As I began to read pages 125-127, at first I was disgusted at the thought of the cock fight taking place. But as I continued reading, it was so clear that this is a way of life. This happens every single day. The children grow up seeing and hearing the roosters fight to the death. The men place bets on which rooster will remain standing alive at the end of the fight.
This “entertainment” also created jobs for the people around the fight ring. “During the days the villagers held animal fights there, and sometimes even weddings and funerals. Outside the fight ring, a few women sold iced drinks and tickets to the Dominican lottery.” These cock fights were a source of income for some, entertainment for others, and addiction for a few more.
I became intrigued by the old man in the front of the yard. It seemed like he wanted to go in and join the others at the ring, but something was holding him back. It wasn’t his wife’s urging him to leave that held him back. It was something deeper inside of him. He seems like a “broken soul” to me. He appears empty inside. He talks about spells he is going to put on his wife every day. Yet every day those spells fail to become a reality – he fails.
“He was a former schoolteacher from the capital who had moved to Ville Rose, as far as anyone could tell, to get drunk.” Something devastated this man’s life. He was a well-educated school teacher held in high esteem. Now he was nothing but the town drunk standing outside the cock fights listening but not participating.
He suffers with a limp that may have been caused by whatever hardship he had endured. Maybe the excessive daily drinking eases his pain – both physical and emotional. This is a man who was well-respected in society; someone who was contributing to society; someone who was shaping the lives of children and young people every single day. Now he is an empty shell of his former self. He is the useless town drunk standing on the outside looking in.
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