How did the Schuyler Mine disappear? 

Mix followed a trail from Avon Place to the brown fields on a map from 1840. A drain tunnel once existed by Arlington Avenue. A road on another map from 1794 showed the spot where his high school would be built a hundred and fifty years later. The new 1986 map from Town Hall didn’t have a marker for any of it.

He heard someone call out above the noise of the crowded restaurant, “Hey Mix-Tape, your fries are up.”

People called him “Mix-Tape” freshman year because he recorded songs from his record collection or the radio onto cassettes and gave them out to friends. The guy at Tartans Restaurant accepted a tape of Billy Ocean songs in lieu of payment for an order of fried chicken the previous weekend. 

Mix clicked off the music on his Walkman cassette player and pulled the earphones from his head. His digital wrist watch-calculator showed one-thirty. 

“What’s going on, Mix-Tape?” The cook at the counter worked at Tartans since high school, which was about a decade ago. His white but yellow stained tee-shirt stuck to his chest like he wanted to show off that he worked out.