BlackNotBlack.com

Improv Rodeo

When the first bull charged swift and irate into the bullring his power was so palpable I pictured him as some mythic beast—a minotaur or perhaps some monster from The Iliad. The fifty men trapped inside with him melted away from him like he was radioactive, climbing the perimeter fence each time he bore down on them and then dropping back into the ring in his wake. This was a Guatemalan rodeo—a chaotic hybrid of a Stateside rodeo and a Spanish bullfight—and it was audience participation all the way. That meant the thrills and spills were going to be provided by everyday townspeople. It was improv rodeo where the trick was to face down an angry bull and escape alive.

Someone once said about Guatemala that it looks like Mother Nature spilled her paintbox there. When fiesta days arrive, what is an already colorful country becomes kaleidoscopic with streamers, carnivals, processions, and fireworks. Fiesta days also bring the rodeo, the centerpiece event of each town’s yearly holiday. San Antonio Aguas Calientes, a small town in the hills surrounding the Panchoy Valley, was staging their rodeo over two days near the town cemetary. They had built a dirt corral surrounded by a fence constructed of wooden rails and rope. You wouldn’t find a photo of this fence in the dictionary next to the word sturdy, but the best view of the action was from up there, so I had scaled the thing and straddled the top rail, about eight feet off the ground.

The bullring was unadorned inside save for a single defoliated tree, positioned in the exact center for no reason that I could discern. The fifty daredevils running for their lives were mostly locals, including a couple of festive-looking clowns and one kid in a Chicago Bulls jersey—magical number 23 naturally. Fireworks were exploding overhead, vendors were selling ice cream and cotton candy, and a mariachi band was blasting music from the bleachers. Through all this celebratory clamor the bull charged and wheeled, in search of targets who were too smart to get in his way.

But the spectators cheered for action, so before long one bold soul succumbed to the pressure. He took a stance maybe fifteen feet in front of the bull and did a disjointed dance that got the crowd laughing. And then everyone realized the guy wasn’t brave—he was drunk. While a drink or two has been known to improve one’s darts game, tipping a few before facing a bull is a good way to eliminate yourself from the human gene pool. The guy got twenty seconds into his routine, and then the bull charged almost perfunctorily and nailed him so hard he nearly rolled out of the corral.

By now the purpose of the mystery tree was clear—it was to hide behind. Which is exactly what about twenty people were doing. They stood in a line, each man with a loose grip on the man in front of him, and swept back and forth in unison like the hand of a clock. The idea was to keep the tree between them and the bull, which was fine for the anchor man, who barely had to move, but not so fine for the last man, who had to break into a full sprint to stay protected.

Maybe the bull noticed, because he went after the tail end of the queue. Any semblance of order vanished at that point, and there was a lot of stumbling and crawling, while the crowd gasped and the mariachis played trumpet commentary from the bleachers. The bravest men made sorties to smack the bull on the rump or even grab his tail, but there were simply too many targets for the creature. He got tired. Or maybe he just got bored. In any case, he stopped attacking and, not long after, his keepers lassoed him and led him from the corral.

A few minutes later bull number two charged into the ring and the crowd was treated to its first gringo appearance. Joining in on this kind of fun was pretty much established as an American tradition when guys like Ernest Hemingway and John Huston documented Spain’s Festival of San Fermin. Huston’s autobiography, An Open Book, features a photograph taken of him being nearly vivisected by a bull after he jumped from the bleachers of a Spanish plaza de toros waving his suit jacket. A few years ago Spike Lee reminded people of tradition when he filmed a Nike commercial featuring himself running with the Pamplona bulls. So foreign participation was no problem for the people of San Antonio—in fact they seemed to expect it.

The gringo mostly ran around with the masses but obviously accomplished what he’d wanted—to do it and survive. He got out of there after a short stint, and another went in. That was just about when bull two tired and his handlers came out and roped him. Everyone relaxed at that point, which is why when the bull slipped his lasso nobody was paying attention. I don’t think the gringo realized the bull was steaming in his direction until the crowd screamed. He looked up, saw he was booked on a free one-way flight back to the States—and froze. But there was another man standing next to him and for some reason the bull decided to blast that guy into orbit instead.

I had been to some traditional bullfights and come away each time deeply affected by the deaths of the bulls. Seeing animal suffering transformed into ballet arouses the polemicist in me, but the Guatemalan version was different. The bulls weren’t being tortured, slain and dragged out by their hooves. They were being led by rope back to a truck, upon which they would be carted to the next rodeo in the next town. And it was different in one other way—the bulls were winning the fights.

By bull five the perimeter fence was collapsing in three places and workers were scrambling with fresh rope to make repairs on the fly. Lightning licked nearby but the people in the pine trees weren’t about to give up their spots. The last two bulls had been disappointing and everyone wanted action. One man stepped forward with a towel and made the bull whiff half a dozen times. But there was a reason he was in San Antonio rather than in a plaza de toros in Barcelona and everyone found out why when the bull finally caught him. Amidst a chorus of screams the guy went down hard, got trampled and just missed having his delicate parts mashed into cracker spread. He was carried out of the ring incapacitated and bleeding from his nose. Since I don’t think he actually got hit in the nose, it was a pretty bad sign.

Throughout the day judges had been selecting winners in each bout—the honor being bestowed upon the bravest and most adept participants. A couple of men actually rode the bulls as they charged into the corral and they won on principle, although what they did looked more like a Jackass segment than a skilled ride. But the point of the spectacle was for men to show their bravery while entertaining the crowd and that was accomplished. With the food and music and drink it was a celebration for everyone—young, old, Guatemaltecos and extranjeros. Even the men who got trampled were happy—they all survived to tell the story.

And it was a good day for the bulls too, considering the alternatives. Not only did they make it through the rodeo without being tortured and impaled, any spectator would agree they had won every fight. Divest a man of his swords, saddles and spurs, and it really evens up the odds. No bull ever won the by-the-book bullfights I’d attended, and the horses and calves in the North American rodeo I once saw weren’t exactly bleating a happy tune. Which in my book makes the Guatemalan version better, and the Guatemalan participants braver, than any cowboy or matador

Labels: bullfight, cowboy, guatemala, rodeo

posted by Egan Ehlers @ 1:56 PM