THE DRINK WE SPILL OUT ON THE GROUND

by Claire Humphrey

The perfect day looks like this: I wake up in the spare room at my boyfriend’s family home. I tie my hair in a messy ponytail and stumble downstairs. Etienne plays his guitar by the window, sunlight filtering through the pine branches, a half-cup of coffee on the sill. Andre sits on the counter, waiting for his toast, drumming his hands on the cupboard door. And I begin to hum along.

The perfect day is a snapshot beginning to crease, edges smudged with thumbprints. Me, Etienne and Andre, together in the late morning, making music.

I remember thinking, the day I went down to the culvert, how lucky we were. Not even out of high school and already we had this.

I knew about change, a little. I knew I didn’t want it.

I knew how to make a wish and make it stick.

Cherry brandy, crusty around the cap, only a quarter-full: it was from the very back of Mrs Thibodeau’s liquor cabinet. I tucked it in my music-case when no one was looking, between a sheaf of loose scores and a practice book.

Once Etienne and Andre were busy with their PlayStation, I hopped the low wall at the back of their yard and handed myself down the slope, tree-trunk to tree-trunk.

Etienne showed me the way one afternoon while Andre was playing shinny. He led me down through tangles of wild grape vines and over mossy limestone blocks. We descended the crumbled face of what had once been an inclined wall, until my reaching foot met the arch of the culvert.

Etienne didn’t know what it was for. He and Andre had made a fort there when they were kids. Now that they were no longer kids, they went down there to smoke joints when their mother was home.

The libation wasn’t a thing to them. Etienne just didn’t like the last swallow at the bottom of a can. That first day, we only had one: a Labatt’s Genuine Draft he’d liberated from the guy who rented the Thibodeaus’ carriage house. We passed it around until there was an inch left, warm and foamy, and then Etienne emptied it onto the broken floor of the culvert.

I was the one who felt the chilly air breathing out from beneath the city’s stones. I was the one who had studied the classics, and knew how to get the attention of gods.

The brambles had grown thicker since my last visit. I could see where Etienne and Andre had kicked a pathway, but it stopped on the lip of the culvert in a scattering of cigarette butts. I paused for a moment to look down at the muscular curves of the river, and then I slithered down the bank.

Someone else had been here recently. The ashes of a makeshift campfire still smouldered. A sleeping bag had been rolled out on the rotted mattress at the edge of the light. An empty can lay beside the fire: alphabet noodles.

I couldn’t see very far into the dimness of the culvert. The person who’d been sleeping here could be there, watching me from the dark.

I fumbled my bag open and found the bottle. The cherry brandy tasted like hangover breath. I spat it out on the stones.

I made my wish, then. I held that perfect morning in my mind’s eye and said this, this, this. For all time.

There was no answer. The slow breath of air from under the city didn’t change.

Maybe I needed to give something more.

I pulled out my wallet. It contained a single twenty. More than I’d earn for a gig, more than I’d earn for an evening of babysitting. More than a bus ticket to visit my mom.

I rolled the bill into a cylinder and tucked it in one of the rusting coils of the mattress-spring.

Was the air from underground a little warmer? Was that a distant train, that low hollow wail?

My nerve broke and I fled the culvert for the fresh air outside, scrambling back up the slope.

But up at the top of the rise was the Thibodeau house and my perfect day, waiting for me to step back in.

I knew Etienne before I knew Andre. Etienne was in his final year: a year older than me. He and his buddies held court at the same coffee shop where a bunch of us from the music wing spent our spares.

Etienne and I shared a love of rock from the seventies. We both took our coffee black. We both wore our hair long and straight.

Etienne was the one who taught me euchre. Etienne was the one who brought me into his band when he learned I could sing through my flute like Ian Anderson.

Andre was the one I fucked.

We had a different bass player every couple of months. Etienne did guitar and vocals, Andre played drums, I was on flute and backup, and most recently there was Konstantin, who was nineteen and shy and wore wire-rimmed glasses.

Konstantin told us about the gig while he was tuning up: said it from behind the cloud of his curly dark hair, barely audible over his own bass.

“No shit,” Andre said, dropping his sticks. “Seriously, a hundred bucks?”

“I know the going rate’s more,” Konstantin said, “but it’s just a house party. My cousin, he’s leaving town.”

Etienne set his palm to Andre’s shoulder to shut him up. “Maybe,” he said. “As a favour to your cousin.”

Konstantin ducked his head further down. “I can cancel, if it’s not enough . . .”

“Nah,” Etienne said. “We can swing it this once. If your cousin promises to get us drunk. April likes Johnnie Walker.”

Konstantin rolled a dubious eye in my direction.

“Straight up,” I said. I grinned at Konstantin. I always liked the bass players: they were strangers, which made me more like one of the group.

Etienne shook out a handful of coiled cable. “Half-hour set?” he said.

Konstantin nodded. “We’ve got a few weeks for me to get up to speed, right?”

“Should be fine,” Etienne said. “Let’s start with ‘Thick as a Brick’. Ready, April?”

I settled the mouthpiece of my flute under my lower lip, and we swung into the song.

Etienne had the opening, a quick acoustic patter and a first line that showcased his beguiling voice.

I came in a moment later. The flute line, light and pretty, twined in with Etienne’s, split apart for a delicious pause to let him shine, and then it was my turn again, dancing over the flickering guitar until Konstantin came in with a thumping bass chord.

Andre’s part in this tune was almost nothing, a bit of brush, but he still managed to miss his entrance. I glared over at him to see he was just kind of glassily sitting there: smoked up before practice again, probably. He caught the movement of my head, and winced an apology.

I turned my back on him and went back to watching Etienne.

We hadn’t played a gig with Konstantin yet, so we put in some extra practice. One Saturday Konstantin and I both showed up before Etienne and Andre were even awake.

Mrs Thibodeau let us in, yawning, and parked us in the kitchen nook. “I should give you your own mug, at this rate,” she said to Konstantin, rummaging in the cupboard for a plain dark blue one. “Here. Matches your eyes.”

My own mug had a lamb sitting in a clump of daffodils — Mrs Thibodeau’s idea of cute, because of my name.

“Have you got your university applications in yet?” she asked Konstantin.

I knew he’d done jack shit about it so far, but he smiled, ducking behind his hair a little. “Working on it, ma’am.”

“It’s quite a process, isn’t it? Maybe you can give Etienne a friendly nudge.”

“I thought he was staying here and going to Merritt College,” I said.

“He can do better than that. My boys can do better,” she said.

Konstantin gave me a startled look: so I wasn’t the only one who noticed the edge to her tone.

She was all nice again a moment later, offering us the sugar, putting some waffles in the toaster for Andre when he slouched downstairs.

But when Etienne followed, knuckling at his temple, she said, loud and sweet, “How about a big plate of eggs, dear?” And she pulled the blinds up to let in the morning light.

“Oh, God, mom,” Etienne said, hands over his eyes, and she laughed and laughed, like it was the funniest hangover ever.

Konstantin’s cousin Nick was the last tenant in the condemned house. Tomorrow, the demolition would start.

The landlord had long since stopped doing maintenance. The porch roof sagged, and the screen of the front door was ripped in a ragged X. Inside, the carpet had worn through to the subfloor.

The two main rooms were joined by a big open arch. No furniture — Nick’s stuff was already moved out — but the gear was all set up for us to play later.

In the kitchen someone had lined up about a hundred “Proud Canadian” stickers on the cupboards. Those stickers come free on bottles of rye. There wasn’t any rye, though, just the shitty leftovers of people’s liquor cabinets. Etienne, Andre, Konstantin and Cousin Nick were already here, by the keg.

I went to Andre and hip-checked him and kissed his shoulder. When I looked up, I saw Cousin Nick’s puzzled eyes go from me to Andre to Etienne. He muttered something to Konstantin, who laughed and said, “That’s what I thought, too.”

I turned away from all of them, and filled my red plastic cup from the kitchen tap.

When I turned back, I saw Etienne with a bottle in each hand, filling his cup with clear ouzo and dark brown kahlua. I stuck my tongue out in disgust. He grinned, shook out the last few drops from the ouzo bottle, and tossed it out the open back door.

I heard it smash on the deck. I raised my eyebrows.

“This whole place will be wrecked tomorrow,” Etienne reminded me.

“You’ll be wrecked tomorrow,” I said, as he tipped back a slug of his drink.

He flinched at the taste, shook it off with a shudder that went from scalp to spine. “Yeah!” he said, and slung his arm around Andre’s shoulders, and stuck his tongue out for Konstantin’s camera.

Showtime. Konstantin tuned his bass, Andre fidgeted with his hi-hat and I edged around placing the mics.

Etienne was still outside.

Andre had been out to call him, and got a bottle smashed at his feet. My turn, then.

In the back yard the air was heavy with sulphur from the paper mill, cut through with puke. Etienne was leaned over facing the fence, head against his folded arms.

“Wow,” I said. “Would it be mean to say I told you so?”

I came close and drew the hanging locks of his hair back over his shoulder so I could see his face. Eyes closed, mouth open.

“I can tell everyone you’re sick.”

He reeled upright, grabbing at the fence. “No. I’m going to fucking sing.”

“Better lose that shirt, then.”

He wiped his mouth on the hem, pulled the damp mess off and tossed it on the ground. Turned to me with his lean chest bared, defiant grin slopping off his face. Threw his arms around me and lifted me right off the ground.

I hugged him back, ignoring the smell that hung around him, and said into his ear, “Don’t ever change.”

I never remember the on-stage part of gigs very well. I get into this focused state and then suddenly I’m on the other side of it, flute dripping with spit and condensation, hearing the crowd’s applause already dying off.

What I remember about this gig, the condemned house party, is how it looked to see Etienne out ahead of me, mic cord wrapped around his arm and over one bare shoulder, all the little muscles over his ribs knotting up with the force of his voice. Sweat flying from the locks of his hair.

I remember Andre, too, a little. He played with his mouth open like a tragedy mask.

I don’t remember what Konstantin looked like, but I sure remember how he sounded, the heavy energy of his final line.

I stood there buzzing as the reverb started to fade and the people in the house hooted and clapped. Etienne let the mic dangle from a loose hand.

Then he swung it up again and said, “You guys know this house is going to be demo’d.”

Cheers from the crowd.

“You guys ever want to fuck shit up?”

More cheers. I had my flute hugged close across my chest.

“Do it!” called Cousin Nick, grinning. “Do it!”

“Fucking right!” Etienne shouted. “Let’s do it.”

The last of his words went quiet as Etienne stepped on the mic cord and ripped it from the amp, but it didn’t matter: the people in front of me exploded like shrapnel, tearing into the walls of the house with their fists and boots and bottles.

I turned to blink at Andre, but he had his eyes on his brother like everyone else. He jumped up from behind his kit, picked up his stool, and whirled it into the wall.

I woke up in the wrecked house with my head on Andre’s boot.

I sat up. Someone else’s baseball hat fell off my head. I shook Andre’s foot and he mumbled and drew his arm over his eyes. His face was grey-white with drywall dust on one side.

Konstantin was curled right next to us, one arm thrown across Andre’s stomach. I rummaged in Konstantin’s discarded army-surplus jacket until I found his camera, and I shot them both like that: shirts twisted around their bodies, splinters caught in their hair.

Other people were sleeping all over the place. I stepped over splayed legs and crooked arms, taking pictures.

Our gear was okay, shoved in the corner and barricaded by a door torn off its hinges. The door had a poster of Jim Morrison on it; both of his eyes had been scraped out and someone had drawn a giant doob in his mouth. I looked behind it, but Etienne wasn’t back there.

In the kitchen, the keg stood majestic, the only upright thing amid a litter of toppled bottles and crushed cups. I tried to drink from the tap, but the water had been turned off.

Etienne wasn’t out in the yard, either. The patio stones were almost invisible under drifts of broken glass, brown and clear and a salting of green all mingled like beach sand.

I walked out through the shattered maw where the front door had been.

Etienne wasn’t on the front porch of his house, and the door was locked. But I found him in the back garden, sprawled on a chaise despite the chill, a white napkin wrapped around his wrist.

“What happened?” I said.

He shrugged. “Hope my tetanus shot is up to date.”

“I woke up and you weren’t there, and I was worried.”

He lit a cigarette for me, and another for himself. Shook his head, tangled hair sliding around his shoulders.

“A weird thing,” he said. “I’ll tell you about it if you promise you won’t laugh.”

“Of course,” I said, sitting on the cold grass beside him, almost close enough to touch.

“Yeah . . . So. I woke up in the bathtub this morning, still fucked up. I wanted to go home. But I didn’t have my key or my wallet or anything, and Mom’s away, so I couldn’t get in. I went down to the culvert, thought maybe it’d be warmer in there. And I tripped on this goddamn mattress and slashed my arm open.” He gestured at his bandaged wrist. “So I’m lying there on this homeless guy’s gross bed, bleeding, hung over as shit, and I knew, totally knew, this town would kill me if I stayed. And I wished I had a clue what to do.”

“Did you . . . get a clue?”

“That was the weird part,” he said, smoke breathing out with the words. “I was just, like, swearing, and slamming my hand on the ground. And twenty bucks fell out from somewhere, like magic. So I went to get a coffee.”

“And the coffee told you what to do?” I said, trying to grin.

“Mike Bainbridge did,” he said. “He was at the coffee shop. Back for the weekend to see his folks. It turns out the degree program he’s in is really awesome, so I’m going to apply.”

“Simple as that,” I said.

“Simple as that,” he echoed, and ground out his cigarette in the ornamental kale.

I went down to the culvert again to see if I could fix it. I couldn’t even feel the chill from underground now, though. The ashes of the campfire were scattered, the empty tins had rusted, and the curtain of wild grapes that hid the entrance had withered and shrunk away, letting in pale sunlight.

I could see the stains on the ground where I’d spilled the libation. I wetted them again, made the same wish, just to be sure. Nothing happened.

Later I thought about spilling blood, myself. I figured if anything could break the wish or the bond or whatever, make a new one, that must be it.

But then Etienne got a crested envelope containing his university acceptance, and I saw his face when he opened it.

Andre and Konstantin and I still get together to practice, but we mostly just jam and talk shit and smoke up. We haven’t played a single gig since Etienne left.

Etienne says he’ll be back for Thanksgiving, but we know he won’t be: it will be this other version of him, with shorter hair and a pile of textbooks. He’ll be bringing some friends from school with him. One of them’s a girl.

With him gone, you might think Andre and I would get closer, but it’s pretty much the same as always. We get together, we sleep together, it’s fine. He’s a good guy.

But I’m afraid one day I’m going to trip on something that will tear me open, and change will enter my bloodstream like rust, and eat away what’s keeping me here. Or maybe it will happen to Andre first.

I’m not sure which would be worse. Watching him leave, or watching him stay, in his basement jam room with his bong, while upstairs his mom gets more grey hair, and Etienne comes home less, and I send messages from some other city where I have a new boyfriend who doesn’t have a brother.

What’s the word for it again, when something you know starts to look unfamiliar?

Host Commentary

…aaaaand welcome back. That was “The Drink We Spill Out on the Ground” by Claire Humphrey, and if you enjoyed that then there is a smorgasbord of stories for you in our archives, going all the way back to 2011 with episode 173, “Who in Mortal Chains” (also rerun as a Tales from the Vault as 607); also, episode 248, “Bleaker Collegiate Presents an All-Female Production of Waiting for Godot”; 271, “Nightfall in the Scent Garden”, also rerun as 714; episode 326, “Haunts”; episode 340, “Your Figure Will Assume Beautiful Outlines”; and episode 627, “We Are the Flower”. Whew! Easiest way to find all these is to go our website, podcastle.org, find the post for today’s story, and click Claire’s name in the info up top—or just search for her name, if the post has dropped off the front page. Either way, you’ll get to her people page on our site with links to all these. And if they’re not enough? clairehumphrey.ca has a Writing page with links to more, and she’s on Bluesky @‌clairehumphrey.bsky.social

On “The Drink We Spill Out on the Ground”, Claire says: This story includes some real places and events from my teenaged years in the early 90s. (No representations of actual people, of course.) But I did attend a party in a condemned house, and it was a painful metaphor for youth in those times and these: everything crumbling around you until you feel like you might as well wreck yourself in the rubble.  Some of my friends didn’t make it past those days, one way or another. The house over the ravine, another real place, belonged to one of them, and shows up in my writing multiple times.

Thank you, Claire, for the story and that context.

What’s the word for it again, when something you know starts to look unfamiliar?

Jamais vu. Translates as “never seen”. When something you ought to recognise, that ought to be familiar, is suddenly strange and new.

Properly that sensation is a momentary short-circuit in the brain, recognition not kicking in, but I think there’s another way we experience it. The brain operates on shortcuts and heuristics, loosely stringing together an impression of the world as quickly as it can, because there’s too much to handle otherwise. It’s why we see faces in burnt toast and knotted wood, and hear our name called when it wasn’t, and experience optical illusions, and so on.

But it happens another way, too, with our relationships. We think we know someone. We think we know what they look like, and who they are, to save us having to contemplate their existence as a whole other mind equal in depth to ours every single time we interact. Then we overlay that expectation over the reality, and see what we expect to see, and stop truly looking.

But time moves on. People change, and are changed. And our overlay, our preconception, becomes ever more distant from the truth.

And sometimes, for no reason in particular, for no reason you can explain, you will look again, really look, and realise that your parents got old while you weren’t paying attention. That your kids became something different: that they’re no longer defined by being your kids, but have become themselves, something new, something unique.

That your friends have moved on and drifted away and there’s not, in truth, anything to bind you together any more except shared history, a shared overlay, a mutual lazy shortcut of your brains where you each believe the other is someone they haven’t been for a very long time.

I lost a friend that way earlier this year. I was the one leaning on the overlay more, too, so it hurt. It was a shock, particularly the way it played out. I won’t go into it.

But perhaps it was necessary, perhaps it was overdue. All that linked us now was proximity.

Nothing lasts forever. Nothing resists entropy and change. Nothing can be isolated, guarded against all outside influence.

And it takes such courage to see it, sometimes.

What’s the word for it again, when you grieve something that isn’t actually gone, but is simply no longer yours?