Fragile Beasts (30 page)

“Tyler?”

“Yes. The Man.”

His smile returns and settles happily onto his face. He has an engaging smile. It takes some of the emotional weariness out of his eyes and makes him look his age.

“Yeah. Tyler’s an interesting guy.”

“He’s living proof that consideration for others and being open to new experiences has little to do with socioeconomic class. Tyler, though a bit crude and overly boisterous, has very nice manners and proved to be an amusing conversationalist. I wish I could say either of those things about your brother.”

“Klint’s still adjusting.”

“I think you make too many excuses for him. I think he’s always been this way.”

“Maybe. But that doesn’t make him a bad person. There are worse things to be than a guy who’s awkward at dinner parties.”

I smile at this.

“I suppose you’re right.”

I motion for Kyle to follow me inside.

I pause to lock the door, fully expecting him to say good night and head up to his room, but he lingers beside me. I get the feeling he has something more to say to me.

“You need to see Klint play ball,” he finally informs me. “Then you can forgive him just about anything.”

“And why would that be?”

“Because he has a gift. You know how people don’t care if a great writer is a drunk or a great musician is a drug addict? They make excuses for them because they’re good at other things nobody else can do.”

“I don’t agree with that way of thinking.”

“What about El Soltero? Was he a great guy or was he kind of a jerk sometimes? And if he was a jerk, did people forgive him because he was a great torero?”

I’m taken aback by his question. Not only because it’s a gross invasion of my privacy but also because it’s very insightful. Manuel was a handful, to say the least. He could definitely be a bit of a jerk, as it were, and people always forgave him. Even the insanely furious fathers of daughters with ruined reputations would eventually return to his flock of admirers.

Ironically it was this crazed aspect of his—a self-destructive, almost desperate, burning inside him that made him stand in front of charging bulls—that attracted me most to him.

He was so different from Stan, who did everything in a calculated manner and never seemed to be guided by emotion of any kind. Both men refused to obey rules, but Manuel at least acknowledged their existence and sometimes
made a pretense of feeling sorry for breaking one. Stan believed there were no rules.

Kyle must see the shock and disapproval in my face because he quickly apologizes.

“I’m sorry. I know it’s none of my business. Luis told me you were in love with him and how you saw him get killed.

“He didn’t volunteer it or anything like that,” he quickly goes on. “We were in the barn and I saw the pictures of your bulls and I started asking him questions. You know. He didn’t want to tell me. I could tell.”

“It’s all right,” I assure him.

“I’m sorry that had to happen to you.”

Again, I’m startled by this boy’s words and forwardness, but this time I’m not upset by either. I’m touched by the genuine compassion in his voice. Also, I’ve just noticed he’s covered with gravel dust and has a leaf in his hair.

“My aunt Jen had a similar experience and I think it really messed her up. When she was in high school, her boyfriend accidentally shot himself.”

“Accidentally?”

“Yeah. In the head. I don’t think she ever got over it. I mean, you know, she went out with lots of other guys after that but she never got married. Well, she got married once but they split up so quickly, my mom said it didn’t count.”

I can’t tell if Kyle’s waiting for me to comment on Aunt Jen’s travails or not. He plunges his hands into his pants pockets and his eyes roam agitatedly around the entrance hall and up and down the winding staircase.

“What I don’t understand is why you wanted to keep the bull,” he asks with so much force, I get the feeling this question has been eating at him for some time. “Wouldn’t you hate the bull? I mean, the bull
killed
your boyfriend.”

I clear my throat. I don’t really want to have this conversation. I’ve gone out of my way my entire life to avoid having it.

“Let me ask you something, Kyle. Do you blame the truck your father drove or the alcohol he drank for his death? Or do you accept them as part of the risks he took with his life every day?”

I didn’t mean for the question to be painful for the boy but obviously it is. His face falls.

“You knew he was drunk,” he mutters.

“I’m sorry. I thought it was common knowledge.”

“Yeah, I guess it is.”

“What I’m trying to say is Calladito, your father’s truck: they were the means of their deaths but not the reasons behind them. You see, Manuel and Calladito weren’t enemies. Or even competitors. They were two equal parts of a beautiful whole.”

He meets my eyes.

“Bullfighting, you mean. Luis tried to explain it to me. How it’s an art and not a sport.”

He becomes quiet for a moment.

“I think I get it. So you had to convince yourself it was okay. The way he died. Why he died. You had to make yourself defend the bull. It’s like a kid I know whose brother got killed in Iraq last year. His parents have to keep supporting the war ’cause if they admit the war is wrong, then they’re saying their kid died for nothing.”

I reach out and pull the leaf from his hair.

I hold it out to him. He takes it and looks embarrassed.

“It’s something like that, but not exactly. Come sit with me for a moment, and I’ll try to explain.”

I lead him into the front parlor. On our way there, I glimpse the bottle of wine and my glass still sitting on a table near the front door, and I bring it with me.

He takes a seat on a burnt orange velvet settee and stares at the mantel at the large, helmet-shaped clock crowned by a pawing diamond-eyed bull with a golden torero beside him who swings his capote left and right whenever the hour strikes.

I pour myself some wine and take my own seat in a crimson rattan wing-back chair with gold chenille cushions that Shelby calls my Fantasy Island throne.

“A corrida usually consists of three different bullfighters fighting two bulls each,” I begin to explain. “The day Manuel died he was performing in a special one-man corrida held in his hometown on the eve of his thirtieth birthday.

“Under normal circumstances, if one torero is badly injured or killed by a bull, one of the other toreros takes over and continues fighting the bull. But this time there wasn’t another torero. Calladito would have been taken out back behind the ring and put to death in obscurity by a nobody with a
butcher’s knife. He would have died in shame. Calladito had been an excellent bull. A toro bravo. Manuel would have wanted him to die with honor.”

Kyle mulls this over.

“I don’t get it. How can a bull die in shame or die with honor? He’s just an animal.”

“It’s true that honor is one of the qualities that separates man from the lower animals,” I concede to him. “Everything a dumb animal does is guided by instinct. He must eat. He must sleep. He must procreate. Honor is not about what you want to do or what you need to do; it’s about doing what you should do. And only people are capable of this. And very few, at that.

“Spaniards don’t view the toro as one of the lower animals. He’s regarded in some ways as equal to man. Therefore, he can have honor.”

I think I’ve explained myself perfectly, but the boy still looks unconvinced.

“It may sound improbable,” I begin again. “I used to think so myself until I became acquainted with bullfighting, but once you know what you’re looking for, you can recognize the bad bulls instantly. Bulls who are distracted. Who are afraid. Who are crazy. Who are mean. The Spanish have an expression for it:
Este toro no tiene casta
. ‘This bull has no race.’ In English you’d say, this bull has no class.

“When a bull is absolutely terrible in the ring, he gets sent back to the farm. It’s the ultimate shame for the bull and the breeder.”

Kyle shakes his head, but he’s smiling.

“So the reward for a being a great bull—a toro bravo—is death, and the punishment for being a crappy bull is getting to live?”

“That’s one way of looking at it. But again, it’s not about rewards and punishments. It’s not a game. For Spaniards, the bullfight is an encapsulation of life, and like life, the end is death. An American, on the other hand, regarding the bullfight as a competition would see the end when the bull is about to die as the torero’s triumph: I am the victor; I get to kill you. A Spaniard sees it as: Destiny is the victor; it’s time for you to die.”

I sit back in my chair and close my eyes.

“What about the really crappy bull who gets to go back to the farm?” Kyle asks. “Why isn’t it time for him to die?”

Luis steps into the room bearing a tray.

“Because destiny doesn’t care about him,” he announces gravely. “Destiny doesn’t care about the weak and the foolish.”

“Have some milk and cookies,” he says kindly to Kyle and sets down a plate of his homemade almond cookies sprinkled with crystals of pink pastry sugar.

He hands him the glass of milk.

“Drink it. It’s good for your bones.”

He glances darkly in my direction.

“You should drink it, too, but your bones are beyond help.”

“I have perfectly fine bones.”

He snorts.

“I asked Luis to come back to America with me to assist me,” I say. “He knew I wouldn’t have any idea how to take care of a bull.”

I reach for a cookie. Luis doesn’t stop me which means they’re meant as a peace offering. Kyle gulps at his milk and stops short at wiping his mouth with his sleeve. He uses one of the napkins from the tray, then pops a third cookie into his mouth.

“That was pretty nice of you,” he says to Luis between crunches.

“Yes, it was. It was very nice of me.”

“You were paid,” I remind him.

“I shouldn’t be paid?” Luis cries. “I should give away my skills and knowledge for nothing?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“It sounds like bullfighting is great,” Kyle interrupts us, getting to his feet, “but it also sounds kind of terrible.”

“Yes,” Luis agrees ardently. “It’s this combination of the beautiful and the terrible that makes it so powerful. We call it el duende: the demon who makes the passions flow. Duende is not brought into being by talent or skill but by the artist’s ability to give himself over to the moment. When possessed, he is capable of producing incredible art but sometimes at a terrible cost to himself.”

“I think there’s duende in baseball, too,” Kyle says.

“I don’t think so,” Luis sniffs. “You only find it in toreo, flamenco, and poetry.”

“Sure, there is. You should see Klint when he’s in the zone. It’s like he’s possessed. Sometimes there’s this concentration on his face that’s almost scary. You feel like he’s seeing things you can’t see. Like he’s in another world.”

“But where is the beauty in baseball?”

“Have you ever seen a three-base line drive off a low inside corner pitch?”

“I’ve never been to a baseball game in my life,” I tell them both.

“Really?” Kyle exclaims. “Never? Not even when you were a kid?”

“No.”

“You need to see one, Miss Jack. All this talk about Spanish people and their bullfights. You can’t be an American and never go to a baseball game. You should come to one of Klint’s games with me in the spring. I could take care of you.”

Luis raises an eyebrow at me.

I can’t help being affected by the boy’s enthusiasm.

“That sounds very nice, Kyle. We’ll talk about it more when the time comes.”

“Thanks for the cookies, Luis.”

“De nada.”

“Good night.”

“How long were you standing there?” I ask Luis the minute Kyle has gone upstairs.

“Long enough.”

He walks over to the sideboard and comes back with a highball and pours himself a healthy dose of wine.

“What was I thinking, Luis? Asking you to come with me back to America. You were so young. You were only a few years older than these boys. I took you away from your family. From your country.”

“You didn’t take me away from anything. I came willingly. It was my choice. I wanted to leave Spain after Manuel’s death. And as for my family, I love them dearly but I’m content to love from a distance.”

“Yes, but you’re intelligent and talented.”

He acknowledges my compliment with a nod.

“You could have done other things once you were here. You could have been a great success.”

“A successful man is the man doing what he loves.”

“Confucius?”

“No. Luis.”

“Excuse me, Miss Jack.”

I look toward the doorway where Marjorie is standing.

“Oh, hello, Luis,” she adds quickly.

“Hello, Miss Henry.”

“Miss Jack, I’m done for the night, but I wanted to remind you that you said I could take tomorrow off to go to my nephew’s birthday party.”

“Yes, of course. Have a good time.”

Luis extends the plate of cookies to her.

“Please,” he says.

“Maybe just one.”

She takes one happily, bites into it, and smiles at Luis with sugary pink lips.

“All right. Enough,” I say with exasperation and wave Marjorie out the door. “Good night.”

“You damaged that girl,” I tell Luis after she’s gone. “You are solely responsible for her weight problem.”

“It was fifteen years ago, and I didn’t damage her,” he protests. “I gave her some of the best months of her life.”

“When you stopped giving her love, you replaced it with tarta de whisky and crema catalana.”

“No one forces her to eat it.”

“Do you know that’s how I can always tell when you’re about to break up with one of your lady friends? You start taking them desserts.”

“It eases the pain.”

“It eases your conscience.”

He smiles grandly at me.

“When you take away something sweet, you must replace it with something sweet.”

S
ince attending my final bullfight well over forty years ago I’ve lost the ability to subject myself to large groups of people. I can no longer stand public events. I avoid them at all costs. I don’t attend graduations, weddings, funerals, or church. No one around here has ever seen me at a parade, a Presidents’ Day sale, a demolition derby, or swap meet.