And the Band Played On
Love, lust, and music braid the complicated bonds of friendship, in ‘The Drink We Spill Out on the Ground’ by Claire Humphrey, our feature author for Issue 39.
Here’s a sneak peek of our feature author interview:
Pulp Literature: This story feels to me like it took place in the 1990s, though perhaps I am projecting — and revealing my age! The people are recognizable, the friendships relatable. What was the inspiration for this story? Did you have to change any names to protect the innocent and unwitting?
Claire Humphrey: You’re entirely correct. A few of the elements of this story were drawn directly from my own high school experience in the early 90s. I was, briefly, the flute player in a Jethro Tull cover band, although we didn’t actually ever play a gig as far as I recall, and what I mostly remember is learning the music alone at home by playing along with a pirated cassette.
And I did attend a party in a condemned apartment which devolved into wrecking the place. The characters in the story share some superficial elements with people I knew, but there are no direct representations.
The house overhanging the ravine is a real place. I almost always write about real places. The culvert is also real. There’s a true and much sadder story about a twenty-dollar bill that no one would believe if I shared it, and it haunts me still.
For more from our interview with Claire, pick up your copy of Issue 39, Summer 2023!
Meanwhile, enjoy this excerpt from ‘The Drink We Spill Out on the Ground’, from Issue 39.
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. Étienne plays his guitar by the window, sunlight filtering through the pine branches, a half cup of coffee on the sill. André 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, Étienne, and André, 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 Étienne and André 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.
Étienne showed me the way one afternoon while André was playing shinny. He led me down through tangles of wild grapevines 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.
Étienne didn’t know what it was for. He and André 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.
Find out what happens next, in Issue 39, Summer 2023!
Claire Humphrey’s first novel, Spells of Blood and Kin, won the 2017 Sunburst Award. Her short fiction has appeared in Strange Horizons, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Apex, Crossed Genres, Fantasy Magazine, and Podcastle. Her short story ‘Bleaker Collegiate Presents an All-Female Production of Waiting for Godot’ appeared in the Lambda Award-nominated collection Beyond Binary, and her short story ‘The Witch Of Tarup’ was published in the critically acclaimed anthology Long Hidden. Visit her at clairehumphrey.ca.
Discover more from PULP Literature
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Leave a Reply