Cockfight. María Fernanda Ampuero
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Translated from the Translated from the Spanish by Frances Riddle
Published in 2020 by the Feminist Press
at the City University of New York
The Graduate Center
365 Fifth Avenue, Suite 5406
New York, NY 10016
First Feminist Press edition 2020
Copyright © 2018 Pelea de gallos by María Fernanda Ampuero
Translation copyright © 2020 by Frances Riddle
Published by arrangement with International Editors’ Co.
All rights reserved.
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This book is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts. |
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This book was made possible thanks to a grant from New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature. |
No part of this book may be reproduced, used, or stored in any information retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission from the Feminist Press at the City University of New York, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
First printing May 2020
Cover design by Sukruti Anah Staneley
Text design by Drew Stevens
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Ampuero, María Fernanda, author. | Riddle, Frances, translator.
Title: Cockfight / María Fernanda Ampuero ; translated from the Spanish by Frances Riddle.
Description: First Feminist Press edition. | New York, NY : The Feminist Press, 2020. | Translated into English from Spanish.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019035462 (print) | LCCN 2019035463 (ebook) | ISBN 9781936932825 (paperback) | ISBN 9781936932832 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Ampuero, María Fernanda--Translations into English.
Classification: LCC PQ8220.41.M68 A2 2020 (print) | LCC PQ8220.41.M68 (ebook) | DDC 863/.7--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019035462
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019035463
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
CONTENTS
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Everything that rots forms a family.
—FABIÁN CASAS
Am I a monster or is this what it means to be human?
—CLARICE LISPECTOR,
translated by Giovanni Pontiero
AUCTION
There are roosters around here somewhere.
Kneeling, with my head down and covered by a filthy rag, I concentrate on hearing them: how many there are, if they’re in cages or inside a pen. When I was young, my dad raised gamecocks, and since there wasn’t anyone else to look after me, he’d take me along to the fights. The first few times, I cried when I saw the poor rooster ripped to shreds in the sand, and he laughed and called me a girl.
At night, giant vampire roosters devoured my insides. I would scream and he’d come running to my bed, and again he’d call me a girl.
“Come on, don’t be such a girl. They’re just roosters, dammit.”
Eventually I stopped crying when I saw the hot guts of the losing rooster in the dust. I was the one who had to clean up the ball of feathers and viscera and carry it all to the trash bin. I would say: “Bye-bye, rooster. Be happy in heaven where there are thousands of worms and fields and corn and families that love roosters.” On the way, some cockfighter would give me a piece of candy or a coin to touch me or kiss me, or for me to touch him or kiss him. I was afraid that if I told Dad, he’d call me a girl again.
“Come on, don’t be such a girl. They’re just cockfighters, dammit.”
One night, a rooster’s belly exploded