One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Ken Kesey [126]
“What they got on the program for us now, Chief?” he asked. “The boot? The rack? I hope nothing too strenuous, because, man, am I stove up bad!”
I told him it wasn’t strenuous, but I didn’t tell him anything else, because I wasn’t sure myself till I got to the Nurses’ Station, and the nurse, a different one, said, “Mr. McMurphy and Mr. Bromden?” then handed us each a little paper cup.
I looked in mine, and there are three of those red capsules.
This tsing whirs in my head I can’t stop.
“Hold on,” McMurphy says. “These are those knockout pills, aren’t they?”
The nurse nods, twists her head to check behind her, there’s two guys waiting with ice tongs, hunching forward with their elbows linked.
McMurphy hands back the cup, says, “No, sir, ma’am, but I’ll forgo the blindfold. Could use a cigarette, though.”
I hand mine back too, and she says she must phone and she slips the glass door across between us, is at the phone before anybody can say anything else.
“I’m sorry if I got you into something, Chief,” McMurphy says, and I barely can hear him over the noise of the phone wires whistling in the walls. I can feel the scared downhill rush of thoughts in my head.
We’re sitting in the day room, those faces around us in a circle, when in the door comes the Big Nurse herself, the two big black boys on each side, a step behind her. I try to shrink down in my chair, away from her, but it’s too late. Too many people looking at me; sticky eyes hold me where I sit.
“Good morning,” she says, got her old smile back now. McMurphy says good morning, and I keep quiet even though she says good morning to me too, out loud. I’m watching the black boys; one has tape on his nose and his arm in a sling, gray hand dribbling out of the cloth like a drowned spider, and the other one is moving like he’s got some kind of cast around his ribs. They are both grinning a little. Probably could of stayed home with their hurts, but wouldn’t miss this for nothing. I grin back just to show them.
The Big Nurse talks to McMurphy, soft and patient, about the irresponsible thing he did, the childish thing, throwing a tantrum like a little boy—aren’t you ashamed? He says he guesses not and tells her to get on with it.
She talks to him about how they, the patients downstairs on our ward, at a special group meeting yesterday afternoon, agreed with the staff that it might be beneficial that he receive some shock therapy—unless he realizes his mistakes. All he has to do is admit he was wrong, to indicate, demonstrate rational contact, and the treatment would be canceled this time.
That circle of faces waits and watches. The nurse says it’s up to him.
“Yeah?” he says. “You got a paper I can sign?”
“Well, no, but if you feel it nec—”
“And why don’t you add some other things while you’re at it and get them out of the way—things like, oh, me being part of a plot to overthrow the government and like how I think life on your ward is the sweetest goddamned life this side of Hawaii—you know, that sort of crap.”
“I don’t believe that would—”
“Then, after I sign, you bring me a blanket and a package of Red Cross cigarettes. Hooee, those Chinese Commies could have learned a few things from you, lady.”
“Randle, we are trying to help you.”
But he’s on his feet, scratching at his belly, walking on past her and the black boys rearing back, toward the card tables.
“O-kay, well well well, where’s this poker table, buddies…?”
The nurse stares after him a moment, then walks into the Nurses’ Station to use the phone.
Two colored aides and a white aide with curly blond hair walk us over to the Main Building. McMurphy talks with the white aide on the way over, just like he isn’t worried about a thing.
There’s frost thick on the grass, and the two colored aides in front trail puffs of breath like locomotives. The sun wedges apart some of the clouds and lights up the frost till the grounds are scattered with