I like symmetry and I like order. This is something that has influenced me ever since I can remember. Now, unlike obsessive compulsive people, I have never been controlled by my desire to have things fit neatly together. It is more like a guide than a behavioral trait.
Anyway, when I was young, maybe 12 or 13, I purchased a metal lock box which I could keep things safe, and more importantly, away from curious eyes. I never really had anything to hide, but it provided a sense of security nonetheless, no matter how easily it could be broken into should someone really want to. It was something that only I had access to. Only I had the keys to this lock box.
This particular box came with a money tray that sat neatly on top so that other things-- secret things-- could be hidden beneath it. I loved that money tray. It made me feel so...in control. It separated my money to perfection like a retail cash register. A neatly organized army of coins-- a platoon of pennies at one end and a battalion of quarters at the other-- and I was the commanding officer.
It was below that corps of change that the real secrets were being held captive. Not only from those curious eyes, but from my own. It was the shameful things that I would hide there. The things that I didn't want to look at. The things I didn't want to remember.
But I didn't get rid of those things either. No, for some reason I saved them-- protected them even.
Over the years, items have come and gone from that box. Hiding condoms and cigars became unnecessary and organizing my money became less and less of a realistic concept. Eventually the lock broke and soon after the keys went AWOL as well. It became yet one more thing to clutter up my room.
Like the pockets of secrets that I hid, I took that keeper of my past and stored it up in a filing cabinet. Once again, those buried stories could remain under the sanctuary of lock and key.
I didn't add nor remove much of anything from that metal box for many years. I just let it keep hiding whatever it was that I thought needed to be kept away. Most of the things were trivial items that, given public judgment, none would see fit the need to keep such things so heavily guarded.
But each solitary piece in there has a story to go with it. All those soldiers have something to say. I will now share two of those.
The first piece of history that I unearthed was my first fake ID. Well, I only ever really had one, but I always seem to give it the designation of being my first. I am a sucker for "firsts".
A good friend of mine, Tim, went to Niagara University, right near the US-Canada border in New York. He had told me that you could get fake IDs at this shady head shop in Toronto and that I should come up, party with him, and then go up there the next day. It sounded good to me, so I asked a mutual friend, Thane, and he was down for the road trip as well. This was the fall of 2000, I believe.
Sure enough, we got to the university and partied. We went to some club that I can hardly remember now and can barely recall the events of the evening at all. The next day, however, I remember very clearly.
We made the hour and a half drive into Toronto and immediately started searching for this shop that would magically make us older. Tim had been there before, so Thane and I followed closely behind like obedient children.
After scouring the city streets for a half hour, we finally found our Mecca. It was EXACTLY how you would picture it in the movies. It was on the ground floor, which means you had to walk down the damp steps that smelled of fried foods and urine. That smell that you can only find in big cities.
They had an array of drug paraphernalia all throughout the place but we weren't distracted in the slightest. We made our way to the horseshoe-shaped glass display cases where the good stuff is always held. There, like puppies in a window, begging to be picked, sat row after row of different IDs to choose from. All the way from Nova Scotia to Hawaii-- I could become anybody I wanted, hailing from any number of places.
My imagination had to take a back seat to logic, so unfortunately, I couldn't be an architect named Gabriel with an Arizona driver's license. I needed functionality, that is, after all, its primary purpose, so I wanted to keep it as simple as possible. I chose the Ontario ID to be my underage weapon of choice. Coming from NY, and from a town noted for recruiting college hockey players from our Northern Neighbor, I thought it was a fairly prudent selection.
Next, we had to write down our personal information, or rather, what we wanted our personal information to say. Me-- I figured the simpler the better. I kept my same name and same birthday sans for the year (Instead of 1981, I had put down 1978). Keeping my name the same proved to be a wise decision as I would later find out, suspicious bouncers would often ask for a second form of identification. Something else with my name on it. A credit card solidified the ruse to perfection.
Then it was picture time. There was a large square painted bright white on one of the walls with a single chair basking in the reflected glow. It reminded me of picture day back in school. I could almost see a line of freshmen lining up, trying to look older than the representation of their teenage faces, but their bodies betray them.
Nothing a different date and cheap laminate can't cure.
I sat down and-- FLASH! No pleading for a smile. No 'look here' comment. Just the sound of the shutter and the blinding light of the flash. The clerk simply told us to return in a half hour to pick up our "souvenir identifications".
We left to go find some sustenance and ended up hastily eating Chinese food in a train terminal. When we finished, we once again made our pilgrimage back to the underground head shop with the steps that reeked of fried foods and urine.
There it was. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. The gateway to a whole new set of experiences. We each picked up our new cards, staring in admiration of the potential that this flimsy piece piece of laminated paper held, and carefully tucked them in our respective wallets.
I have little recollection of what happened after that. I do remember getting a parking ticket, crumpling it up, and tossing it on the city sidewalk. I was never coming back to Canada so if they wanted me to pay for that ticket, they were going to have to send some Mounties to NY to get my ginger ass.
Still, to this day, I stand by my claim that that was the best twenty dollars I have ever spent.
As for that other item that I found? That will have to wait for another day. Nostalgia is a dangerous weapon with me so I must proceed with caution.
To be continued...
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1 comment:
"corps of change" is a particularly excellent phrase.
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