Casey Jones
I didn’t dream again. I woke to the rumble of a truck through the alley and the digital alarm clock glowing on the nightstand. 4:34. Or maybe just four-something. My vision was blurred. I rubbed my eyes. The clock read 4:04. I must’ve stared at the numbers for a minute. Or maybe two. Not really thinking about anything.
Some mornings feel heavier than others. I rolled to my side with a groan. Eyes open.
No point in trying to sleep again. I wouldn’t be able to. I kicked the covers off and meandered to the bathroom for the morning ritual—the three S’s.
On the way, I passed a row of poorly framed concert posters. Bands I’d never heard of. Never seen live. Couldn’t even tell you what genre they are. I skipped the decorating part when I moved in. Just the basics: couch, table, bed, desk, and too many bookshelves stuffed with discount paperbacks. I didn’t have any photos, maybe a box of cheaply printed 4x6s buried in a shoebox. Nothing worth remembering. No one I wanted to be reminded of.
A few weeks after I started a new job, I wandered into a record shop a couple blocks from the office. Congress Records. It’s wedged between a Starbucks and a Pilates studio—staples of a thriving society. I think the place has a historical landmark status or something. This city loves music.
I don’t. Never have. But I’m glad I walked in that day. Some part of me must’ve known I needed to.
It was spring. Light breeze, cracked sidewalks, long shadows. The front had one large window. A retro sign hung crookedly above a sun-bleached awning, and bright flowers in pots swung from the frame. The door was propped open with a cardboard box of discount records. Music drifted out warbly and warm. I had gotten off early and followed the sound.
Inside was long and narrow—records stacked in bins and plastic milk crates, posters cluttering every wall. A few were framed, others were stapled. Thumbtacks and packing tape held most of them. It looked like a teenager’s bedroom stretched into a storefront—someone’s nostalgia, not mine.
In the back: cracked leather chairs, record players, headphones wrapped in duct tape. The front counter was light brown and oversized, buried under pins, stickers, trinkets—stuff nobody sells but never throws away.
Someone’s memory of the past—not mine.
She was behind the counter.
She stood in a beam of late-afternoon sunlight, all lit up like something holy. I wanted to say a prayer—but I froze in the doorway instead. My eyes were fixed on her like I’d wandered in off a bad trip. It was just the two of us in the store.
“Hi, looking for something?” she asked after catching me staring.
It took me a second to respond. I thought I might be drooling. I wasn’t.
“Oh, uh, sorry. Yeah. What’s the name of this song?” My voice cracked halfway through. My face turned hot.
She laughed and tucked her hair behind her ear. Light brown. It shimmered in the sunlight pouring through the window.
“You’re telling me you don’t know the Grateful Dead?” she said, still laughing.
Her smile fit perfectly in her mouth. Her cheeks had a soft dimple. Her dentist must love her. I thought the sunlight might reflect off her teeth and blind me.
“I’d like to,” I said.
And immediately regretted it. Cool it, Playboy.
She laughed again—cool, easy. Working downtown, I figured she dealt with guys way worse than me: an awkward, twenty-five-year-old possibly on the spectrum. I’m not, but she probably thought so.
She swung out from behind the counter and started walking.
“They go fast, but I stocked some this morning,” she said over her shoulder. There was a rhythm to her walk that made you want to follow. So I did.
We headed down an aisle to the Rock section, marked by a laminated white sign recklessly taped to the shelf. It smelled like stale cardboard and wood glue and a little like dust. Or time.
“Looks like we’ve got two—a best-of and Workingman’s Dead.” She held up both records, flipping them over and scanning the backs. A tiger tattoo peeked out from under her right sleeve. The head was mid-snarl. She set them down.
“This song,” she said, pointing upward, “is ‘Casey Jones.’ It’s technically on both, but considering you don’t know ‘Casey Jones,’ you should go with the best-of.”
Don’t ask about her tattoo. Everyone asks about tattoos. You don’t need another reason to sound like every other guy she forgets by closing time. I didn’t say anything.
She picked up the one on the right and gently pressed the record to my chest as she walked past me.
I held it with both hands against my chest like it would fall to pieces if I didn’t. I probably looked ridiculous.
Of course, I bought the record. Forty bucks—more than I thought a record should cost. I didn’t even own a record player.
I went back to Congress Records that Tuesday. I’m not sure why. I guess to see her.
There were a few people in the store this time. I wandered around, pretending to browse. I kept peeking toward the register, watching her ring people up. I flipped through albums I wasn’t reading and glanced back again. She smiled at everyone like they were the only one in the room.
That smile wasn’t just for me. It was just her.
The lights felt brighter that day. I kept sweating through my shirt.
I wonder if this is how creeps are born. Or if they’re just born creeps.
“Casey Jones!” she shouted when she saw me heading toward the counter.
I froze mid-step. Gave a weak smile.
“Hey.”
She remembered.
I hadn’t planned to walk up. I figured I’d just slip out without buying anything. Someone without a record player doesn’t have much business in a record store.
But the other customers had cleared out, and I’d been lingering too long. I panicked, grabbed a Chopin and Rubinstein album, and made my way to the front.
She grinned. “So? How was it? Your great exploration into culture.”
“Great. Thanks again.” I set the album on the counter. The Grateful Dead record was still sitting on my kitchen table—wrapped in plastic, untouched.
“You know the Red Hot Chili Peppers were in town last weekend?” she asked, her eyes lighting up. “It was insane. They’re old now, but their songs? Still perfect. Maybe better.”
“Sounds like fun.”
“It was a dream.” She leaned on the counter, resting her head on her clasped hands. “I bought their poster and framed it that night. Only Walmart was open—I was too excited to wait.”
“My walls are as bare as can be.” I chuckled awkwardly.
Is there not a normal sentence in you?
She laughed, then tilted her head.
“Like… plain white walls?” she asked, suddenly serious.
“Yeah. Nothing. I just moved.”
The latter, a lie.
“We’re going to fix that,” she said as she went around the corner of the counter and disappeared into the back, past the leather chairs.
I didn’t say anything.
She was wearing a white tee with a retro Congress Records logo in red and blue. Her jeans clung to her in a way that felt deliberate but unbothered. Her hair was messily pulled back with a big turtle-colored clip. It bounced as she walked. She moved with purpose—like she was always right about where she was going.
I waited.
She returned holding a stack of rolled-up posters, each one wrapped with a rubber band.
“These were gonna end up in the trash,” she said, setting them in front of me.
“But this is much better. We’ll make a music boy out of you yet!”
We both laughed. Then I coughed.
“Oh, no, really—you don’t have t—”
She cut in. “No, but you must!” She was smiling like it was obvious. “We can’t have you living with bare walls. That’s prisoner behavior!”
She had no idea.
I didn’t argue. I took the posters. She smiled.
I smiled back. Checked out. Left.
She had one arm resting on the counter, the other in her back pocket. Her hip leaned into the edge. She was smirking at me as I walked out.
“Until next time, Casey Jones!”
“Thanks again.”
Even if those posters were headed for the trash, they meant the world to me. I held them tight against my side all the way home.
On the bus, I thought about her. I smiled to myself like only a lunatic would.
I framed them that night.
In cheap Walmart frames.