Running the Bulls

by Cathie Pelletier

  “I’d worry about you out here with no electricity,” said Pete, “but you’ll be gone before cold weather hits.”

  “Let’s hope,” said Howard, “but these days I place no bets.”

  Pete smiled as he took the remaining cigar out of his shirt pocket and lit it up. Smoke curled away from the tip, caught the breeze and then vanished on the wind.

  “Well, Thoreau,” said Pete, “in that case, the woodpile is around back.”

  ***

  When Howard and Pete joined the happy hour regulars, they were all in a tizzy, the way birds get excited at a feeder. Another postcard had arrived that afternoon from Larry’s pump. This time, it seems, the pump had visited the Old North Church, in Boston. On the back Donna had scrawled, one if by hand, two if by pump. Larry had tears in his eyes as he read the card for the fiftieth time.

  “Fucking whore,” Larry said. “She’s pushing my back to the wall on this.” The picture of his pump at Pioneer Village was now taped to the mirror behind the bar, in between William Cohen and Lola Falana. Next to it was a newer Polaroid shot: the pump on the steps of the famous Boston church, waiting for Paul Revere to thunder by.

  “I say we form a special commando unit, go down to Boston, and get the thing back.” This was from Freddy Wilson. Howard had just stopped by room seventeen to drop off his jacket. He would sleep there one more night before moving out to Pete’s cabin. Once that happened, he had already made a promise to himself to visit the lounge once a week, maybe less. True, he and Pete had liked popping in after a game of golf for a quick, cold beer. But in the past almost month that Howard had lived in the building, he’d seen enough of Pete, of Larry, of Wally, of Freddy, of the other regulars. He wanted his safe, married life at Patterson Street back. He wanted to mean it the next time he said, “Hey, good to see you,” to any of these guys.

  He ordered his rum.

  Two more days and he was on his way to Pamplona.

  “So, how’s it feel?” asked Wally, as he gave Howard the drink.

  “What’s that?” asked Howard.

  “You know,” said Wally. “I mean, shit, none of us thought you’d really go to Spain. But you’re doing it, man. I gotta tell you, Howie, I’d be scared as fuck to run with them bulls.”

  Howard tried not to let his appreciation show. He had waited years for this kind of scene, had dreamed of it since he was a boy, watching all those old Hollywood flicks in which men like Audie Murphy, and John Wayne, and Gary Cooper proved themselves. Men with Remingtons strapped to their lean hips, with machine guns rat-a-tat-tatting in their hands, with airplanes buzzing beneath them, or horses sweating against their chaps. Men with just their fists, but men, dammit. And they were smart men, too, back in those days. In the ’50s you didn’t have Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone. You didn’t hear dialogue like “Hasta la vista, baby!” and “Yo!” You heard intelligent speech, dammit, because men were allowed brains back then, to go with their dicks. Hollywood knew it. And the average guy on the street knew it, too. So why hadn’t they seen the signs? Because the signs were there, too, if you knew how to look for them. Trouble was, few people did. And guys like Howard had no way of peering into the future and witnessing what would be the emasculation of the American male. Instead, American men felt a rumbling in their groin area, a trembling of what was to come. But the minute they got a glimpse of it, the minute they realized that maybe those suburbs they were so proud of, maybe all that growing industrialization that they were part of, those sleek automobiles that were getting bigger and longer by the year, maybe it was all going to shrink one day, the suburbs running out of space, the American car growing smaller and smaller until it became Japanese. Maybe it was going to suck them down the drain, where they would all disappear for good. But Howard and his ilk had ignored those signs. Instead, if he and the average American guy got nervous, all they had to do was rush down to the movie theater and buy a ticket to see Brando one more time in The Wild One. Or maybe James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause. Then, they could sit back and breathe easy as Marlon and James played it all out for them on the big silver screen, made that tingling they felt lessen just a bit, made them forget about the castration that was sure to come, so many years down the road. They could sit back, with one hand into a bucket of buttered popcorn, the other hand dangling from the arm they had just thrown around the back of their best girl’s neck, dangling as close to that pure, lily-white breast as was possible in the 1950s. That was the Holy Grail of Howard’s generation, because all that mattered back then was getting that titty into your hand, holding it as though it were a soft white snowball. It was all that mattered because Marlon and James were looking out for the American male. Marlon and James were watching the store. How did anyone know that Marlon and James were slowly being morphed into Arnold and Sylvester? How the hell could anyone dream?

  “This is on the house,” said Wally. He put another rum in front of Howard. Wally was a generous man again, now that Donna Riley was gone. “You cover your butt over there, you hear me, Howie? That’s a dangerous thing you’re doing.”

  “Yeah, well, what you gonna do?” Howard asked. An image of Babe Ruth flashed through his mind. He hoped he lived to witness the Red Sox lose the World Series one more time. He would be sad, but he would be alive. And Wally was right. He was really going to do it. He was leaving in the morning for the drive to Bangor. From there, it was on to Boston, London, and then, that old Bilbao moon, would rise above the dune.

  “Hey, Runs Without Balls!” Pete shouted. Howard turned and stared at Pete, who was now hitting on five women, all seated around a table by the door and dressed in what looked like waitress uniforms from a fast food joint, purple and yellow. They reminded Howard of a flock of exotic finches. They waved in sync, five hands, five big smiles. Howard had asked Pete several times about his wife. Doesn’t Carolyn ever miss you at home? No, Pete had said, she doesn’t. There you had it. Howard knew why she didn’t miss him, too. He turned his back to the table. His plan was to say good-bye to the boys early. In the morning, he would rise with the sparrow in the sign, he would go for a mile-long run before showering and driving to Bangor. Well, maybe not a mile. A half mile would do it. He hadn’t taken up running as he had intended earlier, and as Pete had instructed him to do. But there was still time. He would run in the morning and then walk a lot in the airport at Logan while he waited for his international flight. And then, when he got to Pamplona, he would still have two days to get over his jet lag and get in shape. That ought to be enough time. How fast can bulls run?

  Wally had begun entertaining a young couple who had taken lopsided stools at the bar, new, fresh faces on whom he could ply his wares, wares that were no longer appreciated among the regulars.

  “There is something about a martini, a tingle remarkably pleasant,” Wally recited as he made their martinis. “A yellow, a mellow martini, I wish I had one at present.”

  The woman giggled and the man nodded his appreciation of such fine talent. The phone rang behind the bar. With one hand, Wally put the martini in front of the man. He answered the phone with his other hand. Larry looked up from his keyboards, anxious, as if by some wild chance it was the pump, escaped from its captor and calling from a pay phone. Help. I’m on the roller coaster at Coney Island. But the call was for Howard. He thanked Wally as he accepted the receiver. John had promised to phone if he was able to make dinner that night, so Howard expected to hear his son’s voice on the other end of the line. But it wasn’t John. It was Ellen. She was crying hysterically. It took Howard an eternity to calm her down enough to find out where she was. The hospital. Why? Eliot was there. Why was Eliot there? Howard felt something breaking inside him. It was starting to come together. Ellen phoning him, of all people, at the Holiday Inn lounge, of all places. Howard waved his arm at Larry, a frantic wave, telling him to stop playing. Seeing Howard’s face must have been enough for Larry, for he quit instantly. Pete and
Freddy also saw that something was wrong. They stopped talking. Voices filtered over from some customers at other tables, but the bar had fallen into paralyzed stillness.

  “I can hear you now, Ellen,” Howard said into the phone. “Tell me what’s wrong.” And so she did. She told him. She was phoning from the hospital where they’d taken Eliot. He’d been riding his bike on the street in front of his house. Davie was with him. A car had coming flying down the street, the driver possibly drunk. The car had lost control, had driven up onto the sidewalk. It was dark blue, at least Davie thought it was. It struck Eliot. It went on its way. Eliot was still alive. But barely. And then, Ellen had hung up.

  Howard stood for a few seconds, phone in his hand, staring at the photos of Bill Cohen and Lola Falana behind the bar, dusty and yellow, but still holding the old energy of the day they were taken. Eliot was still alive. Wally took the phone from Howard’s hand. Pete appeared at Howard’s elbow.

  “My grandson is in the hospital,” Howard said, his voice trembling the way Vera’s had when she talked of her husband, Ben Collins. “He was struck by a car.”

  “Come on,” said Pete. “I’ll drive you out there.”

  ***

  When Howard arrived at Bixley Hospital, he rushed in through the large glass doors of the emergency entrance only to be informed that he must wait there for a doctor to come out and speak to him.

  “I’d like to see my grandson,” Howard had told the young woman at reception. She shook her head and looked generally helpless with the situation. Before she could assure Howard yet again that it would be just a minute longer, a doctor arrived. He had been summoned to the front with the news that the grandfather was waiting in reception. This is how Howard learned that his only grandson, Eliot Lane Woods, had just died.

  “Your son and his wife are still with him in intensive care,” the doctor said, his voice low and steady. “Do you want me to take you there?” Howard looked at this man’s face, a face years younger than his own, a stranger to him. He nodded. He would like to go wherever Eliot was. The doctor put a hand on Howard’s shoulder.

  “Come on, Mr. Woods,” he said. Howard heard all this through a blurred glass, as if the world had suddenly separated itself from him. He was conscious of Pete, there at his side, asking the questions Howard couldn’t think to ask. Where’s Ellen, being the first. She was somewhere in a private room, he was told, with a nurse who was trying to console her. Another nurse came along with Howard and Pete and the doctor, down the long, shiny hallway.

  “I want to see Ellen first,” Howard told this woman. He felt strong, warm tears on his face and realized they were running from his eyes. Could you cry and not know it? Pete put his hand on Howard’s shoulder. The hand felt warm and heavy.

  “We’ll find Ellen,” Pete whispered. The nurse opened a door that said Family in small white letters on a black sign. Howard wiped his tears away. He didn’t want Ellen to see him cry. The nurse and the doctor stepped aside so that Howard could enter the room. Pete came with him. Inside, Ellen was sitting in a chair by the window. Her own eyes were swollen. On her lap she held Eliot’s jacket, the Florida Gators.

  “I’ll wait out here in case you need me,” Pete said and Howard nodded to him. Pete left the room, closing the door behind him. Good ole Pete. He was a steady friend, steady as their golf game all those many years.

  Howard walked over to Ellen and stood looking down at the jacket. It lay on her lap like something that had once been alive but was now lifeless. He knew he had to see Eliot one more time. He knelt next to Ellen, and she dropped her head against his shoulder.

  “Oh, Howie,” she cried. “How will we live without him?” Howard cradled her in his arms, rocked her body, touched his lips to her hair. It felt so good to hold her, and yet he could feel the weight of grief now in her body. The lightness of her had gone away.

  “I don’t know, sweetheart,” Howard said. It had been a lot of days since he called her that, and yet, it was what he had called her for almost forty years. “Sweetheart, I just don’t know,” he said again.

  Another doctor stepped into the room, a man not much more than thirty, his face grim with the news. Maybe death was still somewhat new to him, given his youth. He looked at Howard.

  “I’m Dr. Moirs,” he said. “Do you want to join your son and daughter-in-law?” Howard nodded, but Ellen shook her head. She lifted the jacket to her face and breathed the scent of it. It was already wet with her tears.

  “I want to remember him as he was,” said Ellen. Howard leaned over and kissed the top of her head. Then he followed the doctor out of the room and down the long hallway. At the room that held Eliot, several nurses had gathered outside, talking in hushed tones.

  When they saw Howard, they fell into silence. A nurse with tiny diamond earrings in her lobes opened the door for him. He followed Dr. Moirs into Eliot’s room. Patty was sitting on a chair by the bed, her head down in her hands. There seemed to be no life left in her. How can emotion actually have weight and substance? Howard wondered. But it did. Like Ellen, whose body now seemed sodden with grief, Patty appeared to be helpless beneath some great boulder that was pressing her down, pressing the life out of her. But Howard knew Patty was alive. He also knew that the weight was unbearable, that it might even kill her.

  John was lying on the bed, his lanky legs stretched out the length of it, Eliot in his arms. Howard stepped to the side of the bed and looked down at them, his son and grandson, his seed, his offspring, his life. Eliot’s little lips were already blue. His face was badly cut, his right eye swollen. A patch of hair had been torn from his scalp. But he was still that little boy, the gentle child with the big heart who loved pepperoni pizza and a game of Asteroids. John seemed to be humming some song, the kind of childhood lullaby parents sing to their kids. When he sensed someone standing near the bed, he opened his eyes. Howard put a hand on John’s leg, the only way he could say I’m here, son. He wanted to speak those words, but he couldn’t. It felt as if his throat had broken open, split with grief, no matter how hard he was trying to be strong for John and Patty. Howard reached out then and took one of Eliot’s hands in his own. There was a cut on the hand, and a purplish swelling around Eliot’s little finger. Howard realized then that the finger was broken. A flash of panic overtook him. He turned to the doctor, frantic.

  “His finger is broken!” Howard shouted. “Somebody needs to fix it!” He heard Patty cry out, an anguished cry that tore through the room. A nurse came and put her hand on Howard’s arm.

  “It’s okay, Mr. Woods,” the nurse said. She patted his back. “It’s okay.” Howard turned to John, who had leaned forward to kiss the boy that lay in his arms. John kissed Eliot’s face, his forehead, his lips, his nose. He smiled down at his son. Then, he looked up at Howard.

  “There were children, you know,” John said. Tears ran out of his eyes and down his face. “Beneath those bombs we dropped on Baghdad,” he said, for he could tell that Howard was confused. “There were children.”

  ***

  It was just before midnight that Howard and Ellen stepped outside the big glass doors of the Bixley Hospital emergency entrance. Patty’s mother and sister had arrived earlier and they had driven Patty and John home. Pete had already gone, after telling Howard he would leave the Aston Martin in the parking lot, in case Howard needed it. By the time Ellen and Howard walked out into the night, it was pouring a cold, summer rain. Howard held Ellen’s cotton sweater for her so that she could slip her arms into it. They stood back out of the rain, side by side, and watched as lightning broke the sky in the east and then came crashing to earth somewhere in the distance. So much power. So much pain. Howard looked over at this woman he loved so well, Eliot’s grandmother. He saw it clearly, recognized it, identified the monster that had grown between them like a fungus, an algae that can’t be stopped: grief. It either joins, or it separates for good. And now they were standing with
nothing but pain between them.

  Howard put his arms around her then, and Ellen rested her head against his chest. He was now glad, no exhilarated, maybe even exalted, that he’d crashed the birthday lunch at Chuck E. Cheese’s. What had Eliot said? I was only pretending that I didn’t care, but I did. I wanted to spend my birthday with you both. Howard wished he could ask Ellen if she needed him to come home, at least for the next few days. Home was where he wished to be. But he wanted now, more than ever, to do what was right, an action that would help, not hinder. The Woods family had in an instant, and thanks to a stranger whose name they might never know, become a family that would need all the help it could get. As if reading his mind, Ellen looked up into his eyes.

  “No, Howie,” Ellen said, and he nodded. He understood instantly. That’s what so many years of marriage can do for a man and a woman. It gives them their own language, like twins who speak gibberish. No was all she had to say. But he knew how she meant it. It was not that she didn’t love him, or miss him, or need him. It was that the monster between the two of them had not been slain. It had only been replaced with this new monster. And now Ellen wanted to share her grief with no one, not even him, not even Eliot’s grandfather. She wanted to hoard her sorrow, as if it were a family heirloom. And so she turned and walked across the parking lot to her car. Wind and rain swept along the pavement, a blanket billowing at the heels of her feet, following along with her. Howard waited, wanting to see her safely inside the gray Celica. When she backed out of the parking lot and left the hospital, he followed, the storm beating on the canvas top of his little car, wind rocking it back and forth. At Patterson Street, he waited at the curb as the garage door went up and Ellen’s car disappeared inside. He waited as the door came back down. He waited as the kitchen light burst on. Howard waited, outside, in the heart of the storm, and imagined how tiny the lights of his car must look on a wind-tossed sea. Two small yellow beacons. He hoped Ellen saw them out there in the dark rain, and knew that she was being watched with great affection. He waited.