America's Finest Ambassador Chapter 50 – Killer Cocks

Chapter 50 – Killer Cocks

Once I’d fully played out in my mind the fantasy of how I’d steal that Manny Pacquiao banner from the lobby of Makati Coliseum, my pasty white ass proceeded to stand there, sticking out like a sore thumb as a bunch of brown guys held, fondled and slapped around their cocks in anticipation of the day’s upcoming sabong matches. At some point during my lingering, a voice called out to me.

“Hey, hey you,” an employee in a neon green WTJ Sports & Amusement shirt had said while waving me over. “What are you doing here?”

“Me?”

“Yeah you. What are you doing here?”

“Uh, I just came to see some cockfighting.”

“Do you own a bird?”

“No.”

“Do you gamble on the birds?”

“No.”

“Then what are you doing here?”

“I’ve never seen sabong before. Just wanted to check out some cockfighting – see what it’s like, ya know?”

“You’ve never seen a cockfight before?”

“No.”

“Where you from?”

“Chicago.”

“There’s no sabong in Chicago?”

“No, it’s illegal.”

“Do you know how it works?”

“Well, I figure the birds just kill each other, right?”

“Well yeah, but there’s more to it than that,” he said. “Come here man. Follow me back here and let me show you how it works.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, c’mon,” he said as he began walking towards a door that had an “Employees Only” sign posted on it. “Hey,” he temporarily stopped walking and pointed at the banner I’d contemplated stealing, “do you know Manny Pacquiao, the Filipino boxer?”

“Of course. I’ve seen his fights on TV.”

“Do you like him?”

“Yeah man. He’s good.”

“Manny was here last week and won a bunch of money. Too bad you missed him.”

“Yeah,” I nodded. “Woulda been cool.”

“He’ll be back in a few weeks to host that tournament as well. Will you be around?”

“Nah man, I leave tomorrow.”

He nodded with indifference, kept walking and entered the “Employees Only” area. I followed right behind.

Inside the small white-walled room had been three or four more relatively young guys in the neon green WTJ shirts who’d been hanging out, goofing around and from what I could gather, having fun at the expense of some old-timer. My personal guide walked right up to this old man and put his arm around the guy’s shoulder.

“Although it might’ve been a million years ago already, this man right here used to be a sabong referee.”

“Oh yeah? Really?”

“Yeah, really,” my man said. “Take a close look between his nose and his lip there.”

I did as I was told.

“You see that scar?”

“Yeah,” it was impossible not to.

“One time when this guy was calling a match, a bird got away from him and it cut his face open. His mouth and his nostrils became one single hole.”

“Holy shit, are you serious?”

“Yeah I’m serious. At the end of the match he went up to see if the one bird was dead and the other one attacked him with the blade on his leg.”

“The blade on his leg? You guys put blades on the legs of these birds?”

“Oh yeah, very sharp blades. They make the fight more interesting. Here, let me show you.”

The guy walked over to a table and picked up a small rectangular wooden box, popped it open and revealed unto me its glimmering contents. After grabbing one of the dozen or so neatly placed blades resembling miniature scythes, the guy reached out and handed me the catalyst of cockfighting bloodshed. The thing was only about the length of my pinky finger but appeared sharp enough to skin an entire rhinoceros. I gave it a quick look and, not wanting to have myself an accident, carefully reached out to pass the blade back to my host with a tremulous right hand.

“Jesus God, man. Are you an alcoholic?”

That month in Asia had been the longest bender I’d ever been on. At the time, my hands shook, my eyes twitched and I got diarrhea every time my system had been devoid of the sauce.

“Well, uh, it has been a long month for me and yeah, Popeye could use a can of spinach. They sell beer here?”

“Do they sell beer here?” he laughed and looked around the room at his buddies. “Of course they sell beer here – this is the Philippines! Go to the concession stand in the lobby and get yourself a San Miguel. Then afterwards, come right back here. I wanna show you one more thing before the fights start.”

Once I’d helped myself to a medicinal pair of twelve ounce doses to slug down during the rest of my sabong tour, I returned to the “Employees Only” area.

“Alright, you got your beers? Now you feel better?” the guy asked. “Now you ready to see the rest of the Coliseum?”

“Yes sir.”

“Okay, let’s go. We only got about five minutes before the first fight starts.”

We walked out of the back room, through the lobby and into the main arena.

“Obviously, this is where the fights take place. I didn’t need to show you this,” he pointed to an elevated, square-shaped, dirt-floored boxing ring surrounded by a clear three-foot-tall glass wall, “you would’ve been able to figure that out for yourself. But what I did wanna show you that you might not have noticed on your own is back here by the bathrooms.”

He led me out a door into a little courtyard that’d been partially covered by an awning.

“You see the ground out here?” he asked, pointing near a set of chairs that’d been lining the wall.

It was an old cement floor covered in what looked to me like coffee stains.

“That’s blood. This is where the birds are taken after the fight. The winners have their cuts stitched back together over here by the guys on this bench while the losers are skinned, cleaned and hung on those hooks over there above the sink. You should definitely come back out here in between fights to see what it’s like. It’s important you see that no parts of the birds used in the fights will be wasted.”

“Oh, for sure,” watching bloody cut-up cocks get stitched back together sounded like a scene straight from a film about the life of John Bobbitt, “I’ll definitely come back and check that out.”

“Great,” he said. “Well, unless I read you the official rule book that’s about all I can teach you for now. You can walk right back into the arena here and find yourself a seat. The fights will be starting any minute now.”

“Awesome,” I thanked the man, shook his hand and headed back into the room where the blood-squirting magic was about to take place.

Immediately surrounding the ring in the main arena had been about five or six rows of blue plastic chairs. These seemed to be filled with members of the more well-to-do Filipino population – mostly men who’d worn khakis and nice looking collared shirts and were probably the guys who’d owned most of the birds fighting. Up on the second floor balcony had been about as many rows of bench seating where all the commoners dressed in shorts, sleeveless T’s and wife-beaters stood shouting and taking bets on the upcoming fight. From here is where I decided to watch the mortal combat transpire.

Roosters are extremely territorial creatures that are wired to want all the hen twat for themselves. This is why two males will inevitably kill each other when thrown in a ring together. Just before the initial scrapping of the day had commenced, the owners of the birds that were due to get it on stood with cocks in hand facing each other at the center of the ring. Thanks to the aforementioned congenital aggression of the respective contenders, the cocks began going apeshit and trying to get away from the owners’ grasps in a Scrappy Doo, “Let me at ‘em” type of way. Once the birds had been satisfactorily riled up, the ref gave the go-ahead, the owners took a few steps back and dropped their cocks to the floor. At that moment, all the shouting and betting around Makati Coliseum ceased. Silence fell over the stadium as all Filipinos in attendance sat in anticipation of first blood drawn.

As if you didn’t know this already, birds are extremely stupid animals that have brains smaller than my left nut. Once they were set on the ground no more than a whole six feet away from each other, it was as if they’d forgotten they’d just been in a hostile situation, face-to-face with an adversary and began pecking around the ring, couched in their indifference. Following a solid minute of frittering, the birds had once again noticed each other and suddenly switched back to kill mode.

Breaking from their anticipatory silence, the crowd went wild as the birds conjoined in a ball of wing-fluttering fury. No more than fifteen seconds later, one of the two had been lying unresponsive in a pool of its own blood. Like one belonging to an eight-day-old Jewboy at a Bris, that cock had been sliced-up good. The other bird – the mohel, if you will – once again resumed aimlessly rambling around the ring as if it hadn’t just fought another bird to the death.

To signify a fight’s conclusion, the sabong referee must step in and pick up both of the cocks – one in each hand – and hold them face-to-face before dropping them to the ground. It was during this part where the old-timer I’d met back in the “Employees Only” area had gotten his face sliced open.

As the judge picked up these two particular birds, put them up against each other and dropped them to the ground, the one had just been dead weight and fell limply back down. The fight was officially over. The winner was handed back to the owner who proceeded to take his little champion to the courtyard to get stitched up by the cock docs whereas the loser was carried to the back, handed off to the butcher and prepped to be eaten. Among the shouting members of the audience, all lost bets were collected and to the winners, payment distributed.

Snaps from Sabong…