MIXTAPE
by Tom Leveen
(c) 2022
A mixtape says the things you can’t. Or won’t.
Or sometimes: shouldn’t.
Mikey fretted over this daily as he sorted through song after song, classics and new hits, trying to compose his feelings with someone else’s music.
Some of it depended on his mood. Some days it was all AC/DC, which he knew Glorietta liked from back in the day. But this wasn’t the sort of situation where one could blithely record Highway to Hell onto the mix, even if it was one of her favorites. The title was just too . . . inappropriate.
He leavened today’s tape with some old R.E.M., thinking some of the lyrics of Driver 8 said a lot of what he wished to say: take a break, we’ve been on this trip too long.
He’d never say that to her. Even if he could muster up the courage and, hell, write the words down, they still wouldn’t come out right. He had way too much experience with that. Glorietta deserved his best.
Nirvana next? No, too abrasive. Poison? No, a power ballad didn’t work either, not today.
Checking the time—he did not want to be late, so as to maximize their time together—Mikey hurriedly chose some Midnight Oil, followed by U2. Classic stuff. Despite not the world’s biggest U2 fan, in his opinion, The Joshua Tree was one of the top great albums ever made.
Minutes ticked away as he painstakingly constructed the opus. He didn’t have a title for it yet; previous incarnations included A Fragile Flash of Lightning, riffing off Pink Floyd’s Delicate Sound of Thunder. Glorietta—she preferred “Glory”—had given him a brief laugh for that, which Mikey cherished. Last week he’d gone full metal-head, nothing but Megadeth, Slayer, Anthrax, Metallica, Skid Row, Queensrÿche, Flotsam and Jetsam . . . and called it Wish You Were Hair, bemoaning that he’d lost his own long locks some time ago and still feeling pretty pouty and petty about it.
Petty! Of course.
Wildflowers became the last song on side B. Glory belonged among the wildflowers, most definitely.
Mikey hesitated as he scrawled the song title on the lined white insert. Did Wildflowers imply too much? That he, Mikey, should be her lover?
No, he decided. Most of the lyrics seemed very pointed at wishing the best for the other person. If that happened to come from a place of pure love and affection and . . . okay, fine, lust . . . Glory wouldn’t be any the wiser.
He hoped. God, the last thing she needed right now his sappy confession of love. No way, man.
Mikey snapped the cassette into its case and ran for his bike. If he pedaled hard, he’d get there just in time.
He got to the hospital one minute after Glory’s visiting hours began. A little breathless, he peeked into her room to see if she was awake.
She was. Barely. The TV was on. Family Ties.
“Hey,” Mikey whispered, still peering around the open door, not wanting to come in without Glory’s permission.
“Hey, you,” Glorietta said, and motioned with her fingers.
It was all the strength she had, and it was all the invitation Mikey needed. He slid into the room and went to the side of the wide bed, where he slipped the case into her hand.
“I, uh, I made . . . I made this . . . um . . . it’s, it’s a new—”
Even in her emaciated state, Glory’s smile lit his insides on fire.
“You know, Michael, one of these days . . .” She had to pause to take a breath. “You’re gonna have to bring a Walkman. Remember those?” Another pause. “Or you could just send me a Spotify list.”
He shook his head. “Not the same.”
“No,” Glory said. “It’s really not. You’re right.”
She lifted the tape to her face, squinting. “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For. Christ, Michael, you’re fifty-five years old, you better get on it.”
Glory smiled again as Mikey shuffled his feet. He wanted to say, “I did. I did find what I was looking for. Forty-five years ago when you moved in next door.”
But he couldn’t, and wouldn’t.
And, probably, oughtn’t.
All these years, nothing but friends. Through her various boyfriends, her first husband, her divorce, her second husband, him leaving her. Never having kids, career like a pinball in one of the old machines they used to play back in the neighborhood growing up. Then finally, this illness. He’d been the best friend he could. So he came every day with a new tape, and he’d keep coming until the inevitable end.
It was nearer than he cared to think about.
Glory gently put the cassette on a nearby table with several others Mikey’d brought over the past couple weeks. He almost helped her do it, her gesture was so weak. But he knew her stubbornness well. She would have given him a raft of shit for helping.
After the tape clattered mildly against the table top, Glory then stretched out her hand toward him.
“Michael.”
Perplexed, he took her hand. She was so cold.
“You don’t have to keep doing this.”
“Yeah, but, I . . . I mean, I do, I want to, I like to . . . unless you want me to stop.”
Glory shook her head weakly against the pillow. “No. Don’t do that. I’m just saying.” A pause. “You have a life. You don’t have to come if you don’t want.”
Mikey licked his lips, eyes darting. The words were right there, he could taste them in his mouth.
They wouldn’t come.
In a burst, Mikey snatched the new mixtape off the table and popped open the tiny radio-cassette player he’d brought on his first visit. He jammed the tape inside, slapped the tray shut, and pressed the play button.
Freddie Mercury said what he couldn’t. Mikey glanced at Glory, to see if she understood.
Glorietta pressed her lips together.
“Yeah,” she said quietly as the song played. “You’re mine, too.”
Mikey smiled, pulled a plastic molded chair to her bed, and sat down. Glory offered her hand again, and he took it.
She fell asleep an hour later in the middle of Tom Petty’s Wildflowers. Mikey stayed by her side until visiting hours were over.
He’d come back tomorrow. Maybe with some Beastie Boys.
THE END
