The Man Game (12 page)

Daggett, look, he not moving no arm, said Fortes. I got you both steady. We not even started yet, man.

All right. I'm ready. I'm fucking ready.

An' …
Go
, said Fortes.

The crowd erupted. Men at the back of the bar were standing on the tabletops, shouting. The old-timers came in close and shook their fists right in their faces, yowling advice as spittle foamed and flicked off their mouths. The pressure was on for Pisk to upend this giant, or for Daggett to smother this prodigal. Smother him like the Fire he caused. Lay him out before he can do any more damage.

Arm
wrestle, said Daggett.

'The fuck you think I'm doing?

Arm wrestle
. Straighten your wrist. Straighten your wrist. Fucking straighten your wrist. Don't use your body. Watch him, Fortes. Make sure he don't use his body. Watch his ass is on the seat. You see that? Did you see him stand up? Are you blind, Fortes? You can't stand up, Pisk.
Arm
wrestle, Pisk, you bohunk. Arm wrestle. Stop standing up.

I'm not standing up.

Tell him to stop standing up.

He's not standing up, said Fortes, so quit your screaming. His butt's on the chair.

Then straighten your wrists. Fucking arm wrestle. What did I say?

Daggett was straining way back, hand rattling under the pressure but holding on a little longer, the tendons in his forearm pronged out.

Arm wrestle, he screamed from his spongy red face, squirting sweat. Arm wrestle. Arm wrestle … Aw, fuck.

Daggett's knuckles were flat on the table under Pisk's grip.

Jesus Christ, well I'm not going to beat him if he keeps standing up. No one says a fucking thing. You were all looking at him.

He's got arms like a goblin, Moe Dee said, he's all fucking leverage.

Shut the fuck up, how aboot that?

Nice work, said Litz, counting their earnings.

You fucking cheats, said Daggett.

He took a swing at Pisk that Pisk ducked without effort and everyone's fury and greed boiled over, some crying out for
their money and others trying to protect their losings and still others just plain excited for a brawl. Fists rolled through the air. The player piano kept going
a-rinky-dink-dink
underneath the melee.

Okay, okay, said Fortes in his voice, hoisting Daggett by the collar off Pisk. He told them: Take it out
side
, boys. Nobody fights in a establishment under my fob. I be the only one breaking some arms if you all don't get the
hell
out a here.

A chicken, for whatever reason, a single reddish chicken wobbled and pecked at the road in front of the Sunnyside Hotel where the men began to pour out the doors, boots chugging down the steps, a rusty baritone choir of questions and speculations as the men began to form a semicircle on the road, startling the chicken from the mindless concentration of its nature, clucking its way to safety beneath the boardwalk.

I said I'm not going to fight you, said Pisk at a safe distance from Daggett, his arms raised in a defiant or imploring gesture. With both men now on the street, the crowd formed a Y-shape with Daggett in the bowl of it as they waited for Pisk to come away from the rim so they could wrap around and shut the men in.

Think I'm just going to let you walk away, you fucking arsonist?

It was you and Furry who burned us all down. Don't pin this on us.

Get the preacher, said Daggett to his audience. Make the man confess. Your guys' territory. Everyone here knows we never log that area. We always been logging south past the Snauq reserve and you know it. You boys always log those soft spars north a us, burning all your dead stumps.

All your lies don't stack up to no truth.

I got friends who saw you up there with your goddamn donkey engine dragging them logs up to be burned.

Friends. Don't feed me that, said Pisk, spitting. When was the last time you kept to your area? You're a liar, a thief—.

The verbal battle raged for a few more spittled minutes.

The audience sought to shape itself moblike in the street, surrounding the fighters. The smoke haze blended indelicately with the sea air off Coal Harbour. Joe Fortes came out, threw a towel over his shoulder, leaned against a glossily painted balustrade along the boardwalk, and saw Molly wheel her husband to the edge of the walk.

Ah, I should a guessed the men here love to gamble, said Molly.

Sammy studied her face, looking for a sign of her thoughts. Her complexion, normally so silken, looked sapped, and her eyes were fixed in a tighter jaded mien as she gazed down on the street brawl. He turned his attention to the scene on the road. The men below had forgotten all about him and Molly.

Using his thumbs, Fortes untwisted his pair of old greying black suspenders hooked to the cedar buttons on his trousers, patted his moist bald head, and gave Sammy a kind of bemused but charitable eyeballing, which was, all told, a better expression than people usually mustered in his presence.

Be better you folks stay up here for safety, said Fortes. Mrs. Erwagen, he added.

Yes?

Please stand back, won't you, ma'am.

Sounds wise, Molly, said Sammy.

Molly demurred with a bow of her head to Fortes and stepped back from the rail, her eyes a rare green flash against the white banister. Her expression dropped below Fortes's sightline. In return, Fortes gave her the radiant grin he used on children, whose hearts unavoidably melted, like biscuits on the ocean, for one of his smiles. She didn't see it though, a minor disappointment to him, as if he'd extended his hand to shake hers and she hadn't responded. So to save face, he morphed the smile into a grimace, then used it on the crowd of idiots below.

He might be able to win an arm wrestle, but there's no
way he's winning this, eh, said Clough, one-arming his way through the crowd to get a better view.

Tell you what, Daggett's got the worst slowest left I ever seen, said Bud Hoss, the young fat sprout who worked for Daggett and Furry as handlogger, rigger, and driver.

Pisk is fast, he's all fast, said Moe Dee, an older, hairier, leaner man who was loyal to his pursestring and none other. He don't look so fast, but Pisk's fast. And it's aboot his fastness, that's what will help him here, eh.

Pisk can't take a punch, said Clough.

Sure as fuck he can.

Daggett is drunk. I don't know what that means. What a you think?

Aboot him being drunk?

Yeah.

Pisk is a fucking China doll compared, said Clough. One good ka-nocking he's down.

Daggett is slow, said Hoss. It's his slowness he's got to think aboot now.

He's huge, eh.

He is a mammoth, eh.

Only bohunk around here bigger than Pisk has got to be Daggett.

Someone whispered: I tell you it don't matter if you're slow or fast, if you killed somebody, then you know what it takes to do it again. It's high on his mind.

Daggett?

Shhh.

That's the truth?

Alls I'm saying is I lay my fucking chickamin on the murderer.

Clough, said the cowboy RD Pitt. You always got them strays following you ever-where … that one nearly bit my—.

My fucking god, said Moe Dee, but isn't Daggett one big slab a meat on a bone.

He's a fatty, for sure, said Bud Hoss.

Who's the one talking, you fat fuck, said Campbell, another man working alongside Hoss on Furry & Daggett's logging crew.

I don't think they're gonna fight at all, said Hoss, ignoring his bunkmate. Look at them, not even angry no more by the looks on their faces.

Get rid a the canine before I kills it, said RD Pitt.

He's under my jurisdiction, cowboy Pitt, Clough said, and grabbed the spotted dog by the ears and made him sit by his feet. Get yourself back, dog, this is no time for grandstanding. Why, I'd just as soon put you back in the pound with the rest a the strays, my friend. You won't get your ovation here.

I can see the fleas popping off him, drawled cowboy Pitt, swatting his hands around him.

With all your complaining, cowboy, I'd just as likely bet you're from Montreal, eh. Ha ha. Now never mind the dog, Pitt. Daggett's had more than a skinful, by the looks. And sure as hellfire I know that look in his eyes. Daggett's my man, but he's pickled to the bone. He's wobbling like he drank the whole bar.

He can hollow a bottle and we all know it, said Campbell.

Ah, but he fights dirty, said Hoss.

Campbell said: You got another way to fight? Now listen here, Hoss. This is
our boss
you're talking aboot, eh. If you're speaking against Daggett, then—.

Alls I know is truth.

Pinching his knees together, Clough said: Man, I
got
to leak …

Despite forecasts it was a bright September day, translucent yellow leaves turning to red near the treetops, surrounded by purple berries. The faces of the men were camouflaged by the leafy shadows of autumn trees hanging over the assembly.

Pisk was so used to the outdoors that his skin didn't even tingle to the breeze. He threw his clothes to Litz one dusty item at a time, monkeyjacket and shirt and denims and then his patterned calico drawers, until all that remained was his
bowler, which he tipped off his head and let roll down his leg to hook on his big toe, a perfect vaudeville trick, naked. He genuflected theatrically to the hollering audience, then cupped his nutsack in his hand.

What in the hell are you up to? said Daggett.

You want a fight? said Pisk. Come on then. Strip down and fight me.

I don't want to come
near
you, said Daggett, I just want to beat the living shit out a you.

You afraid to fight?

Bare knuckle is one thing. Come on.

You coward, you poltroon. Let's see who can
rea
lly fight. I know you, Daggett. I know you, guttersnipe. I seen how you scrap. I saw you used a knuckleduster on an unsuspecting man's smile. I know you use your belt, you use your fucking
boots
, you use your fucking whatever you have hidden in your pockets. I even seen you use axes, Pisk said, and paused for effect. And I saw you use your tobacco pipe. I bet you'd beat a man with your silver tooth if you had to. I saw you. So strip down and let's see what you can do without all that currency. Let's see who you are under all that dirt you got on. I suspect all you are is another fucking whore.

This is outrageous, said Sammy. These men are absolute barbarians. I'm very sorry you have to hear this, Molly. We shouldn't—

It's true, said Fortes. But they got no one to look up to, you know. These boys got no daddies, they got no mamas. A course they don't got no children. All they got is working and drinking.

Her open lips appeared a deeper red, seen against the moonsliver white of her upper teeth. And was it really true he'd never noticed before how really long her neck was? Perhaps she was craning it more than ever? But really it was the most luscious neck, pale like that, heaving like that. Was the white hazy air around him infused with incoming rain or her intoxicating perfume?

Next to her on the banister a grey squirrel appeared, ejaculated a vowelful squeak, and ramped the post on a spiralling path towards the awning above, giving a last, hostile snap of its tail before bidding farewell. She didn't seem to notice. He could look at his wife—never mind the stout, utterly naked man in the middle of the street surrounded by homicidal men in all directions—and reject everything else about his life. Sammy shut his eyes. Drowning would be the way to go, he figured, a blissful bottomless end to an abject life.

What are you afraid a? said Pisk.

Nothing.

If you're a scared motherfucker go to church.

You better pray I don't geld you, said Daggett.

Take off the dungarees, Daggett, you fat cow.

Fuck my—, you … you pissant, said Daggett, wiping his greasy mouth. I had aboot enough a you.

He was dressed head to toe in scum. In a boxer's pose, one fist hovering in front of and a bit higher than the other, Daggett shuffled quickly across the dirt to mark this fight officially launched, hoping to get in a good clean clocking on Pisk's face. If he got Pisk upside the ear he could have him on the ground without further notice. These fists on Daggett were as good as mallets. He kept in time with his own pulse, gaining momentum as his fist recoiled. Daggett's approach made everybody hustle in, angling for a better view and pinching off any gap where Pisk might make an escape. Pisk watched Daggett come closer and maybe you could interpret that squint as a reaction, because otherwise Pisk didn't budge. He was in position. There it was, Daggett's left fist (just as it had been predictably hoisted in the bar). Pisk dodged it by turning his face only a bit.

As Daggett swung by, Pisk reached out and took Daggett's outstretched fist in his hand and lay his other hand on Daggett's waist and, making jolly of momentum, stepped Daggett gaily around the road as if it were a ballroom. When
Daggett nearly recovered his balance, Pisk spun him free and landed him on his ass
{see
fig. 3.1
}
.

For this wild act Pisk received shocked applause and coarse, spontaneous laughter. Spontaneous clapping, too, for something never before seen. All the ingrates, including Clough, an otherwise loyal friend of Furry and Daggett, applauded the move. Including any performance ever invited to the Pantages, this impromptu dance inspired more caterwauling, jabbering, and extended bouts of
hee-haw
than the town had yet heard.

I liked that, said Moe Dee.

Daggett sat murderously still on the dirt and waited for everyone to simmer down. He spat on the ground, nearly on his own hand. Then, pulling up his shoulders, Daggett almost stood, to fight some more, but—. Hesitation. He slumped again. His indecision wasn't lost on anyone.

With tears in his blond eyes, Fortes called out from his perch on the sidewalk: Daggett, my pal, ha ha, you ain't never going to be free a this.