[Originally written and posted in June 2020. Reposted in January 2021. Content warnings: cockfighting, animal abuse.]
Domeng has been awake since sunrise.
His owner had taken him the moment the sun shone over the horizon, streaming into his coop in bars of light. The tie around his ankle had been gently unwound, rousing Domeng from the last fits of sleep and his dreams of victory. Vague images of blood and ripped feathers and raucous applause follow him as his owner lifts him from his coop, walking with Domeng tucked safely in his arms.
The streets of Tondo pass like that. Shrouded in the last vestiges of certainty on their way to both of their turning points.
The arena is deserted when they get there. His owner takes him out back to the cages. A stand of cages with rows stacked one on top of the other. Domeng is placed in the last one. His owner gives him one last stroke over his back, shuts the door of the cage, and leaves.
Domeng doesn’t know how time passes after that. The energy inside of him blurs what would have been regular hours into swatches of moments. Owners stream in and, one by one, the cages fill up. The other roosters are as restless as he is but they don’t have it in themselves to drown in it. Instead, they pace the small expanse of their cages. Three steps, turn, three steps, turn, three steps—repeat. With nothing else to do, he follows. Three steps, turn, three steps, turn, three steps—the talon of his left leg scrapes against the rotting wood of his cell, it sends a shiver down his spine, his feathers standing on end—turn. A cacophony of manic, feverish, constant scratching, over, and over, and over, and—
“Domeng,” says Manuel from the next cage. Domeng hadn’t noticed he’d been put there. When did that happen? “Will you please stop that?”
“Stop what?” Three steps, turn, three steps, turn, three steps—
“Your pacing is giving me a headache,” Manuel grumbles, voice like dry dirt and rusted metal.
Manuel always spoke like that. Manuel’s owner and Domeng’s knew each other, and often times when one would go speak to the other, they’d get tied to the same post outside in the sun. Domeng had been poised for a fight, because that was what they did, but Manuel hadn’t even gotten up, only cracking an eye to look at the young bird whose hackles were rising for no reason other than the belief that that was had to be done. Manuel always told him that he was too old and tired to attack him out of nowhere. Domeng always just thought he was too kind, but Manuel always hated hearing that.
“Everybody else is pacing too,” Domeng stops so can turn to Manuel. Out of their entire row of cages, only he sits still. His feathers are unkempt and ragged from age. Down his chest, a scar causes a rift in his plumage. “You aren’t telling them to stop, are you?”
“They won’t listen to me. You, on the other hand, did.”
“Ah,” Domeng looks down at his feet and how he’s stilled. “You have a point.”
Past the frantic scratching of wood, Domeng can hear it. The footfalls of men filling the arena. He can’t see any of them past the other row of cages opposite them, past the wall the keeps the back away from the stands, but he doesn’t have to see it. Their sounds, those sounds only humans can make, confusing warbles and roundabout grunts, crowd the air around them.
The cages seem even smaller.
“You’re fighting today, yes?” Domeng says, backing away from the door of the cage, to distance himself from the noise.
“I’m here aren’t I?”
Manuel looks so calm, just sitting there. He wears tranquility like he was born with it, like he grew in it, like he’s done with it. Domeng tries to copy him, sitting down, ignoring how his feet twitch with the need to run. Through the wood separating their cages, Domeng can feel the rough edges of Manuel’s feathers.
“Are you excited?” Domeng asks him.
“You’re a fool if you are, Domeng.” Manuel sighs, as if talking to a child. A wave of indignance surges in Domeng, unbidden and brave. “This isn’t something to be excited about. I’d have thought by this point, you’d know this.”
“It’s nothing against you, you know. This is my first fight. You can’t blame me for being excited,” he says, trying to sound dignified. If Manuel’s scoff is anything to go by, Domeng must have done a bad job. “It’s all I was born for.”
“And it’s all you’ll die for,” drawls Manuel. Sometimes, when Manuel talks, Domeng can’t help but think he sounds like a person, what with how people always sound so tired all the time.
“I won’t die. Not if I win.”
“If you win.”
Domeng puffs his feathers up. “When I win.”
“You’re impossible,”
“You’re old.”
This shocks a laugh out of Manuel. Domeng can feel it rumble the cage, but the sound is all wrong. Too many jagged edges. “I suppose you’re right.”
From the arena, a voice pipes up from the mass mumbling. A few seconds pass of this one person yelling before it’s followed by cheers. A man comes into the back room and wrenches two cages open. For the first time today, the roosters go silent, their pacing cowered into trembling stillness.
The man unceremoniously grabs a rooster in each hand and walks out.
Domeng knows what happens in a fight. Two roosters enter, only one leaves. He knows that Manuel has survived every fight he’s ever had. He might not have gotten out completely unscathed, but his scars are a sign of his victor, Domeng thinks. A sign of strength. He knows these things, but it doesn’t prepare him for the sound of it all.
There are cheers, cheers so loud Domeng can’t hear anything but the vicious exclamations of men. Past this wall of noise, the fight is still strong enough to seep through. Quietly first. A rustle of feathers. A spray of dirt. A panicked cluck. Then, a flash of a second, and like a knife stabbed into the air, and there is a pained, anguished squawk.
And then: cheering.
The man walks back into the room, placing one rooster back in its cage while the below it lays empty. Two more doors are wrenched open.
“Do you have any advice? For what to do?” Domeng asks, desperate to distract himself from sharp edge of sounds surrounding him.
“Stay alive,” says Manuel simply.
“I was hoping for something more specific.” Domeng huffs. Another fight just ended, this one much faster than the last. Must have been a strong one pit against another who probably hadn’t grown all his primaries yet. It must have been that. “You’ve won so many, after all. You must have some tips.”
One rooster is returned. Two more cages are opened. Domeng turns and sees Manuel’s eyes trained on the ceiling. The wood is rickety and full of gaps like punched out teeth. Through the cracks, there is light. “I didn’t win. My opponent just lost. There’s a difference.”
“You make things so complicated,” Domeng stands, frustrated. Manuel does not stir. He just looks up at Domeng with an expression Domeng can’t place. “Do you have any advice on making the opponent lose?”
Manuel doesn’t answer for a moment, and all Domeng has company for is the racket of the next fight. Longer this time. Must have tired each other out. Helpless, Domeng begins to pace again. Three steps, turn, three steps, turn, three steps—
“Stay fast on your feet. Never stay still,” says Manuel, surprising Domeng. The man comes back. One victor. Two more fighters chosen from the lot. “Protect your eyes. A talon to the eye and you’ll be so blinded by the pain you won’t be able to see out of the other one.” Manuel doesn’t talk like a victor. He talks like Domeng’s owner after days of tireless work. “Protect your throat. What butchers do, we can do just as well. You’ll bleed out in seconds, and you won’t even die quickly. You’ll lie there in the dirt while the life drips out of you until the God those men are so afraid of finally lets you die.” Manuel’s words drip like Domeng assumes blood must. “Protect your chest. Some of them will try to rip your heart out. Some succeed. Some don’t. But you’ll never be able to forget it. You won’t be allowed to.”
Around them, the cages get emptier and emptier.
“Protect your name,” says Manuel. “Stand tall. Don’t let them see you’re afraid.”
Domeng can’t hear the arena anymore. It’s still as loud as it was, but it’s muted. The severity of Manuel’s words lay heavy on Domeng’s back.
“You know, I have a lot riding on this fight,” Domeng says because ‘thank you’ doesn’t seem like the right thing to say. “My owner, you know, he really took care of me. Carried me around everywhere, fed me, made sure I was strong. His life is hard, apparently, so this wasn’t easy, and I’m his ticket to make things better.” Manuel is looking at him again, and Domeng can see now that he’s getting looked at the same as the light from the ceiling. What that means, he still can’t puzzle out. “I don’t really understand it, but I know he worked hard for me. And I worked really hard for him too.”
“I don’t doubt it,” says Manuel, and this time, his voice sounds like grass. Gentle.
“We both put a lot into this, and it will pay off. If I stay focused and brave, I’m going to win.”
For a second, Manuel looks like he wants to argue in the way he always does. But he backs down. Maybe he understood what Domeng was trying to say. In Domeng’s mind, things were simple. In Manuel’s, he assumed things weren’t.
“I hope you win,” says Manuel.
Domeng clucks out a surprised laugh. “I thought you said there was no winning?”
“Well,” Manuel stands up. Domeng looks around and realizes the all cages are nearly empty or housing an exhausted rooster. The only ones who haven’t fought yet are himself, Manuel, and two other roosters. A man comes into the room. Manuel turns to Domeng, looks him straight in the eye. “Maybe it’d be nice to get proven wrong.”
The man flings Manuel’s cage door open and grabs him. With his other hand, he does the same with the rooster in the lower cage.
“Manuel!” Domeng calls out as the man walks away. Manuel lifts his head from the crook of the man’s arm. “Good luck.”
Manuel is too far to say anything, but he nods once.
And then he’s gone.
With nothing else to do, nobody to tell him off, Domeng begins to pace again. He doesn’t want to hear the arena. He focuses on the sound of his talons against the wood. He focuses on the light streaming through the ceiling. He focuses on anything but the fact that his heart is hammering. This fight is long. Longer than all the rest. Wood. Talons. Small cage. Three steps, turn, three steps, turn, three steps—
The man comes back. He places the victor back in his cage.
Manuel is nowhere to be seen.
Domeng wishes he had time to grieve, wishes he had time to entertain the cold, overwhelming chill that had begun to grow in his gut, but he can barely even blink before his cage door is opened. The man takes the other rooster, Domeng’s opponent, in his other hand. Domeng meets eyes with his opponent, and he sees nothing. He sees nothing there but a terrified blankness, and inside his own chest, rattling along with the sharp pain of Manuel’s loss, he found his own fear scratching against his heart.
The man takes them out of the room and into a small hall. Domeng is handed to another man, and they split ways, going to the other end of the arena. This man’s hands are rough, grip strong on Domeng’s body, nothing like the near adoring way his owner held him. His fingers hold onto Domeng’s legs, as if he were going to escape. He wouldn’t. Couldn’t. He was born for this.
There, the entrance to the arena.
The man takes three steps and—
The pain is like fire shooting up Domeng’s body. It’s like a nail being plunged into his body. The man’s hand around Domeng’s left ankle is heavy, but Domeng can’t even properly register it past the throbbing agony.
He barely has time to blink before he’s flung into the arena.
Around him, the stands of people begin to cheer. Their leery eyes look down on him. Their terrible little sounds. His opponent is pacing side to side, three steps, turn, and this isn’t fair. He worked so hard.
Domeng is ruined, he will be ruined, and he stands on his ruined leg, raises his head, and looks ahead. Protect your eyes. Protect your chest. Protect your name.
His opponent surges forward.
Never stay still.