One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Ken Kesey [109]
The wind had turned cold and mean, and Billy Bibbit took off his green coat and gave it to the girl, and she put it on over her thin little T-shirt. One of the loafers kept calling down, “Hey you, Blondie, you like fruitcake kids like that?” The man’s lips were kidney-colored and he was purple under his eyes where the wind’d mashed the veins to the surface. “Hey you, Blondie,” he called over and over in a high, tired voice, “hey you, Blondie…hey you, Blondie…hey you, Blondie…”
We bunched up closer together against the wind.
“Tell me, Blondie, what’ve they got you committed for?”
“Ahr, she ain’t committed, Perce, she’s part of the cure!”
“Is that right, Blondie? You hired as part of the cure? Hey you, Blondie.”
She lifted her head and gave us a look that asked where was that hard-boiled bunch she’d seen and why weren’t they saying something to defend her? Nobody would answer the look. All our hard-boiled strength had just walked up those steps with his arm around the shoulders of the bald-headed captain.
She pulled the collar of the jacket high around her neck and hugged her elbows and strolled as far away from us down the dock as she could go. Nobody went after her. Billy Bibbit shivered in the cold and bit his lip. The guys at the bait shack whispered something else and whooped out laughing again.
“Ask ’er, Perce—go on.”
“Hey, Blondie, did you get ’em to sign a waiver clearing you with proper authorities? Relatives could sue, they tell me, if one of the boys fell in and drown while he was on board. Did you ever think of that? Maybe you’d better stay here with us, Blondie.”
“Yeah, Blondie; my relatives wouldn’t sue. I promise. Stay here with us fellows, Blondie.”
I imagined I could feel my feet getting wet as the dock sank with shame into the bay. We weren’t fit to be out here with people. I wished McMurphy would come back out and cuss these guys good and then drive us back where we belonged.
The man with the kidney lips folded his knife and stood up and brushed the whittle shavings out of his lap. He started walking toward the steps. “C’mon, now, Blondie, what you want to mess with these bozos for?”
She turned and looked at him from the end of the dock, then back at us, and you could tell she was thinking his proposition over when the door of the bait shop opened and McMurphy came shoving out past the bunch of them, down the steps.
“Pile in, crew, it’s all set! Gassed and ready and there’s bait and beer on board.”
He slapped Billy on the rear and did a little hornpipe and commenced slinging ropes from their snubs.
“Ol’ Cap’n Block’s still on the phone, but we’ll be pulling off as quick as he comes out. George, let’s see if you can get that motor warmed up. Scanlon, you and Harding untie that rope there. Candy! What are you doing off down there? Let’s get with it, honey, we’re shoving off.”
We swarmed into the boat, glad for anything that would take us away from those guys standing in a row at the bait shop. Billy took the girl by the hand and helped her on board. George hummed over the dashboard up on the bridge, pointing out buttons for McMurphy to twist or push.
“Yeah, these pukers, puke boats, we call them,” he said to McMurphy, “they joost as easy like driving otto-mobile.”
The doctor hesitated before climbing aboard and looked toward the shop where all the loafers stood milling toward the steps.
“Don’t you think, Randle, we’d better wait…until the captain—”
McMurphy caught him by the lapels and lifted him clear of the dock into the boat like he was a small boy. “Yeah, Doc,” he said, “wait till the captain what?” He commenced to laugh like he was drunk,