Chapter 8: Parker--Weird Ass Shit

Chapter 8: Sheriff Parker—Weird-Ass Shit

I’d heard weird-ass shit in my life....hell I’ve seen freaky-ass shit in my life, hell I’ve done creepy-ass shit in my life, kinda like when I brought my python into the locker-room after Dru had slashed my laces and held it over his baby-fat face while he cried and begged for mercy. Yeah that was sweet! Sweeter still was how I pulled the snake out and someone yelled that it was poisonous and the whole locker-room scattered like roaches in a gas-station bathroom.

Life was sweet. But life was also weird, and like I said, I’ve heard, seen and done it all...at least I thought I had until this evening.

"Hey, Parks," Footer said to me as I was lacing my skates, "Pay extra special attention to Modo if his line ever matches against yours, OK?"

I shrugged. "Sure, you know that I would if I was in that situation."

"No, really!" Footer said, "Modano is gay!"

Somehow, I wasn’t surprised. "When has that mattered before?" I said. I wasn’t naive, I knew there were more than a few dolls batting for the other team in the league. It wasn’t a lifestyle that particularly appealed to me, but it was not a factor in my mind when I went after guys. "So?" I said.

Footer looked at Peter Forsberg as if to say, "I give up."

Forsberg frowned with his vampire-blue eyes and he grabbed me by the shoulders, looking at me with poison. "Listen," the man called Foppa said, "Modano is gay for the captain! He’s lusting after Joe!"

Now that was a completely issue! "What!" I almost yelled. "Does Joe know about this?"

Footer made one of those faces of his where he turned the corner of his mouth down as he shrugged. "No, I don’t think so, and we can’t let him know. Joe has enough problems on his mind already so we’re gonna be the ones to fix it."

I was fired up, I felt like a bull with smoke coming out of his nostrils and fire in his eyes. How dare that pansy even look at our captain! God dammit I was ready to kick some ASS!

It was during the pre-game skate that Footer pointed Modano out to me. Hot shit! That man was checking out the captain, and then he had the numb-nuts to bump Joey too! What had he gone insane? Oh yeah, if our line was paired, just for a few moments against his, I was gonna lay a hurt on Modo!

"Wooooooo!" I hooted as the game commenced and Footer slammed Modano a good one practically right off the face-off. Right into the sin-bin with him, to feel some shame.

"Dammit!" Coach Hartley yelled behind me, "There he goes again! Taking those penalties! What’s wrong with him? He knows we’re down on men!"

Well, I thought as I watched the meager penalty unit go out onto the ice, he was right we were missing guys. In the last game alone, we lost Danny-boy to a rung coconut, Bryan Muir cause the the dumb-ass took a puck to the foot and and he couldn’t skate cause the widdle baby couldn’t put pressure on it, Blakie was out too, something about groin issues, Pascal Trepanier had the flu, and Kasper was nursing some sort of chest injury.

I leaned forward on the bench, down this many men and I still wasn’t gonna see any PK time. The Stars had their guns out, click, click, click, shoot, save, rebound, score. The annoying fog-horn of the arena blared the goal and the fans stood up screaming. Footer always joked that the horn there always blared so long and loud because the borin ole kitty-bar-the-door trap hockey they played put the fans to sleep. Wow, that was quick.

Footer was released from the sin-bin and he had a sheepish look to his face. He came over to jump onto the bench and Hartley snapped, "You should be rested, you stay on that ice!"

Footer obeyed, naturally and as the teams were prepping for the face-off, I could see Patty barking something at Adam. I was assuming that it had something to do with taking bad penalties. Goalies hated having any kind of pressure they didn’t ask for thrust upon them, hell they had to be so comfy, they even got water-bottles right there on their cages.

The game went better, though, Footer cleaned it up, playing mean but just marginally so. Modano was skating like a mad-man too. It was clear that his line was paired up with Joey’s line and Modo didn’t even look to be paying attention to his game. Instead, he kept skating wherever Joey went and bumping him and shit.

"Damn, he’s weird!" Saks said as he sat huffin’ and puffin’ next to me.

"Huh?" I answered him.

Joe looked at me, his eyebrows crinkled and irritated. "Modano keeps telling me that he knows how I feel, and we need to talk."

I almost smiled. Joe shook his head and looked at me with an almost frightened look on his face. "Hey, Scotty," he said, "Why would he say that.....do you know how I feel? What do we have to talk about?"

I got angry all over again. That pansy was freaking out our captain! Joe had enough on his mind already! That’s it! Come on coach throw me out Sheriff Parker wanted to kill!!

I leaned forward eagerly on the bench, watching the action. It looked like Modano was being double-shifted cause he was still on the ice. Maybe if he skated close enough I could yell something at him, and that would just give him something to think about.

The puck swung over and hit the boards below us, and Modano came after it, he looked down to get it and then the weirdo looked back up with his cow brown eyes and he looked directly at Joe and smiled! What a fruit cake!!

He was actually grinning and lost in la-la land. Joe turned really white. "Oopsy doodles!" Foote sang as he slammed Modo hard and flipped him right into our laps on the bench. I had his stinky legs on my lap and ironically his face went right into Joey’s crotch!

"Holy shit!" I yelled and then Modo began to kick like a run-down race-horse and his weight rolled us all backwards off the bench and onto the feet of the coaching staff.

It was hard to figure out whose limb was whose as weall lay in some freaky tangled pile.

Modo somehow was almost all on top of Joe, his face like inches away from him.

"Hey, Joe," Modo said, "What’s up?"

Joe gagged. "Get off me ya asshole!"

That was all I needed to hear. I grabbed Modano’s legs and Yeller grabbed his arms and we hoisted the heavy sonuvabitch right back onto the ice. He landed hard on his butt with a yelp. We helped Joe up, he was shaking his head and laughing. "Hey, Parks," he said. "Now at least we know that you’ll be on Sports Center tonight!"

I laughed too, yeah that felt good!

Hoooooooooooooooonk! Hooooooooooooonk! Hoooooooooooooooooooooonk!

From the bench all of us looked up in surprise. Someone had scored. The place was rocking. I shook my head as the next line change took to the ice.

Hoooooooooooooooooooooooooonk! Hooooooooooooooonk! Hooooooooonk!

I just sat there with raised eyebrows and before Coach Hartley could give a proper yelling to the guys on the bench the horns blared again. Of course I didn’t like it when we lost games but this one was fast unraveling.....there was something exciting in that, it meant that I was now needed, to stir something up.

I didn’t spend an hour each night punching wood planks just so that I could sit on the bench looking pretty!

"Parks, you’re up!" Hartley snapped.

"Yeah boss!" I said with a grin as I jumped onto the ice.

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