Running the Bulls Read online

  Howard went back and reread that beautiful line: they are driven through the streets behind crowds of skillfully dodging men and boys. Jesus, he couldn’t help it; he felt a surge in his groin, something that Neanderthals probably felt and military minds came to understand: the adrenaline of the hunt, the skillful dodging of the chase, the pure mark of manhood. He had no stomach for the bullfights themselves, even thought them barbaric. But the chase, the chase was the thing!

  Billy was suddenly at Howard’s elbow, like some kind of UFO, a bogey at five o’clock.

  “Find it okay?” asked Billy, and Howard nodded. He flipped quickly from page eighty-seven and went immediately to page thirty-two, something about the Prado in Madrid. He stood reading about the surfeit of El Grecos and Goyas the museum had to offer, waiting for Billy to evaporate.

  “Spain, huh?” said Billy, with a certain familiarity in his voice. Howard remembered Billy as the kind of student who would be hard-pressed to find Canada. Now here he was, bandying the word Spain about as though he were bored with those hilly, inaccessible Pyrenees. Howard put the book back on the shelf and took down The Berlitz Guide to Norway.

  “Just browsing,” he said.

  “Norway, huh?” said Billy, inching closer. “Mrs. Woods going with you?” Howard slid the guidebook back into its designated slot and then turned to face the young man.

  “Billy,” he said, “in the entire year that I taught you, two different and completely fascinating subjects, I don’t remember you asking me a single question, not one. Now, you seem incapable of not asking.”

  Howard waited as his former student considered what had just been said. Then, Billy tilted his head at Howard, smiled a crooked smile. In his eyes was that lightbulb look Howard remembered from Masterpieces of English Lit, a kind of forty-watt glare, just before it burns out for good.

  “I guess you might say I blossomed since then,” Billy answered. Then he beamed, pleased with his own joke.

  Howard nodded. “Listen, Billy,” he said. “There is something you can do for me.”

  Billy’s face came to life. His whole frame grew taller, rose up for the occasion. Howard had no doubt that if Billy had had a dog’s tail attached to his butt, it would be wagging. It would be causing more wind than the blades of a helicopter.

  “What’s that, Mr. Woods?” Billy asked.

  “Would you go over to the fiction section for me?” asked Howard. “See if you can find a book called The Sun Also Rises?”

  “We’re supposed to ask who wrote the book before we go looking for it,” said Billy. He seemed proud of this rule, as if he had been through an intense basic training and now was fully qualified for the job.

  “Ernest Hemingway,” said Howard, when he realized that Billy was serious.

  Without further instruction, Billy lurched off. Then, he stopped and looked back at Howard, his eyebrows knitting themselves into a question, a cloud forming over his eyes.

  “The sun also what?” asked Billy.

  Howard stared. It had been one of the five novels they had studied in American Literature.

  “Rises,” said Howard. He pointed at the ceiling. Billy nodded happily and then disappeared. Not wasting another moment of valuable time, Howard grabbed the Berlitz Guide to Spain from off the shelf—it included two cassettes to aid him in learning Spanish—and bolted for the checkout counter. It seemed the first skillful dodging he would have to do, on the road to Pamplona, would take place right in his own backyard, in Bixley, Maine.

  The girl at the checkout seemed surprised to witness Howard running. Was it not allowed in bookstores? She gave him a sharp, questioning stare as he patted his hip pocket to see if he had, indeed, remembered his wallet.

  “Billy says you taught him English,” she told Howard, as she accepted the Berlitz guide from him. “That’s cool,” she added.

  “I believe Billy was somewhat proficient in English when I met him,” Howard replied. What the hell was happening to today’s youth? It seemed as if four or five of them needed to congregate in order to come up with a single good thought.

  “Anything else?” the clerk wondered. Howard shook his head. “Cash or charge?”

  “Which is faster?” he asked, glancing over his shoulder to see if Billy had remembered that it was the sun that rises, and not bread dough.

  “Cash,” she said. “Of course.”

  Howard knew that this young woman thought him incurably dumb. He dug into his wallet and fished out a twenty. If tipping would speed her up, he would have offered her a dollar, for she took forever, the velocity of the young, operating beneath a brain that was running on automatic pilot. Finally, she gave him the bag after tossing his receipt inside.

  “Are you interested in our Savings Plan?” she asked. “I was supposed to ask you that before I rang up the sale.”

  Howard looked down the aisle and saw what was probably the top of Billy’s head, brownish thick hair gliding atop aisle four like a wooden boat as it made its way toward the front of the store. Billy must have looked for Howard in section three, and now he was on an all-out search of the store to find him.

  “You pay ten dollars for the card,” the girl was now saying, “but each time you buy a book you get ten percent off. It’s pretty cool.”

  “No,” said Howard, “I’m not interested. Listen, tell Billy I had to run, okay? Tell him I’ll be in again and we can chat.”

  Then, Howard stepped out into the flow of mall traffic, that wave of shoppers that soon swallowed him up in its ranks.

  ***

  “¿Cómo está usted?” Howard asked John, when they met in the den at six o’clock for a cocktail before dinner. Patty was still at the theater, working on the costuming for Cyrano de Bergerac—apparently there was more to it than just a long nose—and so John had promised to cook dinner.

  “Come on, Dad,” said John, “enough is enough. When are you going to quit acting like a kid and go on home?”

  “¿Habla mucho español?” Howard wished to know. From what he’d read, the Spanish question mark was upside down to English readers. Howard imagined himself standing on his head at the airport in Madrid, asking questions of passersby.

  “Mom is all torn up about this,” John said. “She won’t say much to me, but she’s told Patty.”

  “Are we speaking of Ellen O’Malley, the former Ellen Woods?” asked Howard. “Good. Let her be torn up. Let her be gored by this, if you will. That’s certainly how I feel.” He sloshed the rum around in his glass, clinking the ice. Then he took another drink.

  John looked over at the bottle sitting on his bar, the one Howard had picked up on his way back from the bookstore.

  “Bacardi, huh?” John asked. “And on the rocks, no less.” Howard shrugged, a why not? shrug. He had been a Tom Collins man in his heyday, but, as he had suggested to Ellen O’Malley, what man could drink a Tom Collins and keep his mind off Ben all at the same time? Besides, Bacardi was the best he could do until he got his hands on some Pernod. Or was it called absinthe? That was the drink of matadors, by God. Driven through the streets behind crowds of skillfully dodging men and boys. Howard smiled. He leaned back on the sofa and put his feet up on the ottoman.

  “What’s so funny?” asked John.

  “Oh, nothing,” Howard said, furtively. “Nada.”

  “Come on, what’s up your sleeve?” John persisted. “What’s going on in that retired brain of yours?”

  Howard smiled again, mysteriously this time. He felt almost smug. After years of being the one whose job it was to pry the truth from his son, now he was hoarding facts. He, Howard, had always been a good and obedient son to his own father, and maybe that was part of his problem. He had never given the elder Woods any worry. The truth was that the old man would have kicked his ass to kingdom come had Howard disobeyed him. He wondered if courage and valor are forced, out of necessity, to skip
generations. That was often true of artists and writers. How many famous creators gave birth to famous creators? There were the Bruegels, the father and a couple of sons. A few writers, yes—the Dumas men came to mind, the old man and the illegitimate boy. Howard couldn’t think of any composers. And singers, well, he was able to come up with Frank and Nancy Sinatra, but surely that combo wouldn’t qualify, given the fact that Nancy couldn’t sing.

  “You ever hear of San Fermín?” Howard asked.

  “No,” said John. “Don’t tell me Mother has slept with him, too?” Howard laughed at this, such a laugh that he was obliged to lean forward and whack his own knee. John caught the fever and laughed along with him.

  “I think this is called a tension breaker,” John noted. He went to the bar and poured himself another scotch. “Now what was this nonsense last night about Buffalo?”

  Howard held up his glass for a second Bacardi.

  “Remember the week Ellen went to visit Grandma by herself?” Howard asked. John thought deeply, trying to remember. “You must have been about ten years old,” Howard reminded him. “I taught an English comp class that summer.”

  John brightened in memory. “We ate hot dogs all week long!” he said. Howard nodded. “And played poker every night, you, me, Micky Pilcher, and your teaching buddies. Until you caught Micky with the marked deck. It was great. It was like camping out for a week. ”

  “Well,” said Howard, “we weren’t the only ones camping out. Your mother shuffled off to Buffalo with old Ben Collins.”

  “What?” asked John. “What are you talking about?”

  Howard told him, told him about the useless airline ticket, bought and paid for with hard-earned teaching dollars. Told him about driving Ellen to the airport, picking her up from the airport, while all the time Ben Collins was probably parked nearby, hidden behind a fake nose attached to dark glasses. She was supposed to be visiting her mother for a week, as they had done every year since their marriage, until Howard’s mother-in-law passed away. And the one time he couldn’t join Ellen because he was offering up his services to aid another needy human being—in truth, he hadn’t cared much for Grady Mullins, and even less for Ellen’s mother—she had spent the week sneaking in and out of some motel room like a teenager, telling her mother lies, no doubt, about dinners with friends, movies, who knew the scope of her deception once she got started?

  “Jesus,” John said, and shook his head. Howard was almost pleased. Now, maybe now, he would get a little well-deserved sympathy instead of this forgiveness crap. What kind of a defense was that?

  “I’ve got an appointment tomorrow with Mike Harris.”

  “Your lawyer?” John seemed stunned at this.

  “Absolutely,” said Howard. “Time’s a-wasting, my boy. No need to drag this out.”

  “Jesus,” John said again, and sat on the sofa next to Howard. He looked so put out with the latest news about Buffalo, and now divorce proceedings, that Howard was almost sorry he had told him.

  Eliot bounced into the room. Gator, the dog he had named after his favorite football team, the Florida Gators, paraded along at his heels.

  “When do we eat?” Eliot asked.

  “Soon,” said John. “I’ve ordered Mexican.”

  “You told Mommy you’d cook,” said Eliot.

  “Eliot, please,” John said. He sounded weary. Howard could tell his thoughts were more on his mother’s trip to Buffalo than on dinner. His thoughts were on that meeting Howard had set with Mike Harris.

  “You even promised to cook vegetables,” Eliot said.

  “Which would you rather have?” John asked. “Enchiladas from Jose’s Cantina? Or corn on the cob that I’ve personally boiled?”

  “That’s easy,” said Eliot. “Enchiladas.”

  “Good,” said John. “I’ll call you when the chow arrives. What Mommy doesn’t know won’t hurt her.”

  Eliot disappeared, Gator wagging at his heels. Howard was reminded of Billy Mathews as he watched Gator’s tail twitch out of sight.

  “Hey!” Howard yelled. He could hear the sound of Eliot’s footsteps, which were now treading upstairs. “Grandpa will tell you a good-night story before bed.” He heard Eliot call back, pleased with the promise. Then he looked over at John.

  “Did you mean that?” Howard asked his son.

  “Did I mean what?”

  “What Patty doesn’t know won’t hurt her?” Confucius says, “Study the past, if you would divine the future.”

  “I was talking about Mexican food, Dad, for crying out loud,” John answered. “Don’t get analytical on me.”

  “Deception starts with the little things,” Howard said. “It’s the first sign of a crack in the marriage. I know that now, but I didn’t know it back when I could’ve used it. Back when my marriage was covered with cracks, like a goddamn spider’s web. So I say this to you as a warning, son. Always be truthful. Okay?”

  John said nothing.

  “Okay?” Howard asked again.

  “No hablo español,” John finally answered.

  ***

  On the way home from his meeting the next day with Mike Harris, Howard listened in horror as the Probe GT whined to a halt and refused to move an inch further. He left it sitting at the curb in front of the Bixley bank and Jose’s Cantina: Mexican Foods for All Occasions, and he called AAA to come and fetch it.

  “Take the goddamn thing to Jeff’s Used & Classic Cars, on Ridgemont Drive,” Howard told Triple A.

  Next, he called Bixley Cab and caught a ride over to Jeff Henson’s place, on the outside of Bixley, what used to be a large and empty field until Jeff opened a used car garage a year earlier. Doing well with that first venture, Jeff added the classic cars as a way to foster his own love of a well-made product. Since Howard taught both of the Henson sons, he and Jeff had talked vintage cars at more than one college ball game. Howard had intended to stop at the garage for months now, each time he passed by in the rattling Probe GT, an opportunity to take a look at the models Jeff had to offer. Some of them were real beauties: a 1955 Chevy that looked like it had never been driven a single mile, much less seen any hormonal action in the backseat; a shiny silver Corvette Stingray, early 1960s; a Packard; a Kaiser Manhattan; and a white 1935 Lincoln convertible with red leather interior. It was unlikely that Jeff would sell that many classic cars in Bixley, but then, he didn’t care. As he explained to Howard, during one of the many lax moments of the basketball game against Bangor School of Divinity, “As long as Maria thinks it’s a business and not a hobby, she won’t care how many classic cars I buy.”

  While he waited for Jeff to appear, Howard admired the Lincoln—they’d been born the same year—by pressing a finger into the red leather of its seats. He’d been trying for the past hour to forget his abrupt meeting with Mike Harris. He was also trying to forget about the dastardly Probe GT—may he never enter into Bixley Performance Ford again, since all they wanted was to sell him another lemon—when Jeff came outside to greet him.

  “Hey, Howard,” he said. “I was wondering when I was gonna see you in here. What can I do for you?”

  “I want to get rid of a Ford Probe GT,” Howard said.

  “One of their lemons?” asked Jeff. It seemed the whole world knew about the problems Ford was having with their Probes, at least everyone but Howard, and how many more Probe owners?

  “Will you take it off my hands?” Howard asked, and Jeff nodded, which was good of him, considering that the tow truck was pulling into the lot at that very moment, the Probe’s shiny blue ass high in the air.

  “What can I put you into?” asked Jeff. “I just got a Toyota Camry in, and it’s only about two years old.”

  But Howard was remembering the scene in his lawyer’s office as he stared down at the Lincoln’s red seats. It seemed, at least according to Mike Harris, that the divorce would go off without
a hitch. “Pardon the pun there,” Mike had said, and laughed, batting Howard on the back as though divorce were a game of golf. “If Ellen’s agreeable, there should be no problem. Marital dissolution papers are the best route to take. You just split everything fifty-fifty down the middle.” And then Howard had signed a few pieces of paper, let Mike pump his right hand, and that was it. “I’ll be sending Ellen a registered letter,” Mike said. “I’ll call you. I’ll keep you posted.” As Howard drove away, he wasn’t sure what he had expected: violins playing in the wings, the receptionist weeping tears instead of filing her nails, sympathy flowers delivered from old friends? The execution of the thing had been cold and quick. And much too fast. Howard had hoped Mike would tell him to go home first, wait a month or two, mull it over, be certain of his heart and his mind. But, apparently, with so many divorces being processed every day, one had to be quick on one’s feet. Well, so be it. Howard could take it. But the Ford Probe was obviously torn up by the whole thing because it broke down, finally, whimpering to a stop and refusing to carry Howard anywhere anymore, not now that he’d finally gone and filed for a divorce from that nice lady with the red highlights in her silvery hair, the one who always kept the car so clean.

  “Are you in a Toyota frame of mind?” Jeff was asking, and Howard remembered that he was now on foot. He needed wheels.

  “I’m looking for something kind of, well, classy and sporty,” Howard told Jeff. “You know, a middle-age-crazy kind of car.”