One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Ken Kesey [143]
“It’s all right, Billy. It’s all right. No one else is going to harm you. It’s all right. I’ll explain to your mother.”
She continued to glare at us as she spoke. It was strange to hear that voice, soft and soothing and warm as a pillow, coming out of a face hard as porcelain.
“All right, Billy. Come along with me. You can wait over here in the doctor’s office. There’s no reason for you to be submitted to sitting out in the day room with these…friends of yours.”
She led him into the office, stroking his bowed head and saying, “Poor boy, poor little boy,” while we faded back down the hall silently and sat down in the day room without looking at one another or speaking. McMurphy was the last one to take a seat.
The Chronics across the way had stopped milling around and were settling into their slots. I looked at McMurphy out of the corner of my eye, trying not to be obvious about it. He was in his chair in the corner, resting a second before he came out for the next round—in a long line of next rounds. The thing he was fighting, you couldn’t whip it for good. All you could do was keep on whipping it till you couldn’t come out anymore and somebody else had to take your place.
There was more phoning going on in the Nurses’ Station and a number of authorities showing up for a tour of the evidence. When the doctor himself finally came in, every one of these people gave him a look like the whole thing had been planned by him, or at least condoned and authorized. He was white and shaky under their eyes. You could see he’d already heard about most of what had gone on here, on his ward, but the Big Nurse outlined it for him again, in slow, loud details so we could hear it too. Hear it in the proper way, this time, solemnly, with no whispering or giggling while she talked. The doctor nodded and fiddled with his glasses, batting eyes so watery I thought he must be splashing her. She finished by telling him about Billy and the tragic experience we had put the poor boy through.
“I left him in your office. Judging from his present state, I suggest you see him right away. He’s been through a terrible ordeal. I shudder to think of the damage that must have been done to the poor boy.”
She waited until the doctor shuddered too.
“I think you should go see if you can speak with him. He needs a lot of sympathy. He’s in a pitiful state.”
The doctor nodded again and walked off toward his office. We watched him go.
“Mack,” Scanlon said. “Listen—you don’t think any of us are being taken in by this crap, do you? It’s bad, but we know where the blame lies—we ain’t blaming you.”
“No,” I said, “none of us blame you.” And wished I’d had my tongue pulled out as soon as I saw the way he looked at me.
He closed his eyes and relaxed. Waiting, it looked like. Harding got up and walked over to him and had just opened his mouth to say something when the doctor’s voice screaming down the hall smashed a common horror and realization onto everybody’s face.
“Nurse!” he yelled. “Good lord, nurse!”
She ran, and the three black boys ran, down the hall to where the doctor was still calling. But not a patient got up. We knew there wasn’t anything for us to do now but just sit tight and wait for her to come to the day room to tell us what we all had known was one of the things that was bound to happen.
She walked straight to McMurphy.
“He cut his throat,” she said. She waited, hoping he would say something. He wouldn’t look up. “He opened the doctor’s desk and found some instruments and cut his throat. The poor miserable, misunderstood boy killed himself. He’s there now, in the doctor’s chair, with his throat cut.”
She waited again. But he still wouldn’t look up.
“First Charles Cheswick and now William Bibbit! I hope you’re finally satisfied. Playing with human lives—gambling with human lives—as if you thought yourself to be a God!”
She