One Night at Trees Lounge

By Johan Michaels

Four Mai Tais, one reggae band, a handful of bar nuts, and a conversation with a high-profile person leads to intoxicating revelations based on real-life events. Spend a night at Trees Lounge and wake up to dazzling realizations about the world and your part in it. Just try not to puke. A short story.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Johan Michaels
• Release date: Jun 26, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223355458

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

The sudden tapping on the glass wakes me up and I’m groggily pulled back into my harsh new reality like the prize at the end of the claw machine. My head is foggy, no doubt from multiple sugary Mai Tais that I sucked down like water. A pulpy strand of pineapple is jammed between my two front teeth, keeping the flavor alive. I’m having a hard time not tonguing it as I raise my head to look out the side window of my rental truck. A bright flash shrinks my pupils to pinpricks and I shut my eyes. The tapping begins again, headache be damned.

What do you want? I ask, raising an arm to shield my face from the intense beam. I catch beads of water cascading down the glass as my ears pick up the rain pattering on the roof overhead.

You’ve gotta move your truck, a man’s voice responds, gruff but friendly. I can’t make out any details of the silhouette behind the flashlight. You can’t stay here. He’s big. Probably two-fifty, easily. Come on, man.

I check the clock on the dash. It’s closer to morning than last night. My eyes drift back to the window and I realize that I’m slumped in the back behind the driver’s seat. I’m still too drunk to drive. Was it three Mai Tais or four?

If you can’t drive, you’ll have to call someone to come get you, the man suggests. We can’t have people sleeping in the lot, haole. He turns to talk to another attendant under a pink umbrella.

Can I drive? Maybe I’m not as shitfaced as I think I am. I decide to clamber over the armrest, making my way headfirst into the passenger seat cushion. My arm braces me from moving any further, holding my body against the glovebox and I suddenly remember why I chose to sleep in the back. An orange sludge full of fruit chunks is splattered on the floor mat below my nostrils, which are working overtime to avoid smelling the distinctly sweet and sour aroma.

Yo, where’d you go? the man shouts as he tries to peer inside the back window. Hey, brah! He spots me. You can drive or what? He makes his way to the passenger side and tries the door handle. It’s locked.

"Yeah, give