Read White People for Free Online Page B

pretty foolish to be out there. When our bus was hijacked, its spare fell off, and now the street was totally empty except for your parents and the tire and a beggar who was propped up in a doorway down the block. I think he was only there because the mob had carried off his crutches as two more things to wave around.
    Your dad was taking a picture of the tire and your poor mother was looking at the light meter. You probably know how your father asked her to help by testing the brightness of the light. He pretended to include her in his hobby but, in my opinion, he never really listened to Lily. Many times I’d hear her say, “Fred, it’s way too bright out here. Without some filters, every shot is going to be way overexposed. This is Africa, Fred.” He’d nod and go on clicking away. She acted like she didn’t notice this, but after forty years of a thing, you notice. It made me remember my own marriage to one basically good man. I wondered, Is it wise or crazy to put up with so much for so long. Your dad was mostly kind to her and he didn’t mean any harm, but this once I wish he’d told her not to bother, to justgo on upstairs and take a nap or something. Instead, there Lily was, two stories down, the poor thing holding out a light meter of no earthly good to anybody, squinting at it and wearing her pretty yellow pantsuit. I should have called to them. If it had been just her I definitely would have, but when a woman’s husband is along, you often act different.
    Then they both looked down the street. By leaning out the window, I could see a whole parade, this whole mass of people carrying signs painted on sheets stretched between green bamboo poles. The writing was a foreign language, foreign to me, at least. Groups came down the street and sidewalks, pushing, waving scrap lumber and garden tools. They all moved together. They looked organized and almost noble, like they knew just what they wanted and deserved, and, right now, were headed there to get it. I expected your parents to run straight back into our hotel. They had time. But instead, your father changed cameras. He wore about three looped around his neck and he crouched down like a professional and started taking pictures. The Africans were shouting something hard to understand except I think the CIA part was still in there. The chants got louder and echoed between buildings. Your dad stayed put. Lily looked confused but tried to make herself useful anyway and held out that light meter toward the crowd, like she was offering it to them. Lily kept glancing at the hotel doorway. Somebody must have been signaling for her to come inside. But she didn’t budge, she stuck out there in the open with your dad. He hunched down facing them. I just stood upstairs and watched. I kept believing he knew things I didn’t.
    His camera had a long black lens and this was pressed up against his face, and I don’t know if people thought it was a gun or what, but along with their chant, I heard this one pop, no louder than a firecracker, and your poor father fell right back. It was as fast and simple as that. It seemed like he did a backflip he’d been planning all along, or got more interested in the sky between buildings than the crowd, because he was lying there staring right up at the sun. He tried to toss the camera toyour mother, like the camera mattered most. She caught it and looked down at the thing for a minute. Then she seemed to wake up and she took two shaky steps toward him. But that moment the people shoved past our hotel. There were hundreds of them and they were running fast. Some were banging on pots and garbage-can lids. They carried things along over their heads. A phone pole on its side, people hanging onto the loose wires like these were leashes. Along came what looked like a huge snake held up by dozens of black hands, but it was just the vacuum hose. I could see flashes of her yellow suit down there. The last of the parade went rushing by, women,