November 14, 2002

The following is an excerpt from The Tulsa Herald, November 12, 2003 edition:

WHITHER NOW, COCKFIGHTING?

Chancre:  It is a week after the citizens of Oklahoma voted in record numbers to pass State Question 6876 which effectively bans cockfighting, and this rustic town in the heart of the impoverished Little Dixie region of Southern Oklahoma is already feeling its effects.  The Chancre Game Club and Cockfighting Pit is now closed as devastated local townspeople and bloodsport enthusiasts ponder the loss of one of this small community's few profitable industries.  The much anticipated Fall Cockfighting Derby would normally bring hundreds of ill-kempt, drunken, cruel, free-spending visitors to Chancre.  With the ban, the Derby has been canceled, and local businesses are feeling the pinch.

    Unemployed local man Tim Spittle says the ban has ended a way of life for him and his family.  Over three generations of Spittles have raised roosters for the local cockfighting tournaments.

    "Sure, my boys and me will miss the fighting and the blood and the fast money and loose women that come with the derbies," Mr. Spittle says.  "But more than that, we'll miss the tradition.  My youngest, Colterton, is only five.  He ain't never gonna feel the pride in raising a rooster from a chick, training him, teaching him to be mean and vicious, and then seeing him hacked to death in front of a howling, drunken, blood-thirsty mob."

    Danny Lee Rancidwater, the mayor of Chancre, says the economic impact of the ban will be devastating.

    "With the loss of tourist and tournament dollars, unemployment will skyrocket around here.  The unemployment rate in Little Dixie is already 96%.  By year's end, it could reach 98 or 99% if we don't get some new industry in here."  Though the mayor has no shortage of ideas, he has hit a stretch of bad luck. 

    "We pitched a plan to open the Tex-a-lahoma X-a-cution Center right here in Chancre," Rancidwater explains.  "We was going to build a first class ten bed facility with two gas chambers and an electric chair and do all the Death Penalty executions for Texas and Oklahoma for free.  There's big money in death.  With the admissions, VIP seating, and cable and video rights, we could have made a killing, but both State Legislatures shot us down.  Then there was our other plan.  Johnny Lee Oswald - he owns the Stuff and Shout Liquor Store - and I were all set to start construction on a whole new tourist and family fun facility.  We were gonna call it J&D's Shooting Zoo.  We would have had pens and cages and viewing areas as well as three fully equipped shooting galleries.  Folks would be able to come in and gun down animals from all over the world right here in Chancre.  Think of the money we could have brought into the community, but the Oklahoma Farm Bureau put the kibosh on it," he says bitterly, disappointment and anger ringing in his voice.

    The future of Chancre's rich tradition of bloodsports may rest in the hands of entrepreneur Denny Skeeter.  A former president of the Oklahoma Game Fowl League, Skeeter is a bright personable Chancre native full of innovative ideas.  A veteran of the Persian Gulf War, Skeeter, though confined to a wheelchair, speaks animatedly about the new gaming venture he is planning in light of the recent cockfighting ban. 

    "It's called Pussy Fighting.  The way I read it, that fancy new law only bans poultry death matches," Skeeter explains.  "Pussy Fighting is totally different.  My new X-treme Pussy Fighting League will feature matches between only purebred, long-haired Persians.  Armed with razor sharp titanium talons on each shank and five inch stainless steel barbs we call 'stingers' on their tails, these Bad Kats are definitely not you grandma's old tabbies.  Put two or three or even six of these babies  in a steel cage and the fur will be flying, literally."

    When even a brief, cursory review of the new bloodsport law called into question the legality of his new venture, Skeeter was clearly upset. 

    "First, cockfighting is against the law, and now you're telling me Pussy Fighting ain't legal neither?  What's next?  I tell you what I'm gonna do ... how about asshole fighting?  Hell, you can't walk into a bar or a roadhouse in Little Dixie any night of the week without seeing a couple of assholes beating the crap out of each other.  Next thing you're gonna tell me is that's illegal, too.  Now if we could get those violent asshole crackers to wear numbered jerseys and maybe attach titanium spikes to their fingers ..."

    In these uncertain times for the tradition of bloodsports in Oklahoma, Chancre and Little Dixie will be counting on entrepreneurs like Denny Skeeter and Danny Lee Rancidwater to recharge the local economy and restore its rich tradition of violence as entertainment.

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