The Northville Review
an online literary journal
Inside Joke, Explained: Honey Brown

Arrie Brown

Two weeks after moving into his first solo apartment, my best boy friend found he was messier than he’d known. He’d accumulated an inexplicably clogged sink full of stinking grey water, iceberged with egg-crusted plates and empty Texas Pete bottles. The maiden filling of the dishwasher coincided with my first visit. As I reached the bottom of my third Yuengling, he reached the bottom of the sink. He tossed something in my direction. “Did you put this here?” It was a cap from a Honey Brown Lager bottle, a beer which I liked very much but had never drank in his company, and certainly hadn’t used to stop up his sink.

Later that night, several Yuenglings later, we found ourselves in a sleepy conversation about relationships, and then about sex. I rolled the mysterious bottlecap between my fingers as he told me he’d only slept with one girl, ever. I wondered how much he knew about my sexual history. His voice and the booze put me to sleep on the loveseat, and I never fulfilled my half of the conversation. He still calls me Honey Brown sometimes, as a dear nickname, and I like it, but what I really think is this: Would my friend love me the same, knowing I’m a sweet-named girl who goes around leaving her tops in strange sinks?

About the author

Arrie Brown lives in Raleigh, NC, and has a story published in the Spring 2009 issue of Apple Valley Review.