TORO! TORO! TORO!, page 1
Table of Contents
dedication
lunes
miércoles
domingo
martes
domingo próximo
viernes
otro domingo
TORO! TORO! TORO!
WILLIAM HJORTSBERG
FOR TOM AND BECKY
Memories of Málaga: Easter Sunday, 1966
lunes
Two critics of the art sat by the window of a dank, ill-lit place and ordered cigars. Not far away, at his favorite table in the corner, the empresario Don Pepe Bacalao y Piñas was having his boots shined while he read the morning newspaper. At his side, el Chicote, a novillero badly panned in the early edition, glowered at the two critics. “Cowards,” the young sword hissed. “Fairies, maricones!”
The critics laughed at these insults. They gestured with their cigars and traces of cryptic skywriting drifted above the lunch-hour crowd.
“Mariposa faggot mother-milkers,” el Chicote growled.
“Patience, muchacho.” Don Pepe placed a paternal hand on the young man’s shoulder. “There will come another day.” The empresario scanned the review for the third time, dwelling on the choicer slurs: “feeble veronicas… feet dancing with cowardice at every pass… a more graceful killing style is on display at any village carnicería.” He knew it would be some time before his boy had another booking in the capital.
El Chicote scooped a handful of anchovy-stuffed olives from a bowl on the table, catapulting them into his mouth one at a time with his thumb. His killer’s eyes never left the two by the window. When the olives were gone, he went to work on the toasted almonds. Chicote had no money for lunch. The tailor’s bill for his traje de luces consumed his share of yesterday’s meager purse. His tight yellow satin pants had split during a tossing in the arena, spilling the fragrant yield of his fear-loosened sphincter as the crowd jeered, “Show us the color of your guts.”
Don Pepe could not bring himself to look in his protégé’s eyes. He stared at the poster-covered walls above the wine barrels behind the bar, mesmerized by the bold brush strokes of caping and killing. Only the illustrious names, legible as a bank statement, anchored him to reality. “Every one worth ten million pesetas,” he mused, remembering the cuff links pawned this morning. The word Extraordinario! held his gaze like the eye of a snake.
“Pues, hombre,” the novillero said at last, his chair scraping on the tiles as he got to his feet.
Don Pepe nodded, glancing down at the empty olive bowl with regret. “Hasta mañana, torero,” he mumbled, not looking up, avoiding the young man’s haunted glance. He had enough for another brandy, but handouts were a luxury he couldn’t afford.
El Chicote left the bar with a haughty swagger, spitting a chewed toothpick in the direction of the critics’ table. He was ignored, as always. Don Pepe examined the boy’s footprints in the sawdust; Chicote’s step seemed firm and valorous on the barroom floor, quite unlike the reluctant fear-trudge his slippers had traced in the packed sand of the arena.
The castanet snap of the bootblack’s rag caught the empresario’s attention.
“Watch, patrón,” pleaded a dark-eyed gypsy genuflecting before his gleaming boots. His filthy khaki shirt hung in tatters over a rib cage a xylophonist might have played a tune on. “Just give me a minute of your time, por favor.”
Don Pepe made a gesture of confusion as the gypsy unfurled his shoeshine rag, whipping it about his emaciated body like a black, spineless muleta. “Look at this style, señor.” He slipped a stick under the cloth to stiffen it and began a series of fluid naturals, his pelvis thrust professionally, bending from the waist with the grace of Ordóñez, immortalized on a wall poster above him. Next, a pase de pecho, followed by two breathtaking brazo profundos and a perfect pirandello. The astounded empresario sputtered with embarrassment, while the bootblack spun through an entire faena, his bare feet stamping in the sawdust. “Hola, toro,” he grunted. “Hah, ha-ha!”
The critics applauded when the boy was done. “Quickly, give him a contract, empresario,” the fat one called. “Don’t let this gold mine slip through your fingers.”
The gypsy stood panting, his blackened face streaked with sweat. He beckoned to a nearby waiter, “Hey, Miguelito, bring the chair with the knives and I’ll show this man what I can really do.”
Don Pepe lumbered to his feet, swallowing air. “Bravo, bravo,” he muttered, doing his best not to look at the gypsy boy. Why me? he thought. Why do they all come to me? Without a word, he dropped a scattering of coins on the table and fled into the street.
El Chicote crossed the railroad tracks, a swordcase clamped under his arm. His shoes filled with cinders. His shirt collar was grimed with soot. A bumper crop of radishes could have been raised under his fingernails. El Chicote lacked even the admission price of the public bath. Since being evicted from his pensión, the struggling young matador slept in the metro and under bridges. There was no room service and it was hard to keep clean.
On a siding spur off the main line stood the low brick walls of the slaughterhouse, backed by loading docks and holding pens. Dust devils raced about the empty corrals. Several spotted steers stared at him through the wooden slats as he entered.
The foreman, a burly man wearing a long rubber apron and hip boots, stood hosing down the concrete floor. El Chicote waited for him to finish, nervously smoking a long lipstick-tinted butt, the prize find of the morning, while the foreman took his time, coiling the hose and doublechecking to see that the water was tightly shut off. “No beef today,” he said at last, crossing his bushy arms on his chest. “Only mutton.”
“I’ve walked a long way,” el Chicote answered, knowing the man considered him a tramp. “Better lambs than nothing.”
“It’s up to you.” The foreman shrugged. “But if you make a mess like last time, I’d as soon use the hammer.”
“There will be no mess. I practice the descabello today; very swift and clean.” He unstrapped the leather swordcase and drew out a long-bladed estoque, marching like an acolyte in a holy procession as he followed the foreman into the gloomy depths of the building. Wedged in a narrow pen at the far end were several dozen bleating sheep.
“Take your pick and get started,” the foreman said. “I got some sharpening up to do.”
El Chicote entered the pen. The woolly animals bumped about his knees, their deerlike hoofs tapping on the concrete. Reaching down, he took one by the ear, glimpsing a wide fear-filled eye as he pushed the head into position.
“Hah, toro,” he whispered, sighting straight down the gleaming blade. He stamped his foot once for emphasis, and was answered by a mournful Baaa!
Paco Machismo moved about the billiard table in the game room of his town house with the sliding grace of a caged leopard. He set his bottle of Pepsi back in the ice bucket and considered the shot from another angle. He liked the clicking sound the ivory balls made on contact: a crisp, decisive snap as pleasurable as the roaring voice of the crowd. In the arena, lusty shouting reaffirmed his fame, proclaiming even to the heavens that he was el número uno. In the billiard room, the terse tap of the balls seemed the essence of wealth and power; neither the mounting whine of his Maserati nor the ring of fine crystal could compare. Aside from listening to the balls collide, Paco Machismo had no interest in the game.
Around the walls of the room, the mounted heads of his more illustrious victims looked down in utter bovine stupidity. Pinned like sporty carnations to every black, muscled hump was a rosette divisa with the colors of the breeding ranch. Small brass plaques identified each animal by name and gave the time and place of the fight. Between the trophies hung enlarged framed photographs of el número uno in action, his cape swirling like the skirts of a flamenco dancer. The other photos were portraits of men whose legends he admired: Juan Belmonte, Luis Miguel Dominguín, Joe DiMaggio. Although Paco could neither read nor write, rows of leather-bound books completed the decor.
Reclining on a low divan opposite the fireplace, naked except for the tattooed butterfly splayed on her left buttock, a seventeen-year-old Irish girl named Mercy Malone, whose recording “Serendipity” was currently number nine on the pop charts back home, waited for something to happen. She nibbled at an assortment of macrobiotic goodies set on the onyx table in front of the fire: soy crackers spread with miso, radish and beansprout salad, brown rice flavored with kelp, and a steaming pot of mu tea. Paco Machismo was a dedicated vegetarian. He never ate meat of any kind.
Don Pepe found a space on the wooden bench along the white-tiled wall of the steam room. He spread his towel and settled back like a brooding hen. Rivulets of sweat coursed over the folds of his flaccid body. The empresario had once been a fat man; now, deflated by age and illness, his sagging skin seemed several sizes too large.
He closed his eyes and breathed the hot, pine-scented vapor, relaxing, when a familiar voice called, “Hola, Pepe.” The empresario scrutinized the ghostly figures around him in the Hades fog until he recognized an old amigo, the mayoral on the bull-breeding ranch of the Conde de San Conejo. “Qué tal, hombre,” Don Pepe said. “What brings you in off the farm?”
“Business, always business. How goes it with you?”
“Badly. I’ve had no luck since the death of Arturo Madrigal.”
The mayoral crossed himself. “They say his tomb is a shrine now. Hundreds leave flowers every day.”
Sweat dripped from Don Pepe’s nose. “What good does it do me to own sixty percent of a shrine? I can’t eat flowe
“Claro. The corrida is a risky life; the horns are always waiting, and even if a man lives to cut the pigtail and retire, what is there to do? His days are filled with boredom. Better to have a useful trade, like auto mechanics or guitar making. When a skill is in the fingers it never leaves you.”
Don Pepe wondered if this was true. He remembered his own early years as a pickpocket and regretted the enforced nakedness of the steam room. There had been a time when he could have lifted the lint from a man’s navel without a tickle. Arthritis ruled out any hope of a comeback. With those gnarled and twisted fingers, even picking his nose was something of an accomplishment.
The bull, el Camión, was feeling mean. He was in the mood for kicking ass. All day he watched the stud bulls in the next pasture, dragging their ponderous balls through the tall grass, alternately browsing with the cows and mounting them. At sundown they were still at it and the young bull stood in the golden haze with his nose pressed to the barbed wire. It made el Camión mad to watch this lordly, patient progress through the herd. They could afford to take their time; twenty-two years old and fat as sultans. None of the young fighting bulls had ever seen them even trot.
El Camión was full grown at four; six hundred kilos on the hoof and strong enough to lift a horse with a toss of his widespread horns. For three years, he had spent his days by the fence, watching the stud bulls at their pleasure. He was missing out and this made him surly. El Camión was spoiling for a fight.
In the shadows of an oak tree near the entrance to the bull-breeding ranch of the Conde de San Conejo, a runaway gypsy girl named Esmeralda Fabada quickly finished undressing and stashed the rolled bundle of her clothes in a culvert by the highway. She started for the fields across the road, a patched canvas cape folded stiffly in her arms. An extravagant globular moon lit the treeless landscape, but the gypsy girl knew the way even in the dark. Except for her rope-soled espadrilles, she was stark naked.
The cape was irreplaceable. During the day it remained hidden in the culvert. As she crossed the open field, Esmeralda wore it draped over one shoulder with her left arm wrapped and slung, in the manner of the processional entrance of the toreros into the bullring. She walked proudly, her lithe adolescent body aglow with moonlight.
Near the bank of a shallow stream she came upon the sleeping herd. The animals were settled, legs folded beneath them, cuds working even in sleep. She tiptoed behind the first hulking shadow and delivered a swift kick to the base of its spine.
The bull was up and roaring with the speed of a racehorse out of the starting gate. Immense and black, the moonbright horns lifted as the beast circled once and spotted his tormentor advancing, one sliding step at a time, behind the spread wall of canvas. The bull lowered his head and charged, a berserk boxcar of hate and fury. The gypsy girl stood, tasting blood, and passed the brute with a slow, floating veronica, so close that one stiletto horn tip left a scratch across her naked thigh.
“A brave animal,” Esmeralda thought. The charge was straight and true, with none of the preliminary ground pawing that is the mark of a coward. The bull wheeled and Esmeralda passed him a second time—so close that if she’d been wearing clothes a horn would certainly have caught the garment and tossed her. On the ground, with no one to distract the bull’s attention, her chances for survival would be slight. A horn thrust would pin her to the earth like a lepidopterist’s specimen. The thought of the butterfly collection in the window of the Mariposa Restaurant on the Puerto del Sol was more than vivid when the moon slid behind a cloud and she could no longer see the bull.
Esmeralda heard the thunder of approaching hoofbeats. Something huge sped across her path, a rush of wind like a passing auto. The girl turned and ran. She stumbled into a dry arroyo and collided with a naked boy. They fell backward into a gorse thicket, a tangle of arms and legs and thorns.
“Caramba!” muttered the astounded boy when his flailing arm chanced to find Esmeralda’s lovely breast. His amazement was punctuated by a loud wolf-wail of pain as sharp, determined teeth closed on his forearm and gnawed for bone.
“Cabrón,” the gypsy girl hissed as he released her.
The boy sucked his injured arm. “Can it be you, Esmeralda?”
“You pig! What are you doing to me? I will cut your cojones off.”
This was a distinct possibility and the boy, who valued his manhood too highly for such a risk, sat back on his haunches and closed his legs protectively. “What business have you here, Esmeralda?” he demanded.
“Pig!” She spat at him. “I have more skill with the cape than any of you monkeys.”
“What? Have you come to cape the bulls?” The boy laughed. “Are you not afraid of the horns?”
“I am afraid of nothing.”
“But what of those sharp horns, Esmeralda? When they kiss your flesh it is not so sweet as this.” And he bent forward and took her hard brown nipple between his lips.
“Filthy goat!” Esmeralda twisted in his clumsy embrace, pulling her breast from his mouth.
The boy only laughed and smacked his lips, unable to take his gaze from her protruding nipple, swollen in the half-light like the cap and stem of an inverted mushroom. “I can think of better sport than caping calves,” he said.
Esmeralda continued to struggle, but her efforts had an effect opposite from her intentions; her straining breasts rubbed against her aggressor’s chest and evidence of his arousal was soon poking into her vulnerable tummy. “Toad,” she shrieked. “Maggot-worm! Horsefly!”
“You’re not afraid of it, are you, muchacha?” the boy said, diving for her bobbing breasts. “Truly, this is one horn you have no cause to fear.”
“You miserable scum! I would not want you if your words were sweet and delicate as the almond blossoms. Not even if that pink puppy’s weapon you act so proud of were taller and straighter than the spire of Córdoba Cathedral.”
The boy’s laughter stopped. “You think me s-small?” he stammered.
It was Esmeralda’s turn to laugh. “Chico, my grandmother owns a rabbit with better equipment than you.”
The boy’s enthusiasm wilted along with his erection. “Who wants you then?” he said, getting to his feet. “But I’m working this end of the field. I’ve been here since dark.”
“You can keep it,” Esmeralda said. “I’ll go to the section across the river.”
“No, Basilio is practicing there tonight.”
“Okay, the pasture below the olive grove.”
“That is where you’ll find Tomás.”
“Then I’ll work the calves.”
“Impossible, Jesús Segundo went in that direction.”
“Christ! Is the whole village out tonight?”
The clouds unveiled the moon for a moment, the tooth-paste-colored light slowly bringing the fields back into focus as if a rheostat were being turned somewhere in the central power station off behind the spiral nebula. Everywhere Esmeralda looked, the surrounding checkerboard of fenced pasture was overrun with naked boys! Boys of all shapes and sizes scurried among the thornbushes, dragging scraps of canvas or salvaged blankets. Seldom had the noble Spanish earth witnessed such a spectacle as this swarm of nakedness. A spread fan of clouds covered the face of the modest Castilian moon and discreet shadows slid into place once again.
“See,” the boy whispered, standing in back of her, “there’s no place to go. It would be better for you to stay here with me.” The naked boy encircled her bare waist with his arms.
“Why not?” Esmeralda said, reaching behind her back. “Hmmm, I underestimated you, chico.”
The boy felt her cool fingers encircle him and thrilled to the electric friction of her firm milkmaid’s stroke. He closed his eyes and fumbled for her breasts, breathing her dark hair and calling her his “sweet white dove” in a tobacco-flavored whisper. Then, those loving, slender fingers closed in a vise-grip, yanking and twisting the way her grandmother wrung the necks of chickens, and his bedroom murmur built into a scream that split the night sky like an air-raid siren.
