Xmas in Madras

So, after 3 weeks at the Ranch, I was confined to my bed in somewhat nearby Madras, OR, a small town in Central Oregon with a smalltown hospital. It was such a smalltown hospital, that at Christmastime, the local children would take up a collection to buy toys for kids in the hospital. I was the only kid in the hospital, so come Christmas, I was bestowed with a bounty!

When she heard that I was in the hospital, my mom came up from Geetam and moved into the Ranch. Believe it or not, despite the fact that I lived in a commune, traveled to India, knew about and fiddled around with sex, cursed like a sailor constantly as I told dirty jokes, and am by birth Jewish, I still believed in Santa Claus. On Christmas morning, my parents came in with sacks of presents, presents the town children had gotten me and presents they had gotten for me themselves, and told me that they had run into Santa out on the street, he was in a huge hurry and had given them the gifts for me to save time. I was thrilled.

One of the things I got that year was a tape recorder. One of those little handheld jobs with one speaker and those buttons that you had to practically sit on to get them to push down. I also got a tape, "Urban Chipmunk" - the Chipmunks sing country and western songs. I'm not sure if I had any other tapes, but this is the one I listened to constantly. "Mamas don't let your babies grow up to be Chipmunks" and a rousing rendition of "Off the road again" floated down the hospital hallways day and night.

Another prize possession in my hospital days was the complete set of Garfield comics. I had books #1 - 6 and I read them over and over and over again. Thus began my obsession with Garfield. At Geetam, I'd already established myself as premier joke-teller, but with my new joke books (there were several) I really honed my repertoire. I worked on my act with my fuzzy velcro-footed monkey, Snowy, and dreamed about a time when I would be released from my bed prison so that I could share my humor with the world.

I was truly bedbound. I lay in bed day and night, a nurse would bathe me with a crusty sponge every other day. I had to ring a bell if I had to take a shit so that they could put a bedpan beneath me and then ring it again when I was done. I held it in as long as possible before ringing that bell, believe me. And all the time, I seethed. I said I would never speak to Madhu again. I never wanted to SEE her ever again. How could she have been so reckless, jumping on me and forcing me to live this life in a bed so far away from everyone I knew. So, who decides to leave the Ranch and pay me a visit? Madhu.

She arrived, trembling with fear and remorse, with her mother bearing food from A & W. As soon as I saw her, I grew weepy, greedily ate the junk food and hugged her tightly. How could I ever have been so mad at my friend? She caught me up with all the news from the Ranch, which kids were getting in trouble, which kids were getting beat up, who talked about me and who sent me their love. It was great. I told her my latest jokes and was very very sad to see her go.

After a month in the hospital in Madras, they had finally gathered enough material at the Ranch ward to build me a traction there so that I could come home. They loaded me up into the back of a van, surrounded my sandbags and my parents, and we drove the 45 minutes back to the Ranch where I lived in a new traction among familiar maroon-clad people.

Upon our arrival back at the Ranch, they lowered me into a tub (again surrounded by sandbags) and gave me my first bath in a month. I still recall the disgusting state of the water I was in - a month's worth of dead gray skin floated around me. They drained the tub and refilled it twice before I was finally deemed clean and loaded back up into traction and into bed. In some ways, it was a relief to be back home, but mostly I just wanted to get out of bed.

I loaded up into a van with Gyana and her dad, Deva. We drove for a couple days through the California desert and along long dark highways. I asked Deva what those bumps were in the middle of the highway and he told me they were to wake up drivers who fell asleep at the wheel. At that, I was totally terrified that you could actually do that and I kept my eyes constantly on him to make sure that didn't happen.

After 2 or 3 days of nonstop driving, we began to wind our way through miles of mucky, sloppy, middle-of-nowhere, freezing cold, dirt-roaded land. This was it. This was the oasis everyone was trying to get to. It was 64,000 acres of overgrazed sheep-farming land sold to sannyasins at a very reasonable price. After what seemed like a horrifying eternity of driving along icy mountainside cliff paths beneath looming teetering rock formations, we finally ended up in the center of what was heretofore known as "The Ranch". The property had previously been known as the Big Muddy, which was certainly a well-deserved moniker.

My dad met me when I arrived, we were so thrilled to see each other. I was then immediately installed in Howdy Doody, the kids' house. (All buildings, work departments, cafeterias, etc. were given names. Usually the names belonged to well-respected philosophers, authors, etc, but the kids house was an exception to that, I suppose.) There were 13 kids in the kids house, including me. We were mostly kids who had been in Poona, several of whom I knew there, but there were some new ones, as well. Also, there were two non-sannyasin, blue-jeans wearing teenagers there. They were the daughters of the previous caretakers of the property and they remained behind to help out - Becky and Kim.

The kids' house was a big farmhouse in the center of the "town". We were set up in makeshift bunkbeds - there were beds on stilts that lined the walls, like one big long bed , and then the bottom bunks were mattresses on the floor that lay perpendicular to the top bunks, parallel to each other. My dad was a teacher at the Ranch and was in charge of putting us to bed and waking us up each morning, which he chose to do with an annoying loud wail of reveille. Sagar, a British boy a year or two younger than me was the soundest sleeper and the loudest complainer about it.

I arrived in the beginning of December, it was freezing cold and the Ranch wasn't exactly equipped to handle so many people in terms of housing, heating, etc. Howdy Doody had two tiny floor vents that released miniscule portions of heat. We would all remove our soggy moonboots and cram together around the vents and try to thaw our toes, fighting and pushing constantly.

The showers were in a separate building and we had to go out into the freezing cold to an outhouse to go to the toilet. One night, I had to pee so badly and I really really didn't want to go to that disgusting outhouse in the dark. So, after what seemed like hours of deliberation, I finally snuck out and into the the showers, pulled down my pajama bottoms and squatted over a shower drain. Thankfully, none of the other kids noticed, I would never have heard the end of it.

The thing to do those days to show your daring and ingenuity was to jump off the top bunk and land on the floor mattresses in exciting and creative ways. One evening, after my dad had put us to bed and there were no adults around, I was folding my clothes and putting them into the cubby next to my bottom bunk mattress. Madhu, a tiny-for-her-age and even younger than me girl, was showing off for her mentor, Deepa. All I heard was, "look Deepa!" and the next thing I knew, I was writhing on the floor in agony, screaming my head off.

"IT'S BROKEN! MY LEG! IT'S BROKEN!!!"

Nobody believed me. I cried louder.

"OH MY GOD. IT'S REALLY BROKEN!!!!"

Finally, Vishranta got the kids away from me, I guess he believed me, and he sent Nicky out to get somebody. Thankfully, my dad hadn't gotten into the car yet and came back to fetch me. After a harrowing drive on dark dirt roads, we got to the doctor. He pushed on my leg.

"Does this hurt?"
"AAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!!!!!!"
He pushed again in a different spot.
"Does this hurt?"
"OH MY GOD AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"
Again....
Finally, he decided there might be something wrong with my leg, so they loaded me up into 4 X 4 and drove me to Madras, the nearest town with X-ray facilities, and we drove 45 minutes in the middle of the night along the country bumpy roads.

When we got to the hospital, they X-rayed my leg and my femur was completely broken through and compressed. I was told I had to stay in traction and there I stayed for a month.

Trouble behind

I did manage to make friends and have quite a lot of fun while I was in Geetam. Yasha was my best friend there, and though she was known as a rowdy, tough little trouble-maker, I was the one who seemed to get everyone in trouble. Kiran was a year younger than me and was a whiny, insecure little girl who had warts on her hands and was always sucking on her two middle fingers. Geet was also a year younger than me and was obsessed with sex. Sometimes, we would sneak away from class and hide in a tent to get naked and fool around. Kind of like what i did with Chana in Poona, but there were more of us girls involved. Lalit was also younger than me, we were friends, though he just tended to go with the pack. Forest was the same age as Geet and Lalit and was well-known for throwing amazing temper tantrums - full blown breath holding arm flailing wailing tantrums. Madhu was a sweet shy thing - again, about a year or two younger than me, small for her age, as was I.

There were also the older kids. They were teens or acted like them and were often put in charge of us "kids" in the kids house. Gyana was about two years older than me and always acted like she knew everything and was in charge of the world. My brother was there, at age 11/12 running around with older women and getting laid from what i heard. All of us kids lived together in a small house with bunk beds. We got to choose special kids sheets: Holly Hobby or Peanuts - I had Peanuts. Every Saturday morning, they brought in a TV so that we could watch Saturday morning cartoons together. It was sort of Lord of the Flies meets the Brady Bunch at that point.

At around this time, I turned 7. The school threw me a little party where they served a cake of my choosing: Chocolate cake with butterscotch frosting and my name spelled out in M & M's. Actually, I think this is what Yasha had for her birthday two weeks prior, and for this and several subsequent birthdays, I generally got the same cake as she'd had for her birthday. Actually, it was rather disgusting - too sweet even for me. She had better taste later.

It was also at about this time that I decided to be a boy. I had my hair cut short, wore only boys clothing, including boys underwear and bathing suits. I introduced myself to people in a generic way and let them draw their own conclusions. I never corrected them in either case. I wasn't a tomboy, i didn't scrape my knees, get dirty, play baseball, climb trees, or do tomboy things. I was never active or daring. My thing was my sense of humor: I told jokes. Dirty jokes, kid jokes, made up jokes, generally, I made people laugh. But I was now a boy who did these things and I stayed that way for a few years, pretty much until I started having real crushes on boys.

My final act of rabblerousing at Geetam was quite a feat. The commune was preparing for some sort of feast following a monthly meeting or something. They created this enormous spread of fruit, baked goods, drinks, etc. The adults for some reason had abandoned the site for an hour or so prior to the event and left noone to watch over the goods. I got Yasha, Kiran, Geet, Lalit and Madhu to follow me down and we decided to hit the fruit. We took all the grapefruits out of the baskets, cut them open, made juice and drank it all. We made a gigantic mess. We ate some of the cookies, but i think the biggest damage we did was to the fruit.

We got caught.

We got a stern talking to, had our TV-watching rights revoked, our allowances withheld, and were not allowed to go on next week's field trip to the mall nearby to get new shoes. We were commanded to stay in our bunkbeds, but when the others were watching TV, we were not allowed to look. Gyana made sure that none of us did. Lalit kept trying to pretend he wasn't watching but kept getting busted facing the tube. Gyana took it upon herself to tape his eyes shut with masking tape to make sure it didn't happen again. I faced the wall the entire time, eating an apple (we weren't allowed our weeky ration of candy) and letting the seeds drop behind the bed in my final act of defiance.

Meanwhile, back at the Ranch, Daddy had been asking permission for me to join him there. Word came back after my shenanigans, something along the lines of, "your daughter has to learn that she can't get her way by throwing tantrums." The next day, word came back again, "Sarv, your kid can come."

Trouble ahead...

My sole purpose in life while I was at Geetam was to get kicked out so that I could go live with my dad at the Ranch. I went out of my way to get in trouble, piss people off, and torment others - well, torment adults - so that I would be forbidden to live at this so-called "center" in central California and sent off to live with Daddy in Oregon. Actually, now that I think about it, most sannyasins were probably trying to get accepted into the Ranch, but none of them in as clever of a fashion, I imagine. I turned 7 at Geetam, and for me that meant the age of hellion.

Mostly, as I said, I tried to annoy the adults. I'm not sure of all things I did exactly, but annoy the adults I did. The first time was with Suraj, the head of the kitchen. (that he was actually a certified teacher I didn't know that at the time, I grew to know him much later when he bacame the principal at the school in Antelope). One thing sannyasins were adept at was rules: creating them and following them. It's ironic, really, in a community founded on rebellion and outrageousness, that we were all living by so many rules... more and more as the years went by. Many years after the commune in Oregon was over and done with, a friend of my father's was asked what he learned from his experience. His reply: "we learned that we could live under fascism." Anyway, in Geetam, there were rules about when we were allowed into the kitchen for dinner. Not before five.

I was hungry. I snuck in past the vestibule with its water tap and lemons so that I could take some dinner rolls or something. Suraj caught me and kicked me out. I snuck back in. Was caught. Kicked out. Each time this happened, closer and closer to five o'clock, Suraj became more and more red in the face, more angry, louder and louder. Finally, right as everyone began to arrive for dinner and the kitchen was open for business, Suraj lost his mind and left to speak immediately to my mother. My mom wasn't really too worried about this little act of mischief and pretty much let me on my own.

Several incidents closely followed.... I tormented Rajan, another kitchen staff member. I tortured him to the point of hitting me on the bum with a broom. He got a stern talking to from my mom about that one. There was one man who hated me most. His name was Michael and I'm not sure what his job was, but wherever there was trouble, there was me. And Michael invited me... I couldn't NOT torment the poor guy for some reason. I think it's because his fuse was so short. I wanted to see how far I could drive him.

One day, he was working on a thatched roof that sloped to within 3 or 4 feet of the ground. I climbed up next to him and to be honest, I don't even remember what I did to provoke him, but I'm sure i did it over and over again. Finally, he grabbed me by the wrist and threw me off the roof. I plummetted that 4 feet to the earth and bounced back, though not without screaming bloody murder that i'd been thrown off a roof! Can you believe that asshole threw a little girl off the roof?!

That was not the worst I got from Michael. Geetam had both a swimming pool and a hot tub. I didn't know how to swim, so i spent most of my time floating around in the hot tub while the other kids played in the pool. I was there with my best friend, Yasha, and we enjoyed having the jacuzzi on. Michael decided it was time for him to have his relaxing tub while Yasha and I were fooling around with the bubble timer. Michael turned the bubbles off. I turned them on. He decided fine, he'll have bubbles. I turned them off. He turned them on. I turned them off. And so forth. Finally, he grew so incredibly angry, he grabbed me by the torso and dragged me out of the hot tub threatening to throw me in the pool. I hollered and hollered that I couldn't swim, he would drown me, I CAN'T SWIM YOU CAN'T TOSS ME IN THE POOL GODDAMNIT! But I'm pretty sure he didn't believe me.

Michael threw me in the pool and then walked away! I'm serious, I didn't know how to swim, I was thrashing around like a maniac in the deep end of a pretty big pool with no adults around. Thankfully, Yasha did know how to swim, so she jumped in and at 8 years old, dragged me to the shallow end of the pool where i climbed out, puking water. You might think I'd have learned a lesson of some kind about provoking people to the breaking point, but I'm sure I didn't. I just knew that Michael was an even more incredible asshole than I had previously thought and I told EVERYBODY what he'd done. I'm not sure if he left Geetam shortly after that, was told never to have contact wtih me again, or if he just decided that would be best for himself.