This comment is only tangentially related to you story. I lived in Spain for about a year when I was ten. We attended several Bull Fights. It is a profoundly cruel event...

Always cruel to the bulls, often cruel to the picador horses. Occasionally, the matador or other humans are gored, they get what they deserve.

On rare occasions the crowd will shout that the bull deserves to be spared... but only after having been tortured for a while.

More evidence of what disgusts me about humans.