Feet on the Street by Roy Blount Jr.

second choice. What’s your third?”
    â€œ
A typewriter for my sister!
” he said.
    Our problem, from a professional standpoint, was this: we couldn’t report these children’s real names, or tell their full stories, or take their pictures, because their parents might sue for invasion of privacy. The damn Klanspeople had welcomed publicity, but these kids might as well have been in a witness protection program.
    Everywhere we went, the kids wanted to pose. Well, there was one girl who, with two kittens in her arms, declared, “You aren’t going to take a picture of
me.
Like that man did in the paper once.”
    â€œWell,” said Slick, “but if I
did,
where would you like to be photographed?”
    â€œStanding over there on top of the monkey bars,” she said.
    She would have been perfect for the cover shot
Parade
wanted, but we couldn’t shoot her. A boy came running up holding a flaxen-haired three-year-old, whom we will call “Greg.” “I think Greg likes you,” he said. “He keeps doing things and looking at you and saying, ‘Daddy, watch!’ ”
    Greg ran over toward the swings. An administrator said Greg had been found, in a dirty diaper, with his sister, wrapped in a man’s coat, and with his mother, who was eager to get rid of them because their father had ditched them all. Greg sat in the swing and said, “Daddy, watch,” and did a somersault out of it. I said, “That’s good, Greg,” and his eyes lit up.
    But no pictures. Then we heard of a small fundamentalist Christian institution on the outskirts of New Orleans that might be persuaded to let us get some touching shots.
    We went there. Our mouths watered at all the cute kids we saw running around. We found the spiritual head of this institution reposing in a trailer home on the grounds. We were prepared to plead with him for pictures.
    He was old, pale, and shapeless, a blob floating in the carapace of a Barcalounger. He breathed with a faint wheeze. He had had several bypass operations, he said, and was living only for his charges. Nestling nervously in the middle of him was an aged Chihuahua. We explained our mission, at length, as founder and dog eyed us narrowly.
    Then we waited.
    â€œOn one condition,” said the founder at last. A shudder went through the Chihuahua.
    We waited.
    He asked for a pen. I gave him one. He asked for paper. I tore him a scrap from my notebook. He wrote out a few words, slowly, deliberately, and handed the paper over. I believe he kept the pen.
    His handwriting was spidery. His condition was “That it glorify Christ.”
    I looked at the message, Slick looked at it, and the man looked at us.
    The Chihuahua sneezed, as if in disgust. A Chihuahua can tell who’s from Satan.
    In fact we behaved as Christians in that crucial moment. There was no one else around. We could with impunity have taken that dog and smothered the founder with it, and his consequent heart failure would not have surprised or stricken a living soul.
    We did not do that. We let him live. He waved us away. No pictures. And no pictures, no story.
    Slick and I went to Felix’s. We kept up with the shucker through a couple of dozen, but after a while Slick wasn’t eating so much as staring at the little pink bodies lying there exposed to the light. He started telling me about something that had happened when, as a teenager in Monroe, Louisiana, he was working as a lifeguard at an overcrowded pool. On his watch, a kid drowned. Nobody saw him go under. By the time anybody called for help, he was dead. Slick was full of remorse, especially when he heard that the child’s parents wanted to have a talk with him. When they arrived, they just sat there looking at him. He expressed his deep regret, explained the situation as best he could, and got no response.
    â€œI was about to cry, I felt so bad,” he said.
    Hard to imagine Slick in tears.