El Recuadro

El Mundo de Andalucía, viernes 13 de febrero de 1998

Para John Fulton          english translation For John Fulton

 

La tarde está metida en tambores que ensayan junto al río. Se barrunta la primera blanca flor en los naranjos. Vengo de querer verte, torero, en la clínica. La misma donde vi con una corná al niño de Pepe Luis, la de las noches de dolor tras la cogida. La tuya, John Fulton, ha sido gorda. Cornada de la vida, aunque entraras en la enfermería por tu propio pie, que el pundonor es algo que nunca perdéis los toreros. Los datos tuyos, John, que tendrá probablemente la niña de urgencias anotados en el ordenador, dicen que naciste en Filadelfia, año arriba o año abajo del año en que nació Curro en Camas. Pero el corazón está donde ha nacido no a la vida, al amor, que dijo el poeta que leías. Tu corazón, el que te pegó la corná de esta Talavera entre tambores de primavera, de este negro Pozoblanco del azahar por florecer, estaba aquí en Sevilla.

Yo te vi debutar en Sevilla. John Fulton Short "El Yankee", ponía en los carteles. Me acuerdo de tus ganas, entre la guasa, ay, Curro Camacho, siempre la guasa:

--- Ná, éste es uno que tomaría café allí en su tierra con Sydney Franklin y que se le ha metío en la cabeza ser torero...

Y luego dicen que Sevilla no pide el carné de identidad... A ti te lo pedía a cada instante. Vengo, John, de querer verte en la clínica, y a Curro Camacho le han llegado al alma, como otra corná, los desprecios, los olvidos, los vacíos de esta ciudad que quisiste, que espero que aún sigas queriendo, porque no quiero creerme eso que me cuentan de que tienes vida vegetal. Por tu decidida voluntad de sevillanidad, pienso, ay, en un jazmín. Me resisto a creerte vegetal, tú que tan líricamente humano y mineral de pintura color sangre de toro, artista, eres. Torero, pintor, artista. Y obstinado enamorado de Sevilla. En tu galería de la plaza de la Alianza ahora; con el capote y la muleta antes. Y sin que nadie te comprendiera, en tu entrega a Sevilla. Su nombre llevabas por el mundo, con los libros al alimón con Robert Vavra, y nada. Su nombre llevabas por tus Estados Unidos con tus pinturas, y nada. Porque siempre fuiste, John, hombre de frontera. Toreaste muchas veces en Tijuana, y esa frontera te marcó. Tú sabes más que nadie de las interiores fronteras de Sevilla, de esos terribles fielatos donde está el consumista de Juan Ramón pinchando siempre los serones:

--- ¿Va argo?

Leíste a Hemingway y te enamoraste de España. Otros se van a San Fermín, a emborracharse y a correr delante de los toros. Tú te viniste a Algeciras y a Sevilla, para ser torero. Los americanos empezaron a considerar que ya no eras de los suyos, por esa locura de ser torero. Pero los andaluces tampoco te consideraron nunca de los nuestros, por esa locura tuya de entender el toreo como una de las Bellas Artes, la ilusión misma con que acababas de dibujarle a Curro los nuevos vestíos, seda pura como tú. La frontera, John, la terrible frontera de quien no pertenece a otro mundo que al de la belleza, que busca en cada momento de su vida como tú la vienes buscando. Y la delicadeza de tu hombría de bien. La última vez que nos vimos, John, ¿recuerdas?, mañana de lluvia de enero, fue frente a la Catedral. Ibas con El Niño del Sol Naciente. Me ibas a hablar del racismo de las fronteras de Sevilla contra el japonés. Con tu delicadeza, para que él no lo oyera, le dijiste con ternura:

--- ¿No tenías que ir al banco? Anda, ve y espérame allí...

Y sólo entonces me hablaste de la difícil geografía de las fronteras de Sevilla sufrida por Sol Naciente. Sin odios. Comprendiendo. Por eso comprenderás, John, el doble dolor de Curro Camacho, al ver que en esta clínica, cuartito de los cabales de la amistad, no hay el reguerito de la gente del toro , sino la terrible soledad de tus fronteras. Salgo, y la tarde está metida en tambores. El jazmín lunero, vegetal, no sabe que ahí dentro hay un artista que todavía tiene la coleta de lo que nadie, ni Sevilla, puede negarle que es: torero.

For John Fulton   

by Antonio Burgos

The following column appeared in a Seville newspaper on Feb. 13, 1998 while John Fulton lay in a coma in the Clinic of the Sacred Heart. Jonh was dead some days later.

Down by the river, drums fill the afternoon n anticipation of the Holy Week Celebration. The first white flower blooms tentatively on the orange trees. I just carne from the clinic to see you, torero. lt's the same clinic where I saw the son of Pepe Luis with a cornada, that waiting room of the endless nights of sadness after the goring. Yours, John Fulton, has been a tremendous one. A cornada of life itself, although you entered the clinic on your own two feet because true honor is something that a torero never loses. Your personal information, probably registered on the computer by the woman on duty in the Emergency Room. would say that you were born in Philadelphia, about the same year that Curro [Romero] was born in Camas. But, as the poet you were reading said, "the heart is found not where one was born to life, but where one awakened to love Your heart ? the one that gave you the fatal cornada of Talavera as the drums of springtime sounded, this dark wound of Pozoblanco as the orange blossoms were bursting into bloom -- belonged here in Sevilla.

1 saw you debut in Sevilla John Fulton Short El Yankee, was how the cartel read. I remember your desire and will to triumph, even in the face of cynicism and sarcasm. Oh yes, Curro Camacho. Always the sarcasm, [guasa], aIways poking fun at the "too tall American". "Nah, this one is probably some guy who had coffee with Sidney Franklin and got the crazy idea of becoming a torero."

And then they say that Sevilla doesn't care about credentials... but from you they demanded them at every instant. I have just come from the clinic because 1 wanted to see you, John, and I see that Curro Carnacho has also been deeply hurt. Like a corned of his own, he feels the scorn, the neglect, the emptiness of this city that you loved. And 1 hope that you continue to love her, because I don't want to believe what they tell me when they say you are merely existing by a tenuous thread. 1 think of your determination to be a sevillano and a jasmine comes to mind ? the pungent and tenacious little flower coming from a far away land and making its home in Sevilla. I refuse to believe that you might be just a vegetable - you, who are so lyrically human, or even through your art, metamorphose into a hard, shining, transcendental mineral like your bulls'blood paintings. You are a torero, a painter, an artist. And obstinately in love with Sevilla. Now in your gallery in the Plaza de la Alianza - before with your capote and muleta. And without anyone's understanding you or your devotion to Sevilla. You carried her name throughout the world with the books you wrote together with Robert Vavra and still Sevilla did not respond. You spread her name throughout the United States with your paintings, and still no reaction from your beloved city. Because you always were, John, a man of the 'Frontier". You fought many times in Tijuana and that border forever marked you. You know better than anyone about the impenetrable interior frontiers of Sevilla, and those notorious tollbooths of yore where the customs agent, Juan Ramn, would exact a fee for any merchandise leaving Sevilla. "Va argo? " (What have you got there?) There was aIways a price to be paid.

You read Hemingway and you fell in love with Spain. Others go to the Festival of San Fermn in Pamplona to get drunk and to run with the bulls. You came to Algeciras and to Sevilla to be a torero. The Americans began to think that you were no longer one of them because of that madness of wanting to he a torero. But the Andalucians never considered you one of our own because of the crazy notion that you had of considering toreo as one of the Fine Arts. It was with that same illusion that you just designed new suits of lights for Curro [Romero] of pure silk for a gentleman, like yourself. That barrier, John, that terrible boundary of he who does not belong to any world except that of beauty, who searches during every moment of his life as you have been searching for it. And the delicacy of your integrity. The last time that we saw one another, John, do you remember? It was a rainy morning in January, in front of the Cathedral. You were with El Ni±o del Sol Naciente. You were going to talk to me about the racism of the barriers of Sevilla against your Japanese protg. With your tact, so he wouldn't hear ít, you said to him tenderly:

"Don't you have to go to the bank? Go ahead and wait for me there..."

And only then did you speak to me about the difficult geography of the frontiers of Sevilla suffered by Sol Naciente. Without hatred. With understanding. For this reason you might understand, John, the double pain of Curro Camacho, upon seeing that in this clinic, in a little room for faithful friends, there is not even a trick1e of taurine folk, but only the terrible loneliness of your frontiers. 1 leave and the late afternoon is full of the sound of drums. The night?blooming jasmine, only a vegetable, does not know that there inside is an artist who will always be what nobody, not even Sevilla can deny him, a torero.

 

*Traducción de Judy Cotter. Incluido en el libro de Curro Camacho y Judy Cottet "Our Friend John Fulton "Quixote" ", Sevilla, Imprenta Taurina Andaluza-Cervantes, 2001

Otros temas de toros en El RedCuadro  Enlaces Taurinos Recomendados    Curro Romero  Libro "Curro Romero, la esencia"


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