Urban Woodsmen Hustle to Chop Out a Living : Jobless: As state unemployment figures soar, out-of-work West Virginians scramble to stoke fireplaces in prosperous areas.

Fulton Toney, a janitor out of work for three years, waits patiently in his old pickup truck to sell firewood to suburbanites in shiny Saabs and Volvos headed home to streets like Robin Hood Road and Friar Tuck Circle.

Toney drove 35 miles to sit for hours in a cold rain, about a half cord of cut and split red oak covered by plastic in the truck bed behind him.

Toney, 25, of Spurlocksville, Lincoln County, is expecting to become a father for the first time in July. His wife isn’t working. He listens to country music on the radio with a workingman’s lunch pail and a Thermos on the seat.

“I’m just doing anything I can to make an honest dollar. This is the only thing I’ve got. You don’t make a lot, I’ll tell you,” he said.

He may fetch $65 for his load. But there’s always the chance that three or more pickups behind him could undercut his price at the last minute.

“I’d say right here, this corner, is the heart of West Virginia. This place has more money than anywhere in the state,” he said. “That’s why I’m here. If you’re not where the money is, you’re not going to get it.”

Nearly every day, two to eight pickup trucks line the shoulder of U.S. 119 atop a hill in Charleston’s fashionable South Hills, home to better-off state officials, business executives, medical professionals and engineers from nearby chemical plants.

Well-dressed suburbanites pull up next to the pickups near the 7-Eleven, make a quick deal from window to window, and lead the woodcutters to well-kept split-levels or tidy condominiums nearby. The price usually includes stacking the wood in a garage or on a patio deck.

Unemployment stood at 6.8% in the state and at 4.9% in the Charleston area in December, but no figures are available for “discouraged workers,” those who are not seeking work, according to Ed Merrifield, assistant director of the state Division of Employment Security.

Jimmy Perdue, 55, of Ashwood, Boone County, about 25 miles away, refuses to sell his load for less than $80, no matter what. He often waits several days.

“If people realized what it takes to get the wood here, they’d pay me $80,” he said. “Of course, people back home can’t afford to pay that price. Most of them can only afford $45. I give them the benefit.”

A stroke forced Perdue to retire from construction work in 1977. A grandfather of four, he scavenges for firewood among the scraps of nearby timbering operations. A nephew helps split it and load it.

“People try to get your price down. I don’t know why. They go from truck to truck,” he said. “They say: ‘I bought it for $50 last year.’ I say: ‘And I bought gas for a dollar a gallon last year.’

“But the money comes in handy. I don’t have a lot of extra money to spend, you know,” Perdue said.

Randall Westfall, 28, and friend Roger Kidd, 27, both of nearby Elkview, would rather go door-to-door among $130,000 condominiums and professionals who don’t have the time, or know-how, to cut their own firewood.

Westfall said he hasn’t worked full time as a draftsman since the state Division of Highways laid him off in 1983. Kidd is an unemployed heavy equipment operator. They sell about five loads a week, splitting $60 a load.

Westfall said he and his wife are thinking of joining thousands of West Virginians who have migrated to North Carolina and greener economic pastures. But he’s an outdoorsman and doesn’t want to leave the mountains.

Westfall said his truck broke down in a comfortable neighborhood recently and an off-duty policeman came out of his house, at first suspicious.

“He helped us out as best he could,” Westfall said. “He said: ‘You boys are just trying to make an honest buck instead of up here banging heads.’ Hey, that’s the only way to be, just trying to make an honest buck.”

Timmy Oxley, 22, of nearby Davis Creek, cuts wood when his family’s masonry business is slow. He said it has been a hard winter with often no call for new fireplaces and stone walls.

Oxley said it takes two hours to cut, split and stack about a half cord from the red and black oaks on his family’s 100-acre woods in Jackson County. He tries to sell a load for $65, but will accept $60. In a good week, he will sell three.

“These people with the money and the fancy cars might talk about us, that we have low incomes and no work,” he said. “But that’s all right. We can make it if we just get out and hustle.”