I just found this article in the news and it conjured up old
memories of my past.
I never knew any princesses and I do know times are getting
tough all over the place due to free trade, global warming and Area 51. But,
the idea of a princess getting all wrapped up in a cockfighting ring brings
home the fact that the world economy had really turned everything all topsy-turvy
and in some cases has even had a leveling effect on the status of various
folks.
One look at the last princess of Romania yanks at the chains
of my heart as this very beautiful woman has resorted to the primal sport of
cockfighting which heretofore I was only aware of due to the experiences of my
long lost friend from South of the border, Pedro.
Heretofore beautiful princess Irina Walker Krueger of Romania
Like the beautiful princess, my friend, Pedro, too is an
immigrant. Immigrants have provided us with a cultural stew of music, arts,
cuisine and sports…like the sport of cockfighting. This never used to be here.
But, now we got us a new sport.
Years ago, I had this friend names Pedro. My friend named
Pedro is a bad ass, but, he’s my friend. I knew him in my younger days, when I
lived for some time as a child and young adult in Costa
Rica . So, I went over to his apartment and I
said to Pedro, “hey Pedro…(cause that’s his name)….you wanna go to a
cockfight?” He says, “Sure man, I’ll go get my protective cup.”
I said,“No Pedro, not that kind of cockfight. I mean the
kind they do with chickens.”
He says, “Oh!”
Chickens can serve a practical purpose other than food. When
I lived in Costa Rica
as a child, I would go to a little back alley market with my uncle who would
take me to a cockfight. These were between roosters which are men chickens.
Cock fighting seems to be illegal here because of animal cruelty issues, yet
boxing is legal here as it is also in Costa Rica .
It’s odd that this country sees sport in people beating the brains out of each
other but we must protect the chickens. Sometimes, the chickens would die.
Then, if you owned that chicken, you could still eat it which is what some
people said that’s all they’re good for anyway.
So, afterwards, I go to this cockfight with my friend,
Pedro, and the crowd is full of men and a few roosters. There is one really big
cock fight going on and the men watching are worked up into a mad frenzy,
shaking money and little pieces of paper, what they call markers here. As the
chickens became more excited and the fight got more violent, so too did the men
become more excited and then the chickens got even more excited than the men
who too got more excited and some of them started to fight with one another.
So, in this circle, you had the chickens fighting and outside the circle you
had the men fighting. Just as the fighting chickens worked the men into a
frenzy, the fighting men worked the chickens into a frenzy and the next thing I
saw was the chickens went berserk and were pecking each other and everything
else in sight, including the men. The money and markers were flying everywhere
as were the chickens and the men’s fists. Then, some guy starts screaming
because a chicken pecked his eye out! I heard Pedro in the pile of men shout
that he wished now he had brought his protective cup, but I didn’t know if that
was because of the men or the chickens.
Things kind of calmed down and they would have taken the guy
with the pecked out eye to the hospital, but we didn’t have a hospital so they
just took the guy home. As near as I could tell, most of the men went home
without their money which would have happened anyway except the people who did
go home with the money were probably not the ones who had a winning chicken.
and that was wrong. I don’t think the chickens were any stupider than the men
who lost their money. The chickens caused a riot and really screwed up the day
for most of these men. I think those chickens got ate, which probably would
have happened anyway.
The very next day, I went over to Pedro’s and we had
dinner….fried chicken. I didn’t ask no questions.
