“Bull Snot”
Elliot Cahn
We went to Pamplona so my dad could run with the bulls. He kept his composure for a month in the south, a month in Barcelona, and a short week in Paris, but when we reached the north of Spain it all came out. Not a day went by without him mentioning the encierro, which is what the Spaniards call Pamplona’s running of the bulls. Twenty-five years earlier my dad read Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises and fell in love with the encierro without ever having seen it. Now, he would run it. When we finally got to Pamplona, he could hardly contain his excitement.
Through my eleven-year-old eyes, Pamplona looked less ideal. The drunks that zombied from party to party and pissed in the streets ruined the vibrantly colored buildings of the town. We arrived during the second night of the festival of San Fermín, a weeklong celebration fueled by Hemingway quantities of alcohol, and I wasn’t allowed to drink. We were here for my dad, not for me.
Eleven is a lovely age: you’re just old enough to understand what is happening around you, yet young enough to be unblemished by self-consciousness. While there wasn’t much for me to do during the nights, the rising sun gave me the chance to explore the centerpiece of San Fermín. The anticipation of the encierro spread through the morning air. All the drunks from the night before were much more animated as they sprang towards the main square, where they would wait for the bulls to be released. Everyone wore the same uniform: a white shirt, white pants, a red sash around the waist, and a red bandana. People never took these clothes off during the festival, which made the whiteness of the shirt and pants remarkable.
My parents woke me up when it was still dark outside. The running of the bulls took place at 8am sharp, and we needed to join our group beforehand. My parents and I had been traveling alone for two months, but in Pamplona we were meeting up with four other couples who were all friends of my parents. They were waiting for us at a coffee shop two blocks away from our hotel. With them was Bill, a bearded 60-something-year-old American expat who spent most of his life organizing tours of northern Spain. Bill’s task was to guide us through the chaos of San Fermín. He planned on taking us to a few parties in the afternoon, but our day, like everyone else’s, began with the encierro.
Bill led us to a third story apartment with a wide view near the end of encierro route. He rented it from a family that fled the festival to avoid the hoards of drunken outsiders. We arrived an hour before the event started so that Bill, who had experience running with the bulls, could counsel the men in our group, all of whom were planning on running for the first time. I don’t think any of them had even been near a bull before. I was pretty sure my father hadn’t. Bill started by explaining the course. The encierro starts at the bull corrals, twists through the plaza, and ends at the bullfighting arena. “Hop the fence before getting to the arena,” Bill advised. Apparently, the arena operators trap runners in the stadium after the bulls go through and release younger bulls with corks on their horns. This supposedly encourages these bulls to hate humans, which will lead to more entertaining bullfights in the future. Until that moment, it is best to stay on your feet. While the bulls may avoid the people who trip up, other runners won’t. “Humans,” commented Bill, “are more dangerous than the bulls.”
After Bill finished, my dad came over to me. “See if you can see me from the balcony,” he said.
“I’ll be on the lookout for your bald spot,” I replied, fishing for a laugh. He complied. Even though my dad still had some hair, the balding on the back of his head was noticeable, especially to someone who saw it on a regular basis. We hugged and took some pictures. Then he exited with the other men to take up their starting positions in the plaza.
I stepped onto the balcony after he left to absorb the atmosphere prior to the run. Our block formed half of a stone-gray, five-story canyon of apartments that overlooked the street and obstructed the morning sun. Next to each window was a door and a corresponding balcony. I could see people in the rooms on the other side, but with 45 minutes to go, the balconies were all empty. So was the street, save three teenagers drunkenly shouting during a game of rock-paper-scissors. Even with my excitement, I was only just starting to process the fact my father was going to run with bulls. Despite what Bill said about bulls and humans, I wasn’t entirely convinced. I had watched the festival’s first running of the bulls on TV. The bulls looked massive compared to the humans. They also had pointy horns.
Each encierro, six bulls are released in a pack that includes six more steers. When bulls are in a group, they behave in a calm and predictable manner. Occasionally, a bull will split from the pack, causing it to panic. When a bull panics, it starts using those pointy horns. The Spanish call this beast a toro loco, which means “crazy bull.” During that first encierro, a toro loco stabbed thirteen people.
Bill joined me on the balcony. I asked him if the teenagers, who were still playing rock-paper-scissors, were going to run too. He said they were too young. We stood silent for a few moments, and I realized that Bill was also out here to absorb the atmosphere. He was too old to run. I could tell from the way he gazed at the street that he regretted not being able to run. This made me a little less nervous for my dad.
We went back inside and joined the women who were huddled around the TV. The runners in the plaza were reciting the traditional prayer to Saint Fermin. After the prayer, which they repeated three times, we heard two firecrackers. The first, fired promptly at 8am, signaled the opening of the corral gate. The second indicated that the entire pack had left the corral.
We rushed outside when we heard the second boom. A huge roar erupted from the spectators. The balconies around us were now overflowing with people dressed in the San Fermín uniform. They were screaming and ringing cowbells. Beneath us ran a sea of white, accented only by heads of hair and the traditional red bandanas. I tried to pick out my dad, but it was difficult to distinguish the features of individual runners amidst the chaos. About a minute passed before herd became visible. An even louder roar erupted. I turned my attention to the animals and counted. All six bulls were there.
Most runners gave the bulls as wide a berth as possible, diving out of the way when the pack approached. Some daring runners ran within an arm’s length of the bulls for a second or two before falling gracefully to the wayside or getting put off balance by the horns. One runner boldly managed to position himself in the middle of the pack. Bill had told us to look out for this guy, who was a San Fermín regular. He was known as “Greenie” because, while he mostly adhered to the dress code, the top half of his shirt was green. This made him easy to spot. Greenie had popped up somewhere in the middle of the run and was now closer than anyone else to the pack. The number of people in front of him gradually thinned, giving Greenie extra space to drift between the bulls. He had a much calmer stride than anyone else. He also had the confidence to stroke the necks of the bulls, something he did every three or four paces. Greenie subtly disappeared into the crowd just before the final turn.
The whole run took less than two minutes. After the bulls passed, we returned to the TV to watch three more steers trace the route. Their job, Bill explained, was to guide any stranded bulls to the arena. Today there were none. We left the apartment to meet the men at a bar near the end of the run. When we got there at 8:10, they were wading through people, attempting to order a second round of beers. I ran in and hugged my dad. Once we were settled, I trained my attention on the small TV above me, which was showing the encierro on a loop. After running with the bulls, it is customary to go to a bar with a TV and pick yourself out on the highlights. Loud cheers rang out from different corners of the bar as patrons saw themselves on the TV. I spotted my dad on the replays. He got caught diving headfirst under the last fence just as the bulls were about to pass.
After people recognized themselves on the TV, they began sharing stories from the run. My dad told me about a grandmother he saw who apparently wanted to experience “running” with the bulls, but was so old she couldn’t actually run. “Four of her grandsons brought her to the plaza,” my dad said, “and they propped her up between two pipes and formed a ring around her.” The grandsons were nervous the whole time apparently, but at no point did the woman stop smiling.
The table behind us still cheered as the TV replayed the encierro for the umpteenth time. I turned around out of curiosity. A mob had gathered around a young Sylvester Stallone lookalike seated at the table, who was busy high-fiving random Spaniards. Someone in our group asked what they were all screaming was about. Stallone snapped his attention towards us and answered. “Hey, fellow Americans!” He raised his beer as a greeting. “Well…I, uh, slipped in front of the bulls and, uh, on my way down I kind of grazed one on the nose.” He lifted his right leg onto the table and pointed to a smear on his pants. “And now I got bull snot on these!” This line earned yet another cheer. I joined in, finding my place in the inebriated fantasy of the encierro.
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