The Man Game (9 page)

Furry saw a sooty rat scale the clapboard building and engage in battle with a stubborn crow on the precipice.

Are you done yet? he said. He tugged down the sleeve of his monkeyjacket and brought his wrist to his mouth to bite off some sinewy stitching unravelled at the cuff. Yikes. He caught a whiff of his own armpit. He'd bathe soon enough or he'd see no mink tonight. He wasn't the kind of man, and neither was Daggett, who got mink if he wasn't clean as a pony. They had a long ways to go. They were dressed in work clothes and two seasons' worth of dirt.

I said are you fucking done yet?

Keep your fucking panties on, Jesus fucking—I'm pissing here …

When a Chinaman coming from Carrall Street with a cart of vegetables passed the intersection, Furry gave him a look that turned him right around, trying to look natural doing so. And Furry, in his twelve-inch brimmed felt hat, leaned down, chose a cobble, and threw it down the street a hundred yards and hit the Chinaman upside the head. Shocked, the Chinaman touched his face, then pulled the carriage quickly out of sight before Furry had a chance to throw the second rock he'd fisted.

They dingled open the doors of Red & Rosy's General Store and brought their dirt and stink and thudding boots inside, looking around, pawing things, asking each other what the fuck is that, and will you take a fucking look at this, handling the wares like they were testing everything for durability.

The other customers all said quick goodbyes to the man behind the counter, nodded deferentially to Furry & Daggett, and tripped out the door to safety. All the customers escaped save one. Molly Erwagen lingered at the back of the store, examining garden shears and cans of lard and the price of different compasses. Her hair was up inside a large bonnet, and her neck—equestrian in its supple form—was there for all to see. She stepped lightly here to there without quite paying attention to Furry and Daggett, who did
not
pay her the same respect. Daggett whistled for six counts, rocking his head. Furry just lost his hearing from seeing so much.

Oo-wee, said Daggett, I sure'd like to see—

What can I do you for? said the salesman. He walked along his side of the counter to meet the men near the front of the store. He'd been standing at the back near Molly and his face was flushed pink. He walked with a pronounced limp, a controlled, sluggish lope. He flattened his white apron with his hands and addressed them politely as sirs, inquiring again if they needed any help.

Daggett leaned over and barked into the salesman's ear: How much is that?

The salesman didn't answer immediately.

We're gyppo loggers, said Furry, touching the brim of his hat. This is my partner Mr. Daggett and my name's Furry.

They shook strong hands with the clerk.

I heard your names before, the clerk said, pinching his moustache, drawing their attention to the mangled state of his ear and the evil scar on his cheekbone.

That right? said Daggett, unintimidated. Price a doing business, eh. Every bohunk's got a story to tell and not one a them you can trust. You're Rosy's new employ.

I am, said the clerk. Name's Stan, his brother.

Good to meet you, Rosy, said Daggett. Listen, what's it worth you to tell me if you seen those handloggers Pisk and Litz pass through your doors?

Rosy shrugged. Nothing. I seen nobody called that. Furry picked up the handle to a big iron roller. What's this thing? he asked.

That's for your lawn.

My lawn.

You press your sod flat with it.

You d
o
, huh? Well, that's not what we're here for.

No, sir; I dare say I can tell you aren't.

Need to outfit thirty men, said Furry. Clothes all the way on up. The works, cookstove, camp cots, you name it. Dishes, matches. Everything you can think a, we need it.

Okay, Rosy said and clapped his hands together. Still in that position of prayer, he turned to Molly for a moment and asked her if she needed anything or if he should go ahead and help these gentlemen. As she turned to face them, opening her mouth to answer, Furry and Daggett saw her face for the first time, and without warning both their bellies started to growl. And with their teeth showing, they tipped their hats to her. She agreed that the clerk should go ahead and help the men while she browsed. She was in no hurry, after all; it was such a fine day for an outing.

Okay, all righty, said Rosy. Let's look-see what we got.

Rosy walked them through the store. There were cans of beans shelved all the way to the ceiling, iron shovels in all sizes hanging off coat racks, and bullets of all casings; they bought in bulk. They bought new hogskin gloves and denim trousers with copper riveting. Ten pounds of chewing tobacco. They bought fifty pounds of bacon in oilcloth sacks, another three sacks of flour waist-high, and cans of cream, syrup, and salt. Enough butter to last a season. Excited by the biggest sale since reopening after the Fire, Stan Rosy set out to prove his crockery was sturdy enough to be thrown on the floor and not break. Molly was in the midst of replacing a compass on its glass pedestal when the dish landed; she never
even startled. They took Rosy's advice when it came to jackscrews and ratchet screws, and he convinced them to buy an extra spool of iron chain. When he showed them the saws and axes, Daggett said to Rosy: You're going to bust the bank.

Oh, but look at these sweethearts. Rosy petted the sleek face of an axeblade. It gleamed with silver veins. It was easy to convince them to upgrade the whole kit. They debated different swamper's axes and chose an eight-foot double-handed saw that looked like a killer whale's jaw.

Feel the heft, eh, said Rosy, giving them each a new pinewood long-handled axe to caress and admire. The perfect silken finish made the wood glow like skin. The handle curved like a slender body in repose. The blade was made of the strongest Gallic metal. At five feet long, only a man of Furry or Daggett's height could wield such a blade. They bought two each and received free of charge the companion handaxes. Slip her right in your belt loop, Rosy said.

They came again to the kitchen supplies and Molly tipped her head down demurely, eyes like candles burning below the shadow of her hatbrim as she flitted by.

She's a beauty, said Rosy, buffing the white enamel door of the Acorn cast-iron cookstove. Wood burning, he said.

Yeah, said Daggett, giving the stove a once-over. He opened the enamelled door of the oven and waved his hand around inside. We'll take a couple a these.

Furry turned over a pair of thick leather logging boots and studied the frizz of spikes all over the sole.

Those're guaranteed, said Rosy.

How much for all this? said Furry.

Including the cost to ship the goods to your plot a land, Rosy said, your at a grand total a sixty and five.

Sixty and five, Daggett said. No, no, sixty and five, Rosy, that's too high, it's never more than fifty when we buy.

Well you got the chains for your logs and the two cookstoves …, Rosy said unperturbed.

Are we fucking bartering here or no? Daggett said, and stuck out his jaw. His eyes hesitated, and then he looked at
Molly to see what kind of impression his foul language had made on her smooth innocent body. Seemed to be none. Relaxing again, he looked back to Rosy. Are we … or what? he said. I don't see it's very busy in here, Rosy. You should be thankful for our business. You don't sell many a them cookstoves, I bet.

We sell enough.

'The fuck you think you are? said Daggett, losing his temper completely. This time Rosy tipped away from the counter and stood upright, out of range of their threats and fists. He looked over at Molly with an apologetic smile.

I'm sorry, ma'am, I'll only be a minute longer.

She nodded her sweet head. They saw her tongue's tip when she said: That's fine. She walked towards the men and they all watched her as she did, no one saying a word, not even Daggett, who could always be relied on to insult a lady. She put her elbows on the counter and stretched out her gloved hands and proceeded to wait for Furry and Daggett to finish up right there beside her at the counter.

Walking out the doors of Red & Rosy's General Store, Daggett beat his fist against the rail and said: What a mink. That Rosy made us pay sixty and one for that.

What could we do? Wouldn't budge.

We should wait here for that lady to get, then go back in there and straighten the nose on that bohunk.

If she weren't there, said Furry, I'd a meted out some punishment on that gimp. Making us pay that much.

Was she a bea
u
ty, said Daggett.

Hotter than a mouthful a moonshine. What a set a
totooshes
.

Oh my god, her totooshes, said Furry, making lewd gestures. Mmm, her
totooshes
.

I'd go blind overnight just from thinking a her, Daggett said.

One look at her ee-na and I'm good for a season chopping trees, said Furry.

They pushed their hats down against the sun and walked a few paces, still cursing at Rosy for greasing them. Back in the street they appreciated the sunlight for how it shone on their new long-handled axes. For having it cost them nearly full price to suit up the fall season, the two loggers felt a little sick and light-headed. These axes would fell a lot of trees, and hard, or Rosy was going to hear about it. They wondered aloud whether or not to spend the night at Wood's or save some chickamin and stay at a Methodist rooming house.

There were other men on the street asking themselves the same question. There were many men like them in need of a good shave. Men in dire need of a steady job. The coolies were taking over. The navvies seemed more frustrated now than they were last winter. The sailors were all drunker than they were this same time last year. As they walked along the street, they approached a young man with a face shaved to its pink cheeks and a wet chin who stepped on and off the logs and swerved past them, twirling on one foot, and said: Damn, I be too drunk.

Where'd you get? Daggett asked the drunkard.

He spun around and pointed a finger at the sky and said: Sunnys
i
de Hotel.

That's aboot right, Daggett said to his partner. Let's hit her.

Yeah, said Furry, any more a that burial grounds moonshine I'm liable a going berzerk. I'm higher'n a motherfucker.

A gaunt old miner with a shirt open to his bare ribcage lugged a canvas sack over his shoulder. Jammed full of a wrinkled old suit, shaving gear and toolkit, and all his other belongings in the entire world, he was being turned away from the better hotels and was resigned, like most poor folk, to share a Methodist's room with four other men. Just so long as he could get off these corns.

It was sunny out. In a pallid, omnipresent way, the September sun shone on the muddy streets and the clapboard buildings. When Daggett and Furry got within a couple blocks
of the Sunnyside Hotel & Saloon, they confronted a sight. They stopped to watch a taut, slow-speaking Chinaman at the corner, a swaggering young man in leather, silk, and gold. Hands on his hips, he was shouting commands at an organized mob of two dozen starved coolies who waited at a corner for some work to do.

Boys more like, the coolies were all as soft as babybottoms. Daggett could tell by their soft faces that these were not men, they were shrimps afraid to be seafood. Nevertheless, hard labour was their fate, and Daggett understood well enough from experience how much a man can adapt when he must. By the same token, he knew, at least instinctually, how stubbornly a person can be in sticking to his beliefs, no matter where he went in the world. And at the first opportunity, a man will remake his surroundings to his liking. When Daggett compared Chinatown to the rest of Vancouver he didn't like what he saw. So if anyone was going to assimilate it was the Chinamen, because no way was Daggett let alone Furry going to assimilate in their direction.

The snakehead aimed to rent these farmers' sons from Sze-Yap cut-rate. What Daggett wanted to know was how this young snakehead could afford such a glistening pair of leather Shanghai boots. Silk Western bowtie. Gold-handled opium pin dangling from his neck on a silver chain.

What kind a clothes do we wear, Furry? Do we deport ourselves wrongly?

Even the brand-new duds we bought at Red & Rosy's don't compare, said Furry, obviously brooding on much the same thoughts. He leaned against a strut under the boardwalk with his hands in his pockets. He wore his new handaxe looped on his belt, with the eight-foot long-handled falling axe resting next to him. Daggett stood beside him, expectorated in one direction and then another, sleeved off any spittle trapped in his beard, and began punking stones out of the hardpacked dirt road. He too wore his new handaxe in a belt loop. He yawned for something to do. Furry yawned as well, stretched his arms, and cursed to make a noise.

Fuck is right, said Daggett. Fuck is right.

Who are all these coolies? said Furry.

Fucked if I know.

When the snakehead stepped across the street towards them in his Shanghai boots, Daggett flicked his partner a look and then his trap opened: 'The fuck you think you're doing?