D  e  s  e  r  t     E  x  p  o  s  u  r  e     March 2005

My Cockfighting Career

An accidental "cocker" remembers his brief life in the pits.

By Matt Retherford

My brother and I were the first on the school bus each morning and the last off in the evening. I was 17, a senior in high school, and in the mid-1970s we lived in a little mountain town in the Sierra Nevada mountains in northern California called Strawberry Valley. I always looked forward to stopping at the bottom of the mountain because that was Billy's stop. Billy was my best friend. "I got kicked out of the house," said Billy as he sat down next to me. Without hesitation, I told Billy he could stay at our house.

Dad wasn't too happy about my offer. I suppose it had something to do with the fact that we barely had room for our own family, let alone food, but I persisted and Billy was allowed to stay.

The following Saturday, Billy asked if we could go to his grandparents' house to pick up his stuff. Within the hour, my van was filled up with some clothes, a guitar and an old tackle box. "I didn't know you fished," I said to Billy as we headed back up the hill. He just looked at me kind of funny.

Within a mile, Billy told me to take a right. I'd been down New York House Road a thousand times before, but it certainly wasn't the way home. After six miles of silent driving, Billy told me to take a left down a dirt road.

After a minute on this road, I noticed these weird-looking birds on both sides. They were about five feet away from each other and each had some kind of strap around one leg. I stopped counting at 30 birds.

An old man walked out to meet us. He introduced himself to me as Farmer John. He already knew Billy. Billy and Farmer John discussed the finer points of cockfighting and more specifically, the training of all these Rhode Island Red roosters, while we strolled around the makeshift fighting- rooster training camp. As I eavesdropped on the conversation, it eventually dawned on me that some of these birds belonged to Billy!

One by one, we collected the birds and put them in my van. They were born and raised to fight and fight they did. We ended up tying them down inside. Big Red, Billy's prize rooster, sat on his lap all the way home.

When I pulled into our driveway, we had three loose roosters that had kicked the crap out of the other four. Billy once more tied them up and we walked around our house looking for a place to stake them out. What the hell was my Dad going to say about all these damn roosters? Luckily for Billy and his band of fighters, my Dad didn't really know what to do.

I learned all about cockfighting. I assisted Billy as he trained the birds. Here was a guy who never ate breakfast or lunch but always made sure his birds had only the finest feed.

One day, Billy opened the old tackle box and I shuddered at the contents. I picked up what looked like a long curved needle and asked, "What the hell are these?"

"Spurs," was Billy's reply.

"And what do you do with them?"

"Put 'em on the birds."

"But what if the birds get hit with these?"

"Then we lose," said Billy.

I sat there in disbelief. All this time I thought this was some kind of weird hobby. I had no idea weapons were involved. I just didn't get it and I kept telling Billy that. He told me he was in it for the money.

Big Red once again sat on Billy's lap during the entire four-hour drive to Petaluma with Junior tied up in the back. Outside of town, we found an old dilapidated barn. Parked outside were at least 300 vehicles.

The noise inside was deafening. Never in my life have I seen a wider variety of people: businessmen, cowboys, Asians, Mexicans, Indians and people I can't even describe. The only common denominator was the wads of cash everyone was holding.
There were two fighting pits with fights already in progress. As I approached one pit, both cocks jumped up and completed their kicks at one another.

Something hot hit my face. I rubbed my hand over the impact only to see droplets of already-dried blood.

The loser picked up his bird, kissed it on the beak, and tossed it in a nearby garbage can.

On and on it went. I could see that some people were winning lots of money while others were losing lots. The crowd definitely had its favorites and the majority of them had definitely been there before.

Eventually, Billy opened the old tackle box. Big Red was up. He proudly stood on one of Billy's knees while Billy attached one spur and then the other. I was so focused on Big Red that I didn't notice Farmer John and his Rhode Island Red enter the other side. These two friends barely gave each other a glance. They lunged their respective birds at the other and dropped them on the ground.

In less than three minutes, Big Red lay there with bloodied dirt in his eyes. He sounded worse than my grandfather, who had emphysema, as he hacked up even more blood. Angrily Billy picked up Big Red, breaking his neck with a slight tug. Big Red almost ended up in the garbage but I couldn't let Billy do it. Billy didn't bother to fight Junior, the other bird he'd brought. We packed it in and drove back home. I buried Big Red in the dark.

As if nothing had happened, we trained and sparred the birds as usual and, as usual, one always seemed to get loose and beat the crap out of all the others.
One day after school, Billy didn't get on the bus. I took care of the birds myself as another week went by. Still no Billy. One morning I went outside to feed the birds and found Junior loose and beating up the others. This time, however, he killed two of them.

I buried the two dead birds and let the others go. I expected them to take off into the woods. . . to get away. . . to be free. Instead, it was a gang war! The birds fought like crazy but Junior was once again kicking ass and taking names. I was sick of it.

Eventually, I was able to tie them all back up. Over the next two weeks, I nursed them back to health, except for Junior who was obviously a super rooster.

Not really knowing what to do with these instinctive fighters, I started driving to nearby towns with one rooster at a time. It took some doing, but I was able to find good homes for all the birds—trimmed combs and all—except for Junior. I knew Billy was going to be pissed so I kept Junior around and hoped for the best.

Unfortunately, Junior wasn't a super rooster after all. I woke up one morning to find him half-eaten by a coyote that found its way into the pen.

To be honest, I was relieved, though I had grown fond of these animals that were bred to fight. Not much of a future, when you think about it.

Of course Billy came back one day to find all the birds gone. That pretty much ended our friendship. I tried to keep tabs on Billy throughout the years. After several stints in jail, he eventually drank himself to death. Like I said, not much of a future.

Matt Retherford is a screenwriter/filmmaker in Las Cruces.

Read Jeff Berg's "Cockfighting," also in this month's Desert Exposure.

 

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