Running the Bulls Read online

  Howard walked over to the bar and stood there. The place looked one step away from bacchanalian frenzy.

  “What’s going on?” Howard asked Larry, who beamed as he poured Howard a rum.

  “Free at last, free at last,” Larry told him. “Thank God Almighty, we’re free at last.”

  Howard looked over at the stage. Pete Morton was just turning on the microphone. It reverberated, a deafening feedback that caused Howard to wince.

  “Eva Braun quit,” Larry said, putting the drink in front of Howard. “She packed up her whips and chains and left about an hour ago for Boston.”

  Howard had a sudden vision of Donna, up on all fours, her head tossed back, her throat humming. The truth was that he had liked her. He had liked the soft part of her that she kept covered up, down beneath the coarse red jacket and the silk blouse, the innocent part.

  “Hey, Dick-in-a-Splint!” Pete shouted into the mike, at Howard. Glasses shook on the shelf behind the bar. “We don’t know what you did to that poor girl, and we don’t care. You have rid the lounge of its scourge and for that, sir, we salute you!”

  The Discovery

  “Darling, I’ve had such a hell of a time.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “Nothing to tell.”

  —Brett and Jake, The Sun Also Rises

  Howard was having his morning coffee when he opened the first of his two letters from the Ford Motor Company. It appeared that while Ellen Woods didn’t want him back, Ford did. The large American automaker seemed most anxious to probe him yet again. Dear Howard, the first letter began. It seemed that he and Ford were now on a first-name basis. This was good. This was an improvement. Performance Ford would like to thank you once again for acquiring your 1995 Ford Probe from our organization. We now need to purchase several 1995 Probes before November 16 of this year in order to fulfill a special used car interest. Did they think him daft? Did they really think he believed this nonsense? As general sales manager, I would like to offer you an opportunity. We will exchange your 1995 Probe for a new 1999 Probe with a monthly payment that fits your budget. Please stop by with this letter before November 16 and allow me to assess the value of your Probe. Howard would allow his testicles to be stretched on a rack before he would do this. Did they also think him without dignity? It was signed Justin Hobbs and ended with a P.S. It would appear that big corporations also forget to include things in the bodies of the thousands of letters they mail out daily. Did they think all car owners brainless? P.S. If you come by before November 16, you will receive a free lube job, as well as an oil and filter change. He scrunched the letter into a ball and tossed it into the trash can next to his bed. He had a good mind to put a rubber glove on his right hand, smear it all over with Vaseline, storm into Bixley Performance Ford, and give Justin Hobbs his own free lube job. Bastard.

  The second letter was less personal than the first, more hyped. Go ahead and throw us the keys to your 1995 Probe and catch the keys to a brand-new Ford, with little to no money trading hands! That’s right, Howard! Little to no money down! Had Ford become some kind of sugar daddy? Howard imagined that this was the kind of language Freddy the Mattress Mogul used on his sensuous female clerks. That’s right, girls! A brand-new mattress, with little or no money trading hands!

  Howard tossed this letter into the trash can as well. He got out a sheet of Holiday Inn stationary and found a pen. Dear Justin Hobbs, and Ford Motor Company, he wrote. You hurt me too deeply to make it up to me now. I wouldn’t stop by Performance Ford for a free blow job, much less a lube. I’m sorry, but you should have thought of this back when I couldn’t get you to answer my phone calls. Now, if you continue to stalk me, I shall seek some kind of restraining order. Get a life. Get some closure. Sincerely, Howard J. Woods.

  He would mail it on his way to the library. His intentions were to drop by the mall first, for an hour or so. He had some quick shopping to do. After all, it was already the twenty-ninth of June, and since Ellen wouldn’t run off to Spain with him, he was back to Plan A. He’d be leaving for Bilbao in four short days. He needed new tennis shoes, some khaki pants and underwear that weren’t pink, a jacket, socks, the accoutrements one must have in order to be a skillful dodger. He thought it might be nice if he also wore a white shirt, around which he would wrap a red belt. That way, he would blend in well with the other Sanfermines. And a new pair of jeans, what the hell. Howard hadn’t worn jeans in public for almost thirty years. He had an old, battered pair that he pulled on now and then for yard work. They were nice and soft, all broken in. He wondered if, at age sixty-three, he would live long enough to break in a new pair. But hey, the sky was the limit. With the excitement of the trip dangling again before his eyes, he was feeling his old energy seeping back. Donna would be proud of him. At least fifty percent of his time was now employed in thinking of bulls, and not his penis.

  And Howard was thinking of his family again. With his departure day so fast approaching, he phoned John and asked if they could meet for lunch. Given his own marriage seemed to be over, Howard hoped he might still work some magic in John’s. But John Woods had a full plate that day, or so he told his father.

  “What about day after tomorrow, Dad?” John asked. Howard heard that important buzz of people in the background at John’s office. Busy. Employed. Again, he couldn’t help but feel a quick resentment. But soon, soon, he’d be busy himself, even if it was in extracting a bull’s horn from his ass, as John had once predicted. “That’ll still give me a couple days to talk you out of this foolishness,” John added.

  Howard addressed the envelope to Bixley Performance Ford, then sealed it. He put the letter aside and took a drink of coffee. Then he picked up the small box that was lying next to him on the bed. He had made this special purchase on his way back from the college, a few days earlier, on the heels of his meeting the virtual woman, of remembering Jennifer Kranston, of visiting his old classroom where the past lay like dust balls in the corner. He had pulled into a RadioShack, on the spur of the moment and purchased a couple of needed items. He had even taken the time to sign up for some kind of long-distance service that would activate the thing, make it official. Now, he opened the box and took out the owner’s manual.

  Congratulations! You are the new owner of a dual mode cellular phone, which means you can automatically switch between digital and analog.

  He had no idea what that meant, nor did he care.

  ***

  It was just past eleven o’clock when Howard arrived at the library. He told the librarian exactly what he was looking for, an obituary that would’ve been in the newspaper during the last days of May. The librarian disappeared. In less than five minutes, she was back with newspapers from the last three days of the month. Howard chose a table over by the water fountain, a more private spot, and spread open the first paper. A man named Ben Freedman had died in Bangor, but surely Ellen hadn’t slept with him. No Ben Collins in the second issue either, but there he was, in the obituaries for the final day of May. Benjamin Lloyd Collins, 61, of Kittery died at home after a long illness. The bastard! There was no photo of Ben, and that was one of the things Howard had been curious to see. He is survived by his wife, Vera Collins, also of Kittery. Vera. So that had been her name, not Sheila, not Shelley. He read the rest of the piece with interest. Ben had served in the air force, had received his higher education at Boston University, had been a professor of history, lastly at the University of Southern Maine, had been a member of the Kittery Bridge Club, had had two children, a son and a daughter, and seven grandchildren. Services were held at a local funeral home, but friends were asked, in lieu of flowers, to send donations to the Cancer Society. That was it. The last chapter of Ben’s life, short and sweet.

  Howard looked at his watch. Pete would be just arriving at the golf course now, just taking that first cigar out of his shirt pocket, lighting it up, leaning back against his Jeep to enjoy it, knowing that
Howard would arrive ten minutes later. Pete went early, had always gone early, so that he could smoke his stogie in peace. Howard folded the newspapers neatly and left them on the table where he’d been sitting. He nodded a thank-you to the librarian as he went out through the heavy front door. Rain clouds hung in the east, but Pete had predicted they’d get a full eighteen holes in before the shower truly hit.

  As Howard swung the little black Aston Martin onto I-95 and headed south toward Portland—from there, it would be just another forty miles to Kittery—he imagined that Pete Morton was crushing the tip of his cigar in the Jeep’s ashtray, knowing it would be waiting for him after the game. With his right hand, Howard reached for the new cell phone on the seat beside him. As he steered with his left elbow, he punched out a phone number. He looked up to see that he had swayed dangerously over into the passing lane. He veered back. How the hell did people stay on the road and talk on phones at the same time? he wondered.

  A nasal voice answered on the other end of the phone line. Howard recognized it as belonging to Bertie, the groundskeeper. The only thing that excited Bertie anymore was his battle against the blob that was oozing out of the ground at the eighth hole. Bertie no longer saw the golf course as a haven for golfers, but as his own private battleground. His own personal hell.

  “Bertie?”

  “Yeah? What?”

  “This is Howard Woods,” said Howard. “I need you to do me a favor. Pete Morton is out in the parking lot, just knocking the fire off his cigar.”

  “So?”

  “So, I want you to go out and tell him I can’t make it today. Can you do that, Bertie?”

  “I dunno,” said Bertie. There was a little pause. Howard heard Bertie take a deep breath. “I’m busy here, Howard. I’m waiting for a call from a lab out in Salt Lake. I sent them a sample. They can study the gases. Maybe tell me just what I’m up against. And I read about some fish that’ll eat the fucking algae. I was just about to call the seller.”

  Howard imagined Don Quixote, out tilting at the amber blob on the eighth hole, and the blob tilting back.

  “One more thing, Bertie,” Howard added. “Make sure you tell Pete Morton that I called from my new cell phone.”

  Howard hung up. His other major purchase of that morning was also beside him on the seat, a nifty CD player. He had even brought extra batteries. He assumed the first set would last on the trip down, but now he would be covered for the four-hour drive back north. One drawback of a classic car, unless one wanted to do modern nicks and tucks, was that it had only the most prehistoric kind of radio. Back in 1962, when the little Aston Martin DB was rolling off the production line, cassettes and CDs were not even wild dreams about to be dreamt. Even the eight-track had yet to make its appearance. What had Howard been doing in 1962? Selling life insurance. Saving for his retirement. He imagined himself back then, his hair full, still brown by nature, his briefcase stuffed with forms as he chatted up folks about the importance of insuring one’s mortality. His family healthy and growing—they had two children by 1962, with John still to arrive—he had bought a Rambler, blue with a white top and gray interior, one of the most enduring economy-styled cars that automakers were offering the American consumer. It would remain the Woods family car for more than ten years, which was a good thing, considering the long, lanky legs that would appear on John and Howard Jr. Like Donna Riley, the Rambler wasn’t a beauty, but she had guts and determination. She came equipped with an inline six-cylinder engine that produced 138 horsepower, enough to drag a lanky-legged family of five down to the local Dairy Queen, where they could then jump out, slam four doors, eat five hamburgers, drink five orange Crushes, use the bathroom, and then jump back in for the ride home. Howard had even liked the Rambler, with its push-button, automatic transmission. How had almost forty years dropped away? How had those lanky legs disappeared into the hairy legs of adult men? Those were the days when Howard had longed for retirement, imagining himself on the golf course daily while enjoying a life of hard-earned riches. Nineteen sixty-two. Out in the larger world, Mickey Mantle was still tearing up baseball, his own retirement just seven years away. The Cuban Missile Crisis had the world teetering on the brink of disaster, and John Kennedy had twelve more months to live. How the hell had so many years evaporated? Howard plopped his new CD disc—Andy Williams, the two-disc Collector’s Edition—into his new CD player and pushed number six. That old Bilbao Moon, I won’t forget it soon, that old Bilbao moon, just like a big balloon. He was amazed to see that Andy had cut “It’s All in the Game,” as if there were no end to the knives Fortuna could stick into Howard’s gut. But Howard Woods knew what bullfighters probably are born knowing: Meet the horns head-on. That’s the only way to get past them. That old Bilbao moon would rise above the dune, while Tony’s Beach Saloon rocked with an old-time tune.

  Twenty miles south of Portland, he met the horns of the rain head on. He pulled into the first Texaco he saw and quickly put up the canvas top, snapped it into place. He found a local phone book, dangling by a chain to the outdoor pay phone, and flipped through the battered pages, over to the entries under Collins. There they were. Benjamin and Vera, 257 Spring Street. Howard paid the attendant for the full tank of gas and then politely answered all the questions about the Aston Martin DB that he’d grown accustomed to in the past couple weeks: Yeah, she’s a beauty, no she’s not too hard on gas, yes, it’s the same car as James Bond’s, no, she’s got more power than you’d think. He had even kicked the back tire a couple times as he talked since it was the kind of thing guys do when they’re talking about cars. Instead of using their hands, like women often do, guys like to use their feet. And then, top up and rain pelting hard on the roof, he had piled back into the car and spun out of the Texaco.

  With less than ten thousand souls in Kittery, it wasn’t hard to find someone who knew where Spring Street lay. While Howard paid for his bottle of lemonade at the local 7-Eleven, a sleepy-eyed clerk had given him precise directions. At Spring Street, things were quiet. Howard counted the uneven numbers down as he cruised to the end of the street. There it was, on the mailbox in front of a modest house that had a For Sale sign in the front yard. It was a one-story house, the kind of redbrick ranch built in the fifties that is so hard to sell in the nineties. By this time, the plumbing is tired, the way a person’s veins grow old and thin. The carpet and floors are wrecked, the roof is leaking, the basement has a crack running from one end to the other. It takes a modern sensibility to keep an old house up and respectful, as Howard had done for the one back on Patterson Street. But he doubted Ben Collins was the house-loving type. And now Vera would be left to sell the aftermath.

  Howard pulled up into the yard and killed the engine. He saw movement behind the curtain in what must be the kitchen, a woman leaning forward, as if over a sink, to peer out at him. Why couldn’t he remember a single thing about Vera Collins? Had she been just a virtual wife? Nothing but smoke and mirrors? Is that why he hadn’t noticed? His new jeans squeaked all the way up the brick walk.

  When Vera opened the door, she seemed taken aback. She gave Howard a penetrating stare, as if desperately trying to place him.

  “I thought you were from the real estate agency,” she said. She appeared tired, no doubt having been kept awake nightly by the sorrow of her recent loss. Her short, dark hair had traces of gray here and there. Howard remembered now, seeing them again, how large and dark her eyes were. And he remembered that Vera Collins had been tiny, petite, especially next to Ben’s impressive stature.

  “I hope you don’t think I’m rude, Vera,” Howard said, and held out his hand. “My wife and I were friends with you and Ben a lot of years ago.” Vera’s eyes stayed on Howard’s face. Then she smiled.

  “You taught at Bixley Community,” she said, “at the same time Ben did.” Howard nodded as she accepted the hand he was still offering her.

  “Howard Woods,” he said. “I taught in the Englis
h department. My wife, Ellen Woods, she taught in the history department with Ben.” Now Vera’s memory had been fully kick-started. She nodded, her eyes glazed with that thinking-back look, that veiled peep into the past.

  “We only lived there for a year,” said Vera. “And my memory isn’t what it used to be.”

  “I heard, we heard about Ben,” Howard told her. It was the truth, damn it. And then he lied. “I happened to be in Kittery, so I thought I’d tell you how sorry we are.”

  A sadness came over Vera’s face just then. She held the door open to him.

  “For heaven’s sake, come on in,” she said. “How is your wife? Ellen, you say? Yes, of course, I remember now. She had reddish hair, didn’t she?”

  Before Howard stepped inside, he had wanted to give Vera a chance to respond either for or against the mention of Ellen’s name. For if Ben’s widow knew about the affair, then Howard would apologize and leave immediately. He wanted no part of hurting an innocent woman even more. But, damn it, he had so many questions. Now it was obvious by her words that Vera hadn’t been told. So much for Ben’s honesty.

  Howard stepped inside the bastard’s house.

  What do you say after twenty plus years to someone you never had anything in common with in the first place? Very little. Vera told him all about the children and then the grandchildren, whom she and Ben adored. Howard understood. He loved his own offspring. He produced pictures from his wallet to prove it to her, Eliot, and the five granddaughters. Seeing the young and smiling faces that had been in Howard’s hip pocket, Vera insisted that he now look at the fruit of the Collins family tree. She reached under the coffee table and came out with a fat photo album.

  “This is Ronny,” she said, and pointed to the face of a small boy who was missing his front teeth. “His first school picture. He’s our oldest grandson. And this is Janet, and Laura, and that’s Stacy. And that’s Shelly, Brian, and Sean. They loved their grandpa.”