John D. MacDonald

A Young Man of Promise

It was a black bull the size of a truck, and the horns went wide and curved back in at the tips so that a man caught between them could be spun from one horn to the other and die there. It came down on him with brute thunder and his feet were nailed and he could not move, the cape hanging useless in his hand...

He writhed awake out of nightmare and in his mouth there was a harsh, dry taste, the taste of fear — the fear which was forever there, forever waiting.

The naked light bulb, set high in the wall on the other side of the bedroom, made sharp shadows on the rumpled spread.

For one taut moment Pablo Bobadilla thought this was the day of the fight, that this was dawn on a Sunday. But as he sat up, the pain and stiffness in his body brought it all back and he knew that it was Sunday night and that the corrida was over. He was twenty-two, with thin, shadowed face, superb bull-fighter’s body, and dark hair, now rumpled from the restless sleep.

Pablo sat on the edge of the bed, where he had thrown himself, stripped to the waist, early that evening. He massaged the stiffness in his right thigh where the flat of the horn had caught him as he had tried the natural pass with the left hand, with the second bull.

He frowned. It had been an eagerness to regain control of the bull and the bull had hurried him. He narrowed his eyes and raised his shoulders as he remembered the thud of the blow, the spin of the sunlit plaza around him, the sand against his face, the close, harsh snuff of the searching bull, then the thud of hoofs moving off as Juaquin had lured the bull away with the flash of the big cape.

And then, of course, it had been necessary to walk without limping, to retrieve the cape and the sword and once again move in toward those horns which, this time at least, had failed to socket in his flesh.

He heard the clack of the dominoes in the next room. He got up and walked out. Juaquin, the most experienced member of Pablo’s quadrilla, played a game against Tomas, the picador, while Chuchu watched.

They looked up at him when he entered, and their smiles seemed too forced.

“Has it come?” Pablo asked.

“Not yet time,” Juaquin said. “Luis awaits there with orders not to come back unless he has it in his hand. How are you?”

Pablo grinned. “I have the sickness of the bulls. He has made me black and blue and green. I was not good. That I know of a certainty.”

Chuchu, the punterillo, said easily, “It was not one of the best days. But neither are you yet a full torero. The crowds do not expect constant perfection from a novillero, one who is but learning.”

“It could have been better, much better,” Pablo said.

There was silence. Juaquin moved a domino, then glanced up at Pablo and said easily, “Your two bulls were uncertain.”

“Ai,” Pablo said, “but these are the little bulls. Ones of seven hundred and fifty pounds. What happens, amigo, when I face an uncertain one of a thousand pounds?”

“Those you will surely not meet until you have your doctorate of bulls, and by then there will be the experience.”

“I could not fix my feet on that first one,” Pablo said. “I do not know why. With the big cape it was right, but not later, not at the end.”

Juaquin said, “With the big cape it was very, very good. Those six slow chicuelinas and then the fix. From fifty thousand throats it was like a gunshot, that ‘Ole!’ with each pass.”

“And then the feet would not obey.”

“Is it necessary to talk about it?” Chuchu asked.

“With the second one I was better,” Pablo said, “and the feet would obey, and then there was the natural pass I should not have attempted. It was in my mind to link the natural passes and then to use a pair of manoletinas, but after I was hit it was gone and I could do nothing but chop him between the horns and go in with the sword. I did not go close enough because I was afraid.”

“For a man of the bulls to say that he is afraid,” Tomas said, “is like saying that it is necessary for one to breathe.”

“Castillanos was good,” Pablo said.

“The ear was a gift from heaven,” Chuchu said, “not because it was a thing that the crowd desired. And his bull was verily a small railroad train. My youngest child could have kissed the horn on each pass. If you had drawn that enemy, Pablo...”

Luis came in with the four copies of the newspaper Toro that would be read on the morrow by every fan in Mexico. The cover bore a brown rotogravure of Castillanos holding high the ear he had been awarded after a performance and kill that had brought fifty thousand people to their feet.

Luis put the papers on the table, on top of the dominoes.

“It is not good?” Juaquin asked.

Luis turned away. “I would not call it good.”

Pablo could restrain himself no longer. He snatched the top paper and took it over nearer the light. He turned to the account of the afternoon, hearing behind him the rustle as the others opened the papers. He found the article and read:

“Pablo Bobadilla, in his second appearance as a novillero in the Plaza Mexico, was less promising than before. He promises to add, little to the art. Except for a tiny moment with the cape on his first enemy and two acceptable passes with his second, he was nervous and lacking in grace and confidence. His fear was evident particularly after he was felled by the second bull. He killed poorly, with neither grace nor elegance. Cushions were thrown after the poor kill of the second enemy.”

“The son!” Juaquin said. “He could not even become a sword handler, yet he writes as though he were the reincarnation of Manolete.”

Pablo dropped the paper to the floor. He went into the bedroom, closing the door behind him. He sat on the edge of the bed, his forehead on his palms. In his heart was a hot, fierce jealousy of Castillanos and his triumph, and a shame and an anger which slowly faded into hopelessness.

He did not look up when Juaquin came in quietly and closed the door behind him. Juaquin had once failed, ten years before, in the novillero season, receiving at last a horn wound that had kept him four months in hospital. He was thirty-five, chunky and brave, with no real grace, but with quickness and a knowledge of the bulls.

“The others have gone,” Juaquin said.

“A wake is not joyous,” Pablo said huskily.

“It is time to think of the bulls for next Sunday at the Plaza de Toro.”

“And of seat cushions and of horn wounds,” Pablo said bitterly.

Juaquin’s hard palm cracked against his cheek. Pablo came up off the bed in sudden fury and was held helpless as Juaquin’s hands closed on his wrists. Juaquin was pale. He spoke softly, opening his mouth only a little.

“Next Sunday there will be a bull that is right. Next Sunday will be the afternoon for which we have waited ever since the passes against cows at the ranches, four years ago. Do you understand that?”

“But I...”

“Do you understand that you made ten thousand pesos this afternoon and that my brother, who is a fat gardener, will work for seven years to make that amount?”

Pablo slowly relaxed and Juaquin released his wrists.

“Thank you,” Pablo said.

They embraced quickly in the Mexican fashion. At the door Juaquin turned and said, “Sleep, Pablo. I will pass by in the morning.”

Juaquin went down the stairs and out onto the street. Luis fell into step with him. “How is our little one?”

“He will dream of a good bull for next Sunday. In his dreams he will make a performance and a kill for legend.”

“And then?”

“And then, amigo, we must hope that he will do it in fact next Sunday. If he does, the bravery will come and the grace will return and we will be members of a prosperous cuadrilla.”

“If he doesn’t?”

“Then, Luis, we will wait for the inevitable horn wound which will mean the end of him and we either attach ourselves to another young man of promise, or we go to work.”

“Are there any more young men of promise?”

“Ai, that is the beauty of it, Luis,” said Pablo. “There are always the young men.”

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John D. MacDonald
A Young Man of Promise