MIXED TAPE Part 1

By Liam Patrick Powell, Sr.


Dedicated to the givers and receivers of Mixed Tapes everywhere, especially those who have inspired me to make a tape.
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"If I could keep time in a bottle," – Jim Croce
"What do memories bring but Diamonds and Rust?" Joan Baez (and Judas Priest)
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Karl worked his way through the storage space he'd been renting. He stopped and stroked his golf bag. Spring could never arrive soon enough. But then, he could wait. This Spring held more change then he cared to face. If only it were as simple as getting the clubs ready. He shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts.
He looked around the space again, and was caught by a few other items that brought back memories. His motorcycle helmet was there, shiny and black, almost new. And that's how it would stay. Even five years after the accident that nearly took his life, he still couldn't get on a bike. He spun his head quickly even knowing that he wouldn't find what his mind sought. The Yamaha didn't survive the crash. The only things he had to memorialize his time as a 'motorcycle enthusiast' were the helmet he should have had on that day, and the box it sat on. The box was filled with classic Harley parts that he was no longer going to build but couldn't get rid of.
"Huh," he said. Thinking that's what most of these boxes contained. Things he gave up on but couldn't get rid of.

While he was disappointed that he did not start saving important things until his twenties, in the twenty years that followed, he managed to amass quite a collection. Some of the boxes were clearly marked "sports" or "CD's". Others were marked with places, "Townhome" referred to the townhome he and Laura owned when they moved in together. Chronologically, this box would fall between the box that read, "Lake St" for his apartment there and the box that had "Highland Dr." written on it in Laura's strict, straight letters.

It was to the box that held his apartment memorabilia that he now headed. The last time he was single these were the things he thought were so important. Maybe there will be a clue in here that will tell him how he should act going forward. It's been a long time; he might need a refresher course.

The box smelled of aged cardboard. Dust flew as he pulled the tape from the seam. Across the top of the contents was certificate with his name written on it.

On October 28, 1988 "Karl Ardsley" Has successfully

completed the Treatment Program at Decatur House.

He picked up the yellowing form and read it over a couple of times. It had been years since he'd even considered a drink or any kind of street drug, but somehow, this paper was not important. He didn't immediately want to toss it, but he just didn't identify with it. As far as significance, it could have had someone else's name on it.

Not that he didn't remember treatment. All things considered it was probably a good thing he went. Twenty years of sobriety later and it's hard to tell if he ever wanted what they had to offer or if he just wanted to be someplace where they fed him. One thing he was good at, was becoming whoever he needed to be when someone promised care in return. Is that how it was with Laura? Had he just put on a mask to please her? No. She once loved him exactly as he was, he just was never too sure who that was.

Under the certificate he found more treatment memorabilia. There were sobriety coins, his NA book, signed by people he met along away, and a small collection of letters from people he stayed in touch with after they all moved on. The first few letters showed the same curly handwriting. These were from Hannah, a girl who had been at Decatur at the same time as Karl. They had become very good friends while in the house together. Due to a "no relationship" rule in the house and a recent controversy where two members were kicked out of the program for having a relationship, Karl and Hannah decided to not let that happen to them. They grew to really enjoy each other without so much as holding hands. On his last day, as he left the house they only hugged briefly and he gently kissed her on the forehead, promising they would stay in touch.

They stayed in touch through these letters, and as he opened the top one he enjoyed reading it as much as he did when he recieved it. The letter said that she was getting ready to finish her time at Decatur and wondered if he would be able to see her before she was flying back to Kentucky. She had received the mixed tape he had sent her and listened to it every night in the common room with Shawn and Shelly. He smiled as he remembered that tape.  It was quite a variety of songs he had chosen to express his undying love for her. From "Cherish" by the Association to Cream's "Sunshine of Your Love" appeared on this tape. The best part was that he had a dual deck boom box with a microphone. So between every song he could play DJ and let her know why each song was chosen, and how it said what he couldn't. He smiled at the letter in his hand, but suddenly winced as if hit by a terrible shock.

"That," he said to the empty space, "was a long time ago."

And it was true. Nearly 20 years. And it still hurt him a little to think about it. Sure there had been other girlfriends after Hannah, and some were damn serious, but she still hung on him. He'd found out recently that she had been married and divorced. He wondered heartily, if he were to blame.
They had one romantic week in between states when they both returned for a Decatur House reunion. Nervous, he called her the day before his flight was to land. He had only one question, and by the time he was able to get it out, she answered like she was prepared for it.

"Of course you can kiss me at the airport!" she laughed.

"Well, I wasn't sure," he stammered, "I mean, we've never kissed before and I don't want to think that I am being too pushy."

"Oh doll," she said. "You don't have to worry about being pushy. I love you so much."

"And I love you, Hannah. I can't wait to hold you. And finally kiss you. "

No longer controlled by the restriction that kept them apart while residents at the house, they used every free moment to be alone together. They moved like perfection. It was as if each letter and phone call had somehow revealed to them exactly what to do when they were at last together. But despite it all, it was only a week. All the promises they made to continue their love affair forever now looked foolish to Karl, sitting in the storage space looking at a letter from twenty years ago. What the recipient of that letter didn't know, that the older version did, was that he and Hannah would never see each other again.

Why? Why didn't he just get on a plane or a bus or hitchhike to Kentucky? They never officially "broke up". There were no fights or hurt feelings. Time just moved too fast. He moved in with some other residents of Decatur House and she left home in Kentucky to live with an aunt in Indiana. This was before the time of cell phones and email, and staying in touch was a lot more difficult. Eventually they just moved on. Whether either of them really wanted to or not.

Karl threw the stack of letters back inside the box. If this was what being single was like, it's no wonder that he chose Laura over this for so long. Like it or not, however, he was going to go back there. He hoped that age will give him better perspective and he thought, if he ever met another Hannah, he'd never let her go.

The rest of the box was filled with composition notebooks with there black and white marble covers, a couple of cassettes labeled "Guns and Roses" or "Ult. Manilow". He laughed at his eclectic taste. He had cassettes for every genre and taste. He loved Public Enemy and Hall and Oates. He often told his friends that there was a right time for every kind of music. "You know what I love?" Karl told his friends, "When Stairway to Heaven just comes on the radio. You know what I mean? I mean not part of any special or countdown or anything. You're just driving along and right after the Hardware Hank commercial you hear it come on. At that moment you are sharing the song with everyone else who just happens to have it on. That, to me, is more special than playing Stairway over and over again because I love Led Zeppelin and I don't listen to anything else."

Besides, he thought, having all this music around made it easier for him to find the right songs to put on a mixed tape. You never know when you're going to need a Barbara Streisand song, or L. L. Cool J rap, to get the point across. The truth is sometimes he couldn't find the right words. It was good enough if he could copy the guy or gal who did find the right words. "I'll be with you darling, soon, I'll be with you when the stars start falling." Not a lyric Karl would have thought up, and even if he did, he didn't have Eric Clapton accompanying him in the presentation. Yeah, you really needed a lot of songs around to make a good mixed tape.

Karl noticed an old boom box alongside the cardboard box he was digging through. With all these tapes around, he figured he'd plug in the boom box somewhere and listen to them while he worked. He carried the box over to the shelf they had built into the side of the storage unit and plugged it in. He found one of his favorite tapes in the box, Meatloaf's Bat out of Hell, but when he popped open the door to put it in, another tape was already in there.

Karl pulled the tape out of the door and looked at it. It was surely one of his mixed tapes, but it had no indication on the label. To avoid confusion, and mistakenly giving Carla a tape meant for Jessica, he always wrote their name on it, or in the least case initials. Something so he could keep it straight. But this label was very definitely blank. Finally, realizing that he must have lost his marbles a little bit, he figured that there was no name on it because he never made the tape and it was still blank. Just to be sure, he pushed the door closed and hit play. After the typical cassette hiss he heard a familiar bass line.

Straight from the Luther Vandross collection, Never Too Much began playing. Karl sat down and smiled, shaking his head. Oh yeah, he thought, Marissa. In fact she was the one who introduced him to Luther, a long, long time ago. They were friends that summer, the last one before he went to Decatur House. Marissa and Karl met through her brother who Karl hung out with often, even though they had known each other their whole life, Bradline was a small town compared to most of the suburbs, but Karl and Marissa never really spent time together before he got stranded at her house one day.

Her brother, Brian, and Karl were pooling together money they had found, swindled, borrowed or flat out stole from various sources to get some beer for that night. When Jinx, an older kid, came around to pick them up, Karl stayed back and waited for the two of them to bring the beer back. Karl walked out and saw Marissa tanning on the deck of their pool.

"Hey, you got a smoke?" he asked her.

"Another one of my brother's grubbing friends," she replied. "Yeah, go ahead and grab one. There on the table."

Then, as an after thought she added, "And bring me the suntan lotion."

While he was extremely timid at first, he could hardly say no when she just about told him to put the lotion on her shoulders and back. Even though nothing ever came of it, when Brian and Jinx failed to return with the beer, the two of them were talking like they had been friends forever.

When the subject of conversation turned to music, Karl felt like he was on very solid ground, but he hadn't listened to or heard of much of the music Marissa kept bringing up. Their friendship lasted for two weeks, until her boyfriend said that Karl was hanging around too much. While it wasn't much of a "break-up" they had truly never been more than friends, Marissa gave Karl the Luther Vandross tape and told him, "When you find that girl, just park someplace and put in this tape. Trust me." She smiled at him like an older sister giving away pearls of wisdom, and turned and walked away.

The whole time they were spending days together, Karl always felt she was preparing him for something, but was never quite sure what. He just loved being seen with an "older woman" and even with nothing going on between them, it was great for the rumor mill if people thought there was. He knew where he stood with her, but he never understood why.

After the "break-up" he started thinking more about her. Damn, she was beautiful. Did she always have that flirty, cute smile? He wondered how he could have spent so much time with her and not have noticed any of the things he noticed afterward. And, every time he played Luther he thought only of her. He would dream of one day when he'd say to her. . .

Well, who needs to go to work to hustle for another dollar
I'd rather be with you 'cause you make my heart scream and holler
Love is a gamble and I'm so glad that I'm winnin'
We've come a long way and yet this is only the beginnin'

Oh, my love
A thousand kisses from you is never too much
(Never too much, never too much, never too much)
I just don't wanna stop

But – that wasn't really Karl's destiny. When she got pregnant during her Senior year of High School, no one was surprised. This alone didn't stop Karl's infatuation with her, but when she ended up marrying her boyfriend of a long time, Karl let her go. They ended up having a long, happy life together and raised some great kids. She might not have ever thought of it again, but to Karl, they always had Luther.

But all this was a couple years before the Lake Street apartment. Why would he have been thinking about a high school crush? No. Whoever this tape was for, it wasn't Marissa. Then who? He wondered.

The tape itself was willing to provide an answer with the next song, but instead of making things clearer it only became more confusing. As soon as it started, Karl smirked. "Every time I think of you, I always catch my breath," John Waite sang through the speakers of the boom box in the back of the storage unit. "And I'm still standing here, and your miles away. And I'm wondering why you left."

The smirk dissolved as the song went on. This was a very special song for Karl. Other then this mystery tape that he uncovered he had only used it on one mixed tape ever. At first he thought it might give the wrong impression. "What if Gail took it the wrong way? Like he was saying he was over her? 'I ain't missing you.'"  When Karl added it to the tape he meant it the same way of the song writer. He was missing Gail, his heart was broken.

When they met, Gail was dating Karl's friend. But they had not been dating long, and Karl was not the cause of the break up. Karl did think his friend was showing a great deal of weakness when he saw how distraught he was after the break up. From what Karl knew of Gail at the time, he surmised that she was a good-hearted person. The kind who would say, "Well still be friends," and you really would still be friends. As Karl got to know her, his admiration for her kindness, patience and care only grew.

After only a few dates, Karl was certain that this was the one. He never doubted that one day he would marry Gail. And she never gave him any reason to check that thought. They never went through typical romance. They gave each other their hearts so openly that there were never any fears to overcome or love to win or prove. It was simple and sustainable.

They quickly became the popular couple among their friends. Karl often heard friends say that they wanted something "like you and Gail have." And that admiration from their friends never grew into jealousy. Everyone was more likely to see the two of them through the success of the relationship than try to drag them down. In retrospect, Karl realized that maybe the fact that their relationship became such public property led to its ultimate demise.

Karl and some friends had rented a house for the summer of 1989. He and Gail continued to see each other often, but the house was not as close to hers as his apartment had been. With four men in their twenties living together, the house quickly became a nonstop party. Maybe their were too many girls around, or just the right girl wasn't around enough.

Karl had been trying to get a hold of Gail for several days with no luck. He left her countless messages, but they all went unreturned. He spent his time wondering if this Ideal Relationship wasn't so ideal after all. His roommates began encouraging him to move on. The very guys who envied his relationship with Gail were now telling him the healthy thing to do was throw it away.

He was hurting and confused. Maybe it wasn't so ideal. Maybe he was just lazy and didn't want to "play the field" anymore, so he decided this would be the last one. The lasting one. And now he had to realize that it wasn't. He wished Gail would call and let him know what happened, what changed. He wanted to know what he could do to bring her back. But he was feeling so broken and frightened that he thought she might tell him there is nothing he can do, or worse, that she found someone else.

He finally gave up trying to get in touch with her, and eventually succumbed to spending time with the constant party at the house. The first night he met a girl. She had bleached white hair and too much make up.
Leaning against the back wall of the storage unit he tried to remember her name, but he couldn't. It wasn't much, just a five minute kiss on the couch, but it was enough to ruin everything. Even if everything was ruined already.

The next morning, hobbled with guilt, Karl tried again to get in touch with Gail. This time she answered.

"H-Hey, we have to talk," he said.

"Yeah, we do. Are you guys going to the park tomorrow night?" she asked.

"Maybe. But Gail, we need to talk before then. Where have you been for two weeks?"

"Work. And school. I've been in school during the day and working every night."

"But for two weeks? We really need to talk." He began pacing back and forth.

"We will, I have a lot to say." She responded.

"Gail," he said desperately, "I guessed a girl last night! And I feel guilty as hell about it today! If you want it to be over, tell me, but don't just ignore me. I don't know what's going on!"

"You pig!" she screamed, "I'm not breaking up with you. I'm pregnant." And she slammed down the phone.

They met immediately and Karl was filled with hope and wanted to start a family right away. He moved to an apartment near her house, hoping to fix things with Gail and raise this baby together and make everything perfect. But he was sadly ill-prepared for this sort of undertaking. He hadn't had a job in a long time, he was living off the mercy of his friends, he was in a state far from any family, and he didn't even have a driver's license. No, despite this maddening dream he had to make everything right, he just didn't have what it took to fulfill it. Besides that, Gail wasn't so interested in following this path.

While explanations were given and apologies made, they never really reunited. In fact, while she was still pregnant she began dating another member of their group of friends. Karl began withdrawing more, always wondering why she left. Their friends were quickly her friends and he didn't know where to go or who to turn to. He sat out on the balcony of his apartment listening to her mixed tape. And whenever he'd see her coming across the parking lot he would turn it up loud.

"There's a message, in the wires
And I'm sending you this signal tonight
You don't know, how desperate I've become
And it looks like I'm losing this fight
In your world I have no meaning
Though I'm trying hard to understand
And it's my heart that's breaking
Down this long distance line tonight

I ain't missing you at all…"

But that tape was delivered. He assumed it was never listened to, but he knew it was delivered. He turned off the boom box in the storage unit and spun around looking at all the stuff he had there.

"WHAT?" he yelled at the boxes of memories. "Is this supposed to tell me something? Or is it just reminding me that failed relationships are the only kind I have ever had?"

He plopped down on an antique rocking chair that Laura bought once on a whim with the promise that one day they'd restore it. But that day never came.

He eyed the boom box, now sitting quietly on the shelf, as if it were an animal of some kind. Karl looked at it like he half expected the music player to jump up and attack him.

"Oh, man. This is crazy," he muttered, "I gotta get over this."

He approached the boom box and turned it on.

"What's next?" he asked as he pressed the play button.