American Honey

“Well, I’m pretty sure this will get us through the weekend,” I said holding up the bottle of American Honey, marveling at the cold amber color of the liquor, sliding through the huge 1.75 ml bottle.

“I think so.” Tim laughed.

We purchased the bottle and went out the store to the car. Tim and I had gone to the liquor store alone since everyone else already had their preferred drinks. Nick and Matt were good drinking beer and Tom had a bottle of Jameson. We all knew Tom wasn’t going to drink barely any of that bottle so Matt had already resigned himself to that too. We had all the obligatory red plastic cups we needed, we had cards for drinking games, we had already eaten and we were ready to rage for the night. It was our first night in Colorado.

“So you think Tom is going to drink any of that Jameson?” I asked Tim.

“Yeah probably like two sips then call it a night.”

“Tom has always been that way, he says he wants to drink and party then takes one drink and then calls it quits.”

“I mean if he doesn’t want to drink, he can just not drink?”

“Maybe he thinks he needs to drink to like fit in or something.”

“I guess. I don’t care if he doesn’t want to drink.” Tim shrugged.

“Yeah me neither.”

We passed the large snow covered park across the street from Nick’s apartment complex. A massive blizzard so aptly named by the weather services, “Winter Storm Tritan”, chased us out of the western half of Kansas and finally overtook us just an hour or two away from the Colorado border. We had to stop in a know-nothing truck-stop town called Goodland, Kansas, for the night. Half of us slept on the floor of the crappy little motel room we rented. I’m sure the owner of the hotel thought it strange that four young men: Tim, Tom, Matt and I, were all going to be sharing a two-bed room together. We were just glad he didn’t bust in during the night with a shotgun and an attack dog. We had some preconceived notions about, Kansans? Kansanites? Kansanians? Whatever the people of Kansas preferred to be called. I don’t know. There isn’t much I want to know about Kansas other than how to get out of it.

In the middle of the night, Tim and I went out into the blizzard, walking, bundled up with layers, out into the driving snow. We were looking for somewhere to get alcohol but all the liquor stores were closed and the Mal-Mart, most likely the cultural center of Goodland, was totally dry. Despite this we wandered around for almost an hour, the snow and ice slashing across our faces. We had goggles and tight hoods and snow boots but we were getting packed with snow. But looking out into the inky blackness of an empty Kansas with the snow pummeling down around you, the wind roaring behind your head, is all quite a sight.

We burst into Nick’s apartment holding our prize high, like a bull fighter holds up a trophy, but everyone was sitting on the couch playing Super Smash Brothers. Nick had his tree trunk legs stretched out onto the table and Matt was sitting cross-legged on the floor. The living room was small and was attached to an equally small kitchen. Between them ran a hall that led to the bedrooms in the back, on being Nick’s and the other having been occupied by Tom for the week. Matt, Tim and I were bunking in the living room on the furniture and on the floor. An air mattress was leaning against the wall.

“Oh, hey guys. Got some drinks?” Matt asked, not looking up from the game.

“Yeah, just some honey.” I took the bottle into the kitchen and pulled out two cups from the counter. I filled each half full with the American Honey and filled the rest with Coke. One I handed to Tim.

“Are you bitches ready to get this shit started?” he said

“Now? We’re still playing.” Tom said

“Yeah, lets get some drinks. Come on Tom.” Nick said lumbering up from the couch and deftly moving into the kitchen. He grabbed a beer from the fridge and cracked it open.

“Tom, want one?”

“Ah, not right now Nick. Besides I’m gonna drink some Jameson later.”

“Ok, Matt?”

“Sure buddy, I’ll take one.” Matt jumped up and grabbed a beer from Nick, cracking it open.

“Ah man, are we done playing?” Tom asked, disappointed.

“Yeah man. Come on and lets get to drinking!” I said.

And drink we did. We started off with a game of Kings, a card based drinking game. I would often get people to drink by coming up with difficult words for rhymes and whenever one of us had an opportunity to give someone a drink, it went to Tom. And Tom seemed to be taking it all in stride. At a normal party he would have bowed out by now, but he was sticking through and holding his liquor well. By the end of the game, all of us were getting pretty buzzed. Tom, Tim and I were feeling particularly well since we had been drinking hard liquor. Matt and Nick were busting open their forth beers and Tim and I were just finishing up our third drink.

Being finally in Colorado, after an arduous overnight trip, I decided then it was time to imbibe in the fruit of our labors. The reason we came all this way. Maybe it’s a little silly to take a week off from work and drive over twenty-four hours out to Colorado, spending hundreds of dollars along the way, for just a small thing. But we really didn’t give a shit. It was time to smoke.

“Hey, guys. Want to smoke a bowl?”

And for a brief moment it was if time itself had stopped. Cups were set down and conversations put on hold. We all gathered around the coffee table in the living room and unbundled our wares. We displayed our arrays of cannabis products on the table like traders at a Persian bazaar. We had buds and wax and hash and oil. We had suckers and chocolates and gummies. Tom had a drink and Tim had a little can of mints. Every product we had, all laid out in neat little rows on the table, was capable of getting the most hardened stoner high.

And so we commenced with the time-honored traditions. Matt packed his newest pipe and Nick began rolling a joint. Tom was breaking up some buds for Nick while Tim was preparing another bowl. In the meantime, I began preparing the blunt. Each of us had our heads down, concentrated like a surgeon sewing up some overpaid housewife getting a new pair of tits. None of us spoke, as we could only focus on our work. When the scratching of the steel roller against the small stub of flint ignited Matt’s lighter, we all looked up in anticipation, like dogs who had just heard their food bag rustle. Matt drew long and deep from the small, glass, colored pipe, emitting small puffs of smoke from each of the corners of his mouth. He inhaled deeply and held the smoke as he passed it to his left to Tom. As Tom started to light the bowl, Matt exhaled, pushing the smoke out in a steady stream from his puckered lips. He coughed a few times and leaned back, smacking his tongue to the roof of his mouth to taste the flavor of the pungent smoke.

“Oh man, that Skywalker OG is fire!” he said

Tom was coughing and Nick was hitting the bowl, setting his half rolled joint onto the table. Tim handed Matt another pipe as he exhaled his hit. We ended up smoking another bowl after we finished the joint. We were in a jubilant mood from freely smoking a legal product that we had purchased in a store. This marked the end of an era and the beginning of another. No longer would we be subjected to the random schedules and back alley dealings of the black market cannabis dealers. No more trap houses or hippie dens. No more risk of getting ripped off, getting bad product or getting busted. We were simply sitting together, enjoying a legal product in a safe and sensible way. Ok so we were smoking a lot of it but it was our first time being able to do something so obviously harmless and not be considered criminals. There was something liberating about it. We even had the blinds open; anyone could see inside. But we didn’t care because we no longer had anything to hide. By simply crossing a line on a map, a line put there by some surveyor in the nineteenth century, we had gone from underground criminals to normal citizens enjoying a smoke together. It’s strange that such a significant change could come about without any effort on our part whatsoever. Sure we had to drive over twenty-four hours and we had to suffer the inconsolable terror of Kansas, but we didn’t have to make a change about ourselves. Someone who goes from criminal to citizen usually makes some profound change in their behavior or outlook or perspective. We did nothing of the sort. A man signing a piece of paper made that change for us. It made me wonder what the point of it all was anyway. If it was so insignificant that it could be wiped away with the stroke of the pen, why need the stroke at all?

By the time we had finished the last bowl we were all slightly sobered up from the alcohol and now sufficiently high. The flicker of the TV glowed over our heads as we stared mutely at the program. Nothing was said. No one moved until Tom got up to grab the package of cookies from the kitchen counter. Nick laid his head back and stretched his feet out. Matt stared at the TV. I gave Tim a look of worry. We wanted to party, and after only an hour or two of drinking we felt we hadn’t done nearly enough. I could tell he felt the same way as he nodded his head and pulled his beanie over his long hair, pulled back in a tight bunch behind his head.

“Alright guys!” I said, jumping up from the couch, “More drinks. Come on. We’re not done yet!”

I pulled Matt toward the kitchen and Nick got up and followed. Tom remained on the couch munching on a cookie.

“Tom! Come on! Have a drink!” Matt yelled out to him across the room.

“I will in a minute. I’m enjoying this cookie!” he smiled and raised it triumphantly before his face.

“Don’t you give up on us now Tom!” Tim shouted as he filled two cups with that golden amber honey whiskey. He tossed in a couple cubes of ice and some coke into each and handed me one.

“I’m not giving up!” he said jumping up from the couch and charging into the kitchen, like a linebacker free from the line of scrimmage. He poured out a large cup of Jameson and took a long drink.

“To Colorado!” he shouted and we all raised our cups and shouted again.

“To Nick!” I shouted and again everyone repeated, except for Nick himself who shouted, “For me!”

We all drank deeply and Matt even coughed a little, having switched over to Jameson. Tim and I finished up our drinks and we each made another, rounding us out at around five. I think. Numbers were starting to get hazy around that point. Also my memory seems to have failed me as to who first pointed out the longboard, but it didn’t go well from there.

“Hey Nick! Is that your longboard?”

“Yeah. I ride it to class sometimes. If the weather is nice.”

I do remember however it was Tim who suggested we luge it down the hill right outside of Nick’s apartment.

We all went outside and set our drinks on the ledge just below Nick’s front window. The apartment stepped right out onto the main drive of the apartment complex, with the turn in from the main road just on the left. Down the hill to the right the road curved and turned off twice, before ending at a set of dumpsters. The hill was steep enough that a wheeled vehicle could easily roll to the bottom with little effort and high speed. For some reason, perhaps drink number six, I volunteered to go first. Tim and Nick had already ridden the board down the hill normally, and Matt made it half way down until he lost control and had to jump off. Tom observed. But I was going to luge it down the hill first. I ran up to the crest of the hill on the left and positioned the board in the middle of the road. I carefully centered myself over it and lowered down onto the board. I lay on my back and looked over at everyone on the sidewalk in front of Nick’s door. They smiled and gave thumbs up and Tom took a picture with his phone. I put my head back, lifted my feet and pushed forward with my hands.

I wanted to go fast. I knew the speed bump halfway down the hill would slow me down so as long as I could make it there and over I would be fine. I probably pushed with my hands more than I should have. I pushed them down and out to the sides and back like fins propelling a fish. I gained speed as I raced past the crew at the apartment door. I stopped pushing and gripped the bottom of the board right below my butt. I kept my feet down so I could attempt to steer and brake some, skidding the soles of my shoes against the pavement, just so the bounce over the speed bump wouldn’t be so rough. I looked down my body, pushing my chin into my chest to try and get a view of my surroundings. The speed bump was coming. I shouted out as my knuckles scraped against the black asphalt beneath the board. I took some air going over the speed bump and was separated from the board for half a second. I lost control after the speed bump. I couldn’t tell where I was because every time I tried to look up I swerved. My shoes weren’t working as brakes anymore and I had no idea where I was. Time to bail. I turned and rolled to my right, trying to lift myself up some but I ended up hitting my knees against the pavement and rolling over the sidewalk into the grass on the side of the road. The long board careened down the hill and crashed into the dumpsters. Everyone ran down to the speed bump to see if I was ok. I stood up slowly.

“That was awesome!” I shouted running down to grab the long board. Everyone cheered to my success and Tim grabbed the board to go next. We took successive turns luging down the hill. Tim made it all the way to the bottom before he had to bail. Nick bailed right after the speed bump. Tom on the other hand had probably had a little more to drink than he usually does and was a little too eager. He jumped onto the board and sent himself flying down the hill. He didn’t use his feet to slow down at all.

“Brake Tom!” we all shouted to him as he approached the speed bump, but he couldn’t hear us. He launched over the bump and almost flew off the board himself. I think at this point he knew he had no control because we heard him screaming for help. We were all standing there laughing as we watched him shoot down the hill. He tried to sit up at the last second but it was to no avail as he punched through a stack of cardboard boxes and into the waiting dumpsters below. It was quiet and nothing moved as we ran down to check on Tom.

“Tom! Tom, are you ok?” I asked pushing some boxes aside. He sat up next to the dumpsters and gave us all a toothy grin.

“Fuck yeah!” he shouted and jumped up, sprinting back up the hill towards the apartment. We followed him and kept making runs down the hill, drinking more and more between runs. At one point Tim and I went back into the apartment to make more drinks. I picked up the bottle of American Honey and sloshed around less than half of the original volume.

“Think this will still get us through the weekend?” I asked, turning to Tim and looking at him through the half empty bottle.

“Yeah, well it should at least get us through tomorrow.”

“Yeah you’re probably right.” And I poured another drink for each of us.

We went back outside the apartment to find two young girls had joined our group, probably in their early twenties like us. One girl had dark brown hair and a slight accent that belied a possible Latino heritage. She said she was in Colorado for school. The other girl had jet-black hair and was cute, but I couldn’t help picking up a lesbian vibe from her. She was visiting her student friend. Being the only one with a girlfriend at the time, I wasn’t too interested but Matt, Tom, Nick and Tim were clearly intrigued. Matt was showing them our technique when the friend with the black hair pushed the student aside and shouted that she wanted to ride.

“I want to do it! Let me ride!”

“Are you sure? It’s kinda dangerous.” Matt said, always the gentleman. Or maybe he was just into lesbians.

“Yeah I’m sure! Come on!”

“Ok. Just be careful about the speed bump. Brake going into it or you’ll lose control on the other side. Tom!” Matt looked at Tom accusingly.

“What? Fuck you!” Tom was very drunk.

Before Matt could give her any more instructions she jumped onto the board and sat right in the middle. She was sitting on her butt with her legs drawn up into her chest, putting her knees right below her chin. We all knew it was a mistake since she would have a higher center of balance and would most likely tip over. But at the same time we couldn’t help but looking forward to a spectacular crash and burn at the bottom of the hill. If she made it that far. Which she did not. She pushed herself twice and started down the hill. She started to pick up speed but just after she passed us, not even halfway down to the speed bump, she started to hesitate and tried to bail. Instead she tipped over and kicked her feet out, sending the board flipping and bouncing down the road. She landed on her right arm and rolled onto her back, making a sound that we couldn’t identify as a laugh or a cry. Tom was practically rolling on the ground laughing but the rest of us were somewhat concerned. Here was this girl, whose name we had never even heard. Or maybe we had heard her name we just forgot it. But here she was, obviously as fucked up as us if not more so, who just took a hard landing off of Nick’s longboard. She pushed herself up with her left arm and held her right arm close in to her body. She slowly walked towards the group with a sour look on her face.

“Holy shit my arm! I think it’s broken!”

It wasn’t broken. She held it close to her like a limp fish she was trying to keep a grip on but she definitely hadn’t fallen hard enough to break her arm. At least that was what we were telling ourselves. Or maybe that’s just what we were hoping. But she shuffled up to our group like she expected one of us to have the capacity to help her somehow. We all would have if we could, but none of us were doctors.

“Are any of you guys doctors?” she slurred.

And without hesitating even a second, like it was as true as the sky is blue and the sun sets in the West, Tim chimed in like he was simply telling her that Matt’s hair is brown.

“Yeah, Matt’s a doctor.” He said

And I, picking up the sense of urgency in the situation to troll Matt, picked up right were Tim left off.

“Yeah, he’s been practicing for ten years!”

And like a child with a broken toy she held her arm limp up to Matt, pleading with her eyes to somehow fix what obviously wasn’t broken.

“Uh…ok,” Matt said hesitating, “God dammit guys.”

And taking her arm, Matt just sloppily pushed her upper arm back towards the girl’s shoulder. She shouted out in pain and Matt threw his hands up like a culprit showing the police that he is not armed. Next to the apartment door Tom was absolutely roaring. He couldn’t stop shouting and in his drunkenness was shouting obscenities and insults at the hurt girl.

“Ahaha! Stupid dumb bitch! Can’t even luge. Stupid. Dumb. Chick.” He was hesitating between words since he was really far gone drunk at this point.

“Hey what the fuck is up with your friend?” the student asked, stepping up now.

“Yeah fuck you guys. What the hell?” said the girl holding her arm.

We all stood aghast, not sure how to react or respond. She had ridden that board of her own volition, her arm was nothing more than bruised and Tom was just totally wasted. We didn’t know what to say as they were shouting at us but we started to slowly back towards the apartment. Matt grabbed the long board. Just then we heard heaving and turned to see Tom bent over the little plants just to the side of Nick’s door, vomiting into the pots. There was our only opening.

“Oh shit Tom, you ok? Let’s get you inside buddy.” I said and Nick grabbed Tom and pushed open the door. We all quickly followed, retreating in shame from the two girls still yelling at us.

“Fuck you guys!”

“Shit, what a bunch of fucking assholes,” said the student.

“Yeah, what in the literal fuck was that all about?”

“Asshats. What do you want to do now?”

“Fuck them. Let’s go inside and smoke some weed.”

“Ok. Is your arm ok?”

“Yeah.”

 

 

“No one’s out there,” I said, peeking through the now closed blinds

“Well that was close. Think they’ll call the cops?” Tim asked

“I should call the fucking cops. ‘Hello officer? Yes, I was just tossed underneath a bus!'” Matt shouted at us. He laughed though and we knew he was joking.

“I’m sorry, dude. I seriously thought you were a doctor,” said Tim, snickering.

“Yeah. I really thought you had been practicing for two years,” I followed up, laughing drunkenly.

Nick had taken Tom into the bathroom at the back of the hall between the two bedrooms. We could hear Tom vomiting excessively. At this we point the rest of us were quite drunk. Matt sat down and swayed some in his seat as he stared at the now blank TV screen. Tim and I stumbled our way into the kitchen and each pulled a new red cup from the sleeve. I don’t remember if we left our last cups outside or threw them away or where they were so they needed to be replaced. I poured almost all the rest of the honey whiskey into our cups, pouring Tim just a bit more. Leaving a small sliver of golden amber in the bottom of the bottle, I held it up into the light and looked at Tim through the now clear glass

“Still think this’ll last us through tomorrow?” I said slurring the words significantly.

“No probably not,” Tim said, leaning with one arm on the table and holding his drink with the other.

I turned up the bottle and swallowed down the last gulp from the bottle. I wasn’t usually one to drink from the bottle since I’m not so great at swallowing unmixed liquor, but I’m usually not as wildly intoxicated as I was then. And after all, it was spring break. So I finished the bottle and slammed it down on the table, startling Tim. The same bottle we bought less than six hours ago. The same bottle we thought would get us through the whole weekend. The same bottle just a few hours ago we thought would get us through the next day. Instead it didn’t even last the whole night. Tim and I had almost single handedly finished off an entire handle of honey whiskey. And now that our bottle was empty and our thirst thoroughly quenched, we felt the need to try and walk off our drunkenness and attempt to get some food.

“Hey Matt,” I said, “you hungry? Dude. We’re gonna get some food. We’re gonna walk to Taco Bell? I guess. Yeah. Come with us!”

“Ok” Matt said pulling himself up from the couch, “Let’s see how Tom and Nick are?”

“Ok.”

We groped our way down the hall where Tim clumsily knocked on the bathroom door at the end.

“You guys ok?”

The door opened and Nick sauntered out, closing it behind him. We got a glimpse of Tom in the corner, on the floor with his arms wrapped around the toilet bowl. As the door closed we heard another heave.

“Tom’s pretty sick,” he said, stepping back towards the living room, “What are you guys doing?”

“Finishing up our drinks,” I said holding up the bottle.

“Wow, you finished the whole thing?”

“Yup,” said Tim, proudly.

“We were gonna get some food. Walk down to Taco Bell. Wanna come with us?” Matt asked.

“Um…no I’m ok. I’m gonna stay here and make sure Tom’s ok. Probably play some Smash Brothers, too.”

“Ok, Nick. Do you want us to bring you anything?” I asked.

“No. I’m ok. Thanks though.”

“No problem dude! No problem.”

We turned left out of the door of the apartment and headed up the hill towards the main road. Once there we turned right and headed up the street towards the main drag of commercial businesses. The Taco Bell was just past the liquor store. We trekked up the street and under the streetlight archways that shone bright green, glinting in our dilated eyes. The park stretched out to our left and rolled with hills covered in snow and scattered copses of trees. There was a small gazebo across the fence line and a lighted building atop a hill across the park. It stood out among the white snow blanketed fields.

On our right there were small houses and scattered apartment complexes similar to Nick’s. Over priced, under managed and way too small, they catered to broke college students, recent divorcés and drug dealers. The typical unit was much like Nick’s; small living room connected to a small kitchen connected to a small hall that ends in two small bedrooms and a small bathroom. The key word here is small. The carpet is cheap and old with mysterious stains left over from previous tenants. And you could always hear the people above you stomping around like giants. I would suspect that the local legal cannabis industry does quite well keeping most of the tenants of these buildings from shooting themselves.

We made it to the end of the block and turned into the parking lot and gawked dumbly as we staggered toward the soft purple glow of the Taco Bell sign. Needless to say the wait staff was not happy to see three mad, drunk, stoner kids nearly collapse into their restaurant. We reeked of honey whiskey and Colorado Kush and could barely speak a coherent sentence between the three of us. And yet we managed to order and get our food without causing any serious bodily harm to person or property. And in our great task we had prevailed! We felt like knights accomplishing a quest and winning the maiden! And yet for some reason, as drunk as we were, we decided not to sit in the closest seats and proceed to devour our conquered feasts. For some reason we decided to turn our quest into a picnic and eat in the gazebo we had spotted in the park.

And so we crossed the street looking for an entrance to the park. Along the whole expanse since Nick’s apartment we hadn’t seen a break in the fence line. There was however, on the corner behind a bus stop, an opening in the fence on top of a stone wall. Squeezing our way behind the bus stop we discovered the fence was broken and we could get into the park by climbing over the low wall. We crossed through a thin line of trees and emerged on the low sloping fields of the park, smothered in snow. We walked across the field and sat under the gazebo and ate. We ate and slurped our sodas quietly as we sat on the cold planks that appeared to come from the half broken roof. The gazebo was beyond disrepair.

“You’d think with all that weed tax money someone’d be able to fix a park place. Thing. Pergola. No! Gazebo.” I slurred, balling up my garbage and numbly shoving it into my pocket.

“Think Tom’s ok?” Matt asked.

“Ah, he’s ok.” I said.

“You think maybe we pushed him a little too hard to drink?”

“I don’t think so. I mean; he’s an adult. He makes those decisions. We said ‘Hey Tom! Come drink!’ but we didn’t peer pressure him or anything. He seemed like he was excited.”

“Yeah, maybe so,” Matt said, “but I just didn’t expect him to drink so much. Just hope he’s ok.”

“Yeah me too.”

“Guys. There’s someone coming,” Tim said urgently.

And then Matt and I saw them. Two figures walking across the field in the dark. We couldn’t see faces or features but one was tall and the other one was short. They walked with a brisk pace directly towards us.

“Oh shit,” I whispered, “who the fuck is that?”

“I hope it’s not cops. The park is probably closed its like three A.M.” Tim said.

“Dude, we’ll just say we didn’t know the park was closed.”

None of us moved as the figures came closer, almost now in view. Perhaps they wouldn’t see us there sitting in the dark. Maybe they were just walking the perimeter and would pass right by. But just as they were a few feet away Matt sat up and stretched forward, recognizing faces. It was Nick and Tom.

“Tom! You’re alive!” I said standing up and greeting them.

“Yeah, I’m good dude. We brought some weed.”

“Well hell yeah!”

We sat in a circle and smoked a bowl, watching the stars in the now clear sky. The wind gently rolled across the hills but we never felt chilled. The liquor made us forget that we were out in the snow. It made us forget that we were in Denver in late March, when it can still get very cold. It made us forget climbing through a fence and falling off a long board going downhill. But it didn’t make us forget everything and we sat there quietly together sitting in a circle smoking weed.

We all stumbled back to the apartment the way we came. Across the field and through the broken fence and down off the wall and down the street to the complex of buildings.

“I’m gonna go pass out.” Tom said walking down the hall towards the bedroom he was crashing in. Nick followed him to his own bedroom and did the same. Matt threw the air mattress on the floor and collapsed onto it. We heard the toilet seat fall in the bathroom followed by dry heaving and coughing. Tim was in there. The bathroom fell silent and as I lay there on the couch, gently puffing on a pipe, I looked around the apartment. Matt was already passed out on the air mattress and Tom and Nick were asleep in their rooms. I guessed that Tim had maybe passed out in the bathroom so lying there I realized I was the only one who made it through the night. I set the bowl down and shot my arms up into the air like a football referee signaling a touchdown, my fists clenched and my eyes shut. I was still awake and hadn’t thrown up. And so at least for myself I considered the night a success.

 

 

 

I was half awake when I heard the plastic crinkling. Just like someone trying to hide themselves more often than not makes them stand out, Tom couldn’t help but make a racket. The bag of cookies crinkled louder as Tom slowly pried it open, trying desperately to get a few cookies out. There was another loud report from the bag as he slid it ever so gently towards him from the far end of the counter.

“God dammit Tom.” Matt said, his head under his blanket.

“Sorry.” Tom whispered and I opened his eyes to see him silently laughing.

“Just get the damn cookies.” Matt said and Tom quickly grabbed a handful of cookies from the bag, causing far less ruckus than when he was trying to be quiet. At that we got up and started making breakfast. We made eggs with lots of bacon and toast with butter and jelly. While we ate we all puffed on pipes as a man sips on his morning cup of coffee over the newspaper. Tom was surprisingly well off but Tim was hung over. He didn’t eat much and went to the bathroom later to throw up. We made our plans for the day and as I was walking up the hill towards the parking lot at the front of the complex, I saw the green fields across the street now sparkling wet with the remains of the melted snow. I noticed a golf cart moving across the field at a distance.

“Hey, why is there a golf cart driving through a park?” I asked, turning to Tim next me.

“I don’t know— hey wait a minute! That guy is golfing!”

We saw a man in a white shirt and brown pants in the follow through of his swing. More golf carts moved in the background. A young person, probably no older than sixteen, carried a bag of golf clubs across the field near the gazebo we sat under just the night before. Then Nick walked up behind us.

“Oh yeah. That’s the golf course.” He said quite mater-of-fact-ly.

“What?! That’s a fucking golf course?” I asked.

“Yup.”

“And you knew it was a golf course?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“Nick, why didn’t you tell us we were on a golf course last night? We were fucking trespassing!”

“Oh. I thought you guys knew. You didn’t think it was weird to enter a park through a hole in a fence behind a bus stop?”

“Yeah, you know what? I guess I didn’t.”

And that’s when my brain clicked, realizing what I hadn’t the night before.

 

 

Disclaimer: American Honey is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and events are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Opinions expressed herein do not necessarily reflect those of the author.