Chicken Man

The flock grew. Shipping gamecocks across the country, Jimbo eventually began grossing about $10,000 a year. After expenses he was left with a "good living" of $4,000. Jimbo became invested in his chickens, and the deeper he got, the more ardent he became about another political view. It was the "humaniacs" who drew his wrath now.

The Humane Society and people like them have outlawed cockfighting in 47 states. They are trying to outlaw it in all 50, but cock breeders are most alarmed about a bill in Congress to prohibit the transport of game chickens across state lines. "We are talking about the planned destruction of a life form on this planet -- American Gamefowl: Americanus Kickassus -- and the destruction of many people's livelihoods," one cockfighter wrote on-line. The cockfighters argue whether they should march to the White House with roosters in their arms, or go on as they always have, fighting behind the barn. The debate goes back and forth on the cockfighting Web site, among the cockfighting elite who know what a Web site is. Jimbo isn't one of them. He rants alone.

"It don't make no goddamn sense," he says, that so many people are opposed to cockfighting in a country where every citizen consumes upward of 30 pounds of chicken a year. Gamecocks live longer and better than broiler chickens and have their fighting chance to survive. Jimbo goes on and on about the leather-wearing, chicken-eating anti-chicken-fighters.

"Them people got too much time on their hands," he concludes. "Need to get them some chickens."

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A rooster's tail feathers grow in by the age of two, at which point he is judged fully mature and able to defend his "manhood." In his rusting, cracked-up van, Jimbo set off with five such chickens one Sunday for the fights in Louisiana.

Traveling with chickens is "an extremely difficult thing to do," according to Charlie Carr. A rooster must have fresh air at all times. You should not fuel up the car with chickens aboard, or back up into your exhaust, or wear perfume, or God forbid, smoke.

Carr suggests arriving a day early. Jimbo embarked the morning of, with the radio blasting the latest news about fishing and Jimbo chain-smoking all the way. The Bayou Club was just across the border, near the casinos -- so large and modern to be devoted to something so primitive and small. In places like Mexico, cockfights are usually held outside and end when the bird's beak touches the ground. At the Bayou Club, the birds are revived until one of them ceases to peck. Reviving birds is a cockfighting specialty involving the pulling of beaks, the withdrawing of knives and the sucking of blood from chicken heads. For this, Jimbo had engaged Javier Pinones, a young tattooist acquaintance, who would get 20 percent of whatever Jimbo won. Jimbo would win nothing unless four of his roosters emerged victorious.

The last time Jimbo was here, he arrived with sick chickens who were all duly slain. This time, his birds were merely out of shape, none of them having worn the lug nuts around their spurs or been made to run. Jimbo and Javier shoved the birds into their stalls.

"We're just taking potluck on these," said Jimbo.

"Sometimes that's all you need," said Javier. "Good bird luck."

Inside, the Bayou Club was air-conditioned. You could get a chicken sandwich at the concession stand, and you could watch the action unmoderated, or via closed-circuit television. In the main arena, the cockfighting fans looked a lot like Jimbo, with caps and clenched jaws that lacked teeth. They were, in general, the kind of men who would consider sucking the heads of chickens, and the kind of women who would kiss those men. Their seats were angled as for a boxing match toward a square of dirt enclosed by glass. All rose for the national anthem, and then sat to watch clashing feathers.

The first thing you understand is that chickens are not graceful animals, and there is no grace in a chicken fight. With knives strapped to their spurs, the chickens collide and collapse. Men come into the pit cradling their chickens, and depart carrying corpses by the feet. They slam them with disgust into a trash can, and a red path forms between the pit and the can, and the whole experience, to someone who doesn't gamble but who does eat chicken, is just profoundly dull.

Chicken experts say you want a "sharp" chicken going into a fight. Sharpness is said to result from sexual and nervous tension, and a reduction in feed. Jimbo seemed very sharp. He confessed to a case of the butterflies.

When at last one of his chickens was summoned, he hurried to his bird. It was a four-pound, four-ounce bird whose droppings had been wet all morning -- a sure sign of a sharpness deficit. Jimbo goosed the chicken up with strychnine and adrenaline. Javier took the bird in his arms then, and the moment of judgment had come for Jimbo and his chicken.

Flap flap flap. A chicken died. It was the other chicken! Jimbo won!

"With a little bit of luck," he calculated, "we might be all right."