Contemplating Savagery, Part 2 of 2.

Later that night we walk down and explored the beach front strip of bars and restaurants.  Our favorite was a place called Iguanas, a two story open air bar where you felt the wind off the sea while you danced and drank with locals, who nursed their expensive $1 beers, and the rich Managuans who got soused on $1 Flor De Cana rum drinks and threw money around.  The Iguana was packed every night with young people sweating and writhing to a mix of great American hip hop, reggae, and Spanish music, forgetting their lives for a short while.  At one point the lights completely blacked out in the bar.  Everyone gave a primal yell in unison like the party was about to get wild.  I looked out down the beach and the whole city was black.  It took about 5 minutes for the power to come back on and everyone yelled again in victory.  A bar patron explained to us that they have blackouts like that in San Juan del Sur at least once or twice a day.  

Sometimes they last for a few minutes, sometimes a few hours, and there was nothing to do but party and wait it out.  As we were walking out with our beers a bouncer stopped us.  In these countries they don’t ID anyone, and they certainly could care less about breaking up fights, but the security guards are at the door to make sure no one leaves with beer bottles.  A big part of their profit is returning them for the paltry deposit, so the bouncer will get you a plastic cup for your “to go” beer.  We start chatting with the bouncer and he was really cool, becoming our local homie.  Eddie, who we nicknamed Fast Eddie, was a 25 year old Nica who was the main bouncer at Iguana, a very good job.  He was muscular like a bulldog without ever having been inside a gym in his life, his broken nose and litany of small scars evidence of many scraps.  He told us to go to the disco Crazy Crab that night for the best partying, and told us it was safe enough to walk late at night on Avenida Central along the beach.  His suggestion was to walk with a beer bottle and if we heard footsteps to smash it on the ground and be ready to use it as a knife if someone jumped us.  Eddie seemed like a really genuine, tranquillo kid, almost sweet despite his imposing physical presence. 

           

We happened upon Eddie again the next morning, Sunday, walking past us on the street.  He was headed to a rooster fight, “peleao gallo”, and told us we should come along.  We looked at each other hesitantly – the thought of being at a rooster fight in Nicaragua was too surreal to fathom, and we had serious concerns for our safety, but decided that we would go just to experience it.  Eddie told us to meet him back there in an hour, and pointed to a shack down the hill.  We went back to the house we were staying in to drop off our stuff and change into clean clothes.  I shuffled through the two or three shirts I had brought with me.  What the hell does one wear to a rooster fight?  I know you’re not supposed to wear white after Labor Day or something like that, so maybe the same fashion etiquette applies.  We told our house mother about the rooster fight and expected to be chastised.  Instead she said “que rico” (oh how nice) and seemed enthusiastic. 

We walked up the street to the shack where we were supposed to meet Eddie.  It sat down a steep hill in front of hilly groves of palm trees and thick brush.  We had to descend the hill on a crumbling staircase of concrete blocks.  We could see fifteen boys and men lounging around in the front yard, a couple of who were carrying machetes.  It was pretty damn intimidating, like walking up to a house party in the hood where you didn’t know anyone, and all of a sudden I was very conscious of being a wealthy white tourist in this poor country.  But once we got to the shack it was all good - Eddie greeted us and introduced us to a few of the guys, who seemed happy to have us in their gang.  The “house” was little more than a shack made with remnants of wood, concrete, and cardboard, covered with a tin roof that had heavy rocks on it to hold it down against the wind.  A hammock hung in the front yard and as we walked through I could see that there was really no furniture but a few wooden benches or plastic chairs sitting on the dirt floor.  An old lady was cooking over open fire on the side of the house, right near the open stream that carried their sewage away from the outhouse. 

In back of the house Eddie showed us a series of about a dozen makeshift wooden and wire pens stacked on each other – the rooster cages.  We sat around and chatted a little with the other guys while a little German Sheppard puppy tried to bite everyone’s heels.  All at once someone signaled that we were ready and the whole procession started downhill on a path that led into the jungle behind the house.  A chubby boy without a shirt came running up the path, jumping around and yelling in pain that he had been stung by bees.  The men laughed at them but cautiously took a detour around the buzzing hive.  We jumped a wire fence and hiked down further into the jungle.  The leaves of the palm and banana trees were so big that they almost blocked out the sun.  We got down to a clearing where the ground was flat and there were the remnants of a fire pit.  The men spread out and tied their roosters to stakes so they wouldn’t run away while they cleared a wide circle on the ground with switches. The tension was building in an air like a schoolyard fist fight. 

Eddie explained to us how it worked.  Each fight lasted 15 minutes.  If the roosters were both still alive then it was a tie and they moved on to other fights, but if one was killed then it was very clear who the victor was.  He was betting about $10 US on each fight, a serious sum of money if you consider what they make in a year, but none of these roosters were his.  One of the young men produced a wooden box and opened two drawers, showing us the contents.  They contained rows of sharp metal talons that looked like straightened fishhooks.  These roosters have their talons removed early on when they are deemed suitable for fighting.  The men put black electrical tape around the stump and then attached the metal talon by wrapping a thin string around it tightly.  The two men with roosters in the fight prepped their birds by covering their talons with handkerchiefs so they wouldn’t hurt themselves and grabbed them by the legs.  They poked and swung them at each other to antagonize the roosters and get them fired up, giving them a taste of who they would be fighting. 

The crowd had fully gathered and it was time to start the fights.  There were about twenty boys and men, a couple school aged girls, and even a well dressed teenager and his girlfriend who apparently were attending the rooster fights on a date.  Interesting choice, but I recommend Olive Garden and minigolf next time.  They handed Eddie the watch and circled around the birds.  The two owners faced each other and threw the birds at each other in the middle.  The roosters jumped up at each other in a flurry of feathers, pecking violently and trying to latch on with their beaks.  Once they have some sort of grip they swing their back leg – with the metal talon – into the other bird, cutting and ripping them wherever they can.  At first it didn’t look like they were hurting each other but pretty soon you could see blood running down one rooster’s leg.  The men yelled and pumped their fists like it was a boxing match and made kissing noises (apparently roosters respond to that).  The first fight ended because neither rooster could hurt the other and they eventually lost aggression.  The owners scooped up their birds and stroked their feathers carefully while wiping the blood off.  They blew into their feathers, which I think was some sort of ritualistic good luck gesture.

 The next fight was disgusting.  It started pretty even like the first one but soon one bird was getting thoroughly beaten.  Taking advantage of the slowing rooster, its opponent struck again and again and kept pecking at the back of its head.  The men kept trying to fight the whipped bird by putting a sack in between them and then releasing them at each other, but it was done.  At the end of the fight one rooster was dead and there was blood all over the dirt jungle floor.  The owner cursed and looked dejected, like it had been him in the ring.  The men who had money on the winning rooster celebrated as Cordobas changed hands. 

It was time to get out of there.  I felt sick to my stomach.  We half-heartedly thanked Eddie for inviting us and walked back through the jungle, through the dirt floor shack, and up the concrete steps to the street.  We were shaken by what we had seen. 

Our house mother asked how the rooster fights had gone and we told her.  “Que rico!” she said with glee.

Later that day we met up with Eddie again for a beer at the bar near Iguana before he had to go into work.  The sunset sky was heavy with purple and pink streaks over the ocean.  He sat with his back to the statue of San Juan, way in the distance, and chatted with us as he drank a Tona.  

Eddie was originally from Managaua and grew up poor.  His parents were both out of the picture so he was raised by his grandparents.  When we was about 10 they found out their babysitter was stealing the kids’ food for herself, so they sent him and his siblings to Tamarindo to stay with some friends.  Eddie liked it and stayed.  Now he was 25 and had kids of his own.  He told us that he worked nonstop – at the bar as a bouncer and any other jobs he could find – so he could provide for his children.  I work so hard, he said, so I can make sure my kids can eat meat every day.  So my kids can eat meat every day.  Those words haunt me.   Then money he makes from fighting roosters, the $10 victories, helps him take care of his family, as a local could probably eat for a couple weeks or more on that much if they had to make it stretch.

I considered telling Eddie we would help him out, assist him in getting a visa and getting him to the United States, that his life would be better because we had been in it, but I knew that would sound silly to someone like Eddie – someone with scars on his arms and food stolen from his stomach – someone who fought every single day for his family to survive.  He’d appreciate it, but we’d both know it just wasn’t going to happen.  I sipped my beer and we all watched the fire extinguish from the day’s sky in silence. 

The hairs on the back of my neck stood up as it occurred to me; we are all roosters and we are all in a fight.  Some of us just don’t know it yet.  I had the luxury of contemplating savagery; others just lived in it.

Eddie had to go to work.  He got up and thanked us for the beer and we exchanged our goodbyes.  I felt like there should be more to say.  On his way out he turned and asked “Do you guys have Facebook?”
Yes Eddie, yes I do.

I couldn’t see the statue of San Juan on the hill anymore, but I knew he was still there looking over us, protecting our souls, promising God’s justice against the wicked. I looked down at my hands and thought for a moment that they were covered with blood, but it was just the last red of the sunset.