Page 619 of Cold Case, Warm Hearts
The door of the building was propped open with a rusty metal can that was wedged in the dirt. Kendall took her hand and led her inside. It took her eyes a minute to adjust to the dim lighting. When Kendall first told her about cockfighting, she pictured beer-bellied rednecks huddled around a couple of roosters in an old barn. This place was the opposite end of the spectrum. Oh, there were a few rednecks, but there were businessmen too and a few women. There must’ve been around three hundred people present. The metal building didn’t look all that large on the outside, but it was. In fact, it was a full-blown arena. The square pit, sitting a couple of feet off the floor, took center stage. Dirt covered the floor and each side was a good fifteen feet long, topped by a plexi-glass guard. Above that was netting. Aluminum bleachers like the ones at soccer matcheswere placed around the pit, allowing the spectacle to be viewed on all four sides. Caged roosters were housed against the walls behind the bleachers. They were crowing and pacing back and forth, anxious for their turn in the pit.
Kendall led her to the bleachers. Sydney looked to her side and saw two women sitting in a glass booth in one corner of the arena. One was holding a microphone to her lips. “Number 42 and number 36 to the scale.” The other woman was writing the numbers and weight on a large chalkboard.
“What are they doing?” she asked Kendall.
“All of the roosters have to be weighed before the match.”
“How do they know which ones to call?”
“They’re matched up by a computer—I think—beforehand.”
“High tech.”
Kendall didn’t seem to notice her sarcasm. He was too busy waiting for the next match to begin.
Sydney looked at the line of men waiting for their rooster’s turn in the pit. They were holding them as carefully as a mother would cradle her newborn baby. One man with long, stringy hair and a thick mustache was even blowing gently on his rooster’s face.
Kendall rubbed his hands together and leaned forward. “Here goes.”
The referee was a stout man who was completely bald except for a ring of fuzz encircling his head. He motioned for the next participants to bring their roosters into the pit. He pulled out a cloth and wiped underneath the rooster’s wings and head. Then he wiped its feet. After finishing with the first, he moved to the second.
Sydney pointed. “What’s he doing?”
“He’s wiping down the roosters.”
“Why?”
“To discourage cheating.
”Kendall didn’t elaborate and Sydney could tell that he was tired of answering her questions. Still, she couldn’t help herself.
“How does that discourage cheating?”
“Some people put strychnine or skunk scent on the blades.”
“Oh.” She frowned. “What’s that on their feet?”
“Those are called gaffs. They’re metal spikes attached to the rooster’s legs.”
Sydney’s stomach dropped.
The referee signaled the handlers. Sydney thought they were going to let the roosters go at each other, but they kept holding them while thrusting them at each other in a mock attack. The roosters went wild, straining against their handlers to get at each other. This excited the crowd. An old man in a red and black plaid shirt stood. He waved a fistful of bills. “I’ll lay 50 to 40,” he yelled.
A man in a white dress shirt with the arms rolled up to his elbows jumped to his feet. “I’ll take that bet.”
A cloud of feathers rose in the air when the roosters were thrown together. The feathers fell like snow to the dirt, and the handlers reached to disengage their combatants. Blood poured down one rooster’s leg and Sydney saw that the other rooster’s gaff was embedded in his opponent’s thigh. One of the handlers worked the gaff loose, and the roosters went at it again. This went on for a couple more rounds until the fight ended with one rooster lying in a heap, blood oozing from its mouth.
Sydney closed her eyes and tried to fight off the nausea. Kendall seemed oblivious to her trauma. “I’m gonna go place a bet. Do you want anything from the concession stand?”
She wasn’t sure she’d heard him correctly. Surely he was kidding. How could she possibly want food after witnessing that slaughter?
He pointed toward the concession stand. “Hot dog, coke?”
Her head began throbbing. The crowd roared in eagerness at the impending next match. She shook her head. “No thanks. I’m not hungry.”
Kendall was gone almost before she got the words out. She looked around at the other spectators. Heads were bobbing up and down like fans rooting for their favorite football team. There was a young boy sitting about four rows up from her. He was shoving the last of a hot dog in his mouth. Ketchup trickled from the corner of his mouth, and he used the back of his hand to wipe it away. The boy’s father was sitting beside him. He put his arm around his son and pointed. Sydney looked at the object of their interest and saw the man with the stringy hair and thick mustache. He was the same man she’d seen earlier, blowing on his rooster’s face. Now he was stroking its feathers. His pride and joy would be the next to fight after this match. The boy nodded and gave a thumb up, and his dad headed down the bleachers to place a bet.
Sydney couldn’t bear to watch. She averted her eyes, but not before she saw the feathers fly high above the pit. Was she the only one sickened by the blood bath? She remembered the time she and Judith had flown to Hawaii. Sydney didn’t realize it at the time, but she had an ear infection. When the plane lifted off, she felt like her head would explode. Everyone around her was perfectly fine. That’s how she felt right now. She looked back at the boy. What kind of parent took a child to see this?
