, taking the test... I looked at the American flag in the corner of the room and the smiling face of the American president looking at me from the picture on the wall...

I remembered how a young American Rabbi helped me to put a Mezuzah on my doorpost, just a few days ago...

- I am sorry, but I will not do it like that, - I declare. - That would not be right. Uh... Please don’t be upset. Your system is unbelievably genius. I would never come up with something like it. But let me try to do it properly. Please. I have my small dictionary with me and I’ll try to understand the questions honestly. I hope, I just hope maybe I am going to make it.

- Be as you wish... I just wanted to help you. I wanted to make things easier... - he replied.

P 1-3

I could tell that he was a bit upset because of my rejection. But I wanted to do things my way.

I bravely stepped up to the counter as soon as they seem to call my number #4. That was what I heard.

- We just called the number fourteen already. You’ve misted your number 4, - the lady behind the counted smiled at me, noticing my confusion.

- It’s OK, we gonna let you in any way,- she smiled again and invited me to sit at the test desk.

- I not spik Einglish veri gut, - I replied. - I have Intenashinal Right to Drive,- and I proudly showed her my red soviet document that was all written in French with many stamps, very important signatures, and the gold emblem of the USSR on the cover.

- Hey, Joe com’on down here yonder. We got something very interesting. - the lady clerk called somebody across the room.

Joe was the boss, or that was the way I understood. He was a largely built Iowa man, grown on corn, beer, meat, and potatoes. He walked toward me slowly, moving his body from side to side. He wore a gray uniform that seems to be two sizes too small for his overgrown body. A large gray uniformed cowboy’s hat with a gold emblem topped his rather round and friendly smile. And for me, all that was making him equal to no less than every one of the Magnificent Seven. (The most famous 1960 US western very popular in USSR in the 70s.)

He was awesome!

Joe leaned over-the-counter chewing on his toothpick and curiously looked at my International, all written in French the Right to Drive Soviet-made driver’s license.

He looked at my red booklet inside and out and even turned it upside down for a second, flushing it to the light.

- Well... I personally have seen nothing like that, - he declared. - maybe in your country, you can drive with that, but in my state, you, my friend better take the test first... alright.

I didn’t understand what he said really, but there was so much persuasion in his voice that I had nothing else but to agree and follow his directions.

The test actually wasn’t very long or difficult. The one I took back in the USSR was much longer. For me, however, it was the most complicated test ever!

Luckily there wasn’t a time limit, and I spent about two-and-a-half hours there.

My creative process went like that; taking one question at a time, first I translated every word with my dictionary, then I wrote words on paper, then I combined those words into sentences trying to understand the meaning of the question... And after that, I would choose an answer and quickly move to the next one.

It wasn’t a problem to answer correctly. I knew the driving rules alright. My problem was to explain the meaning of the questions. That wasn’t easy.

P 1-4

Finally, I got through all the questions, put all my papers concurrently in order, and passed these to the lady at the counter. I tried not to show my nervousness, but I was trembling all inside. She put my papers over a pre-cut template and marked something up in red. My heart fell to my feet with no intention of coming back.

But yet, the smile came across the lady’s face, and she told me something encouraging, inviting me to be photographed for a license. I got only two questions wrong, but otherwise, I passed the test! Wow!

I was so happy.

Joe came out of his office to see how did I do on my test.

As I heard the news, I grabbed Joe’s hand and shook it so vigorously that he started to wonder about the stability of my mind.

I noticed that in his eyes and stopped at once.

In a few minutes, I held a piece of warm plastic with my picture in it, just from under the press.

That was my first American driver’s license! I got it by myself, and I got it from the very first try. I was so happy.

I proudly showed my new possession to my father-in-law.

He was thrilled for me and even shook his head in disbelief.

- Honestly, I didn’t even think you could get this license today, - he told me with the evident surprise in his voice.

- I brought you here just to try, just to get a filling of how to do it.

- Thank you, - I replied smilingly. - Thank you for bringing me here. And I am a little sorry I didn’t use your system. It is a really good one, but I just wanted to do it my way... um... I am kinda that way, as you know...

At home, it was a glorious celebration that night. Everyone was happy for me, and I was happier than everyone. And on the next morning, we met our first American car.

***

The Jewish Family Service of Des Moines had one donated car passed from one needed family to another until the time they can afford their own vehicle. We got lucky. A week before we arrived somebody who used the donated car bought a vehicle for themselves and therefore the donated car was waiting for us already.

It was a great American Classic, Chevrolet Impala 1971. It was light beige with some shiny chrome parts. Our Impala had 8 cylinders, a 365HP engine, and could easily fit 6 or 7 people inside.

As I looked at that beauty, I remembered how way back in Riga we went to buy a very different car. The one that was parked somewhere at the edge of town, next to the old fence made from the old wood planks and the chicken wire. I remembered the blooming dahlias and for a second I’ve seen a herd of 30 horses, gorgeous beauties with the long braided manes blowing in the wind, neighing and ready to take me with them to the remarkable journey.

And I remembered an original purple-red and silver logo KIM on the very front of the car. The Russian acronym of the KIM stood for the Communist Internacionale for the Youth - what a stupid name for a car!

And I remembered my father as he silently opened that car door, stepped outside, and walked toward the bus stop in silence... never looking back at me. He also wanted to drive a car... someday...

***

The dreams are coming true in America!

We drove that donated car for about 6 months until the next family arrived.

I already worked at two jobs, and we saved enough money to buy our own vehicle.

But that would be another story...