KILL YOUR INNER CHILD by Samuel Bernstein

Monday, February 19, 2007

I Am Sally Picow

I pretend to be my mother on the phone with AT&T Universal Visa. "This is Sally Picow," I say, rattling off her social security number and date of birth as my own, and acknowledging that Samuel Bernstein is the additional cardholder on the account.

The fact that I am not her, that she is in fact dead, and that I am not a woman in her early-50s does not stop me from making these phone calls. "This is Sally Picow." My voice, naturally a bit high, goes a little higher, and for some reason I usually speak with a southern accent, though my mother never did.

I make these calls in the several years after my mother dies. At forty-nine. Now she is fifty-three and I continue pretending to be her. As I am her.

Sometimes I get confused about what maiden name I have given her on her own accounts, on my accounts, on everything. The problem is I don't know my mother's real maiden name because she is never sure of it herself. Mom was on her own in South Texas from something like the age of eight, living as a sort of servant girl with a family who had a decidedly Anglo name that she took as her own. When I first became an adult that was the name I gave as her maiden name to financial institutions because it is the name I am given.

But when she is sick we talk a lot about her life. It is never a proper narrative, just bits and pieces. I learn that she had a Mexican mother and she believed her father was of Indian descent, maybe French-Indian, maybe Mexican-Indian. The fact that she isn't Anglo, and by association, that I am not either, only then fully dawns on me. Family photos make our mixed ethnic background perfectly clear but you don't know you’re in denial about something until you stop denying it. Her Latino heritage is never mentioned by the Bernsteins. Photos of me with my brothers from my dad's first wife also make clear the distinction, or at least make it clear that we can't possibly have the same two parents.

My father threatens me once, saying there were things I don't know about my mother, that she has a past. What could he reveal? Did she kill someone? Is she a whore at some point in her youth? I don't think so. But who cares? There is nothing he can say that could make me love her differently or think any less of her. I have no shame. Maybe a week or so before she dies I am helping her spruce up in bed. She takes a warm washcloth and wipes between her legs, then carefully wraps another cloth around it before handing it to me, saying I shouldn't touch it; it's dirty. I don't care. I'd bury my face in it just to save more of her except for the fear doing that might embarrass her.

Knowing Mom is a Latina would not have bothered me as a child. It just never occurred to me. The ethnicity of your saint and savior isn't something you really think about. The dopiest part of it is that the name given as her maiden name on my birth certificate, which may or may not be her true maiden name, is decidedly Latino, not the Anglo one at all. I just never notice.

Out of pride after finding out I then start giving out the Latino one as her maiden name to financial institutions. The problem now is that I don't know which name I've given to which company. It's fairly embarrassing when they ask and I give them the wrong name. It takes a while after that to convince them that I am who I say I am. I don't take it personally though. Their suspicion is understandable, and with my history of pretending on the phone, I'm in no position to make a fuss.

The story is that my father had fake documents created for my mother when they married – a driver's license, birth certificate, social security card; the works. Mom thought she remembered having a sister. Her father died young. Her mother was abusive. That was the extent of what I will ever learn about that side of my family. There was a marriage before my father, to a man even more violent and abusive. My dad Adam was apparently a breath of fresh air

I kill off my mother with the credit card companies in the mid-'90s but it is years after her actual demise. Let me be clear: I pay every cent of the money I borrow in her name, even though some of the banks say, as her supposedly newly bereaved next of kin I don't have to, and I close all the accounts.

The banks who say I don't have to pay them back would require a current death certificate, which I probably could manage, changing the dates in Photoshop, but protecting her good name posthumously matters a lot to me. I pay the money back, on time, with interest, and I never cheat anyone out of anything.

The whole thing happens by accident really. While she is dying Mom gets a pre-approved application for a gold Amex card, and she signs up with me as the additional card holder. My credit is shot from my years playing ATM Lotto, never knowing whether I will be able to get cash since I never know if I actually have any, and since I have no idea how to manage money. After she dies and I move to Los Angeles with Stephen, I change the address on the credit card to mine and that's that -- except that pre-approved applications for other cards start rolling in, especially as I am continuing such a solid repayment record in my mother's name.

At my peak I have probably eight or nine cards, but it all drags on much longer than I ever think it will, mainly because my work life is erratic and having large lines of credit gets me through the dry patches. It starts making me really nervous after a while, and I feel ashamed. I think if people find out they might take it in the wrong way. Actually I have the same approach to credit my mother had, not the part about pretending to be someone else, I mean that I pay every bill the day it comes in faithfully, never mind the actual due date, so I never owe late charges, and though I have sometimes been as overextended as everyone else in Los Angeles, I have a perfect repayment record.

Her name is unsullied.

When she died I focused on the memorial service and having people at the house afterwards. I make enchiladas. Like she would have. I feed everyone. I keep busy. I lose my mind at the funeral. It is Greek. I am told I sound like an animal, wounded, in agony. I scream and wail for what seems like hours. The entire universe collapses inside me and even thinking of it now my knees go wobbly. I am barely able to stand long enough to take my turn at throwing dirt on her coffin. On one side I am held up by my cousin Edy, with my grandmother on the other side of me, and Stephen holding me up from behind.

After that I stop wondering whether or not my capacity to love and feel is deep enough. This is Sally Picow. I am Sally Picow.

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