I’m a night person, despite always working morning jobs. I like grocery shopping at that weird hour of night when the supermarket is all empty and fluorescent and humming quietly, the electric throb of its refrigeration units faintly audible. In Toronto I’d make my way up Bloor to Christie for three a.m bugolgi. In Guelph I’d go out and roam the streets and by the river, up Grange Hill to a small parkette. There a bench who’s view is the entirety of the Ward and Downtown, the sparse and occasional lit windows of nonsleepers like myself, the hard factory glow, freight trains miles long that come through late and ghostly. Jude and I would sit up there and watch over the city. On our way home other cooks would be smoking in the dark, early hours outside their bakeries and cafés in aprons dusted with galaxies of flour, and we’d exchange dour nods- tomorrow, it would be me, biking to my kitchen in the dark, starting coffee and lighting pilots, accepting produce orders and proofing bread.
I’m a little over two weeks into not drinking, which may, factually, be the longest I have gone without a drink since I was fifteen years old. I don’t think this is permanent, but its been necessary to take a step back. My relationship with alcohol has been complex, at best. At its worst it’s been an actively negative aspect of my life, contributing largely to my erratic behavior and emotional ineptitude. On a rare, sunny day here on Vancouver Island I found myself spending the entirety of it lying miserably shaking in my bed and spitting bile into an overflowing garbage can while Jude looked at me reproachfully. I love gin and tonics. I love them so much that I’ll drink them until I’m low on tonic, then I’ll pour a cup mostly full of gin and drink that. In the bush one year in Manitouwadge on a surprise day off, I mixed Jello powder and water and gin to make an unholy concoction that I drank out of an empty yogurt container, and I can actually still vividly remember every single embarrassing thing I did that night, ranging from maudlin to outrageous to cruel. Recently, I became convinced a hookup was my soulmate after he told me, utterly without shame, that he would often mix gin and powdered juice and call it “punch”.
We were both cooks, which has its own decided culture around alcohol and drugs but bonding over mutual alcoholism has yet to be the basis of a successful relationship for me. On our first outing I drank an entire bottle of gin and thought it would be a slick and appealing move to piss over the edge of my balcony, and we continued to hook up for the next four years.
The first time I got well and truly drunk was when I was sixteen, not counting a prior incident involving margarita mix, vodka, a canoe and the Speed River. No, well and truly drunk at sixteen was two 40’s of Olde English down by the river with the beautiful punks in animal print and chains and leather on an early spring night by the ruins of the old mill. Head spinning, double vision, gut rotting drunk. I rounded up the herd to go to the burrito place I worked at downtown and had to lay down on a bench on Macdonell until my head stopped spinning. This was pre-heroin, which I missed just by a hair by abruptly departing for England and horseback riding.
England’s national pastime may be the consumption of vast amounts of alcohol, and horse people internationally are known drinkers, so naturally the combination is quite inclined toward weekday visits to the pub, reckless behavior and public intoxication. I declined the first several invitations to the pub after work, still wearing sweaty, shitty breeches and halfchaps, shavings in my hair and Ariats unlaced, thinking it would be inappropriate to drink with my boss and coworkers, until one day Liz said “Come to the pub or else you’re fired.” In my memory we ended up at The Chequers that night, the night of the infamous rosé wine and Youngs Double Chocolate Stout that culminated in my projectile vomiting spaghetti Bolognese across Liz’s living room, but I know that’s not true. In fact it was an uneventful, idyllic afternoon at The Amato, a true English pub with old hunting and racing prints on the wall and a Sunday roast, for pints of Magners over ice in the garden. The spaghetti bolognese incident went over surprisingly well. Apparently I had enough time to utter “Excuse me,” before spewing half chewed spaghetti and acid rosé in an Exorcist inspired arc across the room, and Liz later said to me “You Canadians even vomit politely.”
England, see also;
That time I went to the Black Horse alone and drank eight pints and played the piano until I got kicked out.
That time I went to the Queens Head and drank and played pool topless and left my coat and purse there and had to retrieve them the next morning. Not the last time I had to retrieve an item of clothing from the bar after drinking too much and ending up there topless the night before (see Hearst Topless Dance Party 2017).
That time Theresa snuck me into Chicago’s and I got blackout drunk and made out with a bareknuckle boxing champion on the dance floor.
That time Breila came to London and we drank whisky at a punk bar on Denmark Street then sloppily navigated the tube, whereupon I delivered here to Paddington Station, made my way to Wellington, pissed on the Hayward Gallery because I didn’t have 5p to use the bathroom, narrowly caught the last train back to Epsom and was so evidently poorly to everyone around me that first, a nice woman gave me a lift all the way to Langley Vale, which put me within striking range of home even in my sorry state. A sympathetic cabbie came upon me, staggering to starboard up the bridle path toward the M25 and delivered me safely back to the stables.
England also saw all five of us stable hands nursing a fierce hangover the day after Halloween (and yet another quiz night at The Chequers) right before a jump clinic with a renowned horseman and teacher, John Smart. I can vividly remember James looking me squarely in the face and saying, “I think I’m still drunk,” before putting his toe in the stirrup and swinging up on Dickie’s back, shooting me one final look of despair over his shoulder as the big gelding’s bouncy stride jostled the brewing and bubbling contents of his gut. I knew how he felt, poor fellow. When my turn came and I got on Frankie, the blue eyed wonder pony, I felt I did remarkably well jumping technical lines and combos of 2’6 fences. Every time Frankie landed on the far side of a fence the impact sent burning acid up my esophagus and into my mouth.
Snapshot: four or five of us in the trunk of Liz’s Audi and stuffed like sardines into the backseat, spilling out the windows, toes dangling inches above the pavement as we whizzed up Chalk Lane after a race night, still passing around the last bottle of prosecco.
At least in England it was socially and culturally acceptable to binge drink, and never once did I feel shame or anxiety about the night prior. In fact, I’d call down to the Amato on a Sunday to make a reservation for all of us to take our tea and go out for Sunday Roast and a pint or two once the morning chores were done.
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Of course England and the punks at 99 Elizabeth sucking spilled booze off of the filthy kitchen floor have not been the only exposure to cavalier attitudes around drinking in my life. One time my grandfather, blind drunk, tried to shoot out the tires of a car that my grandmother was driving. She’d taken the keys away from him, ostensibly for being so drunk, and was leaving, which enraged him. Despite being a raccoon trapper and a hunter, he was so entirely drunk that he missed the tires and shot her in the shoulder and narrowly missed my infant cousin who was in the car. This was long before I was born but is something I latch on to when I’m thinking about why my family is so fucking crazy.
Or a Christmas where my uncle ended up drunk and naked in a jacuzzi tub- if I recall correctly, he was trying to wash the vomit off of himself- when my equally inebriated grandfather decided to join him, also in the nude.
Or another Christmas (why it it always Christmas?) when I was still able to consume Jägermeister, previous to an incident involving $2 Jager Bombs in downtown Guelph and a mistily remembered attempt to climb a 10 foot high chain link fence while wearing platform boots- in which Brittany and I consumed an alarming amount of Jager and Pepsis at the kitchen table of the old farm house, engendering a new feeling of bonhomie between us. I did not enjoy spending Christmas morning throwing up into the garbage can in the bathroom next to the living room, listening to everyone opening their presents and enjoying themselves.
My mom, walking home from downtown Guelph one night, stopped to inspect some graffiti on the footbridge. “Me…. Me tall… me not tall!” she exclaimed, before peering closer at the sloppy scrawl. “Ooooooh. Metallica!”
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There was a lot of raving, at one point, when the rapidfire consumption of alcohol was largely obliterated by the equally rapidfire consumption of chemical stimulants. It was possible to quaff vast amounts of warm beer out of plastic cups in a room so hot and full of dancing, fucked up people that our sweat rained back down onto us, and never, ever get drunk.
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Treeplanting- what else can I say?
Dane and I are on the dance floor at La Companion. Everyone is on the dance floor, to be fair, but he and I are sharing a moment. He is dancing, leaning back, arms flailing, eyes closed, slopping his pitcher of Purple Helmet all over the floor. I have been roaming bright eyed around the throng with a pitcher myself, a handful of straws, proffering it to all those who I come across. I think this is our first night off in town and I want to set the tone for the new planters. Anyone who is receptive gets a smooch, as well. “FIVE!” Dane shouts at me, holding up one hand with the fingers splayed out. “I have had FIVE PITCHERS OF PURPLE HELMET.” So I have I. “I spent a hundred dollars on Purple Helmet last night,” I say over poutine at John’s. My hands are shaking and I’m trying to put in a Sysco Order.
Bass, manuevering the dry bus across the camp at Fushimi, lights on, engine running, illuminating a long row of folding tables. “BOAT RACES,” she shouts. This is a drinking game requiring absolutely no finesse and instead, being entirely about the most rapid consumption of alcohol possible.
Tony, looming out of the darkness near Jay Dee lake, leading Laren and I through the blackness until yet another game of boat races appears out of the black and we are roped into it. Later, I catch a passing glimpse of Nikole doing the longest keg stand I have ever seen, illuminated by the firelight.
“INTERNATIONAL WATERS!” when we veer onto the logging roads, beers being cracked, but eventually even the rule of ‘Only on the logging roads’ goes out the window and becomes “Just hold it under the windows” on the highway. Keg stands on top of the bus at Johnstone Beach.
Squirt guns full of rye. Slap the sack, the old goon sack. Every imagineable kind of bad behaviour endorsed. The constant shotguns. In COVID times,a town runner who brings back whatever you list on an order form- nobody blinks when I order Negroni ingredients, and Coulson brings me back fancy IPAS he thinks I’d like without me asking. “I thought you’d be getting low,” he says. God bless you, sir.
Beer Olympics.
Flip Cup.
Professional cooking has not only normalized but glorified wildly inappropriate mass consumption of alcohol and drugs- it is not uncommon to bail a dishwasher or a line cook out of the drunk tank to get them in to work. There is a certain nod to those who can stay up all night pounding back pints, tequila and cocaine (sometimes all within the restaurant) and then come in and hold down their station for two full back to back seatings.
My boss’ husband who flipped eggs at a short lived detour into the land of greasy spoon diners, who wordlessly slid a tall, plastic Pepsi cup full of beer toward me over the line, saying, “Iced tea”. 700 cover breakfast and brunch services between seven a.m and noon, with a crew consisting of the owner’s son, who thinks he is a chef, a girl who goes into the bathroom to shoot up heroin ‘for her restless leg’ periodically throughout the day and sits sulkily on a milk crate the rest, the boss’ sexual predator husband, and one fantastically competent, sarcastic, saucy and damn fine line cook helping me hold it all together- THAT will make you want a drink at ten o’clock in the morning, and being drunk by three o’clock and done work and sitting at a pub bitching about every single detail of service is a wonderful way to spend an afternoon.
There’s a night at the bistro on Kingston Road I can only recall as a warm, glowing orange and perfect blur of joy. I had been back for a while, and we sat talking about cocktails and food, and drinking cocktails, and beers and Bob was free with it all. I loved being drunk like that- joyfully, in the company of good friends, feeling exactly in the center of the right place and the right time.