Cocksucking in Public

Few things are as surreal(ly arresting) as a two-year-old dressed in a princess' flowing white stroking the sticky, blood-saturated nape of a maimed gallo cradled, lovingly, against the chest of her father. Her white dress already spattered with splotches of deep red for her proximity to the ring of violence. Her sister, pigtails spilling over her Winnie the Pooh backpack, sports speckles of sangre on the backside of her hand, catching flecks flying from the frenzy below while she grips the top rung of the ring.

Los Gallos De Oro was the scene of my first pelea de gallos. Cockfight. Cross from Central Estelí into the rougher barrios across the Pan American. Don't flash your camera. Walk down some dirt streets and follow the squawking. Hand twenty Córdobas to the bruisers posted at the door and step inside. On the left are wife-beater donning men crowding card tables, fists clinching crumpled Córdobas, a bottle or smoke in the other. Next the bar and fritanga, doing quick service distributing cervezas y enchiladas.

A scale with a dangling horn-shaped depository, constricting enough that a gallo slid inside can't fidget and disrupt it's weighing. Further back -- past the long urinal whose curtain cover can't contain the rank odor of stale piss; past the walls of crates stacked ceiling high, from which emanate clucking and such -- the ring. Very professional. A 20' X 15' egg shaped pen, constructed of heavy wooden posts and sturdy chain link fencing. A swinging door opens at one end, decorated with a Victoria beer poster. Plenty of long, fluorescent bulbs hang overhead, illuminating the pit.

Man swarm in the ring, encircling other men equipping each gallo with devastating weaponry, some jagged, bladed impaling piece affixed to one leg. The doctors of death carry leather wallets that unzip; unfolded, both inside flaps are fitted with a range of these puncturing attachments, carefully arranged and fitted in foam like drill bits. One is removed, fiddled with, replaced and another selected. A precise science of death.

All around there's hootin' and hollerin', bills changing hands. The gallos, one leg each fitted with implements of death, hit the ground, testing their new, improved leg. Once again they're swooped into the air, introduced to each other by the arms of their trainers, necking aggressively but pecking nothing but air.

The pen empties but for a few, and one of the remaining jingles his bell. The gallos are loosed, neck feathers fanning. They posture around on tiptoes then WHOOSH, the gallos merge into a blur of fury, feathers flying out, men inside the ring and out jostling for position, views constantly obscured as the in-ring judges circle, crouch and stand. Half the crowd is shouting, some joking and sipping Toña as bits of bloodied dirt decorate their clothing. There's a pause, a moment of distinction, then the gallos recombine, a fluttering, jumping mess.

Really, when one considers the way gallos battle, it's a pretty fucking cool way to fight. Always trying to kick your opponent in the face. I like that idea. Though I'd hope somebody aiming his boot at my brain wouldn't be intent on puncturing my jugular with a well-placed flash of a militarized ankle. There's the interactive spectating, dodging scattering bullets of blood. And education. The math in gambling. Even better, practicing probabilities calculating percentage changes a trainer contracts Salmonella, for the questionable hygiene in the preferred method of cleaning and refreshing a battered gallo between rounds -- sucking and licking their heads, spitting out the residue. There's nothing stranger than seeing a bloodied cocks head with those crazy, what-the-fuck's-going-on-Tyler-Hansbrough eyes completely disappear inside a human mouth.

There's also nothing so brutal as witnessing true to-the-death. When one gallo can neither stand nor flap its wings, only tilt its beak to try to deflect blows raining down. Then the head starts to bob, pecks to the top of its skull bouncing its chin off the bloodied dirt below. Eventually the head sags to the dirt, falling to the side.

Then the fritangera fires up the grill.