Free The Man Game by Lee W. Henderson

that’s too high, it’s never more than fifty when we buy.
    Well you got the chains for your logs and the two cookstoves …, Rosy said unperturbed.
    Are we fucking bartering here or no? Daggett said, and stuck out his jaw. His eyes hesitated, and then he looked atMolly to see what kind of impression his foul language had made on her smooth innocent body. Seemed to be none. Relaxing again, he looked back to Rosy. Are we … or what? he said. I don’t see it’s very busy in here, Rosy. You should be thankful for our business. You don’t sell many a them cookstoves, I bet.
    We sell enough.
    â€™The fuck you think you are? said Daggett, losing his temper completely. This time Rosy tipped away from the counter and stood upright, out of range of their threats and fists. He looked over at Molly with an apologetic smile.
    I’m sorry, ma’am, I’ll only be a minute longer.
    She nodded her sweet head. They saw her tongue’s tip when she said: That’s fine. She walked towards the men and they all watched her as she did, no one saying a word, not even Daggett, who could always be relied on to insult a lady. She put her elbows on the counter and stretched out her gloved hands and proceeded to wait for Furry and Daggett to finish up right there beside her at the counter.

    Walking out the doors of Red & Rosy’s General Store, Daggett beat his fist against the rail and said: What a mink. That Rosy made us pay sixty and one for that.
    What could we do? Wouldn’t budge.
    We should wait here for that lady to get, then go back in there and straighten the nose on that bohunk.
    If she weren’t there, said Furry, I’d a meted out some punishment on that gimp. Making us pay that much.
    Was she a bea
u
ty, said Daggett.
    Hotter than a mouthful a moonshine. What a set a
totooshes
.
    Oh my god, her totooshes, said Furry, making lewd gestures. Mmm, her
totooshes
.
    I’d go blind overnight just from thinking a her, Daggett said.
    One look at her ee-na and I’m good for a season chopping trees, said Furry.
    They pushed their hats down against the sun and walked a few paces, still cursing at Rosy for greasing them. Back in the street they appreciated the sunlight for how it shone on their new long-handled axes. For having it cost them nearly full price to suit up the fall season, the two loggers felt a little sick and light-headed. These axes would fell a lot of trees, and hard, or Rosy was going to hear about it. They wondered aloud whether or not to spend the night at Wood’s or save some chickamin and stay at a Methodist rooming house.
    There were other men on the street asking themselves the same question. There were many men like them in need of a good shave. Men in dire need of a steady job. The coolies were taking over. The navvies seemed more frustrated now than they were last winter. The sailors were all drunker than they were this same time last year. As they walked along the street, they approached a young man with a face shaved to its pink cheeks and a wet chin who stepped on and off the logs and swerved past them, twirling on one foot, and said: Damn, I be too drunk.
    Where’d you get? Daggett asked the drunkard.
    He spun around and pointed a finger at the sky and said: Sunnys
i
de Hotel.
    That’s aboot right, Daggett said to his partner. Let’s hit her.
    Yeah, said Furry, any more a that burial grounds moonshine I’m liable a going berzerk. I’m higher’n a motherfucker.
    A gaunt old miner with a shirt open to his bare ribcage lugged a canvas sack over his shoulder. Jammed full of a wrinkled old suit, shaving gear and toolkit, and all his other belongings in the entire world, he was being turned away from the better hotels and was resigned, like most poor folk, to share a Methodist’s room with four other men. Just so long as he could get off these corns.
    It was sunny out. In a pallid, omnipresent way, the September sun shone on the muddy