KING OF THE BULLFIGHTERS

As Robbie saw it, he had three options; (a) run in the opposite direction from the bull charging at him; (b) scan the ground for an object with some type of point and hope that he found it in enough time to pick it up and defend himself; or (c) talk to the bull and try to calm him (or was it her?) down. I say “as he saw it” because of course he had many other options. For instance, he could lay down on the ground and play dead, or he could assume what he imagined to be a kung-fu position and prepare to do battle, or maybe just sit down and recite ‘My Humps’ by the Black Eyed Peas, his favorite group (and quite frankly, he probably had just as much of a chance of stopping the bull with these methods as compared to those previously mentioned). However, when scared, people tend to panic and in this state of panic they tend to focus on only a couple of things at once; so as a result, Robbie found himself to only have three options at that particular moment in time. (What exactly the time was, I can’t recall; I believe it was around 6:07 p.m. but one can never be sure of such things in truth. I mean, who’s to say that it really is 6:07 p.m. just because a bunch of old white dudes in atrocious curly-Q wigs, who were probably quite drunk on sherry or something at the time, decided to make it that way?)

Anyways, the fact remained that Robbie was at this time (whatever time it was) facing a raging bull in front of ten thousand screaming fans – well maybe not fans since many of them were rooting just as much or more for the bull as for Robbie, but you could at least call them supporters. I guess it doesn’t matter much what you call them but when I write a story I’m a stickler for details.

Anyways, I apologize for being long winded because I am sure you as a reader are wondering what is coming next (or at least you’re supposed to…). Robbie had never imagined that it would end up like this (and for that matter I had never imagined when I sat down to write a story that I would end up mentioning kung-fu and ‘My Humps’ in the same sentence). The whole bullfighting idea had come from one drunken night – and for some reason it seems that most things arise from an instance where at least one subject in question has imbibed some type of mind-altering substance – back in his hometown of Albuquerque, New Mexico. It was on this night that two things occurred: 1) his girlfriend left him, and 2) most terribly, his manhood was called into question. (Now, you may be asking yourself why manhood should be more important than love, and the truth is that love was certainly out of the question in the first place with this couple, considering that Olivia – the girlfriend – had already slept with a grand total of sixteen men during the course of their eight-month relationship. It may seem impossible to you that she could cheat to such an extent without him noticing, and you’re probably right, but I enjoy embellishing for effect. Plus, we all have talents, right?) On this night Robbie attended a party with Olivia that was hosted as a celebration of the West Regional Bullfighters Competition, and truthfully he was doomed from the beginning – although I guess that’s easy to say in hindsight. The reason that he was doomed (and you may have already guessed this, or not; either way is fine, although I would prefer that you devote your full attention towards the richness and complexity of this wonderful story) was that from the beginning of the party Olivia was desired by the champion of this competition, a 6-2, 230-pound boy of Spanish descent named Oscar. Besides the fact that he was incredibly muscular and champion-like, he had a slight Spanish accent that for some reason made the girls go crazy (lucky for you, I can’t even pretend to comprehend the maze that is womanly desire so I won’t digress any further in this area). To make a long story short, by the end of the night Olivia was in Oscar’s arms and Robbie was incredibly drunk. This terrible combination led Robbie to confront Oscar (in case I hadn’t mentioned it before Robbie’s measurements are 5-6, 135) and demand the return of his woman. I’m not sure how exactly to describe this scene because I’ve never really written a fight scene before – and actually it’s making me nervous just thinking about it (or maybe it’s just the fact that this room I’m writing in is ridiculously hot even with all of the windows open) – so to avoid any type of unpleasantness for both you and I, let me just say that it didn’t go so well for Robbie. In fact it was quite reminiscent of what I would imagine a fight between Mike Tyson and I would be like – no doubt something that should be avoided at all costs. It was after this altercation that Robbie vowed to regain his manliness and decided to become a bullfighter.

After a short and swift two-month training session under the tutelage of Don Juan El Salvador (who was known by people around Robbie’s neighborhood as “that crazy old man” – none too fondly – and whose real name was actually Jared Dudley), Robbie booked a plane ticket to Madrid. Let it be noted that at this time Robbie had never actually trained with a live bull, or even a fake one for that matter. He mostly just ran around yelling Spanish-sounding words and waving a red handkerchief in the air. Unfortunately, the only real Spanish word that Mr. El Salvador knew and could teach Robbie was “Hola!” (which he pronounced “Hoe-lah!”), so the rest of the words were made up, unbeknownst to Robbie. The red handkerchief was a special touch added by Robbie himself, and was inspired by a wealth of compiled video clips of bullfighters. To simulate a real bullfighting experience, Mr. El Salvador would impersonate a bull and charge towards Robbie repeatedly. The sight of this action was particularly distressing considering that even though Mr. El Salvador topped out at around five miles per hour, Robbie was still unable to evade his attacks and in fact ended up with a few bruises from the collisions (of which Robbie was extremely proud; he called them his ‘warrior wounds’).

Now, in case you as a reader, having read this story so far and observed the stupidity but intense likeability of this main character, are now scared for his life, I must urge you not to worry. I know that usually it is better not to reveal anything about the ending so as to preserve the suspense, but unfortunately I am much too compassionate and would just feel really terrible about giving anyone pain and angst because of a story I wrote.  Plus, just because I have divulged the fact that Robbie will not die in this story does not mean that the ending will be unsuspenseful (I suspect that “unsuspenseful” is not a word, but I enjoy adding to the general English vocabulary); a number of different things could still occur. In addition, because of the nature of humans as a species, those who desired Robbie’s death at the end of the story may rest assured that he will die at some point. So now everyone is happy. Yay!

 For the sake of keeping this story exciting I will skip the portion of Robbie’s story that involves arriving in Madrid and return to the scene that began this story, his first fight. As was previously mentioned, Robbie was at this time (whatever time it was) facing a raging bull – and this bull happened to be extraordinarily large and incredibly angry. For several obvious reasons I cannot begin to imagine what goes on inside a bull’s brain, but by my standards the angriness was understandable, considering that the bull had not eaten in a day (although that may have been good for it, considering how truly obese it was) and had spent the aforementioned day being poked and prodded and generally agitated by a skinny white boy with a large red flag and certainly less-than-stellar fake karate skills. In any case, it was at this point that the bull charged directly at Robbie.

A peculiar sequence of events occurred following this charge, and I apologize in advance if this gets at all confusing for the reader. You may remember that Robbie had considered three options when first faced with the possibility of a bull charge (if not, see page 1). However, in the heat of the moment he discovered a fourth option – one that was extremely unpleasant to anyone watching closely. As the bull made its fateful charge, Robbie retreated into what one could only describe as his ‘scared face’. A pigeon-toed body motion, covering his private area with both hands, as well as a copious amount of gaseous release, accompanied this humanly indescribable facial expression. He then shut his eyes, waiting for the inevitable collision of death and lamenting upon his loss of any shred of dignity he had left.

I am sure you know, having read the previous page, that he is not in any mortal danger and therefore I will not spend any time dramatizing the moment further. I will simply say that I personally believe it was the bull’s immense body fat that created his susceptibility to – well actually I don’t even know what he was susceptible to, so such speculations are neither here nor there and probably not worth your time. (I’m not sure how much money time is worth now, especially with the state of the economy, but I’m sure it’s worth more than I can give you.)

Anyways, the fact remains that when faced with this combination presented by Robbie, the bull fell down in a faint. The stadium was enveloped in silence as everyone paused confusedly to contemplate what had just occurred (although I guess it’s never truly silent in the world, especially in an outdoor stadium with all the birds and bees and crying babies). Robbie opened his eyes, wondering what had happened, and was shocked to find the bull two feet in front of him and seemingly unconscious. Thinking he had somehow fought off the bull (and I guess he technically did), he turned to the crowd and raised his arms in triumph. The crowd responded with a delirious roar of approval and rushed towards the center of the arena. Suddenly, Robbie found himself lifted on top of the shoulders of several strong-armed young men, and he was gleefully passed around the crowd. This is how Robbie became King of the Bullfighters.

At this point you may be asking yourself a number of questions:

1)      What the heck just happened?

2)      How in the heck is what happened even possible?

3)      How in the heck is this ending so amazing?

4)      When in the heck is the next Black Eyed Peas reference?

5)      Why the heck is the gravitational "force" as experienced locally while standing on a massive body (such as the Earth) actually the same as the pseudo-force experienced by an observer in a non-inertial (accelerated) frame of reference?

I will attempt to answer these questions in a forward, timely manner.

1)      To answer this question, please re-read pages 5-6 slowly and carefully.

2)      There are many things in this world that seem impossible but are in fact only highly improbable, meaning that even if they take trillions of years to occur they probably will at some point. In fact, most of the world’s history has been dictated by the random few who got lucky. Why did Europe get to colonize Africa? Why did Donald Trump get to accumulate such wealth? Why did Einstein get to come up with the theory of relativity? (I take special offense to this last example, considering that unlike Einstein I was a hardworking model student in middle school and yet I already know that such important theories will never come out of my brain, wonderful as it is.) Like Kevin Garnett says, Anything is Possibleä. You just have a greater chance of failing at certain things.

3)      Please don’t flatter me like that; I am simply doing my job as an artist and a writer.

4)      “No, no, no, no, don’t phunk with my heart.” You happy now?

5)      I have absolutely no idea.