Mix Tape: Vol. I

by B.J. Hollars

Track 1
Dammit—Blink 182

You say, "I love this song!" and I say, "See? I told you."

You are in the yellow shirt and jean shorts, and I in the knock-off Polo. Our first date, almost, and what we did in the backyard, it was something. Braces and all. The cotton candy lip gloss overpowering the taste of metal.

Your brother's there, in the backseat—your parents' secret spy. But we've won him over with Tetris. He's promised to play till the batteries run out. He almost has the high score, not quite, but your brother is no quitter. His eyes are glued to the glowing screen and not to my hand on your thigh.

You are fifteen and I have a driver's license. I drive you in my 1984 Volvo, periwinkle blue. The car and I were born just a few days apart. I paid for it with 300 hours at the bookstore. 6.25 an hour, restocking Nora Roberts and Michael Crichton until the shelves pulled tight around them. Answering the phone, greeting the customers.

Welcome to Little Professor, how may I help?

On the first drive home, I cannot remember which way to turn to your house. I am buzzing, my hands shaking with the memory of the backyard, in the dark, what we did there.

And how when I called you earlier that evening, you asked "Really?" as if you couldn't believe it either. We'd never really talked in school, but I'd found you in the phonebook.

"So where do I turn?" I ask you.

You don't answer.

We miss the turn.

We buy ourselves three extra minutes.


Track 2
Blister— Our Lady Peace

In the afternoons after work, I take off my shirt in the backyard. Lemonade and sunscreen. My CD player connected to the extension cord leading to the house.

When the phone rings, I knock over the lemonade.

I stub each toe on the doorframe. I only break the littlest.

It is June and the summer is younger than we are.

You tell me you want to swim, but I want ice cream. We have enough time for both, we decide, and also, everything else.

"But the bad news," you say, "my parents want a chaperone."

I say, "Still?" and you say, "Always, unless we can think of something."


Track 3
Today—Smashing Pumpkins

Your friends are good; they don't mind being the alibi.

"Off to the movies with friends," you say, and your mother doesn't question it. She drops you off at the theater and offers you a five.

I am there in the parking lot too. I watch you pay for your ticket and wave goodbye to your mom. You are seeing the 7:15 showing of Josie and the Pussycats, according to the stub in your purse.

My car pulls up when your mother's pulls out. You enter one door and exit the next. You've bribed your friends with popcorn money, promised them the juicy details.

At fifty miles per hour, we become outlaws, criminals, the very best of liars.

"Where to now?" you ask as you reapply the gloss. I tell you I know a place, and when we get there, to the baseball field in the forest, you say it looks really beautiful there.

You climb the fence and tangle your laces in chain link. I am there to free you. The dust and the chalk lines, and we seem to stir up everything.

Your white and orange halter-top—the ties make no sense—and we lay on the pitcher's mound, trying to outsmart the knots.

"I'm sorry," you say when it's over.

"I'm sorry too," I say.

We're still shaking when the lightning bugs come out.

You say, "I wonder if the movie's any good?"

Maybe it's a joke, maybe not.

Track 4
Everything You Want—Vertical Horizon

I am house-sitting a mansion. The ivy crawls up the bricks of the three-car garage. We enter, jump on their beds, lounge on their couches. We swim in their pool, forgetting our clothes, but when we redress, our wet skin marks the fabric. Your glitter lotion washed off in the water.

There is a rental movie in the front seat of my car, but we will not watch it. All summer, there will be rental movies in front seats of cars that we will not watch. 3.99 for new releases: all that wasted money on things we couldn't keep.

We blast the song in every room in the house. The speakers are incredible.

After jumping on all of their beds and devouring a bag of their chips, you suggest a game of hide-and-seek. I am the hider, and you count to twenty, but I refuse to leave you.

"I'm a pretty bad hider," I confess. "I'm only a human being."

You have an 11:15 curfew, and while we fight back the night, we can't argue with the insistence of a cuckoo clock.

We turn off the music, we reset the volume.

Outside, you've left the pool glittering.

Our clothes, thankfully, dry by the time I drop you off.

Track 5
Jasmine—Youth Asylum

This is the night, you say, that we will always remember.

And later, when I return to it for my personal essay, tell Mr. Weiskopf I loved you that night, he will give me a B-, my lowest grade to date.

More reflection, he writes, but vivid details! It is a week since the fourth, and still, the dead sparklers lay littered across my parents' lawn. We'd lit them ourselves and then snuck on to the country club golf course, forgetting about the clean up.

The CD spins, and you say, "Let's dance!" and I say, "Naw, I'm not really much of a. . ."

But already, we've gone through the trouble of untangling the extension cord and closing the blinds in the house.

"Come on, one dance," you press, so I grumble and stand, and you make me the cliché white-boy.

Here is my rhythm. Here is my move. Is it okay if I sit down now?

We will talk about it years later, in your backyard, not at forty like we guessed, but at twenty-three. And you will say, "See, I knew we'd remember."

I will ask, "But do you remember the song?" and you do.

We both do.

I scrounged up my B- essay just to be sure. The answer was there.

Track 6
Better Man—Pearl Jam

How many nights will slip away from us? Doing the same thing.

We frequent the Dairy Queen so often I carry exact change.

And we walk to the pond in your neighborhood, which your neighborhood pretends is a lake.

We drive to the movies, we walk to the movies, we lose ourselves in the dark parts of parking lots.

Fridays at Applebee's before the rush.

And when I'm not broke, the zoo. I like the way the gibbons look at you.

And then, when my wallet's empty, back to the playground. The swings are free and I swallow my heart on the down swing.

Sometimes, I admit, I take you home before curfew. And on the drive back, you shuffle through CDs and I let you pick the song.

But sometimes, I stay later at your house. Your parents agree to it if we're baking cookies and they can find reasons to help.

On these nights, when I see your brother in the hallway, it's like he expects me to be there.

Track 7
Two Points for Honesty—Guster

And then August, and you are off to ballet camp. In California. We hoard all the phone cards we can afford.

Two nights before, we shank your ballet shoes. And we watch a movie whose name I forget, though I promised I'd never forget.

Your counter is overflowing with cookies.

On the last night, once all your shoes are shanked, we make our way to the church parking lot. I think you want us to pray there, but we just make out instead. It's easier, and there is no doubt, and there is no middleman to fuss with.

We crawl to the backseat, fumble around, and now I know every pair of underwear you own.

"What would people say," I ask "if they found us here?"

This is your church, but it is mine too, for the summer.

I don't have to be Jewish if you don't want me to. Whatever you think is best

. And just like you promised, the baptism wasn't half bad. The water lukewarm, and I got to wear my swimsuit.

Track 8
Smooth Criminal—Alien Ant Farm

I close up shop at the bookstore. By 11:00p.m. I've finished cleaning the bathrooms and reshelving the books and emptying the leftover coffee. The manager lets me out the front and tells me not to drink and drive. The manager is a cop in the daytime. He says he has no problem busting my ass.

Another hour before you call, so I stop at the Blockbuster. I try to decide between two movies, but then I just go with a third. It's one I know I won't like as much, but it keeps me from having to choose. I put it on the front seat of my car. I will watch it.

My parents are out of town and the house couldn't feel any lonelier. There is money on the counter and deli meats in the fridge.

I remember to clean out the litter box and pick up the mail. I forget to water the plants.

When you call, I say, "Yeah, it's great, like house-sitting the mansion, only better."

But it is not any better than that. Here, there are a limited number of beds to jump on, and I've already jumped on them all.

In the background, the movie plays on mute, but still, I struggle to hear what you say.

Though I do hear you say there are boys there, ballet boys, and, "You should see them do the splits!"

Your roommate is a bear and loud as a foghorn, and all I ever say is, "What?" and "Can you speak louder?" and "How many minutes do you have left on your card?"

"Sorry," you shrug, "you're breaking up. We have pretty bad reception."

Even when I stand in the backyard in the nighttime, near the phone lines, it doesn't make any difference.

"It's not the reception," I tell you. "It's your roommate. She's a foghorn."

"Yeah," you agree, "her voice just really carries."

I rest the phone in the cradle I've formed between my chin and my shoulder. I start telling you how I miss you, but your roommate starts blaring that goddamn song.

When I say, "What?" and "Can you speak louder?" you promise you'll call me back later.

Track 9
Blackstar—Radiohead

I close up shop, dump the coffee, reshelve the books. I close, dump, reshelve. I clean. I scrub the toilet bowl. Take out the trash. I heave bags into the dumpster at midnight. I don't think, just sweat.

I am employee of the month.

For 6.25 an hour, I close and dump and heave and close and dump and heave, reshelve, reshelve and answer the phones.

Thank you for calling. . .

I am Clifford the Big Red Dog when they ask me. And also, the Cat in the Hat. I am the only one small enough to fit inside the costumes and therefore, Angelina the Ballerina on Thursdays.

One night, after we lock the doors and set about the cleaning, the cop-manager says he's off to count down the drawers.

"Don't steal one damn thing in my absence."

"Not one?" I ask, and he stops to reconsider. He knows how much I miss you, and how I don't call you on my breaks any longer.

"Okay," he relents, "you can steal one thing. How about that?"

We are hilarious, but he is not joking. I thank him and plug in the vacuum.

On the drive home, I hit all the red lights before pulling into the drive. I see that my parents are back.

It feels good, I think, for someone else to turn off the TV.

Because of the time change, the phone rings at 12:14a.m. I take the call outside. On the patio. In the lawn chair. So my parents won't hear every word.

For once, you are asking me, "What's that sound in the background?" and for once, I am telling you, "Trains."

"Huh," you say, "I never knew there were so many."

We talk about how your shoes don't fit and how bad your blisters bleed.

I ask, "Did I shank them right?" and you say yes. This has nothing to do with me.

I ask you about the ballet boys and their splits, but you say not to worry, that all of them turned out to be gay.

When I say, "That's the reason I shouldn't have to worry?" you say, "No, of course not. It's because I love you, duh."

I read you a joke from a Popsicle stick, but when you laugh, you're not laughing with me. Your roommate has said something funny and louder, and she is right there, touching your shoulder. She tells you a story and you just laugh so hard.

"What?" I laugh too. "What is it?"

And you say, "Honestly, you kind of have to know the guy to get it."

Track 10
Fast Car—Tracy Chapman

You are back!

At last!

And you've come with tonsillitis.

"You cannot kiss me," you warn, "or else you might get sick."

I don't kiss you. We just do other things in the backseat of my car. In broad daylight, just a few feet from your house.

"See?" I say. "We're still fun. Look how much fun we're still having!"

But three days later, when the tonsillitis is gone, you don't talk to me for twenty-four hours.

And when you do talk, you ask, "How could you keep from kissing me?"

"But you said. . . ."

"I was gone for so long."

"But you told me. . ."

"Just. . . forget it."

During the last movie we ever see together, we do a horrific thing. An R-rated act in a PG-13 movie.

When the lights come up, I cannot recall the premise of the movie. John Cusack and Kate Beckinsale and something about fate. A love story, perhaps. PG-13 for sexual situations. You say you liked it a lot, and I say, "Maybe somebody will get it for your birthday."

You frown like it is the saddest thing I've ever said to you.

Another empty parking lot, this one at Office Depot.

In that lot, away from the lights, we sit in our seats and just talk.

For an hour, I blab about the past, hoping to remind you.

Of the cotton candy lip gloss, the baseball field, how I nearly lost my fingers shanking shoes.

But all you want to talk about are those gibbons we saw at the zoo: how they looked at you, and how you looked at them.

"Okay, well hey," I say, "it's almost curfew, huh?" But the sad thing is, we still have twenty minutes.

You don't cry, not exactly, but almost.

To cheer you up, I tell you about the time I watched Planet of the Apes
"Well what about it?" you sniffle.

"Well I don't know. Just that Dad and I watched it and ate strawberry yogurt at midnight."

"And. . ."

". . .I guess I forget the end of the story. But it was a nice night with you, that's all. Back in June or whatever."

Startling us, the cop knocks his flashlight against the pane of your glass. We roll down the window and say, "Yes, officer," and "Sure, officer," and "Whatever you say, that's fine."

We both wave goodbye, and he seems like a good enough man, driving off first and trusting us to follow.

I start the car to move along, but you tell me to just wait.

"I love this song, don't you?"

I tell you I do, and I reach my hand to the gearshift.

"What's the rush?" you ask. "Can't we just sit here and listen?"

We sit there and listen. We sit there and listen again.

"Okay," you say, pressing the repeat button, "now one last time from the start."

© 2011 Night Train and respective authors/email support AT nighttrainmagazine.com