The Storyteller (5 page)

While Tamara watched in partial amusement, Blair continued to finger the doorbell, making it ring again and again.

It was then a vaguely familiar voice came to her. She recognized it as a man a few apartments down, she had said greetings to now and again in passing. He was alone this time, rather than with his wife and kids, evidently going out for some quick morning shopping. In his hand he had a bag of some kind.

“What are you doing?” he asked with utter confusion in his voice. “No one lives there.”

“What was that you said?” Blair again questioned, unable to hide the confusion. “What do you mean?”

“No one lives there,” the man responded. “They’ve used that apartment for storage for the maintenance and office for three years now. No one rents that place out.”

“What?” Blair again mouthed.

Nearby, Tamara stood speechless, likewise confused by what she was seeing.

“I guess the office didn’t tell you?” he shrugged with a casualness unfitting the knowledge about to be revealed.

Blair again shook her head in confusion.

“They probably didn’t tell you what went on in there, but I guess since it was the apartment next to you and not your apartment they could get by without that disclosure bullshit, or whatever they call it.”

Blair’s hands extended in an expression of perplexity, as if to implore the intruder for more.

The man gave a grimace and looked toward his own apartment, which he now seemed too long for.

“A guy named Darren lived there. I remember him. He seemed like a nice enough guy, around forty or something. Thing was, no one knew what was going on. He was seeing this chick who was going through a divorce at the time. The jealous soon-to-be ex-husband paid them both a visit. Caught them in the act inside and shot them both, then himself.”

Blair’s mouth dropped unbelievably while Tamara, with an overwhelmed expression on her own face, started to back away and broke into an open run for her car.

“Craziest thing I ever lived through,” the man said as he turned and walked away. “I remember the night it happened. Police were everywhere. All those damned sirens. Well, you try to have a nice day, okay...”

The stranger was now unlocking his apartment, most likely greeting his family, and in the distance, Tamara was speeding away as fast as she could. Blair however stared at the doorway of what had been Darren’s quarters. She now noticed there were no drapes and no lights on inside.

Shaking, she withdrew into her own apartment with tears streaming down her face. Only this time, they were not from the effects of a sexual spanking.

Once again, she was alone.

Chapter Two

The El Toreo

San Luis Rio Colorado was a Mexican border town south of Yuma, Arizona. The famed bullring there, constructed with concrete and seating 5000, had seen better days. In fact, the historic structure was slated for demolition. Out with the old and in with the new, as the grounds the stadium stood on would be used to house a church of all things, with evangelicals buying the property, and a new ring being built by a different party on the outskirts of the city, heading toward El Golfo.

The old caretaker recognized the women approaching him right away. She had aged well and was no longer young, but not as old as him or the bullring.

“So, it is true?” she asked from the distance. “They’re tearing down the El Toreo?”

The old man nodded, partially in greeting and partially in response to her question.

“Yes, matadora. How are you?”

“Fine, Rafael,” the woman answered. “How are you this day?”

The two embraced, but as they did, the woman’s eyes drifted upward to one of the murals above her. This was the unique design of the El Toreo. Before each entrance was a mural depicting a famous matador from the past.

“Well, I should have expected it, too much for them to put one up of me,” she quipped.

“Yes, matadora,” Rafael responded. He was using the proper title for a female matador.

“Call me Angela,” she replied with her eyes still nailed to the image above her. “You have always been too formal.”

The old man released his grip, and he also gazed upward. Above him, the sad face of Joselito looked downward, seeming to absorb the scene with its painted eyes. This man had never appeared in San Luis Rio Colorado, nor was it likely he even knew it existed. He had been killed in 1920, long before the ring was built, yet being one of the greatest of all time, it just seemed obligatory for him to be included among the murals.

“They never put Mariano up there either,” Angela noted. “So maybe I shouldn’t complain. He should be up there. He deserves a spot.”

“Why?” the old man snorted. “So it could be torn down with the rest of the ring!”

Together they continued to gaze upward at Joselito, who had lived and died for the bulls. They both knew he had not been the only one.

“They do have the plaque to Mariano,” the old man muttered. “He wasn’t up on the murals because he came along after the bullring and the paintings were created. Just like you.”

A gust of wind swept up, as if Joselito’s ghost floated about the ring in which he had never appeared, assembling the dead from near and far to mourn the loss of the El Toreo that was destined to come.”

“I had some great afternoons here,” Angela whispered in reflection. “I trained here as well. I learned with Mariano. I loved him. I am sure that you know.”

“You never married either,” Rafael answered, with his eyes still transfixed by Joselito’s painted visage. “I don’t suppose one replaces the love of a lifetime?”

Angela shook her head.

“I went on without him and the bulls were my life. I was lucky enough to become famous and retire though, wasn’t I? I beat all the odds. I was a woman in a man’s world. I was an American in a Latino culture. I was as good as any man on the sand. I did it all in his memory. All of it.”

Rafael finally shifted from Joselito to the woman before him, giving her a sympathetic grin.

“I have something for you. Put these in your purse.”

From his one shirt pocket, he extracted a book of matches advertising the bullring and the bullfights from God knew what year.

“That has to be absolutely so ancient it goes back to when Grendel had both his arms,” Angela announced.

The old man shook his head in confusion and shrugged.

“Never mind,” she answered back. “Mythology.”

“Hang on to those matches,” Rafael instructed. “A keepsake.”

Angela slipped the matchbook into her purse and started toward the portal that had once been one of the main entrances into the ring. She was surprised to find it unlocked.

“I figured you would want to go in and think about this place before they tore it down. I think you will want to be alone for a while. They told me you’d be here.”

“They?” Angela questioned, looking over her shoulder. “They?”

“The ghosts of an empty bullring,” Rafael responded. He was deathly serious.

Angela nodded, but as she did she thought of the murals surrounding the ring. Some of the men depicted had appeared in this arena in its early days, while others had not. Procuna, who was killed in a plane crash after retirement rather than dying on the horns of a bull. Carlos Arruza, who had died in a car wreck. Velazquez, who fell off a roof while trying to fix a television antenna. Then there were others who had come to the El Toreo De San Luis ring in the decades to follow who were not seen on the walls. She was one of them. So was Mariano.

“Run the hand! Damn it! Run the hand!”

She jolted as she heard the voice coming from beyond. Leaving Rafael behind, she rushed to the sound, finally finding the old gate where the bullfighters used to enter the arena. She pushed it open but saw nothing unusual beyond.

“Run your hand!”

Again, she heard the voice, but only the sand and the wooden fence greeted her.

The voice had been Mariano’s, but he was dead.

Either she was hearing the ghosts of an empty plaza that Rafael so casually had noted or her imagination was running wild.

There were other reasons she had come to the bullring this day. The love of her life was gone, and now with one of the final remnants of their passion also dying away, there was so little to live for. It was time for the two of them to be reunited.

“Let us both die with the El Toreo,” she mouthed, looking up into the empty stands which once filled with roaring spectators.

Putting down her purse, she started to back pedal across the arena floor as gracefully as she still could. Then she stopped and stretched her hand outward, as if holding the lure. She was indeed running the hand as she had been trained, or stretching her arm out as far as she was capable, so the animal did not lead into her body instead.

Mariano had taught her that. She remembered her lesson well and what it had led to. It had happened right here as she was practicing to face the bulls.

Everyone had told her she was insane for wanting to be a bullfighter. She was nineteen at the time and heard Mariano Flores was training people in San Luis Rio Colorado. He sought those who wanted to fight bulls. The only problem was until she arrived, he had no one waiting in line to learn the art form.

The bullfight was not for everyone, but she had caught her interest after seeing
Blood & Sand
on television. Tyrone Power looked so sexy in his blue and gold costume. That alone had been enough to make her want to enter the profession.

Mariano had laughed at the idea of a woman bullfighter, but something made him agree to her tutoring. She wasn’t sure if at first he just wanted to fool around. If so, there was no indication of such until that one strange day.

“Run your hand or you’re going to get killed!” Mariano scolded. With each training session he lectured her on the same thing, to the point of sounding like a parrot.

No matter how hard she tried, however, she just couldn’t catch on to things fast enough.

“My God, do you want the bull to slam right into you? Do you know what a goring feels like?”

It was that one afternoon where Mariano had his fill. No one knew about it either. It was their secret.

She closed her eyes, thinking of how absurd the situation had been.

“I’ve had it!” the matador screamed during one of their training sessions. “If you aren’t going to act like an adult, I am going to teach you like a little girl.”

“What?” the then barely post teenage Angela asked.

“Take down your pants!”

Angela looked at him disbelievingly.

“Take down your pants,” he repeated. “Take down your pants or go back home and never come to the El Toreo again.”

“Why?” Angela asked, not understanding what was implied. “What do I want to do that for?”

“Because I am going to teach you a lesson that will save your life one day.”

The words faded and Angela opened her eyes, looking all about the empty ring. It had been empty that day as well.

“Welcome home, Angela.”

Angela turned in the direction of Mariano’s voice and was stunned to see him there. He was dressed in street clothes, rather than the shining suit of lights.

“This will all be taken away soon,” he said. “We had some memories here.”

“Yes.”

Her hand reached out, but the figure was gone. Another illusion. Another ghost.

Slowly, she walked toward the wooden fence that surrounded the ring, thinking back once again to her training session of old.

“Take down your pants!”

Again, Angela saw herself as a much younger woman, standing before her angry mentor. At first, she thought he was joking, but he was deathly serious.

“You heard me! Pull them down!”

Inside, Angela hoped the matador was finally going to live out the sexual fantasies she had conjured up between the two of them but had never brought to the surface or suggested. This however was not the case.

“I’m going to teach you a lesson like a little girl and you’re going to learn to run your damned hand or else!”

Slowly, Angela unbuttoned her jeans and took them down to half mast, standing before the matador in her top and her under-panties. She felt ridiculous.

“Now go over by the fence and put your hands on it. Stick your ass out.”

Angela started to laugh.

“Are you serious?”

“You get over there,” Mariano commanded, and it was obvious he meant every word.

Angela started to ask if this was some kind of game, when she felt Mariano’s rough grasp on her arm.

“I said get over by the fence!”

Angela was forcefully dragged to the wooden barrier and physically placed in position, with her arms on the boards and her rear jutting outward.

“What?”

She felt another brutal tug as her pants were yanked down to her ankles, and yet one more as her panties were pulled down too.

“You are gonna learn the hard way!”

At first she was just convinced she was going to feel Mariano’s manhood rammed into her, which she had been longing for, but such was not to be. To her utter horror, she looked over her shoulder and saw Mariano taking off his belt.

“What are you doing?” she cried as she turned to face him.

The matador was adamant.

“Get back in that position I put you in!”

Angela was suddenly frightened. Was this guy nuts? Her instinct was to pull up her pants and tell him of forget about it, but where would she ever get another opportunity to learn the profession she had decided to dedicate herself to? No. As absurd as this was, she had to go through with it. There were only two hopes involved. One was that this was still a joke and it was not going to hurt. The second was that no one would come in to see her in such ridiculous shape, which would be worse than if the matador told everyone what happened.

“I said bend,” the enraged bullfighter demanded, striking the front of one leg with the folded belt.

“OWWWWW!” Angela screamed. “That hurt like hell!”

“If you think that hurts, wait until you feel what it is like to get gored after you fail to run the hand!” Mariano screamed at her. “Now turn around and get bent by the fence!”

Reluctantly, Angela complied, positioning herself on her own, where her hands rested on the fence and her chin on top of them. From behind, she felt the draft where her posterior was exposed.