Cockfighter - Charles Ray Willeford [1]
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 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 ones'
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