SIXTEEN
It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.
’The fuck is Pisk? bellowed Daggett, wiping his mouth after saying the cursed name.
As many as a hundred of the Chinamen in the audience at the man game this evening lived on the mudflats where RD Pitt and his gang were presently rocking and axing their shanties apart, dousing sackcloth in alcohol to speed the burning of the pyre. Another three hundred from the established part of Chinatown were at the man game as well. Only thirty-forty Whitemen were on Dupont Street causing all the trouble while just north, across Hastings Street, Whitemen at the man game already numbered in the thousands. Included among the melee were plenty of RD Pitt’s early supporters, more interested in seeing the game than causing a ruckus. That was all. They wore shabby leather suspenders and dungarees with steel-riveted seams because that’s what Furry and Daggett wore. They were the dogs of men, not the wolves.
You think I came here to be stood up by this bastard? said Daggett. I’m talking to you, Litz. Where is he? Or maybe it’s true what we hear, that he’s dead.
Unless your plan’s to disrobe, there’s no point conversating, said Litz. His arms were crossed over his bare chest. His eyelids were coolly sluggish, the thick lashes and thicker brow concealing the intensity of his focus. He stood at the foot of the steps to the Hastings Mill store with a silent band of loyal supporters.
If there’s no Pisk, we’ll tear an extra strip off you, how’s aboot that?
Calm your heart, bellowed a familiar voice, I’m right here.
It was Pisk’s voice, heard by unshaven men in the audience who could not locate his whereabouts, looking this and that a-way, looking for where, where. He came from inside the mill’s store, swinging himself towards his rivals on a set of handmade maplewood crutches. Litz kept his eyes on the crowd, which he estimated to be huger than any previous man game. As Pisk eased himself down the stairs to the street the audience collectively gasped to see his feet wrapped in thick hives of white bandage. That’s right, take a gander, you bohunks. Never seen a fucking injury before?
This doesn’t satisfy no contract we had to be here.
I’m here, said Pisk, leaning heavily on his crutches.
No way you can play like that.
Our deal was if you win at the man game we leave town, said Pisk. But you know how we play. Each crew picks a first. Your first is Campbell, right?
That’s right.
And I’m our first, said Litz. If any one a you poltroons can beat me, go right ahead and battle Pisk. Be my guest.
But no one here, said Pisk, expects any a you dick-biters is going to beat Litz. And if by chance or cheat you do, I can whip every one a you five-nothing standing on my hands the whole fucking time, and you know it, so don’t pretend you’re balls-out swaggering today.
You’re saying if any one a us beats Litz, you’ll play? said Campbell.
’The fuck, you deaf?
The audience erupted into debate. Furry & Daggett’s crew tossed their hands in the air and threatened to leave that very minute, but Clough calmed them down using grandiloquent gestures, slashing his one arm back and forth as he spat out reasons to stay put. It was theatrical; there didn’t seem to be any chance of anyone going anywhere. Whitemen were still laughing and making jokes at Furry and Daggett’s expense, but nothing so disrespectful as to warrant a belt-whipping, more as cajoles and pleas for them to stay, stay and play. The Chinamen laughed and hugged each other, shook little fists at the competitors and made noise in their language. They all kept one eye on the bets.
Pisk’s beard was longer, thicker, and much greyer. It was trouble for him getting down the stairs, hobbling on no toes, and his clothes hung off a thinner body, a shallower chest, no bulging gut, dehydrated musculature. The feet were serious. He was on crutches. He couldn’t play. No one in the crowd today was going to bet Pisk could play. Calabi was surrounded by Chinamen with questions. Hoss was surrounded by Whitemen with demands.
Clough separated himself from Furry & Daggett’s crew, stood in the empty space awaiting two players, and addressed the audience: What fool believes Litz can beat all a Furry & Daggett’s crew single-handedly?
If I can’t get a rematch with Pisk, then I definitely want a piece a Litz to take home with me today, Campbell said, unjacketing. He shucked off his clothes with practised quickness, seeming to wave his hand across his body and be undressed. He threw them to Clough who folded them casually and rested them on the stump of a thousand-year-old cedar.
You seen me play, said Litz, but you never played me.
Who’s your coach, Litz? bellowed Vicars, a character Litz was only beginning to recognize, a late-coming popularist of the man game, along with his friend Terry Berry.
I thought you were, Litz said, pushing his jaw to the side with the palm of his hand and cracking his neck.
Better not be me, said Terry Berry, cannily, or I’m betting on Campbell.
Campbell showed more professional demeanour this time around, or was terribly nervous, partaking in none of the ribaldry. Stepping away from the pile of his woollen calicos, there was none of the self-consciousness that had lost him his match back in January. He walked with a different strut, and different still when he was undressed. It was as if in disrobing he’d chosen to speak a foreign language, one that gave him a greater versatility of expression than his workaday vocabulary. His arms no longer swung rigidly at his sides. They hung rather more loosely now, along with a newly trained footstep that was as sure as it was elastic and racy. He had more sinew where there had been cumbersome bulk, and his skin had a gingery burnish from exposure. His breath steamed in dragon gusts.
Gamblers had good reason to rethink their biases. Like horses before the race, the men were eyed for their gait, physique, temperament, and breeding. Beasts. Bloodsucking. A spider’s nest of tired, greedy eyes dilated black with high hopes for blood and sweat and a life-changing win. Sweet chickamin. In 1887 there was even a saying in Vancouver’s Chinatown: Every win is as enlightening as a shot of moonshine, every loss is as cruel as a dawn of sobering sunshine.
Litz took a couple of quick jumps, closer then closer to hovering, until he felt satisfied with his float and pointed a long index at Campbell and said: You got no idea what you’re in for, eh?
I got a couple moves I want to show you, said Campbell.
You’ll have to show me first, said Bud Hoss, who appeared from behind a fence wearing only his histrionics, ready to play the man game. Naked and stocky as a tankard, he said: You’ll have to get through me if you want to try Litz.
’The fuck are you talking aboot?
I’m playing today.
That so?
Right it is, said Hoss.
What absurdity is this? said Vicars, loudly echoing the many voices asking the same question in simpler terms. Who’m I betting on here? Is this man game cancelled?
No, it’s not fucking cancelled, spat Litz. I’m still here, and if I must, I’ll see to it each and every one a you sees your ends. But this is an official announcement that Hoss here’s part a mine and Pisk’s crew.
He is, eh? said Clough, who hugged himself roughly, a substitute for crossing his arms. What, thought you said you could do this all yourself?
Why should I waste my energy on so many a your bohunks? said Litz.
And Hoss here is our first, said Pisk. Then we’ll take it from there.
What makes the cripple third on a team? said a gold panner in tar-smeared overalls with a broken nose, burnt chin, and a full mouth of gold teeth.
Pisk’s been the last to play right from the start, explained Moe Dee in that voice of his, audible across rivers. Ever since the man game started. You protect your player under attack, who is Pisk, so that makes Litz first. If not Litz, then this dude. Last player can start a match whenever he wants. Last player can hold back to wait, see what happens.
Furry’s trying to get to Pisk, said the panner.
Daggett’s trying to get Pisk out a the city once and for all.
Nothing I hate worse than to see Whitemen taking out their conflicts on Whitemen, said a dissenter, a specialist, a saddlemaker. Didn’t none a you know there’s a band a men going down to Chinatown right now to take care a the real problem in your lives?
See, said Molly, sweeping her wedding ring against his cheek, I made it easy for you to spectate. You don’t have to be on the street with the rabble.
Thank you, yes, I appreciate that.
I’m very excited. To think all this was scorched earth not even a year ago.
The ground is still black, he said.
How much the city has changed since we arrived.
Do you plan to claim responsibility any time soon?
How unfair a you, darling Chinook. You love me, though, don’t you? she asked.
Oh, yes, look, it says so on my sleeve, he said.
Shh, watch the man game, she said.
He frowned. Did you plan for all this to transpire?
Oh, naturally, said Molly, holding her Stars & Stripes at a pause from her mouth. A course I did.
There was a noncommittal rap on the door to the office and Molly shrugged when Sammy looked at her to see if she had anything to do with this as well.
Yes, enter, said Sammy, assuming it to be Toronto.
RH Afterlife inched through the door to his accountant’s office and crept along the wall like a wet insect, a millipede man sneaking along the wallpaper, afraid of the exposure, looking like a prisoner in his own mill, jailed for what? For falling for the perfumes of the Orient, and now he was shackled to his heavy fate. Mr. Erwagen, I have terrible …, and seeing his accountant seated at the open window beside his wife, the beautiful Mrs. Erwagen, he began to hear it all again: the riot on the front steps of Hastings Mill. He was sure that if he so much as poked his head up to the window a sharpshooter would split his scalp open. And here the Erwagens were watching in plain view. Anguish had kept him locked in his own office, doubling his dosage, hoping that by the time they torched the mill he’d be dead. He staggered thus towards the window and the Erwagens, who regarded him with what must have been great pity. But when he finally took his first look and saw the mob in front of the mill, all he said was: Oh, lord. Then he backed away and pressed himself flat against the wall. He could feel his cold flesh tight against his skeleton. The Erwagens showed more pity. The rioters, the Knights of Labour, the Anti-Asiatics, the Whitemens were on his doorstep, here to exact revenge. His blood would merrily be spilled. His heart would be stolen and played with on the streets like a kickball until they lost interest and a dog sat down to gnaw on it. The riot was his end, he was sure of it now. It did not matter he was an old man. He still was not ready to die. Never. His vision blurred and started to go black at the edges, as if on the brink of a faint. He said: Are they here for … me?
It’s a man game, said Erwagen.
A man game? said Alexander, regaining a little. At a time … like this? Who?
Looks mostly like our own men, said Erwagen. I see a lot a Chinamen and lumberjacks and millhands and such and such. The game’s not begun yet, but the crowd seems in good spirits.
You don’t say? said Alexander, becalmed. His writing hand fixated on his beard as he felt the first few twists of a strategy forming in his mind. The other hand was still unconsciously gripped to the curtain, but beginning to relax of its own accord. He mumbled something and then articulated: I thought it was only just outlawed.
Perhaps the po-lice are attending to the rally down at the City Hall, offered Molly in her musical voice.
Y-yes, said Alexander, remembering, but not really, something about his wife dashing out the door not long ago to put a stop to it all. I suppose those KOL rabblerousers are …
I’d rather my wife see this than that, said Sammy.
Well, said RH Alexander with a forced-sounding, war-weary laugh, ha ha, we should shut the mill down early today then, eh? What time is it? Six P.M. already, eh? Shall we allow the rest a our men to enjoy this beautiful evening? Yes, let’s give them a break to watch the man game.
A wise and charitable gesture, sir, said Sammy Erwagen. Your men will surely enjoy the spectacle … Why, quickly then. Call off the work. Look at them now. Two a them are ready.
Unable to resist a giant grin, RH took a place at the windowsill and leaned a hand against the shutter as the wintry warm evening air fanned him. Ah, yes, I recognize … that’s Mr. Litz, a former employee a ours. A good man. I’d put my money on him if I were down there. And look at all the Chinamen. I never realized. Yes, I simply must close the mill so our employees can enjoy this game.
You got some tricks up your sleeve, eh? they heard Clough say. Hoss is going to play for you? Fine then. It’s Campbell versus Hoss rematch. Get your wagers in.
The whores were out on the porch and up by the fence to watch the fire burn across the street in the shantytown. They teethed on their fingernails and glanced worriedly at the rioters. The fire kicked up a lot of smoke, blowing its ash right at them. Thankfully the flames weren’t strong enough to climb the dike; Dupont Street homes weren’t in immediate danger. Still, they could see orange and red globules of flaming char drip and hiss and land on their reflections in the dark waves.
The mob arrived once again at the flipped-over vegetable cart. All it took was one timberstick to light the whole thing. They’d been throwing cottonwaste on it all night to fuel a quick blaze. It was this second giant bonfire that finally drove the girls back inside. Peggy dashed to her back office where she rang her special direct line to the fire brigade. The line had been put in by the kind old captain and his men; courtesy, they told her, of the mayor himself. When the bell rang at the station the firemen ran from where they’d been watching the man game back down Dunlevy to get the fire truck. Harnessing it to the horses, they were on their way. As they rounded a corner on their way to Dupont the horses trampled an American tourist to death.
Sammy heard RH Alexander below him on the porch, telling his men to back away from the potted plants, laughing and berating them and saying: Come on, let’s hear it for the man game. Raving applause every time he said it.
Sammy said: What do you think RH has in mind, inciting the men like that?
Molly batted her eyelashes as if to shoo away a mite. That’s none a my business, she said. I’ve no idea what prompts that man’s actions. She pressed the cigarette to her lips, inhaled, and said with a drifting smoke: A wonder he’s able to manage this mill. If it weren’t for your system, he’d likely sink. Man can’t make a decision unless it gets him money, mink, or muscle.
Money, mink, or … well, I had no idea you harboured such strong feelings towards Alexander.
He is a tool. A magic wand. You can snap him. Compared to him, I am a hat full a tricks. Without him, I’m very normal. With him, I am the whole show, you see? I need him, but I don’t have to like him for it.
Yes, said Sammy, comprehending a little more the lawlessness of his wife’s soul.
Sunday, February 20, 1887. Some kind of day. Sammy watched over thousands of men gathered to watch the game. There were men on the peaked rooftops seated with their knees up, men crowded along the balconies of the Stanley Hotel to catch a view all the way from Powell Street. There were close to fifteen hundred Chinamen. Felt like more. There were droves of lumberjacks and throngs of fishermen. There were heathens and providers. Coal miners and farmers and stevedores, and none of them with perfect eyesight. Not a bank in the world knew any of their names. They lived one suit at a time. Today’s jacket was faded and frayed at the cuffs and two buttons had been replaced and both armpits had been mended and the pockets were in different places than when it was bought. Chapped lips, gold teeth, moustache: a portrait of a man in 1887.
The first match of the afternoon, a rematch no less, was about to take place: Hoss versus Campbell. Over at Furry & Daggett’s side of things, Campbell got some final punches and pushes of moral support before he walked to the centre of the open space. He’d beat this guy before, and not too long ago at that. Campbell looked at all the new faces in the crowd. Most had never seen a man game before, and they stared and jostled and called out fiercely to Campbell, who found himself, though unable to admit it, growing ever more disgusted with his own audience.
The men scuffled to the centre of the pitch, shook hands quickly and split apart again, signalling the game was on. Campbell went up to individuals and pushed them back. Give us some fucking room, eh, before I strip you down and man game you in front a all your buddies. Campbell was raw as a burnt board, his each and every muscle extruding from his bones as if peeling apart the skin from the strain. His face was abandoned to bearded squalor. His eyes were the whitest thing about him. The rest was hair and filth. You think you know pain? he said. You think you know pain, Hoss? I’ll show you pain. A bet on me is a bet on Satan himself, believe I’m that dangerous.
You got him, Campbell, said a supporter. Filet him like a bloody steak, Campbell.
Don’t worry, he said. I named this the Cerebus.
What’re you kykying aboot now, Campbell? said Hoss. And then he said: Weeaargh, and staggered backwards as Campbell was on him like a vampire’s mandible, faster than poison, knees clenched against his ears, fingers in his nose, headbutting him. Six-seven-eight headbutts until Hoss collapsed on the ground, Campbell doing a three-sixty handstand on his chest before dismounting and immediately retreating four-legged as a canine to his post guarding Furry and Daggett, unmoved but alert to the tremendous and sustained applause, the likes of which the man game had yet to hear.
That was a decent enough move, said Pisk. The Cerebus, eh. I don’t think so. Wishful Thinking more like.
And Wishful Thinking it was to be; a point for Campbell no less {see fig. 16.1}. Hoss was totally brained. Felt like he was rolling the losing numbers to the lottery around inside his head. Campbell skulled him eight times. After that hammering, all that was left for him to gaze at was glittering snowflakes swimming left and right. He didn’t even remember to breathe.
Campbell looked a little muted himself. A purple veiny welt started to show up in the middle of his brow and his eyes kept fixating on the bridge of his nose until he squinted to unstick them. If Pisk had been a little closer he would have seen that Campbell wasn’t humble so much as completely rocked. His eyeballs wouldn’t steady inside their sockets. He’d headbutted Hoss eight times on the brain. He felt a ringing in his ears like he was standing inside a church bell at dusk. His head was making concentric circles around a queasy pivot in his lower gut. The knobby knees were wobbling and so were the bumpy ankles. Pretty soon he’d make two regurgitative belches, and soon after that regain his bearings, satisfied he’d won his first point.
How’d you like the Cerebus? he said out one side of his mouth to Litz once his mind had resettled.
Wishful Thinking.
Calabi’s commentary: You cannot allow your opponent to anticipate what a bloodthirsty parasite you really are, and however painful it might feel as you feed on his skull, keep in mind that you will be awarded the point.
Silas’s commentary: Both feet must be above your opponent’s waistline before you may begin the headbutts.
Amateur move, said Pisk.
Unfazed by the patronizing way he’d been given the point, Campbell won his second with an impressive start, an extremely fast and concentratedly difficult solo dance routine that saw him cross-stepping through a heel toe heel toe hip knee hip chest hip chest shoulder shoulder neck spring arm swing, double jeté, head-first divebomb, and barrel roll, up into first position exactly in front of Hoss, grabbing his arms in falling balletic momentum, swooping like the weight on a metronome and dragging Hoss through what was suddenly the original move, the Pisk. Hoss ran with it until Campbell released him out of a pirouette and he toppled to an unspun halt against the shins of laundry-house Chinamen.
Dammit, said Hoss. He brushed the clods of street dirt from his back, thighs, and nostrils. Spat. From these brushing motions he began a subtle, musical shimmy, appreciated by man game veterans and unnoticed by newcomers. The transition then was quick but organic. His hands swept in front of his body as he sidestepped the circumference, backing everyone up a step or two, the dance getting quicker and quicker as he approached Campbell. By this time everyone had cottoned on. This was all of seven steps. Campbell didn’t know where to move: back, to the side, or take Hoss face-to-face. On the strength of his two-point lead he decided to meet him head-on, and poised himself thus for a direct blow. Hoss anticipated it and darted left, bodychecked Campbell into the audience who caught him and threw him back into the ring where Hoss took him out of his running stumble, clasped him hand-to-hand, the pink clap of their cold chests colliding heard by one and all—; Hoss bent his knees and leaned back, leveraged Campbell up and over, tossing him into another sea of men who caught him on their hands and fell to the ground in excitement, wailing like children at the edge of a river. Campbell righted himself and strode nonchalantly back to his team while the applause achieved high decibels.
One for Hoss, snarled a gambler.
That’s no move, said Campbell. I’m the one who did the mid-air somersault I didn’t have to do.
Hoss spat. There was no way of knowing if the move could be duplicated, but no one argued when Hoss was given a point for what he’d done, sending Campbell into the crowd twice like that {see fig. 16.2}. So it was two-one for Campbell.
The gamblers way down Powell Street at the very back of the crowd only now got word that Campbell had scored his second point.
Meanwhile Hoss tried to duck and dodge Campbell’s new tactic, high kicks. He could extend his leg straight out in front of him and put a heel in Hoss’s eye if he got the chance. Kept kicking the left leg at him, and Hoss kept avoiding it by rotating up and down through a low crouch and trying to sweep in an ankle kick to get him off his feet. All the while Hoss was keeping his fists at eye level, looking for a strikepath to Campbell’s weak jaw, missing each time they’d been fired so far. Eventually the sparring turned into an open telemark, Campbell leading in a foxtrot’s natural turn, Hoss taking an outside swivel to a feather end, and Campbell doing a planche freeze and bouche fallaway with a weave ending. Where and how the transition occurred from dance to game point no man could say, but it did, and Campbell was up two. Three-one for Campbell.
An unsettled fever coursed through men in the crowd, a mob who felt alternately discouraged by the lack of blood and elated by a brand-new move—some of the more ardent followers of the game even took to circling their hats above their heads—a halo spinning on its stick—as an additional way to applaud.
FIGURE 16.2
Flippin the Bird, aka the Hoss
Calabi’s commentary: The Hoss is an excellent beginner’s move, for it requires only that you properly time your positioning so that you’re ready to send your opponent into the crowd.
What was tha amazing move? squealed one adolescent boy with smelting smoke on his neck and hands and a spar in his mouth that smelled of red-haired hemp.
That’s the Litz, eh, said the man next to him, a foundational move, eh. Pass that here.
That’s a nice move, too {see fig. 16.3}, said the boy.
Hoss finally lost the match to another of Campbell’s brand-new moves, a modern galliard in reverse and so even more baroque, even more abstract, the two men stepping in queue, Hoss behind Campbell, wrists bound in Campbell’s grip. It looked as if any moment Hoss could undermine everything Campbell had planned. And each time the audience sensed Hoss had a window of opportunity, Campbell sensed it too, and the rhythm increased. It didn’t allow either player much room for error, but still it was Hoss who stumbled to keep up. Campbell suddenly torqued Hoss over his back. With his arm behind his back, Campbell had Hoss in an upside-down headlock. Then he let go. It looked like Campbell just let Hoss fall on his ass. Hoss flailed and rolled until he was flat on his back, heezing and wheezing to catch his breath as a paff of dirt resettled around him, on him, in his eyes. He cried and spat and rubbed his chest and lay fetally squirming on the ground while thousands of men cheered his defeat {see fig. 16.4}
FIGURE 16.3
The Litz, alternative sketch
You’ll get yours, said Litz as he came and dragged Hoss back to his side of the ring, and that was also humiliating on top of everything else. But the people loved it.
I’m sorry, Hoss said, finally able to sit up straight. He rubbed away the dirt stuck on his face by spit. There were skids down his chest, bulbs of blood on his elbows. Shit, I’m really fucking sorry.
Not a worry, said Litz. Major move he pulled on you. You played well.
Think so? I listened to what Molly said aboot the fact’s not always aboot the fight, it’s aboot the show. Guess I didn’t learn how to—
Pisk was next to him as well now, and leaning down on his crutches, he said: You lost because you wanted to see what he was doing as much as the rest a us. Don’t worry aboot it. Took me and Litz better part a four months to figure out how to do a Hatched Back. If Campbell’s learning moves like that, he’s practising every day. Who cares? Crowd was entertained, the chickamin is bagged up. Just wait and see how Moe Dee wins it back for us.
I walked out there feeling like I could flip a ship, said Hoss. Dejected and exhausted, he slouched low, and dragging his knuckles between his legs, said: I did it for the looks in the audience.
Calabi’s commentary: The reverse galliard is as difficult as scaling a mountain backwards, and the back-to-front under-arm headlock toss-around should make this move count for two points.
Yeah, said Litz. It’s no problem for us. Moe Dee’ll take him down.
Moe Dee was already naked. He smelled sourly of something no one could put their finger on, an odious smell, a skookum smell. His socks and drawers lay in a steaming apotropaic bundle next to the stable doors, a space unpopulated by mankind within a ten-foot radius; even the horses cowered at the back of their shelters. Dee clapped his hands together, licked his lips, was on his way. He shouldered to the front of the crowd and did not even bother to ask for pardon, whiplashing bohunks, startling dotards, smacking upside the heads of poltroons, salty dogs, navvies crying back: ’The heck are you—oh … Hey, watch yourself, buddy, eh, ah, oh … What the—, ohhhh … Someone’s eyes drifted below the belt got Dee’s elbow in the face. He made a swath through the crowd one elbow at a time. Campbell should have paid attention to those arms. They were the tablets of Moses. Dee fixed himself in the middle of the ring, only five-six feet away from Campbell. He stood with his legs far apart and his hands crossed in front of his chest above that huge waistline, his chin cocked high so that the flaring and dilating of his nostrils was appreciated by all. He said no words, didn’t have to. He was here for one reason. Play the man game and win this time.
Now you’re with Litz and Pisk, too, is that it? said Campbell.
Corr-ect, said Moe Dee.
Well, fuck a duck, said Daggett. You cheats.
You really this afraid a me, Litz? said Campbell.
If you’re so keen to play Litz, said Moe Dee, why you so afraid to play me?
Didn’t say that, said Campbell. Did I look fearful a your useless knees when I gave you that lesson a week ago?
No need for me to introduce Moe Dee, said Litz to the crowd, you already know he plays the man game for us. He’s our second.
A real man don’t fake his injury so as to make a guy compete versus a bohunk, said Campbell, referring to Pisk.
I could beat you if I were legless, said Pisk in his formidable voice, king of the bohunks. A great rallying cheer proved he was still known as the first man of the man game.
Don’t want to waste my talents on this bohunk, said Campbell.
I’m no bohunk, said Moe Dee. Enough talk, let’s settle a score.
Make your bets, cried Clough.
The neurotic surds of wagering began, grew fierce, as passionate as first love, then more tense as time elapsed, the rush of last-moment bets skewing everything until the bookies closed the tables with the most odds on Campbell for a change. Doubtless the results shocked and pleased those men who believed they knew better than to bet on Campbell. In their minds what the results really showed was how many here today had never seen a game.
The competitors shook hands.
Let’s settle this, shouted Campbell, who darted in a leftright zigzag meant to confuse Dee. His flesh remained taut at all angles. Not a ripple of flab on his entire body when he ran. Within spitting distance, he assumed the gestures to begin a private milonga, and that’s when Dee clipped him in the mouth with his elbow. One of those famous slabs. Came out of nowhere and knocked him off his feet. Campbell wailed and threw his hands up in the air, lost his balance, and slammed to the ground, nursing his face {see fig. 16.5} .
Calabi’s commentary: Interrupts any thought, kills any plans. Your opponent expects more from you but reaches a dead stop.
Do that again, Moe Dee said as he brushed his elbow off.
Ten Commandments, someone in the crowd yalped, sounding well and sloshed.
From then on Campbell got nowhere with acrobatics. The flexible impressiveness of his style had the audience on his side, at least in their sympathy if not their bets. He was putting so much into every single gesture he made. Whatever was said about the man, it’s agreed among Ken, Silas, and Cedric that Campbell introduced big style to the game. The philosophy behind Campbell’s approach was that the man game, at its root, was a solo sport; that sparring was pretext and individual style was its most important element. Even within Furry & Daggett’s crew, his ostentation was not always tolerated. Eventually though, swagger would become the norm. Men who favoured Campbell in every match, who were loyal to his style, believed he was directly responsible for the separate strain of man game that appeared around the turn of the twentieth century. In this form, a player did not score a point by forcing his opponent through a move. Instead, a series of face-offs, solo moves where players repeat and advance each other’s tricks, moves, styles, and intimidations, constituted the basis of competition. This Campbellian form was derided by traditionalists, but most players around that time were capable of both. Meanwhile, on that day back in February 1887, Dee just elbowed Campbell in the face or straight cold-cocked him every time he built up some momentum. The audience was easily seduced by Campbell’s baroque movements and sheer flexibility, but Dee was nonplussed. His idea of a man game was a lot closer to the brawls he got into on a regular basis but with a stronger veneer of respectability, the chance for quick money, and a definite sense of personal glory that he never experienced after a night of brawls. If there’d been a rule against shit-kicking Campbell he probably wouldn’t have been naked there on that day in front of so many fools. He liked the man game because it forced him to invent new ways to hurt someone. So when Campbell thought he’d finally succeeded in pulling Dee through a running finish on a double-fast Spanish Layover but ended up losing his footing and going assback on the ground instead, Dee stood up and stepped on his belly, heel first, to grind in the fact that Moe Dee was a serious contender {see fig. 16.6} .
Oof, said Campbell, losing five-one in as many minutes. Easy come, easy go.
The audience was so big and so loud that RH was by this point satisfied that he’d properly fomented the makings of a riot that required serious help—unaware still of the real threat a few blocks south—, so he took his leave of the mill store’s front porch, where he stood side by side with his nearly deported ex-employee Pisk, and proceeded back into his office where he wired the po-lice in Victoria.
An anarchist uprising? cabled back the Victoria po-lice.
Correct, cabled RH.
Reckon?
Thousands.
Minutes later, RH received a cable that the Victoria po-lice would arrive on the next ferry.
So it was arranged. RH checked his visage in the mirror, a grand, fulminating white brow over glacially blue eyes, omnipotent moustache, stone for a jaw, corded neck. Age had not been kind. His deportment in check, he returned to the street and watched the man games awhile longer before heading to the Carter House to reserve enough rooms for Victoria’s entire force.
Now where’s Alexander off to? said Sammy, still watching from above.
Drum up more publicity for my work, assuredly, said his wife, dragging on her third Stars & Stripes of the hour.
He laughed; she was probably right. But was she on edge?
FIGURE 16.6
The Point and Click, early sketch
What rattling was she hoping to quell by her many cigarettes? He did not ask, regretting it later. For isn’t acknowledgment half the solution?
Moe Dee took Campbell five-one, a huge turnaround from his spectacular loss a week ago. Then he moved on to Boyd. Boyd got two points on him early and then Dee took the next three. In his second point, part stranglehold, Moe Dee made Boyd faint straight away. When Boyd awoke, his skin was lavender. There was blood in his nose. He lost five-two. Then Dee took down Smith five-three. Moe Dee was flabbergasting everyone.
How’s he learned to do all this? said a fellow at the Bar Rústico.
Must be a natural, said Miguel, with a crick in his neck that made washing cups a chore, still smarting from the memory of his turn as executioner.
Dee’s final move of the night was to grab and twist one of Smith’s pectorals with enough strength to actually flip his opponent off his feet, send him spinning through the air to land doubled over in pain. Moves like these were quickly making Dee the most loved and feared character in the man game {see fig. 16.7} .
FIGURE 16.7
The Totoosh Twister
Calabi’s commentary: A variation on the Point and Click that prefers a clench to a punch. A move like this turns opponents into enemies.
A lot of bettors made their disappointment in Furry & Daggett’s team known. That’s what you get, believed Vancouver men, when you trust a one-armed coach. One after the other Dee felled their crew. Daggett cursed every chance he got. His partner Furry punched a horse to the ground when he saw Boyd lose.
What’s the holdup, Clough? cried those among the crowd who felt swindled and snookered. Whatever the final result, Dee was the big winner of the night. Having dealt with three men, he stood to pocket in the neighbourhood of a hundred dollars.
By the time Meier came out of his clothes and onto the pitch, Dee must have been tired. A ghastly sight was Meier, whose loyalty to his fellows at this moment was truly murderous. With teeth and fists held tight as caskets he seethed and hissed at Dee in his fury, standing in his own shadow, ominously, as if he carried a pestilent aura.
Dee swallowed his acid reflux.
Shaking hands, Dee got his start the old-fashioned way, turning his body right around and backflipping onto Meier’s shoulders, taking the initiative for a Gone Fishin {see fig. 16.8} , at which point, contrary to tendency, Meier ran straight forward (not falling back) and tossed Dee into the crowd, who launched him back into the circle where Meier decked him so hard across the face that Dee completed a three-sixty whirling through the air, his fall broken by Meier’s knee catching him on his stomach, winding him so completely that his grovelling around on the dirt looked like death throes.
FIGURE 16.8
Gone Fishin, alternative sketch;
the ascent before the leap
Meier received the point, and the move was later named Knuckles on the Bar {no illustration yet found}.
At the time, Dee argued that because no one had ever done it before it couldn’t be a move, but Pisk said it was good, awarded Meier the point, and aimed to try that one himself sometime.
Meier was unlikely to be in good shape for his next fight, against Litz. Dee and Meier were two serious bruisers, and both were whipped top to bottom by the time it was over. Even still, Meier beat Dee by only one point using a Somersaulting Carpenter.
I crapped out at the end there, said Dee to Litz and Pisk afterwards.
No, for Christ—you were slaughtering out there, said Litz. Where’d you learn to—
You fishing for compliments or points or what? said Pisk.
No, I—
You beat three a those dudes, said Pisk. Be happy for yourself, eh. Meanwhile two a those dudes should a been for Litz. Who do you think you are?
I just meant—
What do you think so far? said Molly, looking down at her men.
Call down to Langis. I want to put ten dollars on Meier to
take Litz.
Ten dollars? I feel lucky.
Are you s-sure?
Are you really behind all this? Every detail? Was Smith to go out when he did? Is Litz sure to win the next game? These are my questions, Chinook.
Oh, Chinooky, she said, and swatted him. You tease me. Do you really care to know? Don’t you like it?
I do, I really do.
It’s funny, isn’t it?
It is, yes. I may not have laughed aloud when Dee stopped to pick Boyd’s tooth out of his kneecap, but I saw the humour regardless.
Would I marry a man who didn’t love theatre?
He gazed at her, gazed at her soul all the way to the other side of this very weakness that pinned him down, and saw his solution in the watery green lakes of her gorgeous, maieutic eyes. This was one of the not infrequent occasions when his love was acutely defined by the panic he felt at the possibility of losing her.
Litz and Meier shook hands and Litz didn’t let go. It was exactly what Clough had cautioned would happen. Meier tried the swift body flinch Clough had taught him, but it didn’t work and soon they were in a tug-of-war over Meier’s fingers inside Litz’s ever more pinching claw.
Ow ow ow ow ow, said Meier. Litz had him in a brutal handshake, to the point that Meier sank to his knees in tears. His tears soaked his beard.
Clough shouted: Get the fuck back on your feet.
Meier was clenching his teeth and screaming: Oh, please somebody make him stop. He flipped flat on his back when Litz rotated the handshake a little so that if Meier didn’t lie down it felt like his arm was going to pop out of its shoulder, elbow, and wrist sockets and all the tendons were going to rip apart like splintered trees. He begged Litz to stop, at which point Litz did a one-handed cartwheel and whiplashed Meier back on his feet. Still in his grip, Litz used the momentum to send himself flying over Meier’s head, rotating their locked arms in space. When he landed he was still attached to Meier. He dug his heels in the dirt and chucked Meier over his head one more time. He let go and Meier sailed into the crowd {see fig. 16.9} .
The critics responded:
What—
’The fuck—
Did you see that? Did you see that? Mother—
—’Fucker.
That was some fancy footwork.
First point to Litz, said Calabi, putting nib to pad.
For fuck’s sake—, screamed Daggett. ’The hell was that? Don’t tell me he meant that. No one means to do that. It don’t make sense to look at.
That’s the Flipping Handshake, said Vicars, hopefully.
’The fuck asked you?
No answer from Vicars.
That’s no move, said Clough. That’s purely accidental. The wind helped.
You saw as clear as anybody here, said Litz. It’s my point. Call it whatever name you want, I’ll show you the same handshake right now if you want, he said to Clough, reaching for his one hand. I’m a ballpeen hammer nailing you. I’m going to put each a you in the earth like a railroad spike. You see what I did to your poor friend Meier? The same for you two.
Not so much as a bead of perspiration lay on Litz’s body. The audience was a little slow to comprehend the difficulty of the move. Litz made it look like no more of a challenge than handwriting, something for experts, not masters. But then it became clear, in reviewing the move in their minds, that it was physically impossible, and that Litz was a god. Flick you off the ends a my fingers, he said to Meier, dancing riotously in the sudden applause. Litz was flexed at every step. Top condition. His skin looked thicker than cured meat.
FIGURE 16.9
The Somersaulting Carpenter,
aka the Flipping Handshake
Calabi’s commentary: This move requires plenty a space and a limber opponent.
Happened so quickly, said Sammy, upstairs. I hardly had time to focus. How did he do that?
Litz has such long arms, said Molly, and he’s firmly planted on the ground. It took us a few weeks to perfect it.
Only has a few moves, then?
When I was in Moscow, in three days an old master taught me, oh, it must be hundreds a dances. I learned how the body remembers. I can teach this way, so that the body remembers very easily. And now you see, it’s been how long? six months we practise the man game?
Has it been so long? I see. The moves they must know …
Shh, she said, catching the insinuation in his voice. Oh, Sammy. Come to your senses. I would not betray you even in death. These are sportsmen. I love them as a prayer loves God, unrequited. Laughing at herself, she said: Quite unrequited. When will you trust me? When will you end your jealousies?
When we send our first child to war.
Our first child …, she said. Would you like to give me a child?
I’m not so foolish as to try to contain you with motherhood.
Motherhood would not contain me. Oh, try being kind to me for once. I’m so upset that you don’t enjoy the man game.
I do, darling, I really do.
And so it was that the dodges and parries of love continued on upstairs while down below, surrounded by hate, Litz taught Meier how to do the Hudson’s Bay Blankets, bearing down on him with all his weight.
I’m going to put you in figure-four leglocks, Litz said, walking past the audience, shaking hands with the hoi polloi, talking to Meier in high swagger. He took big tramping steps around the circle and snuck up behind and baited and swiped at Meier, just out of pleasure, then swooped in and connected, startling his opponent with the swiftness of ice water. He jammed Meier up at the knees in a rugged mazurka and broke him down, merciless. It wasn’t even a move. He bragged about what he was going to do to Meier in very specific terms and then spooked him out completely by doing it, half-finished moves, crabbing up him and readying his forehead for a headbutt just to prove he could do the Wishful Thinking at any moment and finish him off. Litz did half a move, and then did the same half backwards. He made Meier look like a raggedy doll with no control over his own body. He was humiliating Furry & Daggett and they sure knew it. Clough was shaking his fist at him. Men in the crowd routinely took their hats off their heads, slapped themselves in the face with them, and said: How the fuck—? Tongues lolled below moustaches. Moustaches yellow-brown from smoking tobacco. Tongues grey-black from chewing tobacco. Jesus fuck—, they said. Motherfuck—, they said. Holy shi—, they said. He came in from above, moving with airy swiftness, and did his moves inside a blink.
I’m going to lean you over my shoulder like a blanket, fold you in four directions, throw you in the corner and get a dog to fall asleep on you {see fig. 16.10} .
FIGURE 16.10
Hudson’s Bay Blankets
Calabi’s commentary: Convince your opponent to flop across your back and carry him for twenty paces before dumping him.
Again, the entire crowd gasped.
Watch these murderous acrobatics, said Litz. Watch me paint you like a sign and nail you to the wall. I’m the ballpeen hammer, he repeated.
The next move ended with an unneccessary but instantly popular swooping gutkick that sent Meier into the crowd so hard that whole sections collapsed on top of each other like a pile of kindling sticks, Chinaman upon Chinaman, laughing with pigtailed glee. Hoisting Meier to his feet, they tossed him back into the ring for game point, limping to his fate, even dropping to a knee, head doozy, looking airless. Litz put his hands on Meier’s chest and held him standing. One of Meier’s eyes was bruised shut, the other wasn’t focusing more than a bit.
You’re making it look too easy, Litz said under his breath.
I’m fucked, said Meier.
Bullshit, said Litz, you’re lazy. He grabbed his partner’s wrists and took Meier through a fast waltz, dipped him once, waltzed back again even faster, dipped him again, then, after an enchanted pause, let him drop. It was standard vaudeville, but it was enough to win Litz the match. Five-zero. Shut out. Meier lay there, mouth ajar, his one decent eye looking stunned.
Cheering reached insurrectionary levels.
Litz stared down his challengers. Furry and Daggett alone remained. They seemed decently impressed with how speedily Litz had mopped up their best crewmate. Despite the unwavering poker faces, their respect was still visible in their shifting feet and hip swivels, plenty enough exposed weakness for the audience to see they’d taken a personal blow. True that Litz was a stark figure there in the chill, steaming. Undressed and unbeaten, inarguably the best player on toed feet. Anyone in his right mind would be intimidated.
Vicars was talking his mouth off.
Pisk, the crippled eidolon, prime number among the real fractions, leaned down and said to Vicars: Listen, brother, I never seen you before in my life, but let me put a bug in your ear, eh. Listen, I know you like what you see. But there’s things you missed in those moves. You didn’t see it all. It happens too fast. That’s Litz’s style. He’s the fastest man game player you’ll ever see. If you saw all he did you wouldn’t be talking right now, you’d be shut the fuck up.
When Furry motioned that he’d play next, the gamblers started their exchanges. Litz’s preference would have been Daggett, but it wasn’t his decision. Daggett, like Pisk, was their first. Furry cracked his knuckles and shadowboxed while Clough and Daggett remained in a tight huddle speaking in fast suggestions. Furry came over to them now and again and agreed with everything they said, then went back to his preparations.
Clough said: Don’t even think a yourself as a man when you’re oot there, eh. Think a yourself as a predator. You’re a fucking bear. You’re a grizzly bear.
I’m a grizzly bear, said Furry.
You’re no human. You’re the fiercest maddest most dangerous beast around. You’re Furry. You know who you are?
I’m Furry.
You remember when we just started out in this forest, and we ran upon a lone wolf, half-starved, wanting us for a meal?
Yeah, I remember.
Remember how when he lunged at you, you hacked that wolf’s head right off his neck?
Yeah.
With your bare hands, man?
Yeah.
Well, that’s what you’re going to do to Litz right now.
Yeah.
Where’re the Chinamen getting all their money for betting on? said a dusty gambler in the line to make a bet. The men around him turned their attention to the Chinamen and their money piling up in Calabi’s leather bellysack. The Chinamen bet with a kind of melancholic addiction to the act itself, the transaction. Addicted to the point of purchase. They revered the moment of delivering their money into the hands of Fate. They did so quietly, with unequivocal manners and inordinate subservience. I’m not letting some Chinee outbet me, the dusty guy said, shaking his changepocket. When he got to Langis and asked how much the Chinamen had bet, Langis told him they usually started at a dollar. A dollar, eh, said the bohunk, fidgeting his money. Well, gully-gee, where the fuck they getting all their blankets from, eh? That’s a lot a chickamin.
Are you making a bet or what? I got a line goes twenty deep behind you, sonny, said Dr. Langis.
Yeah, yeah, okay, sorry, he said. Fuck, make it a dollar and a nickel on Litz.
Show it. The kid gave Langis his money and Langis wrote it up in his book. All right, next, said Langis.
Litz didn’t acknowledge he even had a competitor until Furry was out of his clothes. This was Vancouver’s first chance to evaluate Furry’s physique. Litz’s gaze was especially prudent. He looked Furry over bottom to top. The man was seven-eight feet tall by all accounts. His shoulders fit an ox’s yoke. He was an even huger version of Litz, also long-armed. His knuckles were freshly scabbed. The mouth on his face was turned down with an almost sickened expression, as if he’d just swallowed all the blood from a fat mosquito in his mouth, and he regarded Litz with genuine unhappiness in his eyes. A man born for disobedience, for the woods of British Columbia. The look in his eyes had that hideous directness, like a bear’s eyes, of pure intelligent blood instinct.
Ever heard a bear-baiting? Litz asked. Ever heard a when they stick a bear until the old boy bleeds to death? That’s what I’m going to do to you, you fat Furry bear. I’m going to bleed you dry, you bear-faced bohunk.
Furry said nothing. Furry was staring down his nose at him.
Forget your talk, Litz, said Daggett from the sidelines. We’re not afraid a you. Furry’s up there at Wood’s knocking on your wife the day you married her, and what a you do aboot it, cry? Sure, and then you get. Go hide out in the skookum and keep your wife locked up to keep her away from our door.
That so?
True, I remember Litz’s wife, said Furry in his dry dog voice, I went at her for aboot a week there just before she left Wood’s. Yeah, we got something in common, me and you, Litz. Your wife. Guh, I thought there was something, but then next week … naw, it was nothing.
You cross a line here, said Litz. Don’t cross that line.
Already did, said Furry. I left it wet for you.
The crowd’s mouths were open. No one spoke. It was Sunday. It felt like Sunday in the silence, like just before the Messiah comes to strike them all down. The silence even grander with the mill shut down. Indian silence. Litz’s reaction: He didn’t have a word of comeback, didn’t even curse. All his swaggering talk ended there. This man game was going to be on different grounds, and Litz was already feeling it. Eventually his eyes cooled. He walked to the centre of the pitch and they shook hands, two shakes, and began to make their cautious circles. Furry stood bent at the knees, crabbing to the side as Litz repositioned himself step by step, breathing through his teeth, his hands clenching and splaying. Then he was on Furry with knees and knuckles. He could move at windspeed, a sensation that got Furry ducking in an uncontrolled and precarious way, like a man at the barrel end of a pistol, giving Litz the opportunity to switch it up, change tacks, deke him out, and land beside him. To save his landing he took Furry’s wrists and yanked him into a series of bouncing twists like a jig, put him in a headlock, and drove his face into the ground. The first point went to Litz {see fig. 16.11}. Clough was outraged. He shook his fist and spat and swore to God. It happened too quickly. No one was sure but Furry, who respectfully conceded it.
Calabi’s commentary: If your opponent isn’t perceptive enough to stall you with a Bookend, this move transfers all your travel speed onto the unmoving target, whose entire body screws around to compensate, and all you must do is guide the head towards the ground to score.
Over the woodsmen’s pandemonium, their gobsmacked shouting, Sammy realized he could account for it all. He saw these naked men in a new light. Instead of brutes, suddenly they were professionals, accountants of their own charts, artists without canvas, just as the lion tamer is an artist, the strongman, or the singing Jew in greasepaint and straw hat—all artists, or at least, entertainers.
At last he saw the man game as she meant for him to see it. Instead of competing with it for her affections, he realized he was somehow at the centre of the game, a missing centre. The man game had been created for his amusement, all for him. A gift from his wife. Could it be true, he wondered, that all this time I’ve misunderstood?
I really am enjoying myself. Immensely, said Sammy. Why, I can even feel a smile appearing on my face.
Oh, how wonderful, said Molly. Do you really mean it?
Yes, I do. I think I may smile.
I don’t see it yet.
It’s coming. Be patient. I might need to watch another few moves.
It’s been so long since I’ve seen you smile, said Molly. If you do, I think I’ll cry.
Can’t promise anything, but I do feel more joy today than ever since the accident.
I love you so dearly, said Molly, kissing him. I only ever want to entertain you, Chinook.
You have, he said.
No one but you can understand the man game properly, she said. I made it for you. Whatever you kumtuks now, then that’s the truth.
Campbell said: It were the hugest upset in the history a the man game so far. Never seen nothing like it. A spectacle unparalleled. There might a been a good many men who put his money on Furry but he hardly could expect to see his gamble’s fruits. No one seen Furry play before. I mean, I saw him learn these moves, but. I mean, and everybody knows how I play the man game. It’s a matter a education to bet on me. But Furry? Furry, he’s my boss, but he was an unknown integer to the town. And here’s Litz, you should a seen him. Lean. Leaner than a creek in the heat a summer. Nothing but stones. Is that my beer or your beer?
The bar was filled past capacity with keg drinkers. The siphon tubes streamed and foamed endlessly into mug after greasy mug as the night wore on. Fortes collected on old tabs and totted up new ones. The player piano went a-rinky-dadinky-dink-dink-da-rink, and the Irish sang along. Beer dripped off beards. The only women in the crowd were tattoos, excepting Molly of course (muse of all tattoos), who accompanied her crippled husband Mr. Erwagen, feeding him beer. They sat happily in the corner, laughing along with the stories, lies, and gaffs of the night’s scandal. She had an erotic way of tipping the mug to Sammy’s mouth then turning her bamboo wrist to daub the foam off his lip. Her ministrations were nurselike, and her remedy was the best beer in the world. Sunnyside delight.
At another table near where Campbell was grousing on to almost anyone who’d listen with stories of that Sunday a week ago when Litz beat Furry, other men argued over details of the day.
I’m Meier, said Meier, stressing not the pronunciation but the importance of his name. ’The fuck you know aboot me? Matter fact don’t say shit. Tired a hearing bohunks talking not make sense. Fucking tell you how it went, eh. I was robbed, and Furry was robbed. That’s how it went. Pure robbery. Litz, he’s no better than that damn Indian we strung up. If Litz played straight? That match would a been ours for the taking. He used the hovering technique and that is illegal. Starts off they meet, shake hands, and Litz is instantly trying to box him, shooting left jabs and hooks, and Furry’s putting up with it somewhat. Takes one swipe and you can tell Litz is trying to get him to do the Daggett, eh. He’s frustrated Furry’s not going for it. ’Course Furry knows Litz is trying to insult him. Trying to act tough swiping fists a hair from Furry’s nose. He’s trying to make Furry do the Daggett, eh. Not funny. Well, he dodged low and went in for the Hatched Back, scooping Furry up onto his back, spinning him around … and besides Campbell already did a Hatched Back, and better.
I declare a rematch in order, said Terry Berry.
And I second that, said Vicars.
Wa, said all.
Meanwhile, over near the back of the bar, a black shade partly lifted in Sammy’s world. Though he was still as ever trapped in his wheeled chair and unable to move below the neck, Sammy sat in the bar with a different face. It was as if in the space of a week—a week since seeing the man game dedicated to him, from his wife—the spectrum of his identity had grown dramatically more arrayed.
Shall there be more discoveries, he asked aloud, his wife listening with affection. Shall I ever walk again? Or will I live out my days as a mind poised against the physical dimension? Or will this enlightenment bode well for my impediments? God has taken care a me thus far, Molly, despite my own worst intentions. I should like to imagine that if I am given the right motivation, He would send me to my feet again.
Sammy was an old man. He was another generation older than everyone around him. The men in the Sunnyside saloon were seventeen, eighteen. Bright faces, tanned by labour. They had fisherman’s hands, pink and big enough to touch thumb to fingers when fisting a beer pitcher. A trapper’s education, on their knees in the forest smelling yesterday’s turd. Portaging across Manitoba at the age of fifteen, weighted down by rabbit pelts, dreaming of mother’s milk. Scared and alone, far from their families, they became dangerous men. Half-wild from a lack of civilization, they looked upon the streets with a cougar’s suspicion. They had a cougar’s smarts. They had bear’s eyes, bear’s claws, bear’s hair.
If there’s any one event that Ken, Silas, and Cedric all agree was a catalyst for the man game to proceed from its original players of 1887 to a citywide phenomenon by 1900, with teams, leagues, divisions, and an economy, it was taking place this very moment, as the next generation of players listened to Furry & Daggett’s crew tell their official histories. The men not only listened, they planned their own comeups. Their own secret plans were already starting to hatch. To prove themselves, these men would go out and create their own moves, and strip to challenge the very men they once hoped to befriend.
Where are Furry and Daggett? Why aren’t they here?
Boyd said: Forget that. Any time you see Furry or Daggett you got to be prepared to play them the man game, eh.
I heard they challenged George Black.
Yeah, said Campbell, and the butcher declined like a mink. That going to be you?
Twenty-seven years old and two hundred seventy pounds, Smith had the wisdom of a dog. If you tested his loyalty to Furry and Daggett his revenge knew no boundaries; the man was known to kick down homesteads. His audience of intent young men had everything to prove. Okay, he said slowly, Litz did a Corker. Furry did a Hatched Back. Then he did a Rook Takes Pawn, that was his second point. The Litz was Furry’s fourth move, I’m sure a that, because I remember it caused a big uproar. Just before Litz did the Medical Breakthrough, and that’s what won him the game. A Medical Breakthrough won him it, because there was no denying he meant to do that. That was his plan all along, to finish him off with the Medical. Damn. Litz, ah, let’s see, his third point was a Point and Click. I remember now. That’s where instead a landing flat on top a Furry, he flipped it wrong so he was landing on his belly, eh. You can call that an easy point but you see how fast Litz moves; for Furry to get in there and gutpunch him like he did, that’s what deserves the point. I don’t care what you say.
But man, that was some Totoosh Twister Moe Dee pulled earlier, eh? said a fan. Woo, can’t wait to see that again.
And Campbell, directing his stern glare to the corner table by the bronze bust of the Queen where the cowboy RD Pitt and the Knights of Labour sat in the seventh moon of a crapulent bender, said: And then, because a some stupid shit aboot a riot, someone called in the Victoria po-lice. All the way over on the ferry just to put an end to our game. Fucking swear to you, just when you think we get the po-lice back on our side, some dry turd from Alberta’s got to roll in and ruin everything for everyone.
Nothing changes, said Pitt, recognizing that Campbell put all the blame on him. You’re all still in his pocket as usual.
No, we’re not.
Look, all your guys’s playing your fucking man game right there on the man’s goddamn porch, for Chrissakes. Hassings Mill, fuck, eh. You think this is rebellion. I’m rebellion. You’re all vaudeville, thassall.
Your fault the whole thing—
Don’t go blaming me for changing things, said Pitt. If you weren’t around I’d a had thousands a men down there to really change some fucking things. You do your fellow men a disservice not joining the labour movement. You do yourself a disservice. Who you think’s going to take care a you when industry hits hard? You think RH’s going to have a sudden change a heart? Fuck, eh, you can’t be indolent aboot this. Alls you guys, said Pitt, sweeping his hands across the room, do a disservice to yourselfs.
You do a disservice to the labour movement, said Meier.
Why I oughtta … said Pitt, trying ingloriously to stand.
Pisk would a taken Daggett, said Vicars to Campbell. Would a beat him something stealthy.
That’s yet to be decided, said Meier, eager to change the subject.
Campbell took the deep breath that Clough advised for situations such as this (Take a deep breath and go privately punch the ground as soon as you can, was his precise advice), when he wanted to crack someone’s head in.
Pisk would’ve taken both him and Furry. No doubt. Maybe Furry gets two points on him. After what I saw. Even with no toes, Pisk would a taken him. Daggett the same treatment only worse.
Get the fuck out a this bar, said Meier. I never want to see your face in here again.
What, I—
The losers drank in private with their coach, Clough, who knew where to get the best bootleg. They sat around the light of a single candle, gripping their tumblers and repouring skinfuls. The wax melted down one side of the stick and solidified again as layers of dribble and a smooth elliptical gobbet on the tin plate. They drank ruminatively. The loss at the man game the other week had not dampened their rage. Their breath provoked the candle’s flame, and shadows palpitated on their faces.
Calling out Pisk is a good plan, said Clough. Pisk might accept the wager as meaning you and all your men will leave town if you—
Who said anything aboot losing? said Daggett. Not going to lose. And I know Pisk. Guy, he’ll take the bet. I’m not worried aboot that cripple.
If there’s chickamin to be made in this game, said Furry, then I want it in our pockets. We got to take out the competition, and rule this city.
Then we better practise our hearts oot, said Clough. You got to be top shape if you’re going to win this for sure. Daggett, are you listening to me, man? I want to be coaching you every day, morning, noon, and night. Are you with me?
Furry raised an eyebrow to his partner, and they nodded to each other. I’m with you, said Daggett. They clinked glasses and swigged back.
When Clough left Furry & Daggett’s logging camp, heading home to his shack, he was stopped at knifepoint by a figure draped in black. A great steel blade flickered at him. Black hood, black jacket, black pants, like an adder with a steel tongue, leaping from the grey ferns.
The mugger.
Well, I’ll be, you’re real after all, said Clough. Can’t believe I didn’t sight you sooner.
Shh, said the mugger.
The blade cut through the moonlight. Clough raised his arm. He couldn’t take his eyes off the blade.
Okay, my arms are up, he said. How did you elude me so long?
The mugger backed him against the wall of Red & Rosy’s and frisked him. Clough held still. The knife came close enough. Took his fob watch and moneypurse before he even noticed. Waiting for his moment. In order to check his jacket pockets, the mugger had to very slightly adjust his balance, and that’s when Clough saw his chance and socked the mugger on the top of his head with an elbow, stepped on his hand and retrieved the blade, pulled off the mugger’s headscarf to reveal the face of a Chinaman.
And me with one arm, said Clough. You rat … Pulling the mugger by the collar back into the street. Come on now. Now what have we here … what’s that, eh?
When he saw the mugger in better light, he realized that his prisoner was only a boy. Nine years old, according to his uncle, who came to see him in the prison mews. He regarded the boy sullenly, as if only annoyed by something that should be more horrible. The mayor himself visited Clough to thank him for capturing the mugger.
You’re welcome, Mister Mayor, said Clough.
Shaking his hand, Mayor McLean whispered in Clough’s ear: Shut the fuck up, you lying no good … make a big deal out a this and you and all your kind are through, you hear?
The following day the Daily Advertiser’s headline read: A DEMENTED CHINAMAN; LOCAL HERO CAPTURES WANTED MAN; ACCEPTS NO REWARD IN RETURN FOR VANCOUVER’S NOTORIOUS MUGGER; WISHES NAME BE WITHHELD FROM PRINT … What is yet another example of the scourge of the Orient upon our civilized society, or what we nobly attempt to be civilized … it was confirmed that the mugger who has been terrorizing our streets was indeed, as long suspected, a Chinaman … The mugger, when apprehended, turned out to be nothing more than a greedy Chinaman, his face well-known among the denizens of the many disreputable businesses whose entrances are found in Chinatown’s many sulphuric and unGodly alleyways … The mugger is but a symptom of what ails our city. The increase in Asiatics has seen an increase in crime, disease, and poverty. He will be hanged to the death next Sunday at the first strike of noon.
The first strike of noon. I read that scrap back to everyone in the basement. What ails our city, I quoted. Asiatics.
We have information here, said Ken. We have a serious amount of bookkeeping and news clippings and illegible scraps. And there’s also my great-great grandfather’s diaries. Samuel Erwagen. Nothing after summer 1907, Vancouver’s second riot.
That’s when you think the man game ended?
The man game never ended, said Cedric, using his gross fingers to ramp up the crooked stairs and climb perilously hand over foot to the landing. At the kitchen he called for me to start my ascent.
Due to my gangliness, I found the hoist from the basement sofa to the staircase undemanding, and my long legs and enviable reach propelled me up to the landing in what felt like no more than two steps. I met Cedric at the top and called down to Minna that I could help her if she needed a hand. I kept my arm outstretched for her, kind of spotting her. But she didn’t need any help. Ken and Silas followed her with ease. After years of living here, it wasn’t surprising they got up the staircase so quickly, but I wondered how long it had taken them to master it. To keep themselves busy while we talked, Ken and Silas tried to see which of them could jump to a seated position on top of the fridge first, no-handed. From Ken’s first leap it was obvious this wasn’t going to take up much time. He wasn’t tall, and the game hadn’t occurred to them before now, but after Silas managed to get the exact right height on his first jump, Ken’s second attempt got him sitting on the fridge, but just barely, shaking the appliance as he landed. It finally tossed him off, unpuckering the door and rattling the condiments, leaving it to Silas to make the win.
Damn, said Ken.
Yeah, that’s aboot what we figure, Cedric was saying to me and Minna. Looking through these records downstairs? What we can tell is that nothing has happened with the man game since the summer a 1907 till now. When we started playing it last fall. That was probably the first time it’d been played since.
Cool, I said, noncommittally.
The day a the riot in ’87 there was a major game. There was a few major games that were documented. That one, and the one on Dominion Day in 1887, too.
What happened at the riot? I asked.
Guess we should be going, said Minna.
Say what? I said. I’m just starting to admit I’m interested in this.
Look at him, said Cedric to Minna, pointing to me. He’s all ears. He wants to know if he can join up.
Squeaking and stretching out her arms, baring her midriff. All us men peeked. Smiles on, hoping to be the first face to meet her eyes when they opened again. The other boys were unlucky, but not me.
P’raps you’re right, I said. It’s almost three o’clock.
Okay, said Silas, kind of drooping his head to talk to us on the landing, where I already had our coats on.
Sounds good, said Ken. Yeah, you should definitely come back and check it oot again.
You should practise sometime, Cedric said and pointed at me. We could use a fourth to really get this going.
I laughed along with Minna and waved goodbye. I said: It was really cool to meet you guys, thanks.
Yeah, let me give you my email, said Silas who got a pen and paper.
When we got back to the car, I saw there was a strandy tangle of what I thought was torn stocking but turned out to be human hair wrapped around the muffler pipe and the rear axle of my Dynasty. I walked up and bent down on my knees and inspected.
I’m beside myself, I said.
Don’t touch, don’t touch, ew, ew.
I tried to pull the hair away but when I touched it, I was repulsed. The instant my fingertips were on the black hair I could tell she had used a quality shampoo. I backed away. It’s silky smooth, I said, wincing and rubbing my fingers together to rid them of the horror.
Why?
I did not know.
Do you remember running over someone?
I said: I’d remember running over a woman with silky smooth hair. I’d remember. Someone must have put it there.
Hearing no more objections from Minna, I got into the driver’s seat and keyed the ignition. She slid into the passenger side and did up her seatbelt. Those were nice guys, she said, putting her feet on the dashboard and unlacing her shoes. She started to say more but I interrupted.
Nice, I said, hitting the signal as I turned left at a corner. Nice. Yes, I said. They were very nice.
Well, I don’t know. I thought they were nice enough to show us around the house. And explain what the hell they were doing. Showed us the archives.
The archives. Those archives were designed to suffocate. Those were the archives a some troubled incoherent person’s whatever. No one could ever form that.
I bet you could, she said.
Who me?
Yes, you. Who else? Come on, admit you loved that.
I continued to drive. I drove past who cares. I drove past never mind. I drove past forget it. Even as I drove my disapproval faltered.
I thought you loved that kind a stuff, she said, all that unknown weird.
I do.
We argued for another few minutes while I tried to concentrate on the road. The pace of traffic this far east and south of my own neighbourhood was completely different, and I was having trouble adapting. Because of a strange congestion of right-lane traffic all wanting to get back into my lane from a dead stop I was a little tense. The lane was edged by leafless cherry trees. We passed a family of condos, the last of which was wrapped in tarp and scaffold while a construction team replaced all the rain-damaged cladding and fixed the many many leaks. I was in an unfamiliar part of town, but the problems were the same.
She grilled me on the man game but spared me the embarrassment of acknowledging that I was completely lost. My sense of direction was mucked with by the crescents and cul-de-sacs and the plenty of very similar truffle-brown townhouses with matching gateways. Then I saw the WALLY’S BURGERS sign in the middle distance and I felt my inner compass wheel violently back to north as I aimed us for Kingsway. At last, a street I knew. It was three in the afternoon. Blue sky had been replaced by shades of dishwater pink that moved smoothly over town. In an hour it would be night. Now the coverlet was approaching us all. Beyond its pale inestimable surface glowed an administrative light. It was an office ceiling, an indoor fluorescence that reminded me it was back to work tomorrow, and that we were driving to Knight Street to buy me a bed for tonight’s sleep. My new roommate said he wasn’t going to get a bed, choosing instead to sleep on a blanket on top of a couple layers of bifurcated foam that my parents bought me at the Hudson’s Bay downtown and which I offered him when we decided to move in together. He started to refer to himself as a prisoner of conscience, which perhaps left me in the position of warden. Why did it seem so perplexing to us that we were single? I was about to buy a bed out of an aluminum shed in the backyard of Minna’s Chinese connection.
As we snaked down Kingsway and turned on to Knight Street, I kept one eye on the street numbers and another on Minna’s thighs, pinched together on the blue velour car seat, jiggling to the rap music. I suppressed the violent urge to put my hand between her legs and rub the seam of her jeans with my middle finger. The urge was serious enough to consider—for only a moment—the idea of begging. The sky was a peptic colour, a cherry milk coating over the entire atmosphere. From a romantic context, I can see how this sky might have aphrodisiacal properties. But this was not a romance. I was not in a world where pink skies meant pink thighs, and every lonely man goes home with that which he desires most. I lived in a quieter world. I didn’t want to live in this world any longer.
She said: That’s the most beautiful sky I’ve ever seen. Oh, she squealed, and grabbed my knee and held it, rubbing and scolding (smak-smak-smak); she said: What a perfect day. I can’t believe it. We have such fun together, don’t we?
Hey, Minna, I said, steering this way and that. You know, I know we’ve gone over this before. When I kissed you that time last February, but anyway ha ha … And I realize we agreed to just be friends. But heck, I don’t know. I tried to see if I could be your friend, but actually I still am very hot for you.
Ha ha, she laughed, and tossed her head back, her feet going up on the dashboard again. Oh, Kat. That’s so sweet. I had no idea. Oh my god, that’s so sweet. Are you serious?
You’re impossible. You really couldn’t tell? All this time? What should we do? Marriage? Do you feel the same way? Are you hot for me, or what?
How many times a day do we have to have this conversation?
Look, I said, turning a corner, we’ve arrived.
Yes, she said, this is it.
We parked. The house across the street was about what I expected: painted a mud-brown that was old and cracked, shades pulled over all the windows, a marginally taller than average fence. Not enough to draw attention, but enough to keep away prying eyes. There was a sign on the wire gate that said: BEWARE OF DOGS. Dog had been pluralized by Jiffy marker. I made note of that. I was about to buy a bed from this place. And indeed I saw the storage unit at the back of the yard where he kept them. It was made of large sheets of corrugated plastic and aluminum, very filthy in the gutters, connected using ashy two by fours crawling with pumice-green lichen. This was where he kept the mattresses apparently.
Maybe he’s not home and we should not come back, I said.
She walked up to the gate and looped her fingers through the wire. Immediately the house was alive with the sounds of the two beasts, barking loud enough behind insulated walls to pose a realistic threat.
Beware a dogs, I said.
Relax, she said.
No, I distinctly read the word beware. It doesn’t say, Relax, There’s Dogs. It says—
Okay, enough out a you.
He was a short, stout, middle-aged east-side Asian with a bowl cut, a strip-mall sweater, and denims. And sure enough, pit bulls. He held them on a short leash at the top of the staircase using his back to hold the screen door open. The pit bulls were scowling and slobber dangled off their teeth in ropes. Whenever they barked the saliva flew into the air, and he shortened the leash and told them to be quiet. With pit bulls it doesn’t even look like rage, I thought to myself, it looks like blind pain. I was standing beside my Dynasty while Minna stood with her fingers through the gate, explaining we were here to buy a bed, dogs howling at her.
What’s the name a your dogs? Minna asked.
Remember me? Minna called out to him. I came here and bought a bed from you last year?
Looking her over, he shooed the two dogs back through the screen door, throwing their leashes along with them, and shut it firmly. Wiping his hands on his pale jeans, he walked down the stairs to meet us at the gate. Very protective, he said, and unlatched the gate to let us enter his backyard. What you looking for? Bed? he asked, and led the way to the shed. The troughs were thick with leaves; you could see them in the light from inside the shed, which was indeed stocked with beds, ten in total, five queens and five doubles stacked side by side, with matching boxsprings and metal frames. The mattresses were in fairly good to spongy condition, with few if any seriously unacceptable stains. They were all of a brand, pale blue and slippery to touch, with typical white piping along the edges. A tarpaulin on the floor kept them from resting right on the wet concrete. They were used mattresses to be sure. They were essentially being stored outside. Too late to be squeamish about it. I waved my eyebrows at Minna and she nodded like get a move on. I took a look at the queens. I asked how much all included.
You good customer, he said to Minna. I remember you. He looked at me. I sell it for two hundred dollars, okay?
That sounded like a deal.
You deliver?
Where you live?
I told him I lived in Mount Pleasant and he said: No problem. You good kids, right? he asked us. I show you inside? More furniture inside. Yeah, yeah. More furniture?
Like what? I asked.
Minna put a hand on my shoulder and pushed me forward, saying to the man: Yes, let’s see what you have.
He unlocked a door on ground level underneath the staircase and went in first then held the door open for us, smiling and waving for us to enter. He made it seem like now we were in a hurry so I rushed in and thanked him awkwardly for holding the door open as I passed, not certain what I was doing. I wondered if we should take our shoes off and he said: No no. As soon as we were inside, an unshaven man in a faded Mickey Mouse golf shirt slipped between us, excusing himself as he tiptoed in tubesocks from one room to another. I second-guessed our host about shoes, but already he was ushering us down the hall. As we followed him, I tried to get a look at where the other man had come from, saw a plywood door with a brass knob, the kind with a push lock, and a band of light along the carpet.
I followed behind Minna into a room where there was nothing but sidetables and lamps. The room smelled of cigarette smoke and old vinyl curtains, neither of which appeared anywhere among the piles of furniture. Most of the sidetables were in a dark wood veneer and octagonal, with the snapping doors that open the two front sides of the thing. Some other tables were of a paler grain. They were stacked on top of each other in no sort of organized way. The lamps were all of an identical design, this huge butternut squash-shape covered in a bubbly white skin. They were topped by the most nicotine-stained white lampshades, all more or less with the same amount of decorative trim, gold fabric braids with gold strands. I didn’t want to buy any of these, but I realized that with this man’s help I could decorate my apartment to look exactly like a room in a hotel off the main road.
Mirror? Dresser? Closet?
Oh, yes, said Minna, see there’s mirrors along the back wall.
Yeah, mirrors, said the man, pointing to them. They were all that leaded kind in shapes that recalled chest armour. Very nice, very good.
I shook my head no thanks, smiling to show my appreciation for the offers. Our host was a perfectly nice gentleman, but we had to be on our way. I tried to express as much with my body language. While Minna opened and shut the drawers and seven-foot mahogany dressers I was facing the hallway, where I could see another spare bedroom on the other side where there were even more mattresses, and these ones had people on them.
People. These mattresses were in use. Startled by them—I hadn’t seen them till now—I didn’t know where to put my head. I wanted to stare at them, but I didn’t want to look like I was. At least a dozen mattresses and probably three times that many people. If I had to count. I saw people sleeping on beds, and sitting on them, and some of them looking away from me, and others looking at me as directly as I looked at them. The fluorescent light in our room was on, and the one in theirs was not. The difference was staggering. Their room was grey dark. The white plaster on the walls looked smoke blue. At ceiling level there was a single window with a steel bar across it that poked in a little light. Other mattresses were stacked against the wall. People were sleeping against those ones, too. I didn’t really have the time to study their ashen faces more than to nod hello, and all were weak or sick or starving-looking. One of them wore an extra large granite-coloured Mickey Mouse shirt with a soy sauce stain over Mickey’s white glove. Of the dozen or so people, none had fresh haircuts. A woman in there shouldn’t have been pregnant. They seemed equally curious to see us. They were only ten feet away, after all, but it felt like a world apart.
I was about to speak when our host caught me looking at them, and laughed. He said: Big family. We have family reunion, ha ha.
Oh, I said, that’s great. Lucky you have all the extra beds.
Ha ha, he said. Yes, yes.
I said: I like all these sidetables, but I’ll just go with the bed for now.
Okay, ha ha, that’s okay. Good bed. Maybe later you want lamps or tables.
Yes, maybe later.
We drove to my apartment and waited for the guy to arrive in his half-ton with the bed. The whole way back we talked about who we thought all those people in the other room were. We drew many conclusions. I stopped my Chrysler on the one block in my neighbourhood that wasn’t permit. There were already three cars parked on the same block of free parking. Minna called these kinds of parallel parking nightmares tight pussy spots. Nine points later, I jacked up the anti-theft bar, put my stereo’s faceplate above the sun visor, power-locked the doors, and walked to my building where we stood in front and waited.
Minna yawned, squeaked, and stretched up her arms. Woo, she said. I’m going straight home after we set up the bed. I’m totally ’zosted.
Don’t want to stick around and watch a depressing movie with me and my roommate?
Your roommate’s always watching depressing movies.
He finds them inspiring.
I find them depressing.
He finds life depressing.
A person can be positive or negative. It’s a choice.
It’s true, I said. But I’ve met happy positive people who are depressed.
Like who?
I don’t know. Like you?
Me? How do you see that?
Oh, Minna. You’re lonely. You’re lonely like me. Sure you are. If it wasn’t for me …
I trailed off. I didn’t have the heart to say more; I’d tried before and it never worked. I could tell she thought I was joking again. Rolling her eyes. Fair enough. I was being selfish. She was the one who had been honest while I was the one who’d deceived myself. She was the ghost of a lover. The ghost of yesteryear’s love or future’s perfect. She was not present. Minna was everywhere in my life but today’s body.