Grab the Bull by the Life

I was going to write up something about tourists and how they piss me off because of the local county fair and the people going to and from Burning Man, all of them seemingly willing to forget how to completely drive a car. In fact I wrote most of it up yesterday but I was just getting mad all over again. So I decided to tell a story my grandpa told me. My grandpa died from complications of the flu earlier this year. He lost the ability to talk about ten years ago due to getting hit in the head by a machinist's lift back when I was a little tyke running around being stupid like all children. I was six years old when this happened, according to my mother, I don't remember it. Thirty years is asking a bit much to recall something like that. The hit to his head caused tears in his brain and he was then diagnosed with a dementia called Speech Aphasia. It's a shitting thing to end up with, I know, I took care of the man for the better part of my adult life. The one thing my grandpa did was he always told stories. About his life growing up in the same town as me, and how all kids do stupid shit growing up and could get away with for a time. I gave a eulogy for him at his memorial service which included our little war about who got to use the television after he got home from work and my parents picked me up from their house when they were done with work. Grandparents, the cheapest babysitters you can get. I titled the story Goddamn Vacuum, because that's what it was really about, and I doubt any of the five hundred people that attended were ready for a man with a long bushy red beard to get up there in front of them to say the words “Goddamn” at what is essentially a funeral. But I did, and I was scared near shitless. I hate public speaking, but for my grandpa's sake, it had to be done. I'll just state that I had people crying for something other than sadness that day.

This story isn't exactly how my grandpa told it, because every good story needs to be embellished by the person currently telling it. It must become their own. I have hundreds of these tales crammed into my brain, all I have added to even though I wasn't there for them. I called my grandpa, Pa, because a two year old picks what they decide to call a parent or grandparent and it sticks for life. At thirty-five I still called him that, and will until I die. This tale does involve the harming of an animal. It didn't die, just lived out a long life as a stud with a profound hatred for two boys that would one day be known as my grandpa and his brother Clint. When my grandpa was seven years old, he was a smart ass whelp known locally as Mutt, short for mutton head, meaning dumb. That name was from when teachers could not only call a kid stupid to their face, but smack them around. The family ran a local ranch that supplied beef to the mining towns around, like Body (now a ghost town) and down to LA. My grandpa's brother is a few years older and they owned a bull. A prize winning bull. A bull that was there for one reason. And I shit you not, when my grandpa told me this story he used the words “To train men for deep sea fishing and the Coast Guard.” I laughed at that once, and he proceeded to add it to the story every fucking time he told me it. You'd think it would get old after the twentieth time he told it. It did, I just chuckled because he thought it was funny as hell, and I just humored the old man. And I use it, because I am witty and think I'm funny as shit too. And everyone better be laughing at it when I say that or so help me, I will bust out a god-awful knock-knock joke.

This prize bull was bought for a couple hundred dollars, and this being 1940, a car was twice that amount. I hope it was a shitty old car, because damn, that's a lot of fucking money. My grandpa, got the brilliant idea of daring his older brother to got ride the bull. My mom tells me this this was docile as shit, except for around my grandpa, that bull lived a long time and had one hell of a grudge. There were some claims of double dares, then the no take-backs, a couple cross your hearts bullshit that kid do, and the passing of chores and cold, hard, cash money. My uncle Clint talked my grandpa into going first. And thus proving my grandpa was the Mutton head that his teacher said he was. My grandpa agreed to go ride that docile bull, he soothed that beast with kind words, the promise of all the cow tail he could ever hope to get, cash, who couldn't use some extra coins during the Depression. And he made it to the back of the animal, with no problems at all but he forgot his brother was as much of a smart ass as he was, just older with more experience and style. My grandpa said, “We were out in that pasture because we were shooting targets with a slingshot. I had forgotten that.” He laughed when he told me that, but I could see the terror of that lingering in his eyes. See when he got on that bull, he turned to showoff to his brother, proudly, with a smug look on his face, because he had just showed up his older brother and was about to call him a coward when he looked back to see his older brother standing there. With that slingshot. Pulled back with a small stone resting in it, waiting to be fired. Aimed at the backside of that poor docile bull, and when it was let loose, the aim was pure, perfect and true. I can picture it as if it were a movie, there would be doves flying in super slow-mo, an award winning score by John Williams playing loudly. JJ Abrams' would have the perfect lens flare. Michael Bay, pyrotechnics would astound the audience. And when that stone struck its target, Uncle Clint was laughing his ass off. This perfect shot, guided by the hand of God, whom I believe must have the most kick ass sense of humor, hit upon that poor docile bull's testicles.

When ever I was hit in the nuts by a flying object, I fell down into a fetal position, crying silently for my mother, wishing the pain would go away, and for god sake, please don't let one be ruptured. Even reading this makes me cringe as most men would. That bull did not do that. No, the whole outlook on life changed in that moment for it. Yoda said, “Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering.” That bull skipped all that shit and went right for the suffering, bucking with a seven year old clinging to his back, nostrils flaring, foaming at the mouth. It only wanted nothing more than the death of the child clinging to its back. When it finally bucked my grandpa off and he got his ass back to the fence his brother was behind, whom I can only assume was out of breath from laughing so hard. When their dad got home, from where ever because that was never part of the story, he noticed his prize bull was not happy. Fuming would be a good word. And after a while that bull calmed down, had a shitload of kids that made all kinds of money for that ranch. It was happy. Except when my grandpa or his brother were around, which brought back all that hate and anger of that one nut shot. So don't go hitting any animal in the nuts. It's remembered for all time, and the basis of a worthwhile grudge. Also my great grandfather never found out why that bull hated his sons.