Track 1: For the Road

Every Saturday, I sort the same stack of CDs that no one listens to anymore.

The plastic bins squeak ever so loudly, as if trying to disrupt the sharp silence that fills the store, excluding the constant, slow hum of the AC.

Most of the covers are faded or cracked. Someone once wedged a chewed-up piece of gum between two cases in the corner. I left it there to see if anybody would notice, and, unsurprisingly, nobody did. Nobody notices anything anymore.

Sometimes people come in to kill time. They say nothing, look at nothing, and buy nothing, just walking in and leaving shortly after.

My lunch is the same as always: a dry sandwich, a deflated bag of stale chips, and a flat soda.

My parents would’ve lectured me about living a healthier lifestyle, as if they followed their own “suggestions.”

I stand at the counter and wait – I wait for the time to pass, for a customer, for anything at all. The only movement in the store comes from the old analog clock placed above the “Popular Hits” sign. Why does the minute hand get to move faster than the hour hand? Aimless and pointless thoughts drift through my head as I continue to wait.

That afternoon, I locked up, gave the key back to the storeowner, and took the same route I always took home.

At the intersection near an old, battered bowling alley, I saw a brown, rusted sedan drive by.

I took a right. A coincidence.

Then, out of the corner of my eyes, I saw a dented bumper. A coincidence, I repeated.

Finally, the nail in the coffin – a peeling sticker. It can’t be.

Slamming the brakes, I took a left.

The sedan drove past a once-crowded strip mall and a run-down gas station with a crooked price sign and a flickering neon “$1.36 DIESEL” sign.

It pulled into a lot behind one of those shops that you couldn’t even tell was open; cardboard boxes lined the exterior, cracked paint lay on the ground, and barely visible handwritten signs were put on display through the window. The kind of place that people drive by without realizing it’s open.

I parked four spaces over. Not close, not far.

The driver stepped out. Tank tops, worn sneakers, a Walkman on his hips, and a crested eagle tattoo on his shoulder. Nothing like my brother. He popped the trunk, taking out a crate full of cables or tools, or junk, and walked inside the store. I stayed in the car for a bit longer.

The sticker on the back window was half-gone; it had curling edges and bleached colors from the sun, but it was still there.

He would always say that he would scrape it off, and I always said he wouldn’t. Ironically, we were both right.

I caught up to the driver as he was coming back out, arms full. Extension cords, maybe. A tangled mess.

“Hey,” I said.

He looked up, but didn’t take off his Walkman and didn’t say anything.

I nodded toward the car. “Where’d you get it?”

He blinked and looked past me toward the parking lot.

“The sedan?”

I nodded.

“Guy at a garage outside of town. Near the highway at the 202 Exit. Said it’d be sitting for years.”

“Did he say anything else?”

“Not really.” He shrugged. “Just that I was lucky it still ran.”

I nodded once. “Cool.”

He didn’t ask why I was asking, like it was normal, and I didn’t explain because he didn’t ask.

He plopped the crate in his truck, slammed it shut, and drove off. Shortly after, I drove home.

The next morning, instead of driving to work, I drove to the garage at the 202 Exit. I haven’t missed a shift in years. The owner wouldn’t need me anyway.

The garage was behind a chained fence with a gate halfway open, halfway closed. There was no sign in front. Just a row of broken cars and a tarp slumped over a weird pile that I couldn’t identify.

I parked next to a truck with no doors and walked toward the office.

A man sat behind the counter, with a “The Customer is Always Right” sign plastered on his left. Groggily, the man looked up.

“Looking for something?” he asked.

“A brown sedan. It had a dented bumper and a peeling sticker.”

He scratched his chin. “Can’t help you there. We've got too many cars looking like that.”

“Do you clean out the cars?”

“Yeah. Anything worth keeping gets pulled. The rest goes in the bin.” He jerked his thumb toward the side yard. “Red tub.”

I nodded and walked out.

The bin was disfigured and bent out of shape. A broken flashlight. Old gloves. A CD with no case. And a cassette, stuck beneath a coil of wires.

I picked it up.

The label was crooked, written in ink that had bled slightly from the heat or rain, but still legible.

Track 1: For The Road

A wave of nostalgia, sorrow, and bittersweetness rushed over me, all at the same time.

I turned it over in my hand. The reel was still intact. I held it just long enough to know it was real, and instantly put it into the pockets of my coat.

That night, I sat in the car with the engine off. The air had cooled just enough to slightly fog the windows. My cassette adapter was still jammed in the glove box, beneath crumpled and unreadable newspapers and expired coupons.

I pulled out the adapter. The cassette clicked in with a soft, mechanical groan. I didn’t expect it to play.

But it did.

A few seconds of blank hiss, then piano.

Just the first few notes, and my stomach cramped.

That song.

During the pitch-black emptiness of the night, it would ring aloud as if to remind me I wasn’t alone. We used to blast it through the speakers in the driveway when we were supposed to be doing chores. But more often, we’d listen to it while cruising through the night on the road. That’s how I remembered him. By our late-night drives. He’d sing it terribly – loud and off-key.

The song played all the way through.

No message. No voice. Just the music, then the quiet flick of the tape auto-rewinding when it ended.

He didn’t leave it for me.

He probably assumed it got tossed with the rest of his things — the notebooks, the drawings, the hoodie that never made it into the donation bag.

But it was still here.

And so was I.

I didn’t sleep that night.

I tried.

But every time I closed my eyes, the tape started up again — that same piano line, that same weight in the chest. Not by memory, but by a feeling I couldn’t keep pushing away.

Around three in the morning, I got out of bed and pulled a page from the back of an old receipt book. The pen didn’t write at first. I had to scribble in the corner until the ink came out.

I didn’t know how to start.

I didn’t write “I’m sorry.” I didn’t write “Come home.” I didn’t deserve to.

I just wrote what I remembered.

The way his laugh used to sound when he didn’t know I was listening. The smell of that car when it leaked. The fight we didn’t finish.

I wrote down the last thing I ever said to him — not the words exactly, just the ideas they formed. Sharp. Critical. Something that was meant to hurt. Something nobody should’ve ever said. I’ve told myself I forgot, but the truth is I never wanted to let myself remember.

I folded the letter once, then again.

Out back, the fire pit was still full of old ash from a cookout nobody cleaned. I lit a match and held the corner of the paper to the flame.

It caught fire slowly. Curled into itself like it didn’t want to go, just like the sticker on the back window.

I watched until the orange faded to black. Until the smoke stopped rising.

I didn’t feel lighter.

No weight was lifted off my chest.

I didn’t fix anything.

But at least I didn’t lie.