LITMIR.BIZ

      On the sixth morning the herd soared past me at the curve. I broke into a sprint crossing behind their path. A bald Spanish runner streamed alongside the pack on the inner curve. The black bull nearest him slid. The animal gathered his hooves and found purchase. He opened his frothy mouth and raised his head upward in a slow graceful lunge. One of his long tall horns embedded into the bald runner’s thigh. The bull lifted and the man floated up into the air. The horn’s upward thrust halted. The mozo unhinged and ascended up another few feet. He floated above the chaotic runners and animals in a long arcing flight, then descended and flopped on his back as the animal and the herd galloped up the street. The mozo screamed and clutched his thigh. The wound plopped dark blood in a gooey smear on the cobblestones. Red Cross medics moved in, and I remembered the sweeper steers and the other runners and I helped form a shoulder-to-shoulder wall to protect the man and the medics from the sweeper steers trampling them. Then we got out of the way of the medics so they could get him off to the hospital.

      I finally sobered up enough to realize my knee was completely fucked. It swelled to the size of a Chicago-style softball. If I was walking it was fine but if I tried to sit it wouldn’t bend. If I was sitting for a while, when I tried to stand it wouldn’t straighten. Galloway convinced me to go to the hospital.

      I took the bus to the emergency room. A woman and some children cried and pressed to get into a curtained room. Inside a man screamed on a gurney. The curtain opened. The bald Spanish runner from the curve writhed as the doctors inspected his wound. One of the more painful things involved in a goring wound is the clothing and debris that gets thrust into the hole by the horn. A bull’s horn has splinters at the tip. Those splinters break off when they insert into the body. Goring wounds are extremely dangerous. The animals continually sharpen their horns on any hard surface. You can watch them do this from the castle wall above the corral in the night before their runs. The horns are porous and they will dip the tips of their horns in the large piles of dung in the corral. In effect they are turning their horns into poisonous spears. Goring wounds are guaranteed to infect. I was pretty lucky; my knee was just busted. The doctor took an X-ray and said the kneecap wasn’t broken, just a severe contusion. An infection also festered in the knee from the filthy street. He prescribed ibuprofen and an antibiotic and I took the bus back to town.

      I remember waiting for the fireworks that night with the Posse. They have the best fireworks you will ever see, and they have them every single night of fiesta. We all sat in a big circle in the grassy field in the dark. Lights illuminated the white stone castle walls as thousands of people filled the fields beside them. My injury really impressed Graeme’s son Will; he asked for the X-rays. I gave them to him. He was a nice kid. I’d get to watch him grow up over the coming years. Galloway told me I shouldn’t run the next morning, but I assured him I would. We drank and watched the fireworks explode above us and were very happy.

      The second-to-last run I came up to Top of Estafeta with Galloway and Gary. As the herd approached I ran alongside Galloway. Suddenly he hip-checked me and I fell into a doorway. He glanced at me and nodded. He was just trying to protect me because of my knee, but it infuriated me. I fought through the bodies to get back out into the street and ran alongside the herd pretty close. Didn’t tell Galloway it’d made me mad. I just smiled at him at Bar Txoko afterward when he brought me a beer.

      The final morning we were in the Alamo waiting for it to start. Galloway and Gary tried and failed to talk me out of running. I assured them if my knee didn’t loosen I wouldn’t try for it. They asked me where I planned to run and I told them the Curve and they looked at each other and sighed and then we all laughed and told each other suerte before we left.

      I stood at the curve and waited. I tried to squat to stretch my knee but it wouldn’t bend and I doubted I’d be able to run. After the rocket the adrenaline loosened it up a little and I tried really hard to bend my knee. The herd ambled toward us. I decided to try. As they crashed into the wall I ran, but my knee didn’t cooperate. It wouldn’t bend and I couldn’t muster much more than a painful jog. I watched the herd accelerate away. Goodbye till next year. Suddenly there’s a whirl. I look back and a straggler bull rambles directly for me as I float slowly through the curve. The sudden terror limbers my knee and I sprint deep and hard and painlessly. I veer right as the bull tears up the center of the street. The way the adrenaline limbered my knee shocked me. A while later I found a photo of my flash on the horns. It wasn’t much but it was something.

      Got on the bus that night and I jumped a flight over to London. Johny Brown invited me to read from my novel on a legendary radio station called Resonance FM. Stayed with Johny for a couple weeks and we rehearsed a great show with live music and even performed to a packed house at the 12 Bar, a classic punk rock venue just across the street from the station. We also did two different hour-long segments on his show Mining for Gold on Resonance FM. Johny gave me a book on black magic voodoo and I found a passage on white magic. White magic is good magic that can cause good luck and positive mojo. My novel wasn’t anywhere near being ready for publication. I was just starting out on a long journey. But the inspiration and excitement Johny gave me by doing those performances was exactly what I needed. Johny Brown was my white magic voodoo and I’ll never forget it.

      Made it home a broken bag of bones and I luckily got enough money together to fly down and spend some time with Enid in September. I got back home and was completely run down.That’s around the time I began to lose my mind.