Ken Kesey - One flew over cuckoo's nest

He’s sitting on one of the tables in the tub room with his feet on a chair, trying to spin his cap around one finger. Other Acutes mope around the room and try not to pay any attention to him. Nobody’ll play poker or blackjack with him for money any more — after the patients wouldn’t vote he got mad and skinned them so bad at cards that they’re all so in debt they’re scared to go any deeper — and they can’t play for cigarettes because the nurse has started making the men keep their cartons on the desk in the Nurses’ Station, where she doles them out one pack a day, says it’s for their health, but everybody knows it’s to keep McMurphy from winning them all at cards. With no poker or blackjack, it’s quiet in the tub room, just the sound of the speaker drifting in from the day room. It’s so quiet you can hear that guy upstairs in Disturbed climbing the wall, giving out an occasional signal, loo loo looo , a bored, uninterested sound, like a baby yells to yell itself to sleep.

“Thursday,” McMurphy says again.

“ Looooo ,” yells that guy upstairs.

“That’s Rawler,” Scanlon says, looking up at the ceiling. He don’t want to pay any attention to McMurphy. “Rawler the Squawler. He came through this ward a few years back. Wouldn’t keep still to suit Miss Ratched, you remember, Billy? Loo loo loo all the time till I thought I’d go nuts. What they should do with that whole bunch of dingbats up there is toss a couple of grenades in the dorm. They’re no use to anybody—”

“And tomorrow is Friday,” McMurphy says. He won’t let Scanlon change the subject.

“Yeah,” Cheswick says, scowling around the room, “tomorrow is Friday.”

Harding turns a page of his magazine. “And that will make nearly a week our friend McMurphy has been with us without succeeding in throwing over the government, is that what you’re saying, Cheswickle? Lord, to think of the chasm of apathy in which we have fallen — a shame, a pitiful shame.”

“The hell with that,” McMurphy says. “What Cheswick means is that the first Series game is gonna be played on TV tomorrow, and what are we gonna be doin’? Mopping up this damned nursery again.”

“Yeah,” Cheswick says. “Ol’ Mother Ratched’s Therapeutic Nursery.”

Against the wall of the tub room I get a feeling like a spy; the mop handle in my hands is made of metal instead of wood (metal’s a better conductor) and it’s hollow; there’s plenty of room inside it to hide a miniature microphone. If the Big Nurse is hearing this, she’ll really get Cheswick. I take a hard ball of gum from my pocket and pick some fuzz off it and hold it in my mouth till it softens.

“Let me see again,” McMurphy says. “How many of you birds will vote with me if I bring up that time switch again?”

About half the Acutes nod yes, a lot more than would really vote. He puts his hat back on his head and leans his chin in his hands.

“I tell ya, I can’t figure it out. Harding, what’s wrong with you , for crying out loud? You afraid if you raise your hand that old buzzard’ll cut it off.”

Harding lifts one thin eyebrow. “Perhaps I am; perhaps I am afraid she’ll cut it off if I raise it.”

“What about you, Billy? Is that what you’re scared of?” “No. I don’t think she’d d-d- do anything, but” — he shrugs and sighs and climbs up on the big panel that controls the nozzles on the shower, perches up there like a monkey” — but I just don’t think a vote wu-wu-would do any good. Not in the l-long run. It’s just no use, M-Mack.”

“Do any good? Hooee! It’d do you birds some good just to get the exercise lifting that arm.”

“It’s still a risk, my friend. She always has the capacity to make things worse for us. A baseball game isn’t worth the risk,” Harding says.

“Who the hell says so? Jesus, I haven’t missed a World Series in years. Even when I was in the cooler one September they let us bring in a TV and watch the Series , they’d of had a riot on their hands if they hadn’t. I just may have to kick that damned door down and walk to some bar downtown to see the game, just me and my buddy Cheswick.”

“Now there’s a suggestion with a lot of merit,” Harding says, tossing down his magazine. “Why not bring that up for vote in group meeting tomorrow? ‘Miss Ratched, I’d like to move that the ward be transported en masse to the Idle Hour for beer and television.’ ”

“I’d second the motion,” Cheswick says. “Damn right.”

“The hell with that in mass business,” McMurphy says. “I’m tired of looking at you bunch of old ladies; when me and Cheswick bust outta here I think by God I’m gonna nail the door shut behind me. You guys better stay behind; your mamma probably wouldn’t let you cross the street.”

“Yeah? Is that it?” Fredrickson has come up behind McMurphy. “You’re just going to raise one of those big he-man boots of yours and kick down the door? A real tough guy.”

McMurphy don’t hardly look at Fredrickson; he’s learned that Fredrickson might act hard-boiled now and then, but it’s an act that folds under the slightest scare.

“What about it, he-man,” Fredrickson keeps on, “are you going to kick down that door and show us how tough you are?”

“No, Fred, I guess not I wouldn’t want to scuff up my boot”

“Yeah? Okay, you been talking so big, just how would you go about busting out of here?”

McMurphy takes a look around him. “Well, I guess I could knock the mesh outa one of these windows with a chair when and if I took a notion. …”

“Yeah? You could, could you? Knock it right out? Okay, let’s see you try. Come on, he-man, I’ll bet you ten dollars you can’t do it.”

“Don’t bother trying, Mack,” Cheswick says. “Fredrickson knows you’ll just break a chair and end up on Disturbed. The first day we arrived over here we were given a demonstration about these screens. They’re specially made. A technician picked up a chair just like that one you’ve got your feet on and beat the screen till the chair was no more than kindling wood. Didn’t hardly dent the screen.”

“Okay then,” McMurphy says, taking a look around him. I can see he’s getting more interested. I hope the Big Nurse isn’t hearing this; he’ll be up on Disturbed in an hour. “We need something heavier. How about a table?”

“Same as the chair. Same wood, same weight.”

“All right, by God, let’s just figure out what I’d have to toss through that screen to bust out. And if you birds don’t think I’d do it if I ever got the urge, then you got another think coming. Okay — something bigger’n a table or a chair… Well, if it was night I might throw that fat coon through it; he’s heavy enough.”

“Much too soft,” Harding says. “He’d hit the screen and it would dice him like an eggplant.”

“How about one of the beds?”

“A bed is too big even if you could lift it. It wouldn’t go through the window.”

“I could lift it all right. Well, hell, right over there you are: that thing Billy’s sittin’ on. That big control panel with all the handles and cranks. That’s hard enough, ain’t it? And it damn well should be heavy enough.”

“Sure,” Fredrickson says. “That’s the same as you kicking your foot through the steel door at the front.”

“What would be wrong with using the panel? It don’t look nailed down.”

“No, it’s not bolted — there’s probably nothing holding it but a few wires — but look at it, for Christsakes.”

Everybody looks. The panel is steel and cement, half the size of one of the tables, probably weighs four hundred pounds.