By Natalia Martinez
“Did he throw her down a well? Did she leave him for that swell?” –Gillian Welch
The day that the bull almost killed Louie, Ronnie had been fuming in the car as they drove to the Plaza del Toros in Juarez.
Louie had been fucking another girl again. This hadn’t surprised her, she had gotten used to Louie doing some stupid shit like that. No, what had upset her most was the pregnancy test she took earlier that morning. Two dark lines had bloomed under the fluorescent lights of their small shared bathroom. Positive. She was positively pregnant. And just like that, she was tied to Louie, whether she wanted to be or not, whether she had his baby or not. Louie had etched himself inside of her womb with a small gouge and would leave a scar that she’d never be able to see, only feel. She wasn’t sure if she believed in God or the lottery, but she did believe that you reaped what you sowed, and whatever it was that she and Louie had passed on to seed was sure to be an absolute disaster.
Louie noticed on the bridge to Juarez that she had been acting strangely.
“What’s wrong?” he said to her. “You’re not worried about the show, are you?”
Ronnie had tried her best to avoid this conversation all day, to shut herself tight like the safe that her mother kept her gun in when Ronnie was younger. She could still hear the soft click of the dial lock every time she swallowed the truth, every time Louie asked her if something was bothering her.
“No, I’m not worried. You said it yourself. You’re the best bull rider in Juarez.”
“Then what is it? You’ve hardly said a word since this morning.”
“I’m just tired, Louie. Let’s just get this over with. We need the money.”
*
Two big red doors stood tall at the entrance to the Plaza de Toros, a small arena that opened every weekend for the bull riders to compete. The bull riding shows in Juarez were always full of fanfare, and if the circus had ever come to visit, this was what Ronnie imagined it would be like, except not nearly as full of the Mexican trimmings and garnishes. There were always vendors outside the arena selling Japanese peanuts, roasted corn, aguas frescas, and other goods to snack on while the men rode the bulls.
No one had ever taken her to the circus when she lived in Odessa, and she had never known her daddy, who was a Mexican, according to her momma, but Ronnie just had a feeling. She would always try to picture her daddy as she passed through the vendor booths to get to the entrance, wondering if he was there somewhere in the crowd buying something to eat before the show, if she would be able to recognize him before going inside to take her seat in the stands.
When they first met, Louie had told Ronnie that he had started riding as a teenager, just like his father, and only kept up with riding the bulls to make a little extra money on the weekends. Ronnie would drive him across the border in her gray 1985 Toyota Corolla, watch him ride, and then drive them both back to El Paso, where they lived in a little house in her name off Lee Trevino. Ronnie’s car was allowed to pass into Mexico because her car was registered, while Louie’s was not. For all she knew, it was probably stolen, but they never discussed it. Before Ronnie came along, Louie would walk to the fights, waiting in line at the border with the other workers from the factories who were trying to go home.
Louie was a good rider. No matter how much the bull bucked and tossed his tall skinny frame, he’d never let go. He was better than some of the Mexicans, the ones from Ciudad Juarez who hated Louie because he was a gringo. His stage name was El Americano. It didn’t help that Louie would almost always take first prize. Louie wasn’t the type to care, though. He just walked on and rode the damn thing. The first time Ronnie went to one of his shows, she watched his body become loose as a lasso, bending forward and backward in a way that seemed almost inhuman to her. His body was fluid, yet stubborn, flying free like one of those inflatable balloons you see in the front of car dealerships. Finally, after watching the timer go on for an uncomfortably long eight seconds, Louie flung himself free, landing feet first and falling on his backside, smiling and laughing as the bull trotted off to the other side of the arena, distracted by the bullfighter who was there to prevent the bull from seeking revenge.
Ronnie had to admit that there was something thrilling about watching her husband ride the bulls, and afterward, when they would come home way late into the night, she would almost always fuck him. She liked Louie after the shows more than anything, and he liked her best after the shows, too. He was fervid and generous, almost desperate for her, as if the combination of winning and fucking made him feel more alive than ever.
The first time she caught him cheating, he had come home drunk and reeked of her, of the other woman. She was surprised by her own hurt. She didn’t think she had it in her to care so much about fidelity. When her mother told her that her father had left them for another family, she was only six. She had pictured another little girl just like herself, except maybe she was a whole Mexican girl, not just a mix-and-match, like her momma often liked to call her, playing with her daddy in another house in a faraway place like Juarez. She thought it was only natural. Cheatin’ and leaving, that’s just the way it goes. That’s the way that it goes, her mother would sing, everybody’s buying little baby clothes.
They fought about it afterward. It was their first big fight and Louie had denied everything, storming out of the house like an indignant child, only when he left, the sound of the door shutting behind him was so loud that it had left her trembling. She thought that would be the end of it, that she would never see Louie again, and a part of her was relieved at that. She had never seen Louie get so angry before, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to see it twice.
But then Louie came back to her. He came back on his hands and knees, begging, gentle and humbled, and she thought to herself, good Lord, he must really mean it, he must really be sorry. And he loved her. She knew he did, in his own way. So she took him back. They moved in together and lived happily, except for the times when she would suspect something, when the smell came back, fruity and floral, like the pomegranate tree that grew in their backyard. She much preferred him smelling like the bulls.
*
Things were different now. Now she was pregnant, and this would be a whole other kind of fight.
“What do we need the money for, Ronnie? We’re doing just fine,” Louie said.
She considered staying silent until tomorrow, until after the bullfight, when things would be good again, but she couldn’t. She could never keep things from Louie. She would try to stay quiet, try to hold the secret in her mouth like a child hiding a penny under their tongue, but eventually, she would just wind up telling him everything. The safe would burst open and the gun would fire blindly.
“Because I’m pregnant.”
The Plaza De Toros was almost in sight. It was visible even from El Paso, if you were set high up enough on a hill. She would pull up around the back of the arena and drop Louie off so that he could get ready for the show, then she would park the car, walk through the front entrance, and find a seat in the front row.
“You’re pregnant?” He said as she parked the car in the back lot.
“Yes, Louie. I’m pregnant.”
She couldn’t bear to look at him now. Not when he would be so happy, so overjoyed. He would love her all the more now. It would show in the bullfight. He would be flying.
“Ronnie,” he whispered. “Ronnie, that’s just wonderful—”
She turned to face him. “I don’t want it, Louie.”
He was flushed from the excitement. There was sweat dripping from the side of his hairline. It was an especially warm evening, and it was even hotter in the car because Ronnie needed to have the air conditioning fixed.
“You don’t want it?”
“No,” she whispered, the air in her lungs beginning to empty. “I’m not ready.”
A vein was starting to peek through the side of his temple, glistening and prominent from the moisture in the car.
“You’re not ready?”
“Listen to me, Louie—”
“What the hell are you waiting for, kingdom come?”
“I’m waiting for you to stop being such a fucking slut, that’s what—”
That’s when he grabbed her. It had surprised her, so she froze. Louie didn’t know how to hit a woman without almost killing her, or at least, that’s what he had told her once, when she had remarked that sometimes he got so angry with her, she was surprised he hadn’t hit her yet. In hindsight, it made sense that he would wrestle her, then, like a man, or rather, like a bull, holding her by the shoulders and slamming her head into the nearest surface, squeezing until she couldn’t breathe. If he had hit her, she’d have fought back. She’d have given it right back to him, just like her momma taught her, but Louie had her pinned to her seat, his fingers digging deep into the soft part of her upper arm. It was awkward in the car, and if you were a stranger looking in at them from afar, you might have thought they were making love.
“Say it again,” he said. “Call me a slut again, Ronnie.”
But she couldn’t, even though she wanted to. He was squeezing too hard, otherwise, she would have screamed it in his ear. “You’re so fucking spiteful, you know that?”
And then he let her go. Ronnie took in a big gulp of air. Before she could catch her breath, Louie was out of the car and slamming the door shut.
*
The Plaza was packed, as it usually was during late July. They had announced that Louie would be coming on soon. Things would be better after he won, she thought. She might be able to talk reason into him then, and they would have the money to get it done. Ronnie watched from the first row as Louie came out of the tunnel and onto the red dirt arena. There was some applause and some jeering from the locals, but Louie walked on with his head held high.
This time his expression was cold, like he was about to do something unpleasant, which was unlike Louie before the show. Usually, he was smiling, excited for the ride, as if every time riding the bull was his first and his last. Maybe the unpleasant thing was not the bull, but the discussion that would take place with her afterward. Or maybe he felt guilty about what happened in the car. She could never tell with Louie. While she told him everything, he rarely told her anything and was often unreadable, unreachable, a tall statue of a man who only expressed extreme anger or delight, and nothing in between.
Louie walked toward the chute that held the bull and began to climb the railing. The bull was white with black spots, a new bull that Ronnie had never seen before. They liked giving Louie the new bulls, just to fuck with him, or perhaps because they knew he could handle them, domesticate them so that the newer riders could use them for practice. She remembered Louie once told her that when the bulls completely lost their grit, they went right into the slaughter. The spotted bull looked irritated, and Ronnie noticed that Louie was struggling to find a way to straddle him, hovering above the chute until the bull calmed down. Finally, one of the men took a leather strap and slapped the bull across the nose, causing it to freeze in place. Louie jumped on and the gate of the chute shot open.
“The funny thing about bull riding,” Louie had said to her in bed the first night after she watched one of his shows, “is that the bull believes he’s in danger, but really, the one who’s in danger is me. It’s kind of terrible, if you think about it.” But Louie was laughing when he said this.
Louie had the bull for four seconds. Then, as if some strange preternatural force had yanked him from the grip on his saddle, the bull bucked him so that he flew forward in one long arc and landed on his back. Ronnie could see that the wind had been knocked out of him. The crowd gasped as a loud horn pierced the air, indicating time. Louie would be disappointed, but he would be fine.
Louie was still struggling to get up when the bull charged.
Louie blocked his face from the horn of the bull with his arm, but the bull rammed into him still. Ronnie could hear his scream from the stands.
“Where’s the fucking bullfighter?” she shouted.
The cattlemen flooded the arena and chased the bull back into its chute, then they gathered around Louie. The fighter and his red cloth were nowhere to be seen. She couldn’t see Louie anymore either, so she jumped down from the first row and into the pit, then made her way onto the ground and toward the crowd that surrounded Louie.
“Louie! Perdoname, Louie!” She said, pushing through the crowd on the arena floor. “Esposa, soy la esposa. Oh god, Louie!”
There he was in the center of the men with his eyes closed, one arm across his chest, the other resting on the ground, contorted in an unnatural position, the right sleeve of his shirt completely saturated in blood. She could see where the bull had rammed into his arm, a piece of broken bone poking through the delicate flesh.
“Lo tenemos que mover, Señora. El brazo está completamente roto. Ya viene la ambulancia.”
Ronnie understood some Spanish and spoke it better than her husband, but it was still unclear exactly what the man had said to her. She understood an ambulance was coming, so she just nodded her head and watched as the men moved Louie onto a stretcher. Two men held his injured arm as they carried him, careful not to aggravate where the tissue was still connected, and she followed them, her ear pounding with blood as the siren of an ambulance drew nearer.
*
Ronnie drove behind the ambulance that took Louie and the men to the hospital. She knew where the nearest hospital was in Juarez, there were only a handful in the county. She had driven Louie there once before, for a cut from the bull’s horns that needed a little stitching. When they arrived, the cattlemen explained what had happened to the front desk clerk and then took off, leaving Ronnie alone with Louie to wait for a doctor and an X-ray. Before they left, they told her that Louie had come out of his unconsciousness on the way to the hospital and woke up screaming, so the paramedics had injected him with morphine. When they finally rolled him into the operating room, he was still out cold. Ronnie was told to stay behind in the visitor’s ward and wait for someone to come out and tell her that Louie would be alright.
“You are here for Louie Davis?” A doctor approached her in the waiting room. His accent was strong, but he spoke in a clear tone and deep register.
“Yes,” Ronnie said, getting up from her seat. “Is he okay?”
“Come with me. I would like to discuss something with you.”
They stepped through a set of double doors and into the ward where they took Louie. She could hear other voices speaking in Spanish from every room in the hallway, but she could not understand them. She could only understand the pain in their inflection, that desperate need to be well again that afflicted all of the sick and the injured people, whether they realized it or not.
“Señora Davis, Louie’s injuries are very serious. He has a fracture, yes? They are not clean in both of the bones in the forearm. It will be very difficult to put back together. There is also a lot of damage to the muscle and the ligaments that connect the arm.”
“Alright.”
“It’s also an open arm fracture. Sometimes, when something hits the bone hard enough, the bone will break through the skin, but I’ve never seen one this severe. We don’t have a surgeon here to do that kind of repair.”
“So then what are you going to do about it?”
“We can try to piece together the two bones, but there is no way for us to reconnect the tissue at this hospital. The arm will not be functional. I’m afraid we will have to remove the part of the arm below the injury.”
Ronnie’s stomach sank. She tried to imagine it. Louie with one hand. Louie, who liked to take her from behind, now having to fuck her the way he rode the bull, with one hand free. No, it was too much. She felt nauseous. He would never forgive her.
“You can’t just cut off his arm,” she said.
“Señora, por favor, entiéndeme. I understand this is a shock, but if we don’t do it soon, your husband’s wound will become susceptible to infection. The bone is still exposed.”
“What do you want me to tell you? That you have my permission? You don’t. Cut off your own arm and shove it up your ass.” She began to turn to try to find a nurse’s station, but the doctor grabbed her by the arm.
“You are the only relative here. There is no other way. You can try to take him somewhere else, but he is in a lot of pain.”
Ronnie’s head felt like it was about to burst. “I need to see him. Where is he?”
The doctor led her to another much larger room full of green curtains. He pulled one back and revealed Louie wrapped under a white sheet, his arm wrapped in white gauze and bandages. His eyes were closed, and she found he looked tranquil. There were times in the early morning while he was still asleep that he looked this way, too, and those rare and fleeting moments when Louie wasn’t jumping off the walls or in a rage about something were worth preserving, she thought. If she didn’t do something quick, he would be angry for the rest of his life.
“Can you leave us alone for a moment?” she said.
“Yes. I have another patient, but I need your consent when I come back. We can’t do anything until you agree, Señora Davis.” The doctor pulled the curtain closed. Ronnie was alone with Louie. She walked up to him and placed her hand on his face.
“Wake up, Louie. Wake up, come on. We’re leaving.”
“Leaving?” Louie mumbled, his eyes barely open, his mouth nearly closed. “Are you fucking insane?”
“No, these horseshit doctors are. They want to cut your fucking hand off. I already told them to go to hell. Come on. I’m going to go find a nurse.”
*
The drive from Juarez to El Paso would be the longest drive of Ronnie and Louie’s life. The nurses had given Louie more morphine for the pain and placed his arm in a temporary sling, but the hospital refused to provide them with another ambulance. Louie moaned in the front seat of Ronnie’s car the entire hour that they waited at the border, still in agony.
She had been preparing what to say to immigration as they waited in line. My husband’s a bull rider. The bull tore through his arm. We need to get to a hospital immediately. American citizens. Yes, the both of us. She knew how terrible it looked, and even though she planned on telling them the truth, it would be difficult to hide the panic in her voice.
When they finally passed through security, the border patrol officer looked at Ronnie with suspicion. She told him what happened and gave their documents to the officer with shaky hands, praying that Louie would not wake up screaming. The officer sent them on their way.
Ronnie raced through downtown and the I-10 to get to the nearest emergency room. Louie’s moaning was unlike any sound she had ever heard him make before. She knew Louie was somewhere between hell and consciousness, that the sound was coming from deep in the back of his throat, like a bullfrog. She thought of her cousin, who would throw the toads that emerged after a long desert rain from their underground holes into the fire pit in her backyard, just to hear the strange screaming that came from them. The sound was low and guttural, and the smell of the burning frog had made her want to vomit. Louie’s moaning was like that, but worse, and all the while she fought the urge to beg Louie to stop. It wouldn’t have mattered anyway; Louie was so far deep into his own pain that she was sure he’d never hear her.
When they got to the hospital, they took Louie into the operating room immediately. She watched as they rolled him away on a gurney, the blood on his shirt a red splotch that receded through the window of the heavy double doors. She took a seat in the waiting room. She knew she was a monster, like her cousin, for listening to the frogs scream. At least Louie had not lost his arm, she thought.
*
Ronnie found out later that it took fifteen hours to put his arm back together. During the thirteenth hour, a man in costume approached Ronnie in the waiting room. He looked like he had just come from the rodeo, which seemed impossible to her, since the rodeo felt like another life now.
“¿Tú eres la mujer de Louie Davis?”
“Si,” she said. “No hablo.” Her voice was hoarse. “I don’t speak Spanish.”
“My name is Jorge. I was the bullfighter for Louie.” He took a seat next to her. “It’s my fault. It’s my fault he’s here now. I didn’t think the bull would hurt him like this. I’m very sorry.”
She could smell the bulls on him as she stared and wondered what it was he could possibly want now.
“Why the hell didn’t you do your job?”
Her voice was flat, but she could feel the anger welling up inside her body. If he had come to apologize, she would not accept it. Maybe later, but not now. He had probably been drunk. Drunk and fallen asleep before the show even began. Louie said it happened all the time.
Jorge cleared his throat. “I have a wife,” he said. “Louie met her years ago, back when we first got married. She comes to the shows, too, sometimes. And I love her.”
“What the hell does that have to do with anything?”
“I caught them together by the back pens, about a week ago. Louie and her. I was so angry, I couldn’t even confront them. I just waited. I waited for days and days, trying to figure out what to do. I knew I’d see him tonight. I knew I’d be his fighter. And then, when the time came, I just watched him, like I was someone in the crowd, rooting for the bull to give it to him. And then the bull did.”
Ronnie looked closely at the man before her. He was older than her, perhaps in his early forties. She compared him to the fading image she had of her father, the man who abandoned her and her mother when she was six. She had searched for her father for so long and knew so little about him that she could see him in almost anyone. But really, the man was more like her mother, hurt and betrayed by the person he loved most. She pitied him. She knew better than anyone it was an ugly and bitter seed to swallow.
“I could’ve killed him,” he said, placing his face in his hands.
She put a hand on his back. “Yes. But you didn’t.” It felt strange, disingenuous. She wished she knew how to comfort, how to ease both of their pain, but all she felt was hollow and distant, like she was looking at them both from the outside, acting out a page in a script.
“I have to tell him when he wakes up. It took me all night to find you. First, I went to the hospital by the arena. They said his wife took him across the border.”
Ronnie nodded her head, but didn’t say anything. Instead, they both just sat in their seats and said nothing for what seemed like a long, long time. Finally, Ronnie shifted in her seat and turned to face Jorge.
“Can you tell him something for me, too?”
Jorge’s eyebrows raised high in surprise. “Are you leaving?”
“Yes,” she said, staring ahead into the doors that lead into the operating room. “I think so. It’s time.”
“Well, alright,” he said, clearing his throat. “I’ll tell him whatever you need me to tell him, Señora.”
“Tell him,” she said, pulling the straps of her purse onto her shoulders slowly, “that I should have let those sons of bitches cut his arm off.”
When she got up from her seat, she felt a horrible cramping in her abdomen. The pain was so strong she arched over and gasped. The adrenaline in her body was gone. Now she could feel everything; there was a dull ache in her stomach, which she recognized must have intensified over the last few hours without her notice; the exhaustion, sinking deep into her bones, like a slow and gratifying poison that had begun to consume her belly, her arms, her legs. The pain had taken her so much by surprise that she started to laugh, and Jorge began to chuckle nervously, too. He couldn’t see what was so funny; perhaps it was the last thing she had said, something about leaving Louie without an arm. Ronnie thought she could feel something wet and warm begin to pool slowly in her underwear, but she continued to laugh as she straightened herself up and walked toward the bright red exit sign by the hospital entrance, red like the doors at the Plaza de Toros, signaling to her that it was time to go home.