Oak Park was about to celebrate its beloved lecherous literary drunk. I envisioned giddy Junior League ladies squirting wine from leather pouches down the open throats of half-naked young golf caddies. Sweaty brawls breaking out between a dashing matador and a gastroenterologist and a pair of postal workers. Everyone arribaing and oleing and drinking the town dry. Then, at the peak of the debauchery, half a dozen bulls ransacking Lake Street.
“What do you think of the festival?” I asked.
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I still had hopes. Weeks earlier I’d finagled an invitation from the festival coordinator to be an official bull pusher. I thought it’d be a hoot. I finished my drink and walked down to the parking lot where the bull pushers were to meet. Lined up in two parking spaces between a Subaru and a Chevrolet were six bulls. Their flanks, made of drywall and chicken wire, were the color of licorice. They were the size of riding mowers, with sturdy handles in the back and training wheels attached with plumbing pipe to the front. They had papier-mache heads, painted red eyes, and horns covered with masking tape. The bowl-shaped hole between the horns was for raffle tickets, I was told. They were all branded with white paint.
Bill and Jim asked if I would like to test our bull, get a feel for his weight, pace, agility. Other people were taking their bulls for a spin around the parking lot and passing them on to the next runner. I took the handles of our bull, lifted the back of its body off the ground, and ran in circles. “Wow, it’s so light. It turns on a dime,” I said encouragingly. We lined up our bulls at the edge of the lot and waited for the 6 PM horn.
I let them jog away, pretending to wait for the slowest bull, then walked over to the bull pen, a small, roped-off area inside the park. Other bull pushers asked me if I’d had fun, but I think they all saw my performance and wondered how I could claim to have done anything, much less had any fun.
A matador with good posture and shiny shoes appeared next to the bull pen. I asked if he owned his costume.
“Are you talking about streets?” he asked.
