He was an ugly essobee without a doubt.

I was out between the back porch and the tractor shed when I heard the gravel crunch in the front. He got out of his car....one of those from the other side of the tracks as they say....one like you hear long before you see it.....an old family car that had been hopped-up and shined into a zulumobile if you'll forgive the ethnic imagery. The way he exited that car gave concern. He got out with a lurch and a spastic flailing of his arms and was swearing to himself most egregiously. I kind of shifted the butt of the heavy sixgun in my right back pocket so the hammer was clear of where the seam meets the opening. I told the kids to go inside to their mom and lock the door and, uncharacteristic of them, they gave no lip but immediately obeyed with a look of concern.

It was then I heard the the man with the potty mouth call a name that I was familiar with and i relaxed somewhat as the passenger door opened and out popped fatboy. How he got saddled with the handle of fatboy is not clear. He wasn't a little fellow by any means but he surely did not qualify as obese by any reasonable metric. There is one anecdote that alleged that an extremely thin individual once disparagingly called him fat and that he took so much umbrage at it that the nickname stuck to him henceforth.

Anyways, fatboy introduced the strange man (surnamed something "berry") and told just what they were about. I had already guessed as much. You see, fatboy was a cockfighter of some disrepute and he was often the first person.....other than probation/parole officers, that cockfighting recidivists call on upon release. Did I mention the stranger was ugly ? He had a puckered, pale scar that ran from his left temple under one of those old fashioned eye-patches down through his top lip where some of his teeth showed through.

Where was I ? Oh, the purpose of the visit. Like I said, I had kind of guessed it. Chickens.....more precisely game fowl. I raised them and had gained a bit of an unwanted reputation in that line. I did not gamble nor promote gambling in any sense of the word with the exception of a quick eleven and a half mile run to the georgia line day after payday for exactly one quick-pick and one ticket with our own proprietary personal six numbers. I'm lost again....oh, roosters !

The description of a rooster that has been pitted (fighting, not barbecue) professionally is summed-up as either champion or "dunghill" and nothing in between. He is either good or promptly killed. It's a thing with fighting fowl folk. Breed only champions and nip any unwanted characteristics in the bud as they say. Are you proud of your hopeful, up and coming stag ? Show him to an old lag and you'll probably get your feelings hurt. "That bird is dunghill !" is most likely what you'll hear.

You see, a champion cock is just one in many hundreds and it is just not fighting prowess in the pit. It is also demeanour and deportment outside the pit. A champion must be docile and unthreatening at all times unless and until he is pitted. Any aggression to his owner or towards any other human and it is deemed "dunghill" and promptly dispatched. The fight in them that nature gives is okay for sparring on/in the yard/run and inside the pit proper but anywhere else in between, the tendency is simply bred out of them.

So I had had this luck raising stags for sale. One in four or five were good for sparring purposes and one in four or five of those would go on to fight professionally. That was an heretofore amazingly unheard of success rate in this field and it was nothing I did but keep the vermin from digging under the wire. I simply raised them. The biddies were of highly mixed, indeterminate antecedents but every chance we got, fatboy would provide a champion rooster to keep freshening the line towards game fowl. Fatboy was of the opinion that, as I had started the original run with a special sumatran jungle fowl & cornish mix from a well known mail-order hatchery, that that had laid the foundation our success.

Back to the tale.....fatboy fetched a bird from the trunk of the car that looked quite exotic in both proportions and plumage. There was none of that afro 'doos on top (again please pardon the racial imagry ) or feathery feet. It just looked like something primitive and undomesticated. "Try him !" fatboy challenged as he gently sat the bird down on the gravel drive. So I gave the fowl an evil-eye, malevolent glare of sorts and made a quick threatening move as if I were myself an antagonistic stag. The thing was startled of course and flinched and flapped a bit but exhibited champion quality self-control. He simply yawned and stretched and began to look about amongst the gravels for feed with no evidence of either wanting to peck or to spur or to chop with the wing elbows. We all three made complimentary congratulatory noises.....the mean-looking ex-con throwing in a few quite unnecessary expletives.