he’d look out his windows…through the blinds…at a parking lot filled with cars…cars and pick-up trucks scattered about on gravel…some parked in angles…others straight-on…fronts facing out…tailgates closed…a flatbed attached to one of ’em…

and he’d watch these automobiles come and go all day long…remembering when he had a Dodge…used to drive it up and down I95 from Maine to D.C. …stopping in towns along the way…spending money on women and booze…fast food wrappers thrown down on the floor in the front and back seat…empty 32oz. Styrofoam standing straight in his cup holder…a coffee mug in the seat beside him…

those cars parked out there…silver ones…black…pretty rust colored orange…for sale signs on a couple of ’em…best offer…he thought about it…’bout getting back in the driver’s seat…taking off somewhere in America…

maybe heading out West where the mountains make points in the sky…go out to Vegas and spend all day at a black Jack table…drive ’round Hollywood and live with the stars…he thought about it…

wanting to leave…always wanting to leave…at a moment’s notice…throw all his belongings in the dumpster and take off in the middle of the night…it always sounded appealing…always…

he missed the road…Lord how he missed the road…