No Relation (28 page)

“Out of the way!” I shouted. “Coming through!”

I tore through the streets of Pamplona just a few steps ahead of my ferocious pursuers. How could dogs with such tiny legs run so fast? I bobbed and weaved, faked one way, went another, just to gain a few feet of breathing room. But still they stuck to my trail. I was impressed with their stamina and worried about mine. A block later I was still sprinting, and so were the three Chihuahuas. In fact they were closing. They had spread out behind me to dilute the impact of my cuts and dekes. Still they ran. As I looked to my right down the cross-streets at each intersection I ran through, I could see the crowds of bull-runners and even caught the occasional glimpse of the bulls themselves. My heart was pounding in fear and near exhaustion. The mutts must have been on something to enhance their performance. They just wouldn’t quit.

I had to change something up here. I wasn’t going to last in a straight-line dash. The dogs were still with me and clearly committed to running me down. So at the next cross street, with nothing left to lose, I feigned left and darted right. Bad idea. I should have feigned right and darted left. I tend to make bad decisions when stressed. It turned out I was running directly toward the major thoroughfare occupied by a thousand runners and six very angry bulls. As I approached the crowds who were cheering on the brave runners and enraging the bulls, I suddenly had a
thought. It was not an earth-shattering idea. In fact, it was really quite basic and should not have consumed five blocks of thinking time. My hunger and fear had combined to cloud my normally quite sound judgment.

These vicious dogs were not interested in me. They were after my half-eaten San Jacoba. Yep, that was my epiphany. Impressive, I know. Instantly, I dropped the cursed sandwich and kept running. And just as instantly, the dogs broke off the chase and fought one another for what was left of my San Jacoba. But I was still in full flight, and I reached the mass of spectators just as six or seven frightened and exhausted bull-runners broke through the crowd into the cross-street. We all crashed together and fell in a frightened and exhausted heap on the cobblestones. They’d barely escaped the wrath of the final angry charging bull, and I had outwitted all three of the Chihuahuas. We all just lay there, a tangle of arms and legs, breathing hard, trying to regain our wind and our senses. Our mutual brushes with death turned the air around us electric. When we all realized that we’d beaten the odds and survived, we helped each other to our feet and engaged in much hugging and backslapping on our death-defying achievement. We had looked mortality in the face and outrun it. We had survived, together. We stood there, our chests still heaving as we sucked in air, our arms interlocked, the bonds between us forged in a common crucible where danger was denied and defied.

Clearly my brothers-in-arms were not aware that while they were braving that final angry bull, I was dodging dogs not much
larger than guinea pigs – although there was not one but three of the tiny terrors chasing me down. So I just kept my mouth shut and went with the backslapping.

I slipped away from my compatriots in the crowd outside the bullring where bulls and runners alike had ended the sprint. I saw a little cantina on another side street. After ensuring that the premises were canine-free, I ordered wine and another San Jacoba. I’d burned so many calories in the chase, I was ready to eat again.

I wasn’t looking forward to my afternoon, but felt I had no choice. As 2:00 p.m. approached, I walked back to the Pamplona bullring. Apparently it’s the third largest in the world and seats nearly 20,000. The tickets had gone on sale the evening before so there was nothing available in what we would call in the U.S. the box office. So I just bought a scalped ticket on the street and filed in. Thanks to some old photos and some research I’d done online before the trip, I knew approximately where Hemingway liked to sit for the bullfights. My seat was actually quite close. I looked over to where he’d sat and tried to picture him there, excited and moved by the matadors’ feats of bravery.

Then the first bull galloped into the ring as the spectators hooted and hollered. After his grand and glorious entrance, it was all downhill for the bull. It was painful, physically painful, to watch. I doubt the bull enjoyed it much either.

Here’s how it generally goes down. To open the proceedings, the bull is mercilessly taunted by picadors and matadors. When the bull charges, the garishly costumed men simply duck
behind a secure wooden wall where they are perfectly safe. Predictably, the bull grows more and more frustrated and angry.

Then to add injury to insult, the picadors start sticking sharp multicoloured skewers into the bull’s back. The blood flows. The crowd cheers. The bull weakens. When there are five or six skewers sticking into the animal, a matador then moves into the ring and forces the bull to charge through his cape over and over again until he’s nearly overcome with exhaustion (the bull, not the matador). The bull seldom makes satisfying contact with anything more substantial than the air. Then the matador stabs the bull with a few barbed wooden sticks with little flags attached. The bull slows more, the blood loss and fatigue taking their toll. Then, when the bull is barely able to stand in one place, we reach the climax of the sordid proceedings, the
coup de grâce
. The matador stands before the half-dead beast, raises a sword above his head in a move that almost looks balletic, and thrusts the blade deep between the bull’s shoulders to sever the aorta or pierce the heart. If it is done properly, the bull drops to the ground, stone dead. But often, it’s not done properly and the bull suffers terribly before being dragged from the ring and killed offstage. It’s a great dishonour for the matador to fail to kill the bull cleanly and quickly. Oh, the poor matador.

I’d researched all of this before the trip. I’d forced myself to watch bullfights on YouTube so I knew what to expect. But I didn’t see much of my first live bullfight. The sun was beating down and the temperature in the stands must have been close
to 100° Fahrenheit. Naturally, I was not in the shade. As well, I was tired from my overnight journey not to mention my terrifying Chihuahua chase earlier in the morning. The heat and my fatigue, together with the gruesome spectacle playing out before me, proved a potent combination.

I had no idea I’d passed out until I came to outside of the stadium. As far as I could figure out, two security staff had been alerted by the person sitting in front of me, the fat man I’d just fainted on. They carried me out, sat me in the shade, and tossed a little cold water on my gills until I revived. How embarrassing. I took the next bus back to Vitoria and boarded the overnight train for the return trip to Paris. Madrid was closer, but it was still cheaper to fly back to the States from Paris.

Shortly after take-off, with Hemingway’s Paris and Pamplona receding behind me, I turned on my laptop. I launched Microsoft Word and opened the file holding my manuscript. Chapter 12. Twenty minutes later, I was playing solitaire. Shit.

Hat was waiting for me in the Miami airport Arrivals area shouldering a red and blue Adidas sports bag, circa 1974. He was a little excited.

“Hem, you’re here! You made it! You are really and truly here,” he spouted. “I’m in Miami and you’re here, too.”

I was exhausted and wasn’t exactly sure how to respond.

“Hey, Hat. Good to see you. Um, Key West, here we come,”
I said in a voice that was better suited for announcing the death of a cherished pet budgie.

“I can tell you that I’ve been exploring this very impressive airport since my flight arrived just two short hours ago and our gate is just down this way,” he said, grabbing my elbow and leading me along the corridor as if we would surely lose each other without his hand gripping my arm. “I am also very pleased to report that our flight is on time. I even had the nice airline people put me in the seat next to you. It is all working out so well, is it not?”

“It couldn’t be better, Hat. But don’t take it personally if I fall asleep on the flight. I’m completely spent.”

“Well then you really must use this on the plane. It is just so comfortable. It is the only way to sleep on a plane.”

Hat unzipped his bag, reached in, and pulled out one of those inflatable neck collars passengers use to make in-flight dozing a little easier. Except this one was gigantic, pink, and sparkly. Judging by its size, there could not have been much room left in Hat’s sports bag for clothes, toothbrush, and whatever else he may have packed. The sparkles and splinters of reflected light would surely make it impossible to sleep while wearing this gaudy tractor-tire inner tube around my neck. It was more likely to induce a migraine. Hat pushed the collar into position, hyper-extending my neck. With it installed, I could only see directly in front and above me. It was that big.

“Um, Hat, this is huge. Are you sure this isn’t a pool chair or perhaps a life raft?”

“Oh, Hem, you are always so hilarious,” Hat replied, shaking his head and laughing. “Life raft. Ha! So very amusing.”

I hadn’t really been trying to be funny at all.

I’d never been to Key West. Coming in for a landing, you get a clear sense of how lopsided and overpowering the ocean-to-land ratio is. I found it somewhat disquieting. It really doesn’t matter where you are in Key West, the ocean isn’t far away. The sea is always just outside your window, down the street, across the road, sometimes beneath you. It lent the city a vague sense of fragility that settled over me as well.

I checked us into the Westin Key West Resort and Marina at the confluence of Front and Whitehead streets. Though Hat fought it, I insisted on paying for the taxi, the rooms, and our quick dinner in the hotel restaurant. As far as I could tell, Hat’s only income came from his part-time gig as an audio-dish aimer at the New York Jets games. It hardly seemed fair that he should pay so I could try to evict a long-dead writer from my psyche. Although it was only about 7:30 p.m. in Key West, my body was still in Paris, in the middle of the night. Hat reluctantly allowed me to go to bed so I might be reasonable company the following day. We agreed to meet in the restaurant at eight the next morning for breakfast.

Just as I was about to crawl under the covers, something slid under my door. I picked it up, turned it over, and looked at the
itinerary Hat had developed, printed, and laminated. All that was missing was a magnet so I could hang it on the fridge. Okay, the fridge was missing, too. Here was Hat’s plan for the next day:

I felt a rush of warmth for Hat flow through me as I pictured him crouching outside in the corridor, trying to slip the schedule under my door without making a sound. The itinerary actually was laminated. I could take it home and use it as a placemat. He would have had to go to a Staples or a print shop to have it plasticized. Now that’s commitment. I was touched.

As expected, I awoke early, still on Paris time, but did not even reach for my laptop. I just lay there and watched the sunrise through the picture window. Hat was waiting in the restaurant. We both did the breakfast buffet to save time. We were walking along Whitehead Street by 8:30 or so. It was only a few blocks to the Hemingway House. Hat went straight to the ticket
booth. We could see the young woman inside but she was busy working on her computer. Hat knocked on the glass partition.

“Good morning. We are very eager to tour Mr. Hemingway’s home. Might we have two tickets, please?”

“I’m sorry but we’re not open …” Hat, who was instantly livid, interrupted her.