Sasquatch to the Moon

39: Gage

GAGE PAXTON

You know, Nico's office door isn't ever closed. It's not normally a problem, I never go in there, but it's curious considering I come down this hall a little too often to get to the tape closet. Let's just say my tape job never turns out well the first time around. I should really be better at it, considering I've been doing the same pattern for thirteen years, but it's just not something I'm good at. The day before every damn practice I have to tape my sticks after my workout, mostly because I can't be as cool as Fen or Greenie and tape it perfectly the day of.

So, as curiosity begs me to do, I peek around the corner of the shade that's pulled all the way down. Let me tell you the last thing I expected to see on this golden day in the middle of asscrack-freezing February in the fantastic city of Vagina Sasketchewan, was my assistant captain visibly tongue kissing my goalie partner.

I won't ask. It's not like I didn't know Håkon Rex was gay as hell. But I'm probably the only one that knows. Well, Nico probably knows. Nico is Nico. But the point is, once you figure it out it makes more sense than him coming anywhere near heterosexual.

It's not like I'm shy of that side of things either. Frankly I don't give a damn who I date as long as they're insane enough to put up with my bullshit. That's led to some interesting situations.

I won't talk about it.

It's just so hard with him. I've known Håkon since he was 19, our first season out here, he was painfully shy, his size was still new to him after a growth spurt over the summer. He was only 6'3" at the draft, six five when he started the season and now is a round six and a half feet. He was clumsy and his hands were too big and his english was shit, miles from what it is now. He stuck to himself, scared of what was, at that point, a very old team. He barely talked, barely showed up to optional team things, barely came out of his shell. I remember trying desperately to get him to cave because he's all I had. The next youngest person was 28 and for an eighteen and nineteen year old, that's like a century. Håkon is one of very few second round picks brought up at the start of the season after their draft. Normally they stick to juniors or college or national teams but the Wolves were just so bad they had to bring him up too and he was scared shitless constantly. Looking back on it, the management was awful to him, not me, really. I got drafted top ten in the first round, I was good and I could hold my own. Håkon was only that high in the draft because of his size and his clear strength. Nobody ever said anything positive about him, it was like a middle schooler trying to calibrate himself to a varsity team and I was honestly shocked when he showed up for a second season. But I guess it's all he's ever known. Like it's all I've ever known, like it's all Steph has ever known, like Fen, like Nico, like Bernie.

He was just weird. I wanted to get to know him, badly, I needed a friend, but he was clearly violently sheltered, hot off catholic school. He was uncomfortable without a strict dress code day-to-day, often showing up to practice in a collared shirt. On my first road trip with him we shared a room and I remember staring at him when he whipped out a goddamn rosary. I don't give a fuck, frankly, I just didn't expect it. I remember him being visibly uncomfortable with it and quipping to me about not wanting to have to do it, to which I told him he didn't have to, technically he's in charge of defining his own beliefs.

I remember being in Anaheim with him during the first few weeks of the season and having a girl come up to him and ask him for his number and him being visibly uncomfortable, not because he was awkward, which he was, but because he wanted to but hated the idea of it.

I remember watching a movie with him in the hotel in Tampa and having a gay scene come on and him getting all shifty and uncomfortable and asking me to skip it. I questioned, rather concerned with the idea of me, a somewhat queerish guy, being stuck in a room with a homophobe, but he didn't give a reason, just a shy thanks when it moved forward.