Saved by a Woman's Skirt

For the city, it was a time of violence. For the people, it was a time of fear. For Ruy, it was a time of wonder.

Today, Ruy would tend his dad's small concession stand outside the bullfight arena, already packed with aficionados from all over the country to see Ruy's favorite toreador, Camilo Benitez.

“Don Gustavo promised us two tickets to tomorrow's corrida for helping in the stables all afternoon today,” his dad said before leaving. "And pick any baseball cap you want; you’ll need it tomorrow as we will be sitting in the sun.”

Ruy knew they were lucky to get tickets at all, even in the sun, as his dad could never have afforded them, but his excitement transcended sun or shade. “Thank you, Dad,” he said, giving the man a high five.

His father walked away with the grace of a matador; he had always said he would have been a good one if life had wanted it so.

Ruy sighed, knowing well that it was in part because his older sister Lidia—who they called la flaquita because she was as thin as a reed—had been sick since birth with some disease of the blood, forcing his father, Alfonso Días, to give up bullfighting to pay for her medical bills. When Ruy was born, unexpectedly, he complicated an already precarious financial situation.

The afternoon sun burned through its path in the cloudy sky as people came and went, some stopping at the kiosk for a refreshment, prepackaged meals, or taurine curios. Not everyone made it into the plaza, so that many fans settled for crowding the spaces around the round structure of the bullring, sitting on blankets and following he corridas on their radios.

Ruy's radio had been stolen a week ago, so he had to learn what he could from the cheers of the crowd, the music, and what little bits of information the people coming to his booth told him. By five, the sun was almost kissing the bluish mountains in the west, the clouds above them exploding in bright pinks and oranges.

“Hola, Ruy,” a sweet female voice called somewhere behind him.

Startled, Ruy turned to find Anita, with her auburn hair and hazel eyes that burned with the intensity of a supernova, her skin the color of the sands of the Santa Marta beaches at sunset.

"I didn't know you liked bullfights,” he said, feeling as if the temperature had risen by ten degrees.

Anita walked around and leaned on the small counter. He could see the motion of her legs under the bright fabric of her long yellow skirt. “Not really,” she said. “I was just passing by to see what the uproar is all about." She smiled, her teeth white as pearls. "I heard your dad is taking you to the fights tomorrow.”

"Yeah." Ruy shrugged, not wanting her to know how excited he really was. Be a torero always, his dad would say, never let the bull sense your excitement.

“I thought you were a diehard fan?"

"A little," he said dismissively. "I watch the bullfights on television with my dad sometimes."

"I bet you have never even seen a bull in person.” She shifted and with the motion her breasts seemed to come to life in the periphery of his vision. It was all Ruy could to keep his eyes fixed on hers.

"I guess not." He tried to keep his voice as steady as a bullfighter’s cape before a pass.

"It’s okay; neither have I.”

He relaxed a little. “Didn't your family own a small ranch in Salcedo?”

“Huh? Not anymore. The guerrilla took it over a long time ago. My grandma had to flee to the city or she would have ended up shot like my grandpa.”

He swallowed. Anita recounted her family history with the detachment of an experienced matador. “Sounds horrible. I didn’t know.”

“No one really knows. Mom keeps the fairy tale alive for the neighbors to eat up.” She licked her lips.

Ruy's eyes shifted there directly, feeling dizzy for a moment.

"Easy there, Rodrigo Días." She had noticed. “You better keep that to yourself if you ever want to get near these lips.”

The voices in the arena exploded, causing both Ruy and Anita to look toward the plaza.

“Benitez,” Ruy whispered, looking at his watch. Only Benitez would ignite the volatile crowd into such a frenzy.

“How do you know?” Anita asked, walking behind the counter to stand next to Ruy.

The warmth of her sun-kissed skin radiated into his arm. Realizing he hadn't answered, he reached in his backpack under the counter and produced a rolled up poster than he then unfolded on the counter. "Let me show you."

"Bold colors," she said as the image of the matador became visible.

The matador stood, body taught in the shape of a bow, his back slightly bent backwards holding la muleta with both hands behind him where the bull seemed to be circling him like a shark around its prey.

"Here." Ruy's finger pointed a the name in large bold print, "Mariano Benitez, February nineteenth."

Anita's hand suddenly rested near his and traced the length of the toreador's legs upward from his legs, stopping right at the upper thighs. "Why do they wear them so tight?"

Ruy could feel the fire of a blush burning on his cheeks.

"It seems to restrictive." Her left hand was now sliding up his forearm, his index still on the cartel. She circled around him slowly, her breasts gently grazing his back. "I am sure he can't wait to remove those pants off and just breathe."

They were now face to face, his heart aflutter with expectation. Across from them, the drone of the bullring was reaching a climax, likely Benitez getting ready for the final estocada, the bull falling to the sword.

Her face moved toward him teasingly, her hands grasping his head to bring him closer, lips grazing lips.

Everything around him stopped, the entire universe pausing for this instant that seemed to extend into eternity.

Then the world exploded in bright orange light.

Deafened, blinded, Ruy fell to the ground along with Anita, whose hands were still clasped tightly around his neck.

The joyful shouting of the final tercio of the bullfight had turned to screams of agony.

Anita coughed. "What—happened?"

"I don't know. Sounded like an explosion." He got to his feet slowly and what he saw looked like the end of the world. Thick smoke and dust filled the air, and where the bullring would be, a bright glow burned through the haze, yellow and orange.

“Stay here,” Ruy said to Anita. “Do not move until I come back. I have to find my dad.”

“Be careful,” she said.

Ruy made his way through people and debris, descending a small hill toward what he remembered was the location of the stables. As the behemoth of the bullring rose above him, he could hear horses neighing somewhere ahead, but soon realized there was no safe way across.

Before him lay a wide crater filled with debris on fire and, he hated to think, injured people.

“Ruy!” Someone called. “Ruy!”

He turned around. On top of the hill he saw the shadow of Anita, silhouetted by the flashing lights of emergency vehicles that must have just arrived.

Another shadow materialized in the smoke far on the other side of the crater, much larger than a human.

It had horns.

“Anita! Anita!” He shouted. “There’s a bull.”

He climbed back up the hill rapidly, quickly out of breath because of the smoke. “Anita!”

She stood frozen, her long yellow skirt dancing back and forth in the wind like—he froze—like a cape.

As he ran he thought he needed to distract the bull, who stood less than forty meters from Anita, pawing the ground with its hooves. “Don’t move, Anita!”

He knew what he’d have to do, but he was running out of time.

As soon as he reached her, he grabbed her skirt by the waist. "Take the skirt off!"

"What?" She was all confusion.

"Just do it!" He pulled down as she complied and helped her step out of the skirt. "Lie flat on the ground. Now!"

He ran, his eyes switching between the bull and Anita, who was now hardly visible lying on the grass.

The bull's head turned toward Ruy, who was running toward the lamppost next to his father's stand. Once under the light, he turned to the bull, who seemed confused about which way to charge.

Ruy began to move the yellow skirt, making it undulate right in front of the concrete lamppost. "Come on, toro."

The bull charged.

Ruy pictured Benitez and his deathly close passes, slipping out of the beast's path only seconds before collision, the animal sliding past the cape in what turned out to be a twelve-hundred-kilogram caress.

His eyes fixed on the ball of rage coming his way, Ruy tried not to think of what might have happened to his father in the stables, but at the same time drawing anger from it. He thought of la flaquita and her frail frame, her pleading eyes always kind, always needful.

The air around him seem to harden with tension as the bull reached him. Ruy bent his middle away from the giant horned head, holding the skirt tightly with both hands. He almost lost his balance as he felt the sharp tip of the horn skim his side.

Then there was a loud blow as the bull crashed into the concrete pole. Ruy let go of the skirt and threw himself to the side, crawling away from the animal as soon as he hit the ground.

He stopped when he was a goodly distance away and looked back. There were people everywhere now that the dust had settled. Next to the light post, the bull was attempting to get back on its feet unsuccessfully.

A tall, slender shadow approached he animal, exploding in a fireworks of reflected light as the jeweled traje de luces, the torero's traditional garb, entered the ring of luminosity of the light post, which miraculously had not fallen.

"Benitez," Ruy said, recognizing his idol.

For a moment he thought the bull would get up and it would be a corrida out here on the grass, next to his dad's booth, but the bull had no fight left. Benitez got on one knee and put one hand on the bull's spine, almost affectionately.

Ruy got on his feet and walked toward Benitez, spellbound.

"Is it dead?" Ruy asked Benitez, his voice tremulous.

"No. It's just out, for now, but it's going to have a headache like you won't believe. What's your name?"

"Ruy—well, Rodrigo Días, but I go by Ruy."

"Rodrigo Días like El Cid? Well, you too have rescued your damsel in distress."

Ruy nodded, embarrassed at the reference to the famous Spanish knight. "I am not anything like him, señor Benitez."

"Perhaps you are. You know what's crazy?"

Ruy shook his head.

"Today, before that car bomb went off, I was on my last tercio and was pretty sure this bull here was going to kill me. It had sentido, meaning he was aware of me as the enemy, rather than the cape." He paused, looking at the bull as if picturing that last moment before the explosion.

"Will you fight it again?"

"No. I think this bull is retiring. Plus, you already beat it."

"I—"

"And not only was this bull sure to kill me, but you come and beat it with a woman's skirt." He laughed, but then got up and came up to Ruy, putting his arm around him. The man’s expression was somber for a moment. "Come on, after we mourn our dead and help the injured, including you, we're going to find your dad and talk about showing you some passes and maybe start you off as my peón."

They walked away towards the ambulances, where Ruy's dad was being checked by the emergency personnel. Ruy sighed in relief. "That's my dad."

"Let's go see him. But before we talk about your future, we need to ask him about buying your girlfriend a new skirt.