Dean turned the key and the motor stopped dead. The falling sun threw shadows across the drive-in lot full of skeleton poles with twisted wires and a tattered screen hanging empty in the distance like the sail of a phantom ship.
He rolled down the window in slow cranks and rested his elbow where the glass used to be. A chilled breeze wafted in, bringing the smell of earth and rust and weeds growing dry around him.
With the sun nearly set Dean imagined himself smaller, head on the floor of the back seat, a blanket of warm, worn, leather concealing him and his brother. A man in a bright booth would ask how many and his father would reply "Only the one."
Deep in the darkness he'd let them know it was ok to come out and they'd struggle and fight into the spot nearest him. The screen would light up and they'd stop in the face of the towering images and trumpeting sounds from the adjacent speaker box atop tiny poles.
They'd sit still through several screenings; eventually yawning inwards, towards their father's open arm that seemed to stretch as wide as the night above. The words, and lives on screen blurred into their dreams and they'd miss the ending to films they could only continue several years later in front of much smaller and ever changing screens.
Dean startled awake, frantically pawing the jacket for a weapon. He realized he'd fallen asleep in the lot. The night was vast, moonless and at either side of him he saw only empty seats. He had returned to the forgotten drive-in full of bones and dirt and dying things. He leaned back into his seat, one hand clutching the lapel of the worn leather jacket and the other against his face.
With his palm gently rubbing his eye, he laughed. Hard and hollow as the wind that blew through him, he laughed.