!: The Monster Archaic [Bullfight in Lima, Peru]

The Monster Archaic

[A haunting bullfight in Lima]

The Bull Fight

I tell you this for a truth. Well, it all started out simple and my Grandfather, well--something inside his head got triggered. It all took place in the bull-ring at Lima, 1923. My Grandpapa was born in l886, and had retired from boxing long before, unwillingly, but kind of had to. Oh, he had fought the best, Jack Johnson, Sullivan, and then, well I will tell you the story. I didn't see it happen, how could I, I wasn't born yet. It was a mystery for many years to me and many others, but I know how he was, and the Peruvian woman he said he was in love with, fine, Latin blood she had, but she didn't understand, I doubt anyone in Peru understood that warm hot summer day when Anatolee, the blue-eyed gringo went mad, nutty.

He was a brave man though, let no one say otherwise, six foot three, two hundred and fifty pounds, maybe a bit more than that, I can tell by his pictures somewhat, and I read his history. He was from Russia, came over to America as a youth, learned how to fight like Sullivan and Dempsey in the bars and then in the ring. I am Russian myself, in that capacity, like my Grandpapa. The Peruvians laughed at him when he stood up and yelled at the capadores sitting in the arena, when he slipped and the bull gored him, a breathless moment I do expect, perhaps this was the moment the fans took notice of him, for he did it unexpectedly, and thought him a fool, oh I suppose he was more then excited, more than he wished to be anyhow, 'it is their bullfight,' he murmured,' so it is said, and he sat back down.

The lovely Señorita he was with, one to be his bride someday, she hoped--was dismayed at the Gringo's disposition on this matter. For she said something like, 'excuse me,' (she loved the bullfight) and looked at him. You see, he was for the bull, because the bull had no chance. None whatsoever he said, he told his beautiful Senorita as she sat in his sitting place, marked with a number, --her by his side and her friends to the right of her, of which he told them with even more venom, 'The bull is dead the moment he enters the ring, and paces the walls trying to find his way out'. Some say, Anatolee wanted a way out of marrying the young lady, for he was close to forty, and she was close to twenty--but I don't believe that, I think what took place was because of other reasons, enemies inside his head came out of his tongue, like the bulls, when they are thirsty, and the bull of course is filled with water to make him slow during his fight with the matador. And the banderillos placed the darts, and often times fail to place them properly (as they did this day), thus the bull gets mad and so did my Grandfather. I know he felt it was cruel and cold-blooded punishment for the animal that didn't want to be there in the first place.

So what did Anatolee do, what you would expect, he stood up from his seat, in the hot summer high temperature, gazing, staring--hypnotically into the bullring and yelled like a mad bull himself, 'What chance, what damn chance has the bull got!' he yelled. His girlfriend's Peruvian friend, an enthusiast comrade like her, that liked her, matter of fact, would have liked to marry her--had he not been married, tried to reason with Anatolee, but as the bull was enticed into charging the capadores, and the man who looked like he was to be eaten up by the bull, escaped unhurt, he again could not help himself, he yelled feverishly at the bullring. The audiences jeered at him liken to a viper, told him to sit down in Spanish, but he didn't understand, and thus, a sword appeared and missed the heart of the bull and suck out through the side of his ribs. But he just sat sadly in his seat--unmotivated, with hidden anger and staring, his face contorted, his teeth grinding.

--Then came out the picador on his horse (I have talked to Picadors, they are brave to go into the ring on an old horse like they do, most are old and ragged looking, this poor horse was so old and skinny, good for nothing else I suppose, and this is why they use them of course, and my Grandfather knew this, like him, he was now aging, and good for what?), and the bull charged the horse, sad as it was, the horse flipped flopped about rolled over--not knowing another gore was coming and when it did, went in the air, and the picador landed on the ground, and again escaped like the capadores before; a hideous crime he thought. This bull was very strong, like a bull I saw in Mexico City--Nico, who died slowly like this one, and was strong, so very strong like this bull, they were both fighters, ones that would not go down with a blow, like in the ring where my Grandfather fought as a professional boxer. I've seen this same fighting instinct in the bull in Mexico City, what my Grandfather saw in the ring in Lima, he had in himself, but for him it went a little farther. I shall explain that now, for it is the horse that triggered him.

The Trigger

My Grandfather was in many fights like me as I have tried to explain, so I know what took place that Saturday afternoon in the heat of the afternoon, the Peruvian warmth at the bullring in Lima. It was akin to a fight in the ring, in the hot hours of daylight. When the horse fell, gored in the stomach, gored several times, his insides came out--his whole insides unfilled, bare, unoccupied there on the dirt of the bullring emptied out, the horse kicking his feet like a man down in the boxing-ring trying to get up, trying but not getting up, but let's say is also blindfolded: told if he does get up--if he does stand on those feet of his, those limbs, tentacles, he will get his guts opened up like the horse, emptied out in front of his family, and his families guts emptied out like his; he had to take a dive in the ring, let the other man win, he had no choice. The scum of the earth made him stay down, loose the fight, like the Peruvian's who made the horse go into the ring blindfolded, now was down; blindfolded so he could not see it coming--death coming, the spear of death; so he could not see the bull ready to gore him, trusting humanity, the nature of humanity; dumb as that might be. The horse like the fighter has no chance; that is what went through his head at that very moment--that last millisecond. It was the last fight my Grandfather ever fought, the day he lost to a smaller man, less skilled, but he had a family, and should he get up--stand up on those legs to fight this man, this puny man, they would cut their guts out, like the horse in the ring, no chance--you see, none whatsoever. But he lost his wife none the less (and that is another story unto itself), and met his Señorita, but that is all history, let me finish the story for you.

--He stood up now, all wonder why he did not go crazy when the bull was killed, I should say slaughtered slowly, and dragged out of the ring by a mule, two mules. 'Why the horse,' people kept saying for years, still say it. As I tried to explain, my Grandfather was the horse, the audience were the scum, the boxing people who fixed the fights, the ones that humiliated him to, to such a thing as to take a dive in the middle of his life for a younger fighter, who knew nothing. He was blindfolded, kind of speaking, like the horse. The bull to him was simply a stupid animal with no chance at all, dead the moment he walked in the ring--like the young fighter. Yes, yes, my Grandfather was gored by the scum, by the stupid young man [liken to the stupid bull, he knew no better].

--So now you see why Anatolee stood up and yelled, and then when the horse got gored, like him, he lost it, hit the man beside his Señorita sitting next to her with his wife, broke his nose, and when two soldiers came running toward him--well, then the shooting started, and the crowed stood up to see what was happening. The soldiers and the crowd killed him, as he went wild hitting any and everyone who got close to him, several Peruvians went to the hospital that day, but nonetheless, he was dead from the insanity that took place that day. Yes, oh yes, it was a hot day in Lima and the beast primitive came out of Anatolee, my Grandfather, what more can I say.

Note: Inspirited by Jack London, Earnest Hemingway and a bullfight I saw in Mexico, City, and Lima, Peru

A Quiet, but loud Voice

[Bullfight in Lima, Peru]

Gone are the feelings of hope, gone forever; the glory of the fight lives on but for a moment, like a song once sung, now silent: like the trumpets that blow for this fiesta, the bull-fight. They sing and throw their hats; arm to arm--they sway back and forth, like the waves of the ocean. They will never come back: the bull, the horse, the prize fighter; the poor dead. And somewhere the wind is blowing, the snow is falling--but here, here in the arena is the sun, the sun shinning its ultraviolet heat, over head, shining down, down--it shines down low on the dead.

Benediction

Oh, I say to one and all, I am neither for the bull or the matador; as Hemingway protested, one must be for one or the other--no, I am for the champion of the brave, the glory of the arena, the ceremony of the event, its intrinsic meanings, and its blessings. So I make no judgment inasmuch as I do enjoy the bullfight, the cockfight, the ring, the karate tournaments, and the sumo wrestling tournaments. In all such events it is the grit and endurance and it all pleases me.