My Raging Bull

His name was Andres, but I knew him as Andy. He ran with the bulls, the Pamplona bulls, not just once but thrice. His passion for life raged on, spontaneously, intentionally, like diving into red paint, making a splash that left indelible droplets on each life he touched. I loved him. He loved me. We were never a "we" in that lovers' way, but we loved each other. Maybe it was just like the song: "If you can't be with the one you love, honey, love the one you're with."

Fittingly, we met at Berkeley in the raging '60s and loved each other as friends--well, maybe a little more than that, for nearly 45 years. We travelled together. I would hang out in Paris a week before the Running of the Bulls, while he got set up in Pamplona. I never questioned what he had to get set up.

He thought of himself as Hemmingway preparing "things," so maybe I was Hadley, or at least a woman he imagined me to be in Hemmingway's female entourage. All I cared for was that I came to Pamplona with him, cheered him on, and left with him. No one would ever muscle in on those plans, with Paris both before and after. That was my running-with-the-bull time.

I loved being in Paris--sitting in street cafes, nestled in a quaint hotel, surrounded by so many flowers--and still do 'til this day. Andy, though, always wanted to pick me up in Paris so we could travel together back to Pamplona, to dinner reservations, to glorious Spanish hotels, to reconnect with old and new friends. The joyous atmosphere and rapid chatting cacophonies were just an act holding down the pressure-keg of tension the night before the first bull run. We all understood the performance.

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Andy was focused. Intense. He meticulously tied the red sash around his white-clad waist. Bandana still in hand, he checked the course from the second-floor balcony of our hotel suite. Situated on the longest leg of the run right before the bulls enter the bull ring, this balcony was prime real estate. We drank a little tea, squinting through sleep-deprived eyes. Who could sleep through this build-up, this excitement?

Shouts from the street reached us in the balcony from his long-time and new-found running mates, already staking out their preferred starting locations. We nodded at each other all the words that didn't need to be spoken, that would cheapen the moment, because we just communicated in that knowing sort of way. And then he was gone. Concentrating. Out the door. Meeting his running mates already outside the hotel. Nervous laughter. Spanish greetings. Putting on confidence.

Next second, they were all afoot to the farthest end of the street, with Andy giving a quick turn and wave of his bandana in my direction up in the balcony. He flashed his passionate grin, raging, I knew, inside with excitement and the tumultuous emotions of the moment. He had seen me cheering before he disappeared into an undulating sea of white, surging waves of runners, christened in red as they awaited their fate.

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A far-off cannon boomed! Church bells in the old town resounded in ear splitting echoes throughout the narrow, cobblestone streets of the running course. The bulls were off! They had started their run about 8 kilometers from the bull ring. Andy's run, or what I presumed would be Andy's run on the longest final leg, was nearly 3 kilometers. I had no idea this time he had chosen to start in the dangerous zigzag turns at the 5-kilometer mark.

There passed what seemed to be eons of time as a strange stillness overcame the waiting runners and onlookers as we each peered and listened for the tell-tale signs of the bulls coming closer and closer. The kinetic sound of the clattering hooves and runners' shouts became louder and Louder and LOUDER, rising to Crescendo, as bulls and runners were alive with motion at the far end of the street.

Still looking like blocks of white and red chaos in motion, punctuated by bellowing, bullish, boulders disintegrating waves of foam, the life-and-death nature of this daring act was unmistakable.

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I was searching for Andy.

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A few bulls had already crashed into runners and spectators by my balcony as they thundered by.

Seconds behind them, three gigantic bull's heads visibly surrounded by white were running together, parting the waves of runners in front of them like warships.

One final bull had become disoriented and was running in circles, scattering the terrified in his path.

Catching my breath, I glimpsed Andy running with the three warships, creating an elongated "V" as he ran his "rage" beside them. He could have touched the closest bull's flank.

My terror moved the moment into slow-motion.

As he passed by me, Andy's gray-turning-white beard looked like the froth around an animal's mouth while running rabidly for its life. He and the bulls were one.

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We spent an extra week in Paris after this, his third Running of the Bulls. Andy's elation was evident on his face, in his walk, his laughter, and remained unspoken. I loved him like this.

The adrenalin carried him to his fate. Instead of a race of 8 kilometers, Andy's final 8 months, four years after his storied run, finished, ironically, with endocrine cancer. Yes, he "rage[d] against the dying of the light."

Andy is, and always will be, my raging bull.

This fictional account is dedicated to the memory of Andrew Gordon.

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Cheers! And Thanks, Cynthia