for bull shit see this video: fluffy farm animals
music to go with the story: Rise
With bullfighting now raised to the status of national cultural inheritance trust fund and thereby enforceable onto towns unwilling to stage the event, the subterranean traveller feels inclined to describe his one-off affair with la tauromáquia in the handsome ring of El Puerto de Santamaría, on a hot September afternoon some twenty odd years ago.
It started with boys fooling around with an almost 500 kilos weighing bull, according to the programme and looking the part, all muscles and shoulders. He came running from the locker room and they got to roughening him up and see what he was made of, a tough game for tough kids. The bull seemed surprised at first but he soon enough joined in, chasing a handful into safety behind a tight wooden fence. The crowd at this point were mostly chatting and laughing and not paying too much attention.
Then came the ones who spiked colourful pins in his neck and shoulders, blood spilling from deep and painful cuts. This was completely different business. The bull tried to run away from his attackers, not quite sure how to react, but they wouldn't let him and he made some attacking moves, out of custom mostly. He clearly wasn't used to his treatment and he didn't seem to know what to make of it.
Meanwhile the spikers and their assorted punks, swaying around the spectacle for added aggression or bull control, whichever the game demanded, followed a straightforward violence ascension to the level of wilfully damaging an animal with fully murderous intent. The crowd applauded every well-struck hit and cheered the mostly young gang on. The bull was now desperately trying to kick back some ass which it found none of, clearly hampered by the muscle-cutting deep hits, turning confusion into anger with every failed attempt.
After a while they called it over, leaving the bull in rage and pain and deeply offended by such shameful behaviour after four happy years on the ranch. This at least is how the traveller saw it happen before him, his eyes not trained in recognising beauty as their host presumed with an established immigrant's disdain. We were sitting sol y sombra, with the latter approaching over the public's head and already quite near. It had been a hot morning in Jerez and here on the northern shore of the bay of Cádiz it wasn't going to freshen up much.
The bull was given little time to come to its senses. The next attack was underway. A fattish Don Quixote on a harnessed horse rode out and started poking his wooden lance into the bull's sides. The animal jumped away and ran around the back of the slow-moving horse, all geared in heavy armoury, showing in its parading stride a first glimpse of strong desires to proudly exhibit its mighty strength, as it was taught to do. This adversary looked remarkably less dangerous, by the way.
The bull quickly understood he must upclose the horse in order to render the lance largely useless. So he began scrubbing her en pushing her aside en whenever he deemed the moment apt he would shrug her off almost casually and deal a horner for extra, not much force in it. At an innocent moment the horse slipped under one such punch and fell on its knees. Hands had to keep the beast up while Quixote pretended to continue the fight. With the help of some flag waving distractors (the spikers helping out here) horse and rider were safely guided away from the action and out through the main gate.
The bull's bewilderment had certainly extended with this strange, ritual-like behaviour. What about him? Was he going to get out now? Go back home? He wasn't of course. Though it looked as he were for a good while.
A man had come up, young and handsome and exuberantly dressed, who had begun teasing him with a purple and yellow plaid which was waved in front of his eyes. He didn't know the man but he sure knew what he was getting at.
The bull, suddenly realising how much blood he had lost while keeping the horse at bay, felt wary of the invitation and preferred to keep distance at first. Can't we stop it here, his eyes asked, but the man declined. The pinch hitters once again had come to force him on.
He would step up a leap in and after a nod from the purple waver swing his head round, his horns only touching air. The waver elegantly avoided him and in doing so became a dancer. The bull instantly became a dancer too. They danced together, the bull and the man, with the man playing avoidance and the bull insinuating attack. This is how they had been told to act, he and the men who had raised him. If it weren't for the pain in his neck and that big head which seemed to get heavier all the time, the bull wouldn't mind dancing some longer. He felt safe with this man who acted understandably and so far hadn't shown any intention to hurt him. Yet at the same time he sensed something was totally unsafe about the situation.
On the grades, the subterranean traveller in his early nineties version of el turista was trying to make sense of it all. Why kill the animal at this stage? It had fought well and danced nicely, the crowd had responded with rounds of applause, what more was there to wish for? Yes, the animal had to die, such were the laws of rearing, but what was the point of witnessing it? Why would one want to see the bull to be killed? He stressed the idea to his neighbour, who looked at him in disgust.
The handsome waver, exuberantly dressed, has taken out his lean sword, not much more than a decent ham knife, though of course razorblade sharp. They deserve a clean hit, my host remarks. “The bull and the torero. He's going to strike him.”
He wasn't, of course. Just when a friendly, docile sweep of the head was needed, simply offering your neck to the butcher's sabre, the bull rose up a last time showing he was still strong despite ongoing bloodletting. The new stroke hurt mightily bad, but it never reached his heart. Nevertheless ever deeper pains were seriously affecting his ability to stay afoot. Finally, the bull felt all his rage explode. It had been bad from the beginning.
A second hit brought him to his knees but again didn't kill him. They decided it couldn't be done and brought in a wedge shaped object and a hammer to jam it down the bull's neck. Though once more it did not kill him immediately, clearly it hurt him enormously. El turista had to think of a war scene in Flaubert's Salammbô where elephant riders drive a wooden cleat into the animal's neck, turning its pain into a wild suicide attack on opposing lines.
Then they finally manage to kill the bull. A span of donkeys came to drag the bloody corpse to the butcher's quarters right under the stands. That was bad, the traveller dared mention, and here at least his host had to agree. It had certainly lacked art, he liked to be as quoted.
The next one was worse from the start, the third one slightly better and the fourth almost bright and adorned with what a romantic eye could easily hold for the bull's consent. The last two were tedious affairs once more, sordid details following.
“Let's go.”
