Running the Bulls Read online

  Howard politely looked at each photo. It struck him how all kids, like baby chicks, look alike: the shorn bangs, the gaps for teeth, the freckled noses, the cowlicks, the ponytails, the button eyes. These could have been his own family pictures.

  “Nice,” he said. Vera pointed to a photo of an old man lying back in a reclining chair, a blanket tucked like a shroud beneath his arms. Howard nodded as he looked at the ravaged face of a man he suspected was her father. Howard’s own father had passed away, his mother too, over a decade earlier. Losing people is tough.

  “That was taken over a year ago, on Ben’s sixtieth birthday,” Vera said. “It was the last time the entire family gathered, what with Lynn Marie living out in Seattle.” Howard said nothing for some time. He leaned in closer for a better look. This wasn’t her father? Better yet, it wasn’t Ben’s father, for it did, indeed, look like Ben Collins. But this Ben was an old man, wrapped in that blanket and waiting to die, two plastic tubes running up into his nostrils. Howard suddenly realized what Vera was saying. This was Ben!

  “Those darn cigarettes,” said Vera. Her voice trembled. “No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t quit. Ben loved his Winstons. Of course, now we know how the big cigarette companies put all kinds of chemicals in the tobacco. I’ve heard it said that cigarette smokers are more addicted than cocaine addicts.” She looked at Howard. His face must have given away his shock. “You didn’t know that Ben died of lung cancer?” Vera asked. Howard shook his head.

  “I thought he quit smoking years ago.”

  “He was always trying,” Vera said. She smiled at Howard then, a pretty smile, turning her almost girlish. Of course. Vera Collins! How could he have forgotten her so easily? “He used to quote Mark Twain,” Vera added. “‘Giving up smoking is easy. I’ve done it a thousand times.’” She closed the book and slid it back under the coffee table.

  “I’m sorry,” said Howard. Vera thought about this before she replied.

  “My son, Ron, says it was a blessing in disguise,” she said. Then, as if sitting were too confining for such sad thoughts, Vera stood. “The emphysema started in his late forties. By the time he was fifty-five, he could barely walk. He spent a lot of years in that recliner.” She looked at Howard. “I’ll make some coffee,” she said.

  With Vera clinking saucers and cups in the kitchen, Howard sat on the sofa and felt weak with the emotion that was coursing through him. Ben Collins, not as the rugged golfer who was fixed in Howard’s mind, but as a man grown old young, confined to a chair and plastic tubing. It was an amazing discovery. He could hear Vera’s voice as it drifted in to him from the kitchen, talking to him now about safer things, such as how she planned to sell the house and move out to Seattle to be with her daughter and grandkids.

  “Do you take cream?” Vera asked.

  Howard told her that he did, indeed. And then, before Vera reappeared in the living room, he grabbed up the photo album and opened it again. He flipped past pink booties and bows, ballerina dresses and baseball uniforms, braces and casts and crutches, bathing suits and beach balls—the traces of Ben’s children and grandchildren unfurling their lives—flipping through the pages as if they were years. And then, there it was, the photo of Ben, curled up like a leaf in a black recliner. Howard slid the picture out from under the protective plastic and slipped it into his shirt pocket. A part of him, the jealous part, wanted to show Ellen what had become of her lover. Time had reduced him to a sickly, vulnerable mortal. And not only had Ben kept on smoking, but the cancer sticks had killed him in the end. So much for their bonding in the teacher’s lounge.

  Vera appeared with cups of coffee and a plate of cookies. She put the tray down on the end table next to Howard. He felt a spray of guilt just then but ignored it. Something told him he needed that picture, needed it now and would need it even more later on. It was the only way he would be able to erase forever that image of Ben still carved in Ellen’s mind, that younger Ben, that vibrant Ben. Besides, Vera had plenty of other photos. Howard had seen them. There were so many snapshots of the ailing Ben Collins at the back of the album that it looked like the sick ward at some hospital. Ben, in the last throes of emphysema, tubes running like spider webs into his nostrils. Howard promised himself that he would mail the photo back to Vera Collins one day. Sorry, but I accidentally took this with me, Howard Woods.

  He stayed long enough for a cup of coffee and a chocolate cookie with some kind of sprinkles on the top. Then he bade Vera Collins good-bye. At the door he shook her hand, promising he would tell Ellen hello, and that if they were ever in Seattle, they would give Vera a call.

  ***

  The rain ending, at least for the time being, Howard sailed up I-95 with the top down. Wind ripped at his face, his hair, but he didn’t care. He almost couldn’t hear the song floating about in the front seat of the little car, what with the torrents of air rushing at him. No paint was on the door, the grass grew through the floor, of Tony’s two by four, on the Bilbao shore. He couldn’t explain it, but he felt like a changed man, Lazarus come back from the dead. He had put the photo of the sickly Ben Collins on the dashboard of the little car, as though it were an icon of some sort, a plastic Jesus. As he drove, Howard managed to glance at it now and then, to study the tracks that time and illness had left on Ben’s face. And that’s when he came to think of that face as a kind of landfill where everything was obliged to finally wash to the surface, wrinkles, age spots, carcinogens, even deceit, for Howard could see a sadness in Ben’s eyes. Every day until he died, Ben Collins had had to look at that sweet, lovely woman he married, knowing what he was leaving her in his will: Vera Collins had become the beneficiary of a lie. But had Ben been right to take his secret with him? Look what the truth had gotten Ellen.

  Howard Woods felt a certain measure of peace settle down in his heart.

  Maybe it’s the beginning for me, he thought. In less than a week, after all, he’d be in Pamplona. But when he came home a changed man—how can one run with bulls and not be changed?—that’s when he would go to Ellen and tell her that the past was the past. After all, we make mistakes. We’re human. Would he show her the photo of poor Ben Collins? Would he even want Ellen to see the ruins of a once fine man?

  Damn right he would.

  ***

  It was nine thirty and happy hour was long over when Howard walked into the Holiday Inn lounge. A fresher hell had broken loose while he was gone, and now Larry Ferguson seemed on the verge of tears. At first Howard thought that Donna Riley had changed her mind, had returned to her white elephant and her sure-fisted monarchy. But it was worse than that. Someone had stolen Larry’s pump. He had left it where he always did, tucked away safely in its duffel bag and leaning against the inside of his keyboard where no one would see it. But someone did, for it was gone. Vanished. Larry had looked high and low in the lounge, under the tables and chairs, behind the curtains, the jukebox, the boxes piled near the bar. And then Wally had looked high and low. And then Pete and Freddy Wilson had turned up for an after-the-golf-game drink, Freddy having filled in for Howard at the last minute. Pete and Freddy had looked high and low. Then, they had all looked high and low as a team, asking the few customers seated at tables if they minded lifting their feet as Larry’s flashlight swept across the rug. But no pump. They found quarters and dimes, room keys, a couple unused condoms, hair combs and barrettes, cigarette stubs, matches, several BIC throwaway lighters, business cards, and a high school class ring. But no duffel bag containing a vacuum pump with cylinder, tension rings, and personal lubricant.

  “I left it here last night,” Larry said, his voice shaky. “I was going home alone anyway, so I figured what the hell. We were all celebrating, and I didn’t even think to check for it. Now, it’s gone. I should have taken it with me. I shouldn’t have left it like that.”

  “Why’d you even bring that thing in here?” Pete asked him. Larry shrugged. He looked like a helpless bo
y.

  “I just never know when I might need it,” Larry said. He was staring at the two plump women who were seated at a table near the stage, watching every move Larry made, his own personal groupies. “I just never know,” Larry added.

  It appeared, given the circumstances, that someone had actually purloined the pump. How else was it missing? It couldn’t walk, not even with those tension rings to buoy it up. But Larry didn’t want to phone the police. He wanted as few people told as possible.

  “I have my reputation to think of,” Larry said.

  “Can’t you just buy a new one?” asked Howard. It seemed reasonable since Larry often mentioned how the apparatus didn’t cost much. Larry shook his head.

  “It’s personal,” Larry said. “You just can’t understand until you own one.”

  Freddy Wilson was picking through the broken bits of chips in the chip basket, and doing his best to dip the shards in the last of the salsa.

  “I lost my dog once, when I was a kid,” said Freddy. “It hurts like hell.”

  No one said anything for some time, a kind of male moratorium. A few moments of silence for the pump.

  “The show must go on,” Larry said then. He went back to the stage and took his seat behind the keyboards. He rolled up his shirtsleeves, then smiled at the listeners before him.

  “I wanna do this song for the lovers out there tonight,” said Larry, his voice gravelly with emotion. “And you know who you are.” The two women at the table near the stage smiled big, identical smiles. Then, Larry launched into “I Won’t Last a Day Without You” by the Carpenters.

  At the bar, the boys huddled. Wally seemed to think the guilty party was one of the two salesmen who had been in the day before for happy hour.

  “They were drunk as coots and requesting songs nonstop,” said Wally.

  Pete and Freddy suspected the two women sitting like fat mushrooms at that table so close to the stage.

  “Look at the smiles on their faces,” Pete noted. “They always return to the scene of the crime, don’t they?”

  Wally shook his head. Absolutely not.

  “Those are the Baily sisters,” said Wally. “Larry has had them both, even at the same time. I doubt the Bailys would hide the pump. They need it.”

  It was too much for Howard to think about. He had his own revelations to deal with. He ordered a rum from Wally and then reached inside his shirt pocket for the picture of Ben. He pulled it out and again studied the frail arms, the tubes disappearing into the nostrils like two railroad tracks, the shock of pure white hair.

  He noticed for the first time an ashtray on the table beside Ben, within reaching distance, a thin curl of smoke wafting up from the cigarette in its belly. The poor sucker had smoked right up until the end. Howard decided then that he would come to terms with what happened during that spring and summer so long ago, those ten weeks between Ellen and Ben Collins. It was just taking a little time, running its course. That’s all. Soon Howard Woods would lean to the future, the way a plant leans toward sunlight.

  But who knew the future? Before it was all over, Howard might find himself back at Bixley Performance Ford, bent over, letting someone in greasy coveralls give him a lube job.

  The Fall

  “Oh hell… Let’s not talk about it. Let’s never talk about it.”

  “All right.”

  —Brett and Jake, The Sun Also Rises

  Within four days of its disappearance, the pump and Larry were back in touch. At least, Larry had heard from the pump. It was at Pioneer Village, down in Massachusetts, its plastic neck in one of the exhibition stocks. Larry was sitting at the end of the bar, his head in his hands, as if his own neck was in a vise grip. Wally put a letter in front of Howard and then nodded for him to take a look. The envelope was addressed to Larry “Pump Boy” Ferguson, in care of the Holiday Inn lounge. Howard opened the letter and found a postcard inside, along with a Polaroid picture. He looked at the postcard first. Greetings from Pioneer Village, Salem, Massachusetts. On the back, in a childlike scrawl, was this message: Dear Master. I miss you but I’m having lots of fun. Love, Bator.

  “Bator?” said Howard. Larry let loose a long sigh at the end of the bar. It sounded like air being leaked from a tire, slow and painful.

  “That’s a bad joke,” said Wally. “He doesn’t call it that at all.”

  “I called it Petie,” said Larry.

  Howard picked up the Polaroid and stared at it. It was of the stocks at Pioneer Village, the punishment exhibit set up for the public to visit. There was the pump all right, out of its duffel bag and naked for the world to see. Someone had laid the round plastic body inside the circle where a neck is supposed to rest. Have fun at the stocks and pillory had been the description typed on the back of the postcard, and that seemed to be what the pump was doing. Howard looked up at Wally, who was looking over at Larry.

  “Shitty thing for her to do,” said Howard.

  “He shouldn’t have called her a fucking bitch before she left here,” said Wally. “I even warned him. Didn’t I warn you?” He asked this of Larry, who merely shrugged. “Let her go without a word, I said. But no, you had to go and call her a fucking bitch, and now your pump is in the stocks.”

  Larry took a drink of his beer. He kept his eyes on the yellowing photo of Lola Falana behind the bar.

  “Still,” said Howard. “It was a shitty thing to do.”

  Wally softened. “It was,” he said. “And she is a bitch.”

  Larry seemed to feel better. He picked up his drink and went over to the jukebox, stood looking down at the selections without playing any. Once Larry was out of eyesight, both Wally and Howard let loose the laughs they’d been suppressing. These were silent, Marcel Marceau laughs, so Larry wouldn’t hear. Wally picked up the Polaroid shot again, and he and Howard both stared. So Donna Riley had a sense of humor after all. Howard was glad that the boys now understood and appreciated this. Donna was a hoot, and despite the trouble he was in, he’d had one hell of a fun night with her, until morning had dawned with its sad reality.

  “Listen, I’ll see you later,” said Howard. “I gotta get my stuff moved into Pete’s cabin.”

  Wally had managed to stop laughing, especially now that Larry was on his way back to the bar.

  “Don’t worry, Lar,” said Howard. Larry sat again at the bar and motioned for another beer. “It’ll come home.”

  As Howard left the lounge, he winked at Wally.

  ***

  Pete’s cabin was one of the larger and nicer ones at Bixley Lake, which lay just two miles from the Bixley town sign. Howard had gone there many times to fish, and had always enjoyed the chance to breathe in a little nature. During the summers, the other cabins filled up on weekends as the owners brought their families out to enjoy the water and sun. But weekdays were mostly quiet, and he was thankful for that. Pete was the one who had suggested the cabin when it became obvious to even the kitchen help at the Holiday Inn that Howard was now using the rental truck as a closet, and sleeping in a room that was costing him a weekly rate of two hundred and ten dollars.

  “I’d have suggested the cabin sooner,” Pete said, as he and Howard drove the rumbling truck all the way around the lake, through the white birches and poplars and flashes of pine, to arrive at the two-room cabin. “But I figured you’d be going home any day.” So had Howard. But he said nothing as Pete backed the truck up to the cabin’s front porch and shut off the engine. It snorted a few times before it fell silent. The first thing Howard heard was the chickadees. He thought of the sparrow back in the sign at the Holiday Inn and wondered if it would miss him. If it ever knew that he’d been watching it for so many days, wishing it well. He had one more night to sleep in the room beneath the huge sign. He would say good-bye to the little bird by leaving it more of the complimentary breakfast bar’s croissant, on the pavement near the base of the
sign. So far, the sparrow had been one of the few not to complain about the staleness.

  Pete got out first and slammed his door. Howard followed. Both men stood for a minute, breathing deep, listening, staring out across the lake. Squirrels rushed through the tops of the trees, scurrying away from the sudden noise. Howard felt a small breeze waft in from the water, thick with the threat of rain. It was cool and soft on his face, and he thought of Jake and Bill Gorton, fishing so high up in those Spanish mountains. This would be a good place for him, here at the lake. He should have come straight there until the issue was resolved between Ellen and him. But how did he know, that early dawn he had driven over to John’s house, his suitcase bouncing around like a dog in the back of the blue Probe, that a month later he would still be wandering about in the desert, next to the ice machine? Howard unlocked the back door of the truck, and he and Pete began the chore once more of carrying boxes. Murray’s Clay Pot Kit, the Bread Company, Amazon Books, Lilly’s Glassware.

  Pete had built an addition, a small alcove off the one bedroom, and had set up a toilet in there, one of the biodegrading kinds. This meant his cabin was one of the few with no unsightly outhouse loitering behind it. There was a tiny kitchen, a sink with water running in from a tank outside, a table, a fridge, a small woodstove, and Pete had managed to add a sensible fireplace, something Carolyn had insisted on for ambience. It was rustic, but it was comfy. Howard felt a kind of welcome from the unvarnished hardwood floors, from the modesty of the table and chairs, the bed, the reading lamp, which was oil and had a wick.

  When they were finished stacking the boxes inside, Howard and Pete broke open beers and stood drinking them out on the front porch. Summer was in full swing now and canoes dotted the lake here and there, along with an occasional small boat. Warblers careened in the tops of the trees, and red squirrels scurried across the roof. Howard assumed they were picking up the rainstorm that weathermen had already predicted, and this was the cause of their excitement.