The stupidsoundingness of, “The Blood Brothers,” isn’t going over my head. But we were teenagers. Anything that had the attribute of stupidsoundingness was made magically cool. Case in point: I once bought a jacket that said “Jamaica” on the back of it because Ryan (you’ll get to know him later) said the green on the collar matched my eyes. I’ve never been to Jamaica. I’ve never been within 1500 miles of Jamaica – and I just measured on Google Maps to be sure about that. I bought it. And I wore it. A lot.
I hope I’m not the one who came up with that horrible name for our tiny gang, but I very well might be. It could have been me because when I was in the first grade, my 2 best friends and I pricked ourselves with forks and mixed the blood together and called ourselves “Blood Brothers.”
I recently told my wife about this. By recently, I mean just as she is looking over my shoulder as I write this. Apparently, that was actually a thing.
Now she wants to know if I passed a disease I may have unknowingly contracted from a voodoo ritual when I was 7 years old.
Now she wants to know if the baby we are expecting in January will have any problems.
I hate you, WebMD.
I suppose it should be obvious that none of us had any idea about germs. In hindsight, it probably was a bad idea. We were 7. We cared about dinosaurs, power rangers, and gargoyles – not getting sick. Besides, we already had the chicken pox a couple years before and that made us immortal like Highlander. But we were best friends who loved each other, and it made us badass brothers for life.
We shared DNA now, after all. We knew what DNA was because Jurassic Park. Duh. Maybe Dr. Ian Malcom should have said something about germs. But we’re still alive and healthy to this day, so I guess we’re fine.
When I finished the 1st grade, my parents felt we should move on from the Vancouver area. They tell me that it was due to the high cost of living there, but I can’t help but wonder if the neighborhood Kissing Treehouse (so named for obvious reasons) was a contributing factor.
The re-location options were the Sacramento area in California near my grandparents or a small farming town in Southern Alberta where we had some extended-family ties. My parents chose the middle of nowhere. Although I sometimes wonder what would have happened if we had moved to California instead of Cardston, I could never wish my parents chose differently. I definitely wouldn’t have these stories to tell.
Our new life in the frozen foothills of Alberta was pretty great, from the standpoint of a 7 year old. There was enough snow on the ground to build snow forts and caves that would last for weeks – sometimes months. One of my earliest memories of Alberta winter was that my Halloween costume had to be big enough to fit over a winter coat. That was kind of messed up.
The (new) Blood Brothers (sans actual sharing of blood and other Satanic rituals. Wait… does kidnapping count? Or dating each other’s girlfriends?) began some time early in the 7th grade. It began when I became friends with Mark and Ryan. Mark and Ryan had been good buddies for a long time. I’m not sure how that came about, so you’ll have to ask them. I think it came about from them doing a science fair project together on how a ball bounces or something like that.
What brought us together was that we all realized that we had a crush on the same girl. I’m not sure how we all learned about this. It may or may not have something to do with me writing a song (with all the depth of poetry a 13 year old could muster) about her and it getting played at a school dance. But I dunno. What I do know is that when it was announced that I wrote the song, the prettiest girl in the school – a 9th grader, even – found me and asked me to dance with her. I remember that part pretty perfectly.
Anyway – Mark, Ryan, and I got to talking about how this potential conflict of interest was going to impact our lives. One of us (to this day, I’m not sure which) had a great idea: Why don’t we settle this situation once and for all and have a boxing match? The winner has the real crush on Kimber, and the losers just don’t have what it takes.
Now that I think about it, I think Ryan came up with that idea for reasons that seem pretty obvious to me now. Mark was quick, but short and skinny (the shortness never stuck – I think he’s the tallest of all of us now). I wasn’t ever a small kid, but I was a lover, not a fighter. Ryan had an admirable confidence about him, and that lent itself well to his chances with the ladies. Even our High School senior class thought so.
Ryan also played football since touching down out of the womb. I see now that the odds were stacked, but it can be assumed that my heart took over my brain at this point (seems to be a common theme in my life) and I was totally game.
The memories that I can recall are kind of fuzzy as to the actual location and details of the fight. It could have been right in front of her, in the gym at the Jr. High during lunch. It also could have been at a friend’s birthday party on a trampoline in the dark, surrounded by 10 or so kids hoping to see some blood for the first time.
I remember t-shirts wrapped around our wrists as improvised boxing gloves. I also remember blood. Whether it was mine or someone else’s is still unknown. My guess is that Ryan was victorious. I had never body checked a kid in my life, let alone attempt a left hook, so I think I would have gone down fairly quick. If Kimber ever knew about it, I don’t remember that either. And I’m pretty sure the other guys never got to follow through on their romantic desires (which, for us Jr. High kids, really involved passing notes to each other during class. Come on, this was before texting. If things got serious, the couple would sit by each other at assemblies letting their knees touch, or walk by each other and let their knuckles brush). But what happened was us guys became homies.
Our tender hearts eventually moved on to crushes on other and separate girls, but we became close friends. One of my favorite memories of the three of us was a late night at Ryan’s house watching Osmosis Jones and eating enough Salt & Vinegar chips to make our tongues bleed.
Then, I think in the 9th grade, Johnny Folsom transferred schools to Cardston from Hill Spring. He was athletic (basketball) and he and Ryan became friends quickly. This curly haired kid was also pretty funny, but that was my job. I’ll admit I was weary of this kid, and I felt that hanging out with him and all of his coolness severely diminished my ability to still be cool (but let’s be real, cool wasn’t ever really my Modus Operandi) in comparison. However, it turns out that he was apparently not your average “balla” because he was genuinely a nice guy. Weekends quickly became regular trips to Spring Valley Ranch. This one time, Johnny’s mom picked us up from a church dance to go spend the night at his house. The song, Stacey’s Mom, came on the radio. Johnny’s mom caught onto the lyrics, and started laughing so hard that we almost drove off the road and died. The ranch was pretty much base-camp for all things Blood Brothers. Days involved shooting stuff and nearly killing each other riding calf-sleds behind the quads (Americans, read: Four Wheeler). Nights involved home-made pizza, and deep talks in the hot tub about the important things in life: ghost stories, girls, and how much Raymond (our rival town) sucks. But it was more like 99% girls, and the other stuff took turns occupying that final 1% of our conversations.
To be continued…
Hello, my name is James.
I'm an Experience Chaser, Peanut-Gallery Philosopher, Serial Wantrepreneur, Devoted Daydreamer, Passionate Flavor Enthusiast, Amateur Family Historian, and Casual Photo & Film Hobbyist.
Recent Comments