About 5:30 Sunday afternoon, the authorities at Barcelona's La Monumental bull ring called in the regional police to keep the crowd from rushing the main access into the arena. That was just after somebody's fifty-something mother elbowed me in the gut, wrestling her way to the front to beg for an autograph. We were both there to see Jose Tomas, bullfighting's Chosen One. Stepping out of a blue minivan—pale, thin, looking much older than 33 in his suit of green silk and gold sequins—he practically sprinted into the ring and was gone.
Tomas is to bullfighting what Tiger Woods is to golf, or Michael Jordan to basketball, except they are athletes who don't face deadly bull horns every time they practice their craft. But like them, he came up with great expectations, matching the great ones, then elevating bullfighting to a new level. Like Jordan, he stepped away in his prime, reportedly considering an indoor soccer career before returning to the ring last June. After 12 years of bullfighting, he remains cool, graceful and determined to take risks that others disdain, so long as those risks will make a bull's death more elegant. That, after all, is the point.
But let's get one thing straight: bullfighting is not a sport. It's not even a good translation. The Spanish word, torear, has no fight in it; just bull, morphed into a verb. In a bullfight, there is no winner, no point system, no post-game press conference. Taurine journalists write more like art critics than beat reporters, recounting each performance in terms of style, emotion and technical execution. Emphasis on execution. The matador risks his life, but the bull is always killed. Well, almost always. This is the story of a rare exception.
The evening started with a flare of paso dobles from a 20-piece brass band as the three matadors strutted around the ring with their respective assistants. I watched from press row as the first bull stutter-stepped onto the sand for Luis Esplá, a paunchy 51-year old who went through the usual routine.
First, he and his assistants drew the bull through a series of passes with a broad pink-and-yellow cape, leading it toward armored horses where picadors received it with lances, which were thrust into the muscle above the bull's neck.
Second, Esplá ran three times across the bull's line of sight, drawing it close enough in a footrace to stick pairs of flagged barbs called banderillas into the same muscle, which the bull uses to gore.
Third, Esplá used a small red cape, about one meter square, to lead the bull through another series of close, dangerous passes, sucking in his gut to let the horns go by. It was like a dance, and the man and bull developed some kind of rapport. But the dance ended abruptly; drawing the bull's head downward with the red cape, Esplá sprinted head-on, leaned over its horns and drove a sword through a coin-sized opening between its shoulder blades. In less than a minute, the animal collapsed.
This is not sportsmanlike, and I do not advocate it. Children, you not only shouldn't try this at home, you shouldn't even watch it. In fact, you should have stopped reading about a paragraph ago.
Bullfighting is a vestige of something ancient, when death was part of everyday life. If football replicates strategic warfare, and wrestling reminds us of champions fighting so their armies didn't have to, then the rituals of bullfighting memorialize an older struggle, between man and nature. But Tomas' second bull—the fifth of the day—made sense in a different way.
The arena lights came on against the dusk as the 1,200-pound brown bad-ass sprinted across the ring, looking for anybody, or anything, to charge. Some bulls appear scared or reluctant. Idílico was confident as an alley cat, chasing Tomas' assistants behind a wooden barricade, then busting off splinters, punching its horns left and right like a boxer.
Tomas walked to the center of the ring and stood erect and still, holding out his cape. Idílico sprinted his way. Tomas barely moved, drawing the bull through a series of subtle turns. Idílico never tired of chasing Tomas' little red cape, muscles rippling as he followed the matador through the most athletic and poetic moves you'll ever see in a bull ring. At a stage where most bulls are wearing down, Idílico seemed to be having the time of his life.
That's why Tomas didn't pull out his sword, even after arena officials issued two warnings for exceeding his time. The crowd waved white handkerchiefs, chanting: indulto, indulto, indulto! Spanish for pardon, an indulto is a rare reward for bulls who prove their tenacity in the ring. But the officials remained silent, Idílico kept charging and Tomas refused to kill. The crowd cheered him on until arena officials finally acquiesced.
The crowd went nuts and chills ran up my spine as Tomas called to the bull, holding out the red cape for one more set of tight, winding passes. By now his suit was bloodied and a thousand camera flashes reflected off the campy sequins. Turn by turn, he moved Idílico toward the gate that led him out of the arena, sending him off to a new and rewarding career in the stud services industry. After the final bull of the night, which danced with the poor sap who had to follow Tomas, a crowd of men jumped the fences, scooped the master onto their shoulders and carried him out of the ring.
Across the street, a crowd of about 30 animal rights activists protested. Protected by the same regional police that earlier held the Tomas' fans at bay, they screamed at passing spectators, who responded with insults and political accusations.
Fascist! Communist!
They held up photographs of bulls covered in blood and dripping banderillas. They had a point. They all had a point. Then I pulled out my camera, and one of the cops asked if I was a journalist.
"Yes," I said.
"Show me your credentials."
I only had my passport and ESPN business card.
"Then you're going to have to leave."
That was fine with me.