The Drifters (82 page)

Holt flushed, then said, ‘Joe, in boot camp I had a powerful drill sergeant, Schumpeter. He wasn’t too well educated, but the fundamentals he could see with an eye of crystal clarity. I wish you could spend one month at Parris Island under Schumpeter. You’d see things more honestly.’

Joe slammed down his napkin. ‘I might’ve known it! You’re an ex-marine! You got that gung-ho indoctrination when you were a kid and it’s the biggest thing that’s ever happened in your life. Mr. Holt, to us the marines are an echo of a dead age … they and their Schumpeters and their nonsense.’

To my surprise, Holt showed no anger. Carefully placing his fork beside his plate, he thought for a moment, then asked, ‘Your friend Yigal is Jewish, isn’t he? Do you realize that if it hadn’t been for men like Schumpeter, who believed that old poem, or things like it … such as
justice … Well, your friend would have died in an incinerator … burned alive … along with every other Jew on earth. Does this mean nothing?’

‘Under certain circumstances …’

‘Would you have fought Hitler?’

‘That question doesn’t face my generation,’ Joe said.

‘It faces every generation. In different form. And the question of courage faces every life. Ask Mr. Fairbanks.’

I could provide no arguments that Joe had not heard, so I kept my mouth shut, but he said, ‘Courage I have. If the government catches me, I go to jail. I’ve been willing to lay it on the line.’

‘You would flee your nation?’ Holt asked in disbelief.

Joe laughed. ‘Apparently you haven’t heard what we’re willing to do besides flee. Do you know that we have clinics instructing us in how to beat the physical examination? Eight aspirin an hour before. It’s good for five hours in case they pull the delayed buck on you. Go in to the doctors at the end of an LSD trip, and you’ll drive the machines crazy. Come to Europe one week before your eighteenth birthday and certify this as your legal residence. I know at least twenty ways to beat the rap, and if they fail, I can fall back on Little Casino and then Big Casino.’

‘What are they?’ Holt asked.

‘Little Casino, you get a doctor to certify that you’re a habitual user of LSD and heroin.’

‘You’d put that in writing?’ Holt asked, appalled at the implications.

‘I may have to before the year’s out.’

‘But, Joe! It would stand there in your record … suppose you wanted a job.’

‘I wouldn’t accept any kind of job in which my military record would be taken into account.’

‘But almost any job. A bank, World Mutual that Mr. Fairbanks works for, UniCom …’

‘I wouldn’t take a job with any of those outfits. You don’t seem to understand. The system is corrupt and I’m not going to be part of it. If I take Little Casino, I’m not putting anything I’m concerned with in peril. I’ve done that already.’

‘But how about getting married? Suppose you wanted to marry my daughter. Wouldn’t I, as her father, naturally look into your background?’

Joe laughed outright. ‘Never in a thousand years, Mr.
Holt, would you allow your daughter to marry me, Little Casino or no. Nor would I marry her. We’re living in totally different societies. Look at these chicks around here. You ever see prettier girls? You think I couldn’t marry them if I wanted to? You think they’re going to ask their parents first, “Is Joe an acceptable young man? Will he fit in at the First National Bank?” Hell, we’d get married and tell them about it on a postcard from Tangier three months later.’

Neither Holt nor I made any response to this, for this radical concept was more than we could digest at the moment. We had been reared in a society in which the taking of a man’s daughter carried with it a certain commitment which gentlemen discharged in accepted ways. Holt had paid a formal visit to the parents of his girl; I had done the same. It signified nothing, I suppose, and our marriages did not last any longer because of it, but to us, as men, it meant a great deal. Five or six times in my life I’ve been sworn into office or into a major obligation, and taking the oath meant something, for it confirmed a commitment that I was bound in honor to discharge, and I consider such commitments, voluntarily entered into, as the levees which keep the floods of life within control.

‘We reject all the ideas you’ve been throwing at me, Mr. Holt. But on our own terms we’re going to live good and constructive lives.’

‘In the long run, the terms have got to be the same. They always have been. You can laugh at Horatius standing firm at his bridge, but unless you identify your bridges and develop the guts to defend them …’

‘We have defined our first bridge. The Vietnam war is an insult to man’s intelligence and we’ll have none of it.’

‘You keep shying away from my earlier question,’ Holt said. ‘Was World War II also an insult to man’s intelligence?’ Joe refused to answer, so Holt continued, ‘Then how about Korea?’

‘How about it? Isn’t that where the trouble really started? America refused to declare war, because she didn’t want to upset the internal economy. Nine men made a lot of money and the tenth went to war. We found we could get away with it that time, so in Vietnam we tried the same filthy trick. And it exploded in our faces. It is a corrupt war, Mr. Holt, corrupt in every facet.’ There was a
pause, and Joe asked, ‘How would you like to be drafted into such a war?’

‘I volunteered,’ Holt said.

Joe looked at his plate, and Holt continued: ‘The way I volunteered in World War II and in Korea. I considered the Korean war a noble enterprise. We saved Japan from communism and stabilized that part of Asia. I feel the same about Vietnam. You say our last four Presidents have been dopes. I think they’ve been excellent men … by and large.’

‘The gap is wider than I thought,’ Joe said, and Holt asked, ‘What’s Big Casino?’ and Joe replied, ‘It’s very grave. And I may have to take it before January,’ whereupon Holt said, ‘Joe, you’re a valuable human being. You’re young and you’ll grow older. Don’t do anything that could destroy those later years. They’re long and you’ll need all the character you can muster.’

He placed his knife and fork on his plate and went upstairs to his room, but this time we heard no music.

On July 14 Pamplona reached its apex. During the night thousands of Frenchmen had crossed the border in a grand stampede to
‘regarder les taureaux.’
They were a handsome lot, neat white trousers and those trim knitted shirts with the crocodile embroidered over the left breast. Many wore berets and all were noisy.

At five-thirty the bands assembled at Bar Vasca, and since this would be their last morning to rouse the city, they played with total abandon, drums crashing like artillery. Holt rose promptly, shaved in cold water, and dressed in his customary uniform, after which he knocked on various doors. By six a varied group of young people assembled in his room, including two very pretty American girls from Wellesley whom Joe had found trying to sleep in the square.

Holt told Clive it was his responsibility to secure places for the girls at the barricades leading into Estafeta: ‘Better start right now. All good spots will be gone by six-fifteen.’

When the four of us were left alone, he said, ‘Coffee, then up to town hall. We’ve got to get Fairbanks that safe spot in the corner.’

As we walked up the hill he bought us each a newspaper, and when he had rolled his up, reminded us of our strategy, adding, ‘No smart-aleck movements when you think the bulls are safely past. Because they might turn back in one hell of a swipe and rub you out.’

When we reached town hall the plaza was already jammed with men, many of them Bastille Day trippers who had never run before. ‘This isn’t a good crowd,’ Holt said professionally. ‘Watch out for yourselves because today anything can happen.’ When he had placed me he added quietly, so the others could not hear, ‘I don’t need to tell you, but resist the temptation to run after the bulls once they’ve gone by. If a bull should turn back in this plaza, it’s got to be trouble, and I don’t want to worry about an old coot like you.’

I watched as he led his two young charges into position. At first it looked like a mistake, for they were smothered by the crowd, but when, at two minutes to seven, the police allowed the front men to filter through the barricade, Holt and the boys found themselves precisely where they had planned to be, in the front ranks of those who would run with the bulls in this exciting part of the course.

At seven the rocket exploded and an intense apprehension gripped all of us. I cannot explain why I, who had run often with the bulls in earlier years and had frequently stood my ground along the course, should have been as excited as the newest Frenchman, but I was. I happened to be watching Cato when the second rocket sounded, and I could see that he felt caught up in something from which he could not now retreat.

I turned away from Holt and the boys and looked down the hill toward the corrals, and in a moment I caught my first sight of the bulls, rushing up the slopes, past the military hospital, past Bar Vasca, and into the narrow alley that would deliver them right into my lap. I found myself praying that each would make the turn and head into Doña Blanca, not into me.

Now they were here, six charging bulls and ten huge steers bearing directly down upon me, and I felt myself grow faint, but at the last moment, as always, they veered left, passed me by with a few feet to spare, and headed into Doña Blanca. Overcome with excitement, I started to run after them because I wanted to see what happened with Holt and the boys, but I had taken only a few steps
when a lean Spaniard grabbed me by the arm and jerked me back into the crowd, shouting.
‘Señor, otro!’

In my excitement I had not counted the bulls—indeed, I probably could not have done so had I tried, for they passed me in a blur and my senses were pounding so that I could neither see nor count accurately—and now a last bull, who had strayed behind the others, came roaring up and charged right into the spot I had just vacated. Ignoring me and others like me, he dashed ahead, trying only to catch up with his mates. Again I took up the chase, and was thus able to see fairly close at hand what happened at the turn into Estafeta.

In my first glance I saw with relief that Cato had wedged himself into the crevice beneath the window of the baby shop, while Joe was pressed against the barricade. Holt was safe in the middle of the street, but because he had counted the passing bulls, he knew that one was still to come and that it could be dangerous. Shouting ‘Stay down!’ at Cato and ‘Keep back!’ to Joe, he took prudent steps to protect himself. What he could not know was that he was stepping in front of a frightened young Frenchman, who, it developed later, had had a most terrifying morning.

Sashaying into the city hall plaza at about a quarter to seven, he had announced grandiloquently that in order to celebrate Bastille Day he would run with the bulls, and when the rocket had sounded he had moved amiably down Doña Blanca, but when he reached Estafeta and looked down that long, dark thoroughfare where manhood is tested, he quite fell apart and screamed the equivalent of ‘What am I doing here?’

In his panic he attempted to crawl under the barricades, but the policeman we had seen in action earlier pushed him back into the runway. He then ran to where the girls were perched, only to be thrust again into the street by a second policeman. In real panic he ran to still a third spot, where he happened to confront a captain of police, who punched him in the face, shouting, ‘You wanted to run—run!’

The young man, still terrified by Estafeta, turned back toward town hall, but the bulls had rounded the corner and were coming directly at him. In sheer terror he screamed, ‘What shall I do?’ and Holt knocked him to the ground and showed him how to lie wedged against the
wall of some shop. There the trembling young man had lain while the first five bulls roared by, their hooves striking the pavement not far from his covered head.

When they were past, he got up and started to walk into the middle of the street, but at this moment the final bull appeared … and the young man froze. The morning had been simply too much for him. Holt, sensing what had happened, again came to his rescue and pushed him backward toward the wall, then drew himself into a slim, motionless monument as the stray bull rushed past. It was an exciting moment, and all who saw, including myself, applauded.

So all would have gone well, except that when this stray bull tried to turn into Estafeta he was moving too fast and fell down. Then two things happened that changed the course of the morning. When the bull regained its feet it was facing backward, and when it finally peered down Estafeta it could see none of its fellows, so in confusion it began lashing at whatever lay before it.

With a savage swipe of its left horn it ripped at the barricade, striking just below Monica’s foot, then leaped across the street at Cato, still huddled beneath the window, knees drawn up to protect his stomach. If the bull were to hit him in that position, with his body already pressed against two solid surfaces, the goring would be terrible, perhaps fatal. Seeing the horns bearing down upon him, he shrieked, but the horns never struck, for at this crucial moment Holt leaped before the bull, waved his arms and jiggled his newspaper, and in this way tricked the bull into ignoring Cato.

It was a magnificent gesture, one of the most heroic in recent years, and a sharp-eyed photographer, alerted to expect drama when the lone bull fell, caught the scene in full beauty; the infuriated animal, a few inches from Cato; Cato cringing on the street; Holt, in an act of voluntary sacrifice, drawing the bull away from the fallen body and onto himself. And this famous photograph shows one more thing: behind Holt there is a terrified Frenchman about to grab him to use him as a shield.

That’s what happened. Normally Holt would have pirouetted out of the bull’s reach and the animal would have wound up in a position to race harmlessly down Estafeta, but when the Frenchman grabbed Holt, there was nothing the latter could do. Held in a viselike grip from
behind, he could not move as the bull lunged directly at him. I was now standing about ten feet from the scene and watched with horror as the bull drove its right horn into Holt’s gut, then chopped at him twice more as the Frenchman held him transfixed. Finally a workman with a pole goaded the bull and he ran down Estafeta, causing no more trouble.