Big time baseball pitchers pose in mirrors, thinking they\u2019re all sporting fairly large and attractive balls. But baseball is silly. My daddy has a pair of dried-out bull dangles on his truck hitch, and I\u2019m not talking stupid rubber impostors\u2014real testicles, once belonging to a champion bull, a bastard by the name of Homer. And here\u2019s some incidental baseball truth for you: the Homer is mightier than the pitch. Either way, in the end, somebody parades your withered manhood\u2014trailer hitch or the out-of-gas throw\u2014with the world looking on at your strutting manhood, laughing.<\/p>\n
Me and the stupid summer farm boys that I work-sweat alongside of\u2014we embrace a scenario that happens maybe two, three times a year\u2014we straighten our backs and look around, and find our labor fairly caught up\u2014and the Boss has gone out of town to Charlie-hustle business for the farm. And that\u2019s when me and the boys play a real game: The Bull Pen.<\/p>\n
A champion bull has humongo balls and a tight sheath. He\u2019s insanely horny and fertile, and his lady friends all calve easily. His performance records make baseball statistics look like nothing more than a 4-H judging of mild-mannered, skinny steers. A top bull\u2019s physical attributes\u2014sound feet, muscular frame, a pompous walking gait, majestic eyes and teeth and jaw\u2014they are pronounced, and frighteningly severe. A champ bull\u2019s attitude: never back down. He performs, unwavering, like Chicago Bull Michael Jordan with the ball in his hands, one point down, three seconds to go. Sorry, baseball. Your moment against a batter\u2019s box is slow and minor league in comparison.<\/p>\n
First off, if you dare The Bull Pen, you gotta know: bulls can outrun you. Second, as owners of nasty and superior temperaments, bulls have no problem crushing you under hoof, or piercing your extremities with their pointy horns. Crushing amounts to breakage\u2014goring is mostly a thigh or rump entry point, though the groin is fair game, too.<\/p>\n
Me and the boys\u2014Jerome and Jackson\u2014we don\u2019t bother with low stock bulls. Our farm has a titan named Beelzebubba\u2014a Jersey bull, crossbred between Charolais and Brahman\u2014and the fencing used to contain him consists of brick walls, close-spaced vertical rod gates, refuge housing, sliding doors made of 48 mm metal tubing, a nose-ring yoke, and heavy-duty welded bull panels. The Boss always warns, \u201cYou don\u2019t play with Beelzebubba,\u201d but when Boss is gone, we do.<\/p>\n
That running with bulls thing somewhere over in France or Spain or Portugal\u2014we\u2019ve seen videos. Our guess: alcohol to boost your manhood, and then you depend on the distraction of so many bodies plus a wide avenue ahead. There\u2019s Major League pitchers who have used cocaine and amphetamines to juice their power against guys holding up a hand to an umpire while they dig holes and adjust crotches. We don\u2019t know what any of that silly shit\u2019s all about.<\/p>\n
Because when we play, it\u2019s life or death. Even though all three of us are fifteen years old, we can\u2019t stand the thought of busting out cell phones and recording the game. That\u2019s nothing more than showoff shit. Baseball is broadcast shit. Us\u2014we get down in the shit, and run.<\/p>\n
Somehow, the smallest things creep in. Free-range chickens clucking and chasing down grasshoppers in the next pasture over. The ancient smell of desiccated cow patties owning all air beneath the clouds. Grass turning crispy-brown in the blaze of heat-wave sun. Heifers and cows hesitating from two fields over: witnesses to the truth of their Champion versus the oddities that bring them grain and complicate their lives. In anticipation, the simplicity of future slaughter carves along the edges.<\/p>\n
When you\u2019re climbing over the extra-tall fencing into The Bull Pen, you focus down to three things: your awareness of what\u2019s around you, your awareness of what\u2019s coming, your own damn-me-or-I-die speed. Nobody but me and Jerome and Jackson and Beelzebubba have anything to do with the space and time we occupy. Though God and livestock heads look on to see if this is the day, the choice is farm-clean, untainted by anything outside of the Pen, and completely mindless. All Beelzebubba knows is that he\u2019s been affronted in his house, and all we know is that we have nothing but fleet bodies and reckless instinct to depend on if we want to see tomorrow.<\/p>\n
Today, I\u2019m first. The Champ relaxes back in the shade of his brick and straw, drinking a sizeable drool of water\u2014and that\u2019s when I drop off the fencing. He hears my disrespectful human feet hit ground within his territory, and he wheels. Jerome and Jackson yell \u201cHi, Bull!\u201d to incite. We have all played this game before, and The Champion knows the aggression and rules by heart. Soft earth flies away behind his hooves.<\/p>\n
I sprint along the tubular fencing, aiming for the end of Beelzebubba\u2019s paddock. Running The Bull Pen means: encroaching at point A, then racing to the far-goal exit of point B without prematurely scrambling up fence, being run down and crumpling beneath hooves, or getting slung sideways on a point of keratin and bone.<\/p>\n
Looking backwards: that\u2019s doom.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s dumb and unlucky and deadly and something a baseball player caught between first and second in a rundown would do. No. You listen. You sense. You breathe in the farm and loosen your limbs to the wind. Murderous thunder chases you\u2014at the proper time, you must rise from the earth like lightning if you wish to see bloodless Heaven.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s hot; maybe I haven\u2019t drunk enough hose water today\u2014a step and judgement slow. I\u2019m beginning my leap for fencing when Beelzebubba catches up. Broad between his devil eyes, he brings his strong, masculine muzzle up beneath me. My rump and the head between the horns are a perfect fit.<\/p>\n
Ten feet in the air, sailing over the boys, I decide: baseball\u2019s better. I will land and slide into home, and this time, there I\u2019ll stay. Safe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Big time baseball pitchers pose in mirrors, thinking they\u2019re all sporting fairly large and attractive balls. But baseball is silly. My daddy has a pair of dried-out bull dangles on his truck hitch, and I\u2019m not talking stupid rubber impostors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":182,"featured_media":25333,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3530],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-flash-fiction","writer-scott-t-hutchison"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/182"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24320"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24320\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25335,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24320\/revisions\/25335"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}