It was a hot day in Calatayud. They all were. The Spanish afternoons were hot, but not humid. It was a dry heat, like standing in an oven. It was four weeks into my five week foreign exchange trip to Spain. No one spoke any English, but that was okay as I had forgotten most of my English as well. The friends I had made in the neighborhood where I stayed were a nice group. They swam and played soccer and cracked jokes. Not much ever happened in Calatayud, Spain. But today there was a festival.

My buddies and I walked through the cobbled streets of the city before reaching the plaza del toros. It was an old, stone building with rectangular seats carved out from the concave interior. In the middle was a circle made of bright tan-orange dust. A band played on one side. I was chatting with my friends, asking questions as to what would happen.

“I don’t know.” Jose kept saying. Turns out he’d never been to one either. Not many people knew about this festival, at least in comparison to the huge city-wide fiesta I would be missing. Still, a lot of people came. Not much happens in Calatayud, Spain.

On the field there was a race going on. Waiters and waitresses held two-liter glass bottles of water on platters. They walked rings around the field in concerted effort to beat their compatriots. After the first race, they went again. Then they released the vaquilla. (A vaquilla is a small but angry bull. In Spanish it literally translates to “a small little cow.” They’re a lot bigger than they’re made out to be.) With the races done and the broken glass from the more unfortunate waiters cleared, it was the general population’s turn to play with a vaquilla. I watched the people as they went around the ring. There were really just two strategies: hang on the wall and jump over the bull when it came, or run across the middle and have the bull chase you. I should have done neither.

“Can anyone go down and do that?” I asked my amigos. They seemed nervous in me asking. I decided that some boisterous cajoling would liven their spirits. “Come on! Let’s go down!” I cajoled. “It’ll be fun!” They looked at me as though I was stupid. Looking back on the moment, I always think that perhaps I was. Normally a laid back person, cajoling was not really my strong suit. This explained why I entered the ring alone.

Having made one round along the wall, I strutted back to my friends with the kind of confidence only a seventeen year old can muster. I tried to tease my friends into joining me, but none took the bait. Even the macho Jose would not give me an answer. Teasing is definitely not my strong suit. I entered the ring again. Alone.

I went to the middle of the ring. The vaquilla looked at me. I looked at the vaquilla. I ran. The vaquilla ran after me. Everyone in Spain, including the seven year olds, knows to run zigzags when being chased by a bull. I don’t know if this is taught in kindergarten, but I know I missed that very important lesson. I ran straight and was knocked forward to the ground. I landed on my elbow and skidded in the orange dust. I got up, but stumbled and was hit by the vaquilla before I could regain my balance. I fell to the orange dust again. It stepped on me before it lost interest and went to another person. I got up, expressing myself in Spanish the only way I knew how. I cursed the vaquilla with a smile on my face. I knew inside that it wasn’t the vaquilla’s fault, and that cursing a was really the only thing I could think to say in Spanish. I limped to the on-site medical facility, smiling but all the while mentioning in the only way I knew how that the bull had stepped on my private parts. The Red Cross was very nice to me.

“I’m American,” I said facetiously in Spanish as a team of medics met me at the door. The horns of the bull had gone through my shirt and cut me right above the clavicle. Orange dust caked my body. My knees and elbows bled.

“I’m a foreign exchange student,” I said. They already seemed to know.

“Do you see this kind of thing often?” I asked, chuckling at myself.

“No, you’re the first,” The medic offered before hastily adding, “and hopefully the last.”

“Not many people get hurt by vaquillas,” another medic said, “and never lethally.”

“Really?” I asked.

“Yeah. We kind of have a saying around here: Only drunks and Americans get hit by vaquillas.”

I laughed, wishing I was the former so that the latter wouldn’t be so embarrassing.

I hobbled home with my friends surrounding me, cracking jokes and laughing at the silly American in their midst. Bandaged and orange, I added wisecracks where I could. Nothing is ever bad if you have a story to tell. And as my friends and I thought of how to tell my host mom why I was covered in blood and orange, why my shirt was ripped and neck was bandaged, why I was walking with such a profound limp, I realized that the orange would wash away, I’d get a new shirt, and the limp would heal. It was the friends I’d made, the language I had learned, and the story I lived to tell that would stay with me forever.

I smiled as we walked loudly through the streets of Calatayud.

This work written by Zach Claywell. Reproduction requests or general questions should be directed to Zach Claywell care of Zach Claywell at yahoo dot com

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