Fiesty Filmore #1

I’m holding my ground on the Calle Estafeta as los valientes stream by me. Los valientes, or ‘the brave ones,’ take off for the Plaza de Toros as soon as they’re released from the crowd of runners gathered near the corral at Santo Domingo. They’ll enter the ring before the first bulls are even out on the course and be roundly booed by the fans sitting in the stadium. I’m not planning on joining them. The festival at Pamplona was my reason for traveling to Europe and I want to run with the bulls, not before the bulls. So I’m holding my ground, and doing my best to hold down the Snickers bar I ate on the Taxi ride to the Plaza.

Looking down the street to the corner where the bulls will turn from Mercaderes up Estafeta, I’m completely inside myself. Back at the start of the course, standing shoulder to shoulder with the other runners, there had been a nervous energy running through the crowd. Everyone was either fighting off doubts about running or the effects of last night’s sangria. We were all trying our best to crack jokes, mostly about having our behinds shiskabobed by a bull. Most of the jokes weren’t that funny, but everyone was eager to laugh. Those of us by ourselves were just trying to not feel totally alone in a crowd of strangers while we waited for the cops to clear the drunks off the course and check the barricades. There’s none of that jocularity now. Released out onto the course to take our spots, that giddy electricity has been washed away by a deep current of silent energy. Unlike the chattering buzz of the crowd, it has a numinous feeling, as if everyone is simultaneously tapped into the enormity of this moment and totally within themselves at the same time. No one is cracking jokes. People around me are warming up, furiously pumping their knees up and down in place or striding ten or fifteen yards back and forth. Their routines look more like some elaborate war dance rather than effective callisthenics. It’s almost as if they think stretching out their quads just one more time will give them the speed to outrun the bulls. As I make this smug observation I realize that I’m compulsively shaking one leg and then the other, as if I could shake the nervousness out. Just as I start to laugh at myself, I hear the cannon. The sound of the shot rolls around the corner and booms up Estafeta like a flash flood through a canyon, its reverberations splashing off the walls of the buildings. The bulls are out.

The stream of los valientes grows into a river as many runners bolt when they hear the cannon. It’s hard not to. When you hear it, you’re shot through with an intense awareness of some giant, unseen force surging towards you. I take a position on the right third of the street to avoid the channel of runners moving up the middle of the Estafeta. I try to remember the advice I’ve cobbled together from the hotel concierge, other runners, and last night’s Google search. Watch out for the other runners. Start running when the bulls are twenty or thirty meters away. If you get knocked down, stay down. I have to start jumping to see over the growing crowd of white shirts. The river of runners grows wider and faster as more and more people are running. I jump up to look down the street again and glimpse what looks like a bull coming up the street. The river is now an all out torrent, I’m being buffeted by those pushing past me, but I hold my ground, afraid that I’ll be leaving too soon. Everyone is shouting or laughing maniacally. I jump up one more time and can’t see anything at the end of the street. Then I hear the clanking of cowbells. I don’t stop to wonder if cowbells carry farther than thirty meters. I wheel around and bolt up the street.

There’s a reason it’s described as a rush. Time and space collapse into a singular intensity. You feel like part of an oncoming wave. I’m running flat out, blood thundering in my ears, and nothing resembling a coherent thought in my head. Other runners who are either slower than me, or more slowed down from the night before, fade into my path and I have to push them off or cut around them. I don’t know how long I’d run when I feel something very big and very strong coming up on me. I glance to my left and see a massive black bull running about three feet to my left. I’ve never seen anything more powerful up close before. It’s massive, a galloping tank of bulging muscle and menacing horns. But I only see two of them, there should be more. The herd must have separated when some of them hit the barrier taking dead man’s corner too wide. Thinking about them slipping around the corner, I realize I’ve forgotten an important rule: take the turns tight, the bulls always go wide. I’m running on the right side of the bull and we’ll be turning left at Curva de Telefónica towards the tunnel into the stadium. I’m on the wrong side of a rumbling ton of angry bull.

We crest the hill of the Estafeta and the cobblestone of the old street gives way to modern pavement. It’s now a downhill turn into the stadium and hooves can’t hold to the slick concrete. The bull crashes across the street, skidding directly into my path, hooves clattering, horns flailing, bellowing furiously. I only have a second to react. I glance over my shoulder and see there’s room to cut across to the left side of the street and down the ramp to the tunnel. The other bull makes the turn without falling and I’m sure the rest of the herd must have caught up by now. I can see down the ramp and through the tunnel to a square of sun drenched dirt. As I see the ring for the first time, I’m filled with equally absolute convictions that I’m going to make it and that I’m going to be run down as cosmic justice for all the hamburgers I’ve eaten over the years. Others must have been overwhelmed by the sight of the ring, or adjusting to the sharp decline of the ramp. There are maybe a dozen runners laid out on the way to the tunnel, covering their heads as they wait for the bulls to pass. Some of the runners about twenty yards ahead of me trip over one of the human speed bumps and go sprawling themselves. The runners’ hoops and hollers are echoing in the tunnel and I can hear a man in front of me hysterically shouting what I think must be a prayer as I do my best to avoid the fallen runners. The downhill grade makes me feel almost as if I’m floating as I hurdle two prone men and sprint through the tunnel, leaping over the threshold and out into the ring of the Plaza de Toros.

I cut to the left side of the ring and listen to the crowd’s cheers as the bulls run out of the tunnel, through the ring, and into the hold on the other side. The run is over. I did it. I ran with the bulls. Then my body reminds me it isn’t polite to foist a five hundred meter all out sprint on legs that haven’t trained since high school. I can feel the slightly sick ache of lactic acid washing through my limbs as the adrenaline wears off. I place my hands on my hips, drawing deep, needled breaths as I scan the stands for my friends traveling with me. But I can’t make them out in the sea of white shirts and red scarves. I notice all the runners around me are high-fiving and hugging, their friendships forever galvanized by the crucible of the Encierro. I have no one to turn to. For the first time in my life, I am truly, consciously, aware that an experience is a poor thing if it isn’t shared.

I’m now standing in my apartment, looking at the picture on the refrigerator door. My friend snapped it from the stands just as I entered the ring, my green t-shirt standing out against the crowd of white shirts and red sashes behind me. My fist is clenched, about to triumphantly pump into the air. If you strain hard enough, you can just make out the look of exultation on my face, or at least imagine it. And while I treasure the shot, I can’t help but think the clasp of a friend’s hand in that ring would have been worth a thousand pictures.