Part 5 (1/2)

But that was not what my father wanted

On a pass close to the house, he turned me around and said, ”Noe'll try the hill”

The hill was up the block frorade was - but in the car co home from swim practice my mother used the brakes At the top of the hill was ht turn you had to et to our house

My father had to push me up the hill ”Would you please pedal? For christ's sake”

When I say I thought I ht vomit, I want to you understand The vomit I was pretty sure I was about to spew felt like if it happened, o inside out That I'd puke so hard I'd pukeat that point I was silent Just the breath of a girl pedaling up a hill

At the top of the hill he turned me around on my beautiful bike and held the back of the seat I re dohat looked pretty much like that moment on a roller coaster before the dive

He said, ”You back pedal to break it - little by little - as you pickup speed”

He said, ”Down at the bottoh to make a turn, and you turn Left”

Incoirl

Then I did the unthinkable ”Daddy, I can't do it”

My botto

”You sure as hell can,” he said, and pushed

Psychedelic drugs put you in reale fails to describe emotion I know this as an adult What you think, what you feel, what happens to your body - your head, your aroes into an alien dream Your body diseraphy of the brain That's the best way I can describe the shape I was in when he pushed me down that hill The endorphins of ripped the handlebars so hardI screamed all the way down I backpedaled but it didn't see down The possibility of stopping seeht see to ride to China

Wind onbackwards speed and speedspeedspeedspeed holdinglike it does up in trees terrible spiders crawling rand canyonI can't feel s I can't feel my arms I can't feel irldown the hillo so sleepy so light floating floating objects speed eyes closed violent hitting objects crashi+ng nothing

I came to in my father's arms - he carried me into our house I heard the worry in”Mike? Mike?” He carried ht” She yelled ”What for? What's wrong?” He yelled ”Get it Goddamn it I think she's hurt down there” She did He laid me down on my princess canopy bed I looked at the white lace My hands between ht My father pulled my hands away and then pulled an to cry Hurt where pee lives My father pulled down s and turned on the flashlight and said, ”She's bleeding” My o outside you are hysterical,”close the door Goddas called doctors? Hospitals?

I'd crashed my bike into a row of mailboxes

I'd ruptured ht

Blood

Girl

The next day he o back to the top of the hill It hurt so bad to sit on the bike I bit the inside of ht back on and conquer your fear You have to” Again he pushed er her fear her body sailing down the hill on her hot pink Schwinn, streae

Partway down the hill I thought of my father and how I hated the way his skin sers and his big architectural hands and his pushi+ng o of the handlebars and I put my hands out to the sides of ers On h htless

I wiped out without h no bones were broken, I was scraped all over My face My elbows and ar swi

But not crying

For years and years, after that

The Less Than Merry Pranksters Bennett Huffman Jeff Forester Robert Blucher Ben Bochner James Finley Lynn Jeffress Neil Lidstrom Hal Powers Jane Sather Charles Varani Meredith Wadley Ken Zimmerman Lidia Twelve last ditch disciples and h the door of the 1988-89 collaborative novel writing workshop with Ken Kesey was that rabbed my hand and marched me into the class without anyone's pereous and complex Faulkner character with only the faintest hint of a southern drawl, and a wealthy English equestrian champion Meredith had a mane of dark hair and even darker eyes In her eyes there were electrical sparks On the day the ”class” was to begin ere drinking beers in her apartment I admit it I was jealous Alo to the class, she said, ”Enough crappy things have happened to you Come with me”

I said, ”What? That's crazy I'rad student They're not going to let me enroll”

If you look us up on Wikipedia it says the book rote ritten collaboratively by Kesey and ”13 graduate students” I was not an MFA student I was an undergraduate sort of trolling in English and sleeping with lots of hu My athlete body was gone I had grown big tits and soe hunk of permed blond hair I wasn't an acco The only thing I was good at was being a drunk or high cock tease, as near as I could tell Why would they let roup? Why would Kesey?

”Bullshi+t,” Meredith said, ”Kesey is going to love you Trust ood writer You already know half the people in the class And anyway, you think Kesey gives a rat's ass about U of O rules?”

Blushi+ng like an idiot, I let her march me down the road between the U of O and the Kesey house that would serve as the classroo at a huge table were the disciples

My throat shrunk to the circuht barf

”Everyone, this is Lidia,” Meredith said

Great Now I get to stand here like a moron and explaininside avethe films Paul Newman in Notion Cuckoo's Nest

Kesey, as at the far end of the rooht over, pulled out a chair for me, and said, ”Well hellO What do we have here? A triple A tootsie” It was the first tion literary event The closer he caht up to me, I could see the former wrestler in his shoulders and chest His face was moon pie round, his cheeks vividly veined and flushed, puffy with drink His hair seelued in odd places on a head His smile: epic His eyes were transparent blue Like ot hot and the top of my head itched and all the others in the rooes while I felt like a hue fla about the tootsie remark he leaned down and whispered in my ear, ”I knohat happened to you Death's a motherfucker”

In 1984, Kesey's son Jed, a wrestler for the University of Oregon, was killed on the way to a wrestling tournairl died the same year Close to my ear, he smelled like vodka Fa and bonded quickly the way strangers who've seen aliens can That's all it took No one ever questioned me, least of all Kesey It was brilliantly incomprehensible to me I loved it

I was 25

The first day of the collaborative novel writing workshop, Kesey brought out a brown cigar box and asked Jeff Forester to roll a joint Jeff Forester had beautiful bleached brownblond curly hair and translucent eyes and tan skin He looked like a surfer to me But with a wicked vocabulary and mucho skill ords Jeff didn't seem to bat an eyelash, he just rolled a perfect fattie, and Kesey began talking his Kesey talk, which began, ”I've always hated sitting in a rooe toke fro joint and passed it Bennett Huffht skinned His quietnessin a round, Bennett closed his eyes, lost the color in his face, and fell to the ground - almost in slow motion Passed out cold I don't remember who expressed alarm It was maybe a wo Beautiful Bennett there on the floor

Kesey si only to say, ”He'll be OK” Looking at us like don't you know that? It happens all the time The distance between the 60s and 1988 was as wide as an ocean You could tell by our clothes, the beer we drank, the I'm a U of O duck looks on our faces There was no psilocybin,on the surface of our skin There was no CIA-financed study on the effect of psychoactive drugs To e, only one of us had been to rehab or jail, and I wasn't talking

In hed my ass off while I sat and tried to write weird sentences so I wouldn't embarrass myself I'd never been in any ”class” like that in my life But I'd failed several classes, and I'd flunked out of college before, and I'd been to institutional houses for bad behavior or instability already by then in my life, so this house seemed at least safe to me compared to the tyranny of others