The Man Game (78 page)

The battery of Victoria po-lice on horseback was followed without much apparent irony by the Knights of
Labour marching band that played instrumental versions of sinophobic anthems like “John Brown's Body.” Directly behind the Knights, the fire brigade wheeled their engine with Mayor McLean riding on top of it, circling his porkpie hat above his head, elated to see his people in such good spirits, not entirely ignorant of the fact that they were majority New Westminsterites. George Black had paid for a painter to do him up two classy Victorian sho' cards to hang on either side of a buggy advertising his butcher shop. He rode on the bench with his driver and waved to the people and tossed deer jerky to the children. Not to be outdone, the Oppenheimer brothers had hired an elephant that was led down the street wearing an Oppenheimer Dry Goods blanket draped across its back. The elephant later posed for daguerreotypes at the hollow tree. A horse was injured in the mud during a race on South Granville, and many men paid their respects when she was put down.

The mugger, good Christian women were pleased to know, had been hanged to the death on such and such a day, 1887. Such was life.

Ask me aboot the man game instead, said Clough when talk turned to the mugger.

I heard the mugger was just a
childs
, said one half of Berry & Vicars General Store.

I only know the same as you, eh, grumbled Clough, taking his business elsewhere.

The most notorious rematch in the early history of the sport began at sundown, Pisk versus Daggett. Night game. The ultimate battle, the men who started it all: the Dominion Day fight cinched a place in the annals of the game on that fact alone. The two crews met on the short grasses above the sandy embankment where the powdery beaches plunged into the moonlit tidepools of English Bay. The powdery sand was dashed with whitely dried logs that formed a broken line stretching all the way
around the western curve of the government's land. In not long, they'd call it Stanley Park and dispossess its people. For now it was still a wild rainforest where skookum reigned, herons nested, deer and wild cattle grazed, where Clough and many others squatted for the time being, and where the Whoi-Whoi Indians had lived for millennia, and a day later were all dead.

July's temp was ideal for muscles. The crews appeared loose and limber and energetic. Furry & Daggett and their boys were on the beach, all of them standing cross-armed, from one side of the bed to the other, as it were: Campbell, Boyd, Smith, Meier, and out in front of them, coach Clough with his thumb stroking the cheroot burning between his teeth. Opposite them, Litz and Pisk and their men Hoss and Dee in unwashed plaids, dungarees, hobnail boots, scowls on their faces and curses on their tongues. Sure you don't need
some more
bohunks? said Dee, looking at his four against their six.

Molly was there with her own men, husband, ward, and father-in-law, all of them observing the show from a safe, excusable distance. If any unwanted passersby saw the Erwagens they might fairly assume they were happenstantial witnesses. The only unintentional guest in fact was Joe Fortes, who'd just finished his daily swim and was stomping out of the waves when he realized what was going on. Shimmering with a coat of saltwater, he said: I heard aboot no man game today.

Smith answered:
D. v. P
.

Rematch, cried Fortes, drying his neck with a towel. Man, I got to tell absol
ute
ly everbody aboot this.

Nuh-uh, said Smith, smacking Fortes's briny wet forearm and holding on—turning big Fortes right around with only this single quick move. This is a private competition, Smith said. You can stay and watch, but don't go complicating things.

No outsiders, no bets. Calabi and Yau were also present, having ducked out right after the parade and leaving their storefront closed up for the day to protect the secret from outsiders, Port Moodyites, New Westminsterites, Cowichans, Victorians. Calabi wasn't here as bookie, he and Yau were here
to watch as bakers, honoured guests. While Calabi and Yau passed around pastries among the audience, Miguel Calderón and his portable Bar Rústico was also parked, along with his bellnecked goat, not far from the man game, providing libations (to Clough) as well as a cappella.

No grand ceremony accompanied the removal of the bandages on Pisk's feet. Nothing like the pomp set out for the arrival of a steam train or a new holiday. A moment of silence was all. Everyone stood around smoking and watched as Pisk sat on the ground and unwrapped the feet to reveal their toeless, purple mangled ends. Dark purple ropes stretched and wriggled over the feet and up his ankles, as if all the fattest veins were raised completely above the scarred flesh.

You can play on those blunts, eh? said Daggett, eyeing his opponent's impediment.

Good enough to stub out
you
, said Pisk.

Fine, said Daggett, ripping off his clothes. You're finally here Pisk, let this be the last time I see you. When I win here, you and Litz get oot a town for good. We don't see you around here again. Deal?

Without hesitation, Pisk said: Deal. So long as you're buck as me, the man game stays mine.

I'm getting buck as we speak, eh. What're you doing, spectating?

And if we win, you forfeit the Sunnyside, said Pisk, quickly undressing. Besides the fact we're moving back to town, that's always been our crew's bar, and we want it back.

True true, said Fortes.

Daggett tossed his evaginated socks on top of the pile of his clothes. Fine, he said, sneering. Shake on it.

I'll shake your hand when we start to play and no sooner.

Humph.

There was a calisthenic prelude. Even Pisk's stretches were intimidating. This was total flexibility on display. Daggett was doing one-handed jumping push-ups to prove he was just as ready. He did ten backflips and three splits. Then Pisk showed
off his incredible muscle control. In a wavelike succession he flexed his calves on up to ears, not excluding the cremaster, dartos, rhomboids, mastoids, the entire lingual region. He quaked, rippled, and sprung to life in a finely tuned holistic gesture. Men on opposing teams assessed the information, and no one seemed sure what to think about these two giant men with unprecedented agility, intrepidness, and the kind of impoverished childhoods that make a man angry as fuck, ready to explode at the slightest provocation, and heavy with jealousy.

They shook hands, and backed off a few strides.

I'm here to prove something, said Daggett. You made a fool a me, now this is your turn.

After I beat you, every drop a booze I drink in this town'll be on your tab for the rest a my swallowing days—

Pisk came out animal style, with fingernails. He bared his teeth involuntarily and felt the saliva rush to the plate of his jaw and spool outward as he ran. It was only two, maybe three steps in all. Pisk kept his eyes down and would need to ask later if the roaring he heard was in his head or coming out his throat. His throat, he learned. He rounded Daggett's left and came behind on the right and saw the man try to compensate, twisting his lumbering torso trying to catch up with Pisk's great toeless sprint unhampered by the injuries—so it seemed—until Daggett swung out his elbow and Pisk cracked his jaw across it, a great rattan rope of spit jutting straight into the air as Pisk buckled to his knees. Immediately he stood back up, but then he realized there was no denying that Daggett had got him with a Bookend. Pisk lost the first point.

Keep wrecking his balance, eh, shouted Clough from the sidelines. Almost missed that point, and you should a had him
ea
sy.

Easy? said Pisk furiously. Makes no difference I got no toes.

Clough shook his fist at him. Then let's see you put some muscle behind that jaw a yours, or is all you got more spit?

The situation is the way I like it, said Pisk, admiring for a moment the ocean vista unobstructed by gamblers.

Daggett was unfazed through all the talk, keeping his eyes fixed to Pisk the whole time, but even with that degree of concentration, surely he allowed a little part of himself to relax after winning the first point.

Then to prove his mettle, Pisk began the first steps of a Litz, taking a comparatively slow swing so that Daggett would swoop under it and get in a few solid but unremarkable kicks in return, thinking he'd saved himself. In case it wasn't clear, Pisk did the same thing again: he took the first steps of a Litz, then let it drop. Daggett got frustrated and cursed Pisk's bloodline. Only now was Daggett concocting his retaliation, and was about to make the rookie predictable switch into a handstand, up and kicking with his feet, initiating a countermove, but Pisk snuck up behind, jumped into the air, and choked Daggett in a classic Sausage Links {see
fig
. 17.1
}. When Daggett fell to the ground, Pisk promptly went flying in with all his weight for a massive gutpunch that made another unusual sound, cracking like he'd really broken Daggett in half with his fist. It seemed he'd dented the ground beneath his opponent as well. His knucklemarks were there. Along with the cracking sound, when the fist rammed down into Daggett's stomach he burst out with the most foul tremulous screech, it came out of at least two of the man's orifices, like a deathrattle, and the force of the impact was so great that
among all the other hemorrhaging it even folded Daggett's eyelids up {
see
fig. 17.2
}
.

FIGURE 17.1
Sausage Links, alternative sketch

Oof, said all those present, averting their eyes only briefly, out of respect for gamesmanship. The only way to see if Daggett was okay meant looking again.

He was already on his feet. However brutal it looked, somehow it wasn't enough to keep the man down. He brushed his shoulders off and spat out half a lung and said: Pisk, you equals dead meat.

That jump-up sure bode trouble ahead for Pisk, said Joe Fortes.

Clough shook his head in admiration and said: If I ever stood up so fast from a slugger like that you know it's the devil.

Daggett made no comment on his recovery. He folded his eyelids back down and blinked thoroughly. After he was able to ungrit his teeth, he conceded the Point and Click, and the score was now tied one-one.

Let's fucking showtime, he demanded from Pisk.

From this moment on, Pisk decided he was after points. No more feints. No more exhibitions. He took no more chances. When the two men circled, waiting for opportunity, Daggett picked up a clod and hucked it to Pisk, who batted away a spray of dirt, anticipating the bully's plan by quickly sidestepping, then doubling Daggett over his fist when the man came in and took his best swing. Pisk played like that, with acrobatic precision, a slugger's focus, and brave enough to take a bullet. His actions were deadly fast. Pisk could deal Daggett a furious
blow then catch him in his fall. Pisk won for knowing how to play without mercy, without murdering; for knowing how to give direction; for knowing how to make his opponent look like nothing more than a handkerchief in his fist; for knowing when to strangle when necessary and when to take a cut to land a decisive injury; for knowing when to slip away and when to come back hard. All Pisk's combined discipline, focus, and desire to win made Daggett look unprepared, or worse, unambitious. Pisk won five-two. By the end of seven points the men were both so haggard their flesh hung off them. Both knees on Daggett looked like freshly ground beef, oozing blood. Pisk had all sorts of abrasions on his back and chest, and many bruises. Their jaws gaped, mouth-breathers, exhausted.

FIGURE 17.2
The Point and Click, Calabi's
early sketch