StoryCorps Shorts: Rules of the Road

-I used to take your mother for driving practice.

-Mhm, because she did not know how to drive!

-And I remember one day, we was in this park, and your mother had said to me, "I'm nervous.

Y'all get out the car."

-What car was this?

-Oh, that was my black Maxima.

-Talk about it!

-Oh, Man.

That was like my love child.

-Hello!

Was it paid off too?

-It was paid off.

-All right, so she's driving, and, to my recollection, she was doing a really good job.

-She was.

Until I told her, "I want you to park the car."

I stood in front of the car to guide her, and I kept pulling my hands towards me as a, "Come on, come on."

And for some reason, she stepped on the gas, and the car flew.

I had to jump out of the way, and the car went over the embankment into the water, flipped upside down.

-And me, and you, and the dog.

-The dog.

-Roxanna.

-Yeah.

-Looking down.

I could not believe this happened.

-What just happened?

-I ran down the hill, and I went into the water, and I couldn't see nothing.

-Mmhmm.

-But I knew she was in there.

-And I remember these two women came up and they called 911 and stuff.

Do you remember that?

-I remember the ambulance and the police.

-And I want to say even a helicopter!

-Yeah.

The feeling was, "It's too late.

She's gone."

Until I pushed her up to the top of the car, they thought she was dead.

-I'm left with this memory of my Dad coming out of the water, like, literally holding my Mom.

And saving her -- against all odds.

-Mmhmm.

-That moment was love embodied to me.

But, what I also remember is you going, "Oh, I saved her, but Lord, my car.

My car!"

-Yeah.

I had just shined my car up, it was -- it was beautiful.

And she said, "I ain't never going to touch a car again."

Until this day, she just sits in the passenger seat and complains about, "Turn over there, slow down."

-Truth, truth, truth.

-Everything.

-That's a Bell family story.

-Yes, it is.

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