Passus VIII
Cockfight
It
was raining black that Sunday afternoon.
Scores of fields of burning sugarcane could be seen bellowing in the
distance, spitting ebony snow that covered every surface of the once colorful
streets of the town.
La
zafra had come and every able man, woman and child braved the crushing heat and
the unending work of cutting sugar cane for a few meager cents a day.
It
was a sight of awe.
During
the days before la zafra, workers set countless fires in order to burn away the
tough skin of the sugar cane, a skin that could cut the hands and arms of men
almost to the bone. Rats, mice, serpents
and assorted vermin fled for their lives and invaded every home in town like a
giant tidal wave of flesh and fur. After
this Hell had died down, the aching arms of a myriad men slowly made their way
through the scorched earth, their wives making them lunch and an army of
children taking this precious food to their exhausted fathers in the field.
And
so the zafra came once a year forming the backbone of the Island
ever since they could remember and so it would be when the sweet Empire
remained in place.
Those
same fathers came every Sunday, with a couple of pennies chiming in their
pockets, to watch the sport of gentlemen and for a few hours forget their own
pains by witnessing the pain of a lesser being.
They
all came to see the cockfights.
Cockfighting
was always very common in the Island. It was a tradition brought in by Spaniards
and enjoyed by the masses. But the sport
had been shut down officially by the Americans and their laws. Still, the allure of blood and the forbidden
attracted many an adventurous spirit.
Contests were organized deep within many haciendas and vigias were hired
to keep a lookout for the newly founded police.
Libertad
Monte had never seen a cockfight in her life.
As she weaved through the crowd, tightly grasping Jesús’ sweaty palm,
her heart beat a bit faster both from anticipation and from the knowledge that
what they were doing was wrong.
Jesús had not
wanted her to come. He knew it was
dangerous for her to go to such a place without the knowledge of her
grandparents. And, even worse, he knew
that women were almost never seen in the crowds that gathered hollering around
the vallas.
The sport of
gentlemen was highly unlady-like.
But Libertad had
heard about cockfights and was very curious, as she always would be throughout
her life about things she didn’t understand, and she would refuse to give up
her ambition. Jesús finally agreed, his
protests defeated.
Jesús knew her
really well, having shared with her most of his days since they had met. He knew two very important things about his
companion. First, he had come to know
the speck of wrath that Libertad had inherited from her grandmother. Although not en par with the ire of those
fiery cold German eyes, Jesús knew that Libertad’s passion could be easily
unfurled into anger, if just for a few seconds.
Jesús also knew that Libertad was strong willed. He knew that once her heart was set on something
she usually got it. As it was through
her life, except for one time.
One very important
time.
He tightly grasped
her hand in determination, both to show her what she wished and to protect her
if the need arose.
The
pair was led by Angel Manuel, a friend of Jesús and, like Libertad, one of the
few people that didn’t seem affected by the surreal green stare.
Libertad, having
seen deep beneath his soul knew exactly why.
Having witnessed so much sorrow in his short life, Angel Manuel’s heart
had already turned hard. It is difficult
to pinpoint where Angel Manuel came from.
He most certainly lived alone since he was very young and at that time
he was probably already living somewhere in the streets of town or surviving at
the fringes of the civilization around it.
His mother was long dead and somewhere along the way his father had
disappeared never to be seen again. He,
like many “realengos”, children that lived on the streets, had a hard life
alone. He had been arrested many times
before for petty things like stealing food.
He had witnessed only a small act of kindness in his life, a young boy
with sad green eyes offering him half of his treasured dulce de coco when
hunger was at its worst. Ever since that
single act, he had become Jesús’ friend and, until the end of his short days,
his protector. Wearing tattered clothes
and a faded red cap, Angel Manuel was the guide of this particular expedition.
Behind
Libertad and Jesús, lagging like usual, was Benito, his tired, awkward walk
keeping him last in the small group. He
had come with his father Beno to the cockfight, their rooster Pitirre tightly
packed in an old burly sack tightly grasped by the older jíbaro. Benito’s feet ached and his back hurt as he
desperately tried to catch up with his friends with his clumsy bunny walk.
Benito was the
only one of the friends who worked. He
helped his dad Beno cut sugarcane in Alfonso Alfredo’s plantation. He lived in a small, dirty shack within the
Monte hacienda. Libertad had met him a
few years before while accompanying her grandfather on one of his many
inspection walks through his lands.
Seeing the innate man of the land goodness within Benito, she had struck
a fast friendship with him. She was
perfectly aware that while Benito tried really hard to hide it, he worshipped
her. He trembled every time she was near
and blushed every time she talked to him.
He made her humble presents of birds and flowers made out of the leaves
of palm trees which she accepted gladly and rewarded with a kiss on his cheek
and one of her amazing smiles that only served to make Benito blush even more
until his ears were the deep red of an amapola. In their unspoken understanding, Benito knew
that Libertad’s true love was reserved only for that pair of sad green
eyes. He had seen the way she smiled
when she saw him coming her way. He had
noticed that special laugh reserved only for him. He had spied on them during many afternoons
when Libertad played her violin sitting on a dead palm tree while cradled by
the boy’s loving arms. He, as the man
he felt he was in his twelve years of age, respected that. But deep down he knew that even if Jesús
wasn’t there, his arms wouldn’t have taken their place. Libertad Monte was the granddaughter of el
Colono, who could knock down a caoba with his fist.
Benito knew his
place.
And although Libertad couldn’t reciprocate the young jíbarito’s
feelings, she always held a place in her heart for that dirty little kid with
the funny walk, destined to fall for what he believed in, even after the image
of his blushing cheeks had faded in her memory.
Angel
Manuel navigated fast in that sea of heads bobbing up and down and they were
starting to lose track of him. Jesús
looked back and motioned Benito to walk faster.
Benito was having trouble maneuvering through the crowd for fear of
having his foot crushed by the much taller men. The boys walked barefooted
while Libertad was wearing a pair of shiny, black leather shoes, her white
dress flowing around them. Finally,
Libertad swung back and, without letting go of Jesús’ hand, grabbed Benito
forcing him to keep pace with them as they tried to catch up with Angel Manuel.
As
they walked a smell became clearer and more prominent. Nobody could identify it yet except Angel
Manuel. He instantly knew that what they
were smelling was blood.
It
seemed to Libertad that, though the sounds of the crowd, she could hear dozens
of whips crackling in rapid succession.
Finally,
after pushing through a wall of flesh and sweat they were in front of the
vallas. It was a spectacle unlike
anything Libertad had ever seen. There
was a circle marked with pieces of wood in the densely compacted dirt. It was surrounded by screaming men, their
eyebrows covered with sweat and the veins in their necks almost bursting. Some men carried sacks of different colors
that twitched in jerky movements. It was
obvious by the sound of their voices and the expression of their faces that
their world had been reduced by a small circle of red dirt, some fifteen feet
across. It the middle of the circle, almost imperceptibly moving what was once
a wing, and being circled by the victor, was a red mass of stained white
feathers and ripped flesh.
Libertad
instinctively clung to Jesús’ arm. Jesús
put his arm on her shoulder in a sign of comforting Libertad although he was
fully aware that her reaction was really due to surprise and nothing else. Libertad wasn’t scared of blood. Benito noticed the movement and instantly
felt ashamed of the surge of jealousy climbing within him. Angel Manuel cheerfully smirked at the sight
of blood.
Two
men entered the circle and picked up two bloodied roosters. The first one picked up the circling rooster,
who was gurgling softly, one of his eyes gone during the battle. The loser’s neck hanged limp from the brown
arms of the second man. His throat was
slashed, his white neck bone clearly seen through the red.
Even
the victor had seen his last morning, for that night the jíbaro’s family was
probably going to have a roast of champions.
There
were a few kids their age roaming around the illegal valla. Some, like Jesús, came here on their own,
trying to take flight for brief moments from the dullness of their daily
lives. Others accompanied their parents
in their weekly pilgrimage of escape.
There were just a couple who had made the spectacle a part of their lives,
ingraining within them the struggle of survival.
One
such kid was Angel Manuel, for whom the short years he walked on this earth,
every day was a struggle to survive.
Jesús
recognized a number of the kids attending the event. He could see Andres, the son of the town’s
baker standing next to his dad. Both
father and son had huge strong arms, their fingers colored in the unnatural
white of flour. Some paces away, happily
chomping on an alcapurria, stood Wilson López, a friend of his who lived at the
outskirts of town near el barrio Coquí. Wilson was the son of an
official at the alcaldía. His mother was
a schoolteacher like Libertad’s father had been. He had nicely cropped dark hair, a goofy
smile and bright brown eyes hidden by a pair of round glasses that made people
grin by just looking at them. Wilson loved to make
people laugh.
Jesús waved at his
friend in the distance. Wilson saw him and wildly waved back with a
grin, his fingers stained with grease.
Somewhere in his mind, Jesús could have sworn that Wilson’s eyes suddenly sparkled with a
strange brightness, as if he had seen something he had never seen or noticed
before, as his gaze separated from Jesús’.
Little did Jesús know now about the betrayal that would happen
afterwards.
As the owners of
the last two combatants left, shoeless men entered the arena, exchanging coins,
honoring their bets like gentlemen should.
As money exchanged hands, some men were still shouting, in anger or
perhaps joy. Voices mixed in Jesús’
head.
As the rush of the
recent fight died down, and the men waited for the next battle to commence, the
talk of men shifted to more current affairs.
He could make out snippets of conversation, things like the recent
election of the father of El Bate, as he would be known in a few years, to
Congress in far away Washington;
where his lone voice would be heard, but never his vote. And the boastful talk of a new party that
favored autonomy for the island. It was
clear that many men strived to make themselves look more important by talking
about perceived important things.
Jesús,
at the time had little interest in such occurrences.
Jesús
felt a tap on his shoulder. He and
Libertad looked back to see Benito’s grinning face. He made his way between them, gently placing
his coarse hands of each of their shoulders and with his chin, pointed proudly
at his father, about to enter the arena with the old, yellowish sack in his
hand.
Benito
told them of all the work and love that went into preparing Pitirre into
fighting shape. He himself had spent
countless nights rubbing the rooster’s skin to make it tougher and sharing what
little food he had with the bird to make it stronger.
Benito talked
proudly to his friends about the treasure within that cloth.
His frame seemed to be filled, his shoulders were high and his eyes
gleamed.
Getting
excited by the fight, Jesús leaned a few inches until his belly nearly touched
the wood that marked the arena. Suddenly
he felt a slight tingling in the wound on his ankle, the scar left by ancient
teeth. Long ago he had learned the
significance of such feeling coming from his foot and he scanned around with
his gaze low looking for any sign that there was something wrong. Jesús had learned to keep his stare low so
that it would not meet another’s glance.
He had discovered that this would stave off many incidents and many
unpleasant encounters. It was then that
he noticed her. Across from them,
looking remarkably out of place in a bright yellow dress and shiny black
leather shoes stood Ofelia Monte.
Jesús
had never actually met Ofelia. He had
seen her from a distance when he scurried through the Calle Brau to meet
Libertad. He had caught glimpses of her
through the huge open caoba doors of the balcony of the big white house at the
corner of Carbonell and Brau that Ursula sometimes opened in particularly warm
days while Ofelia practiced the piano.
Of course, Ofelia had never seen him until that day.
His
intentionally low stare could not but meet Ofelia’s eyes. Ofelia was caught off guard by those
commanding green eyes. Feelings swelled
through her body, her feet tingled and that tickling swept through her body in
an instant.
It
was the blessing and the curse of the green stare.
Jesús,
himself was caught by surprise, could
not think what to do.
After the task of the barefoot men was done, while small patches of
earth were barely moist with the killing, two men entered the arena, each
holding a proud rooster tightly in their hands.
One of them was clearly bigger than the other, but at that time weight
was not really taken into consideration.
With a hop, a third man entered the circle; he was dressed in the best
clothes that he could afford. With a few
movements of his hands, he signaled the crowd to be quiet. The talk of men died down in anticipation of
the formal introductions and the fight to the death to come afterwards.
Without
really knowing that he was doing it, Jesús squeezed Libertad’s hand twice and
motioned with his head towards Ofelia.
Libertad, at first puzzled, looked at the direction he was pointing
at. Ofelia, noticing Jesús’ movement,
came out of her trance.
The
two sisters stared at each other across the arena.
The
third man spoke with a booming voice similar to Alfonso Alfredo’s. To his left, he introduced the smaller
rooster as Pitirre. The crowd cheered as
Beno looked around the crowd, his warm smile displaying his few missing
teeth. He then looked down warmly at
Pitirre, who seemed eager to go into battle, his legs already swinging wildly.
The announcer proclaimed the rooster at the right to be Águila. Nobody seemed to know exactly who the man
holding the second rooster was. His
clothes, nicely pressed and clean,
marked a clear contrast to Beno’s worn shirt and shoeless feet. The man motioned slightly with his head to
acknowledge the introduction without changing his expression. With the same ease as he entered, the
announcer hopped out of the circle. Both
men lowered the roosters, their willing spools finally touching earth. At the count of three, both men let go of
their roosters rapidly making their way out of the arena and into the waiting
arms of the crowd.
Libertad kept
staring intently at Ofelia. They seemed
to be attached by an invisible line that cut through the circle. Jesús was fully aware of the situation
unfolding and, although his mind raced, he didn’t know what to do. Benito, always slow, finally realized what
was going on and the gravity of the situation.
He was perfectly aware of the treachery that Ofelia was capable of. His mind was full of the stories Libertad had
told him about the extent of Ofelia’s jealousy and her capability to be
perfectly civil to your face and then calmly and coolly stab you in the
back. Benito knew that by just being
there with Libertad, his father’s job was in peril. A single word from Ofelia and Beno would not
only lose his job but his home as well.
Of the four the
only one that seemed unaffected by all of this was Ángel Manuel. His eyes stayed on the roosters, his mouth
and his mind thirsty for combat.
The two roosters stared, sizing each other up. All the conscious thoughts that they were
capable of vanished, replaced by the instinctive bloodlust. Their tails curled and their necks strained
forward. They fluffed their feathers in
an always futile attempt to intimidate each other. Slowly, they began to move clockwise in
unison, in a perfectly choreographed move.
Each step taking an eternity.
The dance of death had begun.
Jesús slowly moved
closer to Libertad, cutting in front of Benito while clutching her hand
tightly. Ofelia’s eyes narrowed. She understood what that move meant. She now realized what was going on. She knew that Libertad and Jesús were there
together. In a flash, she realized what
they meant to each other by looking at their faces. Caught in the spell of the green eyes,
Ofelia’s gut twisted with rage and bitterness.
All those feuds, all that bickering she had with her sister throughout
their lives became meaningless and were suddenly forgotten. A new feud had begun, something more
important, something much more valuable.
Libertad, with her
ebony eyes like sugarcane fields embering in the night, could see through her sister’s thoughts. She could see that like many others before
her, Ofelia was unable to help herself. Those sudden feelings that many others before
and after had felt for that sad stare had hardened her determination to win the
ultimate prize. Libertad felt neither
anger nor hate. She took in the facts
and simply knew that Ofelia had just raised the stakes of the sibling
game.
Benito began
wheezing in desperation. Jesús bent back
to look at him and saw the sheer terror in his face. Benito took a couple of steps into the crowd
and turned to Jesús. Jesús nodded an
approval and Benito, blinking in acknowledgement with shame in his eyes,
disappeared into the people around as fast as his crooked legs let him.
Meanwhile, as
Libertad was desperately looking through the crowd for a way out, she suddenly
saw a spark of white that beamed effortlessly through the crowd gathered some
twenty feet from the arena. It was the
commanding white suit of her grandfather, Alfonso Alfredo Monte. Surely, Libertad gathered, he was the one
that brought Ofelia with him. Ofelia saw
the expression in Libertad’s face and knew of her realization. Ofelia knew that Libertad was there without
permission of their grandparents. She
also knew of the severe punishment she would receive if she was discovered
there. Slowly, almost imperceptibly,
Ofelia started to move through the crowd.
Libertad began the same movement before realizing what her sister was
doing.
The two roosters began pecking at each other. It seemed like their were kissing in
friendship and love. Without warning,
both roosters leapt into the air in unison.
Their wings cracking into the air like whips, showering the air with
feathers. The voices of the men became
one roar that deafened all the people around there. Men cheered their favorite roosters giving
them battle advice as if the roosters could understand them. The roosters, ignoring the noise, struck at
each other desperately trying to gain an advantage in their struggle for
life. Pitirre’s spool slashed at Águila’s
shoulder in a defiant attempt to gain the open hand. His attack struck air and both roosters
landed. It had seemed like an eternity
for the combatants, but it had all happened in a few seconds. Both roosters gathered themselves up and
leapt again, their claws in the air, hacking with their beaks what their legs
could not reach. At every leap, every
slash, the holler of the men became louder.
Some men pounded their feet into the ground, others slapped the wooden
fence in excitement. The toothless
jíbaro wildly chanted words of encouragement to his rooster while the nicely
dressed man watched the fight without forming any clear expression. Defiantly, each rooster struggled to end the
other’s life before their own could be extinguished. The screams of the men around intensified to
an unbearable degree. After barely
taking in a breath, after a few seconds of pecking, both warriors leapt once
again.
Sensing her
sister’s movement, Ofelia dashed into the crowd. Libertad, without thinking, did the same with
Jesús close behind her. Ofelia’s mind
raced. Libertad, it seemed to her,
always got what she wanted. She had a
kind of freedom that Ofelia never dreamed of having. She knew of her tricks for breaking out of
the big white house at the corner of Carbonell and Brau. She knew of the long daily escapes towards
the freedom of town. She had always been
envious, but she had always felt that her duty as a lady was to stay within the
white bleached walls and behave properly.
Now everything had
changed. She had known of her sister’s
escapes. Now she knew why.
And she desired
it, with all her heart, she wanted it.
This time, Libertad would pay for her recklessness.
Faces melted
together as Libertad and Jesús zigzagged through the crowd. Libertad was still unsure what to do. She didn’t know what her sister planned. She could try to escape the valla and make
her way back home, that way she could conceivably challenge Ofelia’s account
that she was there. Or she could try to
get to her sister before she’d reached the white aura of their grandfather and
try to reason with her or to bully her into submission. She couldn’t consider her options for long,
time was rapidly running out.
Both roosters exhausted, their attacks became slower and less
frequent. Their instinct to fight was
the only thing keeping both combatants standing. Their pride was the only thing keeping them
attacking. Pitirre, much smaller than
his opponent, seemed to be the one worst off.
His white feathers did little to camouflage the blood trickling from his
neck and face . Águila, although tired
and somewhat maimed, seemed to have his plumage mostly intact. Staring at them from just beyond the arena,
stood their owners. The stranger’s
expression was still a mystery while Beno valiantly cheered on his Pitirre with
a tone that betrayed own his pain.
Suddenly, as if he had been toying with his opponent all along, Águila
fell on top of his opponent leading in with his spools. Caught flatfooted and exhausted, Pitirre did
his best to fight off the final attack but the cold precision of the onslaught
was too much and the difference in weight was too big. Pitirre fell, his back on the ground. He slowly moved his legs in a futile attempt
at protection. Águila pressed on,
hacking his fallen opponent with his beak
His wings suddenly fluttered and in an instant, Pitirre ended his challenge,
his throat cut to ribbons and his breast slit in half.
In a stroke of bad
luck, as if the fates had conspired against them, when the cockfight ended the
crowd thinned. Libertad realized that
she had run out of time. She stood with Jesús
in full view of Alfonso Alfredo. Her
grandfather seemed to be conversing with a well-dressed man and was unaware of
anything happening around him. There was
nowhere to run, and Ofelia had reached their grandfather. As she tugged on her grandfather’s pristine jacket,
Ofelia glanced at the defeated Libertad with a grin of victory on her lips.
Jesús knew that
the blue eyed German wrath of Ursula would indeed be great. He looked at Libertad’s eyes and found them
already staring into his. Libertad
grasped his hand, her twelve year old mind expecting a fate worse than
death. Ofelia almost screamed to her
grandfather to look over there. Alfonso
Alfredo was there discussing business and had no interest in either roosters or
the little thoughts of his granddaughter. As her hand began to point and
Alfonso Alfredo’s stare, willing to give only a few seconds of his time to
Ofelia, followed it, the unexpected happened.
Jesús felt
something strike him from the side. It
was something big, like a whole body smashing to his frame. Losing his balance, he fell towards Libertad
who, also caught by surprise, fell to the ground with him. When Alfonso Alfredo Monte finally rested his
eyes on the spot that his granddaughter was pointing for him, he only saw the
figure of a dirty boy dressed in rags wearing a faded red cap. He was grinning at him. Thinking that Ofelia was only feeling mildly
threatened by the boy, he dismissed her telling her not to worry and continued
his conversation ignoring her repeated pleas to listen to her.
Ofelia, having
lost the only few seconds of attention her grandfather was disposed to give
her, knew she was defeated. She let go
of the white jacket and stared back at the grinning boy with hate in her
eyes. Satisfied, he waved back.
As Libertad and
Jesús lay on their backs, their clothes now dirty with red mud, they looked up
to see a grinning Angel Manuel standing besides them waving at somebody across
the crowd. Puzzled, Jesús turned to
Libertad only to see her with a grin of her own. It was then he understood. It had been Angel Manuel that had knocked
them to the ground in a desperate attempt to hide them behind the low wooden
stakes that circled the arena and the stumping feet of highly excited men. Smiling back in appreciation and thanks, Jesús
led Libertad out of the crowd.
And it would be that rogue grin that they would never forget when they
saw it a couple of years later for the last time.
They would arrive
half an hour later to the corner of Carbonell and Brau, their clothes dirty but
safe. After he left Libertad in front
of the big white house by the corner of Carbonell and Brau, Jesús made his way home trying to make plans
of ways he could possibly repay his friend for his valiant actions that
afternoon over the voices of four men, visible only to his eyes, scolding him
for his carelessness.
Two men entered the arena. It
was filled with a narrow streak of blood.
The winner circled his defeated opponent in a gesture of defiance and
strength until the stranger grabbed him tightly by the sides and rose him from
the ground. Still, as his feet left the
wet earth, the winner seemed to be heckling his fallen opponent.
Beno gently picked up his rooster from the ground. Slowly and with much pain, he straightened
his back. Benito appeared besides him
with tears already forming in his eyes.
Grasping the dead bird in one hand, he gently placed his other hand on
top of Benito’s head. He then bit his
lip hard. The stranger had robbed him of
his pride but he would not let him see him cry.
The stranger approached him and whispered a proposal into his ear. Beno, looking down at Benito, whose tears
were already streaking across his dirty cheeks, considered the proposals for a
few seconds and then offered his worn hand to the stranger. Delicate white shook tattered brown. Without warning, one of the spotters shouted
the coming of the police and as if by magic and after a brief but intense
commotion, all the roosters disappeared.
Walking slowly to his batey, Beno tightly grasped his son’s hand in one
hand and a bloodied old sack on the other, the future pressing hard in his
mind. And as the night fell around him,
the charcoal blades of the burning sugarcane fell from the sky mixing with red
blood and covering the town. Cutting
through the black rain, an old voice could be heard.
