night game. Nearly two hundred people jammed the building, some of them standing, others perched on wooden bleachers that ascended nearly to the roof. Big-bellied men and gangly boys, mostly, though I noticed several women and even a handful of girls clustered on the top row of bleachers. The crowd’s skin tones ranged from pasty Anglo white to Hispanic olive brown; their attire ranged from overalls and feed caps to hip-hugger jeans, snakeskin boots, Abercrombie sweatshirts, and milky white Stetsons.
A narrow gap bisected the bleachers directly in front of us, and through it, I glimpsed a round enclosure at the center. Waylon began threading his way toward it, and—mindful of his instructions and of T-Ray’s unwelcoming eyes—
I stuck close.
As we approached the enclosure, I saw that it was a circle about fifteen feet across, dirt-floored and fenced in by wire mesh rising to a height of eight or ten feet. Dust hung in the air like dry, allergy-baiting fog, giving the scene an even more surreal quality than it already possessed. Shouts punctuated the background din: “Hunnerd on the red!” “Fifty on the gray!” “Call fifty!” “Five hunnerd on the red!” This last cry, in Waylon’s booming voice, nearly shattered my eardrum.
Two men faced each other inside the ring. One was a long-bearded ancient who resembled some Old Testament prophet in baggy overalls. The other was a young Hispanic man in a snug brown jumpsuit, monogrammed “Felipe.”
Leaning toward each other, weaving and swaying rhythmically, the men seemed to be cradling something to their chests. I was still trying to make out what it was when they squatted in unison and then stood back up, now empty-handed. There was a momentary lull in the din, followed by an explosive flurry of wings and feathers, accompanied by bloodcurdling screeches and raucous cheers. “Hit
’im, Red! Hit ’im! There you go!” “Come on, Gray! Stick it to ’im!”
As I watched in horror, two roosters beat their wings in midair, kicking and tearing at each other with their feet as they struggled to hover. I caught the glint of steel blades on their legs, and I knew with sickening certainty that the cockfight I had stumbled into would end swiftly. Cockfighting was illegal in Tennessee, I knew—as it was in every state but Oklahoma, Louisiana, and New Mexico—but in a hardscrabble area like Cooke County, which tended to regard the law more as a challenge than as a code of conduct, it was hardly surprising that it continued.
The birds tumbled to the ground in a knot of feathers and blood. “Hit ’im baby, hit ’im baby, hit ’im baby,” chanted a bleached-blonde woman sitting by my right shoulder. “Git ’er done, Red,” yelled a man at my left. In the ring, a third man—cockfights had referees, apparently—motioned to the birds’ handlers, who swooped in to disentangle the snarled cocks. The men clasped the birds to their chests again, smoothing their feathers, blowing warm air onto their backs; they even seemed to be pressing their lips around the roosters’ combs as if to warm them, though I had no idea whether that was the purpose or whether it was merely some good-luck ritual.
In their first dustup, the red-and-black rooster had looked smaller but quicker and more aggressive; the one called a gray, though (actually multicolored, with an off-white neck and head), looked strong and tough. It appeared to be a classic David-versus-Goliath match—except that in the Bible story, I recalled, David had been armed only with a slingshot and stones. These birds, though, were armed with sharpened steel. On the back of one leg—strapped with a leather band to what must have been the stump of his natural spur—each cock wore a gleaming knife blade, two inches long. Judging by the caution with which the handlers carried the birds, the knives were razor-sharp. “Hang in there, FleaPay,” a freckled teenager yelled to the Hispanic man, who stroked and blew on the gray rooster.
The handlers began their rhythmic dance again, which I now saw was actually a way of taunting the birds, getting them agitated and ready to fight. As the handlers circled and bobbed and swayed a foot or two apart, the cocks’ heads lashed forward at one another, coming close but never quite making contact. Once the birds were sufficiently enraged, the handlers set them down for another round. As soon as he was released, the gray one darted furiously toward the red and leapt up to strike. This time, though, instead of meeting him in midair, the red cock ducked and ran underneath, spun swiftly, and then launched himself at the gray’s back, windmilling his feet as he made contact. The crowd gave a collective shout, then fell eerily silent. The gray cock toppled onto his side, panted a few startled, ragged breaths, and died in a small pool of blood. The red rooster shook hard and fluffed himself, then strutted over to the body of his fallen rival and pecked at the lifeless body. Next, placing one foot on the gray’s head, he swelled his chest, threw back his head, and crowed triumphantly. As if in reply, the crowd—except for the few dejected-looking losers who had bet on the gray—let loose with a cheer equally primal. A teenager sauntered past, holding a cardboard food tray. It was filled with fried chicken strips.
Waylon leaned toward me and yelled, “That red’un sure is game, ain’t he? I b’lieve that’s his tenth win this year.”