Cockfighter - Charles Ray Willeford [63]
This was Omar Baradinsky, who owned a game farm only three miles away from mine. So far, he hadn't prospered in his adopted profession, but he was breaking even by selling trios and stags to other cockers. His gamecocks usually lost when he fought them in the southern pits. He must have been hard enough to succeed in the business world, but the stubborn streak of tenderness in his makeup didn't give him enough discipline to make Aces out of his pit fowl. He overfed them, and he didn't work them hard enough to last.
Turning away from the poem, Omar turned his huge brown orbs on me and jerked a thumb at the wall.
“Did you write that, Frank?”
I shook my head and pulled out a chair for him to sit down.
“Then what about your new cock, Icky? If that chicken wasn't bred purely for color I've never seen one.”
I shrugged. Icky had been bred for color, certainly, but from a pure game strain, and his conformation was ideal for fighting. In a few days I'd see whether he could fight or not when I gave him a workout with sparring muffs in my training pit.
“Anyway, I like the looks of those Mellhorn Blacks, and especially your two Middleton Grays.”
So did I. Buford, my part-time Negro helper, had gone downtown to the depot with me the night before when I picked up my shipment of Mellhorn Blacks. After helping me put the dozen cocks away in their separate stalls in the cockhouse, he had driven by Omar's place and told him about them. Omar had arrived early that morning for a look at the Mellhorns and a long admiring examination of Icky. Buford had undoubtedly given Icky a big buildup, but Omar hadn't been impressed until he saw the cock for himself.
“Tell me something, Frank, if you will,” Omar said, when he finished pouring some condensed milk into his coffee. “Did you get an invitation to the Southern Conference Tourney at Milledgeville?”
In reply, I got up from the table, rummaged in the top drawer of my dresser until I found the invitation and the schedule for the S.C. pit battles, and passed them to Omar. He glanced at the forms, pulled on his shaggy beard a couple of times, and returned the papers.
“I just don't understand you people down here,” he said. “It may be partly my fault, because I wrote Senator Foxhall a personal letter asking for an invitation and enclosed a two-hundred-dollar forfeit. Three days later I got the check back in the mail and no invitation. Not a damned word of explanation. What in the hell's the matter with me? I've got more than fifty birds under keep, and last season my showings hit fifty-fifty. Maybe I'm not in the same class with the S.C. regulars, but if I'm willing to lose my entry fee why should Senator Foxhall care? And here you are—I saw the date on your invitation—you didn't own a single gamecock when you got that invite! I'm not belittling your ability, Frank. I know you're a top cocker and all that, but how did the senator know you'd be able to attend? How did you receive an invitation without asking for one when I couldn't get one when I did?
“I've never attended the Milledgeville meet, and I want to go, even as a spectator. But after fighting at all the other S.C. pits this season, I'd be embarrassed to attend the tournament without an entry. Do you know what I mean?”
I knew what he meant, all right. Omar had done the normal, logical thing, and the turndown had hurt his feelings. Most of the U.S. derbies and tourneys get their entries through fees. The man who sends in a two- or three-hundred-dollar forfeit either shows up or he loses his money. A contract is returned to him by mail. When the list is filled, no more entries are accepted. I didn't really know why Omar had been turned down by Senator Foxhall. It wasn't because he was a Pole or a New Yorker.
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