“Roger Huerta and Clay Guida Dance”

“Bullfighting is the only art in which the artist is in danger of death and in which the degree of brilliance in the performance is left to the fighter's honor.” – Ernest Hemingway

I’ve grown through my years amongst the safety of sidewalks and parking lots that litter suburbia. My experiences with animals rarely extends beyond dogs, cats, and the occasional caged bird, so when I’ve come across something else, an animal that wasn’t a pet and wasn’t found at the zoo, it tends to sear a lasting impression in my memory. Being from Chicago, I grew up during the hay day of the Da’ Bulls, with Jordan, Pippen, and Rodman et al., so the word “bull” took on an almost cartoonish meaning to me. I couldn’t tell you when and where I saw a real live bull for the first time, only that I was old enough to know it was dangerous but too young to appreciate its beauty. It is because it is dangerous that a bull is truly a beautiful creature; hundreds of pounds of absolute force waiting for a starter’s pistol release. Unlike us people, bulls do not think about their purpose in life, why they’re here, what they should make of life – there is no introspection within the mind of a bull. A bull knows what it is to do. The beauty lies in the honesty of a bull, in that it charges with a mask of malice hiding the indifference to the prey in its path. A bull runs because it is a bull and that is what it does. Without a moment’s hesitation, without blinking, without consideration for ramifications that do not bounce around its skull, a bull will act. There are no distractions, there is only the task in front of it: the kill, the gore.

I once saw a bullfight on TV. On one side of the circular ring, more an octagon than the canvas boxers call home, stood the bull: the personification of inevitability. He paced back and forth, snorting loudly, stopping to stomp his hoof, as hordes of spectators yelled all manner of what I presumed were obscenities in Spanish at the monster. He was angry. Not at the fans, for he did not understand them any better than a baby born in Minnesota would understand the hateful rantings of a terrorist madman, the bull was angry at God. The bull wanted to be free, not of the ring, not from the taunts, but from the inaction, from the lack of purpose. He was not a bull, he was waiting to be a bull, and he hated that wait. The bull did not know it was Man making him wait, not God. God gave him the spark to run, the desire to charge. It was Man that prevented him from being a bull. The bull did not know this though, so, in that moment, he raged at God.

The packed stadium filled the air with cheers when the bull’s freedom stepped forth from the tunnel. The angry faces transformed into a sea of smiles. Like a savior, he came from seemingly nowhere to give meaning to the people’s lives, to provide an escape from the day-to-day. He stood, adorned in a colorful array of spandex, with greens and reds interwoven in a seamless blend of spandex, with his shield by his side, and a flawless red cape in hand. He stood on the other side of the ring. He was only fourteen years of age – untested and unproven against the world, and now face to face with beautiful, simplistic, raw, and soon to be free, violence. El Matador had arrived.

Man had angered the bull at God and then sent a boy to slay the beast.

The bull immediately walked towards the boy and the two met near the edge of the ring. The bull stared at the boy. The boy did not acknowledge the bull. They were feet from the people, who in that moment lived vicariously through a boy too young to drive; too young to drink; too young to smoke; to young to go to war; too young to understand Love; too young to die but now walking with death. El Matador was special because he eschewed the easy way out. Progress demanded that man simply pull a trigger and take out the brute animal from a distance, but El Matador chose to use a knife. He chose to remain close to his prey when distance would guarantee life just as proximity assured anything but. El Matador chose to dance.

The bull and the boy danced with one another, he taking a step forward as the bull stood still, then the bull answering by moving steadily nearer. Every action the bull made was one of deliberateness. There was no wasted motion, there was no hesitancy; the bull had been freed from his bondage and saw in a boy, too young to be acting the part of a man, a chance to become.

The boy finally stood still, foolishly taunting fate by standing behind the flapping red. That red cape: the world’s worst shield. The bull charged, the boy moved, the crowd cheered. I believe they cheered because the boy had shown them it was possible, for a moment at least, to avoid death. However, this only served to anger the bull more. In hitting only cape and missing the boy, the bull had been denied his right to be a bull. The dance continued with the tempo increasing and the danger escalating with each failed pass, with each realization by the bull that his horns, like a failed rapist, had penetrated only air. It is a terrible thing to be denied your birthright; to find purpose ripped from your grasp. Now the bull hated both God and Man.

El Matador drew his sword and the crowd was filled with wide eyes tinged with sadness at knowing the end was near. How right they were.

The dance began its penultimate number. As before, the boy hid behind his cloth shield, and the bull charged as the boy twirled to the side, this time raising the blade high as he prepared to plunge it into the flesh of the animal. The bull wanted it. He had been beaten. He had been killed everyway but physically. He was not a bull and he was tired of trying to become one. The blade would bring his end and his end. No more misses, no more failure; a final quiet.

The boy hesitated for a split-second, thrust down, and struck meat. He pulled out the sword, danced (alone) to safety, and turned to look at his conquest. There stood the bull: tired, bloody, but not dead. Where the strike had failed in finishing it had succeeded in salvation. The bull had been reborn in purpose.

The boy had passed up one opportunity after another to walk off the dance floor, but his arrogance, his defiance of inevitability, and his greed for the thrill, had now brought him to this point. The bull saw the blood drip off the blade and he knew. He knew the boy could not kill him. The boy knew he could not kill the bull. And both knew the song was coming to an end.

Knowing full well how everything ended, the boy gripped the red curtain and pulled it forward, just as a stagehand draws the velvet to close a play. The boy had leaned a lesson that normally takes a lifetime, a lesson he would only enjoy for a moment more. The boy would not run from the bull, he would not hide, he would not surrender. He would fight the bull till the very end, till his very end, for that is what the bull had earned. The bull charged, the boy moved, the sword was drawn, and before the boy’s blade could enter the bull, the bull’s blades gored the boy.

High in the air the boy flew, limp like an empty pillowcase, blood flowing from horn-width caves in his thighs. The crowd’s silence was pierced by a wail as a tear-soaked mother ran to tend to her son. She cradled him as she had when he was an infant. The boy was taken to the hospital where his wounds would slowly heal. For a moment, the bull became Bull and knew his role in the world. He had no more anger towards the boy and forgave God. Whether God forgave Man is unknown.

The Bull then became a bull soon enough and was taken back to his pen, where he waited for another moment to become. He had tasted purpose and would savor it forever. He knew another opportunity would present itself. He would be patient.

The boy later came and visited the bull, standing behind the safety of the steel guardrail, hopping around with a crutch on the uneven dirt. He wore t-shirt and jeans now and there was no crowd, just the bull and the boy. He was no longer El Matador but just a boy, while somewhere inside of him, the bull was still Bull.

The boy said he did not remember the goring and had not watched the videotape. He said the bull must have been a very special bull because he was a very good matador and very good matadors do not get caught by anything but special bulls. Then the boy stared at the bull. The bull did not acknowledge the boy.

Roger Huerta has fittingly been dubbed El Matador. In 21 fights, with the exception of a broken jaw suffered in the third fight of a one night, 8-man tournament, he has never been beaten. He has purposely given lesser opponents an opportunity at victory by treading dangers waters. In his last fight, rather than stand with Alberto Crane, and easily knock out an opponent far beneath his striking skill, Huerta chose the more dangerous path. Decked in bright green, red, and white, proudly displaying his Mexican heritage, he allowed the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu World Champion ample opportunity at victory by staying on the mat for nearly 11:50 before finally, mercifully, ending the contest. He did the same with Leonard Garcia earlier this year. At just 24-years of age, in a sport where men like Randy Couture are 20 years his senior, Huerta is a boy.

Clay Guida personifies a bull more than almost any fighter today. He is relentless and almost single-minded in his attack. He has withstood punishment both in training and in fights from which most men would gladly shy. He charges forward because that his how he fights – that his how he must fight. He truly does bull his opponents to the mat in an effort to ground them and pound them till victory is his. His takedowns are inevitable, his tenacity unbreakable. He wins fights as much using will as he does skill. He never tires, he never stops, he must be killed before he surrenders. Guida truly is a bull.

December the 8th, 2007: Once again, El Matador and The Bull will dance. {plug}