The Man Game (50 page)

Uh-huh, hey pass that here, said Terry Berry, watching Hoss smoke the thing down, taking a puff at every pause in his story.

And I worked for them canneries for a week. Easy work it was
not
. Look at my hands, they're twice regular size.

And salmon pink, said Vicars, whistling.

Pass that damn timber.

Hoss, marvelling at his big hands, said: Heard anything aboot the man game?

Nah, said Vicars. We were just talking to Clough this morning before the lynching and—

The what?

Same ol' story aboot manslaughtering. Some Whiteman raped this Indian's squaw wife. So the Indian killed the Whiteman and the court killed the Indian.

Damn, that was this morning?

Why are you babysitting? said Terry Berry with his fingers out to the weed in Hoss's hand. Pass it along.

Hoss listened, casually smoking as Vicars said: Talked to Clough this morning anyway, trying to get something out a him if he knows anything.

Aboot what? said Hoss.

Well, if the po-lice are going to lock up anybody who plays or not, eh. And he was acting pretty cagey, eh?

Yeah, said Terry Berry. He would not conversate on the topic.

Why wouldn't he? said Hoss. He's usually the first to talk shit and act up when it comes to the man game.

I just want you to pass it along. You been hanging on to that bitch for damn near a quarter hour.

Do you think it's the law that's got to him? Hoss wanted to know.

Yeah, that's what I'm trying to say, Terry Berry said. You're fucking the rotation, man, pass that weed.

Said Vicars: How many games has Clough seen?

You're holding up the
train
, Terry Berry said angrily. Don't derail that lumber.

Quit jawing on, man, said Hoss. Well, I don't know. Clough seen a lot a games. At least since the first time I was bookie. You boys missed a lot a good early games, that's got to hurt. Amazing games between Litz and Pisk. Clough? I suspect he's been to all but one or two. I been to them all. I saw every game so far. If Clough is taking the side a the po-lice in this issue … the man game, naw, I can't see it. Clough's like me, he sees what Litz and Pisk are trying to do and he wants to support that because a his love for his home. So I don't think Clough's taking the side a the po-lice on this issue, the man game.

I can smell it in the air, but where the hell's it coming from?

Then what's he doing? said Vicars.

Look at him with the weed in his hand. The rules are still the same when it's yours as when it's mine, Hoss. Don't make me put my foot in your ass knee deep.

All right, all right, calm the fuck down, Hoss said. He finally passed it to Terry Berry. I just didn't want to get
mine
behind
Vicars
is all.

Look at this. You smoked half the spar. I'm sorry, but I'm gonna have to revoke your privileges.

Whatever, that's a fine klahowya, eh. Thanks for fuck all, TB. What's Clough doing? He's not telling you because you're a couple a bohunks is why. Jesus Christ, you seen one man game and you think you even know what the fuck you're talking aboot?

Hoss bid adieu and walked on to Westminster Street, turned and went down the middle of Hastings. He could see all the way to Coal Harbour and across to the squatters' shacks on the government land soon to be Stanley Park. If he knew to look, John Clough's cabin was still visible in the clouding light. Innocent of secret plans between coaches concerning the fate of the game he loved most, he walked on. He was careful down the plank road. Sometimes the posts underneath shifted, the planks leaping and twisting or pinching together and squirting up mud when you stepped on them. Save for a trio of scarredfaced Indians in second-hand suits and porkpie hats, Bud Hoss didn't see anyone till he got to the kerosene lanterns on Water, where a horse and cabriolet buggy rattled by with the merry laughter of a gentleman and a lady inside.

After the dray passed he saw Campbell, that little punk-stick who worked for Furry & Daggett, leaning against a wall for a piss.

Campbell looked Hoss over and gave him what for. Fuck you, he said. 'The fuck you think you're looking at? He shivered involuntarily and his piss stream dashed in all directions. He said: I never liked you when you worked for Furry & Daggett anyhow. Waste a everybody's goddamn time. Ask me, I'm glad they sacked you.

Go fuck yourself. I never got sacked. I quit.

Bullshit.

Forget it, said Hoss. What's news in town?

Campbell shook off and buttoned up. He said: You hear aboot the lynching?

Yeah, I already heard that. So what?

Well, that's news, if you're interested in seeing another Indian get strung by the neck so tight the eyes fell out a their sockets …

Jesus, said Hoss. Well, that's nowhere near close to what I meant when I said news.

Jesus yourself, said Campbell, gripping Hoss's collar in his wet hands, is all you think aboot your own affairs? Don't care one pity for a—this Indian, man, I witnessed it all—

Ah, forget it then, said Hoss, and brushed Campbell off for being a nuisance.

Tell you one thing. Furry & Daggett are serious. Seeing what they do in practices these days?

Practices? said Hoss. You all are practising?

Listen, eh, we don't
log
no more, we don't cut timber. Alls we do is practise the man game every day. That's the fucking news, Hoss-boy. Furry & Daggett are serious aboot the man game. We're the men who're going to run those turds out a town once and for all.

That's what I call
bull
shit, said Hoss. How'd you expect to do that?

Hell, I heard up until they outlawed it, Litz and Pisk got at least three dollars a day they played.
Ea
ch. That's what I was told. Because a the Asiatics who bet so much—talk aboot Jesus fuck, that's good chickamin. I could stretch out with that kind a income.

Hoss did a mental tally. Yeah, three sounds aboot right. And how do you expect to make that much?

Pisk's dead, said Campbell, you heard that news already?

Don't believe that.

You seen him?

No, but—, well, besides, fucking Mayor McLean outlawed it like you said, so what's the difference.

Ah, fuck that. That's nothing. Listen, Campbell said. We take over the man game. That's easy. Me and the others with Furry and Daggett. Not just Meier and Smith and Boyd and myself, but everybody. It's time to lay down the axes and make some chickamin the easy way. Look now, Campbell said and
jabbed Hoss's chest with a pointed finger, I give it to you, you're strong for a fat kid. You interested?

With you, C
a
mpbell?

Sure, that's right. Who else?

Where's Litz and Pisk if you got all these takeover plans? It's their game.

Hell, no one's seen them since they took off from that game. For alls we know Pisk's dead and Litz is gone for good.

No way, said Hoss, unable to conceal his distress. His fists and jaw impulsively clenched.

Well …

So you think the man game's been left up to you ballsmackers, is that it?

Unbeliever. You're just another poltroon, aren't you?

Who the fuck is poltroon?

If you aren't yellow, then you must be tighter with Litz and Pisk than I thought, eh?

Litz and Pisk? said Hoss. You aren't worth one tick on my ass compared to them. Campbell, I wouldn't team up with you if you were the only man in town with legs.

Campbell stepped back. Why, you still walk ass-first, don't you? I know you, Hoss. You're nothing special. You're just some starving kid from a starving farm squat in the middle a starving Saskatchewan. You're nothing if not a pain in the fucking ass. What a you want from life, Hoss?

I know one thing I don't want is some boss belt-whipping me because I want to get to bed instead a listen to him jaw on.

Never mind, eh. Forget I asked. Better yet, get yourself out a my sight, you proud piece a shit.

Yeah, said Hoss, and fuck you back. I never wanted to work with all you anyhow. All your mothers are guttersnipe whoores, and none a you know dick aboot the man game.

Arrr, Campbell ran back at him with his fists raised, but Hoss didn't budge. Sure enough, he stopped short of taking Hoss down. Campbell growled, I should split your face open.

I'd as soon kill you, said Hoss, stepping straight up to Campbell's face, grizzle to grizzle.

You're some fat fuck, aren't you? said Campbell. Where's your stones?

Send word you want a man game, and I'll see you there.

Is that so, eh? You better learn up fast then in the next fucking blink, so I can show you what's what. Klahowya, Campbell said, already across the street at this point. That was enough of that. Campbell washed his hands of Hoss and walked away down the frosted mud road.

Whatever, Hoss said, watching him go. He looked at the lights, garlands, and verandahs of the saloons within a stone's throw. The Stag & Pheasant was an establishment with a real piano player. In the evening they required you wear a collar and Hoss didn't have one. To the left, the clamour of voices from inside the Tremont Saloon meant there'd soon be a fight. He preferred to start his own. Although it might mean running into Campbell or others from Furry & Daggett's crew, he could think of nowhere else to go but the Sunnyside.

Raising his head for a moment from the rutted trail, he studied the mountains in the distance, rising above the north shore of Burrard Inlet. Caped in woollen fog cover, they were even-tempered, aristocratic, and loyal; strengths Hoss felt he lacked. These mountains, with their staggering composure, were more like royalty to him than any faraway monarch on a stool. This world was the world of mountains; they had seen generations of Indians live and die here, and now this. The salt off the inlet and the rich sturdy smell of cedar filled Hoss's lungs, and his heart, with ghosts. The ghosts of the long dead, whose ungathered chains and hanging skirts and tattered, feathered wings were what keep them tangled up in the branches of the trees. The forest, the mountain's big beard—the biggest, creature-infested beard of them all—bristled with millions of trees. Vancouver had a
living
smell.

He took the stairs two at a time and pushed open the door to the Sunnyside, where the glory days of wild drinking were still alive. The player piano in the corner
rink-a-dinked
a slow instrumental bootlegged from Ireland and turned American classic. He went up to the counter beside a
bruised girl he recognized from Wood's, greeted Joe Fortes, bought him a round, and turned to face the room, see who was here.

Not you all again, said Hoss aloud to the crowd in the bar. You're still here.

Of all the people, the first he picked out was RD Pitt, that horseless cowboy. There was Moe Dee again there near the back, well ahead of the rest in his drunken stupor with five empty shots in front of him, but Hoss barely noticed him or anyone except that bastard cowboy RD Pitt, troublemaker of a different sort altogether.

Pitt was sitting at a table nearby with his arm around a green-stained bronze bust of the Queen. He rested his elbow on her neck. Beside him were the usual men he was seen with, the group who were organizing a Knights of Labour union in town with Pitt's aid. In front of him on the table was a big stack of leaflets.

What's all that? said Hoss, pointing affectedly, showing off how uninterested he was in what Pitt did with his time.

Pitt turned to Hoss and said quite loudly: Alls I want for this city is some decent, honest ways for a Whiteman to make a living.

Hoss immediately turned around to face the bar, and Fortes, and ignore Pitt completely. The woman beside him seemed to find his style charming, and took a step towards him in a way that suggested even more steps had been taken.

And with his nose squashed to the side of his face, as it always was, RD Pitt nodded and nodded, beckoning in the ugliest, chin-first of ways to this prostitute at the counter next to Hoss, and then loudly whispered: The Wh
ore
Without A F
ace
.

Hoss winced, then looked at her for her reaction. She raised a thigh and jammed the heel of her shoe in a barstool rung, swished open the wide slit of her skirt, took a cigarette out of her garter and put it to her pale blue mouth, lighting it off the match Hoss provided.

You hear me? said Pitt.

I heard you well enough, she said. She adjusted her tongue, singled out a curl of tobacco between her long yellowing fingernails, and flicked it away. She said: I've known men like you. Lame on your feet and worser in bed.

Give me some a that, Pitt said, taking a swipe at her rump. Hand it here, you selfish bitch.

Scared to even speak aboot her, or her name, said the woman, swigging her snifter.

What aboot it? said Pitt. That
crea
ture you hide up in there? You think I'd fuck her?

I
know
you, she said, turning her backside to him, pointing and swaying her silken fanny at him. You all do, shifting her weight from one cheek to the other and waving a fingernail at the men. You all want to crawl up her walls. Because she sweetest you ever get.

You spend all your time with your stomach to the sky, you lost contact with the world, said Pitt. I'd no more fuck a mollusk.

The whore dabbed her finger into her beer and sucked it off, and said: I know that's plenty a room for you, baby boy.

RD Pitt said: Bitch, I pack a horse dick.

That's funny, said Hoss, dabbing his eye now,
plenty
a room in there, that's right.

Not a word from you, said Pitt to Hoss, pointing at the door. Either get right or get left.

Why don't you try lefting
this
, Hoss said, grabbing himself.

You fat peon, said Pitt.

Hoss patted the loop on his belt where his handaxe would normally be, said: I'm sick a hearing your voice.

Pitt stood up, honking back his chair.