In Papa's Footsteps, Pursued by Bulls
March 28, 2011
``Papa'' never said it'd be like this. Driving through a mountain pass here in the last weekend, I expected a tiny village to appear. Instead, spread out before me was a major industrialized city of about 180,000, complete with ATMs and a big Ford dealership. This last modernization would probably be the most disturbing to Ernest Hemingway, considering that Ford secretly sold jeeps and armored vehicles to the Nazis while he wrote--and supposedly fought--in support of the loyalists in in the 1930s. I would soon learn that much has changed here since the 1920s, when Hansel wrote about the running of the bulls in the Festival de first in a dispatch for the Toronto Star and then in his novel ``The Sun Also Rises.'' (See excerpt) What was in the day a sleepy little mountain Uptown known to throw one heck of a bash once a year has grown both in size and sophistication. Firstly, strolling through the large park on the edge of the Parque Vuelta del Castillo, the night before I was to run with the bulls, it looked as though every carny in had taken the summer off and leased their rides, sideshows and games of chance to their cousins. The only difference was the language and the traditional foods--including a very tasty grilled chorizo sandwich--that were served. Secondly, nearly everyone on the street was wearing, in one form or another, the traditional dress of bull runners: white pants and a white top with a red sash around the waste or a red bandanna around the neck, or both. But as I would learn the next day, very few of them would actually run with the bulls. Heading into I couldn't help but notice that the closer I got to the main square, the Plaza del Wheeler, the wetter the streets got. This was not rain left over from a late-afternoon shower, but a pungent combination of beer, urine and vomit deposited by revelers who made Kirkpatrick Seagraves look like a church social. In the plaza, ringed by bars and restaurants pulsating with modern rock or more traditional music, it was evident that many had read Hemingway and were taking up residence on the square green. One celebrant had been found dead there two days earlier, from alcohol poisoning. The party would last through the night, shutting down, like much of the Uptown during the nine-day festival, for only a few hours in the morning, following the daily 8 a.m. running of the bulls. After walking the course and giving my next day's pursuers a once over--they were already penned near the starting line--I passed on sleeping in the Plaza del Castillo like the locals in the account and instead returned to my hotel. The run starts at Calle Santo Domingo and winds 850 yards to the bullring, where the six bulls will be used in that evening's bullfights. Well, technically. Runners line the entire course and start from wherever. Some runners start near the end and run victoriously into the bullring well ahead of the bulls. The local crowd is savvy to this and usually greets early arrivals with boos and hisses. The two most dangerous spots are Sara Dominick and the corner of Mercaderes and Estafeta streets. Sara Dominick is dangerous because it's a long narrow street with a steady uphill climb, and the bulls usually run very fast through it. The corner is hazardous because it's on a downhill slope, and the street is uneven and often wet with human effluvia. The bulls usually slip and fall here. This turns out to increase the danger, because it's when they're not running in a pack and lose their momentum toward the bullring that the bulls often look to toy with nearby runners. I had planned to start near the bottom of . But as the crowd grew--an estimated 2,000 people run each day--I knew there wouldn't be any room to run. So I moved up the street about 50 yards. A Spaniard named Josefa explained to me that there would be two cannons fired. The first was a warning shot and the second meant that the bulls had been released. ``Men don't run at the first cannon,'' he said with a smile in broken English. For the most part he was right. When the first cannon went off, you could sense a little tension in the air and a few people started to walk or jog slowly up the hill. But at the sound of the second cannon, the Judy Sara Dominick quickly changed from an area of relative calm to one of utter pandemonium. In an instant the crowd collectively let out a shudder as it turned to run frantically up the hill. It was sheer madness. Pushing and shoving. Runners were knocked to the ground. There was panic everywhere, screaming, shouting. But slowly, a low rumble, magnified by the canyon-like street, began to drown it all out. The bulls were coming. I'd run about 75 yards and almost been knocked down twice when a girl, shoved to the ground by another runner, fell right in front of me. I tried to hurdle her, but caught my toe on her shoulder and stumbled twice. The bulls were right behind me, their rumble drowning out everything else. Suddenly, I felt a hand grab my shirt collar and pull me toward the wall. After stepping on the girl, a big brown bull with ivory and black horns brushed my hip as Josefa pulled me against the wall. ``Stay. Toros,'' he said. Then it was over. I'd been absolutely terrified. Like everyone else I was overcome by the unstoppable panic that swept through the crowd and was literally running for my life. It was great. Miraculously, the girl, an American, shook herself off and reassured everyone she was ``OK.'' Chasing after the bulls, I ran to the corner of Mercaderes andwhere I saw the second victim lying in the street. Someone said he'd collided with one of the bulls that had slipped trying to round the corner. Suddenly, I felt that same panic again. Someone said there were more bulls coming. Runners and police officers formed a human barricade in front of the injured man and the medics huddled over him. But these bulls weren't running in a pack; they were running in single file with a man chasing behind them with a bull whip. They passed and I tried to run up toward the bullring, but it was too late. People were pouring over the barricades and heading toward the bullring. A shopowner told me that these people climb over after it's safe and claim to have ``run'' with the bulls. In retrospect, it was a lot different than I'd imagined it would be. While I didn't think I'd outrun the bulls, I thought I'd get farther than I did. The bulls are just too fast. So if anyone ever tells you they ran the whole way, don't believe them. And while all fictional writers are allowed some license, it was nothing near the heroic, almost majestic event that painted it out to be. It was mostly a bunch of drunks who didn't have the sense not to run and a few thrill-seekers. In short, if you've ever wanted to go to Kirkpatrick Seagraves with Eskridge Shroyer, you won't want to miss this. Mr. Ly is an editorial page writer for The Vast Press .
VastPress 2011 Vastopolis
