The place is lauded as the most 'Mexican' of Mexican cities... home of the Mariachis, the sombrero, the mexican rodeo, the mexican hat dance...............
I had the idea of watching a bullfight... taking in a display of Mexican bravado. Hadn't Hemmingway had some vision of the sport? Hadn't it been his great inspiration... man in some spectacular contest with death? I took a bus out to the ring and pulled up a seat at one of the stalls outside. They had penguins rushing around with trays. I drank down some beers in an attempt to forge a crude and violent spirit. Then I drank a few more.
Gradually the stalls filled up with patrons. Real arseholes... floosies they were. They all sat around tucking into steaks. Then they lit up fat cigars and laughed loudly. They were all hair gel, dark glasses... smartly ironed shirts, wool jumpers draped over shoulders. They'd brought along their brats for the occassion.
A little while before the start I took my seat in the arena. The trumpets were tooting, vendors made the rounds with refreshments. I ordered beer. The arena itself was circular. Little lackeys were raking out the sand at the bottom. I read my programme a while, waiting for it to begin. They had a section on the matadors... the visting heroes... Manuel the Man... Jose Beautiful et al. They had a bit on the bulls too... their weight and place of origin.
Finally the performance began. The trumpets heralded the entrance of the matadors... they came swishing out with a whole troop of sub-matadors clad in black and bright pink. Then came the armored horses with blind folds... their riders were armed with long spears. The crowd really cheered at the spectacle. Finally the little army dispersed behind little walls at the edge of the ring. A man came out with a placard and went away. Three sub-matadors entered the ring at different sides. Everything fell silent.
Death did not come storming out amid snarls, saliva, a cloud of thundering sand. Rather, it emerged with a brief and excited canter... stabbed in the side with a tassled spike... it drew to a halt a short way into the ring. The sub-matadors took turns to provoke the thing... then hide behind their little walls. When the beast was mildly agitated and nicely confused, the horsemen emerged from a gate. They circled the animal and stabbed it up a bit with their spears. Everyone roared with glee. Then they exited and one of the chief matadors entered to much cheering. The bull was bloodied by now, leaking all over the sand. The matador affronted it till it made lunges at the cape. Everyone cried 'ole'. After a while he retrieved a set of coloured spikes from the edge of the ring. As the beast charged, the matador got him in the neck. The bull went bloodier than ever... kicked madly, threw its head... tried lamely to shake off the hanging sticks. Then the matador fetched his death sword and finished it off. Everyone loved that bit.
They dragged off the heap and the lackeys came out to rake down the sand. Then the ritual began again, almost identical, even more pitiful. The beast simply had no desire to fight... it took extended taunting to elicit a charge. The Matador was especially flamboyant in his torture. He'd make girlish little leaps and strike up poses. Whenever he slashed the creature he made triumphant gestures to the crowd. When finally the beast could take no more, he trotted to the edge of the ring and glanced up to the audience. With a few noisey snorts he sank to his knees and died. Everyone booed. The matador rushed over and stabbed up the corpse something bitter... it really must have stung.
The third bull had more spirit than the others. He emerged with a gallop and made a circuit... going for the matadors in turn... half near breaking its head on the walls. He had them all nicely shitted up, but the creature's doom was inevitable. Out came the horses to deliver the first death blows. He went for them too with some enthusiasm. It took several spikes for it even to begin to subdue... it was running around with six sticks hanging from it... wheezing and moaning loudly. The matador finished the thing and it lay there usesless. It had been a brave fight but sadly the stronger party did not prevail.
When the fourth bull trotted out to trumpets I decided I'd had enough. I was drunk and growled something loudly about 'bullshit machismo'... then I went for the exit. I figured Hemmingway was full of crap... that death is snidey coward with a swishing cape. If I'd witnessed anything of eternal truths it was that men are weak and cruel and hopelessly in love with their cocks. They'll always club together to take down the strong thing... with swords, guns, fists, sticks... mobs, armies, lawyers, slanders... the more vicious the better. I didn't see any kind of confrontation with death... cosmic drama... I didn't see any of that.