Cockfighting in Sopchoppy
Excerpt from Cockfighting in Sopchoppy
Rob refills his cup and makes out a LOTTO jingle coming from the TV. It reminds him of the stranger he met last night. They were drinking beers and watching the redhead work her stuff on every man in the joint when the subject of cockfighting came up. It used to be big around here before dope beat it out. But it’s still big in Tennessee where this guy comes from, and he figures it could be big again if there was somebody hustling it.
He admits to not knowing a thing about gamecocks: breeding, raising, or fighting them, but he likes the sound of it. He says, “cockfighting in Sopchoppy,” over and over to himself, and he starts to feel lucky, like when he’s just happened on a woman who didn’t think enough of it not to go down easy. Maybe he’ll look the guy up, see what’s what.
He wonders if Jake has gotten any better at baseball. He never had. Maybe playing ball is covered under the rule Momma’s always preaching, the one about how a father’s sins are visited on his sons. With her, he’s never sure what part is Bible and what part is made up to suit her argument. Except for his momma, nobody along the river had ever figured his old man for anything but a drunk in dirty overalls. But to hear her talk, you’d think Papa had worn a three-piece suit with deep pockets that jingled and walked a chalk line straight through the Pearly Gates without so much as a backward glance. Could be that the longer a man’s in the grave, the less his sins get talked about.