THE LAST WORD
Harvey, David
THE LAST WORD David Harvey Not too long ago, I was in Los Angeles where I tried to rent a car from one of those firms that tries hard. The phone call went like clockwork until I said I would pay...
...I noticed the application forms for credit cards discreetly stacked on the wall right where I stood...
...take a while to get cash-qualified, that all kinds of difficulties might arise, and that I would be far better off, if I possibly could, to use a credit card...
...Suddenly there were five smiling faces...
...The recipient of that good news simply looked away, either uncomprehending or downright embarrassed...
...A phone call from Los Angeles to Baltimore had established that I was indeed who I said I was (I wondered what was wrong with my passport, which had even satisfied notoriously suspicious East German border guards...
...Hey," I said to the next person sprinting past, "I just got cash-qualified...
...I was just about to expound upon the quality of my travelers' checks, when the voice cut me off...
...I nervously flipped through the application form for a credit card...
...They also said "In God We Trust" and who could ask for more than that...
...Simpson sprinted in and out of the office, picking up or dropping off keys with the flick of a credit card...
...I was elated...
...The ghostly dance behind the frosted window finally ceased and the form was returned to me...
...And they left copious space in which to put down the names of major department stores with whom 1 had credit accounts...
...They had to go in search of the right change...
...I soon found myself filling out an application form...
...said a surprised voice, "But are you cash-qualified...
...I couldn't resist spreading the good news...
...But I needed the car and by now I was definitely getting the impression that anything I said might be taken down and used in evidence against me...
...I was coldly informed that I would be permitted to pay cash only if I was first cash-qualified...
...The office was serviced by five smiling and personable young women who were doing a good imitation of TV ads for car rental companies...
...card, and return airline ticket from Los Angeles to Baltimore...
...I felt as if I had just been graduated at the top of the class...
...The four smiling faces around me continued to bob and weave and shake their curls and smile even more, as innumerable imitations of O.J...
...Now it so happens that I was raised in the tradition of the working-class Protestant ethic, which says that even the slightest hint of indebtedness (except to buy a house) is enough to put you on the slippery road to financial ruin...
...They wanted to know my weight and height, the color of my hair and eyes...
...You are," she said, with quite a flourish, "cash-qualified...
...I paid with a couple of hundred-dollar travelers' checks...
...The latter informed me that it might Cash-qualified David Harvey is a professor in the department of geography at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore...
...I was tempted to tell all this to the lady with the furrowed brow...
...This article originally appeared in a slightly longer version in The Baltimore Sun...
...All my assembled documentation was taken off for inspection in a back room...
...I said my dollar bills looked fine to me...
...True to my colors, I had to leave the last spaces blank, which caused the furrows on the brow to deepen...
...It had also been hammered into me at an early and rather impressionable age that to get into debt was to give up whatever little freedom and independence was still left to you...
...I announced that I had come to rent a car and to become cash-qualified...
...There was something about the way the form was gingerly picked up by the corner and returned to the back office that made me wonder if they were after my finger-prints...
...Another ten minutes passed, a dozen or so renters had come and gone...
...I meekly said I would like to get cash-qualified...
...I paid my bill, in advance, of course...
...They wanted to know the names and addresses of employers and banks with which I held accounts...
...Cash...
...The phone call went like clockwork until I said I would pay cash...
...That left four smiling faces and one furrowed brow...
...I had forgotten to sign it...
...I had to wait a few more minutes...
...They were signed and countersigned by none other than the Treasurer and Secretary of the Treasury of the United States...
...The form disappeared into the back office and ghostly gesticulating figures began to drift back and forth behind the frosted glass...
...Pursuant to her business-like instructions as to how I might ascend to such a state, I presented myself at the head office of the auto rental company during their normal hours of business (weekdays, 9 to 5) armed with passport, driver's license, Hopkins faculty I.D...
Vol. 43 • March 1979 • No. 3
