One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Ken Kesey [142]
“Oh, Billy,” the nurse said, like she was so disappointed she might break down and cry. “A woman like this. A cheap! Low! Painted—”
“Courtesan?” Harding suggested. “Jezebel?” The nurse turned and tried to nail him with her eyes, but he just went on. “Not Jezebel? No?” He scratched his head in thought. “How about Salome? She’s notoriously evil. Perhaps ‘dame’ is the word you want. Well, I’m just trying to help.”
She swung back to Billy. He was concentrating on getting to his feet. He rolled over and came to his knees, butt in the air like a cow getting up, then pushed up on his hands, then came to one foot, then the other, and straightened. He looked pleased with his success, as if he wasn’t even aware of us crowding at the door teasing him and hoorahing him.
The loud talk and laughter swirled around the nurse. She looked from Billy and the girl to the bunch of us behind her. The enamel-and-plastic face was caving in. She shut her eyes and strained to calm her trembling, concentrating. She knew this was it, her back to the wall. When her eyes opened again, they were very small and still.
“What worries me, Billy,” she said—I could hear the change in her voice—“is how your poor mother is going to take this.”
She got the response she was after. Billy flinched and put his hand to his cheek like he’d been burned with acid.
“Mrs. Bibbit’s always been so proud of your discretion. I know she has. This is going to disturb her terribly. You know how she is when she gets disturbed, Billy; you know how ill the poor woman can become. She’s very sensitive. Especially concerning her son. She always spoke so proudly of you. She al—”
“Nuh! Nuh!” His mouth was working. He shook his head, begging her. “You d-don’t n-n-need!”
“Billy Billy Billy,” she said. “Your mother and I are old friends.”
“No!” he cried. His voice scraped the white, bare walls of the Seclusion Room. He lifted his chin so he was shouting at the moon of light in the ceiling. “N-n-no!”
We’d stopped laughing. We watched Billy folding into the floor, head going back, knees coming forward. He rubbed his hand up and down that green pant leg. He was shaking his head in panic like a kid that’s been promised a whipping just as soon as a willow is cut. The nurse touched his shoulder to comfort him. The touch shook him like a blow.
“Billy, I don’t want her to believe something like this of you—but what am I to think?”
“Duh-duh-don’t t-tell, M-M-M-Miss Ratched. Duhduh-duh—”
“Billy, I have to tell. I hate to believe you would behave like this, but, really, what else can I think? I find you alone, on a mattress, with this sort of woman.”
“No! I d-d-didn’t. I was—” His hand went to his cheek again and stuck there. “She did.”
“Billy, this girl could not have pulled you in here forcibly.” She shook her head. “Understand, I would like to believe something else—for your poor mother’s sake.”
The hand pulled down his cheek, raking long red marks. “She d-did.” He looked around him. “And M-MMcMurphy! He did. And Harding! And the-the-the rest! They t-t-teased me, called me things!”
Now his face was fastened to hers. He didn’t look to one side or the other, but only straight ahead at her face, like there was a spiraling light there instead of features, a hypnotizing swirl of cream white and blue and orange. He swallowed and waited for her to say something, but she wouldn’t; her skill, her fantastic mechanical power flooded back into her, analyzing the situation and reporting to her that all she had to do was keep quiet.
“They m-m-made me! Please, M-Miss Ratched, they may-may-MAY—!”
She checked her beam,