Cockfight in the Driveway
Roosters and men share a lot in common
The property we bought in Belas, Portugal came with a flock of feral chickens. They are split into two sub-groups – the southern flock and the eastern flock. The southern flock used to hang around at the end of the driveway – they still roost there, high in the trees, as evidenced by the chicken guano on the sidewalk beneath (now less of a problem since the h and the workers pruned all the trees back).
After a year of being fed regularly by yours truly, the southern flock now mostly hangs around by the koi pond where they can spot me emerging from the back door to head up the pool steps, up past the pool house and another two short flights of step to the chicken coop for morning feeding. There are twenty eight of them, twenty one roosters and seven hens – I think. It’s hard to get a count, but there’s no doubt the roosters outnumber the hens.
Most are colorful Italians, one (Justin Bieberoo) is blonde, and another is a blonde/Italian mix – his name is Alphonse, and he is our favorite, letting us pick him up and acting the loner, hanging around inside the house for extra treats. At feeding time the southern flock follows me in an anxious little crowd, frequently getting underfoot as I mount each of the short staircases. Once, I tripped on a young rooster and fell, and a few dared to walk right over my back on the way to the coop. I have been contemplating a short story where the main character gets eaten by a flock of chickens. They are omnivores, after all.
The eastern flock hangs out in the campo opposite the main house (aka the palaceta, aka Brokedown Palace) – we sometimes call this campo container flats, as that is where we will drop the containers holding our furniture when they finally arrive. They hang out there because the neighbor has a few nesting boxes in the backyard; the flock numbers about a dozen, with three hens and nine roosters. Two of the roosters (Shaun Cassidy and Leif Garrett) have magnificent blonde feathers, the others are all the classically colored “Italians”. I feed this flock in one of the gardens by the guest house (aka the quinta). Just yesterday one of the hens gave birth to her peep, they are currently living in the warmth and protection of the garden shed, the rooster (Stanley) watching over them.
Sometimes I would throw mealworms or peanuts in the palaceta courtyard, and both flocks would come together. In the ensuing melee there would inevitably be trouble. Within a flock, older roosters tend to stand guard while the hens eat, chasing away younger roosters. But roosters from the different flocks will sometimes square off. While there hasn’t been an out and out cockfight, there has been lots of posturing and feinting.
It always follows the same pattern: first, the opposing roosters lower their necks parallel to the ground and stare at each other, unblinking, stock still. Once, walking up the driveway, I saw a rooster doing this and wondered what in the world was wrong with it – who ever heard of a rooster playing statues? Then I saw the rooster he was staring at. I got between them but they just serpentined their necks so they could continue the staredown. I got out of the way, figuring they’ve lived here in harmony for so long now, it was unlikely they’d actually hurt each other. Which turned out to be true.
Inevitably after a staredown, they ruff up their neck feathers, which makes them look a little like Phyllis Diller.
Often the standoff dissolves at this point; one or the other will start unconcernedly pecking and scratching as if to say “I was just looking for something to eat, I don’t know what *you’re* doing.” The other one might crow at this point, acting all “I won the fiiiiiiiight! I won the fiiiiiiight!”
If one of them doesn’t blink, next comes the chest bump: both roosters leap about a foot into the air, wings outspread, chests thrust forward, necks in a question mark shape and bicycling their feet. You can tell the age of a rooster by the yellowness of their feet (the young ones have bright feet; the oldest ones have gray feet) and the size of its spurs – younger cocks have only a quarter inch spur, if any at all; older cocks will boast a spur the size of a pinky finger.
The roosters appear to have no natural predators (other than humans, of course) so quite a few of them are older. There’s Al Capone, with his crooked comb; also Jackson Pollock, with his black chest heavily splattered with white paint; the blondes Shaun and Leif. Golden Graham is the color of caramel; Mr. T has a distinct mohawk. Kellogg looks like the model for the cereal giant’s rooster, so perfect is the color palette of his feathers – green, blue, black, cinnamon, nutmeg, and white, with yellow feet and triumphant red comb and wattle.
The combatants will chest bump in mid-air a few times, ignoring any attempts to separate them, never breaking eye contact. Then, they will strut around in circles for a moment before wandering off, the drama dissipated as quickly and unceremoniously as a fart.
The driveway has become the main staging ground for mock cock fights, as it’s a sort of neutral territory between the two flocks. Which makes it especially appropriate that last Friday, we had a different sort of cockfight.
I saw the situation brewing when I glimpsed the surprising sight of a man in the driveway with bare arms held at a distance from his body the way men who want to send a message that their triceps and latissimus dorsi are so developed they do not permit their arms to hang close to their body and will hold their arms not unlike wings, well away from their bodies.
It was a surprising sight because though we were having a run of spring-like weather for a few days, it was nevertheless still winter, and tank tops were not in season and are rarely seen even in the blazing hot summer – they just aren’t a thing here.
Next to young Mr. Muscles was a man whose stocky build, salt-and-pepper hair and confident aura I recognized instantly – it was Roberto, the owner of the private motorcycle club that abuts the west side of our property.
I first met Roberto when he stopped at our gate last February, watching me burn ivy and brambles and branches the h had chainsawed from the many fig and olive trees on the property in a burn barrel in the center of the driveway. The burn barrel glowed red in places; flames licked five to ten feet high above it. When it was fed ivy, it crackled loudly and belched black smoke, cementing my belief that English ivy is evil (the plant that broke the world, as our neighbor Alberto calls it).
Noticing me noticing him, he gestured for me to come to the gate. He was not the first to do so; there has been a lot of curiosity about the new owners of this long-abandoned property. There was a rumor Chinese golden visa purchasers had bought it; another rumor that a developer was going to tear it down and build apartments. In fact that was who had put an offer on the place until we swooped in at the eleventh hour and bought it.
E Ingles? asked the man leaning on the gate. Most people hear us speaking English and assume we’re British – Americans aren’t even in the top 10 immigrant nationalities, while Brits have been flocking to the beaches of Portugal since forever.
Sorry, I said in Portuguese. I do not yet speak Portuguese well (Desculpe, eu nao falo bem Portugues). Eu nao falo Ingles, the man said. Fala um outra lingua?
Parlo un po Italiano, I said. So we proceeded in Italian, and I understood enough to know he was the owner of the club next door. When we’d first bought the property we noticed the bar on a Google map. Well, looks like we have a motorcycle bar for a neighbor, the h said. I wondered if it would be loud on weekend nights, motorcycles roaring and blatt-blatting, loud music etc. But the club is only open on Fridays and Saturdays and is so completely quiet you’d never even know it was there.
Do you know where my sign is? Roberto asked. I did not know for sure what sign he was talking about. The h had noticed a sign bolted to our wall advertising a shisha bar, but it cited a location in a nearby city, and furthermore never mentioned the motorcycle club (which is named Buddha Bar), so seemed unrelated. The h logged onto the website and tried to contact the owners of the business being advertised, but had no luck.
Nao, desculpe, I said. He looked me over as if not believing me and I didn’t blame him because I didn’t believe me either. I was pretty sure at this point the sign the h had removed months ago was the sign he was talking about.
Later while reviewing our day I named all the new people who had come to the gate to ask who we were. Marcus and Mary Alice, Alberto, Ana, Maria Margarita…and Roberto, the motorcycle bar owner.
He wanted to know where his sign was, I said.
The h surprised me by saying, It’s in our backyard, where I put it when I removed it.
Wait what, I said.
Yep, the h said, all unconcerned. I called our real estate agent to confirm that both sides of the wall are our property, I tried every way possible to find the owner of the sign, and I took it down. The real estate agent said I was within my rights. Also, I checked with a lawyer, and she agreed I should just take it down.
Well now we know who owns it, I said.
OK, the h said. I’ll stop by and tell him. Roberto, is it?
I nodded, already miserable. Roberto came to our gate asking about his sign for a reason – the removal of his sign, and the new owners occupying the property that included the wall the sign was hanging on, were the only new things going on in this neighborhood. He was pleasant enough, but there was a sort of look in his eye, I had thought. A sort of “How dumb do you think I am” microexpression, there and gone. But he’d been nice when, before he turned to go, I gave my name and asked for his, and said in Portuguese it was nice to meet him (prazer em conhecer voce). When he found out the he had been the one to take the sign down, he’d think I was lying to him.
I told the h my concern.
Don’t worry, he said. So I tried not to. The h knocked on the club door numerous times, but no one ever answered. There were no hours posted; on the outside there was no sign of people inside – the window is blacked out. We kept our eyes peeled whenever we passed by, which was a couple of times a week – when we walked to the grocery store, the laundromat, and walked Jake. We never saw a soul enter or exit the club.
Then, a few weeks ago, a brand new and very large sign appeared on the wall. This time, the sign contained the name of the bar/club, so it was obvious who was advertising.
Hmm, said the h.
That’s illegal, our neighbor Alberto told us. He can’t do that! He needs to take that down.
Write him a note, tell him to take it down, Tiago our contractor said. Short and sweet. It’s wrong he did this.
The h wrote a note - with the help of the translator app Deepl - asking for the sign to be removed in the next two weeks. We labored over the wording, beginning with the Vestibule of Politeness. The h added his phone number, and dropped it in the mailslot of the club – a slot that was so small he had to squash the envelope in.
A week passed, and there was no movement on the sign, and no call. We’d finally figured out how to set up our mobile voicemail so callers could leave a message, but there was nothing.
After fourteen days the h put a note right on the sign politely asking the owner to remove it by the end of the weekend, or the h would remove it himself. When Roberto arrived at his club to prepare for its Friday night opening, he saw the note, grabbed young Mr. Muscle for whatever support he might need, and came up the driveway.
Alberto beat him to it though, hustling up the driveway where Herb and I were wrapping up the day’s work with Tiago and Paulo.
The bar owner is outside your gate taking pictures of your trees, he reported.
Hmm, the he said.
Alberto shrugged. You wrote that note, so now he is going to write a note to the camara (the municipality), asking them to talk to you about removing those branches hanging over the sidewalk and the street.
We’ve already been contacted by the camara, we told Alberto. They gave us a deadline of July to take care of it. And of course it’s been far too wet this winter to try to get it done.
I know, Alberto said. He doesn’t really care about the branches, he just wants revenge for you telling him to take down the sign, maybe.
All of this was happening in a step of broken language - my broken Portuguese, Alberto’s broken English, with help from Tiago’s translator app on his smart phone.
It was then I caught a glimpse of the bare arms of one of the men coming up the driveway.
Herb walked down the auinta road to where it intersects with the driveway. I followed the h, and Tiago, Alberto and Paulo followed me. It felt like scene a Wild West movie, two groups of men slow walking to meet with a short distance between them.
I made the introductions; Roberto remembered meeting me, but not my name. Jake strained towards the newcomers; young Mr. Muscles veered away in a subtle but unmistakable “I am afraid of big dogs” gesture. He looked stern, and did not look at me or smile when I re-introduced myself and said I was glad to meet them.
The six men eyed each other, and having stood in the middle of more than a few cockfights I decided that there was nothing more I could or should to, and led Jake into the house, where I could watch from the window.
Voices became loud; there was gesticulating. Roberto and Alberto did most of the talking; the h stood quietly watching. I saw young Mr. Muscles talking into his phone, then holding it out to the h. Was he using Google translate?
Voices became louder still; Jake asked for his dinner. I fed him, unable to hold the bowl (a thing that started a few years ago and that Jake will not relinquish, food apparently tasting better when held for him like a Prince of Chocolate) and see out the window. By the time Jake was done eating, the h entered the house.
Oh boy, he said.
So how bad is it, I asked.
Oh it’s not bad, he said, smiling.
But I heard shouting, I said. Or anway loud voices.
Yeah, the h said. As Tiago said, there was a lot of blah blah blah blah. He called it a typical Portuguese interaction. A whole lotta talk but not much being said.
What was Mr. Muscles doing on his phone? I asked.
They called a friend of theirs who is bilingual, I was talking to her while he held the phone, the h said.
Then as an afterthought: His hands were shaking.
Aw, I said.
I know, the h said, and I knew right then it was all going to come out okay.
He put on his work gloves.
What are you working on now? I asked. It will be dark soon.
I’m going to get his old sign and go over there now. I shook my head. The h has a diplomacy about him that is as unexpected as it is effective.
Okay, I said.
More than an hour later he returned, all smiles.
Where have you been all this time? I asked.
Having a beer with Roberto! the h said. We talked motorcycles and skiing. He lived in Switzerland for awhile., that’s why he speaks Italian.
He asked me, Can I please keep the sign up? We’re nice people.
Aw, I said.
I know, the h said. I told him we’re nice people too. So, we’re going to let the sign stay, and you and I can go to the club anytime for a beer…and he offered to help repair the wall where it’s crumbling.
Aw, I said.
I know, said the h.
I wish I could have helped, I said.
You can, the h said. You can sing! They have karaoke. They are open on Friday and Saturday nights and holidays. We should go soon.
Oh great, another thing to stress about, I said, not meaning it. I was so relieved that the situation was defused so neatly and on such favorable terms. And I sing all the time.
Tiago texted the h, Sorry you are out of luck with your neighbor. The h told him what went down.
Wow, texted Tiago. We need more men like you in Portugal.
It’s true the h is a natural politician. He can get along with anyone, even people who disagree with him. I have watched many times as someone bristles at him, expecting to have to defend their beliefs, and the conversation ends with them smiling and shaking hands.
You should run for office, I said, only half meaning it. I don’t want to be a politician’s wife, I’d have to cover my tattoos. The h reminded me that he prefers a lower profile.
I know, I tell him, But when someone has the skills you have, it might just be a moral responsibility to use them for the public good.
Hmm, the h says.
I was glad to have the situation resolved before the h took off on his mutli-week trip. My friend Linda is coming to keep me company while he is gone; I hope she likes beer and can sing karaoke. I hope the karaoke songbook has Norah Jones or John Denver. But I’ll settle for ACDC or Journey. Maybe even Vivo Per Lei, a song I can sing in the original Italian. Roberto will like that. I’ll definitely wear my skull and crossbone socks.
Terrific story!