Running (away) of the bull

“The spectator going to a bullfight for the first time cannot expect to see the combination of the ideal bull and the ideal fighter for that bull which may occur not more than twenty times in all Spain in a season and it would be wrong for him to see that the first time. He would be so confused, visually, by the many things he was seeing that he could not take it all in with his eyes, and something which he might never see again in his life would mean no more to him than a regular performance. If there is any chance of his liking the bullfights the best bullfight for him to see first is an average one, two brave bulls out of six, the four undistinguished ones to give relief to the performance of the two excellent ones, three bullfighters, not too highly paid, so that whatever extraordinary things they do will look difficult rather than easy, a seat not too near the ring so that he will see the entire spectacle rather than, if he is too close, have it constantly broken up into bull and horse, man and bull, bull and man—and a hot sunny day. The sun is very important. The theory, practice and spectacle of bullfighting have all been built on the assumption of the presence of the sun and when it does not shine over a third of the bullfight is missing. The Spanish say, ‘El sol es el mejor torero.’ The sun is the best bullfighter, and without the sun the best bullfighter is not there. He is like a man without a shadow.”
—Ernest Hemingway, Death in the Afternoon

Thanks for clearing that up, Ernie.

To start, I went to a corrida de toros, or bullfight, to celebrate the Feria del Sol here, better known in most parts as Carnaval. It was my first time, though I wasn’t new to the art of the bullfight; when studying in Spain, I lived 10 minutes from the Fenway Park of bullrings, the Real Maestranza de Cabellería. I’d wanted to attend a corrida there, but it was expensive and difficult to get tickets. Here in Mérida, though, it was easy enough: a 20-minute wait in line and Bs. 25,000 per ticket.

As for the bullfight itself, it’s a fairly complicated show. Every little detail is a tradition (like the way the bulls’ pen, or toril, is opened at the start of the bullfight), and almost every object has its own name (for example, the capes used early in the bullfight are capotes, while the cape used at the end is known as a muleta). The torero, himself, is full of ritual. He wears a skintight, bright colored and bejeweled outfit called the traje de luces, or suit of lights. (A quick bullfighting joke: If he’s wearing the a suit of lights, where are the batteries? Between his legs.) [You have to picture the bullfighter with his incredibly tight suit to make sense of that one.] The torero also grows out the back of his hair to put up in a ponytail and, because he is theoretically facing death every show, prays in the plaza’s chapel before each corrida.

I don’t want to brush over the mechanics of the event, but like Hemingway said, you don’t want it to become just a series of “bull and horse, man and bull, bull and man”. It’s much more than that, and you have to see it from a far view—both when you’re watching it and when you’re thinking about it as a tradition and, as many Spaniards argue, as an art form—to appreciate it.

However, to fill you in on what actually happens, here goes. There are four parts to every bullfight. First, the bull is let out of the toril and runs around crazy, looking to gore something. Then, the torero’s assistants, the banderilleros, do some passes with the capotes while the torero looks on from outside the ring. He then gets in and completes a few passes of his own. The horn sounds, and two blindfolded and armored horses enter, each ridden by a man with a long lance, or vara. The men, called picadores, wait for the bull to charge into the unknowing horse before they jam their lances into the bull’s neck to loosen up its muscles. They do this so the bull won’t be able to hold its head up later, which allows the torero to get the angle to slide his sword between the bull’s shoulder blades and kill it. After the picadores do their job, the horn blows again, and the banderilleros re-enter. This time, two of them take turns placing three pairs of banderillas, or long wooden sticks with sharp, barbed steel points, behind the bull’s neck. The banderilleros are pretty amazing; they stand on tip toe, arms out, taunting the bull until it charges, and at the last minute they stealthily hop out of the bull’s path and slam the picks into the bull’s back. Then, when the six banderillas are inserted, the horn sounds again and the torero reappears. He salutes the crowd, drops his hat in the center of the ring, and begins to make his passes, tiring out the bull. When the bull is sufficiently tired, he will even play with it, purposefully putting himself in danger to draw the support of the crowd. In the end, he aims the sword at a spot between the bull’s shoulder blades and drives in the sword. If it is a clean kill, the bull dies quickly; if not, it sputters and staggers and loses liters of blood through its nose and mouth. Not a pretty sight.

Anyway, the bullfight we saw was pretty standard. There was no sun, which definitely makes a difference. It changes the spectacle, and as Papa put it, the best bullfighter isn’t there without the sun. Although it was my first bullfight, I’m pretty sure the best bullfighter wasn’t there anyway, regardless of the weather. I guess I wouldn’t have known the other day if I were watching a bunch of hacks or the second-coming of El Cordobés or Manolete, but to me, it seemed like we had one torero who was flashy but ineffective, another skillful but boring, the other neither exciting nor efficient—and the bulls basically average. Except one, that is.

I’ve been wondering what Hemingway would’ve thought about the fifth bull of the day, a 500-kilogram (1,100-pound) behemoth that had that look when it came charging out of the toril. It was pissed off. This bull wanted no part of death, especially at the hands of a fancy-pants young torero who acted like he was hot shit but then did things like drop his capote during one pass and nearly get gored during another in his first fight of the day. The torero was looking to make up for his earlier bumbling, but the bull wanted no part of it.

So what did the bull do? Jumped the fence, of course.

Let’s put that into perspective: the bullring is surrounded by a five-foot-high fence. The bull weighs more than a half-ton. And the beast cleared the fence like he was on an equestrian course.

I don’t think there are contingency plans for things like this. At least, there didn’t appear to be when it happened. The bull jumped the fence. All of a sudden, he was in the space between the ring and the box seats—essentially the walkway in front of the seats for the wealthiest, and oldest, spectators. These are the people who like to tell their friends things like, “Man, my seats are so close I could reach out and touch the bulls.” They probably never thought, “Man, my seats are so close that if the bull jumped the fence I would have to run for my life and likely mess myself in the process.” That, though, is exactly what happened.

As you could expect, the crowd went nuts. Those who didn’t mess themselves running from the bull messed themselves laughing at the runners. The torero and the banderilleros were as clueless with the bull outside the ring as they had been fighting it. People were running and jumping everywhere. The bull charged around the ring, as if he were waiting to be let loose on the streets of Pamplona. Finally, about halfway around the ring, someone opened up the gates to the rings, and the bull re-entered.

The crowd, delighted, cheered, “Toro! Toro!” If there were to be anything memorable about the day, it would be the bull that, for a moment, got away.

Ten minutes later, though, the torero’s sword gracelessly clanged off the bull’s spinal column, and it died slowly, without much dignity at all. It seemed unjust, unsavory. I guess in my mind, the good guy lost.