Mother, Can You Not? Read Online Free PDF Page B

they could sell her a counterfeit birth certificate? That was precisely her plan.
    My mother went from vendor to vendor, slowly examining the merchandise at each table until a salesman approached her and tried to sell her the fake Chanel or Prada bag in her hands.
    “You like that? That’s best-quality leather. Top quality.”My mother—again, the world’s least-smooth criminal—made this transition: “Actually, I’m looking for something a little
hotter
?” Each time she said this, the salesman in question gave her a quizzical look. One of them asked, “What you mean? Like, sexy dresses? I do bags, no dresses.” My mother’s criminal shorthand, ripped from movies like
Rush Hour 2
and
Blue Streak,
was not translating to the real world. We were halfway through the seventh iteration of my mom’s illicit routine when it landed.
    “…Actually, I’m looking for something a little
hotter
?”
    “Okay, mamma, what you need?” A towering West African man nodded at her knowingly.
    “I need a fake ID.”
    The guy looked her up and down. “You a cop? What you need a fake ID for? You look forty!” My mother pulled the man into a hug.
    “Forty! Honey, thank you! Michael, did you hear that? This guy thinks I look forty!” My dad rolled his eyes, and my mom pointed at me. “It’s not for me, it’s for my daughter.”
    “All right, cool mamma!” The guy grinned. “Okay, okay. Follow me.”
    He led us through throngs of people in the crowded alley to a desolate, boarded-up warehouse fifteen blocks away. I grabbed my mother’s arm.
    “Mom, this feels sketchy. Maybe we should go back.”
    “Oh my God, what do you think is gonna happen? You’re gonna get murdered?”
I mean, maybe. Yeah.
“You need to stop watching
Law & Order: SVU.
Mamma’s here. I’ll kill anyone who looks at you the wrong way.”
    My dad, who was no longer surprised by any of my mother’s schemes, just shrugged and told me not to worry. The salesman banged three times on the entrance to the warehouse and shouted something in a language I couldn’t understand. After a few moments, the door swung open and an old wrinkled woman was glaring at us from her perch on a rickety stool. She took us in and nodded, opening the door just wide enough for us to pass.
    We followed the man into an enormous warehouse, an open space at least five stories high. Every surface was covered in counterfeit designer handbags. Itlooked like a Technicolor shrine to the Almighty Purse. My mother stopped short, having arrived in her version of heaven, and my dad groaned.
    “Oh my God! Look at these bags!” She was purse-gasming.
    After some intense haggling, my mother followed the salesman into an office in the back of the warehouse, clutching two replica Chanel bags. She motioned for us to hurry. As we entered, an Asian man with a bright blond mohawk looked up at us from his desk. My mother smiled.
    “Hi, we need identification for my daughter here.”
    The man looked over at my gawky twelve-year-old frame and my oily face with an angry whitehead begging to be popped on my chin.
    “Nobody’s gonna believe that girl’s twenty-one!”
    “No, no…we need a birth certificate or a passport or something. It should say she’s fourteen.”
    “Uh, we don’t do that shit here. We make fakes for like clubs and shit.” The guy looked at her like she was smoking the crystal meth that they also didn’t sell. Because again, these people were replica-handbagsalesmen,
not
terrorist document forgers on an NSA watch list. My mother paused.
    “You know what? Just give her a driver’s license. We’ll make her look sixteen.”
    “Okay, I’ll take your money!” He laughed and rose from the desk, grabbing his camera. He motioned for me to stand up against the smudged white backdrop. “Okay, smile!” I did, revealing a metallic smorgasbord, and the man physically recoiled. “Okay, don’t smile.”
    When we showed up at Stanford for crew camp a few weeks later, my braces