Plaza de Toros

The corrida started promptly at 5 pm with a show of horsemen and a parade of men in brocaded knickers and big shouldered jackets and Mickey Mouse like black felt hats and fuchsia stockings and leather shoes. The horses high stepped around the clay arena, which had fresh lines of white lime laid in two concentric circles. Our tickets were in a shaded box on the upper level and as we drank cans of local beer we had butterflies in anticipation of the otherness of this Spanish cultural experience and more than a trace of dread as a number of animals were going to be slaughtered.

There was a band in an upper level box with lots of horns playing traditional Spanish music. It was ceremonious and festive, sometimes with a waltzy tra-la-la-boom-de-ay feel, other times like the soundtrack to “Lawrence of Arabia”, one of Gardner’s favorite movies growing up. As the bullfights progressed, the band would start up again to announce different stages of the event letting the crowd know the corrida had reached a turning point.

This was a minor corrida of younger bullfighters and younger bulls weighing only 1,000 pounds. The first bull came into the ring and he was gorgeous with rippling muscles and gray brown hide and a stunning physique and horns that no doubt could do serious damage. The bull pranced and sprinted with a certain majesty, at times leaping on all fours, and raging like he wanted to escape or hurt someone or hurt someone and then escape. I was immediately rooting for the bull.

With a musical announcement from the band, two picadors arrived riding horses that were blindfolded and wearing coats of serious quilted padding hopefully today made from Kevlar. The two riders were also in fancy outfits and had long lances and the bull soon charged one of the horses and broadsided it with his horns with the intent to lift it off the ground and throw it over his shoulder like a mortal enemy. Meanwhile the picador drove his forked spear into the bull’s back. Fighting on, the bull drove the sidestepping horse back toward the wooden round side of the arena while the picador thrust a second spear into the shoulder muscles. The formidable bull was now compromised and bleeding. The band played as the picadors trotted away.

Once more, the muletas taunted the bull with their fuchsia capes. The charges were becoming less frequent and the bull was breathing heavily. Three of the muletas now arranged themselves around the arena with colorful decorated pokers called bandilleros, which they held high over head and thrust them into the bull’s back after luring it to charge. This was quite a move that I imagine takes serious courage and practice and perhaps a complete lack of judgment as you are taking on the bull with no cape to distract it. Soon the bull had six bandilleros stuck and flopping around in its upper back and the muscles had been severed so it was much harder for him to raise his head in self defense. I guess it was now officially a fair fight because the matador strode into the ring full of bravado in his gold suit and laid his hat down in the middle of the ring.

The matador’s cape was red and he called the bull in with dramatic flourishes and urged it to lunge again and again as he spun like a ballet dancer making combinations of practiced moves which we couldn’t fully recognize or appreciate after which he would sometimes stroll away with his back to the bull and raise his hand and throw his head back to the crowd who would cheer and say “olé!” That’s when you were hoping the bull would charge but he was wearing down and stuck like a pin cushion and on this afternoon there was no such poetic justice.

The muletas again taunted him with their fuchsia capes and the bull showed the crowd that its heart still pumped with the will to survive. Using the blade of a second sword, the matador flicked out the first sword by the handle. On this next attempted kill, the bull fell almost instantly to its knees and rolled over on its side. A man came and severed the spinal cord with a knife and the bull kicked involuntarily and died and was then promptly dragged across the clay by two horses and the sweepers came out to prepare the bloodstained arena for the next fight. This was extremely exhausting to watch as none of the young matadors killed the bulls on their first attempts and we stayed to watch the first three corridas.

No creature wants to die. I have experienced this over many years of participating in the processing of poultry. Our hope has always been that the animals we raise for food have a great and natural life and a very precise death on their only bad day. I completely understand that many Spaniards feel it is way past the time to move on from long established traditions. Some were offended that we would even attend a corrida or lump them in with the rest of their countrymen who still accept bullfighting as part of their culture. Indeed I am offended by NASCAR rallies and snowmobiling in national parks and all kinds of nonsense that passes for popular culture in the United States that I don’t want to be associated with.

The region of Catalonia has already outlawed bullfighting. I do understand how an agrarian society that brought us Flamenco music which is so colorful and disciplined and full of joy and anguish and emotion and technique also brought us the corrida. But I can also imagine that one day, as generations roll into the next, the sun will set on this pageant that once encompassed the bravery and formidable spirit of fighting the bull in a world where life was short and death and war were everyday realities. Maybe then the Flamenco singers will weave into their music and dance a part of the past that once was yet  now is a realization of a brave and exciting and lugubrious past. Is it not enough to know and appreciate what once was yet no longer is culturally relevant or appropriate?

Until then I root for the bulls.