Go Gamecocks?

Although I am usually resentful of USC fans because they like to refer to themselves as “the real Carolina”, I went to my first cock fight yesterday and it was an interesting experience, to say the least. The make-shift cock pit, constructed out of discarded planks, lies less than half a mile from the OFCB compound under the shade of a mapou tree. The crowd consists of a handful of younger men dressed in bright colors and baseball caps, and a few nimble children that sit perched on the limbs above, but the spectacle belongs to a previous generation, dressed in straw bowler hats, who wear their short sleeved oxfords open to air out their boney torsos. It is these men, whose sunken skin is as tough as leather from countless decades of work in the fields and whose only adornment is the silver lint that clings to their cheeks, that find their solace on Saturday afternoons preparing their feathered gladiators for what may be their final battle. The process is taken very seriously. Just like professional boxers who weigh in before a bout, the roosters all undergo a series of scrutinizing tests to ensure that they are in fact qualified contenders. Bets are exchanged, talons are sharpened and a whistle blows indicating that everyone must evacuate the ring, for the event is about to begin. Last minute provisions can be purchased from the various “stands” set-up around pit and I strongly recommend the coconut milk mixed with fresh sugar cane as it is undeniably the best snack available. I did not have a front row seat yesterday but I was just as satisfied watching the reaction of the crowd who offered a unanimous “oosh” every time one of the animals released a decisive blow. At the end of the fight both chickens were still alive, albeit barely, but based on criteria that eluded me, a winner was chosen. To those of you who are avid PETA supporters and find such cruelty towards animals to be savage, perhaps you can find some humor in the situation. The purse, a term in sports vocabulary that refers to the earnings of the winner, is actually kept in an eight year old girl’s shiny blue purse that one of the tough bookies carries on his shoulder. To the victor go the spoils and to the loser, well, perhaps a drumstick.