Free The Moth by Unknown

ladies’ shoes is not easy. And also, it’s not very fulfilling. Not for a matador. So we circle the ring, and my arms are full of ladies’ shoes.
    We finish, and as is often customary, a group of men came out and they lifted Antonio up onto their shoulders, and they paraded him out to the streets to the hotel, and the band followed them. And left alone, in the center of the ring, was the
sobresaliente
with his arms full of shoes. I didn’t know I could move as fast as I did to get back to that van as it was pulling out.
    I got back to the hotel, and I went to Antonio’s suite, and Antonio said, “Hey, Pecas! You were wonderful. Just throw them on the bed.” So I dump the shoes on the bed.
    He said, “Come on, the wine is flowing, and we’ve got tapas!”
    I went over. I had a glass of wine. Ernest was enjoying himself.
    There was a knock on the door, and Antonio said, “Pecas, you get that.”
    I open it up and there is the most gorgeous señorita you’ve ever seen. She’s in stocking feet; she’s holding one shoe.
    She says, “I come for my other shoe.” She selects her shoe, and I put it on her dainty foot. And Antonio and Ernest come over and invite her for wine.
    So we were all having wine and tapas, when there’s another knock on the door, and another knock on the door, and another knock on the door. And in they came. They reclaimed their shoes; they joined the party. It was wonderful. It was a marvelous party. They stayed until the wee hours.
    And the next day, the photographer for
LIFE
magazine whohad been with us and taken pictures of the day before, he came with his prints. And there was a big eight-by-ten of a beaming El Pecas with the two great matadors of the world on his right and left.
    And Ernest came over and said, “Ah, that’s wonderful, Hotch, you found your true profession.”
    I said, “Just a minute, it may be wonderful to you, but look at the front of their pants, those significant humps, and then look at the insignificant thing that I have!”
    He said, “How many handkerchiefs did you use?”
    I said, “Handkerchiefs! You’re my manager, you didn’t tell me to use handkerchiefs.”
    He said, “Well you’ve been to a lot of bullfights with me, didn’t you see that all these matadors have nice humps in the front of their pants?”
    And I said, “The subject never interested me until now!”
    He said, “All right, look, I can make it up. Antonio has his next fight in Ronda. He wants you to be there as his
sobresaliente
again. And this time, we’ll make a level playing field out of it.”
    I said, “How?”
    He said, “I’ll tell you what we’re going to do.”
    And then he paid me one of the greatest compliments I ever got, he said, “While they’re dressing, they’ll be using two handkerchiefs, but Pecas, you only need one.”
    ¡Olé!
    A. E. Hotchner is the author of nineteen books and numerous plays for Broadway and television. He became a close friend of Paul Newman’s after Paul starred in Hotchner’s film,
Adventures of a Young Man
. As a lark, with a bottle of Newman’s salad dressing,they co-founded Newman’s Own, Inc., which has donated close to $400 million to charity, all the profits from its line of foods. Aaron Edward Hotchner was born and raised in St. Louis, where he earned a law degree from Washington University. In 1942, he left the practice of law to enter the Air Force, where he attained the rank of major. After the war, he became an editor and writer in New York, where he edited a novel written by Ernest Hemingway. For the next fourteen years, until Hemingway’s death, they remained solid friends. Hotchner’s memoir
Papa Hemingway
, an international best seller, is an account of that friendship. Hotchner also adapted many of Hemingway’s stories and novels for the theater, film, and television. In addition to their food business, Hotchner and Newman founded the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp for children with cancer and other life-threatening