TM #203: Black and White
May. 10th, 2008 01:14 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
control_issuesThe first picture Dani ever sees of Charlie Crews is in black and white. Newsprint, resting on the coffee table. And if she thinks hard enough, didn’t that paper stay on the table a little longer than most? Didn’t her father look it over a few more times than was necessary, before throwing it away?
At the time, Dani doesn’t think much of it. She still tries not to think much of it.
---
The second picture Dani ever sees of Charlie Crews is an image file sent in an email. The subject line is blank, and the message simply reads:
Dani-
Charlie Crews. Your new partner.
It isn’t signed, because she and Karen are still in that strange place where neither of them are sure how to sign their correspondences to each other.
The e-mail might not say much, but the picture more than makes up for it. It’s Crews’ most recent face shot from prison, in full color. There must be hundreds of pictures taken of Crews since his release from prison. Pictures where he’s used that settlement money to get a haircut and a nice suit. Pictures where sunglasses hide a look in his eyes that’s never going to go away.
But this is a mug shot. It’s a picture of a prisoner, with sunken eyes and a state-provided jumpsuit.
Karen sent Dani this picture specifically. Karen wants Dani to remember where Crews has been for the past twelve years. Karen wants Dani to remember what’s in his mind and in his blood. Karen wants Dani to know that no suit, no matter how nice, can take away what’s in someone’s blood.
---
Dani’s own blood is something that has never made the phrase “black and white” logical, in any of its interpretations. There are shades in between, so many shades that people forget. If she were one thing—one color, one culture, one identity—it would all be so much easier. She’d have one thing to hate, one thing to blame.
But that’s not how it works for her. She lives in a spectrum forgotten, grouped in with her father, trying to ignore the sharp ache in her chest when she does nothing to correct the assumption. She can’t correct the assumption. People see things how they want to see things, and Dani would rather be viewed as half of herself than as nothing at all.
---
Ironically, it is because of who her father is that Dani is overlooked when she ought to be stared at. Her face is never on the cover of a newspaper, and Karen has pulled a lot of strings to insure as much.
Though Dani is the partner who’s committed a crime, she remains unpunished. Unseen, the way her mother had to be, the way her father strove to keep his foreign wife and mixed child.
Crews’ face is over examined. Looked at over and over, angle to angle, so that it is no longer a face but a collection of features set to sound reels. Crews isn’t a person anymore, but a story.
He is overexposed, and she under. He’s been beaten into shades of purple and green, while Dani’s skin is untouched, defined only by silence and the sharp prick of needles.
They are, neither of them, comfortable in any sort of spectrum with only two ends.
Charlie professes a Zen outlook. The oneness of all things, the colors of the universe. But in spite of all of those speeches, rants, and tapes, Dani suspects something about Charlie Crews.
Dani suspects that he can no longer see color. That twelve years in the dark have robbed him of that precious, precious sight. As he drives along sunset, peering out from sunglasses that Dani thinks are prescription, he is searching for a focus that he will not ultimately find.
This is why Dani suspects she and Charlie work well as partners, on the days she is willing to admit that they work as partners. Circumstances have conspired so that neither partner can trust the world to exist in anything outside of dull, muted shades of gray.
At the time, Dani doesn’t think much of it. She still tries not to think much of it.
---
The second picture Dani ever sees of Charlie Crews is an image file sent in an email. The subject line is blank, and the message simply reads:
Dani-
Charlie Crews. Your new partner.
It isn’t signed, because she and Karen are still in that strange place where neither of them are sure how to sign their correspondences to each other.
The e-mail might not say much, but the picture more than makes up for it. It’s Crews’ most recent face shot from prison, in full color. There must be hundreds of pictures taken of Crews since his release from prison. Pictures where he’s used that settlement money to get a haircut and a nice suit. Pictures where sunglasses hide a look in his eyes that’s never going to go away.
But this is a mug shot. It’s a picture of a prisoner, with sunken eyes and a state-provided jumpsuit.
Karen sent Dani this picture specifically. Karen wants Dani to remember where Crews has been for the past twelve years. Karen wants Dani to remember what’s in his mind and in his blood. Karen wants Dani to know that no suit, no matter how nice, can take away what’s in someone’s blood.
---
Dani’s own blood is something that has never made the phrase “black and white” logical, in any of its interpretations. There are shades in between, so many shades that people forget. If she were one thing—one color, one culture, one identity—it would all be so much easier. She’d have one thing to hate, one thing to blame.
But that’s not how it works for her. She lives in a spectrum forgotten, grouped in with her father, trying to ignore the sharp ache in her chest when she does nothing to correct the assumption. She can’t correct the assumption. People see things how they want to see things, and Dani would rather be viewed as half of herself than as nothing at all.
---
Ironically, it is because of who her father is that Dani is overlooked when she ought to be stared at. Her face is never on the cover of a newspaper, and Karen has pulled a lot of strings to insure as much.
Though Dani is the partner who’s committed a crime, she remains unpunished. Unseen, the way her mother had to be, the way her father strove to keep his foreign wife and mixed child.
Crews’ face is over examined. Looked at over and over, angle to angle, so that it is no longer a face but a collection of features set to sound reels. Crews isn’t a person anymore, but a story.
He is overexposed, and she under. He’s been beaten into shades of purple and green, while Dani’s skin is untouched, defined only by silence and the sharp prick of needles.
They are, neither of them, comfortable in any sort of spectrum with only two ends.
Charlie professes a Zen outlook. The oneness of all things, the colors of the universe. But in spite of all of those speeches, rants, and tapes, Dani suspects something about Charlie Crews.
Dani suspects that he can no longer see color. That twelve years in the dark have robbed him of that precious, precious sight. As he drives along sunset, peering out from sunglasses that Dani thinks are prescription, he is searching for a focus that he will not ultimately find.
This is why Dani suspects she and Charlie work well as partners, on the days she is willing to admit that they work as partners. Circumstances have conspired so that neither partner can trust the world to exist in anything outside of dull, muted shades of gray.
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no subject
Date: 2008-05-13 07:36 pm (UTC)You're writing the prequel episode/movie/made-for-tv-movie, aren't you?
(if not, you sure fooled me; this is beyond words good)
no subject
Date: 2008-05-13 07:39 pm (UTC)<<
I know nothing.
(Thank you <3)
no subject
Date: 2008-05-14 02:32 am (UTC)so no need to worry.
and you're welcome.