Holding on
The image is of the narrator's hand holding on to the wallet (Obadike).
A wallet is an item that is common to most adults, containing identification information and money that is used on a daily basis. This is used in the image to help connect the reader to the narrator. Assuming that the audience of the narrative is adults, the reader likes carries a wallet with them whenever leaving the house, so they would understand the fear and anger of the narrator and his loved ones when the presence of the wallet is used to justify the shots fired at him by police because he was holding it.
The image itself has low contrast, making the picture appear blurred, and the wallet is difficult to see. This is used to show how it may have been difficult for police to see what was in the narrator's hand. However, the position of the hand in the image also seems to show that the narrator is not holding a weapon, furthering the sympathy that the reader feels for the narrator.
This idea of using preconceived notions to determine what a person is seeing is further described in "The Mind's Eye", by Oliver Sacks, taking on the perspective of a blind man, https://www.amazon.com/Minds-Eye-Oliver-Sacks/dp/0307473023 (access to the entire novel from Amazon).