One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Ken Kesey [51]
“Anyway—to put an end to this maudlin display of nostalgia—in the course of our conversation McMurphy and I wondered what would be the attitude of some of the men toward a carnival here on the ward?”
He puts on his glasses and peers around again. Nobody’s jumping up and down at the idea. Some of us can remember Taber trying to engineer a carnival a few years back, and what happened to it. As the doctor waits, a silence rears up from out of the nurse and looms over everybody, daring anybody to challenge it. I know McMurphy can’t because he was in on the planning of the carnival, and just as I’m thinking that nobody will be fool enough to break that silence, Cheswick, who sits right next to McMurphy, gives a grunt and is on his feet, rubbing his ribs, before he knows what happened.
“Uh—I personally believe, see”—he looks down at McMurphy’s fist on the chair arm beside him, with that big stiff thumb sticking straight up out of it like a cow prod—“that a carnival is a real good idea. Something to break the monotony.”
“That’s right, Charley,” the doctor says, appreciating Cheswick’s support, “and not altogether without therapeutic value.”
“Certainly not,” Cheswick says, looking happier now. “No. Lots of therapeutics in a carnival. You bet.”
“It would b-b-be fun,” Billy Bibbit says.
“Yeah, that too,” Cheswick says. “We could do it, Doctor Spivey, sure we could. Scanlon can do his human bomb act, and I can make a ring toss in Occupational Therapy.”
“I’ll tell fortunes,” Martini says and squints at a spot above his head.
“I’m rather good at diagnosing pathologies from palm reading, myself,” Harding says.
“Good, good,” Cheswick says and claps his hands. He’s never had anybody support anything he said before.
“Myself,” McMurphy drawls, “I’d be honored to work a skillo wheel. Had a little experience…’’
“Oh, there are numerous possibilities,” the doctor says, sitting up straight in his chair and really warming to it. “Why, I’ve got a million ideas…. ’’
He talks full steam ahead for another five minutes. You can tell a lot of the ideas are ideas he’s already talked over with McMurphy. He describes games, booths, talks of selling tickets, then stops as suddenly as though the Nurse’s look had hit him right between the eyes. He blinks at her and asks, “What do you think of the idea, Miss Ratched? Of a carnival? Here, on the ward?”
“I agree that it may have a number of therapeutic possibilities,” she says, and waits. She lets that silence rear up from her again. When she’s sure nobody’s going to challenge it, she goes on. “But I also believe that an idea like this should be discussed in staff meeting before a decision is reached. Wasn’t that your idea, Doctor?”
“Of course. I merely thought, understand, I would feel out some of the men first. But certainly, a staff meeting first. Then we’ll continue our plans.”
Everybody knows that’s all there is to the carnival.
The Big Nurse starts to bring things back into hand by rattling the folio she’s holding. “Fine. Then if there is no other new business—and if Mr. Cheswick will be seated—I think we might go right on into the discussion. We have”—she takes her watch from the basket and looks at it—“forty-eight minutes left. So, as I—”
“Oh. Hey, wait. I remember there is some other new business.” McMurphy has his hand up, fingers snapping. She looks at the hand for a long time before she says anything.
“Yes, Mr. McMurphy?”
“Not me, Doctor Spivey has. Doc, tell ’em what you come up with about the hard-of-hearing guys and the radio.”
The nurse’s head gives one little jerk, barely enough to see, but my heart is suddenly roaring. She puts the folio back in the basket, turns to the doctor.
“Yes,” says the doctor. “I very nearly forgot.” He leans back and crosses his legs and puts his fingertips together; I can see he’s still in good spirits about