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Patrick’s Day is a huge celebration in the city of Savannah. The schools are closed, fountains are tinted green, and everyone in the city is Irish, if only for the day. And, as family tradition dictated, Uncle Sterling and Aunt Billie rode on their very own Sterling Exley & Sons Funeral Parlor float each and every year. I, myself, had been a fixture on the float since the year I was born. It became my job to drive the vehicle the year I turned sixteen.
    I recall drinking Bloody Marys with Uncle Sterling that morning, as there is no such thing as underage drinking in Savannah on St. Patrick’s Day (well, there is, but as long as you don’t stand naked in front of the police station hollering obscenities, and you’re with your legal guardian, it is not a problem). Both of us were dressed in emerald green suits and ties, gluing artificial lilies to the sides of the float and joking about the number of fatalities the day’s festivities might generate. Aunt Billie showed up, trailing the Howards and some of their guests behind her like so many overinflated balloons. We all stood around, waiting for the parade to begin, drinking and talking. Finally, we got the signal and started rolling down Abercorn Street. We threw strings of green beads, green doubloons imprinted with the funeral parlor’s name, and green-dyed artificial lilies. We waved and drank and speculated on the participation of Sinn Fein and whether that participation would ever bring any untoward attacks to the annual event.
    Before we knew it, we had passed the big art deco SCAD library building and theater on Broughton, nearing the middle of the parade route. For some reason, floats ahead of us were veering toward the left-hand side of the street. We’d had a particularly cold winter that year and I suppose it had taken its toll on our streets. Our float, fashioned from an old hearse, hit the enormous pothole that everyone else had avoided. I did not see it until it was far too late to dodge. My Bloody Mary spilled all over my lap, ruining my best green trousers. Uncle Sterling and Aunt Billie had been sitting in the extra-large sunroof we’d cut in the top of the vehicle, and when the car lurched and I spilled my drink, we lost Aunt Billie.
    She fell to the right as I yanked the steering wheel hard to the left. The orange traffic cone that had been set up in front of the hole flew off the float’s front bumper and into the crowd, breaking some woman’s green-painted nose. Aunt Billie tumbled off the roof, her legs scraping the hastily-finished left edge of the hole, ripping massive runs in her beige pantyhose, stripping the skin from her left shin, vegetable peeler-style.
    I don’t remember much after that.
    I was later shown the entire accident on video at the police station. Billie had fallen in slow motion. She flailed, upside down hovering at the rear passenger window, her left leg snapping, sharp ragged bone tearing through her considerable flesh, face freezing in a desperate scream. Then, she quite simply fell to the pavement, landing on her head. I’d stopped the car, but she’d still been dragged about ten feet or so, leaving a pasty red and hairy trail behind her. The smear was surprisingly dull under the glaring sun. A hush fell over the raucous crowd. Someone said ‘dude.’ Someone laughed. Someone covered Aunt Billie’s face with their lime green coat. Uncle Sterling threw the coat back into the crowd with an animal roar.
    Aunt Billie was brain dead.
    She had what they call a depressed skull fracture. Bone splinters that had shattered off of her skull surrounding the point of impact impaled her brain, requiring extensive surgery. The covering of her brain, the meninges, more specifically the dura mater, was torn. Surgeons worked for hours, first monitoring her intracranial bleeding and pressure, then closing up her skull with a stainless steel plate. So much of her scalp had been cut away during the debriding of the wound that she’d had