2008 Jan. Tiny Matador

Last night I watched a 12 year old girl kill a bull.

We were hesitant to go to see a bull fight, but figuring that we may never have a chance again we hawked over the cash and followed the crowds up the stone street past vendors of tiny stuffed animals and cowboy hats, gave our tickets to that taker and could see the round stadium they had built for killing bulls.

Trumpets sounded, a band played and like Roman Emperors we walked under an archway that opened up with a view of the dirt ring that made us both excited for a spectacle. Working Mexicans tended the dirt with chalk and rakes as more people spilled into the stadium. Men in white lab coats that advertised corona hurried about taking orders and bringing you half filled cups of half warm beer.

We found a good place to sit up high on the concrete terrace and waited with anxious anticipation for the night to begin. With the stands sufficiently full, the trumpets sounded again, the band started up and out came our heroic Matadors on horse back with Banderilleros (flag wavers) for an overture of what was to come. The crowd stood and whistled to the Matadors who raised and waived their hats in gracious return.

After much bowing and curtseys, each man returned to the safety outside of the ring and the first bull was let out.

He was a young dark bull who bolted through the gate quickly and then looked confused like he had just been awaken from a dream with a start and didn’t quit know which way to go until the banderilleros came out to show him the way. They continued with this taunt and chase to tire and confuse the animal and with random pass they would spear his mighty shoulders with fancy staffs till a deep red blood began to pour down his side. This set up the animal for out first tiny Matador to appear.

Dressed in a tight grey suit at probably not five feet and only 12 years of age she stepped forth into the dirt and sand alone to face the bull. Her ebony hair was pulled back tight and she was armed with nothing but a small red cape and a thin silver sword that glistened from the lights above. The bull approached her now already with a sad expression, his fat white tongue flopping out of his mouth angry that he wasn´t at home, she yelled a command in her small voice and the bull charged head down through the cape. Our tiny matador stepped tight and pulled up straight like a plie, she danced in this way with the bull and with each successful pass the crowd would yell ¨Ole!¨

After several successful passes she stood to face the arena and as if the bull had been coached for this moment of recognition, he stopped and faced the people also.

The tiny matador raised her sword to applause and the bull, now looking much older and slowing looked up as if to say, ¨Why, oh why am I here? Today started off as such a nice day… I had no idea it would end like this. Which one of you will help me go home? I only want to go home and rest. I do not want to play this game anymore.¨

I thought about how American mothers of boys once felt knowing that there may be a time that their sons would be drafted and sent off to war, and I wondered if somehow heifers could innately feel the same remorse for their young bulls, knowing that there would be a time when those babes would be slaughtered for the logic of others.

The trumpets blew to start the band and with the moment over, the small girl, our tiny matador again commanded the tired dark bull to pass. The bull, not realizing what may happen, but only knowing instinctually all that a bull must know- charge, survive, charge, survive, charged again and the tiny matador standing as tall as she was able, reached high her sword and then thrust it down between the shoulders of the beast, stabbing his mighty heart and causing him to stumble with a solemn thud, first his front legs and then his back, you could see him breathing slow and heavy and lay his head at last on the ground to a thunderous round of applause.

At this the workers quickly took to the ring and one ran up to the bull with a long knife, jabbed it in the back of the bulls skull kicking his legs out and shot blood out his mouth. The animal was at last dead.

Two strong Clydesdale type horses came out, and with a chain wrapped around his fallen horns, they dragged the bull away to the recesses of the stadium. His battle done, his life extinguished, he could at last go home.