We were driving west on Poplar, in a Chrysler with beige seats. A big boat of a thing and still smelled new. I was four and it was spring, it was about seven thirty at night and the reason I know that now is because of a word I did not know then.
It was 1968, and Dr. King had been assassinated only a few days before. We lived in Memphis where it happened and in the aftermath there were riots and there was looting and the National Guard had been called in. It was all over the TV and interrupted my cartoons. An eight o’clock curfew had been issued.
My mother was angry. She didn’t like the Chrysler, never wanted to buy it in the first place but my father insisted. She had been at work all day, there was nothing for supper and eight o’clock was approaching.
More than she was angry, she was fearful; it was in her jaw, in the way she held the steering wheel. It was in her smile and the way she tried to pretend, for my sake, that it wasn’t. It was there in the new car smell.
I did not know what a curfew was, but it made her afraid so it couldn't be good. A man was dead and that was not good. My four year-old world was solely comprised of things that were good and things that were not. Now it consists of the way things are and the way they appear. The ratio changes. But nothing else does.
I saw a report tonight from the Central African Republic, a part of the world where people are poor but the land is rich in diamonds and gold. A tall dark-skinned woman with long red hair stood with her back to the camera, looking down at the river below.
The interviewer asked if she had children. Five, she said, and I don’t know what will become of them now. Her husband had worked in the gold mines once. He was killed by the Russians, who wanted the gold.
I watched in awe of the courage she had. To speak, even hidden, knowing that soldiers might come to the door. Though her face was obscured, I know it was much like my mother’s that night. Fear looks the same in all women’s eyes, as if it were manufactured somewhere.