Toro de Cuerda

I watched from the top floor window as a line of men pulled a long rope, running fast and hard up the white Spanish street. A brown, muscle bound bull battered the cobble stones after them. It raised its horns in the air, trying to catch the legs of men who hung from windows. It slowed and a man tempted fate by running in line with the rope, towards the men dragging the bull which thundered after him and rounded the corner. I went out, not knowing what I didn’t know.

At first I ran, like the rest, at the very first wave of building static which pulsed through the street, only ever running from the men with the rope, never seeing the bull. I stopped breathlessly at the town square and stood next to an old man who leant against a wall in the charged street. He called to everyone, and everyone called back. Leaning against his cane, he smiled. We were in danger, being outside the cage of erected poles which sunk deep into the ground and guarded the partying spectators who drank in the plaza. He was brave, but being only a few feet away from the poles, he was not foolish. I reminded myself as I saw the brown bull, to have gratitude for that moment. The old man smiled.

What was this? A game? A sport? A celebration of a tradition I did not understand but somehow felt enmeshed in? I heard the Spanish word for death more than once. A thrill? A party? Suicide? For me, it was all of those things and more: it was an escape, and almost ashamedly, it was a story to tell. Was I caring more about that story, the one I’m telling you, than the life I was living?

I kept running back to the house to do the small tasks that I would have had to do later, doing the bits of cleaning that my volunteer position required of me for my keep, this is the only thing I regret. The first bull, being tired, and well run, was slowly pulled back into the metal box from which it came. Once the door slid shut, everyone cheered, and then I noticed the second cage. Foolishly I went back to the house to do another bout of cleaning and bedmaking. Damn fool.

Back out I ran to the sound of a whistle from the street below the window. I followed the pulse of life, passion, and fear, which sparked from the men dragging the bull, to the men who ran, laughed and shouted. Women calling from windows, throwing bottles of water to sons and lovers, and children who hid behind fences and cheered from balconies. The electricity was back, and it brightened this small Spanish town.

The second bull: big, black, and beautiful. This time the bursting wind from forty men rattled past me in a matter of seconds as they ran from the beast. I stood still in the narrow street between the poles of the plaza and the houses which bent down over us; I waited for the bull. Then came the men with the rope, I started running. They shouted at me in Spanish, when that didn’t work they shouted in English, “Keep going!!” I still did not know.

I slipped behind some poles down a side street. The men with the rope rounded two corners before I saw it. I stayed where I was as it got closer. Bulls really are beautiful things. Its face came to the poles which I hid behind. Its tongue was out and its face was soft, like sea smoothed stone. I held my phone low with the video running. Would I enjoy that video tomorrow, more than the moment now?

It went and I followed behind it to the street where I have been living for two months. The men pulled as it went, but then it stopped. It beat its horns against the wall, tangled itself up in the rope, tripped, then got back up and was still. I was told to move back by one of the handlers, a man with a pink and orange blanket. I turned and saw the interested and eager faces of men behind me. When had I gotten so close? Fear and adrenaline filled me; I forgot all else as I watched this bleeding bull. I still did not know.

It had torn its tongue and lips, and its mouth was shining red. It made its way into a dead end alley. I’m sure it only wanted some peace, but the men with pink blankets waved and taunted. It came out bleeding more heavily than before. The blood poured from its mouth, splattered the walls and spilled on the ground. It poured, really. You think, it must run out, it must stop, like piss, there’s an end, but this was blood. It kept falling in a thin line from its mouth.

I don’t know how many minutes passed with the bull standing there in the street, painting the ground scarlet; with the men doing their best to taunt it into chase. Finally, the bleeding beast began pawing at the ground, whilst above him two men hung from bars on windows. “As strong as a bull,” a simple phrase I seem never to have understood. Finally, it dawned on me what I had been missing all day. The bull turned to the handler, a kind faced man with grey hair and the strong, pouchy build of a farmer. I saw calculated terror in his eyes, he stumbled backwards around the corner with his pink blanket held to his chest; the bull went after him. It dragged the twenty men who held the rope along with it, like nothing. Spanish shouts and sliding shoes. The bull decides. When the men had told me to run at the rope’s head, they knew, and I didn’t. The bull meant death. All the rope did was slow it down.

The men leapt down from the windows and people teemed down the street after the bull. I was the only one going the other way. I was jostled and jousted but not questioned. When they had gone, I found what I had been looking for. The pool of blood that had poured from the animal’s mouth. The splashes of tainted spit on the walls, the red marks left on white paint. I took pictures, then turned back to the house, ever the fool, but this time with a sour taste in my mouth. When I returned, the gun had been fired to show the streets were safe again, it was back in its cage; the electricity had gone. The street had the same feeling as after rain.

I finished my work, showered, shaved, and went back out into the evening to face the third and final bull. Many of the men knew each other, travelling a few times a year to various parts of Andalucia for the thrill of Toro de Cuerda. I understood why. It was unlike anything I have done. Men cheering with each other, and for each other. Sweating and swearing together, cursing the bull and its creator. There were tattoos of bulls on arms and legs. Old friends embraced, and new ones were made.

Suddenly the monster was caught, the rope twisted around its hind legs, it tried to pull with its horns where the rope was tightly bound, this only served to jerk its legs and it fell and hit the hot stone. The local shop-keep, one of the few faces I actually knew, stepped forward. Small, with keen eyes and a mousy mouth, but a kind smile; he shouted orders and instructions. However, with all the shouting, it was the bull that freed itself. But like the others, by the end of the hour, it was angry and unwilling. I changed directions for the second time, tussling through the crowd, I knew the streets by now better than the men who had come from local towns, and made for the front of the rope. A pretty girl with blond hair and red wine in her hand watched me go past the plaza where the women and children drank. I bowed my head and went on.

I knew better now the danger. I knew what it meant to be at the front. No one to slow it down. But when I reached the men, the bull was gone. It had made its own way back to the entrance of the town where its cage awaited. The men still wanted the chase, the fear, the thrill. The bull stayed in a corner, watched by hundreds, but still. They left the rope on the ground. The bull was loose.

Men wound up the wide road behind me. I wanted to be closer, to see, to feel, to take a picture with the film camera I had brought instead of my phone. I inched closer, thinking the great animal done. The bull had other ideas. With no warning, it made for us. The street broad and the men uncounted, old and young running alike, me at the back of the pack. Screams from the women on the balconies above. The men shouting and breathing and scrambling, forcing their legs up the hill. I started to pass the other men but decided to do what few others did. I looked back. Fuck! My body spikes into life. Muscle, weight, terror, and death. It’s nearly on top of us. I turn forward, my legs snap with adrenaline. I run into the man in front of me and feel his cold sweat; old and fat, he starts falling. His hands splay out towards the ground. Death, piercing horns tearing through your skin like a needle through wool. I grab hold of his arm. Drag him up. Drag him along with me. My body pulling and screaming: run! The old fucker keeps his feet and keeps his pace with me. We run. Then came the cry. I turned again. The bull was on its back.

The men had tied the rope to a metal stud in the road, it had jerked the bull to the ground, it was never free. I looked around. The sweating man didn’t know it was me that had charged into him, he looked red and afraid, I decided not to enlighten him. The rope was pulled through the back of the cage and the bull inched inside. But not without a struggle. It gave a foot then took two. Men, old-hands, tried to flinch and feint it closer and closer to the cage. The hordes of onlookers up the hill, hanging off fences and hidden behind poles, cheered with glee and fear. I watched in silence.

Suddenly, one man was almost gouged. The bull slashed its horn through the bars at him and he darted back, holding up his hands in recognition of the closeness of death. Then, tall and skinny, he slipped through the bars to help tame it. One man, small and strong and larger than life, pulled the bull’s tail around. Then the taller man took the tail as well. More must’ve been on the rope, the bull was struggling. It took four men on this end, and the score of men on the other to drag the beast to its cage. The metal slid down behind it.

Static erupted and the four men were crowned with applause. They were clapped on the back and the nape, and men joined heads in recognition of each other. Their names were called like heroes. Truly. I approached them too. To be close to it. To feel it. Then I went to the cage. That familiar smell of the North Wales countryside, bullshit. The unfamiliar sound of brutal breathing. Deep, heavy, and fast. Caged. The air cracked, the smell of gunpowder. The game was down. Finally, my camera echoed the sound of the gunshot.

The next morning, the second bull’s blood was black on the now quiet streets.