#cause lets be real sometimes we will get invested in the wackiest things looking back at it

[repurposedmeatlocker]

What is the cringiest fandom you’ve ever partaken in for a good extended period of time?

[kootenaygoon]

So,

Brendan was thinking about buying a church.

He told me this while we stood on either side of the stove one morning, watching for that final moment of release when our percolator would boil over and produce its sweet sustenance. It was the second one of the day, and he’d just successfully maneuvered Tasha and Dylan out the door for school. For months now he’d been talking about the various properties he was eye-balling for this new project he was taking on, but this was his wackiest idea yet. There was a vacant church downtown that seemed like the perfect size for a brewery.

“I was thinking we could call it Blasphemy Brewing,” he said, with a chuckle. “Really work the religious angle with all the marketing, maybe do a logo that has a church on fire?”

“That would piss off all the right people. I love it. You would totally create word of mouth, make a splash.”

“Yeah, but then there’s the Christian crowd you might be alienating. It’s a bit of a balancing act. I’ve gotta see what this guy wants for a down payment. I’m still lining up all my partners.”

This project had really enlivened Brendan, who had been going through a multi-month slump before finding something to invest his attention in. There were a number of conflicts he was still having with his ex, which he itemized in minute detail in the kitchen each morning, and they were beginning to wear on his mental health. Watching him slug his way through these custody battles made me feel relieved Paisley and I hadn’t had kids. It was like watching a bear struggle in a net that he’ll never fully escape from. For so many Kootenay parents, this sort of emotionally fraught conflict was omnipresent in their lives. 

Regardless, I would’ve happily switched positions. I wasn’t financially stable enough to support kids but those days I looked at my friends’ children with a sort of nagging jealousy, thinking how come you get to have kids and I’m this single loser? Brendan was nearly a decade older than me, but I wanted what he had.

“You know, I interviewed this guy the other day who told me about this town where the government paid them to burn down their own houses,” I said. “It was this little hamlet on Lower Arrow Lake called Renata that was just basically orchards and farms and stuff. Now it’s completely underwater since the 60s.”

Brendan leaned back on the counter, impatient with the percolator. “Why did they have to burn down their houses if they were going underwater anyway?”

“The government was forcefully ejecting everyone, so I guess they were just trying to make a point. This was part of the Columbia River Treaty. I interviewed this dude who used to live there, Wally Penner.”

“Man, Ed’s really going to town with this series, eh? Isn’t this like the sixth story you’ve written about the CRT?”

“Dude, it’s like the story that keeps giving. There’s so many different angles. Like I’ve got one whole story about getting the salmon back up the river, so they’ve got this invention called the Salmon Cannon.”

He nodded, pondering this. Brendan had been a radio journalist before moving to Nelson, and had one of those voices perfect for broadcasting. Sometimes he was the announcer for the Nelson Leafs, and when you called the Hume Hotel it was his voice that greeted you on the answering machine. 

“Well, if you’re going to keep writing about it, the main thing you need to focus on is what a raw deal we’re getting from the States. And I bet you Trump’s going to walk all over Trudeau during the negotiations.”

“Well, it’s not necessarily going to be the two of them. It depends on when they open everything up again. Apparently it’s this super convoluted process because all the different levels of government involved. And then there’s the First Nations, who weren’t even properly consulted the first time around, and all that kind of stuff.”

“People who think the new deal will be an improvement are kidding themselves. This is gonna be a whole bunch of lawyers just slugging it out in the courtroom, and they’ll be the real winners, just like with custody issues,” he said. “Mark my words.”

For some reason, that made Brendan think of a song he wanted to show me. He jogged into the next room to fiddle with this music, and when he returned a soulful female vocalist named LP was just working her way through her break-up ballad.

“This chick fucking rules. I’ve been playing her non-stop, but she’s a little polarizing, I find. I played her for this one bar owner and he said she sounded screechy,” he said, nodding his head to the music.

“But to me, she’s just got it, you know? You can feel the emotional depth in her voice, the feeling. It gives me goosebumps.”

Brendan was on the board of the Kaslo Jazz Festival, so he was always looking for new acts. As she reached the chorus he burst into song like Baloo from The Jungle Book. His jolly energy was contagious as he reached open his arms.

“Smoke ‘em if you got em, ‘cause it’s going down! All I ever wanted was you. I’ll never get to heaven, cause I don’t how! Let’s raise a glass or two,” he sung.

“To all the things I’ve lost on you, oh oh, tell me are they lost on you?”

As Brendan sang, the percolator began to hiss and froth behind me. Like a proud metal penis it began to spit and spew, dark liquid draining down its shaft like the moment of conception. 

It looked like the fatherhood that was calling my name. 

The Kootenay Goon