Sometimes a Great Notion

by Ken Kesey

  (And what he answered was, "You can take chokersetting and the whole business and shove it up your ass!")

  They stood, with Lee's words still shaking the air between them; Hank squinting and taken aback momentarily; Lee trembling with outrage and trying to clean his glasses on his sweat shirt. And the jay, inspired by Lee's invective, it seems, screeches louder than ever from a scrub cedar not far away.

  (So there you go. Just when I thought we were in good shape. I just couldn't figure it. Well, Hank old sport, I say to myself, this'll give you something to puzzle over the second half of the day. And I headed on back to my rigging, leaving diplomacy to somebody else.)

  When the jay stops Lee raises his glasses and looks through them at his brother. "And that," he says with a shrug, "is what I think of your wonderful logging."

  Hank smiles slightly, studying the tall boy before him. "Okay, bub, okeedoke. So now I'll tell you something. . . ." He takes his cigarettes from his pocket and places one between his lips. "Did you know that every woods-worker who ever barked a shin or broke a finger agrees with you?--when it comes right down to the nuts of it--agrees with you to a T? That it's one dirty, tough, miserable way to live. That it's about as dangerous a way to make your bacon as you can find. That sometimes you'd be better off chuckin' the whole scene and just flopping down on the ground."

  "Then what possible reason--"

  "Lee, I just gave you my reason. With that riggin' story. Or as close as I can come to it. And my reason is pretty nearly Joe Ben's reason or Andy's or even that bastard Les Gibbons'. What I was just studyin' about, though, bub . . ." he pushes the last of the scraps down into the sack and tosses the sack away down the hill ". . . was just what Leland Stamper's reason might be?"--hitches his pants and starts away up the slope, leaving the question dangling in front of Lee. "Let's go, you coons!" he calls across the distance toward the men around the crummy, clapping his hands together. "If we don't get him this round, we'll get him the next!"

  And Joe's radio answers with:

  Mister engineer take that throttle in hand

  'Cause this rattler's the fastest in all the land,

  So keep movin' on . . .

  The boy again watches him disappear over the southern ridge into the veil of green needles. The jay calls incessantly from the cedar, in a voice as coarse and dry as the afternoon heat. Lee cleans his glasses again: have to get my regular ones fixed. He doesn't move from his stump until he hears the other boy toot the take-it-away signal; then he sighs, stands, and walks stiffly to his cable, without even a look in the direction of the other chokersetter. Screw him up there, whoever he is, blowing that damned whistle; he can bust his blood vessels if he is so inclined. I'm just going to make it through the day. That's all. Just make it through the day.

  Even so, even though I coasted from noon on, that first day still came about as close to undoing me completely, both physically and mentally, as any day had in almost a week. I didn't comprehend how devastating it had actually been until it was nearly over, until we had returned to the carrier and reversed our up-river process and arrived back at the house--under a sky as dark as the one that had bade us farewell that morning--and I had struggled up the stairs to my room. And bed. A sight even more welcome than it had been the day before. If the days progress in this fashion, I advised myself, I would do well to attend to whatever I have in mind before the end of the week, because I'll never last another.

  Lee lies on his bed, panting. Outside the silver chatter of stars anticipates the moon's arrival. Hank finishes securing the boat for the night and walks into the house. There is no one to be seen but the old man, seated before the television with his cast extended before him on a hassock. "You here by yourself?" Hanks asks. Henry doesn't turn his gaze from the flickering Western before him. "Looks like, don't it? Joe and his are in the kitchen where I run 'em so I could get some peace. Viv, I think, is out to the barn. . . ." "And the kid?" "He drag-assed right on upstairs; you musta worked him some." "A little," Hank answers, hanging his coat. "I'll go tell Viv we're back . . ." (Puzzling over things the rest of the day didn't get me nowhere; by the time we got home the kid and I was just as hung with each other as ever, I hadn't come up with a thing to say to Viv, and I still had that feeling of exasperation. It looked like it was gonna be another long night. . . .)

  In my sanctuary of a room I sprawled myself on the bed, just as I had twenty-four hours earlier--too shot down to even bother removing my shoes--but this time the innocent sleep would not come to knit up my ravel'd sleeve of care . . .

  Hank walks across the straw-carpeted floor of the barn and finds Viv lost in thought at the back door, a lithe silhouette against the blue-black sky, her hand resting on the door's big wooden pull-handle as she looks after the cow trudging darkly back out to pasture. (Viv was in the barn when I got home; I was glad for that . . .) He walks to her and wraps his arms about her waist from behind. "Hi, honey," she says and leans her head back against his lips. (Because we get along better out there, it seems, like a couple barn animals. I go up to her and give her a little hug and see that she's come out of her sulk pretty much, and's just a little blue is all . . .)

  I lay there in the dark--wide-eyed and ache-headed, more than slightly delirious from exhaustion--recalling familiar demons that used to creep from the knotholes on the dingy ceiling above me. I had no wish to watch their activities, but neither did I have the energy to do anything about them. They wandered wild across the ceiling--wolves and bears stalking among sheep, while the poor shepherd watches, watches helplessly, fagged and flaked and wanting nothing more than sleep . . . unable to let the marauders out of his sight for fear of his flock, unable also to rouse himself to its defense. I tried to force myself to the more pressing problems. Like: "Okay, now that you have decided it's no use trying to measure up to Brother Hank, just how do you go about pulling him down?" And like: "Why did you want to measure up to him anyway?" And: "Why is any of this crap necessary?"

  Viv turns inside the circle of his arms to press her cheek against his chest. "I'm sorry, hon, I was so ornery this morning--" "I'm sorry I was so ornery last night, chicken." "And as soon as the boat pulled out I ran out to wave, but you'd gone." He rolls a lock of her hair between his fingers. "It's just . . ." she went on, "that Dolly McKeever was one of the best friends I had in high school, and when she moved out from Colorado I was so looking forward to . . . having somebody to kind of chat with." "I know, chicken; I'm sorry. I shoulda told you about the WP deal right off, I suppose. I don't know why I never." He takes her hand. "C'mon now, let's go on in for some supper . . ." And on the walk to the house asks, "You got Jan, though; to talk with--how come you can't get anything goin' with ol' Janny lamb?" She laughs sadly. "Old Janny lamb is real nice, Hank, but did you ever sit down and try to talk to her? About just little things, say, like a movie you saw or a book you read?" Hank stopped walking. "Hey, just a minute. You know . . . ?" (And seeing how blue she is is what gives me the notion. By god, I say to myself, by god, you got the answer to both your hassles. By god if you don't!) "You know? I just thought of somethin': I think I know somebody you can chat with till the world turns blue, somebody you can really get things going with . . ." (I'll just knock off trying to play diplomat with the two sensitives, I said to myself, and let them entertain each other.) As I lay there pondering these whys and wherefores concerning myself and Brother Hank, Goya's painting "Kronos Devouring His Children" flashed across my ceiling along with all the obvious oedipal implications; but I was somehow unable to placate myself with second-rate psychological symbolism. Oh no you don't, Lee baby, not this time. Certainly there were all the run-of-the-mill Freudian reasons beneath my animosity toward my dear brother, all the castration-complex reasons, all the mother-son-father reasons--and all especially deep-seated and strong within me because the usual abysmal longing of the sulky son wishing to do in the guy who had been diddling Mom were in me compounded by the malevolent memories of a psychotic sibling . . . oh yes, I had
numerous scenes working on these multi-faceted levels--and any one of these note-pad facts would have constituted reason enough to provoke vengeance in the heart of any loyal neurotic--but this wasn't the Whole Truth.

  Also reason enough in my dislike for all he represented. It took no more than that first day to bring back all his faults; sparse though our communication had been it had taken only a few seconds at each exchange of words to convince me that he was crass, bigoted, wrongheaded, hypocritical, that he substituted viscera for reason and confused his balls with his brains, and that he was in many ways the epitome of the kind of man I regarded as most dangerous to my kind of world, and certainly for these reasons should I seek his destruction.

  But still . . . not the Whole Truth.

  . . . Frowning slightly, Viv turns to look at him; the light from the kitchen window shapes his brow and jaw against the mountains; "I know who you can get things going with about books and movies, chicken . . ." For a moment the wild, almost childish flash in his green eyes--a flash first seen through the bars of a jail--makes her think he is speaking about the only person in the world that she really cares to get things going with, but he says, "And that's the kid, Lee, Leland. Viv, I'll tell you straight: I need your help with him. Me and him have always been like pouring water in hot grease. And accepted it. But now the business needs him to help us through this deal. Will you go along with me on this? Kind of take him under your wing?" She said yes, she would. "Fine. Dang, that takes a load off me. Let's get on in." (But what I didn't think of was that passing your hassles off on one another don't necessarily get shut of them; sometimes it makes you a bigger one than your other two put together.) "And maybe you can run up and get on a nice dress for supper, what do you say? Could you do that for me?" She says yes, she could, and follows him on to the back door. . . .

  I knew that there was another, truer reason; a less concrete, more abstract, tenuous-as-a-black-widow's-web reason . . . and I knew it was akin to the feeling I had experienced when on our return from work we picked up the esteemed Mr. Leslie Gibbons--dirtier, if possible, than before--to ferry him from the road back across to his house. "Stamper," Gibbons began after he arranged himself for the ride across and cleared his throat of some terrible obstruction--his misplaced wad of snuff, most likely--"I seen Bigger Newton from Reedsport t'day. We 'uz aworkin' the same piece of pavement for a time there . . . hot work, too, nigger work, that's what, nigger work, ya know what I mean?"

  Hank had watched the river ahead and waited. I noticed that, in spite of Gibbons' casual, slightly insolent air, the man's grimy hands were shaking in his lap. He kept wetting cracked lips with a tongue pink and quick as a snake's . . .

  ". . . an' Big, he says he was boozed that night a month or so back. You mind it? An' he says--this is Newton, you mind, I'm just standin' an' listenin' and not takin' neither side--Big, he says you took advantage. He says--ah Christ, how'd he put it?--he says, 'Next time I run acrost Hank Stamper I aim to kick his ass till his nose bleeds!' That was it; that's how he put it."

  "He's tried about three times now, Les."

  "Shore! I know that. But look here, Hank, them first couple times he wasn't but eighteen or so. Snotnosed kid. Look here, I ain't takin' sides but you want to keep in mind he's three years older now. An' so're you."

  "I'll keep it in mind, Les."

  "He says--Big does--that you an' him have got a bone to pick. Somethin' about that bike race you won down on the beach last summer. He says you used them heavy treads for no other reason than to kick sand on the other racers. Big's pretty sore, Hank. I just thought to tell you."

  Hank glanced sideways at Gibbons, smiling into his hand. "I appreciate it, Les." And, without taking his eyes from the river ahead, leaned down with feigned absent-mindedness and took from beneath the seat a Gardol can, shook it near his ear, emptied the few remaining drops into the gas tank--"Yes, I surely do." Then, just as Les was about to speak further on the subject, Hank crushed the empty can as though it were made of aluminum foil. The thumb and finger simply came together with no apparent strain or effort. The metal seemed to offer no resistance. He tossed the can, looking like a metal hourglass, past Les's bulging eyes into the river and wiped his hand on his pants. This piece of theatrics was sufficient to keep Les silent the rest of the ride across. But when he climbed out of the boat he stood finicking with his tin hat, obviously wanting to say more; finally he blurted, "Saturday! Dang; nearly forgot. Hank, any you boys goin' into the Snag this Sat'day night? I'd be obliged for a ride across."

  "Probably not this Saturday, Les. But I'll let you know."

  "Will you? Will you sure enough now?" He was openly concerned.

  "Sure, Les. We'll give you a call," Joe Ben reassured him quite tersely for Joe. "Oh yeah. Maybe even give Bigger a call too. Maybe even give 'em a call at the Snag so they can commence setting up bleachers and selling tickets and making hot dogs. Oh, we wouldn't let anybody miss it."

  Les pretended to miss Joe's sarcasm. "Wonderful," he said. "That'll be fine. I thank you. I'm sure obliged to you boys." He pranced on up to the fence, calling his undying gratitude over his shoulder, thrilled to the core. And rightly so. Hadn't he been promised a trip to the future match where the notorious Big Newton from Reedsport was going to meet Horrible Hank in an attempt to break the title holder's long winning streak as well as his neck? And repelled as I was by Gibbons' clumsy subterfuge and his sickening, two-faced good-fellowship, I knew I secretly rooted for his gladiator to put the champ down for the count. Les and I were heart to heart joined in this cause: we wanted the champ down simply because it was insupportable to us that he had the audacity to be up there--perched arrogantly on the throne, when we were not.

  But even as I lay in bed confiding this to the ceiling, I knew I was not Newton the Nemean Lion with a record of barroom fights to rely on, nor was I Leslie Gibbons, who could be satisfied as a gibbering and drooling spectator sucking up vicarious kicks from the ringside. My part in the dethronement, the necessary abrogation, would have to be both passive and active at the same time: passive in the sense that I knew better than to wage open physical battle against my work-hardened brother--WATCH OUT warned my monitor inside, my ever-alert distress signal that shouted FIRE at the first smell of a cigarette--and active because I needed the catharsis of being part of his overthrow. I needed to wield the torch, hold the knife. I needed the stain of his actual blood on my conscience as a poultice to draw out the pus of long cowardice. I needed the nourishment of victory to give me the strength I had been cheated of by years of starvation. I needed to fell the tree that had been hogging my sunshine before I even germinated. My sunshine, my need howled. Sun to grow on! to grow out of the shadow into myself! into me! Yes. And then--listen now--perhaps then, you poor runt, when you have brandished the torch! overthrown the champ! felled the tree! when the throne is empty and the sky overhead finally clear and the jungle finally safe for Sunday walk . . . perhaps then, you poor chicken-livered wretch EASY NOW you may be able to establish the Reason for Lee, you may even find the courage to live with that twisted corpse that has been lying in your brain since she dropped it there from the forty-first floor, lying in your brain there, rotting indomitably away like a clock ticking; and, Lee boy, if you can't measure up you'd better see to shortening the measuring stick down to your own size . . . because that clock is ticking right along.

  Viv walks upstairs to the bathroom. She removes her blouse and washes her face and neck. As she stands looking at her freshly dried features in the mirror--wondering if she should put her hair in a pony-tail for dinner or leave it down--she finds herself trying to recall if this is the same face she kissed good-by in her cracked mirror in Colorado. It really shouldn't be so very different from the face that looked out of that old oval mirror; she hasn't wrinkled--this climate is good for keeping down wrinkles, moist so much of the time--and she looks much younger than Dolly, whose birthday is a month after her own . . . but what about these stranger's eyes that sometimes look
back at her? And did she really once kiss these alien lips? She can't remember. She turns from the mirror and picks up her blouse to hold across her breasts as she walks to her room--deciding Hank would rather she left it long, lots of hair hanging and swinging, as he puts it . . .

  For I was certain by now that no other elixir would heal me; no potion but victory would stem the curse and halt my slow ascent up the steps to my own forty-first floor. My whole future keened silently with suffocated need for that victory, my whole past screamed in fury for it . . . while across the ceiling overhead, with its stigmata of cavernous knotholes exuding forms hideous and vapors terrifying, walked the evidence of those very weaknesses that rendered my wrath impotent and my victory impossible. Watching helplessly, I was struck by the parodoxical beauty of the situation. It seemed to me that up there, projected overhead, was at once the absolute proof of my need for a victory over my brother as well as undeniable evidence of my inability to bring about that victory. The need instigated and paralyzed itself simultaneously. Helpless, I lay witness to my production: a panorama of unparalleled paranoia, as every neuron cowered in terror from its neighbor while the sheep were being slaughtered. WATCH OUT WATCH OUT WATCH . . .