Fiction by Trey White

Trey White is a 38-year-old living in Atlanta, Georgia. His work centers on everyday observations and life in the American South. This is his first publication.

My Sage is a Lush

My sage plant is lush.

She is.

She leads a hot n’ humid life in the container garden on my balcony.

(Which, just by the way, is completely against my HOA—but then, sometimes we have to disregard the rules out of necessity for living, don’t we?

That’s what Daddy would say, “the man’s always trying to getcha by the short hairs.”

He told me that one time while complaining about Hulu hindering him from logging into my TV.

“White, I find it funny that you’re fussin’ about the man whilst you try to cheat him,” I laughed.

He smiled, “Buck the man.”

Buck the man indeed.)

Every morning I walk out to Sagette, we’ll call her, looking perfect.

Healthy, sprightly, green.

Apparently, she strictly adheres to that seize the moment type of living.

But come afternoon?

She is wilted, and anguished, and parched.

Herbs are tricky, as any half-assed gardener will tell you.

Too little water, they look overwatered.

Too much water, they also look overwatered.

I have personally drowned or withered at least half a dozen lavenders. 

So who knows what they need? I can relate to that.

They’re a real pain, to be honest. (I can relate to that too.)

So why bother with them?

I mean there’s a plentiful amount right down the way on Spring Street.

Waitin’ patiently in plastic containers at the Publix refrigerator section—

The answer is quite simple.

Few things make me as happy as cooking and drinking wine.

And one of the things I love most about that process is that I can read the word “chimichurri” in one of my cookbooks, grin, grab my shears and my amber-colored wine glass filled with Sauvy B, step out into my little Eden, and then I cut the fresh oregano to make it.

The shears make me feel a little like Daddy’s hairdresser—crew cut, and denim shorts whirling me around in that pleather chair with a footrest like an orchestra triangle, feet flyin’. 

“STUDIO 20!” she’d yell answering the phone and drowning out the hum of the country highway outside the door. 

Sometimes I pause there on the balcony, and smile at my wrinkly-leaved Tuscan Basil.

And then I look out at the movement of the city on a Friday night—

Atlanta moves, did you know that?

Especially on Fridays.

She’s like that friend you love. That loves you too.

Or like my Aunt Anne, who makes you feel like you are the most important person who has ever lived on this Earth every time she sees you. That makes you feel like you’re made of sunshine. Don’t you love people like that?

That’s how the A feels to me.

I think she’s a lady in her late 20’s dancing to Gaga, or Tay Tay, or Ari, hair up in a messy ponytail, rummaging through her closet, smacking her lipstick, drinking red wine from a plastic solo cup, smiling to herself in the mirror. Primpin’ for the evenin’. 

Maybe she’s a little overserved, but most certainly not a lush.

Unlike my three sheets in the wind sage plant. 

Rudely judged by her three sheets in the wind hypocrite, gardener.

Standin’ here you can almost see the world change and also see it stay the same—

You can see the progress of the downtown skyline. New builds in the gulch, but just over the way that 1970s Asian-influenced building is still standin’ just as tall and proud as she was at her ribbon cutting. 

The world outside my little garden on my balcony—

This little womb that’s my sanctuary above the noise below. 

Here on the white California-inspired furniture, with the resin fountain trickling, almost beat out by the sounds of I-75/85—

I like it here.

Here it feels like a beer in the truck bed, with the red clay beneath my feet. 

Or daddy’s voice. 

Or the smells of grass hurriedly cut before the storm in summer.

It feels like a man who can almost touch his childhood in the North Georgia woods--

Who smiles as he pictures a white-tail step out onto the neighbor’s balcony with a lowball and bourbon—

Maybe that ole buck tips his glass.

Maybe I’d tip back my wine.

Here feels like that little bar where they know you—

Maybe that’s why the sage is always drunk. 

The bartenders know her here.           

They know me too.

Maybe that’s it, huh?

Maybe some moments are about more than the sum.

Maybe they’re just about the joy of living— 

Drunk with a sage plant,

on a Friday,

in the A.