Toro toro toro, p.2
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TORO! TORO! TORO!, page 2

 

TORO! TORO! TORO!
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  Esmeralda looked down at the writhing boy hunched in agony at her feet. “Next time, you must treat a lady with some manners, cabrón,” she said. “And if the pain seems too great, perhaps you should give up your dreams of becoming a matador: a cornada in the bullring will hurt much more than this.”

  El Chicote stood in the shadows by the trolley stop watching a warm, well-lighted car clatter past but lacking the fare for a few hour’s sleep. He hugged the embossed leather swordcase against his chest, trying not to think about park benches or the drafty ferrocarril waiting room, when a familiar voice hailed him from across the cobbled street. “Carlos, my boy,” the man called, with a wave of his furled umbrella. “How long it’s been.” It was Señor Esteban Sanchez; Professor Sanchez, his old teacher, to whom he owed every particle of his skill.

  “So good to see you again, Carlos,” Señor Sanchez said, gripping his hand. “How many years is it now? Two? Three?”

  “Almost four, Professor, but it seems like yesterday. You look just the same.”

  “A few additional gray hairs perhaps; I try to keep fit. How goes the career?”

  “Quite well, actually. Oh, I had some bad luck Sunday, but the critics always exaggerate these things, blow them all out of proportion.”

  “You know I never read reviews, Carlos. Come along, have some supper with me—a little gathering in the studio like old times.”

  They walked along streets and alleyways progressively more sordid with each block. Garbage lay spilled across the cobbles and in the gutter; the slimy puddle that mirrored the modest Castilian moon also floated an armada of eggshells and orange peels. Several lengths of wrinkled sausage casing, the poor man’s condom, lay at anchor along the curb.

  A limping cat led the way as the two men crossed into a muddy courtyard. In the dismal yellow light of a low-wattage bulb hung a familiar signboard, the ornate gilt letters obscured by grime:

  INSTITUTO SANCHEZ

  SALON DE TAUROMACHIA

  ACCEPTAMOS BANKAMERICARD

  El Chicote paused for a moment and looked up at the painting of a matador performing a full veronica, so faded now that neither the bull nor the man showed. Only the red cape was still visible, like the wings of an exotic moth pausing for the night.

  “Coming, Carlos?”

  At the top floor, the door to the studio stood open, spilling light into the hall, and as he entered, el Chicote saw it was the same: the brick walls plastered with ragged poster-sized diagrams of the basic passes, footwork detailed along the sides like dance notation. In the center of the room stood a padded leather gymnast’s horse nicknamed Rosinante, bristling with banderillas and leaking sawdust. A wheelbarrow chassis with a set of bull horns as a hood ornament waited below a curtain of faded pink capes hanging from pegs in the wall. A long table was set with bread baskets and wicker-covered demijohns of cheap red wine and numbers of noisy students sat boasting and drinking; the room was loud with angry shoptalk.

  Professor Sanchez beckoned the novillero to join him by the coal stove where a lean, hollow-cheeked man in a chef’s apron presided over several steaming pots. The professor bobbed up and down like a vaudeville Chinaman. “Carlos,” he said, “I want you to meet the most talented of my recent graduates, Luis Orlando. Luis, this is one of my old boys, Carlos Carretera. He is called el Chicote in the bullring now.”

  The consumptive Luis regarded the novillero with undisguised scorn. “I’ve heard of you,” he said, barely moving his thin lips. “You’re the one the critics call ‘the Aviator’ because you spend so much time in the air.”

  Carlos had to clear his throat. “Bah, who bothers to read the reviews? All those vermin know about bulls is how they like their beefsteak prepared.”

  Professor Sanchez was bobbing out of control. “Gentlemen, gentlemen, let us all be friends. This is not a time for hard words. Tonight we celebrate. Today, at a small rural feria, Luis cut both ears and the tail of his second bull.”

  “Congratulations,” Carlos croaked unconvincingly.

  “Show him,” the Professor urged.

  “Mira.” Luis Orlando lifted the lid of the stewpot. A wreath of steam parted and revealed his simmering trophies, scraped and hairless in the golden broth.

  The dark, vaulted-brick cellar in the Alma de Andalucía nightclub echoed with the plaintive nasal lament of cante jondo. Paco Machismo, el número uno, passed among the bare wood tables, nodding with grave dignity to his many admirers. Mercy Malone hung onto his left arm, looking absolutely peachy in her see-through blouse and a pair of red velvet hot pants. When the matador and his maid crossed in front of the bandstand the singer interrupted the fluty arabesques of his tortured ballad to clap his hands. Soon the guitar players were all applauding, and by the time the couple reached their reserved table the place was roaring with bravos.

  The brave one’s manager, Alfredo Gazpacho, stood hunched by the table, clapping with the enthusiasm of a trained seal, an unlit cigar clenched in his fawning smile. Seated on either side like bookends in Cardin suits and matching blue-tinted sunglasses, two American strangers joined in the applause. Paco Machismo held up one hand to silence the crowd and nodded for the singer to continue. At this signal, a swarm of waiters surrounded the table, helping the illustrious pair into their seats and whisking away crumbs.

  By the time the orders were taken, the singer had finished and a flurry of guitars accompanied the frenzied tapping and clapping of six swarthy dancers. His manager made the introductions but Machismo, who always had trouble with names, couldn’t remember which of the plump, suntanned Americans was Marty and which was Abe. (“Mardi” and “Ape” was the way the bullfighter heard it over the noise of the flamenco troupe.) Strange names, even for Americans. He wondered if they were gangsters.

  The Americans were here on business, Gazpacho explained. They had a proposition to make. Much money would be involved. At the word “dinero,” Paco inched his chair imperceptibly closer. The deal was this: most of the high-paying customers at the corrida were now Americans who couldn’t tell a natural from a media veronica; what they were after was thrills and excitement. They were aficionados only of danger. But with the bulls getting smaller every season and as a result of the recent horn-shaving scandal, the number of paying customers was dwindling. Something new was needed; something big.

  “You want me to fight six bulls in one afternoon?” Machismo said with a snap of his fingers. “It is nothing. I fight the whole cartel by myself.”

  “No, Paco, this is bigger than that. This is something new.” His manager paused, nodding at the two men flanking him. “Abe and Marty are motion-picture producers from Hollywood, California. They want to make a film of an entirely new spectacle and are offering you five hundred thousand American dollars—”

  “That’s half a million clams, sweetheart,” Ape (or was it Mardi?) interjected.

  “Yes, half a million,” Gazpacho continued. “More than you can earn in two seasons.”

  “For a one-shot,” the Americans shouted, almost in tandem.

  “And what must I do for so much money?” Paco Machismo fixed his ball-bearing eyes on the two Americans.

  “It will be in the tradition of the ancient gladiators.” His manager waved his arms with enthusiasm. “Something which has not been seen. It will be the equal of the days when bears were pitted against bulls in the arena.”

  “You want me to fight a bear?”

  “No, Paco, much bigger than a bear. Have you ever been to the zoo in the capital?”

  “Never. I don’t like to see animals in cages.”

  “Well then, here is a photo.” His manager slid an eight-by-ten glossy across the table. “From Africa, Paco.”

  Paco Machismo stared at the picture of the prehistoric-looking creature with unconcealed amazement.

  “That baby’s worth half a million smackers to you, hot shot,” Mardi (perhaps it was Ape) gloated. “D.O.A. Think you can handle it?”

  For once in his career, el número uno was unable to come up with an answer.

  After dinner, Professor Sanchez asked his two distinguished graduates to give the students a demonstration of their professional artistry. Tables and benches were pushed back against the walls for extra room. Several wineskins made the rounds. El Chicote and Luis Orlando rummaged like housewives at the flea market through the capes hanging along the wall, inspecting them all before making a selection. The fastest runner in the class was chosen to push the wheel-mounted bull horns.

  The display soon developed into a mano a mano. Rowdy applause followed each pass, the students whistling and stamping, and after running through the basics, the two novilleros were encouraged to show off and take risks. The capework became more elaborate; the men inched closer and closer to the passing horns. Luis Orlando received a near ovation when two buttons were torn from his shirt front during a perfect statuesque parón.

  Not to be outdone, el Chicote called for a blindfold. Professor Sanchez attempted to introduce a note of reason at this point but his protests were lost amid the students’ cheers. Someone offered a denim bandana and wound it over the eyes of Carlos Carretera. The novillero held up his hand for silence. “I intend to introduce this feat in the arena,” he announced. “With only the sound of the bull’s hoofbeats to guide me, I perform a series of the most technically demanding passes.”

  The crowd fell silent as el Chicote strode to the center of the floor, dragging his cape behind him like a peacock’s tail. “Hah, toro,” he grunted with a stamp of the foot. At this signal, the student manning the horns began to run, pushing the wheeled contraption for all he was worth. El Chicote shook out the folded cape and began a Chicletina, pirouetting as the proxy bull charged past, the cape swirling in midair and wrapping gracefully around his body. Unfortunately the horns were passing on the wrong side, behind his back, so the stunt merely looked foolish. Even as the first laughter started, the corner of el Chicote’s whirling cape caught in the wheelspokes of the fastmoving mechanism and the novillero was yanked off balance, the wrapped canvas unwinding with a snap which catapulted him across the room for a nasty nose-and-teeth landing against the leg of the dinner table.

  Luis Orlando clapped his hands silently, his thin-lipped frown intact in spite of the surflike roar of student laughter. “A fine display of the style for which the Aviator is justly famous,” he muttered to Professor Sanchez, standing aghast by his side.

  El Camión, the fighting bull, grazed along the riverbank in the moonlight. His reflection glistened on the smooth-flowing stream. There were no flies, but every so often out of habit his tail whisked lazily across his haunches. Eating calmed the big animal and he no longer raised his red-eyed head after each bite to search the darkness for further threat.

  It had been a confusing night out on the range. The centaurs who rode herd during the daytime, armed with long poles and ropes, had split apart and attacked him on two legs while he slept. Miserable puny creatures now, who tormented him and then disappeared behind a turn of cloth when attacked. El Camión knew the next time he met a two-legged he would ignore this flapping enticement and aim for his body instead.

  Mercy Malone crouched on all fours in the corner on a rug made from the neck fur of three thousand arctic foxes. Her pale freckled body shone with sweat. She was out of breath, panting, her strawberry breasts dancing between her slender arms. The tattooed butterfly fluttered overhead on the ceiling mirror. Clamped on her head in the manner of earmuffs was a pair of plastic horns.

  She stared up at Paco Machismo, standing by the bed with a rawhide quirt in his hand and flinched as the thongs flickered past her shoulder. He was a beautiful sight, a Cubist arrangement of planes and angles, sun-bronzed, with a dark glossy pelt spreading across his chest and stomach, his upthrust cock bright as a candied apple.

  “See him standing to like a proper little redcoat,” the girl said.

  “Eh? Speak Spanish,” Paco Machismo grunted and gave her another short taste of the lash. “This time I will take you recibiendo.”

  “What in the bloody hell is that? Ouch! Okay, okay, qué es eso?”

  “In the arena, it is the most noble achievement of a matador: to receive the bull’s charge and go between the horns for the killing thrust.”

  “Por favor, I’m too young to die.”

  The torero was suddenly serious. “Oh, no, my darling, you are never too young for the dark messenger’s call.”

  “Shit, Paco, I was only kidding. You don’t have to be such a philosopher.”

  “I never joke about death.”

  “Bueno, bueno.”

  “I laugh at death.”

  “Fine.”

  “Ha-ha-ha; listen to that. That is what I feel for death.”

  “How do you feel about fucking?”

  The candied apple drew itself up to full height. “It is what I enjoy second most in life.”

  “Swell.” The Irish girl smiled at him through twin curtains of straight-hanging barley-colored hair. “Say the word and I’ll jump you; you know, whatchamacallit, recibiendo?”

  “I will receive your charge.” Paco Machismo tossed the whip behind him onto the bed. He pivoted on the balls of his feet, back arching from the pelvis like a strung bow, and clapped his hands twice. “Hah. Hola.”

  The girl broke like a sprinter at the sound of the starter’s gun and covered the fox-fur rug in two seconds flat. She was on him in a single bound, her legs locked around his waist. Impaled, they staggered upright together for a momentary mantis dance before toppling over backward onto the circular bed.

  miércoles

  The lobby of the Hotel Avila was filled with old men. They sat at tables along the blistered walls, playing dominoes in the half-light, or in sagging plush easy chairs with skirts of epaulet-fringe, relighting cigars and staring out the unwashed windows at the Street of the Knifesharpeners. Folded newspapers rested like scepters across every lap. Sporting sheets were what they read, along with the weekly bullfight periodicals, for the Hotel Avila was located in that district of the city which for a time after the civil war was popular with nine-day bicycle racers, matadors and jockeys and was now the home of the discarded of that era: aging bookmakers, decrepit sword-handlers and picadors, retired trainers and advance men.

  The empresario Don Pepe had a room on the third floor of the Avila, but he was not often seen in the lobby, preferring to spend his days sitting in bars instead. His presence this morning, on the couch under the clock with one hand missing, attracted little attention. Just another old man passing time.

  Don Pepe failed to leave for the barroom on schedule because of a phone call which came for him at the desk as he was putting on his topcoat. Under other circumstances the news would have elated the empresario: the most promising novillero in Spain had been badly injured in an automobile accident and the ring management wanted someone to fill his contract next Sunday. But the old man had only el Chicote in his stable, and the boy needed easy fights in the country to get his nerve back up. Signing him for another appearance in the Municipal Arena with its thirty-arroba bulls and unbribable officials would be to seal his death warrant. Worse, Don Pepe would be left without anyone to manage. The prospect of all those idle days in the lobby of the Avila made him place a somewhat higher value on the life of Carlos Carretera than the market warranted.

  As he sat pondering his decision, Don Pepe flipped through a pile of old Life magazines. Occasionally, sexy photos eluded the Government censors. He almost skipped an article in the science section, only stopping for a second glance because a fighting bull was pictured. The empresario knew how Archimedes felt that day in the tub. There, on the glossy, dog-eared page before him was the answer to all his problems.

  The most impressive monument in the graveyard outside the Extremaduran town of Sueño de Duende was a white marble wedding cake whose Corinthian columns and trumpeting angels covered what was left of a previous answer to all of Don Pepe’s problems. After only three seasons, Arturo Madrigal had been proclaimed the “successor to Manolete” by a cautious and cynical press. Bookings arrived from every part of the peninsula. Don Pepe made a down payment on a black Chrysler Ambassador barely nine years old. That particular bubble burst along with Arturo Madrigal’s liver and spleen one windy April Sunday in Málaga when a sudden gust lifted the boy’s cape and the left horn of a Cordoba bull named el Osario caught him below the rib cage.

  A life-sized effigy of the young matador in his suit of lights adorned the lid of the columned sarcophagus, floral bouquets blanketing his marble image. Wherever the sculptor portrayed flesh (hands clasped in prayer, an innocent choirboy face ) the statue was tinted the color of boiled shrimp. Unlike the ancient Greeks, who colored their sculpture for greater realism, art played no part in this; Arturo Madrigal’s cheeks and fingers were pink with smudged lipstick. Several thousand furtive kisses had conspired to produce this caricature of life’s bloom.

  A black angel presided unseen above all the postmortem adulation, her features stern as a gyrfalcon’s. From her aerie in the bell tower, Arturo Madrigal’s mother watched the steady procession of mourners through war-surplus German field glasses. She memorized the face of every visitor to the graveyard, sorting the strangers from townspeople with legitimate dead and keeping a mental tally of all the hysterical women who caressed her son’s tomb. Those who came but once were quickly forgotten. Should they return, even a year later, on the anniversary of Arturo’s death, the grim yellow eyes would narrow in recognition and hatred.

  Mercy Malone carried a pot of Irish breakfast tea into the library. The jellaba she wore was several sizes too large. It was a trophy acquired on a trip to Marrakech with King Hassan’s Minister of Transport, and her nifty schoolgirl’s figure was lost beneath its tentlike folds. She left Paco sleeping upstairs, his body spread in an X-shape which quadrisected the circular bed like the figure in Leonardo’s study of anatomical proportion. Mercy had seen the Leonardo drawing in one of the library’s uncut leatherbound volumes. The figure was as multilimbed as a Hindu deity, arms and legs in a variety of postures. There had only been one fig leaf, a detail Mercy noticed straightaway. This did little to prevent further speculation and the Irish pop star spent that particular afternoon dreaming of six-legged men with triple erections.

 
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