Cockfighter
Tags: #Bisac Code: FIC000000; FIC050000
Published as an ebook by
The Overlook Press, Peter Mayer Publishers, Inc.
141 Wooster Street
New York, NY 10012
Copyright © 2011 Betsy Willeford
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, or broadcast.
ePub ISBN 978-1-4683-0690-3
F
OR
M
ARY
J
O
What matters is not the idea a man holds, but the depth at which he holds it.
âE
ZRA
P
OUND
FIRST, I CLOSED
the windows and bolted the flimsy aluminum door. Then I flicked on the overhead light and snapped the Venetian blinds shut. Without the cross ventilation, it was stifling inside the trailer. Outside, in the Florida sunlight, the temperature was in the high eighties, but inside, now that the door and the windows were locked, it must have been a hundred degrees. I wiped the sweat away from my streaming face and neck with a dishcloth, dried my hands, and tossed the cloth on the floor. After moving Sandspur's traveling coop onto the couch, I checked the items on the table one more time.
Leather thong. Cotton. Razor blade. Bowl of lukewarm soapy water. Pan of rubbing alcohol. Liquid lead ballpoint pencil. Sponge. All in order.
I lifted the lid of the coop, brought Sandspur out with both hands, turned the cock's head away from me, and then held him firmly with my left hand under his breast. I looped the noose of leather over his dangling yellow feet, slipped it tight above his sawed-off spur stumps, and made a couple of turns to hold it snug. Holding the chicken with both hands again, I lowered him between my legs and squeezed my knees together tight enough to hold him so he couldn't move his wings. Sandspur didn't like it. He hit back with both feet four times, making thumping sounds against the plastic couch, but he couldn't get away.
I pinched off a generous wad of cotton between my left thumb and forefinger and clamped my fingers over his lemon-yellow beak. There was just enough of a downward curve to his short beak so he couldn't jerk his head out of my fingers. He couldn't possibly hurt himself, as long as the cotton didn't slip.
Impatient knuckles rapped on the door. Dody again. A vein throbbed in my temple. At that moment I would have given anything to be able to curse.
“How long you gonna be, Frank?” Dody's petulant voice shrilled through the door. “I gotta go to the bathroom!”
I didn't answer. I couldn't. She rapped impatiently a couple of more times and then she went away. At least she didn't holler anymore.
My right hand was damp again, and I wiped my fingers on my jeans, still holding Sandspur's beak with my left thumb and forefinger. I picked up the razor blade and cut a fine hairline groove across his bill as high up as possible. This was ticklish work and I cut a trifle too deep on the right side. I dropped the razor blade back on the table and released the cock's head. I picked up the ballpoint lead pencil with my left hand and rubbed the point across my right fingertip until it was smeared with liquid lead. Pinching off more cotton with my left hand, I caught Sandspur's beak again and rubbed the almost invisible groove with my lead-smeared forefinger. I took my time, and Sandspur glared at me malevolently with his shiny yellow eyes.
As soon as I was satisfied, I unloosened the thong around his feet and put the bird on the table, washed his legs with lukewarm soapy water, and rubbed his breast and thighs. I repeated the rubdown with alcohol. I was particularly careful with his head and bill, only using cotton dipped in the pan of alcohol.
Finished, I returned the items to my gaff case and dumped the used soapy water and alcohol into the sink. Sandspur was a fine-looking fighting cock, and after his light rubdown he felt in fine feather. Holding his head high he strutted back and forth on the slick Masonite table. He was a Whitehackle cross in peak condition, a five-time winner, and a real money bird. I knew he would win this afternoon, but I also knew he
had
to win.
I stepped in close to the table, made a feinting pinch for his doctored beak and he tried to peck me. I examined his beak, and even under the close scrutiny the bill looked cracked. The liquid lead inside the hairline made the manufactured crack look authentic even to my expert eyes. As a longtime professional cocker I knew the crack would fool Mr. Ed Middleton, Jack Burke, and the accordion-necked fruit tramp bettors. I picked Sandspur up and lowered him gently into his coop.
I opened the door, but Dody was nowhere in sight. She was probably visiting inside one of the other trailers in the camp. After sliding up all the windows again I lit a cigarette and sat down. What I had done to Sandspur's bill wasn't exactly illegal, but I didn't feel too proud about it. I only wanted to boost the betting odds and my slender roll.
Although I knew I couldn't possibly lose, I was apprehensive about the fight coming up. Everything I had, including my old Caddy and my Love-Lee-Mobile Home, was down on this single cockfight. And Sandspur was the only cock I had left. In my mind, I reviewed my impulsive bet. I had been a damned fool to bet the car and trailer.
At four that morning I had slid out of bed without waking Dody and switched on the light. Dody slept like a child, mainly because she was a child. The girl was only sixteen. I had picked her up in Homestead, Florida, three weeks before at a juke joint near the trailer camp where I had been staying. Her parents had their trailer in the Homestead camp, and Dody was only one out of their five children. It was a family of fruit tramps, and I doubt very much if they even missed her when I took her away with me. I wasn't the first man to sleep with Dody, not by any means. There had been dozens before me, but seeing her asleep and vulnerable that morning made me feel uneasy about our relationship. She was awfully damned young. At thirty-two, I was exactly twice as old as Dody.
It was too hot in Belle Glade to have even a sheet over you, and Dody lay on her back wearing a flimsy cotton shorty nightgown. She slept with her mouth open, her long taffy-colored braids stretched out on the pillow. Her face was flushed with sleep, and she didn't look twelve years old, much less sixteen. Her body was fully mature, however, with large melon-heavy breasts, and long tapering legs. In her clumsy, uninhibited way she was surprisingly good in bed. She was as strong as a tractor, but not quite as intelligent.
I felt sorry for Dody. She didn't have much to show for her life so far. With her parents, she had followed crops all over the countryâstaying locked in a car by a field someplace until she was big enough to carry basketsâand this constant exposure to the itinerant agricultural worker's lackadaisical code of living had made her wise beyond her age. After spending the night with me in my trailer in Homestead, she had begged to be taken along, and I brought her with me to Belle Glade. Why I weakened I don't know, but at the time I had been depressed. I had lost four birds in the Homestead fighting, and if Sandspur hadn't won his fight, the Homestead meet would have been a major disaster. But three weeks is a long time to live with a young, demanding girlâand a stupid, irritating girl, at that.
Anyway, it was four a.m. I dressed and took Sandspur outside and around to the back of the trailer.
It was still dark and I wanted to flirt him for exercise. A cooped bird gets stale in a hurry. I sidestepped the chicken six times, gave him six rolls, and let him drink a half dip of water. He would get no more water until after the fight. When the sky began to lighten I released him. Sandspur lifted his head and crowed twice. I lit my first cigarette of the day. As I watched the cock scratch in the loose sand, a shadow fell across my face. I looked up and there was Jack Burke, a wide grin splitting his homely face. I scooped Sandspur up quickly, dropped him into the coop and closed the lid. Burke had seen him, but there still wasn't enough light for a close look.
“That the mighty Sandspur?” Burke said.
I nodded.
“He don't look like no five-time winner to me. Tell you what I'll do, Mr. Mansfield,” Burke said, as though he were doing me a big favor, “I'll give you two to one.”
When Burke made this offer, I had just started to get to my feet. But now I decided to remain in my squatting position. Burke is a man of average height, but I am a full head taller than he is, and my eyes are bluer. My blond hair is curly, and his lank blond hair is straight. Looking down on me that way gave him a psychological advantage, a feeling of power, and I wanted him to have itâhoping that his overconfidence would help me get even better odds that afternoon.
Burke had written me a postcard to Homestead, challenging Sandspur to the fight at even money. I had accepted by return mail, glad to get a chance to look at his Ace cock, Little David. Little David wasn't so little in his reputation. He was an eight-time winner and had had a lot of publicity. When my Sandspur beat Burke's Little David, his value would be doubled, and my chances for taking the Southern Conference championship would be improved.
On the drive from Homestead to Belle Glade, I had thought of the crack-on-the-bill plan, and now I didn't want even money or two to one either. After the bettors looked at the birds before pitting, I expected to get odds of four to one, at least. I had eight hundred and fifty dollars in my wallet and I didn't want to take Burke's offer, but after accepting an even-money fight by mail, I couldn't legitimately turn down the new odds.
I snapped my fingers out four times, folded in my thumb, and held up four fingers. I nodded twice.
“You mean you've only got a hundred dollars to bet?” Burke said, with a short angry laugh. “I figured on taking you for at least a thousand!”
I pointed to the coop and lifted a forefinger to show Burke I only had the one cock. He knew very well I had lost four birds at Homestead. By this time, everybody in Florida and half of Georgia knew it.
Jack Burke followed the Cocker's Code of Conduct, and he was honest, but he disliked me. Although my luck had been mostly bad for the last three years, four years before at Biloxi my novice stag, Pinky, had killed his Ace, Pepperpot. He would never be able to forgive or forget that beating. Pinky had won only one fight against five for his cock, and Burke had taken a terrific loss at five-to-one odds. More than the money he had lost, he had resented my winning. A columnist in the
Southern Cockfighter
had unfairly blamed his conditioning methods for the loss. Actually, Pinky had only made a lucky hit. A man is foolish to fight stags, but I had needed the young bird to fill out my entry for the mainânot expecting to clobber Pepperpot.
Burke studied the ground, rubbing his freshly shaven chin. He was in his middle forties, and he wore his pale, yellow hair much too long. He paid considerable attention to his clothes. Even at daybreak he was wearing a blue seersucker suit, white shirt and necktie, and black-and-white shoes. Two-toned shoes indicate an ambivalent personality, a man who can't make up his mind.
“Okay, Mr. Mansfield,” Burke said at last, slapping his leg. “I'll take your hundred dollars and give you a two-to-one. I know damned well Sandspur can't beat Little David, but your cock always has a chance of getting in a lucky hitâ¦the way Pinky did in Biloxi, for instance. So let's say you really get luckyâwhat do you have? Two hundred dollars. To give you a fighting chance to get on your feet again after Homestead, I'll put up eight hundred bucks against your car and trailer. Even money.”