Cockfighter

by Cockfighter (retail) (epub)

  Published as an ebook by

  The Overlook Press, Peter Mayer Publishers, Inc.

  141 Wooster Street

  New York, NY 10012

  www.overlookpress.com

  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

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  FOR MARY JO

  What matters is not the idea a man holds, but the depth at which he holds it.

  —EZRA POUND

  1

  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 country—staying locked in a car by a field someplace until she was big enough to carry baskets—and 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 girl—and a stupid, irritating girl, at that.

  Anyway, it was four a.m. I dressed and to
ok 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 it—hoping 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 main—not 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 hit…the way Pinky did in Biloxi, for instance. So let’s say you really get lucky—what 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.”

  I chewed my lower lip, but the bet was fair. My battered Caddy was worth at least eight hundred, but I didn’t know what the trailer was worth. Secondhand trailers bring in peculiar prices, and mine was fairly small, with only one bedroom and one door. If I unloaded the car and trailer through a newspaper advertisement, I could’ve probably sold them both together for at least a thousand. Burke wanted to beat me so bad he could taste it. And if Little David won, I’d be out on the highway with my thumb out.

  I stuck out my right hand and Burke grabbed it eagerly. The bet was made.

  “Too bad you haven’t got anything else to lose,” Burke laughed gleefully. “I’d like to make another bet that you just made a bad bet!”

  My lips curved into a broad smile as I thought of Dody sleeping peacefully inside the trailer. In the unlikely event that Burke’s cock did win the fight, he would also be stuck with Dody. When I pictured Burke in my mind stopping at every gas station on the road to buy Dody ice cream and Coca-Colas it was impossible to suppress my smile. On the way up from Homestead she had damned near driven me crazy.

  But now the bet was made.

  I consulted my wristwatch. Two thirty. It was time to go. Bill Sanders was going to meet me outside the pit at three to pick up my betting money. I stashed a hundred dollars in the utensil cupboard to cover my two-to-one bet with Burke, counted the rest of my money, and it came out to an even seven hundred and fifty dollars. That was everything, except for a folded ten-dollar bill in my watch pocket. This was my getaway bread—just in case.

  I put my straw cowboy hat on my head to protect my face from the Florida sun, picked up the aluminum coop and my gaff case, and stepped outside. There were fourteen trailers in Captain Mack’s Trailer Camp, including mine, and if you had touched any one of them, you would have burned your hand. In the distance, across the flat, desolate country, I could see Belle Glade, three miles away. The heat rising off the sandy land resembled great sheets of quivering cellophane. I turned away from the trailers and started toward the hammock clump a mile away where the pit had been set up. As hot as it was, I was in no mood to unhitch my car from the trailer and work up a worse sweat than I had, and the walk was only a mile.

  There was a wire gate behind the camp, with an old-timer collecting an entrance fee of three dollars. I raised my coop to show him I was an entrant, and he let me through without collecting a fee. As I passed through the gate, Dody came flying up the trail, pigtails bouncing on her shoulders. She was barefooted, wearing a pair of red silk hot pants and a white sleeveless blouse. Her big unhampered breasts jounced up and down as she ran.

  “Frank!” she called out before she reached the gate. “Take me with you! Please, Frank!”

  The gateman, a grizzled old man in blue overalls, raised his white brows. I shook my head. He closed and latched the gate as Dody reached it.

  “Damn you, Frank!” Dody shouted angrily. “You don’t let me do nothin’. You know I’ve never seen you cockfight. Please let me go!”

  I ignored her and continued up the trail. I had enough to worry about without her yammering around the pit and asking questions.

  Captain Mack, who had made all the arrangements for the Belle Glade pitting, was talking earnestly to a Florida trooper when I reached the parking area. The trooper’s state patrol car was parked directly behind a new convertible with a Dade County plate. The right door of the convertible was open, and a pretty blonde woman sat in the front seat. Her face was pale, and she had her eyes closed, breathing deeply through her open mouth. There was a wet spot in the sand outside the door. I supposed the girl had watched a couple of fights inside the pit and got sick as a consequence. Not many city women have the stomach for watching cockfights.

  The pit was surrounded on four sides by a green canvas panorama made from Army surplus latrine screens. T
here were about thirty cars in the parking area, not counting the trucks. I set down my gaff case and coop in the sparse shade of a melaleuca tree, and leaned against a parked Plymouth, watching Captain Mack argue with the trooper. Captain Mack shrugged wearily, took his wallet out of his hip pocket, and handed two bills to the trooper. Through a gap in the canvas wall, they went inside the pit. Although cockfighting is legal in Florida, betting is not, so Captain Mack had been forced to pay out some protection money.

  There was excited shouting from inside the pit, followed by several coarse curses, and then the voices subsided. Mr. Ed Middleton’s baritone carried well as he announced the winning cock.

  “The winner is the Madigan! One minute and thirty-one seconds in the third pitting!”

  Again there were curses, followed by the derisive sound of laughter. I lit a cigarette, took my notebook out of my shirt pocket, and wrote the essential information concerning Sandspur on a fresh sheet of paper. A few minutes later Bill Sanders came outside and joined me beneath the tree. I handed him my roll of seven hundred and fifty dollars and he counted it. Bill put the money in his trousers and watched my fingers. I held up four fingers on my left hand and my right forefinger.

  “I doubt if I can get you four to one, Frank.” Bill shook his head dubiously. “Your reputation is too damn good. You could show up with a battered dunghill, and if these redneckers thought you fed it, they’d bet on it. But I’ll try.”

  If anybody could get good odds for me, Sanders could, and I knew he would certainly try. When I was discharged from the Army, I had spent two months in Puerto Rico with Sanders, living in the same hotel. We had attended mains at all the best game clubs in San Juan, Mayagüez, Ponce, Arecibo, and Aibonito. I had steered Sanders right on the betting, after I had gotten accustomed to the fighting techniques of the Spanish slashers, and both of us had returned to Miami with our wallets full of winnings. Bill Sanders was not a professional cockfighter like myself, he was a professional gambler. He had lost his share of the money he won in Puerto Rico at the Miami horse and dog tracks. A little bald guy with a passion for high living, he lived very well when he had money and even better when he had none. He was that kind of a man, and a good friend.