One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Ken Kesey [34]
“I don’t know Helen, but I see what you’re drivin’ at. And you’re by God right. I couldn’t get it up over old frozen face in there even if she had the beauty of Marilyn Monroe.”
“There you are. She’s won.”
That’s it. Harding leans back and everybody waits for what McMurphy’s going to say next. McMurphy can see he’s backed up against the wall. He looks at the faces a minute, then shrugs and stands up from his chair.
“Well, what the hell, it’s no skin off my nose.”
“That’s true, it’s no skin off your nose.”
“And I damn well don’t want to have some old fiend of a nurse after me with three thousand volts. Not when there’s nothing in it for me but the adventure.”
“No. You’re right.”
Harding’s won the argument, but nobody looks too happy. McMurphy hooks his thumbs in his pockets and tries a laugh.
“No, sir, I never heard of anybody offering a twenty-bone bounty for bagging a ball-cutter.”
Everybody grins at this with him, but they’re not happy. I’m glad McMurphy is going to be cagey after all and not get sucked in on something he can’t whip, but I know how the guys feel; I’m not so happy myself. McMurphy lights another cigarette. Nobody’s moved yet. They’re all still standing there, grinning and uncomfortable. McMurphy rubs his nose again and looks away from the bunch of faces hung out there around him, looks back at the nurse and chews his lip.
“But you say…she don’t send you up to that other ward unless she gets your goat? Unless she makes you crack in some way and you end up cussing her out or busting a window or something like that?”
“Unless you do something like that.”
“You’re sure of that, now? Because I’m getting just the shadiest notion of how to pick up a good purse off you birds in here. But I don’t want to be a sucker about it. I had a hell of a time getting outa that other hole; I don’t want to be jumping outa the fryin’ pan into the fire.”
“Absolutely certain. She’s powerless unless you do something to honestly deserve the Disturbed Ward or EST. If you’re tough enough to keep her from getting to you, she can’t do a thing.”
“So if I behave myself and don’t cuss her out—”
“Or cuss one of the aides out.”
“—or cuss one of the aides out or tear up jack some way around here, she can’t do nothing to me?”
“Those are the rules we play by. Of course, she always wins, my friend, always. She’s impregnable herself, and with the element of time working for her she eventually gets inside everyone. That’s why the hospital regards her as its top nurse and grants her so much authority; she’s a master of forcing the trembling libido out into the open—”
“The hell with that. What I want to know is am I safe to try to beat her at her own game? If I come on nice as pie to her, whatever else I in-sinuate, she ain’t gonna get in a tizzy and have me electrocuted?”
“You’re safe as long as you keep control. As long as you don’t lose your temper and give her actual reason to request the restriction of the Disturbed Ward, or the therapeutic benefits of Electro Shock, you are safe. But that entails first and foremost keeping one’s temper. And you? With your red hair and black record? Why delude yourself?”
“Okay. All right.” McMurphy rubs his palms together. “Here’s what I’m thinkin’. You birds seem to think you got quite the champ in there, don’t you? Quite the—what did you call her?—sure, impregnable woman. What I want to know is how many of you are dead sure enough to put a little money on her?”
“Dead sure enough…?”
“Just what I said: any of you sharpies here willing to take my five bucks that says that I can get the best of that woman—before the week’s up—without her getting the best of me? One week, and if I don’t have her to where she don’t know whether to shit or go blind, the bet is yours.”
“You’re betting on this?” Cheswick is hopping from foot to foot and rubbing his hands together like McMurphy rubs his.
“You’re damned right.”
Harding and some of the others say that they don’t get it.
“It’s simple enough. There ain’t nothing noble or complicated about it. I like to gamble. And I like to win. And I think