Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
This last point may be the most important in terms of living and dying. From what we've
been told, bulls together are not as frightened as bulls alone. Bulls together tend to stay on
a path, assuming they keep their footing. Frightened bulls directly charge people. If we see
a bull alone, we will try to escape by climbing one of the wood fences. We climbed them
yesterday. It can be done quick, but the problem now is there are so many spectators lining
the street that you'd have the same success climbing them as jumping through the horizontal
gaps between the beams.
“Sorry for calling you a douche in Madrid,” Dan says.
“Thanks for calling me a douche in Madrid,” I say. “I deserved it.”
He laughs because he knows I deserved it, but I imagine he wants to clear the air in case I
end up with a gore hole.
I wrote my mom an e-mail last night saying I was scared and I loved my family. I lay
awake all night wondering if this was my last night of sleep—turns out that question made it
impossible to sleep at all. I wondered if I would be injured to the point I wouldn't be able to
have children. I thought about everything being different after today—different in a very bad
way. But here I am. I know I'm being selfish. I know people are worried about me, and that
comforts me, and that is selfish, too.
“I think,” I say, “it's less about what I would do differently than what I want to do differ-
ently when this is over.”
“How so?” Dan says.
“You know—living like this,” I say, my hands open to my sangria-soaked shirt, and that's
when it all comes out: “It has to end at some point. I want to try harder after this. Chill the
fuck out some when we get home. I'm tired. I have been for a while. Maybe try to have a
girlfriend again. Find a new job. You know—we've talked about this so many times and we
just never do it.”
“Yeah,” he starts. “I realized that about my job when we were walking around Madrid the
other day. I'm just not sure what to change that would change anything significantly. You
have your writing, your book. You have something you're enthusiastic about. Me? I'm not
sure.”
A man comes by handing out newsletter-sized papers. From what I can make out, it is a
benediction to the city's patron saint, Fermín. Fermín is the star of this show.
“See you in the stadium hopefully,” I say.
“See you in the stadium,” Dan says.
We smile and hug, pat each other on the back. We have done this man-hug thing a number
of times in the last few years on a number of adventures, but never with such a feeling of
potential harm.
The man finishes handing out the papers. People roll them up, raise them above their
heads, and chant, Spanish followed by Basque:
