The Santamarian Matador by William Matheson
A
few years had passed by since I was last an active participant in Halifax's
Amateur Matador League. It was with a nervous composure that I signed on
to try out for the Saint Mary's varsity team.
I did it to spend time with a woman. Her name was Christine, and she bred
and raised some of the best fighting bulls in Eastern Canada from her small
ranch on the twenty-second floor of the Loyola Building. The other students
who lived on the twenty-first floor sometimes complained about the noise
(especially when the female animals were in heat), and they weren't too
fond of the smell of manure, but Christine made peace with them in her
usual way by taking her neighbours up to meet "Kinley The Kirk," one of
the more personable specimens of the gentle beasts. These animals were
capable of inflicting serious damage to homo sapiens, a species
which was seeming to become more and more out of its element with each
passing year. But we all knew that Kinley was a gentle giant, and Christine's
guests were enjoying themselves so much that they never came back downstairs
again, and their PlayStation 2's were left unused in their single rooms,
the DVD drives being rendered inoperable due to the airborne hayseed.
Christine and I were sort of friendly rivals, which I'll get to in a second.
She thought we were just friends, but I really liked her. I found it sexy,
the way she euthanized her older or unwanted animals by launching them
out of her outside window to gently glide down onto the foottrack around
Huskies Stadium. "Moo," they'd say as they traveled on their downward route,
just before becoming a fierce explosion of bovine organs. And then the
nearby Dockside Dining Hall would be having a two-for-one special on hamburgers
the next day.
I never ate there much, though, since the food wasn't very cheap, and everything
was sold à la carte. I don't know what the people in residence did
to cope with that. Some would purchase "declining balance meal 'plans,'"
in which they would deposit a few thousand dollars, eat nothing but one
cold ham & cheese sandwich a day for three weeks, then find that their
cards had run out, at which point they would starve to death. This was
starting to become a problem, as the University realized that dead students
didn't usually make their second semester tuition payments on time. As
I'm writing this, they're still deciding what to do.
One day I came up to visit Christine, who was cleaning out her stalls at
the time and sending the manure and soiled bedding straw down the laundry
chute. I was going to be competing the next day against Bolofor - a grandsire
of Goromatic, one of Nova Scotia's most famous bulls. He earned his name
one day in Sydney Mines when he vivisected a mainlander with his horns
during Cape Breton's famous "Running of the Bulls," (This event was exported
to Spain and Portugal a few years back, and now they can't get enough of
it!) much to the cheering of the crowd.
She turned around and said to me, "Come on in! Keep your shoes on!" I was
in Heaven. I would have helped her clear the stalls, but I had just come
back from practice, so I was still wearing my matador's uniform. For those
of you who have never seen one, it's actually a pretty simple affair. I
wear black Guysborough-county style wading rocket boots, a Kurt Angle t-shirt
that says "I'll make you TAP out!!" some Christmas lights on my arms, a
red Darth Maul-style double-ended lightsaber, a Hogwart's backpack containing
a car battery to power the previous two items, and a special cheddar cheese
wedge hat. I knew I was looking sexy, but I didn't want to look like I
was coming on too strong to her yet.
I was worried that Christine would be mildly upset with me, since I was
scheduled to fight and perhaps injure one of her best bulls. It was an
"either him or me" situation, and if the I didn't hurt the bull, he would
seriously hurt me. I didn't like it that I was having to put her in such
a position so early in our pseudo-relationship, and I was hoping she wouldn't
shed any tears over me. As it turned out, though, I didn't have any need
to worry. The next words out of her mouth were, "I value Bolofor and the
rest of my bulls more than anything else in the whole world. If you even
mottle a single hair, I am going to have to introduce you to Kinley." So
it was looking as if a heroic death at Bolofor's hooves might be in order
for me since I wanted to win Christine's love - girls go crazy for that
sort of thing, anyway, as evidenced by the success of the movie Titanic,
which some women I knew went to see more than sixteen times. It's really
tragic that guys who are going to be around for a few dozen more years
are no good at satisfying female desires compared to the dead and dying,
but there's no sense complaining about what you can't change, is there?
You know that feeling you get when you know it's your last day on Earth?
For instance, when I got up that day I decided not to attend my 8:30am
English Composition class, as I felt that knowing what a coordinating conjunction
was wouldn't assist me with facing my impending death in any way. I mean,
c'mon, I'm an athlete! What does this shit have to do with me? I've got
to work hard in my training if I want to make the AUS All-Atlantic Matador
List. Oh wait, I'm dying today. Forget I said anything.
I really had to force myself out onto the turf that afternoon. But when
I heard the cheering of the crowds in the stands, I knew that I was doing
the right thing. Bolofor was introduced at the end zone closest to the
Alumni Arena, I was at the 50-yard line (this field was also used for the
Saint Mary's foozeball team). Even as Christine's handlers held him back
behind his gate, Bolofor was looking straight at me. He must have hated
cheddar cheese. I took a deep breath. My mission was to get killed before
laying a finger on Bolofor, yet still making him look good. It was kind
of like pro wrestling.
The gate suddenly swung open, and with a fury of hoofbeats Bolofor was
upon me. I ducked around his first attack, but still left myself open for
a second. He ran at me again, this time slashing me in the abdomen with
his right horn. My intestines started to spill into my wading boots. But
the match was far from over.
I turned myself back towards Bolofor and clicked my heels together, activating
the rockets in my wading boots. In midair, I activated my lightsaber and
swung it a couple of times, thrilling the crowd. But I timed it the boost
such that it wouldn't get me far enough to actually strike at the bull,
and so I fell short of my target, landing prostrate directly in front of
him. This time he chose to trample me, crushing several of my ribs and
snapping apart my legs.
It was about then that the finality of my experience was sinking in on
me. I turned my head and saw Christine in the stands, cheering on her beloved
bull. With a smile, I thought back to the first time I saw her...
I was seated on the bus, wearing my matador's uniform. This was back
in my high school days, so I didn't have the Kurt Angle t-shirt - I wore
something from GAP Kids instead.
Suddenly, the most beautiful woman that I had ever seen walked on the bus.
She had long, ankle-length black hair, she was fairly skinny, and she was
six foot four. I dearly hoped that she would sit next to me, and she did!
"Hi."
"Hi."
"What's your name?" I asked, because it was the standard thing to ask of
anyone new who sat next to you on the Metro Transit busses.
"Christine."
"You smell like cow manure. Do you live on a farm?"
"Yes, I raise fighting bulls."
"And I'm one who fights the bulls! What a coincidence!"
"Oh, I guessed that. I love your uniform."
"Really?"
A blow to my shoulder, shattering the bones, brought me painfully back
into reality. I opened my eyes to look upon Christine one last time as
Bolofor came back for his finishing move, which was to separate my head
from my torso. The decapitation was quite painful, but I think I got a
glimpse of Christine half-smiling at me as my head spun through the air,
my brain beginning to shut down. It was an unimaginable agony, but in the
spirit of modern gender relations where female affection for men is so
rare, it was worth getting killed just to get one little sympathetic or
kind emotional response from Christine. I'd do it again, but I'm dead now.