One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Ken Kesey [85]
“What a life,” Sefelt moans. “Give some of us pills to stop a fit, give the rest shock to start one.”
Harding leans forward to explain it to McMurphy. “Here’s how it came about: two psychiatrists were visiting a slaughterhouse, for God knows what perverse reason, and were watching cattle being killed by a blow between the eyes with a sledgehammer. They noticed that not all the cattle were killed, that some would fall to the floor in a state that greatly resembled an epileptic convulsion. ‘Ah, zo,’ the first doctor says. ‘Ziz is exactly vot ve need for our patients—zee induced fit!’ His colleague agreed, of course. It was known that men coming out of an epileptic convulsion were inclined to be calmer and more peaceful for a time, and that violent cases completely out of contact were able to carry on rational conversations after a convulsion. No one knew why; they still don’t. But it was obvious that if a seizure could be induced in non-epileptics, great benefits might result. And here, before them, stood a man inducing seizures every so often with remarkable aplomb.”
Scanlon says he thought the guy used a hammer instead of a bomb, but Harding says he will ignore that completely, and he goes ahead with the explanation.
“A hammer is what the butcher used. And it was here that the colleague had some reservations. After all, a man wasn’t a cow. Who knows when the hammer might slip and break a nose? Even knock out a mouthful of teeth? Then where would they be, with the high cost of dental work? If they were going to knock a man in the head, they needed to use something surer and more accurate than a hammer; they finally settled on electricity.”
“Jesus, didn’t they think it might do some damage? Didn’t the public raise Cain about it?”
“I don’t think you fully understand the public, my friend; in this country, when something is out of order, then the quickest way to get it fixed is the best way.”
McMurphy shakes his head. “Hoo-wee! Electricity through the head. Man, that’s like electrocuting a guy for murder.”
“The reasons for both activities are much more closely related than you might think; they are both cures.”
“And you say it don’t hurt?”
“I personally guarantee it. Completely painless. One flash and you’re unconscious immediately. No gas, no needle, no sledgehammer. Absolutely painless. The thing is, no one ever wants another one. You…change. You forget things. It’s as if”—he presses his hands against his temples, shutting his eyes—“it’s as if the jolt sets off a wild carnival wheel of images, emotions, memories. These wheels, you’ve seen them; the barker takes your bet and pushes a button. Chang! With light and sound and numbers round and round in a whirlwind, and maybe you win with what you end up with and maybe you lose and have to play again. Pay the man for another spin, son, pay the man.”
“Take it easy, Harding.”
The door opens and the Gurney comes back out with the guy under a sheet, and the technicians go out for coffee. McMurphy runs his hand through his hair. “I don’t seem able to get all this stuff that’s happening straight in my mind.”
“What’s that? This shock treatment?”
“Yeah. No, not just that. All this…” He waves his hand in a circle. “All these things going on.”
Harding’s hand touches McMurphy’s knee. “Put your troubled mind at ease, my friend. In all likelihood you needn’t concern yourself with EST. It’s almost out of vogue and only used in the extreme cases nothing else seems to reach, like lobotomy.”
“Now lobotomy, that’s chopping away part of the brain?”
“You’re right again. You’re becoming very sophisticated in the jargon. Yes; chopping away the brain. Frontal-lobe castration. I guess if she can’t cut below the