Gi Gayera

Thunder.

Put ni la puta par!! Jackpot hao!

Everywhere there’s a thunder.

I lus diablo!

The sound ricochets, echoing off these thin tin walls, making it seem like there’s two, or three, or a million thunderstorms at once. It’s the clamor of a million men storming around Master. It’s the shouting of congratulations, the slamming of drunken fists against the fiberglass windows and wooden tables.

A thunderstorm at the gayera, and I’m in its eye.

How funny. I’m at its eye, and only one of my eyes is healthy. Its partner is swollen shut. I lie in the dirt but not out of choice; I have a cut above one thigh, I think, and it hurts to move. I can’t turn around to check because I’ve definitely been stabbed in the back, multiple times; the pain is thunderbolts shocking my entire frame. I try to stand up, to stretch out—I can’t. The blade attached to my right foot might as well be Master’s pick-up; it’s so heavy. I collapse into the earthen floor, shutting out the noise, trying to sleep.

The sleep these men send me to is a sleep they've never known. This sleep is darker and forever. It stalks like a cat in tall grass, creeping behind a careless pugitu. It creeps like a hilitai on a branch, clawing inch-by-inch to a resting totot. Its bed is the pit where we fight.

This is the sleep Master has trained me to avoid, but I feel its darkness closing in. All those years of pecking, and jumping. All those sparring sessions with my brothers—each session tougher and tougher because we became stronger and stronger—all in training to avoid the Big Sleep. I remember that one session when I få’um my younger brother so hard I knocked the breath out of him. I bit down on his head to make sure he wouldn’t go nowhere, then pounded the boxing glove right into his breastbone.

Pot ni laputa! Måkpo’!

That’s what Master said. 

Låstima, all I want to do right now is Sleep. Forgive me, Master. The sleep has its own lullaby. It invites me to shores that look like Mañagaha. My breath gets shallow. I taste something warm and metallic in my mouth. I see the shore getting closer and closer.

The banging of fist against fiberglass jars me awake. 

The pit spins for a short while.

When they first brought me to the pit I trembled from crown to claw. I wanted to fly away, but a memory stayed my wings; a coward's punishment was death. 

And what about Master? He had spent so much time making me strong, helping me believe I was brave, pushing me to be harder, faster…better.

When I was little, Master would grind up my food so I could eat easier. And when I was a bit older than that he’d give me medicine to keep me from getting sick.

But then the shots came.

Every month with those damn shots! Pricking, poking, puncturing my plumage, making my skin sting where it entered. They irritated me; he irritated me. But the shots did more than irritate. I noticed my body change. Suddenly, I became five times my regular size. I jumped higher than ever, and I kicked with a strength that seemed unimaginable.

I noticed a change within me, too. Master picked me up to get ready for sparring and I felt a heat boil in my stomach. Even as I say them, those words can't truly describe the feeling I'd get on those days. This energy inside made me want to tear Master’s eyes out, or rip my brothers apart. I’d be right next to Master and bite him, or hit him.  I didn’t want to be there, sparring. I didn’t want to be there with anyone. I just wanted to lock myself away and be alone.

Life after the shots was a permanent schedule. Master fed me, picked me up for sparring, dropped me back to sleep, let me rest a few days, then repeated. Jump, kick, stab, jump, kick, stab.

This week, Master broke the pattern. While my brothers kept sparring, I slept in. I watched them from my cage, thinking about what I would do if I were in their shoes. Like, when First Brother hesitated to jump, I would have jumped on his wings to stop him from getting away. Or when Fourth Brother jumped way too high, I counted the seconds I would have waited before trying to kick him as he came down.

I was enjoying my break from fighting when Master took me in the night and put me in the carrying box. We got into his truck and drove here, to the gayera. I could guess it was the gayera because I had been here once before; Master wanted me to fight at an earlier date, but decided not to at the last minute.

Being inside the box is confusing, but the gayera is something you never mistake. There’s the noxious fog of cigarette smoke that greets you, and the sound of lumpia frying in the cantina. But the dead giveaway is the thunder of men screaming out their bets.

Side! Side! Side!

Forty! Forty!

10/7! 10/7!

             

I pushed all the noise away from me. I sat in the box and prepared my mind for the fight.  All the stories of Master’s veteran fighters came to mind, and I pictured myself in their spurs.

Jump, kick, stab, jump, kick, stab, jump, kick, stab. Bite. Kill. Kill, boy, kill.

In my mind’s eye I could already picture my victory; I saw myself releasing a tremendous, victorious yell.

 

What if he’s stronger?

The thought sliced through my mind.

You’ve never fought before. What if you get stabbed and panic?

I felt something cold fall in my stomach. All of a sudden I had a very different vision.

In the place of my victorious battle cry, all I could see were inches of cold steel penetrating my chest.

Death, death, death.

Master opened the door of the carrying box at about that precise thought.  I squinted in the dazzling light. By the time my vision came back to normal, I saw I was already in the pit.

Across from me and Master was something that looked like a monster. He was tall, with thick, solid legs and a stout chest.  His face, permanently twisted in a scowl, looked like it was carved out of a piece of dead wood. I could see his huge muscles bulging beneath his feathers. Every inch of him reeked of death. I pivoted my neck from side-to-side, looking for a way out, thinking, I have to fight him?

A frantic cadence beat at my chest, its rhythm going all the way into my throat, forcing me to swallow down.

I looked to Master for guidance but he only gave me a stoic stare and a weak pat on the back. I became irritated again; at the time when I needed him most he couldn’t read my signs for help.  We stepped to the center of the pit to start the match as all matches are started: by biting. Each fighter gets three free shots at his opponent to start the match, and my opponent got to hit me first.

Master handed me off to one of the gayera staff because owners aren’t allowed to be in the pit with fighters, it has something to do with being objective. I was glad to be rid of him.

The staff member kept me just inches away from my opponent’s face.  When the staff member pulled my head back slightly, exposing my neck for the bites, I could feel the heat in my opponent’s breath. It was a heat that didn’t feel natural. Living things are supposed to be warm, but his breath was hot like a fever. I imagined his breath wasn’t made of air; it was pure hate for me. And his hate seemed infectious; I felt it spread through my body. It was small heat at first, as if there was something simmering in my stomach.

Then he bit me.

A jolt of surprise made me shake off the staff member’s grasp.  The frantic cadence of my heart was replaced with a steady, angry thump, each pulse angrier than the last. I scowled in the face of my opponent and wanted to bite him in retaliation, but the gayera staff pulled my head back before I could.

My opponent bit me again.

The simmer in my stomach was gone; instead there was a fire. Anger gripped my body and shook me.

He bit me again.

There was no light in me when the staff member let go of my head. The sight of my opponent’s twisted face seemed to awaken a beast; I wanted to rip pieces of flesh from my opponent’s neck ‘till his head rolled in the dirt. Safe to say, there was no blood in my veins, just pure malice rushing through my entire body.

Then it was my turn to bite. I gave a ferocious tear into his neck. The searing pain agitated my opponent and he quaked in fury beneath the hands of his handler. But I bit again, this time with more force. I even held on for a second or two, just because I thought he was a piece of shit who deserved it. My handler stuck his finger in my mouth to pry me away, so I bit him too.

With one free bite left, I took a deep breath. I concentrated on hitting a spot I had left red and aching from repeated blows. I summoned all the bad intentions I could and bit down.

I released and it was all done. All the preparing, all the waiting—finished.

Time to fight.

Time to kill.

The crowd erupted in a frenzy of shouts as they corralled around the fiberglass windows of the octagonal pit, looking for anyone willing to put money on my life or my opponent’s.  I looked deeply into my enemy’s eyes and felt an electric surge run down my spine; the feathers of my neck stood on end.

Our handlers brought us face to face one last time, hurriedly dashed back a few yards, set us on the ground, and let us start the match. 

 My opponent’s hideous face grimaced about ten feet ahead of me. We charged head first at each other, yet even then, it looked like that malicious expression could only be washed away with blood; I was more than happy to oblige. I leaped through the air but was too high; he easily ducked beneath me, getting to a favorable position behind my line of sight. I hit the dirt, spinning around as soon as I could, only to see my opponent half a foot away, soaring through the air with his blade pointed directly at me. I tried to collide with him mid-flight, but he was too quick; his blade sliced into my side. I was amazed at how little it hurt; maybe it was the fear of death that distracted me from the pain of it, or maybe the cut just looked worse that it was. But I plowed ahead regardless. My opponent clumsily tore his blade from me, letting my blood drip to the dirt, tripping as he did so; that was my chance to retaliate. I bit on his neck and held him in place, then threw a nasty kick to where his ribs meet his spine.

Måkpo’

I thought I saw his already twisted face coil in deep agony as I stuck him with the blade, but on second thought I’m not sure if I just imagined that. As soon as I jumped back to free my spur from his body, I saw a sick glimmer in his eyes that told me I was in for a long fight. He bolted at me, and I kicked off the ground to smash my legs and blade into him. We became a typhoon of black and red feathers, rushing about the pit, spewing dirt in every direction.

Jump.

Kick.

Stab.

My opponent’s blade mauled my body; every cut was searing pain. Yet, I couldn’t stop, I wouldn’t stop, because with every stab he made, I matched him. Two in my gut, two in his, three on my back, three on his; victory was only one stab in the right place.  I’m sure you could have showered someone with all the blood we were spilling.

            He seemed to be the fresher fighter though; his kicks were quicker and his leaps were higher. I struggled to evade; side-stepping, back peddling—all useless; he cut me off every time. I stuck my leg out in a pathetic attempt to defend myself; my blade would slice him, but barely more than skin deep.

His blows absolutely punished me; the gayera started to spin. Then he landed a hard left to my face—with his unbladed foot, no less—and sent me reeling to the ground. I tried to get myself to my feet in vain, falling to a heap in the gayera dirt; the fight was done. A roar lashed out from the crowd. I spit blood and saliva to the ground with my eyes closed, letting the sound of the gayera thunder filter through my brain.

           

I waited for the end; gayera fights end the way they begin, with three pecks. I heard the handler pick up my opponent and bring him in front of me. I prepared myself to accept defeat; I decided to just lie there and let the handler drop my opponent three separate times, let my opponent peck my worthless head three separate times.   

Just like earlier in the night, my opponent was so close to me I could feel his breath. This time was different though. His breath was labored and cold. The hate seemed to be gone from his body, replaced with a thankfulness that I was going to Sleep. The handler lifted him a few inches off the ground; my muscles tensed. The handler dropped him and my opponent plucked at my skull.

A single clash of thunder—one point for my opponent.

Again, the handler lifted him.

A silence filled the village; every man in the gayera stared in wonder at the center of the pit, every blade of sakåte silenced itself in tense attention around the cockfight arena. There was no noise except for the sound of claw on dirt, of beak on skull. My opponent jammed his beak into me.

Rolls of thunder now—two points for my opponent.

The crowd was excited, murmuring in delight; they sensed my defeat.

I opened my working eye and saw Master in one of the fiberglass windows. He had a head bent in sorrow. There was something behind him standing on one of the wooden tables. It wasn’t man, it wasn’t an animal. I had no idea how it stood upright, because I couldn’t see its feet; all I could see was that it was tall and skinny and seemed to be wrapped in a shroud covering its whole body. The shroud was blacker than soy sauce left in a windowless room at night. The thing seemed at home in the giyera, and was watching my fight with keen interest. In its right hand was a carrying box with its door ajar.

The handler lifted my opponent

I saw Master glance at me; I looked away.

A silence, once more, came over the crowd.

I felt master glaring at me, begging me to do something—to do anything. My swollen eye stung with the pain of days wasted; training sessions ruined.

My opponent dropped.

I thought I heard laughter come from behind Master; I trembled with anger.

With all the energy I could muster I leaped from the ground and felt my opponent’s beak graze my shoulder. The pit spun violently around as I steadied myself; I saw my opponent’s belabored efforts to keep upright. In one motion I hopped in the air, kicked out my right leg, and thrust my blade square into my opponents neck.

Put ni laputa!

We collapsed into the dirt, and I yanked my weapon out of his vertebrae. A savage quiver ran through his entire body; there would be no need to peck at his head; everyone could see he was done. Måkpo’

An entire thunderstorm—I was the winner.

I collapsed into the dirt.

The pit spins now, as I keep one eye open, waiting for Master to claim me and bring me home. The black figure I saw on the wooden table is not near; he seems to have vanished. My head feels so heavy I don’t think I can lift it from the floor. My chest is just as heavy, and every inhale is deliberate, slow, and deep. I close my eyes and see those shores again, inviting me to rest. I hear footsteps approaching and just know it’s Master coming to get me. The question is, where am I going?