Cockfighter - Charles Ray Willeford [98]
Here are some things about the tourney I have to tell you. As official entries, we'll be put up in Senator Foxhall's home, and eat our meals there. We don't have to wear tuxes for dinner, but we do have to wear coats and ties. Entries and spectators alike are not admitted to the pit unless they wear suits and ties. This is a custom of the tourney out of respect to Senator Foxhall. But he's really a good man. He was never a real senator, I mean in Congress. He was a Georgia state senator in the late twenties. But for whatever it means, he's a gentleman of the old school and we have to abide by the customs. I don't mind wearing a suit and tie in the pit and you shouldn't either, because it's an honor to fight at Milledgeville.
I also have a personal problem, two of them. I've made seat reservations for four people. My fiancée and her brother, and for Mrs. Bernice Hungerford and her nephew. This was several months ago. I don't know if they're coming—neither woman has written or wired me. I don't care. Well, I won't lie. I DO care. If they come, help me entertain them. I'll be handling most of the time, and you'll have to give them some attention for me. Neither woman has seen a cockfight before. My fiancée's name is Mary Elizabeth Gaylord...
I looked over the message, which had taken two sheets of tablet paper, and then passed it to Omar. He scanned it slowly, folded the two sheets, put them carefully in his shirt pocket and entered his bedroom.
He slammed the door behind him.
I wanted to damn Omar's sensitive soul, but I couldn't. The custom of the cockpit wasn't my doing, but I felt ashamed. To dictate a person's wearing apparel is a violation of every human right, but I had been forced to tell my partner about the custom or he wouldn't have been allowed through the gate.
After fifteen minutes had passed, and Omar still didn't reappear, I got out of my chair and knocked softly on his door.
“I'll be out in a minute,” he called out. “Fix yourself a drink!”
I measured three ounces of bourbon into a six-ounce glass. Every time I wrote a note of any kind, I always felt that I was circumventing my vow in an underhanded way, but I was sorry I hadn't written a more detailed explanation about the suit business. But I needn't have worried.
Two drinks later the bedroom door opened. I set my glass on the table, grinned at my partner and shook my head in disbelief.
Omar had cut his beard off square across the bottom with a pair of scissors, and evenly trimmed the sides. His newly cropped beard was as stiff as the spade it resembled. His heavy black moustache had been combed to both sides, and the ends were twisted into sharp points. The white smiling teeth in the dark nest of his inky beard were like a glint of lightning in a dark cloud. He wore a pearl-gray homburg over his bushy black hair, a dark gray double-knit suit, a white shirt and cordovan shoes. Hanging out for two or three inches below his beard, a shimmering gray silk necktie was clipped to his shirt by a black onyx tie bar. He looked like a wealthy Greek undertaker.
“I was saving this costume as a surprise for you tomorrow,” Omar said with a pleased laugh. “My new suit arrived from my New York tailor three days ago. How do I look?”
I clasped my hands over my head like a boxer, and shook them.
“Do you know what makes my beard so stiff?” Omar said, as he mixed a drink at the table. “Pommade Hongroise. And just in case you don't know what that means, it's imported moustache wax from France.”
Omar added more whiskey to my glass.
“You Southerners don't have a cartel on manners, Frank. It may come as a shock to you, partner, but I even know the correct tools to use at a formal dinner.” He raised his glass. “A toast, Mr. Mansfield!”
I grinned and clinked my glass against his.
“To the All-American cockfighters, the English-Polish team of Mansfield and Baradinsky! Gentlemen, gamblers, dudes and cocksmen, each and every one!”
We drank to that.
We left Ocala at three o'clock, but it was almost two in the afternoon