Rattawant Lapcharoensap - Sightseeing - Stories

The rumormongers used to say Somsak’s name was no accident. He was my grandfather’s spirit reincarnated in poultry form, back to give Papa what my grandfather couldn’t give in life. Which might not be so silly, because Papa always said the real Somsak never gave him anything but bruised buttocks and a broken home.

While Papa prepared Somsak — slicking the cock’s feathers, attaching the spur to his leg, pinching his purple gullet — Little Jui tried to find a suitable opponent, walked around the pit examining the other men’s chickens. Ignorant of the pit’s standards, he chose an aging, diseased rooster long past its prime, a creature so fat the men called it The Hen. The owner tried to convince Little Jui that The Hen didn’t stand a chance. It wasn’t going to be a match, he warned Little Jui, it was going to be a slaughter. But Little Jui said he knew they were all conspiring against him, that they wanted to see him lose, so shut the fuck up, I know a good chicken when I see one, I mean just look at the fat fuck, he’s a goddamn ostrich, he’s the motherfucking emperor of chickens, so get him ready or I’ll show you a slaughter, I’ll have my bodyguards stuff that chicken’s bulbous head up your tiny little asshole.

The men sized up the cocks, beaked them in the center of the pit. Somsak thrashed and bucked violently in Papa’s hands. The Hen, in the meantime, dashed toward the pit perimeter, which sent all the men scurrying because — like Papa always said — when a gamecock gets loose and flaps around with its spur you’d better get out of the way, lest you get stabbed by the errant chicken. But The Hen wasn’t the nimblest of creatures. His owner managed to retrieve him before anybody got hurt.

Order was restored. The men beaked the chickens again to agitate them anew. The cocks were released. Somsak leapt into the air and — with the first blow — swung his gaff-blade directly into The Hen’s neck. The men said later that you’d think Somsak was the chicken Bruce Lee, it was that beautiful. The Hen crumpled immediately, like a deflated feather balloon. He’d nearly been beheaded. The pit silt turned red with The Hen’s blood.

Game over. Papa wins again.

But before Papa could retrieve Somsak — who now strutted around The Hen like a boxer taunting his collapsed opponent — Little Jui shrieked and leapt over the pit fence. All the men stood stupefied as the boy wrestled my grandfather’s namesake to the ground. He pinned the squawking cock beneath his knees. He bent down, stuffed the cock’s crown into his mouth. He bit off Somsak’s head.

And then Little Jui just sat there with his mouth full of feathers, blood dribbling down his chin, a crazed, petulant grin on his face, before spitting Somsak’s head in Papa’s direction.

“Draw,” he declared triumphantly. “Nobody wins.”

Papa picked up Somsak’s head and threw it back at Little Jui.

“You barbarian,” he screamed. “You animal.” Papa moved toward the cockpit, but Little Jui’s bodyguards quickly wrestled him to the ground. You’d think Little Jui was the prime minister and Papa some crazed assassin the way those bodyguards descended upon my father. One of them sat on his chest, pinned Papa’s arms with his fists. The other put a handgun to Papa’s head.

Little Jui started laughing then, high-pitched, deranged, still straddling Somsak. The rumormongers said later that as Little Jui sat there laughing, Somsak’s headless body flapped its wings for the final time. There seemed something strange about the scenario then, how Papa had gone so quickly from being a hero among heroes to having both his body and his prized chicken, now headless, pinned to the earth.

“Aw,” Little Jui said. “Don’t cry, old man. It was just a chicken.” Papa tried to speak, but with the bodyguard’s weight on his chest he could only gasp for air. Little Jui crawled toward Papa. He hung his head over my father’s purpling grimace.

“You know,” he whispered, smiling, blood dripping from his chin onto Papa’s cheeks, “I could kill you, old man. All Dam has to do is squeeze.” Papa stared up at Little Jui, squeaking, still trying to speak. Dam dug the gun’s muzzle into the side of Papa’s head.

“Stop it,” one of the men said.

“There’s no need for this,” said another man.

“It’s just like you said, Little Jui. Nobody wins.”

“That’s right, Little Jui. It’s a draw. It’s always a draw when both chickens die.”

But Little Jui just kept on panting into my father’s anguished face. He spat into my father’s eyes.

“All right,” he said to Dam and Dang, standing now, wiping his lips with a forearm. “Get off the geezer.”

They let Papa go. Little Jui walked away from the pit with his bodyguards, back down the dirt road that led to the town’s main avenue. The men gathered around my father, asked if he was all right, but Papa just lay there gazing at the night sky as if struck dumb by the stars.

“If you were a man,” Papa yelled suddenly, before Little Jui disappeared around the bend, and for a second the men could not tell if my father was chastising the heavens or addressing Big Jui’s son. Little Jui stopped and turned to face my father.

“If you were a man,” Papa yelled again, getting to his feet, pointing a finger at Little Jui, “you’d at least fight with your own chickens.”

“Don’t be ungrateful, old man,” Little Jui yelled back. “Don’t make Dam finish what he started.”

“You should’ve killed me when you could, you ingrate,” Papa said. “It’s shameful what you just did.”

“Keep talking, old man. Keep talking and we’ll see—”

“We’ll see what, Little Jui? We’ll see what a man you are? We’ll see if you can beat me up with your overweight goons?” Papa spat in Little Jui’s direction. Some of the men grabbed Papa, urged him to relent. “That’s what you are,” Papa continued, pointing at the patch of ground he’d just spat on. “You’re nothing but a piece of phlegm walking the face of the earth.”

“Watch it, old man. I’d be very careful—”

“Who do you think you are, you son-of-a-bitch? Who do you think you are that you can bite my chicken’s head off like that? Everybody knows I won fair and square. You think you’re a man, Little Jui? A man?” Papa stalked slowly down the dirt road toward Little Jui, jabbing his finger in the boy’s direction. “A man? Ha! I’ll tell you what you are, Little Jui. You’re not a man. You’re an animal. A beast. My chickens have more decency and self-respect than you and your kind.”

“Keep going, old man. Keep it up. See where it gets you.”

“You’ll die one day, Little Jui,” Papa continued. “And when you die you’ll wonder why you wasted your life the way you did. You’ll die wondering if people love you for who you are or because they fear your father. If anyone, in fact, ever really loved you at all, and—”

“I’m warning you, old man,” Little Jui said coolly. “Enough with the public-service announcement.”

But Papa just kept on walking toward Little Jui, yelling at the boy. Though the men were afraid for my father, though they wanted to stop his ranting down that dark dirt road, they also couldn’t bring themselves to call out to him. For something strange seemed to be happening now. Little Jui was cowering angrily before my father. Papa’s words seemed to diminish the boy.

Then Little Jui grabbed the gun from Dam’s hip. He fired a shot into the night. Like lightning, the firearm’s flash revealed Papa and Little Jui and his bodyguards frozen in their respective poses: Papa with his finger in Little Jui’s face, the handgun in Little Jui’s right fist pointed clumsily to the sky, Dam and Dang looking bewildered beside them both. The scent of gunpowder filled the air. Animals scuttled in the underbrush. The cocks flapped in panicked staccatos. Many of the men yelped. Some instinctively fell for cover. But Papa just stood his ground — finger in the air, mouth opened, body mid-stride. The shot had silenced him. The seconds stretched interminably. The men held their breaths. Little Jui pressed the muzzle of the gun against my father’s forehead. Papa flinched from the iron’s heat. When he came home later that evening, there would be a small, dark ring of swollen flesh protruding like some strange Hindu emblem from the middle of his forehead.