Page 13 - Contrast2013

Pause, Rewind

Dani Allen

My dad had left an unmarked tape in the VCR of my bedroom
TV. Curious, I took the tape, which had been peeking out from
the VCR slot temptingly, and turned it over in my hands. There
was no title printed on the black plastic, but something about the
absence was revealing. I could sense that this tape was unlike
other tapes and that the decision I was about to make mattered.
Do I watch it? Do I ignore it?
I watched the tape on a bright, sunny afternoon. Somehow,
in a house occupying dad, stepmom, two younger brothers, and
an older cousin, no one was home. I was alone when I slid the
black tape back into the VCR slot of the small, white TV in the
bedroom I shared with my cousin Tara. The VCR clicked and
hummed, accepting the tape, and the blank screen blinked on.

Tara was older, blacker, and she knew things. Her blackness
had nothing to do with her skin color, which was not far off from
my own pale brown, yellow-tinted tone. Her blackness—at least
as I saw it—was in the way she spoke and laughed, as if she was
never unsure that she was laughing at the wrong things. It was
in the way she danced, always knowing the appropriate rhythm
of arms, hips, and legs, as if she has known all the songs on the
radio since birth. It was in the easy camaraderie she had with
my father, her uncle, as if they both knew something no one had

Contrast | 13