The Book of Duels by Michael Garriga Read Free Book Online Page B

feign fevered exhaustion just so he’ll spit in my mouth, almost, but never quite, quenching my thirst—for his affections I have become lethal, killing again and again, and though I hate the spurting gore I cause, my fellow birds bleeding their lives out for me, I’d bathe gladly preening in their guts for the joy it brings my man—
    And this puffed-up Bantam across from me will be no different: steady me, Sun, and forgive me please my unnatural love, but I will have my man crow once more, Caesar! Caesar!

I Am, 26 Months,
    O’Neal Red, 4.07 lbs, Record: 6–0
     
    M e rooster strut daddy, me señor cock of the walk, gotta prick longer than yo’ talon gaff—look at this maricón , this capon they’ve brought me to slay, too lazy to learn his proper pecking order place—I put him just above these sad-ass men who’ve come to see the rooster snuft again but ain’t brought enough fire to kill me yet—I can see it in his eyes, his cooing eyes cooing that cock handler’s eyes—but what’s a man to me but a builder of fences and cages, while I am free with skill enough to holler the Sun, and the Sun know better than not rise when I peck and call. Because I Am the greatest—been blessed with this chest, swollen and strong as any Bantam you ever saw—when asked why fight, I say, Why not? —I Am: hot like July sand, like God don’t give a damn, and it ain’t nothing but a thang for me to survey my land perched ten feet off the ground, while empty-headed chicken heads empty they eggs into my nests—I Am: still here because I say you ain’t, and because I say it, boy, you ain’t—I Am: bowed up and just so purty, watch how I dance my cockerelwaltz—and when you call me fighter , I correct, and say killer: four pounds of fury ready for any round robin, rounding up robins and bobbin jays straying too close to the lane, keepin them fox and snake at bay.
    And you, you needs to pray, Little One, for the odd chance to find any one of my tail feathers fallen, use it as a talisman to conjure the devil, and when you do, ask him for me: Which came first, Old Scratch, the chicken or the egg? And that old-timer will tell you every time, That badass bird, I Am! I Am.

Hector Velazquez, 32,
    Caesar Julius’s Cocker
     
    W e release the birds and they high-step and prance—through the slash of gaffs, which strobe the lights, I see a police who looks so much like the man who took Miguel away after he knifed that jefe in the Ponchatoula strawberry patch, that no-paying liar who made slaves of us both—stabbed him as Caesar now stabs his foe, the bird falling and turning away, so we handlers rush into the gallodrome to separate them and the other cocker slips Caesar’s blade out his bird’s heart, which bursts in throbs, his life only worth the making of small puddles in the sawdust, and the policeman is in the ring now holding us together, his stick in my back—tomorrow if we bring our cocks to fight, a thing which is true to their own fowl nature, he will arrest us, send me home to Guadalajara or to his pen where my brother spent his last years having to stick and stab to stay alive, a pen like Caesar has never known—he strikes my wrist and I drop Caesar and the other bird falls on him, jabs his gaff into Caesar’s neck, the two joined now forever in death, and a metallic clanging erupts on the bleachers, these men with money to win and lose press in on me—these cracker and coonass and cowboy alike—crowd against me to see which dead bird has become dead bird first and they holler threats and bargains and I am outnumbered as always, their hands and heat upon me, the smell of diesel from the generators makes me woozy, sweat drips off my nose and I look up, fresh air and strings of gay lights sway in the rafters, and shouts rise like the hair on my neck, and I look down at his bird, whose eyes have gone from glass to gravy—Caesar has won,but how much longer will he live, his eyes a dying fire burning into mine and I