by Loréna Bur
Every day on their way to school, the children passed the statue without a glance. It honored Josiane, though the elders still called her Josie-the-Menace.
Born with the cry of a storm and fed cow’s milk with tamarind from her first night, Josiane grew strong and striking—plump thighs, a heart-shaped chest, a gaze that pierced. She spent her life near the neighborhood cockfighting ring, watching men argue under the stinkwood trees. While they smoked and drank lemonade, she lay by the geraniums, silent, observing the birds, the bets, the strategies.
Each old man had his method. Jacques raised free-range roosters on worms and fruit husks. Émile doped his with marijuana. Albert offered whiskey and honey – so that once they were dead, they would taste delicious – and Roland fed his eggs, creating crazed “cannibals.”
Robert, the ring’s owner at Bœuf Mort, had found Josiane abandoned and raised her with the same magic milk he gave his roosters to make them strong. As she grew, she continued drinking it, though she doubted its powers.
Over the years, she mastered the art of combat: timing, precision, weakness. The men greeted her, uneasy under her gaze, especially Albert, who looked at her strangely. Robert refused to let her fight—it was a male activity.
But Josiane dreamed of violence.
On Sundays she vanished into the bushes, training with stolen roosters, watched by stray chickens scavenging roadside crumbs.
One night, after the men had returned home to their wives’ stews, Robert lingered. On his porch, rolling a cigarette, he muttered about Christmas oranges, fortunes won on dead roosters, and the sea entering his eyes. By dawn, he was gone, stiff as stale bread.
After a modest mourning, the fights resumed. A portrait of Robert hung over the ring. Josiane hesitated, then one Sunday stepped forward. Eyes turned. No one was ready for the beautiful chick triumphing over bleeding carcasses, neck veins twitching like worms. That day she won twenty-six matches in a row. Josie-the-Menace was born.
But she was never seen again. Albert, bitter, changed his recipe. Chewing her breast, gnawing her thighs, he realized tamarind milk gave a far sweeter flavor than whiskey ever had.
Loréna Bur was born in Kanaky-New-Caledonia and some of her uncles used to organized rooster fights.