extract from DEAD GAME (1950)
Posted: 04 Apr 2013, 10:05
Here is an extract from a piece called DEAD GAME. Penned in 1950 and never reprinted, it is an outstanding achievement by its author. The writer is almost certainly shadowing the historic essay about an illegal match written by William Hazlitt called THE FIGHT. The piece here is about a cockfight and after several slashing encounters interrupted by brief periods of respite called "handles", the gray cock that the writer had bet on was blind in both eyes, or as the men in the crowd put it, the animal was "doubly blinked" and had to fight "on the feel." Somehow the gray managed to draw blood:
...the red was blinked now himself; the two cocks had one eye between them. Still, every time they were placed upon their marks after a handle, the blind gray stumbled forward and the one-eyed red sidled up to him and struck, although by now his blows were hardly more than pushes. The gray, sensing the direction from which the hurt came "on the feel," tried to grab the red with his bill, to fix his target. "Fights smarter than when he had two good eyes," Jimmy said. Sometimes the gray would get on the red's blind side, and the obsessed creatures would flutter about, unable to find each other, until one owner called for a count. That meant that the referee would count to ten while both men picked up their birds and brought them back to their scratchmarks. Then the referee would count another ten, during which Coveralls would blow on the back of his bird's head and massage its thighs, and Budlong would hold a licorice stick in the red cock's open bill for a second (licorice is supposed to clear a cock's windpipe), and then blow down his throat. Once, during a handle, Budlong got a gaff (a blade tied to the cock's ankle) through the ball of his thumb, and his blood spurted out to mingle with his bird's. After he had set the cock down for the next go, he backed to the side of the pit and held his hand out behind him, and a friend spat tobacco juice on the wound, as a form of antisepsis. Budlong didnt take his eyes off the birds. Both cocks were now making a rattling noise as they breathed.
"They're dying," my friend Fred said in a tone of astonishment.
"Looks like a good draw," one of the Irishman said during a count.....They set the cocks down again right after
that - it must have been for the fortieth or fiftieth time - and the birds tottered out as usual. Something the red bird did touched off a dormant reserve of pained energy in the gray. They went at each other as strongly as they had
two-thirds of the way through the fight, when each had been only two-thirds dead. They fought each other around, without ever losing contact, until they were up against one of the sideboards. Then the tormented gray got a billhold, a deadlock on the red's lower mandible, and hit him a great lick, which i didnt see, but which must have been with his right leg, for the red fell to the gray's left, with the gray on top of him.
Joe Liebling
i think its an amazing piece of journalism and i'm sure the writers among the boxrec crowd will especially appreciate its qualities.
...the red was blinked now himself; the two cocks had one eye between them. Still, every time they were placed upon their marks after a handle, the blind gray stumbled forward and the one-eyed red sidled up to him and struck, although by now his blows were hardly more than pushes. The gray, sensing the direction from which the hurt came "on the feel," tried to grab the red with his bill, to fix his target. "Fights smarter than when he had two good eyes," Jimmy said. Sometimes the gray would get on the red's blind side, and the obsessed creatures would flutter about, unable to find each other, until one owner called for a count. That meant that the referee would count to ten while both men picked up their birds and brought them back to their scratchmarks. Then the referee would count another ten, during which Coveralls would blow on the back of his bird's head and massage its thighs, and Budlong would hold a licorice stick in the red cock's open bill for a second (licorice is supposed to clear a cock's windpipe), and then blow down his throat. Once, during a handle, Budlong got a gaff (a blade tied to the cock's ankle) through the ball of his thumb, and his blood spurted out to mingle with his bird's. After he had set the cock down for the next go, he backed to the side of the pit and held his hand out behind him, and a friend spat tobacco juice on the wound, as a form of antisepsis. Budlong didnt take his eyes off the birds. Both cocks were now making a rattling noise as they breathed.
"They're dying," my friend Fred said in a tone of astonishment.
"Looks like a good draw," one of the Irishman said during a count.....They set the cocks down again right after
that - it must have been for the fortieth or fiftieth time - and the birds tottered out as usual. Something the red bird did touched off a dormant reserve of pained energy in the gray. They went at each other as strongly as they had
two-thirds of the way through the fight, when each had been only two-thirds dead. They fought each other around, without ever losing contact, until they were up against one of the sideboards. Then the tormented gray got a billhold, a deadlock on the red's lower mandible, and hit him a great lick, which i didnt see, but which must have been with his right leg, for the red fell to the gray's left, with the gray on top of him.
Joe Liebling
i think its an amazing piece of journalism and i'm sure the writers among the boxrec crowd will especially appreciate its qualities.
