The bull delays, but never fails
The story of what really happens in a brazilian bull’s spree, the controversial Azorean tradition that has stood for 300 years in brazilian south state of Santa Catarina.
Unlike the news, bullfighting from the Santa Catarina state known as Farra do Boi (or Bull’s Spree) — prohibited 21 years ago — is not a regrettable act, much less bloody practice. It is a tradition originally brought to Santa Catarina (SC) by the portugueses from Azores Island, who tried to keep alive the many playings practiced with bulls in the portuguese islands. Nowadays, a spree reinvents itself with the exclusive youth initiative, mainly in the district of Ganchos (translated to Hooks), in the heart of Governador Celso Ramos — a city, from Santa Catarina, shaped in beaches which surround hills of closed forest and smooth rocks, next to the breeze of the sea, generating nocturnal frescores that some compare to those of the Azores Islands. Of all the municipalities that coast SC, this has the largest bull’ spree.
The road to the party is by itself exhausting: fifteen kilometers along the winding Ganchos Avenue, whose lighting is as sparse as the track is narrow and the slopes are slippery, despite the recent pavement. On the way, small muddy streets are opened, populated by small houses of wood or masonry.
Any stop to go to the bathroom or eat before reaching Ganchos comes with a warning from the residents of the other neighborhoods: beware of the gancheiros (name given to Ganchos’ natives). They are violent, said some owners of shops, restaurants and snack bars. They give the warning, but do not inform where the bull’ spree occurs, they look away, say they are not from the city and disguise the typical accent of the natives of the coast of Greater Florianópolis. Sweaty thanks to the labor of summer nights, they have no patience to feed the curiosity of the non-natives,, and get tired after the insistence, reinforcing the warning and waving goodbye.
The street height at which the party takes place is in Governador Celso Ramos core, the central district of Ganchos, the Middle Ganchos. It’s Good Friday and since nine o’clock at night wrecks from the 70’s, popular cars and trucks whose natural habitat is in the rich people’s beach Jurerê Internacional are parked. They position themselves in front of the kiosk located on the right side of the street, the Hooks (the name is English, indeed), in the parking lot of the arched orange shed of the fish industry, in the spaces in front of the parapet of the pier and around the well-wooded square, on the left side of the street.
The trunks open and the music comes out.
Automotive-sound-party. Each car will play a musical genre, and so will remain until the day dawns. Police repression has led to the bull’s spree happening later and later, around six or seven in the morning.
Foreseeing the longevity of the event, people arrive in groups and separate in nuclei, which is visible in the geographic organization. In front of the building of the fishing industry and the restaurant Hooks is the bulk of the mass: straight-brimmed men wearing tactel shorts and tee-shirts typical of skaters, so wide and long they almost touch their knees; there are those who prefer the regattas, exposing the arms torn by the hours of intense work; others walk with hard-nosed and pompous air, wear polo collar and glued jeans; the women, shorts jeans ripped with shredded ends and tank tops; at least five girls wore the exact same look: white blouse with the Supreme brand written on a red stripe and torn jeans. Here, funk carioca disputes space with the typical electronic beat of all automotive-sound-parties in Florianópolis: the generic tuntstunstuntuntuntuns of indefinite duration.
In the dock area, drunk old men wander and stumbler, often shirtless, exposing bodies cracked by the legwork and wrinkled with age that came earlier just by heavy toil. They lurk with beer cans in their hands, interacting and playing with the other tribes on the quay: the “alternative” and the middle-upper-class youths.
Among the alternatives are boys from outside town, as is the case of the pair from Itapema (another city from SC) who traveled only to see the bull’s spree; typical university hipsters: they have a long beard, drawers on both ears, wear hip-hop culture regattas and tattoos all over their bodies. The two of them drink and talk to a group of queer-looking LGBT girls, consisting of a couple who lives in constant tension, a mix of free-loving girls who sometimes stand between each other and a highly energetic redhead girl who dances and dominates all funks cariocas with body and soul, and leads the group with her hoarse voice and military pants. All alternatives listen to funk carioca, especially the girls, who subvert the sense of the lyrics to their own sexuality, singing them to each other.
Middle-class youngsters, on the other hand, are young men who wear earrings, have a well-trimmed beard, healed bodies, and fine-cut clothing. They dance with the glass of drink in their hands, shy steps. They are usually accompanied by friends of the same size, or by girlfriends with voluptuous bodies. They form gym addicts couples. As for the music genre, they usually listen to sertanejo (brazilian country), but they also like funk carioca’s beat.
The region of the square and the interior of the kiosk are areas of common life. The square serves to rest, while the Hooks for catering and a possible trip to the unisex bathroom that by the close of business (two in the morning) has become one of toilet paper stack accompanied by a clogged toilet for traces of absorbent. On other nights, the front of the Hooks served to men like the young red-haired known for Du canvass the funds to purchase the bull. Friends contribute with what they have, going from five to fifty, one hundred reais (brazilian money). Today, this is not the case. The collection has already taken place for several nights. Du just wants to enjoy it.
Everyone already has their ice pack separated at their feet and next to bottles of whiskey, vodka and beer crates. The wealthier carry drinks in coolers. Who is a VIP, however, has access to a three-story house, one of which is for commerce and two for housing. Inside, everyone has drinks kept in the refrigerator, they dance with select friends and eat fresh food. From the top, you see all movement — including that of popo.
At midnight, a few police officers stop in front of the square, get out of the car and stand with folded arms, frowning and closing their eyes to the revelers (name given to those who organize the sprees). They have the grace and kindness of rottweilers. Almost nobody gives a ball to the cops, they ignore them like a son ignores the parents when going to a party without permission. The only real stressors are the revelers with a passion for tradition. They are easily recognized by the garments that allude to the bull playing. The most common consists of a T-shirt or blanket of black and red colors separated by a yellow stripe and the words “12 years of spree, whether space turns astronaut.” They also collected money during the days before Holy Week.
While the military police and the traditionalists bark at each other’s gaze, three boys molded in supplements and 80kg on the bench press shirtlessly, arching their arms to enhance their musculature. They walk slowly in front of the queer girls on the quay, uninformed about their sexuality, inflate their muscles more and more. They are disappointed, realizing that no one cares about their bodies. Thus, the muscles wither, the posture relaxes, the gaze is lost on the ground and they follow head down.
At two o’clock, the Hooks closes and people continue to dance. Moving up the street, a pickup truck parks a considerable distance from the main party. Two women in theirs forties get out of it, mounted on leotards accessories. They are accompanied by men also middle-aged, with protruding bellies, the result of many years of beers. They leave the doors open, to lean back on the hood and connect the most jarring sound of all: 80s music.
A fat boy, along with his friend severely thin, passes laughing at the “cougars” that move the fingers in the air to the sound of the band Eurythmics. Live, the verses of “Sweet Dreams” merge with the funk “Boca de Pelo” in a typical brazilian crucible.
Nobody bothers or asks to turn the music down.
The only thing that annoys some is the Vrrooom of passing motorcycles. With open exhausts, they drown out the music momentarily.
Nother nights, when the clock struck three o’clock, the sidewalks were crowded with tired people sitting with their hands on their faces and their elbows resting on their knees. On Good Friday, no. It seems they feed back from their own fatigue, curiously generating even more energy. By now, the sweat of this frenzy is already deeply mixed with the stench emanating from the sea below the quay: shit decomposed with fish and human waste. This impregnates the clothes with the tobacco smoke from the cigarettes. Strange is like any of those smells prevents people from loving each other vehemently.
Nor to hate each other with the same intensity.
Craack!
The shards of the glass bottle crumble on the asphalt moistened by sporadic drizzle. Instinctively, all who heard the noise retract the trunk, bringing the hand to the head.
“Fuck!” Shouts some thick, masculine voice.
Seconds. More than fifty people run to the staircase that leads to the three-story house, where the most private party takes place. Xingons shake the crowd. Punch here, punch there. At first, many are fighting, no one sees who catches. Gradually, only the two insist on the fight.
The police watch, inert. The only muscles that move are those of the face. They sketch canine smiles. Four policemen standing still in front of the square, while nearly a hundred people try to separate two highly aggressive men, one at the foot of the stairs the other at the top, out of the house.
“Son of a bitch!” Howls of them.
“Stop, please!” A woman in a trembling voice pleads.
Two minutes since the fight started. It’s three o’clock in the morning and the police have not done anything yet.
Three and two. The four policemen approach, the crowd opens like the Dead Sea.
The dispersion is rapid. Some guys explain, “No one wants to get into trouble here, eh. Let them deal with other. “
Everyone watches the police calm the man who had been hit by the bottle. No one is happy. They feel they can not trust the military policemen, at the same time they are disgusted by the guy who threw the bottle. “There’s always someone to ruin the party! Always has a baggy. These gancheiros are a lot of slackers, “says another. Oddly enough, all the gancheiros present here seem to agree with the statement.
Groups are forming to discuss the fight. In the end, it is almost a consensus: the bull’s spree has changed in the last two years. Violence has increased along with repression, said residents of Governor Celso Ramos.
Another cry of “son of a bitch!” At the edge of the stairs. The man, with a cut on his head, continues to curse the aggressor. The police did not like the attitude. Not one meter away, a military man picks up his pepper spray tube the size of a fire extinguisher and blows the gas into the assailant’s eyes. He leaves in staggers, disappears into the crowd. Others gather to conjecture the motivation of the fight.
They are not very creative. They truly believe that everything revolves around a single factor: woman. When such a thing happens, they are sure to have been motivated by treason.
No sooner said than done. The bottle was nothing more than the symbol of the relationship that had disintegrated after a cheat on. Since early afternoon, the aggressor had been looking for the man who had an affair with his wife in order to “teach a lesson”. It did not happen. At night, he saw an opportunity at the party, the height of the house helped. It was only aim and hope to really hurt. No one respects a “talarico” (brazilian slang for girlfriend stealer), but at the same time, everyone disapproves of the use of violence to solve the problem — more for fear the police uses it as an excuse to brutalize the party than for believing in peace and love.
Stick in one hand, spray in the other. Militaries are getting ready. Standing in front of the house where the explosion of “virility” occurred, they laugh at the revelers. From four they increase to eight policemen. Two others are waiting in front of the police cars.
The music volume is slightly lower. People keep dancing — with less malemolence. The asses don’t twerk as they have minutes ago, the drinks are no longer ingested like before the glass stamped. The light from the cigarette butts stand out in the middle of the tension.
A Military Police van arrives.
Fifteen minutes have passed since the fight. Some asses are coming back to shake with intensity. Some hips heal. The sound comes back hard.
The girls at the quay continue drinking their vodkas with energy. The boys of the cars back to laugh and talk amenities.
Forgetfulness is quick and intensified by drinking.
Military men continue to talk and laugh. One of them shakes his boot impatiently.
Three and forty. Comes the Military Police Tactical pickup truck. Usually, police repression is nothing but mere glence, and, during the day, some bulls are rescued — this year have been captured 21. Today, however, it is one of those brutal exceptions. Strong, serious men come out of it, wearing their French — style berets. They carry shotguns with rubber bullets. They marched to the group of soldiers waiting in front of the building where the fighting took place.
Together, the twelve go to the main source of noise: the cars parked in front of the fishing industry shed.
Some young people still laugh. Intoxicated by the vodka, they say that it will not give at all, at most a little discussion. Others are already preparing to leave. Chat here, chat there, the military force them to turn off the music.
In firm tone, a policeman orders:
“Party is over, guys! Everybody home! “
Sound of disappointment: “Aaaah …”
One by one, people are walking into the avenue, toward the square. No one shows resistance. They have common sense — the police do not.
There’s one big overflow. Stun bomb.
The whitish haze passes the effect of overexposure. The gas invades the nostrils and burns to the last vein of the face. The eyes moisten, the tears accumulate. Even so, everyone runs. There is no time to stop. The danger is imminent.
Some hide behind the cars, others protect themselves on the walls. Three boys throw bottles in the direction of the PM, but they fall away. The military marches calmly. They shoot up with a rubber bullet and throw pepper gas into a group out of sight.
A man hangs outside the pier fence. He puts his foot on a rock, but slips and gets hurt. He’s still standing, afraid to get shot — he went out to play, not to be arrested. No funk carioca and electronic, music now is the cry of despair of those people. He trembles. Step by step, the police are approaching. The foot hurts. His friend hangs by his side, he did not had the bad luck to get hurt. They even thought about throwing themselves and falling on the sand of the beach, because the height is low and the water is shallow, but the stench makes them afraid. Pepper gas with fetid sea, what mix would not that be? “If you run the beast catches, if you stay the beast eats,” said the one of the injured foot. Just like the people who were hiding behind cars and walls, they are found. They jump back to the dock. The military, at a distance of two meters, point the guns loaded with rubber to the faces contracted in fear. The boys raise their hands and walk calmly. They say, “I’m going, I’m going, take it easy, I’m going.” Can not wait to get out of there.
About a hundred meters from the square, people stop walking. The cops settle into the square again. A family lounges on the sidewalk of a store. Father, mother, daughter, son and cousin, all of legal age — some recently. The patriarch complains that the police were always like this. “They even took it light this time,” he says. They were lucky, not even inspired pepper spray.
The tribes, previously separated in different areas, are now homogenized in a large group: the spree lovers.
They enter the street Canal do Engenho, where the bull will be released. Marijuana cigarettes light up, tobacco too. Cars are parked again. The funk resounds in the ears of others. It is the return of the flow. The bodies, sweaty and, until recently, trembling with fear, now mingle in what the elders call debauchery.
The police watch everything. They watch the police. Nobody troubles with each other.
The largest concentration of people is well at the entrance of the street, in front of the Monica market, a typically Azorean building, simple and straightforward architecture. Its wall is peeled, exposing the old masonry. The decadent appearance is intensified by the excess of litter dumped on the side. There are crates, food remains, plastic and glass bottles, urine and torn mats, infiltrated by the remaining rainfall that monopolized the climate of Greater Florianopolis last week. To the farristas, it does not matter. Showing no disgust, some girls decided to stiffen in the air as they hopped on the mats.
Motorcycles and cars do not stop coming, they fight for space on the sides of the street. The newcomers head to the interior of the Canal do Engenho, the flow changes. Apparently, a family decided to prepare a barbecue last minute at four in the morning. The neighbors go out the window, doors and balconies, whether by the smell of the meat or by the noise.
There is a certain calm to the chaos. They are all serene.
Fast passes dispute space with funk sound waves. A crowd runs into the street.
“Police!” Shouts a sharp, masculine voice.
In seconds, half of those present hide in the alleyways. They discover that it is a false alarm. Just a car leaving. They celebrate with howls.
Following the energy of the party, a pick-truck honks.
The police stirs and forces the driver to stop. They open the load. Nothing.
The revelers burst out in laughter, raise funk, and dance again. They thrash in the authorities’ faces.
In an Indian line, the police cars pass slowly down the street with their windows open. The cops face the revelers, but they do not get the look back. They are impotent.
They leave.
The party continues until six o’clock.
A van arrives with a group of more than twenty heavily drunk men, throwing firecrackers at people. They come down teasing, “will not happen, will not happen!” Referring to the arrival of the bull. In their hands, each one has a bottle of drink. They are part of a “family” — or group, or gang — in which each contributes about 300 reais to buy an bull. A more elitist form of collection.
The temperature drops a little. The weather is still humid. But the human warmth rises, the horns come from beyond. Cease sound. And now. Six-five in the morning. There is no difference between the tribes, among the people, they are all fanciful, even a policeman who entered there now would be one. In frenetic pace, a truck-cage invades the street honking, with the alert flashing on. Brown, small and precarious, it shakes like a plane in turbulence. If he sped up a little more and pumped his beak, he might fly. The bulls are there, they do not moo, but get irritated, they struggle against the poorly painted wood of the decaying truck. Like cats, people jump out of the way of the machine. They’re running after him. Revelers come from everywhere: houses, roofs, corners, walls, cars, under cars, alleys. People never seen before, a crowd. In the race, some lose their cell phone, their wallet, their slippers. A young boy who once lived in Governador lost his smartphone, quickly returned to pick it up, but was no longer there. His girlfriend tried to console him, but he shrugged, detached. She was brought there for the first time. Born in Rio Grande do Sul (the neighbour state), she was co-opted by her boyfriend to know a spree.
Two men get in the truck to open it, but they do it in the wrong direction. Slightly, one of the bulls jumps toward freedom, fleeing through the woods. No one is able to reach it. People are looking forward to the second bull. The courageous take off their shirt and prepare for the improvised bullfight. The cautious ones have already found a place to hide: on walls and railings, behind cars, hanging on balconies — all so as not to carry a horn.
As in the tauromachias that occur in the Azores Islands, the bull runs out and the population runs away from it. Young, the animal cost around four thousand reais. He is thin, has brown hair, long horns, with the ability to cross one person and still hurt another together. Endowed with a lot of energy, he is agitated, at the same time as scared — just wants to escape. His pupils are dilated and his eyes are wide. He hesitates, looks from side to side, crosses the t-shirt of a bullfighter in the Brazilian fashion and keeps running anxiously. The population goes behind. An endless stream of people crosses the Canal do Engenho.
A man whose features are all concentrated and contracted in the middle of the face causes two young hairy people who venture into the spree for the first time. “Go ahead, go there, run after the ox too,” he says. They look at each other and decide to follow the advice. But first, one of them asks, “You will not?”. The man laughs and replies, “Not me, boy. I sell drugs, I have better things to do! “And behind the bull they go, running along the three hundred revelers. Passing over fallen and already trampled objects.
The bull was delayed, but did not fail. It climbs in the side bush of Ganchos Avenue. Some fearless revelers go after unsuccessfully. Still under the effect of the adrenaline, the party planners dart to and fro, desolate. The spree was meteoric, if it lasted five minutes was a lot. Where will they go now? They return to the party, the drink is not over yet.
That boy who lost his cell phone calls his girlfriend and his best friend, whose more or less blond mustache looks like fruit from the last drops of a pack of hydrogen peroxide. They hitchhike with the two boys who were running after the bull for the first time. Continue to the Canto dos Ganchos neighborhood, where a new spree will take place in a few hours. They arrive too soon. It’s not even seven o’clock.
They found another friend on the way, a young man with short hair and a mustache, some pimples on his cheek, probably a minor. The hairy guys follow with the group. Bored, the six decide to visit the bulls in captivity. They go to the beach and cross a pile of smooth, slippery rocks. The girlfriend is not very satisfied. She complains that she can fall with every step she takes. Her mood is not one of the best, she has not recovered yet from the dread she felt during the actual spree. The boyfriend tries to calm her down, but his friend with a more or less blond mustache does not help much, he laughs at the situation and makes nasty comments with the hairy ones, who only hear, laughing timidly, just like the boy with the thin mustache. After much negotiation and discussion between the couple, they go walking through the rocks. They cross three beaches until finally arriving in a desert beach.
In the background, among the trees, behind two parked boats: two large bulls. These are larger than those brought to the spree that morning. They have long termites, broad trunks, fierce eyes, long, prominent horns, the kind that would serve to conquer any female, if necessary. In spite of their grandeur, they are tied by fishermen’s lines. One is white and the other is mixed with white and brown. As the quiet of little bull’s spree, not moo. Together, the two are worth something around fifteen thousand reais. If all goes well, after the holiday season, they will spend the rest of 2018 in a pastry. From there, either they will be sold to buy an even bigger one, or they will return to the streets, for new plays. It is visible in the eyes of the bulls that they know their destinies better than the humans themselves. They look at men with weariness, like a prisoner without energy.
“They like to play, just so tired,” says her boyfriend. The mate is in doubt. He ratifies: “evil is killing the animal after capturing”. Refers to the fact that until 2017 the bulls rescued were sacrificed. Today, veterinarians from the Integrated Company of Agricultural Development of Santa Catarina analyze whether the animal offers health risk, then decide whether or not to slaughter.
The couple moves away from the animals, the other four remain there. One of the hairy ones walks to near water, the boy of the mustache-de-nescau goes together. The boy with the half-blond mustache approaches the bull and throws him the rest of a beer can that has been holding the whole trip. The bull snorts, man kids, one of hairy see and stay quiet, uncomfortable. The four go to the couple. They climb an alternate path, a hill of stone steps already camouflaged in the woods. In the entrance gate, a red box that serves to feed bulls.
The hairy leave, the boy’s mustache-of-chocolate milk too. The couple and their friend who assaulted the animal sit in the square and talk to some known fishermen.
Seven o’clock am. The neighborhood is still empty. If the fun does not start until nine, give up. They need to rest.
Next door, a couple of boys under ten years moves in a wooden swing with well polished straps and a possible drop in coarse sand. They stare at the vacant lot with a pile of rubbish about twenty yards away. The sun is rising on the back. One of them breaks the silence.
“Tomorrow they will bring a bull just for us”
“Really?”
“Yes, yes, it will be a small one. Assurance”
“Just to us?”
He nods.
An older woman sits on the third and last swing. She looks at the boys, both are bald and thin strands of light reflect on their black heads.
“What are you talking about?” She asks.
“Of the bull that comes tomorrow,” replies the most assertive.
She smiles. They too. If the bull comes, nobody knows. The spree is ending, after Easter, it becomes a half-dozen-people-thing, when it happens. But for the revelers it is tradition. If it does not come this year, there’s what’s coming.
In the end, the bull always comes.
* Names have been omitted to protect sources
Originally published at medium.com on May 4, 2018.
