Not right: Hit by e-bike, artist must now draw left-handed

BY LINCOLN ANDERSON | Fly Orr is known for her Peops comics — booklet-sized drawings of East Village artists, squatters and activists encircled by handwritten bios and anecdotes.

For at least the next six weeks, though, she’ll be drawing what she calls “Lefty Peops.”

She has no choice. The wrist on her drawing hand was broken Dec. 19 when she was blindsided by an e-biker. Now she’s in a hard cast and wearing a sling.

Orr was crossing Eighth Street at Broadway. She had the green light. Due to an old skiing injury and an inborn knee condition (floating kneecaps), she wears a knee brace and walks with a cane.

“I was going to Trader Joe’s, thinking of all the work I had to do, and this guy came so fast,” she recalled. “And I went down hard, and the rider went down hard. Then he jumped up and biked off.”

Lying injured on the street and then being taken by ambulance to Bellevue, Orr flashed back to a far more horrific collision. In 2005, she was walking home from a movie with Michael Schenker, a good friend from her East Village building, which they had squatted together, when they were hit on E. 23rd Street by a turning SUV.

That time she found herself strapped down flat on her back on a backboard as medics rushed her to Bellevue, ambulance lights blazing. Orr had to have the front of her upper jaw reconstructed with coral, her “pulverized” nose rebuilt and surgery on both knees. Schenker suffered a traumatic brain injury and was in critical condition but pulled through.

“That was brutal,” she recalled.

This time, she felt fortunate she wasn’t hurt more seriously.

“Thank God, I didn’t hit my head or break a hip,” she said. “I’m lucky — they told me it was a clean [wrist] break.

But, she added, “I already have a lot of [physical] stuff I’m dealing with, so being taken down by an e-bike is not something I wanted to happen.”

She’s not surprised she was hit, though.

“I’ve had so many close calls,” she said. “So have my friends. People are not used to that kind of [e-bike] speed. I have nothing against people making a living. But a lot of people are getting flattened.”

Around an hour before The Village Sun talked with Fly, Mayor Adams — during a roundtable with the city’s ethnic and community media — described “a perfect storm” that has spawned e-bike mayhem on the streets. Orr added another element — a smoky cloud — to the “storm.”

“A lot of these guys are riding around high,” she said, noting she sometimes smells weed when she passes clusters of them hanging out.

“I don’t want to say all the e-bike guys are riding around high,” she said, adding, “A lot of [car] drivers are high. But I once almost got nailed by a guy on an e-bike going the wrong way. He had a blunt in one hand on the handlebars and was talking on a cell phone in his other hand. He was completely oblivious. He was definitely high.

“They should adhere to traffic rules that apply to motorized vehicles, and get tickets if they go through red lights,” Orr stressed of e-bikers. “They’re not bicycles — they’re motorized vehicles.”

Told of the mayor’s claim delivery workers will slow down since their minimum wage has been boosted, Orr scoffed, “Oh, that’s such bulls—! ‘Oh, we’re going to take it easy because we’re making a bit more.’”

Asked if all e-bikes should have licenses, she said, “Definitely, licenses.”

Despite suffering a broken wrist, the ever-optimistic artist’s spirit remains unbroken.

“I’m still on my feet,” she beamed. “I’m thankful every day that I can walk, honestly.”