Fresh Ink: An Anthology

Through its two main characters, Dante and Shay, “Eraser Tattoo” introduces The Complications of Young Love as a theme. The narrator notes that the apartment was “bought out from under them” (6), likely by an owner who wished to rent to what they viewed as “higher class” people, as Shay’s mother notes that Shay’s family “wasn’t even out of the house before they started moving in all their shit” (12). Additionally, Dante’s animosity toward the white family moving in reflects a struggle between the people moving into the apartment building and those being forced out. He and Shay are repeatedly interrupted in their memories by the people moving stuff into the apartment, to the point that they end up pushed up against the rail and can move no further. Still, the family “start[s] up the stoop” and stops in front of Dante and Shay, causing Dante to “snap,” with a tone “somewhere between annoyed and confused,” telling them that he can just “get off the stoop” and muttering under his breath to Shay that he doesn’t “know why they couldn’t just say excuse me” (12). The conditions in which Shay’s family is forced from their home, as well as Dante’s animosity toward the new people, not only presents a complication to their young love but also explores the impact of gentrification on people’s lives. Instead of being allowed to continue to live in their home of over two decades under new owners, Shay and her family are forced out to allow a white family to move in. As the story closes, Dante looks down at the tattoo on his arm and considers the fact that “he kn[ows] the sting w[o]n’t last forever. But the scar w[ill]” (13). The eraser tattoo, then, symbolizes young love and heartbreak. Like the tattoo he receives during the story, breaking up with a first love leaves a painful sting, but the pain won’t last forever. Instead, it leaves behind a scar to carry throughout life.

Shay’s aspirations of becoming a marine biologist (and the reasons behind it) are also important in the story. She explains to Dante, “Somebody gotta take care for all the stuff underwater that nobody can see. It’s a beautiful world down there, full of living things that most folks don’t understand” (7). The ocean is thus a metaphor for her own life. It represents her family’s experience and the gentrification occurring on a larger scale in Brooklyn. As they’re forced from their homes and replaced by a white family, a lack of understanding is clear regarding both her family’s situation and the experience of many people of color. She feels that she’s part of a “beautiful world,” but one that the society around them doesn’t really understand. She transfers her feelings into the ocean, hoping to help the creatures in the ocean that she feels struggle in the same way she does.