By Tori Marlan
Javier regards himself as a true roosterman, a cockman, a sportsman. He distinguishes himself from the gamblers, who he says give cockfighting a bad name. Gamblers have different methods. Some show up with the scraggliest of chickens, purchased for $25, while others bring healthy, muscular birds that can cost more than $2,000 each. But they have the same goal: to rake in hundreds, perhaps thousands, of dollars in less than the 20 minutes allotted for each fight. To Javier they’re an embarrassment to the sport. He would breed and raise and train his birds himself, studying genetics, biology, nutrition, veterinary medicine–anything and everything to help his “athletes,” his little Olympians. “It’s a pride thing,” he likes to say. “If you are a real cockman it’s not about money. It’s about “my birds are better than your birds.”‘ Javier bets on his own birds but rarely risks money on other people’s birds since he doesn’t know how well they’ve been prepared.
Javier called off the fight. “If I were any less of a roosterman,” he said later, “I’d have fought him.”
Javier has a couple hundred riding on the canaway, which in his opinion belongs to a true sportsman. It’s an ugly, muddy-looking bird, but it’s a proven vicious cutter; two weeks ago Javier watched it destroy its sixth victim, one of Javier’s own, with only a few kicks.
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“E!” Javier shouts as the rubio kicks the canaway, knocking it off balance. This is a battle not only between veteran and novice birds but between veteran and novice cockfighters, roostermen and gamblers. There’s more than money at stake.
The first time he saw his grandfather slaughter a pig, he winced in disgust. The image of a young farmhand collecting pig’s blood in a pail is still embedded in his mind. “It scared me,” he says. “At no time had it occurred to me that pork chops came from a pig.” When his grandfather would offer him freshly squeezed cow’s milk, complete with suds, Javier would decline. “I was Americanized. It had to come from the carton.” His parents made special trips to the supermarket to feed their children, who wouldn’t eat the chickens and pigs they’d seen running around. Javier’s father tried to convince them that eating farm animals would be healthier and fresher than eating store-bought meat. Eventually, Javier’s two brothers loosened up and began experimenting, but Javier and his sister couldn’t overcome their apprehension. Even today, though he has no qualms about snapping a bird’s neck to feed his friends, he only eats store-bought chickens.
“It’s a cultural thing,” Javier says, though he acknowledges cockfighting has roots in many cultures and dates back to ancient times in India, China, Persia, and Greece. It spread north through Europe from Rome and was popular among English royalty and gentry from the 16th to the 19th century. The sport came to the American colonies early on–George Washington and Thomas Jefferson are said to have been enthusiasts–but was prohibited in Massachusetts and other states as early as 1836. Today cockfighting is illegal in all but six states–Arizona, Louisiana, Missouri, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Virginia–but is widely practiced in many countries, including the Philippines, Haiti, Mexico, and Puerto Rico.
