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We
don't have fox hunting in Brooklyn. I can't say we never had it.
A couple of hundred years ago when the British owned the place
they probably had it. I have to check that out. I like sports,
although I'm not such a hot athlete myself. Sports can build you
up a worthwhile body, help you let off a lot of steam that you
don't know where it's coming from. One day when things got slow
at the news stand I picked up a sports magazine which is where
I read about fox hunting. At the end I came off entirely against
it as a sport. For one thing, the fox never wins. And even if
he won, what would he get for it? One of the horses? One of the
dogs? Or maybe one of the lords who was chasing him. In fact,
I got a sneaky feeling the lords were getting fed up with it and
only did it because the queen expected it and would quit banging
her sword on their heads to make them knights if they didn't carry
on the ancient traditions to keep her empire from collapsing.
Besides, they say she's on her last legs. Once a tradition gets
a hold of you it's like your skin, you don't even know you got
it on. I think Winston Churchill said that. They named two cigarettes
after him.
I
showed the article to some friends of mine that afternoon. They
were spread out on Lenny's stoop shooting the breeze and drinking
lemonade after a hot game of stick ball. "Fox hunting?" Frankie
pipes up. "What about bullfighting?" "I went to a bullfight once,"
I said. "What was it like?" everyone wanted to know.
It busted me up, I told them. It broke my heart
and it would have broke yours, too, if you had seen that bull.
He trotted out from under the stadium as if he was going to a
party, all frisky and full of pep. He was a small bull, happy,
glad to be running around in the sunshine. He was in great shape,
that bull. And why not? They been treating him like he was the
most important bull in Mexico, feeding him vitamins, washing him
like in a laundromat every day, exercising him, making him feel
like he had a great future. One look at him and you knew he was
looking forward to be the father of plenty more bulls and cows,
which is what a bull dreams about every night. When he came racing
out what could he think but all that cheering and whistling and
clapping was for him. He hopped around that bullring so excited,
as if he was expecting then and there to find his first cow. But,
oh boy, was he wrong!
Suddenly
a blast from a brass band busts out with souped up tango music.
Then a skinny guy in a fancy costume shows up. He's wearing a
flat, round black hat with little balls dangling from it, as if
he was telling you something. At first he pays no attention to
the bull who is prancing about very friendly, not bothering the
guy at all. Next, the guy lifts off his hat and makes a couple
of sweeping bows to the crowd, waving it at them like he's chasing
flies. The bull has no reason to think the guy in the fancy suit
is after him, planning to make hamburger out of him with the big
sword he pulls out. And that's what he does. But first some other
guys on horses stick a half a dozen spears into the bull to get
him mad. Then the skinny guy dances around the bull, showing off
for the crowd which is now going nuts while the bull can hardly
stand up. At that second the guy shoves the sword into him a couple
of times and finally through the middle of his head until the
bull is a dead duck. That's when the crowd really went wild.
Everybody was quiet for a minute,
kind of thinking about it. "Hey," Frankie yells. "Maybe you'd
like to see a cockfight!"
"A cockfight?" I said. "What's
that?"
"Two roosters with their claws
fitted with razors go for each other until one slashes the other
to death. I know a guy who has cockfights in his cellar. You bet
on them."
"That's horrible," I said, "watching
a couple of chickens kill each other."
"They ain't chickens, they're
roosters!" Frankie laughs. "And what about it? They kill millions
of chickens every day so you can eat them. Don't you eat chickens,
Moe? Huh?"
-Al
Geto
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