Cockfighter (31 page)

During dinner, I listened attentively to the conversation. All I heard was “chicken talk.” The only subject that any of us had in common was cockfighting, and the love of cockfighting was the distinguishing feature of every entry. Every man present had the game fowl, the knowledge, the ability, and the determination to win the tourney, but only one of us could win.

I intended to be that one.

OUT OF LONG HABIT
more than anything else, I drank a quick cup of coffee in the dining room the next morning and was in the cockhouse by five thirty. Gamecocks cooped for long periods in a small two-by-two stall have a tendency to get sleepy and bored. Too much lassitude makes a cock sluggish when pitted. To wake them up, I took each cock out of its coop and washed its head with a damp sponge dipped in cheap whiskey. By the time I finished the sponging at seven thirty, our gamecocks were skipping up and down inside their stalls with rejuvenated animation and crowing and clucking with happiness.

Omar joined me at eight, and a few minutes later Doc Riordan showed up at the cockhouse to wish me luck in the tourney. The pharmacist and my partner hit it off well together from the moment they met.

“I never miss the Southern Conference Tourney,” Doc told Omar, “but all season long I've been chained to my desk. I'm the president of the Dixie Pharmaceutical Company, as Frank may have told you, and this year our firm is launching a new product.” He reached into his coat pocket and handed Omar a small white packet. “Licarbo!” he said proudly. “Advertising is our biggest headache, although the raising of capital isn't the simple matter it used to be.”

“Who handles your advertising?” Omar asked, tearing open the sample and cautiously tasting the product with the tip of his tongue.

“Unfortunately,” Doc sighed, “I have to handle it myself. That's been my main trouble. But I'm a registered pharmacist, and most of the drugstores in Jax have allowed me to put my posters in their windows.”

“I think you've got a good idea here in Licarbo,” Omar said sincerely. “After the tourney I won't have too much to do until April, and maybe you and I can get together on this product. I used to be in advertising in New York. Perhaps Frank told you?”

“No, he didn't.” Doc looked at me reproachfully. “I didn't know Frank had himself a partner until I read the account of the Plant City Main between you-all and Jack Burke. Now, that was a main I wish I'd seen! That reminds me, Frank—” Doc took a small bottle of black-and-gray capsules out of his pocket and placed it on the workbench. “These are energy capsules. I made ‘em up for Mr. Burke from a formula he gave me, and they should be good. They take about an hour for the best results, but when I made ‘em up for Mr. Burke's chickens, I said to myself: ‘While I'm at it, I'll just make up a batch for Frank Mansfield.'”

“We appreciate it, Doctor,” Omar said—and then to me, “The restaurant should be open by now. Let's get some breakfast.”

Shaking my head, I opened my gaff case on the workbench and started to polish gaffs with my conical grinding stone.

“I'll have some coffee with you, Mr. Baradinsky,” Doc offered.

“Fine. I'd like to find out more about Licarbo.”

“Right now,” Doc said, “advertising isn't quite as important as raising a little capital. However, I'd appreciate any advice you'd—”

“I'll bring you some coffee, Frank,” Omar said over his shoulder. “Capital, Doctor, is simply a matter of devious stratagems worked out through a mathematical process known as pressure patterns peculiar to a pecuniary people.”

As soon as they were out of earshot I opened the small bottle of energy capsules Doc had given me, dumped them on the floor, and crushed them into powder with my heel. The capsules might have been wonderful, but I wouldn't take any chances with them. Jack Burke knew that Doc Riordan was a friend of mine, and that fact alone was enough to make me distrust the medicine. Perhaps Jack didn't have enough brains to plan anything so devious, but I wouldn't have used a strange product on my chickens whether Burke's name had been mentioned or not. A major tournament is not the place for experimentation.

As the parking lot filled slowly, I leaned against the locked door of our cockhouse and watched the arriving cars as they pulled in and parked under the directions of the attendants. By nine a.m., when the time came for Omar and me to go over to the pit for the opening of the tourney, there was still no sign of either Bernice or Mary Elizabeth.

Tension was building up inside me, as it always does just before a meet, and I was happy when Peach Owen disengaged the mike and handed it to Senator Foxhall. Peach played out the extra cord behind the senator as the old man marched stiffly to the center of the pit. The senator waited for silence, which didn't take very long. This early in the morning, there were only about two hundred spectators, but by two in the afternoon, the place would be jammed.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Senator Foxhall said in his high reedy voice, “welcome to the Southern Conference Tourney! We sincerely hope that all of you will have a good time. There is only one rule that you must observe during the meet.” He paused. “Conduct yourselves like ladies and gentlemen.”

(Applause.)

“Before the tourney is over,” he said wryly, licking his thin lips, “some of you may desire to place a small wager or two—”

(Laughter.)

“If you do, make certain you know the man you're betting with—there
may
be Internal Revenue agents in the crowd!”

(Laughter.)

The old man turned the hand microphone over to Peach Owen and returned to his chair beside the judge's box. For the remainder of the tourney he would sit there quietly, watching everything that went on with his deep-set, cold blue eyes. With those experienced eyes watching me, I knew I couldn't make a single mistake when I was in the pit.

I was elated when Peach Owen called over the PA system for entry Number Two and entry Number Five to report to the judge's box to pick up their weight slips. My tension disappeared. Now I could be busy.

The first match was 5:00 cocks. After getting our weight-slip, Omar and I double-timed back to the cockhouse to heel our chicken. Time was going on from the second we received our weight slip, and only fifteen minutes were allowed to heel and be ready for the pitting. If an entry failed to make it on time, he forfeited that fight, and the next waiting, heeled pair was called. The fifteen-minute time limit kept the fights moving along fast. Where a match was even, or after ten minutes of fighting in the main pit, the two cocks were sent to the drag pit and a new pair was started in the center pit.

From the first pitting, I knew that the fight was going to be a long-drawn-out battle. Pete Chocolate matched a Spanish cross against my Mellhorn Black, and both birds were wary and overcautious. They did little damage to each other by the fourth pitting, and just before the fifth, when Ed Middleton saw that Roy Whipple and Baldy Allen were heeled and ready, he signaled for second referee Buddy Waggoner to start the next match and ordered us to follow him into the drag pit.

In the thirty-first pitting we went to breast after the third count of twenty, one hand under the bird only, at the center score.

“Get ready,” Ed Middleton said.

Pete and I faced each other across the two-foot score, both holding weary fighters with our right hand, and one foot above the ground. That's when the Indian made his first mistake.

“Pit!”

I dropped on signal and so did Pete, but Pete pushed, causing his Spanish to peck first because of the added impetus. I saw him plainly, but Ed missed it. Snapping my fingers I made a pushing gesture with my right palm and pointed to the straight-faced Seminole.

“I'm refereeing this fight, Mr. Mansfield!” Ed snapped angrily. “Handle!”

We picked up the cocks for the short rest period. I couldn't argue, but Ed had been alerted and he watched Pete closely during the next actionless pittings. There are no draws at the S.C.T., and I was beginning to think the fight was going to last all day when Pete just barely pushed his bird on the forty-fifth pitting. This time, Ed caught him at it.

“Foul! The winner is Number Five!”

“Foul?” Pete asked innocently. “I committed a foul of some kind?”

“Pushing on the breast score. Are you trying to argue, Mr. Chocolate?”

“I'm afraid I must, Mr. Middleton,” Pete said with feigned bewilderment. Spreading his arms widely, Pete turned to the crowd of a dozen or so spectators who had followed the first fight into the drag pit. “Did any of you gentlemen see me pushing?”

“That's a fifty-dollar fine for arguing. Anything else to say, Pete?”

Pete glowered at Ed for about ten seconds, and then shook his head. We carried our birds out, returning to our respective cockhouses. The door was open and my partner was attempting frantically to heel a 5:02 Roundhead by himself when I entered.

“Take over, Frank!” Omar said excitedly. “Your drag lasted almost an hour, and we've got less than five minutes to meet Roy Whipple with a 5:02!”

I put the battered Mellhorn away, and while Omar held, I finished heeling the Roundhead. We made it to the weighing scales with two minutes to spare. During the long drag battle with Pete, three fights had been held in the main pit.

From the word “Pit!” my Allen Roundhead lasted exactly twenty-five seconds with the Whipple cock before it was cut down in midair and killed.

The fighting was just as fast for the rest of the morning. If I didn't lose during the first three or four pittings I usually won the battle. My tough, relentless conditioning methods paid off with stamina. In a long go, my rock-hard gamecocks invariably outlasted their opponents. Every fight at Milledgeville was a battle between two Aces, however, and during the first three to five pittings, when both cocks were daisy fresh, it was anybody's fight. At one p.m., when a one-hour break for lunch was called, I had lost two and won three.

Omar and I left the pit together, planning to eat at the senator's house rather than wait for service in the crowded restaurant. As we left by the side entrance, a parking attendant came running over and caught up with us.

“Mr. Mansfield, there's a lady down in the lot who asked me to find you.”

“Shall I go with you, Frank?” Omar said.

I nodded, and we followed the attendant into the parking lot.

It was Bernice Hungerford. As we approached her car, she got out, slammed the door and waited. Bernice looked much prettier than I remembered. Either she wore a tight girdle, or she had lost fifteen pounds. A perky, wheatstraw, off-the-face hat was perched atop a brand new permanent, and her dark hair gleamed with some kind of spray. She wore a mustard-colored tweed suit, softened at the throat by a lemon-yellow silk scarf. The air was chilly, but it wasn't cold enough for the full-length sheared beaver coat she held draped over her left arm.

When I accepted her white-gloved extended right hand, I noticed that it was trembling.

“I had to send for you, Frank,” she apologized, lifting her face to be kissed. I brushed her lips with mine, and she stepped back a pace, blushing like a girl. “I've been here for more than an hour,” she said with a shy laugh. “But when I went up to the entrance and saw all those men standing around—and no women—I was afraid to go inside!”

“You'll find a lot of ladies here, once you get inside, Miss—?”

“Mrs. Hungerford,” Bernice said self-consciously.

“Mrs. Hungerford,” Omar said, “I'm Frank's partner, Omar Baradinsky. And I'm glad the boy caught us in time. We were just leaving for lunch, and now you can join us.”

“I feel better already,” Bernice smiled. “I started not to come, Frank.” She took my arm, and Omar relieved her of her heavy coat. “Tommy couldn't get away, and I dreaded coming all by myself, but now… Mr. Baradinsky,” she turned impulsively to Omar on her left. “Is there such a thing as a powder room around here?”

Omar laughed. “If you can hold out for about five hundred more yards, Mrs. Hungerford, you'll be made comfortable at the house.”

“Thank you. How do I look, Frank? How
does
a lady dress for a cockfight?”

“A woman as beautiful as you,” Omar said, “could wear sackcloth and still look like a queen.”

“Now I do feel better!” Bernice laughed gaily. “What does one
do
at a cockfight?”

“At first, I'd advice you to merely watch. But if you decide to place a wager, let me know. Frank and I will be busy, but one of us will look after you when we're free.”

Thanks to my partner, the luncheon was a success. He was gracious and paternal toward Bernice, without being patronizing, and before we returned to the pit, she was no longer ill at ease or prattling with nervousness. When the fighting began, I rarely sat with her. Most of Omar's time was taken up with the placing of bets, payoffs and collections, but he joined her as often as he could.

There was another one-hour break at seven, and then the fights were to continue until midnight. According to the schedule—if everything went according to plan—the tourney would be completed by three p.m. the following afternoon. After the prizes and purses were awarded, the senator always held a free barbecue for everybody on the parklike lawn between his house and the cockpit.

We ate dinner, all three of us, in the restaurant. After dinner, Bernice begged off as a spectator from the evening fights. She was tired and bored from watching them. Without a basic understanding or knowledge of what to look for, Bernice's boredom was not unreasonable. Women rarely find cockfighting as exciting as men do.

Although I missed her friendly white-gloved wave and cheery cry of “good luck” each time I entered the pit, I wasn't sorry to send her to the hotel in town. She promised to meet us at noon the following day, and I was relieved that I didn't have to entertain her until then.