Free The Man Game by Lee W. Henderson Page A

streets and the clapboard buildings. When Daggett and Furry got within a couple blocksof the Sunnyside Hotel & Saloon, they confronted a sight. They stopped to watch a taut, slow-speaking Chinaman at the corner, a swaggering young man in leather, silk, and gold. Hands on his hips, he was shouting commands at an organized mob of two dozen starved coolies who waited at a corner for some work to do.
    Boys more like, the coolies were all as soft as babybottoms. Daggett could tell by their soft faces that these were not men, they were shrimps afraid to be seafood. Nevertheless, hard labour was their fate, and Daggett understood well enough from experience how much a man can adapt when he must. By the same token, he knew, at least instinctually, how stubbornly a person can be in sticking to his beliefs, no matter where he went in the world. And at the first opportunity, a man will remake his surroundings to his liking. When Daggett compared Chinatown to the rest of Vancouver he didn’t like what he saw. So if anyone was going to assimilate it was the Chinamen, because no way was Daggett let alone Furry going to assimilate in their direction.
    The snakehead aimed to rent these farmers’ sons from Sze-Yap cut-rate. What Daggett wanted to know was how this young snakehead could afford such a glistening pair of leather Shanghai boots. Silk Western bowtie. Gold-handled opium pin dangling from his neck on a silver chain.
    What kind a clothes do we wear, Furry? Do we deport ourselves wrongly?
    Even the brand-new duds we bought at Red & Rosy’s don’t compare, said Furry, obviously brooding on much the same thoughts. He leaned against a strut under the boardwalk with his hands in his pockets. He wore his new handaxe looped on his belt, with the eight-foot long-handled falling axe resting next to him. Daggett stood beside him, expectorated in one direction and then another, sleeved off any spittle trapped in his beard, and began punking stones out of the hardpacked dirt road. He too wore his new handaxe in a belt loop. He yawned for something to do. Furry yawned as well, stretched his arms, and cursed to make a noise.
    Fuck is right, said Daggett. Fuck is right.
    Who are all these coolies? said Furry.
    Fucked if I know.
    When the snakehead stepped across the street towards them in his Shanghai boots, Daggett flicked his partner a look and then his trap opened: ’The fuck you think you’re doing?
    The Chinaman broke pace, remonstrated a pearl button on his jacket, and otherwise unfazed by the provocation (he didn’t know English, just a little Chinook), continued towards them with a smile, almost a laughing smile, open enough to see down his throat to its pasty back wall. His mouth was a tunnel railroaded with silver fillings.
    They started to conversate. Daggett rose to his true height, six foot and nine. Furry, shoulders outstretched, was six foot and two. The Chinaman was five and a bit. In a laxatived voice, smooth and unexpectedly fast, the Chinaman spoke a long list of ill-memorized syllables. He expected them to understand Chinook. They did understand Chinook. The problem was he hardly knew what he was saying and didn’t know a word to hear it.
    â€™The hell are you on aboot? said Daggett.
    Velly tenas chickamin, said the Chinaman smiling as gingerly as his teeth allowed. One dallah, he said, then pointed to the Chinamen across the street, klone mans. Ikt chickamin, klone mans.
    We ain’t interested, Daggett said.
    Ikt chickamin? Velly good deal. Klone mans, ikt chickamin. I said, no. Daggett felt the little snakehead was not taking his anger seriously enough, and this got him even madder. When he said: Not interested, this meant nothing to the Chinaman, who stood his ground and implored them with hook-fingered motions to look over his employables across the street.
    Klone mans …
    What? said Daggett.
    Ikt chickamin.
    Yeah, yeah, he said. I heard you the first time you—.
    Furry raised