Read Cockfighter for Free Online

refreshing icy breeze filled the roomy interior from an air-conditioning system that actually worked.
    I settled backed comfortably, and Ed pointed the nose of the big car toward Orlando.

3
    ED MIDDLETON IS one of my favorite people. He is in his early sixties, and if I happen to live long enough, I want to be exactly like him someday. He is a big man with a big voice and a big paunch. Except for a bumpy bulbous nose with a few broken blood vessels here and there on its bright red surface, his face is smooth and white, with the shiny, licked look of a dog’s favorite bone.
    Against all the odds for a man his age, Mr. Middleton still has his hair. It is a shimmering silvery white, and he always wears it in a thick bushy crew cut. A ghost of a smile—as though he is thinking of some secret joke—usually hovers about the corners of his narrow lips. In southern cockfighting circles, or anywhere in the world where cockers get together for chicken talk, his name is respected as the man who bred the Middleton Gray. Properly conditioned, the purebred Middleton Gray is a true money bird.
    Despite his amiable manner, Ed can get as hard as any man when the time to get tough presents itself, and he wears the coveted Cocker of the Year medal on his watch fob.
    â€œTough luck, Frank.” Mr. Middleton laughed aloud. “But I don’t worry about you landing on your feet. If I know you, you’ve probably got a rooster hidden away somewhere that’ll give Jack Burke his lumps.”
    I smiled ruefully, made an “O” with the thumb and forefinger of my left hand and showed it to him.
    â€œI sure didn’t suspect that, Frank,” Mr. Middleton said sympathetically.
    I opened a fresh pack of cigarettes, offered them to Ed and he waved them away. He was silent for more than ten minutes, and then he fingered his lower lip and squirmed about slightly in the seat. The signs were easily recognized. He wanted to confess something; a problem of some kind was on his mind. Two or three times he opened his mouth, started to speak his mind, and then shook his head and clamped his lips together. But he would get it out sooner or later, whatever it was. Since my vow of silence I had become, unwillingly, a man who listened to confessions. Now that I couldn’t talk, or wouldn’t talk—no one, other than myself, knew the truth about my muteness—people often told me things they would hesitate to tell a priest, or even to their wives. At first, it had bothered me, learning things about people I didn’t want or need to know, but now I just listened—not liking it, of course, but accepting the confessions as an unwelcome part of the deal I had made with myself.
    We sailed through the little town of Canal Point and hit Highway 441 bordering Lake Okeechobee.
    From time to time, when the roadbed was higher than the dike, I got a glimpse of the calm mysterious lake, which was actually a huge inland sea. Small herds of Black Angus cattle were spotted every few miles between the lake and the highway, eating lush gama grass, but there were very few houses along the way. Lake Okeechobee, with its hundreds of fish and its clear sweet water, is a sportsman’s paradise, but the great flood of the early twenties, when thousands of people were drowned, had discouraged real-estate development, I supposed. No plush resort hotels or motels had ever been built near its banks.
    â€œFrank,” Ed Middleton said at last, lowering his voice to conspiratorial tones, “today’s pitting at Belle Glade was my last appearance at a cockpit. Surprises you, doesn’t it?”
    It did indeed. I reached up and twisted the rear-view mirror into position so Ed could look at my face without taking his eyes off the highway too much. I looked seriously into the mirror and widened my eyes slightly.
    â€œNobody can keep a secret long in this business, Frank, but I’ve kept my plans to myself to avoid the usual