he borrowed 1960 burgundy Ford Falcon zipped east on Highway 80. The quiet between Birda and me was dense with unspoken thoughts as she drove me home from the hospital. The hum of my Uncle Obadiah's souped-up engine filled the silence between us. The numbness from the shots the doctor had given me above my left eye were wearing off. The stitches seemed to tighten.

“I gave you a couple of extra ones,” the doctor had said. “We don’t want an ugly scar on such a pretty face.” It was a kind lie. I was eleven. A middle-of-the-road brown girl, with toothpick legs and unruly braids. He had a gentle face, and I thought I saw concern there. The doctor fished around in the pocket of his white smock and handed me a lollipop. All white people weren’t bad. All white people didn’t burn crosses in your front yard or hit you in the head with radiator caps.

My head throbbed with the slightest movement, but I forced myself to look out of the car window at the familiar rural Alabama scenery. Pastures with cows grazing, inclining shanties, stately white clapboard houses, country stores, the Beehive jukejoint where Birda drank beer and ate fried fish sandwiches with friends nestled in a patch of tall, straight pines; they all zipped by. I had traveled that route many times during drives from Crawford to Columbus, Ga., which was twelve miles east on the other side of the Chattahoochee River. Any view was better than looking down at my white blouse and yellow skirt starched in places with dried blood. That morning it had been bright red. Fresh. Now it was dark crimson. I could already notice the difference in the smell between fresh and old blood. My blood. The smell nauseated me.

In the distance, I saw a man shuffling heavy-footed on the side of the road with shoulders slumped forward and hands jutted into the pockets of sagging britches. His head moved up and down and from side to side as though he was having a conversation with someone. Birda slowed the car, then stopped. It was Yik-Yak, a homeless wanderer who did odd jobs for food and liquor. People who knew him would let him sleep in a chicken coop, a snake-infested shed, or if he was lucky, on a porch. Most folks in our county didn’t have cars, so those who did didn’t hesitate to offer a ride. It was unspoken country etiquette. The Haves extended a hand to the Have-Nots. We were among the Haves. We were money poor, but land rich. Land to colored folks in Alabama was gold. If you had land, you could live. You didn't have to depend on anybody. That was a good thing when you were colored. My grandparents had farmed their own land since The Depression.

I hunkered forward and Yik-Yak climbed into the back seat. The movement caused my head to throb. The small space of the car filled with the funk of body odor and whiskey: the kind that oozes from the pores. There was another pungent, suffocating smell. Pee. Old pee. How could a grown man pee on himself? He smelled like the Peedabeds who rode our bus to Sanfort, the Russell County colored school. My school before integration. The Peedabeds were those kids who peed in the bed night after night and didn’t wash before coming to school. Yik-Yak was a grown Peedabed.

I tried to breathe shallow, but I began to feel lightheaded. I rolled the window down all the way. Yik-Yak gripped the back of my seat and pulled himself forward. I closed my eyes shut from the sudden pain that shot through my head. I squeezed the bottle of pain pills in my hand. I now knew what they were for.

“Gal, howcome yo haid all swolled up like that? Lawdy, look at that blood on your clothes. You done bled out like some pig after I stuck em in the neck for the slaughter.” I had seen him grab one of our fat hogs by the ear, stick a long blade in the neck, fierce and hard, then drag the knife across to the other ear in one swift movement.

I said nothing. Birda kept driving, glancing at him, studying him in the rear-view mirror with her classic, “Don’t piss me off,” look. Again, silence pervaded until a gray furry thing scurried from the grass onto the road. There was a soft thud. The creature didn’t make it. Yik-Yak shrieked.

“Stop this car! Stopthecarstopthecarstopthe CAR!"

The urgency in his voice bordered hysteria. The car screeched to a halt, jerking my head forward, then back like a whip. Huge lead marbles shifted in the tender matter that was my brain. His voice was a rusty saw, moving slowly back and forth, splitting my head in two.

We all knew that Yik-Yak was touched in the head, but no one paid him much mind.

Birda mumbled, “Danged fool.”

Yik-Yak pushed my seat forward and got out. He looked straight back at me, his bloodshot eyes wide in disbelief like I’d done something wrong.

“That’s a possum ya'll done hit.”

“Possums don’t hardly come out during the day, Fool.” Birda shot at him.

“That’s a possum, um telling ya. You don’t let good meat like that go to waste!”

In a regular relationship, mother and daughter would have exchanged glances, shrugged, and perhaps even giggled. But Birda wasn't a giggler. She was a Bell. She had gotten off work at Bibb cotton mill in Columbus that morning red-eyed tired and would have driven the school bus to Sanfort if she hadn't had to take me to the hospital. She was in no frame of mind for Yik-yak's mess.

Yik-Yak rolled the dead possum over with his foot and poked at its swollen belly. He swore.

“Doggoneit! Hit’s fulla babies. That meat hit’s ruint. Cain’t fool wit no possum fulla babies.”

Yik-Yak started toward the car, but I slammed the door as he reached for the handle.

“Danged fool,” Birda muttered again. She put the car in gear and peeled off down the highway, changing the squeaky gears fast like her two adolescent brothers who lived in an imaginary world of racecar driving.

Other than taking me to the hospital that morning, that was the most merciful thing I could remember my mother doing for me in my entire life.