Tijuana Bullfights

I went to the bullfights yesterday at Tijuana's bullring-by-the-sea. I like the sport of it, the cheering fans, the showy matadors, but I'm not crazy about what inevitably happens to the poor bull. He almost never stands a chance. But yesterday was different.

Gabriel-the-Tequila-Man (he has a tequila factory in Guadalajara) brought a fresh bottle and we all drank up (Jaime, Yolanda, Luis, Isabella and me). Problem was, I'd just had two beers and an overtopped vodka martini. So I was well on my way when we got there. We bought Cuban cigars to smoke while we watched the action from about four rows back.

The bull comes charging out, crazed and powerful, snorting and balls swinging, greeted by cheering fans and taunts of matadors. He's a beautiful half-ton of muscle, soon to become a heap of dead flesh. They just keep sticking him and sticking him in the back until he's worn out and bleeding to death, then a sword is thrust fully into him, between the shoulder blades. Usually the bull runs and bucks a little more, then his legs give out and just as he is succumbing to death, a knife is jabbed into the base of his skull. Then there's a last kick or two and he goes stiff. The vaqueros tie him up and three harnessed horses are whipped and slapped as they drag the carcass out, leaving a blood trail. Groundskeepers come out and rake dirt over the blood and they start fresh again.

But yesterday was different: The last bull gave such a fight that they let him live. At one point, he stopped and stared directly at me. Jaime was joking that he was going to come at me, like Pajarito (see below). We all laughed. I cheered wildly as they let the wounded and battered bull back into a gate.

Finally, a fair fight.

One of the coolest things I have ever seen is the video of "Pajarito" or "little bird" the flying bull. You should see him fly up into the stands! This was only a year or so ago, in Mexico City. The bull landed in a lady's seat -- the only fight she'd missed in years. He ended up breaking his legs in the stands and they killed him right there.






In 1930 Hemingway published a knowing essay on bullfighting in Fortune magazine, which two years later became the amazing Death in the Afternoon. The critics hated it but it was a huge success. In 1959, just as I was being born, Hemingway returned to Spain with, as Michener puts it, "two handsome and charismatic young matadors" who were about to go mano a mano, They were also brothers-in-law. Evenly matched, they battled all summer and put on a show of skill and bravery. Hemingway later used these events for his series, A Dangerous Summer.