From Ramon Xyz Poem by Morgan Michaels

'We were poor'.

'Nothing wrong with that', thought Ramon, who kept the silence. 'Not everybody has a rich pa. Poverty can be respectable-or even an advantage, at times'.

He congratulated himself on his liberality. Shamefully, he recalled his own father's abundant acreage.

But, his new friend's reticence invited questioning, the way a dart-board invites darts.

'Is that why your plans miscarried? You were poor'?

'Yes', hedged Sr. Perez. 'That's why'.

He seemed relieved to drop it.

'Claro', pressed Ramon. 'But, why did your patron 'renege''?

Poverty alone couldn't explain his plunge from budding surgeon to ritual slayer of bulls. For Ramon, curiosity muddied the clear waters of dispassion and put all caution to rout. Fascinating! Sr. Perez was fascinating- both in his sinuous person and in his sad fall from grace. Ramon knew no one of like promise whose destiny fell so dizzyingly from the exalted to the venal- or whose signature gesture veered as dramatically from reassuring, post-op smile to cold stare down into the dying eyes of a conquered beast. Nor anyone, (thank God) whose default career, however questionable, earned him such hefty moral dividends. No one, moreover, who routinely risked all, simply to earn a living- for not even soldiers seemed as ready to throw all of life away at a single encounter. In mind, he was crossed on the merits of risk-taking. To what extant did it bespeak vulgarity? But, a matador! The coreo was steeped in legend of sorts both admirable and picaresque- even he knew that. Its grisly effrontery intrigued him. He wanted to know what kind of person played on its hideous stage. Additions to the tale might prove instructive or, at least, help pass the time, for Madrid lay far in the distance. Ramon, he himself admitted, was only a desultory student of human affairs, but the present case intrigued him, mercilessly. Sr. Perez might give a useful account of the drastic reversals to which Fate occasionally subjects humankind. Suddenly, he was a person of interest.