Running the Bulls Read online

  John shook his head again—it was becoming his favorite response to Howard’s new life interests, along with foot rocking—and said nothing for a time. Then, he looked directly at Howard.

  “Are you really going through with this insanity?” he asked.

  “What insanity?”

  “You know damn well,” John said. “Divorcing Mom. Running with cattle.”

  Howard nodded vigorously. “I’ve never been more serious about anything in my life.”

  “Let’s face it, Dad. You’re no Hemingway, and look where this kind of macho behavior got him. Alone in his bedroom with a pistol.” John then sighed his heavy sigh, one that Howard had heard regularly for the past six days that he’d been living in John’s and Patty’s house.

  “I believe it was a shotgun,” said Howard.

  “Dad, come on,” John said, irritated now. “Face facts. I mean, you’re not exactly Hulk Hogan. You’re gonna end up a lonely old man with a bull’s horn up his rectum. And that’s if you’re lucky.”

  The waitress came for their orders. They both decided upon the Blanchard Lunch Special, croissant sandwiches, potato salad, and a dill pickle. Howard leaned back in his chair, let the sweet, warm sun hit squarely upon his face. He had begun a running schedule just the day before and now his legs felt stiff and sore from his first time out. He had done a mile by walking a quarter of it, jogging a quarter, walking a quarter, jogging the last quarter. His golfing buddy, Pete Morton, had given him that schedule to go by. “After a week,” Pete had said, “try running a third of a mile, walking a third, then running the last third. Do it half and half the next week. Before you know it, you’ll be doing a 10K.” Howard smiled, remembering Pete’s prophesy. If it came true—and Howard had no doubt that it would—he’d be ready for the Encasing of the Bulls come July. Next on his list was finding a rugged wine flask, one of those big leather gourds that were always turning up in The Sun Also Rises. Something goreproof, if that was possible.

  “Gore-tex,” said Howard, and smiled appreciatively at his own joke.

  “What?” John asked.

  “Nothing,” said Howard. “I was just remembering something Pete Morton said. He and I are playing golf on Monday.”

  “I think you’re making a big mistake,” John said now. He had been watching the passersby with a thoughtful interest, but Howard knew where his son’s mind had really been. “The bulls are bad enough, but this divorce thing is about the craziest idea I’ve heard of yet. You and Mom are in your sixties, for crying out loud. Isn’t that kind of late to go to Plan B?”

  Howard held up his orange-lettered beer glass. “But there’s still a fire in the basement,” he bragged, and then hoped that it was true. A gas-log fireplace, at least.

  “I tell you what, Dad,” John said finally, after their sandwiches had arrived and Howard had given John his own pickle, a habit between them born of many deli sandwiches in their lifetimes. Howard had hated sour things even as a child. Symbolic, or so Ellen liked to say.

  “I always thought you were a smart man,” John continued. “But this is stupid action, is what it is. This is letting your emotions run away with your intellect. It’s not good. It’s not good in battle, and it’s not good in life.”

  Howard felt the sting. Not good in battle. John would know, wouldn’t he, having flown that plane into the missile-ridden skies over Baghdad. But, damn it, not every man gets the opportunity to prove himself behind the controls of a multimillion-dollar airplane, in a moment of world unrest. That was a matter of being in the right place at the right time, of standing at the edge of all that double, double, toil and trouble. But some men are busy teaching Macbeth, not being Macbeth. Damn John Woods for inheriting his mother’s honesty. May he never seek a career with the Ford Motor Company.

  “I think it takes a modicum of testicles to run the goddamn bulls,” Howard said, surprised at how quickly his anger shone through.

  But John was undeterred. “You’re going to lose those testicles, ace,” he said. “Little Spanish kids will be tossing them back and forth. Souvenirs from the loco gringo.”

  Howard thought of protesting this in some large way. But before he could, an attractive young woman leaned over the outdoor patio fence and patted John on the back. John looked as if he’d been shot with pellets.

  “Well, well,” the woman said. “Look who I find here. I thought you were going out of town for the weekend.” John stood, his beer nearly spilling in the process. Watching him, Howard remembered that day in the living room, the day his son was being reprimanded for smoking pot.

  “Vanessa,” John said. A quick redness had already spread across his face, even before he began to rock on the balls of his feet. Howard smiled at this young woman. He would guess she was in her late twenties, athletic, a real looker, the kind of butt that turned Howard’s head whenever he and Ellen were out strolling along, at those times when he pretended to be looking at cars parked along the street, but would instead swipe a glance at some classic buttocks, circa 1960s and 1970s. Let Ellen call him a dirty old man, if she ever caught him.

  Howard stood and extended his right hand. Otherwise, John would go on pretending that his father wasn’t there. Just some retired guy who had given him a dill pickle.

  “Howard Woods,” Howard said, smiling.

  “My father,” John added, and now it was Vanessa’s turn to blush and then stammer a bit.

  “Very nice to meet you, sir,” Vanessa was now saying, but having a speck of trouble looking him in the eye. And now John was trying to shuffle her away.

  “See you at work,” John told her. Information was throwing itself at Howard, data about human beings, and human nature, and pheromones, and all that subtle stuff as he tried to come up with an answer. What was it Ellen had said? I think men know how to handle guilt. That’s how they spread their seed. But John had already spread his seed. John already had Eliot, and yet the uneasy feeling that had crept over Howard seemed to have something to do with his grandson, didn’t it? And with Patty, his daughter-in-law. Howard fought for a quick answer, a deciphering of those damn symbols he saw unfolding in front of his face, symbols he’d been too blind to read in his days as a happily married mole. And then Vanessa was gone, strolling off down the sidewalk, her beautiful ass swaying behind her, long auburn hair flying in the wind. If it had not been for the situation that was dangling in his face, Howard would have watched her go with all the longing of a lecher. But something was stopping him.

  Howard and John sat back down in their chairs.

  “Maybe I’ll have dessert,” John said. He stared hard at the menu, strict concentration on his face. Howard, in turn, stared at John. Finally, John gave up and tossed the menu onto the table.

  “What?” he asked, without looking at Howard’s eyes. But a skillful dodger John Woods was not. How had this boy ever hidden anything from the enemy? Because he was so high above them, that’s why, Howard decided. You don’t look anyone in the eye when you’re flying an F-15 fighter thousands of feet above the earth. Not even God.

  The waitress appeared and wanted to know if they’d like another round. John quickly agreed. He looked nervously at Howard, who still said nothing.

  “What?” John said again. He waited.

  “You little son of a bitch,” said Howard.

  People drifted along the street, their voices rising up in clouds of excitement. The waitress brought the order and then left. Howard said nothing. A huge bus pulled up outside, and hordes of senior citizens filed off like contented cattle, Portsmouth Square Dance Club emblazoned on their identical T-shirts. A waitress rushed forward and led them all to a back room, their cloud of noise following them. Still, Howard waited.

  Finally, John Woods turned to face him, to look deep into his father’s eyes as he tried to stare Howard down with a what’s up? look. Howard knew this look. He knew this boy.

  “¿Q
ué pasa?” John said, playfully, trying this time to elicit a smile from his father.

  “You little son of a bitch,” Howard said again. He could never remember, in all the years that he had been a parent, ever being this angry at his son John, the boy he thought he had lost forever in the dark skies over a strange and foreign land. “You little bastard,” Howard said, and reached for the check.

  ***

  They didn’t speak on the ride home. When they had left the restaurant, Howard took the time to put the top up. There was something too joyous in having the wind pelt one’s face, something too trivial in letting words rush out of one’s mouth in currents of air. For James Bond, maybe, it would be okay. After all, Pussy Galore was nobody’s sister, mother, daughter, daughter-in-law. She was just, well, Pussy. But an Aston Martin convertible was not the vehicle to be written into the script between Howard Woods and his son at that moment in their lives. He thought about Patty then, and Eliot. How would this affect their lives? How could a happy, nuclear family blow up so goddamned fast? As if reading his father’s thoughts, John spoke.

  “You’re making a mountain out of a molehill,” he said. “As usual.” Howard hit the brake. A car behind him honked angrily and then flew past as the little convertible pulled up to the curb two streets away from John’s house. Howard shut the engine off and then turned to look at his son.

  “Am I?” he asked. “How so?”

  John turned to study the house he was now parked in front of, as though he were some kind of aluminum siding salesman. Howard waited again. This had always been his MO in the years of being John’s father: Wait until the boy can no longer stand the silence. But this time John was onto him. Before Howard had time to analyze any data at all, John Woods threw a fist out and slammed it into the dashboard in front of him.

  “Damn you!” he said to Howard, who sat silent and shocked at this action. “Do you have any idea what it was like over there?” No, Howard didn’t, but that was only because John had refused to speak of it. “Do you know what it’s like to be so fucking scared that you shit your pants?” Howard shook his head. Not even in the teacher’s lounge at Bixley Community College had he been so compelled. And that would have been the place for it.

  “That’s no excuse,” Howard said, sternly, doing his best to remind everyone concerned who was the father here.

  “Yes, it is,” John insisted. “It’s a damn good excuse. At least, it’s the only excuse I got. You come back from that kind of experience, and you’re changed, Dad. There’s nothing that can bring back those kinds of highs. It’s like standing back and watching a boring film pass before your eyes, until you realize that it’s your life you’re watching. And you’re gonna be watching it for a long, long time.”

  “So you go after a little strange stuff for excitement?” Howard asked. He noticed that an elderly woman had come out onto her front porch and was now shading her eyes with one hand, trying to determine who was camped on her sidewalk. “You think a new piece of ass is gonna bring back the highs for you? Some soldier you are.”

  This angered John more than Howard realized it would. He threw another fist into the dashboard, and now, when he turned to look at Howard, there was something in his eyes above the anger. Pain was there, too.

  “This isn’t about us, Dad,” John said. “This isn’t about who’s tougher, or braver, or stronger. This isn’t about us, so stop with that competition thing. This is about me!” The dashboard took a third punch. Howard saw the elderly lady make a run from her porch, back inside her house. He imagined her on the phone to the police. The young man seems to be beating up the old man’s car, Officer.

  Howard started the Aston Martin and sped away from the curb. At John’s house he pulled in behind the station wagon, which sat next to Patty’s Volvo, and parked. Howard barely had time to cut the car’s engine when the front door opened and Patty bounded out, a burlap sack bouncing from one hand. She waved at the Aston Martin as she opened the door to her car and tossed the sack onto the front seat. Howard rolled his window down.

  “Glad you’re back,” Patty said. “I’ve got to get to the theater and wrestle some more with Cyrano’s nose. Eliot’s watching TV.”

  With that, Patty slid behind the wheel of her car. The door slammed and then the sound of the engine. As she backed out past the Aston Martin, she waved once more. Then she was gone, speeding off down the street. Howard watched as the Volvo cut the corner and disappeared. How the hell did they expect a family to hold itself together this way, without skeletal bones, without any glue whatsoever? What was happening to the world? From what Howard could discern, the animals on Wild Kingdom had better home lives than the modern family.

  John stared ahead, saying nothing.

  “I know it looks bad,” he said finally. “But it’s not what it appears to be, Dad. I’ve been wanting to talk to you about it, but it’s really hard for me.”

  Hearing these words from his son, Howard felt the urge to sneer. It sounded so much like the early morning speech Ellen had delivered, less than a week ago, that it was like listening to a replay. Or to the latest episode of some crazy talk show, those national soapboxes.

  “However you look at it,” said Howard, “it’s cheating. And we both know what side of the family you got that from, don’t we? It’s in your damn DNA.”

  “Fuck off,” said John. He put his face down in one hand, rested it there, as though he might fall asleep.

  “Don’t talk to me like that,” said Howard.

  “No, don’t you talk to me like you just did,” John retaliated. “You have no right to judge me. No right whatsoever. I’m an adult who is living his life apart from yours.”

  Howard considered this. “Then why do you want me to forgive Ellen in order to keep our family together, as you so sweetly put it?”

  John simply waved Howard off as he opened the car door.

  “Thanks, as usual,” John said. “Thanks for listening to your son without having to share your own fears and longings.”

  “Is that an insult?” Howard asked.

  John just smiled his you don’t have a clue smile.

  “I’ll see you,” he said. He got out and slammed the door. The little car rocked like a boat.

  “That’s an understatement,” said Howard, as he opened his own door and got out. “Or have you forgotten that I’m living with you?”

  ***

  In the morning, Howard woke ill-rested and groggy. He had heard John often in the night, footfalls pacing back and forth in the den below. He would have gone down to check on his son, to see if it was another one of those infernal childhood nosebleeds, but he knew it was useless. It wasn’t John’s nose that was bleeding. It was his heart. Guilt was seeping out of him, keeping him awake, the same prodding finger that used to poke Ellen out of her own marriage bed, night after night, until it got the better of her. Out, out, damned spot! What could Howard say to his youngest child? That he had temporarily lost pride in him? That he could no longer sleep in a house filled to the rafters with deceit, just as he couldn’t stay at his own house for the same architectural reason? This was the boy who had gone to war, the boy who was honored by his country for bravery in battle. And yet he was handling a splash of boredom in his domestic life with espionage, with treason, with betrayal? Everyday life was where the real battles lay, Howard knew, and now he felt that not just Ellen, his beloved Ellen, but John, flesh of his flesh, had also failed life’s greatest test.

  Patty was still asleep, and John had coffee brewing when Howard thumped the battered and weary suitcase down beside Eliot’s schoolbag, on the floor by the kitchen table. At least the suitcase still seemed to be employed.

  “You’re up early,” John said. “Want some eggs?”

  “I’m moving out,” Howard announced. John was quiet for a time, the only sounds floating between father and son that of the coffee machine, sucking water throu
gh grounds. Then the coffee finished and John poured them each a cup. Howard hesitated, but he couldn’t resist the smell of fresh coffee, so early, and after such a restless night. He accepted the cup and took a few careful sips. John did the same, rocking slowly on the balls of his feet, keeping a close eye on his father.

  “If it weren’t for this thing with Mom,” John said, “you wouldn’t be acting like this. You’re taking everything personally.” Howard considered this.

  “Let’s see,” he said. “Ben Collins fucked my wife. Yup, I think I’ll take it personally.”

  “I mean about me,” said John, “but, as usual, let’s talk about you.”

  “At least I rank among the innocents,” Howard noted. “And my team thinks it deserves a tad more of the pity pie.”

  “It’s not about another woman,” John said quietly, peering over his shoulder, making sure Patty had not yet risen. Seeing this, Howard nodded his disapproval. He supposed that this was customary with espionage, with subterfuge, with deceit.

  “You bad guys always have to be careful that the good guys don’t hear you,” Howard said. “What a way to live.” John ignored this by pouring himself more coffee.

  “It’s about trying to survive, Dad,” he said. “It’s about trying not to be afraid anymore. It’s about trying to find a reason for your life, beyond what you were taught it should be. It isn’t that I don’t love Patty. It’s that I don’t love myself. And when that happens, you need alternatives.”

  “I’ll be at the Holiday Inn,” Howard said. “You know, that place with the family Bible.” He put down his half-finished cup of coffee and took up the war-torn suitcase. “In case another member of my family loses his or her moral direction and wants to talk about it,” he added.

  “Yeah, well, be careful what you read,” John muttered, as Howard and his suitcase sidled toward the front door. “Families weren’t so perfect in the Bible, either.”

  The Expatriate

  “Listen, Robert, going to another country doesn’t make any difference. I’ve tried all that. You can’t get away from yourself by moving from one place to another.”