The Night
Cap

Ten forty on a Tuesday. The course at PopStroke Nashville nearly empty. The greens under the lights looking like velvet laid out on a jeweler's counter.

I had played the back nine alone, slowly, deliberately, the way you reread a favorite letter. No scorecard. No rival. Just the long lag putts, the soft click of the ball, the quiet roll across the tiers and down toward the cup.

On the seventeenth, a thirty-footer that broke twice, left and then right, like a conversation that changes its mind. I lagged it to a foot. Tapped in. Par. Nobody saw. That was the point.

Then I walked in to the bar. The bartender, polishing a glass, looked up and simply said: "Night cap?"

Yes. Obviously yes. An espresso cocktail is the only proper way to close a quiet night.

Fresh brewed espresso, dark and serious, an intellectual at a party. Licor 43 crème brûlée, rich and vanilla-sweet, with that caramelized edge, like a spoon tapping through burnt sugar. Bitter meeting sweet. Night meeting the promise of morning.

I sat there a long while. The lights went off over the first hole, then the second. Somewhere outside, a sprinkler ticked to life. I finished the last warm sip, left a good tip, and walked out into the cool September air feeling, for once, completely finished with the day.