This Lady Drives like a Man

Did you know old wood is really sharp? Neither did I, until my cheek was gored on the side of a boat.

Picture it: Sicily, 1987. I was six years old, playing tag or some Italian variant. It was evening, sometime after dinner during our "passagiata" or walk-after-dinner. My mom sat on a bench along the water, talking to her friends, while I chased the trajectories of little Italian children, with whom I couldn't communicate. What was rules of this game? Was this even a game? Boh, che ne saccio.

I ran up and down the cobblestone street in the little fishing village where my dad built a summer home. I darted past streets signs I could not read, people I did not know, and large wooden row boats parked on the sidewalk. It was a happening little spot.

During one pass, I took a step forward and slipped, careening to the right. My face smacked the side of the boat, and weight of my small body pulled me down to the stone ground.

I don't remember getting up. I remember the cool cobblestones under my hands. I remember the pink stucco of the buildings looking beige in the evening, illuminated by the soft light of antique street lamps. I remember the deep black sea in the distance, with the moon's reflection waving on the water.

And I remember my mother's face, as I approached the bench. She screamed. My mom pulled my hand off my cheek and screamed louder. My palm had almost glued itself to my cheek, I recall. Blood pouring out of my face, my mom laid me across my lap and pressed hard into my cheek to stop the bleeding. As I looked up at her, I asked gently, "Am I going to die?"

Sure, I was a dramatic child. I once licked a mushroom shaped air-freshener and asked her the same question. It surprisingly came up often. Whether it was on my mind, or instilled in me by my mom's own anxiety, I was constantly on the look out of imminent death.

And here it was. Bleeding out my face in a foreign land with my mom caterwauling over my pale form.

Then, someone pulled my mothers attention and she lifted me from the bench onto my feet. Then a man I never met swept me off the ground and into the backseat of a stick-shift jalopy. My mom's lap was my pillow as the car took off from the bloody scene.

Memories get fuzzy here. I remember sitting in the Pronto Soccorso (the ER), and the nurse breaking a tongue depressor in my mouth. The slap of her hand when she put a wad of gauze over the wound. Then we were back on the road. Apparently, the ER was not equipped to handle a full protrusion through a child's face. So, they sent us to the hospital in Palermo. Forty-five minutes away.

I remember the darkness of the car interior as I stared up at the ceiling. The lights filtering into the windows would briefly reveal the fear and concern on my mom's face. I could not understand the heavy Sicilian accent of the driver and the person in the passenger seat. My mom could speak the dialect and responded here and there during the ride. But she was focused on me.

What I didn't know at this time was my dad had asked my mom to stay in the house that night. Why? Don't know. But she didn't. She went for a passagiata with the kids. And now here she was with a bleeding child in a stranger's car in a foreign country to an unknown hospital.

The car ride was typical Sicilian driving. Darting through traffic, all gas, no brake. At this time, most of the streets did not have traffic lights, which were more of a suggestion than a direction anyway. There was a methodology to the chaos though, as I don't recall anyone having road rage or being angry while driving. Only fear from the rest of the passengers in the vehicle, grasping the "oh shit" handles for dear life.

My mom smiled down at me and asked me how I was doing. I said ok, but remarked her hand was hurting me. She had been pressing her full weight onto my face to stop the bleeding. I actually don't remember the pain of the wound, just my mom's wrist crushing my face.

The car shifted to the right, and I slid a little off my mom's lap. She pulled in me closer and remarked, "This lady drives like a man." I looked toward the driver's seat and saw a bushel of dirty blond curly hair. I realized then my mom did not know who was driving or who was in the passenger seat. These two people saw someone in need and jumped into action. And when the endeavor forced them to drive an extra forty-five minutes to the big city of Palermo, they did it. I can never repay that. I don't even know their names.

But when we got to the hospital, I saw the driver's face: Gesu Christo. Jesus Christ. Don't worry, this isn't a Christian testimonial. The driver literally looked like the paintings of the Son of God: Long curly hair, short beard, gaunt face, and piercing blue eyes. It was remarkable for me, even in that state. My mom didn't even know the person driving us was a man. She had been fixed on me the whole time.

I then remember being on a operating table in an extremely bright, white room. A nurse place a deep-green cloth over my face with a hole cut-out. I moved the hole over my mouth, but the nurse moved the cut-out back over my cheek. I moved green-cloth again. The nurse moved it back and began to complain in Italian. I searched my brain for a response. "Aiuto!!!! Aiuto!!!" I screamed. The nurse then pressed the green-cloth over my mouth and let the chloroform, or whatever, do its job.

I woke up in the hospital with my mom greeting me. She told I got sixteen stitches in my cheek. In reality, in was more than sixty. She was so happy I was ok. I was happy I was ok.

And then she told me to tell my dad that I fell in the house. I did not understand. Why not tell papa the truth? This was a crazy good story. So when I arrived at the house, my dad was overjoyed to see me ok. Then began to interrogate me. I cracked under pressure.

But I remember telling him, "Jesus Christ saved my life." He took that as more symbolic than appreciative of my wry and witty humor. He smiled and said, "Girls are going to like that scar."

Over time, the scar moved from directly over my right check to my jawline. I can't say if the scar made any difference in my life, but the experience getting it certainly did.