Running the Bulls Read online

  “I’m growing up, Ben,” Howard said to the tired and sick face in the photo. “By God, I’m finally gonna do it.” How could he have ever dreamed that he would show Ellen the photo of Ben Collins? What had he been thinking, in those raw days of his naivete? He had known for some time now that the photo would be his secret, and Ben’s secret. He felt strangely protective of Ben Collins these days. They’d been through a lot together. Howard saw his own face then, just behind Ben’s, his reflection staring at him from the mirror. He could feel the swelling already coming to his eyes. But it would be gone by daybreak. A lot of things would be gone by then. And that was the new knowledge Howard Woods must now learn to live with. It all takes time and then, then, the comeback’s the thing.

  The Comeback

  Could You Come Hotel Montana Madrid Am Rather In Trouble Brett.

  Lady Ashley Hotel Montana Madrid Arriving Sud Express Tomorrow Love Jake.

  —Brett’s and Jake’s telegrams, The Sun Also Rises

  Snowflakes were falling among the bare birches as Howard boiled water for his morning coffee. He threw the right amount of grounds into the bubbling water and then went into the little bedroom to dress. By the time he poured a cup and took it out to the front porch, the snow had stopped and a pale, yellow sun had broken through. The late-straggling loon was gone. At least Howard hadn’t heard it in the early hours as light came in over the lake, followed by daybreak. It would seem that the loon had looked at its options, and had chosen an arduous journey over certain death. That’s what life was all about, really, the options. Canada Jays spotted him and swooped down to the ground by the front steps. They had already learned that Howard would toss them a scrap of morning bagel or a piece of doughnut. They had come to depend upon him for this, and he felt good about that.

  There on the porch of the cabin, with the sun hitting the rocking chair full blast, Howard settled down with a yellow legal pad and a fountain pen. It had been his favorite way of writing, his preferred accoutrements, for as long as he could remember. A good old-fashioned pad of paper and a nice sturdy pen with lots of ink.

  He stared at the pad thoughtfully for a time, and then he wrote the first sentence. It would come just after Brett told Jake that she didn’t want to be one of those bitches that ruin children, and so she had sent the boy bullfighter, her lover, away for good. In Howard’s version, they would be drinking in the back of the taxi, Brett leaning against Jake’s chest.

  “I don’t like it you know,” she said.

  “Like what?”

  “The bullfight, the bloody fight. I don’t like it one bit, darling, it’s terrible.”

  I didn’t answer her just then. A prostitute, a poule, I recognized from the Palace Hotel was just going upstairs at Botin’s for her dinner. She would probably have the suckling pig and then drink some rioja alta. She looked up as the taxi passed and smiled. I had thought her pretty once, but now she had aged in the short time I had been away. But so had I.

  “Then we won’t do it,” I said.

  “Do what?”

  “The bulls, we won’t go again to Pamplona.”

  “It’s ghastly, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh, Jake, do you mean it?”

  “I don’t want to be one of those bastards who ruins bulls,” I said.

  “I’m glad we won’t do it.”

  Brett was smoking again. Her cigarettes were an American brand and quite inferior. I knew that she would die of lung cancer if she didn’t stop smoking. A lot of people were dying. More than in the war.

  “Let’s go back to the bar at the Hotel Montana,” I said. “At least the bartender there is nice.” It was difficult anymore to find someone polite in food service.

  “It’s ghastly, isn’t it?”

  “We’ll have a nightcap.”

  “Do you think we should stop drinking?” Brett asked. She looked very frightened. I thought she might cry.

  “They say two glasses of red wine a day is good for the heart.” I would order us a bottle of rioja alta.

  “I’m going to quit smoking soon,” said Brett. “Maybe New Year’s. Oh, darling, wouldn’t it be lovely?”

  “We’ll quit the wine too, one day.”

  “And then, Jake, we’ll be just like everyone else.”

  “Wouldn’t it be pretty to think so?” I said.

  THE END

  Howard smiled. In a day or two, he would dig out his old Smith Corona typewriter and beat away at the keys, just as Papa himself had done. He would type the thing up, give it body, give it a bit of respectability. After all, Ernest Hemingway had written the novel in the mid-1920s, when he was still just a boy. What did he know of what was to come? The damn stock market hadn’t even fallen yet. Gertrude Stein was happily holding court at her salon, and Fitzgerald was still dancing in the streets with Zelda, the ink not dried on Gatsby. How could Papa have known what the ’30s and ’40s would bring, much less the ’50s and ’60s? No wonder he wrote about cynical human beings, irresponsible men and women whose greatest quest was to turn life into one endless and glittering party. Howard saw this as his chance to help Papa out. Granted, no one would see it but the gray jays and the chickadees. But that was okay. That didn’t matter. Maybe he would mail it out one day to a magazine, just to appease the Politically Correct Police who were now roaming the valleys and dells of American literature. He’d toss them a bone, sharks that they were. Papa would understand. He knew all about sharks, knew how they follow the boat, eating away at the body until nothing but the head remains. It had won him the Pulitzer Prize, this shark knowledge.

  By the time Howard dressed for his run and came down the steps of the cabin, it was again snowing, light and feathery. The ground was already white, with just flashes of yellow here and there where all those autumn leaves had piled up. Winter was trying hard to happen, but autumn was still holding its ground. But soon, soon, the snows would come full force.

  Howard changed his run. He went straight into town this time, and on past the church to the post office. He had a couple of bills waiting for him and another letter from the Ford Motor Company. Dear Howard. We have learned from our files that you have fully purchased your 1995 Probe. That’s exciting news since a new model awaits you! But time is running out, Howard! P.S. When you stop in with this letter and take a test drive before November 25, 1998, we’ll give you a certificate for a free holiday turkey! He didn’t waste his energy on balling up this one. Instead, he tossed it into the big trash barrel at the post office. Inside the barrel were other letters from Ford, the envelopes all addressed with a computer’s script font, so that they would appear to be handwritten. Apparently, Howard Woods wasn’t the only one who had gotten a personal love letter that day from the Ford Motor Company.

  As he jogged into the parking lot of the Holiday Inn, the fresh snow was just starting to cover the big green H on the sign. A light dusting was all the weathermen had predicted, and that’s what it looked like, a dusting. The morning sun would take it all away. By late October, it would be back and it would stay for months. Howard slowed his quick stride down to a walk. As he reached the towering sign, he stopped. He took off his gloves and put them into the pockets of his jacket. He wanted to catch his breath a bit before he went inside. It was almost four o’clock and already Pete’s Jeep was in the yard, along with several other vehicles. Howard knew this meant the sanfermines, those aficionados, would be leaning on their elbows at the bar. There were a few footprints barely noticeable in the light snow, signs that people had recently passed that way. And that’s when Howard remembered again that day when he, and Ellen, and Ben, and Vera—now that he had a name for her—had all come to the Holiday Inn together for a drink after some school activity. It had been snowing that day, too, fat flakes covering the sidewalk as they parked their cars and then made their way toward that perpetual smell of egg rolls and weenies. And that’s wh
en Howard had balled up a fistful of thick, wet snow, shaped it into a snowball and tossed it at Ben Collins, who had quickly tossed one back. He could almost hear their old voices ringing out, and the sounds of their boots stomping off the snow before they went inside for one of Wally’s famous martinis. Those were the days when the Holiday Inn was more a virgin than a poule, a faded prostitute that still lurks on street corners in old novels. They thought they’d be husbands and wives forever, didn’t they? Teachers, forever in their prime.

  “Hey look, everybody!” Pete Morton shouted, as Howard stepped into the dimly lighted lounge. “It’s Dances with Squirrels!”

  Things hadn’t changed much. Larry left his spot behind the keyboards to come over to the bar and shake Howard’s hand.

  “Jesus, Howie, it’s good to see you,” said Larry. “We been thinking about you. We’re all real sorry, you know, the bad news.” Howard nodded. He didn’t want to talk about Eliot. He only wanted to think about Eliot, in the safety of his own mind, his own thoughts, his own memories, until he could come to some kind of terms with it all. The guys understood. He knew they wouldn’t mention it again. They were guys.

  Wally started to pour him a rum, but Howard shook his head.

  “A glass of red wine,” he said.

  That’s when Howard noticed that Bernie, the groundskeeper at the golf course, was sitting on a lopsided stool at the very end of the bar. The course had been shut down for the season, and, as usual, Bertie had nothing but time on his hands until next May. It was common knowledge that Bertie only turned up in the lounge after the last golf ball had been hit out at the course. It was Bertie’s own code, and he’d stuck by it for years. He was on the telephone now, sounding more frustrated than ever.

  “I know it’s caused by algae feeding on the liquid,” Bertie was saying, most likely to some laboratory he’d read about in New Zealand, since he’d gone through most of the North American labs. “I been fighting that thing for five years. What I don’t know is how to stop it. And all it’s doing right now is resting up until spring.”

  As Howard sipped his wine, he turned and looked across the room. How he and Ellen had loved that place in its heyday. It was the perfect retreat from college students who thought it too dull, too boring as a hangout. But it had been the ideal place for his and Ellen’s crowd, with its plush sofas and chairs, a place to munch on microwave egg rolls and those perpetual weenies floating in a reddish sauce that even Bertie wouldn’t try to classify. And, of course, they’d listen as Larry Ferguson banged away on his piano and sang the songs they loved to hear. Sinatra. Captain & Tennille. John Denver. How many times had Howard twirled Ellen about out there on the dance floor? Ellen. He’d been trying not to think of her, either.

  “Hey, Howie, your new mattress is in!”

  Howard looked over to where the jukebox sat and saw Freddy Wilson, his skin more tanned than ever, his teeth glowing white in his brown face. Freddy was sitting at a table with a very young woman, one who would most likely sell mattresses for the Mogul before the night was over.

  Howard took the stool that had been designated his, during all those many happy hours when he had been holed up in room number seventeen. Pete came and sat next to him, took out his cigar, and lit it up. Howard read Pete’s T-shirt: God Grant Me the Senility to Forget Those People I Never Liked in the First Place.

  Larry came and sat on Howard’s other side, the stool squeaking beneath his weight. He looked at Howard and smiled.

  “So what’ve you been up to?” Larry asked. Howard thought about that for a moment.

  “Well, like most existentialists,” he said, “I’ve been getting up early every morning to search for values in a universe of chance.” It was Larry’s turn to think. Here was a man who had risen early every morning to search for his pump.

  “Me, too,” said Larry. Apparently, it had sounded like a good plan to the lounge singer. He gestured to Wally. “Another tomato juice, Wal.”

  On the mirror behind the bar were more Polaroid pictures of Larry’s pump. Howard leaned forward in order to see them better. The pump had gotten around. New England Aquarium. Fenway Park. In one, it was sitting outside Cheers, the Boston bar made famous from television. Larry noticed that Howard was staring.

  “Fucking bitch,” said Larry. “But the joke was on her. She actually did me a favor. It’s back.”

  “What is?” Howard asked. He imagined the pump arriving at Larry’s door, wearing a red blazer, with a steamer trunk in tow.

  “You know,” said Larry. He threw a quick look downward at his crotch. “It.”

  “Oh,” said Howard. “I guess that’s a good thing, then.”

  “I found me another doctor,” said Larry. “Know what my problem was?” Howard shook his head. How could he possibly guess, unless it was an algae that was feeding on the iron-rich liquid just beneath the surface of Larry’s scrotum.

  “It was nothin’ but a case of Nervous Nuts,” said Pete.

  “Don’t be a wise guy,” said Larry. He looked at Howard. “It was stress and too much alcohol. But I’m back good as new and making up for lost time. That bitch can just keep the damn thing.”

  “What’s that?” asked Howard, and pointed to a fresh newspaper clipping that was taped just above the yellowing publicity photo that Lola Falana had signed. To Wally, Thanks for coming. Love, Lola. Wally brightened.

  “It was in the papers last week,” he said. “I finally found out where Lola is. She’s born again and living with her parents in Philly.” Then he added, “She’s got MS.”

  A silence fell over them then, their own way of wishing Lola Falana the best, of wishing life had been kinder to her. But she was a girl with pizzazz and they all knew it. Somehow, Lola would not only survive, she would prosper.

  “Man, she was something,” said Pete. “Remember when her boob came out of her dress on Johnny Carson?”

  Howard stood. His wineglass was still half-full, but he pushed it back across the bar toward Wally.

  “I better run, guys,” he said. “And I mean that literally.”

  Before Howard left the lounge, Pete had an original thought. “Hey, Runs Without Bulls!” Pete shouted. “Don’t be a stranger.”

  ***

  Howard had almost always run in the mornings, except for the past few days, his schedule being thrown off-kilter by the workers from Morgan’s Home Builders. He had no way of knowing that Ellen often visited the cemetery in the late afternoon. But he found out as he crested the top of Stony Hill Road and saw the little gray Celica pulled up and parked by the wrought iron gates. The snow had stopped again, and again the afternoon sun was breaking from behind clouds. The iron bars of the cemetery lay in shadows upon the white snow next to the Celica. When Howard saw that it was, indeed, Ellen, saw the smallness of her out by the grave that must be Eliot’s, over in the upper corner of the graveyard, he picked up his pace. He was a half mile further down Stony Hill Road when he finally turned, tears in his eyes, and ran back to the cemetery. As he had hoped, it was a long enough jog that the tears were gone by the time he reached the gate.

  Ellen was sitting on the snowy ground by the edge of grave. Considering Howard had not been there since that hot day in July, when they had buried Eliot, he hadn’t imagined that the grass would grow so fast on his grandson’s resting place. But it had. The mound must have been green all through August, for now brown spikes of grass thrust up through the thin layer of snow, grass rigid with autumn, with impending winter. But there must have been that little spurt of life before the winter cold stung the roots into submission. A smattering of floral bouquets covered the mound, two of them still quite fresh. Howard supposed this was Ellen’s and Patty’s doings. He also supposed that it had been women who put daisies on those ancient Neanderthal graves, a need for everlasting beauty, even in death. Ellen was staring at Eliot’s name, inscribed with a deep flourish of lettering on the tom
bstone. She looked up as Howard approached. For a few seconds they said nothing. Howard saw that someone had left a baseball at the bottom of the headstone. He recognized it immediately. It was the one Howard had given John, signed by Carl Yastrzemski that lovely summer’s day, years ago, that Howard and his son had taken in a game at Fenway Park. John must have left it there for his own son, passing the treasure on. Howard looked away, a lump rising in his throat, a burning again in his eyes.

  “I brought the violet,” Ellen said, and pointed to a little pot with an African violet growing up out of it. He was surprised at the sound of her voice, the lilt in it. Was he forgetting, after forty long years? Can it happen that quickly? Would he eventually forget Eliot’s voice, too? He hoped not. He hoped to hell he didn’t. “When Eliot visited, he used to admire the purple flowers on mine.”

  Howard smiled at the warm memory of this. He looked down at Ellen. She seemed tinier than he remembered her, as if she were melting inside the thick black jacket, what she called her autumn coat. Maybe she was disappearing, alone now in the big house on Patterson Street, alone in her marriage bed, maybe she was dissolving in sadness. Like Patty was dissolving. In a short time, Howard knew in his heart, Patty Woods would be gone all together if they didn’t do something to save her. He thought about Eliot then, really thought about him in a way he had not allowed himself to do yet, because the flesh and blood of the boy was too painful to remember. Eliot, small and loving, an admirer of the Florida Gators. Innocent. Eliot Lane Woods would know about forgiveness.