IN an ancient plaza de toros on a dusty Spanish plain, Finn tracked a 300-pound bull calf as it burst into a fit of trots and stops. He should have worn proper pants. A grown man in red canvas Chucks and Hollister boardshorts, he had attired himself like the college students whose parties and field trips he planned. He might have worn a baseball cap too if doing so didn’t obscure the long curly brown mess he’d grown atop his head. He liked his hair and the way it had become. No grays yet, and if there were, he’d hide them.
“Dude, los cuernos parecen Dina’s tetas,” shouted Derek, one of the students.
Finn stiffened and kept his eyes on his opponent. “A little busy now,” he said, curtly repeating the phrase the boy had used half an hour before. Finn had wanted to talk about their plans for when the term ended. Derek hadn’t, and the blowoff hurt. He might not have been the first guy with whom Finn had tumbled into bed, but he was the only one he’d ever felt something for. And he was a student. Sooner or later, he’d have to return to the States. Finn desperately wanted it to be later.
“Dude,” Derek waved his camera phone. “You gotta see this.”
“Later. I’m not getting gored.”
“Exactly. That torito’s retarded, te lo juro.”
He ignored the boy to focus on the beast. Derek was right, of course. The calf’s horns, dry and cracked, twisted into a backwards curl. Caught unawares, he might be bumped, badly bruised. No way gored. Still, he wouldn’t look at the phone. Instead, he tightened his grip on a leftover shred of stable blanket, his capote, and shouted “¡Toro!”
“Dude, it won’t even look at you.”
Finn flapped the sorry cape like shaking out a rug. Dust stirred from the turf below, browning the red wool. A real capote fluttered around there somewhere. Its tightly woven fibers of silk and gold repelled the dust and sparkled in the sun. According to the ranch hands, it once belonged to the one of the greatest bullfighters in all of Spain—Manuel Benítez Pérez—“¡El mismísimo Cordobés!” Finn saw it last in the hands of a visiting professor’s son, a ten-year-old English kid named Teddy.
Across the ring, Don Julio Jiménez, Finn’s boss and the director of Derek’s school, regarded the lolling animal and mocked. “¡Qué torero ese¡” he cackled. “¡Qué maestro!” The ranch hands snickered, and the students watching laughed.
Annoyed, Finn cried “¡Toro!” again to no avail. The torito stayed in its place.
“¡Walter!” the old man pointed to his watch. He then mimed a guitar in his arms and turned up his hands inquiringly. “¿Dónde están?” he wanted to know.
Finn nodded and slung the capote over his shoulder. He got the message. He should be working. The event was for the students, not for him.
As activities coordinator for the Ortega Institute for International Study, he routinely organized outings like these. Private gallery viewings, wine tastings, castle tours—he tried to outdo himself every time. Today’s event at the Ganadaría Dos Lunas, a picturesque fighting-bull ranch in the rolling hills of La Mancha, celebrated the end of the Institute’s spring term. He arranged a tour of the grounds and a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to play matador with a real bull. Later, if the musicians he hired ever showed up, they’d end the day with a grand picnic dinner and an evening serenade from a Tuna band—costumed minstrels playing traditional Iberian fare.
He couldn’t have picked a better, more Spanish spot. The pastures at Dos Lunas comprised some 2,000 acres. A tidy olive grove next to the main house would be their picnic grounds, and they were meeting their bull calf in an authentic plaza de toros on top of a hill. The ranch’s ancestral owners built the tiny ring from clay dredged off the bottom of the mighty River Tagus, which bordered the land to the north. Lacking any sort of seating, the structure wasn’t intended for the viewing of actual bullfights. Rather, its purpose was to facilitate the buying and selling of fighting cattle. For a simple capea, though, the place was perfect. Finn didn’t much care for the carnage of the corrida de toros, but he liked the idea of a bloodless caping game.
“Dude,” Derek still waved his phone. “Tell me those horns don’t look like Dina’s titties.”
Finn brought his hands to his face and brushed his hair back behind his ears. He sighed. Although jumping into the ring wasn’t the most grown-up thing he’d ever done, it at least got him some of the boy’s attention. Now he needed a way to keep it. Time was short. Already the end of the school year, they needed a place to be for the summer. He couldn’t deny the tightening in his chest when he considered Derek’s inevitable return trip to the States. ‘No,’ he thought. ‘Just no.’ Ibiza seemed like the perfect solution. The island, with its nightclubs and beaches, was as good a summer plan as any. And Finn would know. A former high school teacher, he was an expert on summer vacation.
“Do you even care I was fighting a bull just now?”
“Man, you weren’t fighting shit.”
Finn laid the capote over the outer plaza wall and took the phone, scrolling through images—a shabby flat, some girl sleeping, café, nightclub, cathedral, bus ride—to the picture Derek wanted him to find, the one of his classmate Dina at a beach in Cadíz. Finn hadn’t gone on that trip. Recently Derek had been asking him not to attend the overnighters.
Derek leaned in to tap the screen. “Dude.”
In the image, Dina, topless, shook sand from her beach blanket. Behind a pair of oversize sunglasses, she smiled. Finn thought the image unremarkable, nothing he hadn’t seen of actresses or royals in gossip rags like Pronto or Diez Minutos. Nevertheless, he stared. Dina was one of the Institute’s better students, a nice girl with dignity, self-restraint. She would never drunkenly kiss some girl at a bar for a boy’s attention or pull up her top for stupid beads at Carnaval.
Derek backed up to place wrists over his nipples, elbows jutting out like wings. “Dude.” He contorted his face as though he’d tasted something sour. “I’m Dina’s titties,” he said.
Finn laughed. The horns did look like the girl’s breasts, kind of. One slightly larger than the other, they tapered into narrow cones, nipples veering away from the center of the chest. In the picture, Dina looked relaxed and comfortable, like she’d risen from a lover’s bed to fetch a glass of water without wrapping herself in a sheet or towel.
“You should delete this.” He turned the camera off. “Having it’s wrong.”
Derek snatched at the device. “It’s not wrong, man. It’s natural.”
Finn shook his head. Derek reached for his phone again. “Hey, it’s not like I took a picture of her chugging cock.”
“You couldn’t. She’s a nice girl, and she’s out of your league.”
“No way!”
“Yes, way.” He released the phone. “And anyway, she’s your friend, and having this is bullshit… But I can’t say that I’m not proud of you. I’ve been here three years almost, and no American girls take their tops off at the beach with me.”
Derek laughed. “That’s because you’re old.”
Finn regretted ever discussing his age. Rules had been broken with this boy, important rules. Revealing the details of his past—childhood, college, courtship, divorce, the black year he turned thirty, depression, 34, 35, 36—was a mistake.
“You mad, bro?” Derek asked.
“So, I’m older than you. So what? That doesn’t mean I’m old. I’m not fat. I still have all my hair.”
“You’re right. You’re as young as you feel.”
“That’s not what I’m saying.”
“Dude, you’re old.” Derek was being playful. Finn was not. Although he labored to look and act the part, he found it increasingly harder to blend with the students. His last few terms at the Institute confirmed as much. He’d establish a coterie of 10 or 12 fans at the start of a semester only to watch their numbers dwindle as they caught the scent of his fraud.
Finn looked around the plaza and inventoried his former chums. Dina sniffed him out within the first weeks of January. Evan disappeared into the arms of Saro, a local girl, not long thereafter. Mitch and Ryan stopped calling in March. Katie, Drew, and Steve were only customers now (the locals preferred chocolate, gummy black bricks of hashish from the north of Africa, but he had found a lucrative market for dank among the musicians and students at the university), and while the six rowdy fraternity brothers from Nebraska would still meet him for litros at the start of their weekend nights, they’d stopped inviting him to hang out in their flat as far back as April. Derek was Derek, unpredictable and wild, but the boy had become more than a drinking buddy.
Finn had never planned for that. After their first time together, he was prepared to write the whole thing off. A lot of booze had been involved, and while he hadn’t been the instigator, he remembered what it was like to be a 20-year-old guy with a girlfriend at home. He’d regret the indiscretion, give the kid some space, and endure the occasional awkwardly chilly hello before he could send him home to the States at the end of the term. He wouldn’t mourn the lost friendship, though. He cycled through best friends every four months or so. The Ortega Institute for International Study kept sending him new ones.
But Derek’s visits persisted. Sometimes they’d watch basketball on Finn’s computer or smoke a bowl or grab what passed for pizza at one of the local taverns. They never talked about the sex. It happened when it happened, and that was that. Spur of the moment. Opportunistic. Otherwise, they’d hit the bars and the clubs with the rest of the students. They hung out. Finn never knew when his next time with Derek would be, or if there’d even be a next time, but whenever Derek would surreptitiously drag his open palm over his chest at a thumping discotheque, Finn knew it’d be a matter of minutes before he found himself on his knees in an alley with the boy’s cock in his mouth.
As the semester passed, he told Derek everything—his former teaching, the wake of his busted-up marriage, and the life in the States he had left behind. Divulging his age was a huge and thrilling risk. Everyone knew he wasn’t a student of the Institute, but he had been successful in his ability to pass for mid-twenties. Only the papers in Don Julio’s file could say otherwise. Well, those papers and now the boy.
“Just don’t call me old.”
“Jeez. OK. Sensitive.”
“Look, if I’m old, then I shouldn’t be hanging out with you.”
Derek softened. “Hey,” he said. “You know I’m a pimp.” In Derek’s vernacular, this was an apology, a peace offering. Lately, whenever the boy noticed him sulking about missed time together, he’d brush his hand over Finn’s cheek and say the words. “Anyway, I’m just trying to enjoy the party, OK? We’ll talk about this trip thing later.”
The trip. Ibiza.
• • •
“What do you say to a trip to Ibiza?” was how he proposed the idea.
“Aw, man. You know I’m heading home at the end of the term.”
“Right, where you’ll work construction with your uncle. Let me talk to one of my guys. He’ll rebook your flight for the middle of July, and you can do this Ibiza thing for a few weeks with me. June kicks off their tourist season. There’ll be clubs, beaches, parties day and night.”
Derek took off his ball cap ran his fingers through his hair. “I don’t know…”
“Don’t let this be about money. I have you covered.” And it was true, he did. On top of his profits from selling weed, Finn had squirreled away some 3,000 extra euros from a recent collection of bogus ‘student activities fees.’
“It’s not about money.”
“Don’t let this be about construction, then.”
“Dude, it’s engineering.”
“Whatever. Do you want to spend all summer digging holes in Ohio or doing body shots with the hotties of Playa d’en Bossa?”
In a little boy’s voice, Derek conceded, “Derek likes the hotties.”
Finn laughed, relieved, and continued his spiel, detailing the scam he could arrange with a contact at one of the resorts. They’d get hooked up with some hospitality work—bullshit jobs doing whatever—in order to stay in staff quarters on the cheap. “Pool boys, doormen, shot girls,” he continued, “you meet the best people that way.”
• • •
He called in favors. Travel agents. Hotel managers. Restaurant groups. Finn surprised himself with how quickly everything had come together.
“Later,” Finn repeated. “You promise?”
“Dude, I promise. Totally.”
He relented. He had to remind himself that Derek was a student, and the boy was entitled to the experience of spending time with his friends. It was the end of the term, after all, and there were final exams, ceremonies, celebrations, last weekend’s trip to Cadíz. He was young, so young. Finn’s former students weren’t much younger—four, five years maybe. He had always identified with the wild ones, the hell-raisers, which was why he found himself palling around with guys like Derek. Students like Dina, though, were different. The good kids crippled him. Eagle Scouts, honor-rollers, church-attenders. Can I do some extra credit, Mr. Finn? Extra credit? My God, yes. Yes. Anything you want.
“Fine,” he said. “That’s fair. Enjoy yourself. You should. I’ve got to do some work stuff anyway—find our missing tunos.”
“Dude,” Derek pointed to Dina on the wall beyond. “I’m going to put my dick between those messed-up toro titties, you’ll see.”
Finn rolled his eyes and dismissed the boy with a wave of the hand. Watching him trot away, he reached for the phone in his pocket. No bars. Of course.
He worried that the tunos wouldn’t show, a major inconvenience considering how he’d have to give back the money Don Julio had furnished for their hire and the fact that those funds weren’t exactly liquid. He planned to pay the entertainers with an ounce and half of purple-green indica.
He lifted his phone in the air and tried to find a stronger signal. A few yards away, Teddy and the children belonging to the chaperones and older guests practiced stances in front of Don Julio, who had embraced the happy project.
“No tengáis miedo, niños,” Don Julio said. “Esa vaca no vale nada.”
Teddy’s father, a bearded Brit with a young face, translated for his boy. “He says, Do not be afraid. The silly cow won’t hurt you.” Teddy laughed, stood sideways, and made his body a blade. He extended his capote from the hip like he’d been taught. When Finn passed by, the Brit smiled and waved. “Hi there, Walt!”
Finn shuddered. He tried to think of some sort of urgent business—a bathroom break, a glass of water, something—to avoid a conversation, which would no doubt involve either fatherhood or motorcycles, two of the Brit’s favorite topics. Finn glanced at the phone and put up a finger—wait a sec. The screen reflected what he already knew. No messages. No texts.
“Sorry, Bruce,” he said. “I’ve got to track down our band. Looks like they got lost outside of Montalbán.
“Ahh, did you hear that, Ted? Mr. Finn is bringing us a troupe of sopistas. We’ll have to see if they know ‘El Torero,’ eh? Maybe ‘Amores’ too, for Mum.”
Finn nodded, pretending to dial a number on the phone, and looked around the plaza. Across the way, Derek stood with Dina and her girlfriends as they dangled their legs into the ring from the top of the plaza wall. He sighed. Derek could act like a five-year-old, demanding constant attention and affection and approval from whoever happened to be nearby. At that moment, he realized that what he wanted more than anything was for Derek to be near him as much as possible.
Derek noticed Finn’s gaze, nodding along stupidly and pointing to the horizon. “Look, dude,” he shouted. “Windmills.”
Exasperated, Finn looked up to where Derek pointed and noticed a dust trail billowing between the rows of ancient white mills in the distance. Squinting, he could make out the form of a speeding red cargo van as it barreled down the road toward the private entrance to the ranch.
The tunos.
He pocketed his cell and ran to the bottom of the hill. The tunos had made it after all. He still had to close the deal—a tricky topic since the amount he’d be handing over didn’t convert to the band’s usual rate in cash. Finn was coming out ahead in the deal because the bandleader, Arturo, insisted on speaking English whenever he got the chance. That, and he was a shitty negotiator.
Unlike the rest of the troupe, Arturo was Portuguese, not Spanish. He played the twelve-string guitarra portuguesa and sang most of the ensemble’s tenor parts, especially the mournful fado ballads from his native country. When he emerged from his van in full tuno regalia—pantaloons, doublet, cape, the whole bit—Finn laughed.
“Cute outfit.”
Arturo feigned insult. “This,” he said, fluffing the ruffles on his blouse, “is the world-famous Tuna costume, beloved by your American women especially.”
“Yes, you’re first-rate womanizers, all of you. You’re also very late.”
“Ahh, but we’re here now, no?”
Finn smiled and handed over the payment. “Fair enough.”
Arturo tucked the bag into his doublet. Suddenly stern, he said, “It’s very bad luck to cheat a tuno.”
“Everything’s there. I’ve got a scale on the bus, if you’d like to check.”
Arturo grinned. “Shall you join us in the car for an inspection, eh? I invite you.”
“I can’t this time. I’m working.”
“Ahh,” Arturo wagged his finger. “It’s very bad luck for a tuno to work.”
Finn left Arturo with his van and made himself busy with activities director tasks, monitoring the picnic preparations, checking chaperone statuses, and making sure the bus drivers didn’t overindulge on their ever-present copitas of wine.
He didn’t mind the work, which let him focus on the planning of other, more pressing matters. For instance, there was the care and feeding of his boy between the end of the term and start of their adventure, not to mention how he’d come through with the hotel job he had promised. Derek’s Spanish was serviceable enough, would serviceable-enough Spanish be sufficient? Finn spoke Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, French. “No,” he said, shaking off the thought. Derek was a good-looking kid and friendly. He worked out. As an American in Ibiza Town, he’d be exotic. Surely that counted for something. Anyway, when the shirtless pool boy brings you drinks, how many languages do you expect him to know?
After Finn wrapped up his chores, he made his way back to the top of the hill near Dina and her girlfriends to watch the torito. It seemed more aggressive now, more likely to charge when prompted. The creature had figured out its role in the caping game, and dutifully played its part. When the students flapped their capotes and taunted, “¡Toro!” it lowered its head and stomped the dirt.
One of Don Julio’s pupils shared the ring with Derek, whose presence to the side announced his intention to go next. Nearby, Teddy, nervous with laughter, tugged his father’s sleeve and explained how he intended to antagonize the animal the same way as soon as he found the courage to enter the ring.
The Brit tousled Teddy’s hair, and when he noticed Finn watching, he smiled as though to say, ‘Fatherhood. Isn’t it great?’ Finn pretended not to see.
In the ring, Derek taunted the bull calf by letting three of the four corners of the capote drag in the dirt like the battered security blanket of a sleepy toddler. Finn dug into his pocket for his phone, wanting to take pictures. In the early twilight of the Spanish plain, the boy’s vaguely Mediterranean qualities intensified. In his curly hair, sharp nose, and rounded lips he saw Athens, Madrid, Lisbon, Rome. The boy was suddenly olive grove, aqueduct, mild winter.
He took a picture and felt something tapping his shoulder. Turning, he saw Dina’s extended leg, the toe of her boot.
“Walter,” she said, using his name like a tool. “You’re blocking my sun.”
“Sorry.” He knelt down and took a knee inside a small patch of shade.
“Now you’re blocking my view.”
Finn kicked his legs out in front of his body and sat on the ground. He’d be trampled if the bull came by. Anything you want.
“Thank you,” Dina said sweetly.
“Don’t mention it.”
“I thought Derek didn’t want you on class trips,” she offered.
He felt his stomach drop. The information, he thought, had been private. Recovering, he said, “Only the last few overnighters, Dina.”
She let out the huff of a bored teenager. “Maggie’s host sister, Carmen, went with us to Cadíz last weekend.”
“That’s nice for Carmen.”
“For all of us,” she added. “We had a lot of fun.”
Finn rocked on his butt, took a breath, and prepared himself for more abuse.
“Dude!” Derrick screamed. “Pictures!”
“It looks like I’m needed,” he told the girl. He stepped a few paces away and positioned his back to the sun in order to get a shot worth keeping. As soon as he brought the camera phone in front of his face, Derek dropped the red woolen capote to ground. In a flash, he pulled his shirt off over his head and twirled it in the air. “Check it out,” he said. He flexed and held the shirt in front of his body. “¡Toro!” Derek shouted. “¡Toro!”
The torito snorted, then, acting on genetic imperative, rocketed directly toward the bare-chested idiot. As it came within a length of where he stood, Derek fell to his knees and held his T-shirt up beside his head. The maneuver was a crowd pleaser, pure madness, and when the torito ran beneath Derek’s perfect T-shirt capote, his classmates cheered.
With a bow, Derek acknowledged the crowd. Meanwhile, some of Derek’s classmates tried to retrieve the wadded up capote he left in the ring, but the little torito, pacing and intent on guarding its trophy, charged whenever someone got too close.
While students occupied the bull calf, Finn saw the Brit lifting his son over the wall into the ring.
“OK, Ted. You go get him!”
Everyone—students, chaperones, even Don Julio—cheered.
“¡Eso es!” the old man yelled. “¡Qué valiente, Tay-Dee!”
Beaming, Teddy walked to the center of the ring with his shiny, proper capote.
Losing interest in its prize, the torito lifted its head and regarded the boy.
“There you go, Teddy!” someone encouraged.
All smiles, Teddy planted his foot like he had been taught. With a snap of the wrist, he shook his capote, which flapped and fluttered and glimmered in the sun. “¡Venga, Toro!” he called.
The torito stomped the ground and snorted, lowering its head like a soon to be fired missile.
“¡Venga, ya!” Teddy shouted.
And then the torito charged. Teddy, forgetting to move the capote to the side of his body, took the impact head-on.
Pandemonium. In the dirt, Teddy wailed and covered his head with bony arms. Finn scrambled, leaping over the wall and running to the tangle of beast and boy. Bodies everywhere. Men. Women. Hands working round the torito’s neck, pulling it up and back.
Struggling, Finn caught a haunch in his gut. The torito toppled, and Finn curled into a ball to protect his head, his belly, his testicles. Inside his mouth his tongue felt huge. Breathing in dust from the golden brown turf, he gagged as a river of snot exploded from his nose. Someone, a ranch hand most likely, slapped the ass of the animal and it was over.
• • •
Finn came to in a darkened room with a throbbing head and a pulsing erection. He’d been dreaming of Ibiza, a dream about happiness. He groaned as the images swirling in his foggy mind swiftly drained away. Simplicity, beaches, white tuxedos for some reason, the satisfaction that comes after a day of honest labor. Derek.
“Está despierto,” came a voice down the hall. Finn swung his feet over the side of the bed, stood, and stumbled toward it. As his vision came into focus, he saw Don Julio sitting at a kitchen table with one of the ranchers, an old woman, and the Brit.
Finn opened his mouth but words failed him. He groaned.
“In English, mijo,” Don Julio said. “Your head took quite a knocking.”
“How… how long have I been out?”
“An hour. Not long. We were just about to send for a doctor.”
“The boy?”
“He’s fine,” said the Brit. “Not injured… Thank you.”
“The boy,” said Finn again.
Confused, the Brit added, “Well he’s rather excited about having been gored, actually.”
Finn shook his head and bolted toward the kitchen door.
“Woah!” protested the Brit, grabbing at Finn’s waist.
“Aire,” Finn pushed the hands away. “Air. I need air.”
“Vale, Bruce. Déjale,” said Don Julio. He opened the door and allowed Finn to pass to the night outside.
Finn stumbled into a little courtyard behind the house, where he heard the boisterous music of the tunos playing tambourines and guitars and lutes. He walked beyond the gate to the source of the commotion. A busy scene. Cooks and chaperones milled around a fire pit. A gigantic cast iron paella pan roasted in the center, lid covered in coals. Lights strung from boughs of the olive trees produced an orangey, romantic glow. The students lounged on the grass or on top of their former capotes, spread out like blankets.
He scanned the crowd for Derek. Why hadn’t he been at his bedside like Don Julio and the Brit? When his eyes adjusted to the light, he found what he had been so desperately seeking. Twenty feet away, Derek sat at the feet of one the strolling musicians, his arm draped around Dina’s slender shoulders. He must have caught Derek’s attention, because the boy looked up and waved. ‘Oh, there you are,’ his body language seemed to say. Derek flashed him a big thumbs-up. Congratulations! Nice work! Good show! Finn acknowledged the gesture with upturned hands, crinkled brow, and a look of ‘What the fuck?’ Derek brightened—Oh yeah, that. He squeezed the girl beside him and mouthed, “You know I’m a pimp.”
Finn’s guts turned. For the first time in a long time, he couldn’t stomach the idea of a party. He couldn’t stomach anything. He turned his back to the crowd, planted his hands on his knees, and retched into the dirt.
And then there was applause. Finn heard clapping and cheering and the dying down of instruments. From the stillness, a voice arose—Arturo introducing the next song. A gracious entertainer, he thanked the hosts for providing such a magnificent spread, and described why the setting was so perfect for the music everyone would enjoy next. “The river you see in the distance,” he explained, “This is the Tagus—the grandest of the Iberian peninsula. This Tagus starts in the mountains to the east and stretches across Spain into Portugal, kissing the Atlantic from the mouth of Lisbon Bay. In my country, they sing devastating songs about the Tagus and its people. Such sadness, so sweet.”
The students quieted, and from the silence sprang a haunting sound from Arturo’s instrument. Soon, other instruments joined in and the musician began to sing about the river and its golden sands. Finn winced, clutching his pounding head. With his back to the music, he turned his attention to the pastures and tried to make out the shape of the forgotten torito as it grazed in the moonlight among the mature bulls near the river beyond. It took a moment to identify the lonely figure. The instruments grew louder as Arturo approached the final refrain. “My hair turns white,” the mournful tenor sang, “while the Tagus stays forever young.” There it was. Finn squinted at the calf on the horizon and considered the river of Arturo’s dying song. He had summered in Lisbon once, knew some growers there. He was acquainted with the tune.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Big Hark is a writer from Chicago. MORE: Twitter
LF #067 © 2014 Big Hark. Published by Little Fiction | Big Truths, October 2014.
