One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Ken Kesey [65]
“Didn’t you explain the voting procedure to him, Doctor?”
“I’m afraid—a majority is called for, McMurphy. She’s right, she’s right.”
“A majority, Mr. McMurphy; it’s in the ward constitution.”
“And I suppose the way to change the damned constitution is with a majority vote. Sure. Of all the chicken-shit things I’ve ever seen, this by God takes the cake!”
“I’m sorry, Mr. McMurphy, but you’ll find it written in the policy if you’d care for me to—”
“So this’s how you work this democratic bullshit—hell’s bells!”
“You seem upset, Mr. McMurphy. Doesn’t he seem upset, Doctor? I want you to note this.”
“Don’t give me that noise, lady. When a guy’s getting screwed he’s got a right to holler. And we’ve been damn well screwed.”
“Perhaps, Doctor, in view of the patient’s condition, we should bring this meeting to a close early today—”
“Wait! Wait a minute, let me talk to some of those old guys.”
“The vote is closed, Mr. McMurphy.”
“Let me talk to ’em.”
He’s coming across the day room at us. He gets bigger and bigger, and he’s burning red in the face. He reaches into the fog and tries to drag Ruckly to the surface because Ruckly’s the youngest.
“What about you, buddy? You want to watch the World Series? Baseball? Baseball games? Just raise that hand up there—”
“Fffffffuck da wife.”
“All right, forget it. You, partner, how about you? What was your name—Ellis? What do you say, Ellis, to watching a ball game on TV? Just raise your hand….”
Ellis’s hands are nailed to the wall, can’t be counted as a vote.
“I said the voting is closed, Mr. McMurphy. You’re just making a spectacle of yourself.”
He don’t pay any attention to her. He comes on down the line of Chronics. “C’mon, c’mon, just one vote from you birds, just raise a hand. Show her you can still do it.”
“I’m tired,” says Pete and wags his head.
“The night is…the Pacific Ocean.” The Colonel is reading off his hand, can’t be bothered with voting.
“One of you guys, for cryin’ out loud! This is where you get the edge, don’t you see that? We have to do this—or we’re whipped! Don’t a one of you clucks know what I’m talking about enough to give us a hand? You, Gabriel? George? No? You, Chief, what about you?”
He’s standing over me in the mist. Why won’t he leave me be?
“Chief, you’re our last bet.”
The Big Nurse is folding her papers; the other nurses are standing up around her. She finally gets to her feet.
“The meeting is adjourned, then,” I hear her say. “And I’d like to see the staff down in the staff room in about an hour. So, if there is nothing el—”
It’s too late to stop it now. McMurphy did something to it that first day, put some kind of hex on it with his hand so it won’t act like I order it. There’s no sense in it, any fool can see; I wouldn’t do it on my own. Just by the way the nurse is staring at me with her mouth empty of words I can see I’m in for trouble, but I can’t stop it. McMurphy’s got hidden wires hooked to it, lifting it slow just to get me out of the fog and into the open where I’m fair game. He’s doing it, wires…
No. That’s not the truth. I lifted it myself.
McMurphy whoops and drags me standing, pounding my back.
“Twenty-one! The Chief’s vote makes it twenty-one! And by God if that ain’t a majority I’ll eat my hat!”
“Yippee,” Cheswick yells. The other Acutes are coming across toward me.
“The meeting was closed,” she says. Her smile is still there, but the back of her neck as she walks out of the day room and into the Nurses’ Station, is red and swelling like she’ll blow apart any second.
But she don’t blow up, not right off, not until about an hour later. Behind the glass her smile is twisted and queer, like we’ve never seen before. She just sits. I can see her shoulders rise and fall as she breathes.
McMurphy looks up at the clock and he says it’s time for the game. He’s over by the drinking fountain with some of the other Acutes, down on his knees scouring off the baseboard. I’m sweeping out the broom closet for the tenth time that day. Scanlon and Harding, they got the buffer going up and down the hall, polishing the new wax