I still don't know what happened. I tolerate the red light, watch cars pass at the low-level commercial corner of Hodges Ferry Road and Portsmouth Blvd in Portsmouth, Virginia. A white sports utility vehicle stared me down from the opposite side of the road, progress similarly impeded by shaded photons. Green light. I ease my foot off the brake, check around my field of vision, and nudge the gas ever so slightly, making a properly signaled left turn. At best, I do twenty-three miles per hour.

I complete the turn. Pedaling along, I search mirrors, my textbook active gaze belies an overeager hawk itching to prove his predatory existence is not a mistake, his licensed survival non-regrettable. True, Virginia was colder than in recent memory and some rain froze on the highway, but I had not and would not cause any trouble behind the wheel of my mother's 1993 aqua-blue Mercury Grand Marquis. The plan was to retrieve Frank White in Churchland following a small detour at the local mall to breathe a toothy hello to a high school acquaintance, and this world was my Chesapeake oyster. Mugsy graduated from Old Dominion University before my very eyes only four hours earlier; the Freak Squad's collegiate chronicles completed amid the mild Atlantic winter. Educated, sexual, and strong, clad in a black three-button, $500 Kenneth Cole suit identical to one modeled by Brad Pitt with matching black tie, I drive, both careful and carefree, a solo traveler in an almost perfect world. Today, the only thing I'm sure of is that I made that damnable turn.

Sudden fishtails suck. Barely noticeable at first, the rear of my mother's clipper ship sways to the right, an unforeseen imbalance that crescendos into the most harrowing control loss I've ever experienced wearing clothing. Frantic memory flashes display shattered calm, as my strained steering wheel grapple unmasks a desperate battle against Clint Eastwood inertia - too ancient, too grizzled, too primal to show mercy on the brash unforgiven. I really didn't feel in trouble until I hit the fence; I doubt less than five seconds transpired between the first rear tremors and the passenger side gray picket fence impact. After that, I struggle to not die. Careening toward the other side of the four-lane street, I spy several cars in line at the light. A newly graying, somewhat middle-aged Southern white woman of modest build and modern sensibilities sits patiently in a navy blue pantsuit, talking to a passenger in her 2002 black Chevy Trailblazer, Sunday's Best with Monday morning's conference call to Los Angeles on the brain instead of the Apostle Paul. Ms. Money looks up sharply at my too-fast-too-avoid approach with the widest hazel eyes I've ever seen, another scared white woman terrified by the impending doom of a black man's coming. And I can't hate her for it. At that moment, I resolve to live. Unhurt.

With all deliberate effort I wrench the steering column to the extreme right, slam into the concrete and soil median. Something clicks. My father's driver's education training telegraphs his stern admonition into my motor neurons like Dr. Nooian Soong neural net programming animated by the Brent Spiner Pinocchio. Take your foot off the gas! Switching to the brake, I flip around, complete a 300-plus degree Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas spin before finally coming to Newtonian rest facing oncoming traffic in my lane. Fighting the urge to shake and wring my hands in public, I awkwardly slap my mom's Titanic in park, release the seat belt, burst open the driver side door, and stand erect, an affirmative action Abercrombie & Fitch model surrounded by what I can only hope doesn't resemble a scene from Final Destination 2. Eyes commanding, mouth taut, I bark, "Is anybody hurt?" at quickly amassing witnesses. Someone hands me a cell, and I promptly call my father at our Cavalier Manor residence. I was sure he'd be available; I'd only left six minutes prior.