Fortune's Favourite

a short story

Photo by Aaron Huber on Unsplash

Fortune’s Favourite

You’re not the first person to ask how long I’m here on vacation for, and you wouldn’t be the only one to look like the rocks just popped off your Rolex when I say I’m not on vacation, I live in this little Pacific Paradise. It’s funny, but I get folks coming in to Felipe’s all the time thinking I must know something they don’t when to me the Big Mystery is how these gringos rake in more in a month than Felipe and I’ll see in a decade, and they envy me. Ya, me, a young hippie from Swift Current who lives in the little studio at the back of the store where Felipe kept the fighting roosters!

The plan was to switch into law after I got my B.F.A., there being no future in art unless you're an Alex Colville or Andy Warhol. But one late summer evening, I’m having a contemplative toke out by the lake when the loons start calling like they’re trying to tell me that what I really need to know in life I’m not gonna find out from any law book. Mitch, this guy I met working that summer at the Waskesiu Golf Course, was always going on about how winters in Mexico were one big blast, something I figured law school wouldn’t be. So come Labour Day, I’m headed south.

I get off the bus in Mexicali looking kinda bewildered, I guess, ‘cause this knock-out chick comes over and asks if I need some help. Help? How can a prairie chicken like me not need help from a Michelle Pfeiffer look-alike who speaks Spanish, she says, and knows her way around. Which bus goes to Puerto Vallarta, I ask for starters. Puerto Vallarta, man, that’s not where it’s at, she says, why don’t I come along instead to this outasight little fishing village north of Manzanillo. The only problem I can see with Holly’s invitation is this Easy Rider dude she’s with, but Pooch’s is cool, and the next morning we catch the bus to Guadalajara. I coulda easily spent weeks tripping around the markets and museums with Holly, but after sleeping away two days Pooch is raring to split for the coast.

By the time our bus grinds down the mountains and roars into the little village of Barra de Concepción it’s early evening. Pooch and Holly know a lady who rents out cheap bungalows near the beach. Well, bungalow is a stretch. Inside four walls of concrete blocks with a palapa roof there’s a sink, a narrow bed and a wobbly chair where the cockroaches and scorpions make themselves at home when they’re not hanging out in the shitter with the chickens. I pay for a bungalow of my own. After two nights of heavy breathing and squeaking bedsprings in Guadalajara, I swore if the three us were gonna continue travelling together there'd be no more sharing a room just to save money.

After a huge plate of camarones al mojo de ajo and a few Tres X’s at a little restaurant down the street, I’m hoping for a decent sleep, but the surf’s booming like Deep Purple on full blast. Then some rooster starts blowing its tin horn, so I get up and wander down to the beach. I wade in up to my knees and before I know it, a wave rolls in and knocks me flat on my ass. ‘Course I feel like an idiot, especially when I hear someone laughing, and that someone’s Holly in a halter top and a see-through wrap-around skirt.

Do I wanna come along for some fresh orange juice and fruit? I remember Mitch’s warning: Whatever you do, man, stay away from ice and fresh fruit! But not to worry, Holly assures me, she knows this clean little tienda. On the way, she points out the farmacía on the corner that has everything for diarrhea, sunburn. French safes, too, she says. I can only hope!

Every morning we go to this little store owned by Felipe and Rosa for orange juice and the rest of the day we mostly swim and lie around. The sunset’s the big evening attraction. I used to think sunsets back home on the prairies were a mind-blower, but the sun going down over the Pacific is the kind of psychedelic masterpiece van Gogh could’ve painted if he’d dipped his brushes into Timothy Leary’s paintbox! I don’t know what box Pooch got into, but whenever he worked up the ambition to move his scrawny legs, he always came up with something to smoke or drop. Not that I minded. Pooch and Holly were pretty generous that way, and I bought the booze.

As you probably know, these threesomes don’t work too well for long. Most of the travellers passing through were single guys or couples which didn’t make for a surplus of female company. There were some pretty sweet Mexican girls around, and they sure aren’t shy about showing if they like you, but I had it bad for Holly. I mean, picture this California beach goddess stretched out a few volts away. Add to that Pooch’s bright advice to use coconut oil on my freckled skin, and guess who ends up with sunstroke?

Two days later, I’m still face-down on my bed and half delirious when Holly drops by to check on me. As she’s rubbing me down with cold cream, I’m thinking it’s probably a lot safer if I hang out at Felipe’s. Not only does Felipe squeeze the sweetest jugo di naranja and blend up the tastiest liquados in town, but he carves these far-out coconut heads you see over there. As for the one that looks like Jess Powers, the big action movie star? Well, Felipe carved it while The Man was here in Barra making a movie. But that’s a story for another day.

Besides his carvings, what I really dig about Felipe is how he gets all lit up about the wildest things, though you’d never associate something as vicious as cockfighting with a friendly guy like Felipe. Actually, it was Rosa’s brother who turned up one day with the three roosters. But Manuel is better at starting things than he is at finishing. After a few days Manuel’s off on a mission and Felipe’s got a job babysitting.

So here I am, moping around one afternoon when Felipe says, Pedro, ven, and I follow him out behind the store. Well, I’m no poultry expert but, I think what a pathetic looking bunch of birds! One’s called El Diablo. Muy fuerte, Felipe says. El Rojo’s the red one. Peligroso, Felipe says, como el fuego, and he points to the bird’s rusty feathers and my hair. Which is hilarious ‘cause if this bird’s as dangerous as I am, the one he needs to look out for is himself! Then Felipe squats down. Mira, mira, he says and makes the third bird, a white one, run from side to side between his hands. There’s something almost graceful about the way it moves and I think hey, maybe this fella’s got potential since it’s the fancy footwork that makes a winner in the ring, or so they say. I ask Felipe what’s this vulture called, but he shrugs. Which is when I remember this story I liked as a kid about a white race horse called Fortune’s Favourite.

Si, si! El Favorito de la Fortuna!, Felipe cries, and the two of us start strutting around like a couple of roosters and crowing, El Favorito de la Fortuna! El campeón! Which is when Rosa bursts out of the store and wants to know if we’re baracho. ‘Course she’s been at Felipe to get rid of the noisy critters inmediatamente but when she’s gone, he tells me he’s gonna get the three roosters ready for the next big fight in Tres Cruzas on Saturday.

Next day we drive into Tres Cruzas to buy special feed and vitamins. Besides giving Diablo, Rojo and Favorito nourishment, we do different exercises, like taking a small broom and making them run sideways or in circles, or throwing them up into the air and stretching their wings out. To test them, I hold one while Felipe grabs another and it’s all we can do to keep them from flying out of our hands and pecking each other’s eyes out. I would’ve never thought, but before you know it our boys are looking like natural born killers!

A week before the fight I go down to the beach for my nightly swim when who do I run into but Holly all by herself. Long time no see, she says. I ask where’s Pooch. In bed, she says, Montezuma’s revenge. I offer my sympathies. She’s missed me, she says and her top and skirt fall to the sand. Well, after all those horny nights alone on the beach with the waves pounding the sand and music from the disco throbbing in the background, tonight’s my lucky night!

Afterwards, Holly comes back to my place and we smoke a joint. I must’ve gone down like the wreck of the Hesperus ‘cause when I come to Holly’s gone and with her went my cash, watch, camera with a whole roll of pictures of Felipe and the roosters, and the jewellery I bought for my mom and sister in Guadalajara. And my traveler’s cheques. Fortunately rooting through a guy’s dirty underwear is where Holly must’ve drew the line because the receipt’s still in my laundry bag. I go storming over to their bungalow, but who the hell do I think I’ll find? I shoulda known, I shoulda fucking known, but that’s what you get, I gues, when you let body parts that weren’t designed for the purpose do the thinking!

So now what? I don’t have enough change in my jeans for bus fare to Tres Cruzas for all the help the police woulda been. Which leaves one place I can go to. Que pasó, Felipe asks when I show up with a face longer than my explanation. Oye, Pedro, he says and presses me an orange juice to boost my spirits. He’s got five hundred pesos to bet on the roosters, he tells me, and we’re gonna split the winnings. No way, I tell him, he should be thinking about Rosa and the kids, not jackass me. Somos hermanos, he says with this big broad grin, somos los favoritos de la fortuna. And if there’s one person in the whole wide world I wanna believe, it’s Felipe!

Come the day of the fight, I’m stuck in a deep funk while Felipe’s charging around like the Light Brigade. To get Diablo, Rojo and Favorito ready he trims their neck feathers into what looks like Elizabethan collars and shaves the legs and a strip of feathers off the back. We put our gladiators in cages and cover them with sacks and load everything into the back of Felipe’s old pick-up. All the way to Tres Cruzas Felipe’s singing away while I’m working on a bottle of ron anejo. Past the zocalo and a hornet’s nest of activity in town Felipe takes a route that could’ve been straight out of a Scorsese movie where the thugs transport the blindfolded hostage to a secret location where certain death awaits.

Felipe parks next to a huddle of vehicles and we unload and carry the crates into a nasty brew of smoke and steam and sweat. Inside the crude structure it’s standing room only. I bump along behind Felipe through the all male, all Mexican crowd, feeling about as out of place as a Buddhist monk in Las Vegas. Like insects, everyone gravitates toward the brightly-lit centre where a large square marked off in white paint indicates the ring. The action starts when a bulky guy in a straw hat and a colourful polyester shirt plunges into the middle and bellows a fiery intro. When el jefe gives the signal, the first two competitors enter the circle like Gretzky and Lemieux for the face-off and push their birds at each other to get them fired up. When they step back and let go, the cocks fly and jut and peck and leap in a flurry of feathers until in a matter of minutes, or seconds, one of the combatants is dead or too wounded to get up. Then there’s a clash of cheers and groans above cocks crowing in the background, and the lucky man raises his blood-spattered victor while the other scoops up the limp loser.

I catch the gleam of razor blades on the next challengers, and signal to Felipe’s it’s time for some fresh air ‘til our boys’re up. I don’t know how long I’m out there leaning up against the truck—could’ve been two minutes or two hours—and tryna drown my sorrows when I hear Felipe calling my name.

Well, the first cock goes after Rojo like a raptor and in no time El Diablo gets sliced up like macaroni-and-cheese loaf by a real nasty son-of-a-bitch. ‘Course Felipe’s counting on El Favorito and right away our hero gets in a few good pecks. Hey Felipe, this is it, man, our big chance, I yell when the opponent’s owner grabs his dazed bird and starts frantically sucking the wounds. Felipe’s deep into giving our boy a pep talk, but I’m feeling a little woozy from the rum and the heat and all the screeching and shouting. When the two birds go at it again, I keep my head down so the earth stays in its orbit until suddenly there’s a big wave of cheering and hooting. When I look up our campeón is a limp lump of bloody feathers.

I guess I must’ve shouted a few obscenities that even in English didn’t go over too well ‘cause before I know it I’m stumbling around outside and swearing while Felipe waltzes over to the truck and wham, the sack of roosters hits the bed. All the way home I’m tryna think of something intelligent to say while Felipe drives on as silent as a dormant volcano. Then all of a sudden instead of blowing like I’m expecting him to, he sits up and turns to me like the King of Cucumbers and says to me in Spanish of course, he says, Pedro, tomorrow we’re gonna have a fiesta! We’re gonna have a fiesta and eat the roosters!

And that’s what we do. The whole village is invited and who doesn’t contribute some homemade tequila or a fresh catch of huachinango brings a guitar or a trumpet. The festivities attract a couple of flashy gringos from the Hotel San Cristobàl. Turns out Marty and Suzanne are with a Hollywood production company that’s shooting a World War II movie with Chantal Fabri, the sexy French actress, and our head guy over there, Jess Powers, like I told you, and Barra’s where they’re doing the beach scenes. Suzanne’s crazy about Felipe’s food, but her Spanish isn’t so great so she has me ask Felipe if he’d mind sharing his recipe. Which gets him started on a monologue about the cock fight that woulda made a movie by itself.

I know this probably sounds like a tall tale, but the movie really happens. Besides lucking into a bit part where I die on the beach, I help Felipe and Rosa do the catering for the film crew. In the end Felipe and I didn’t get rich, but we come away with more cash than we woulda made in that stupid cock fight plus a jackpot of experiences I couldn’t win in a lottery.

Mind you, I’d be the last one to say no if somebody handed me a cheque for a million bucks, but my happiness doesn’t depend on it. I may not have much, but I have what I need, except of course for a lovely lady to share my life with. But I know as sure as you’re sitting there in front of me she’ll come floating down the street one day and into my life. Till then I get by selling the odd painting to the turistas and, with Felipe as my master, I practice the fine art of turning every fiasco into a fiesta.

I know the folks back home in Swift Current think I’m throwing my life away down here, but like I told you already I meet lawyers, surgeons, stockbrokers, big shots business types all the time who envy me ‘cause every morning while they’re back in Stress City and gearing up to do battle with traffic and telephones, I get to stroll over to the lagoon and watch a new day seep up over the sierras into a silkscreen sky.

Now I ask you, how lucky can you get?

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