One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Ken Kesey [86]
“You mean Ratched.”
“I do indeed.”
“I didn’t think the nurse had the say-so on this kind of thing.”
“She does indeed.”
McMurphy acts like he’s glad to get off talking about shock and lobotomy and get back to talking about the Big Nurse. He asks Harding what he figures is wrong with her. Harding and Scanlon and some of the others have all kinds of ideas. They talk for a while about whether she’s the root of all the trouble here or not, and Harding says she’s the root of most of it. Most of the other guys think so too, but McMurphy isn’t so sure anymore. He says he thought so at one time but now he don’t know. He says he don’t think getting her out of the way would really make much difference; he says that there’s something bigger making all this mess and goes on to try to say what he thinks it is. He finally gives up when he can’t explain it.
McMurphy doesn’t know it, but he’s onto what I realized a long time back, that it’s not just the Big Nurse by herself, but it’s the whole Combine, the nationwide Combine that’s the really big force, and the nurse is just a high-ranking official for them.
The guys don’t agree with McMurphy. They say they know what the trouble with things is, then get in an argument about that. They argue till McMurphy interrupts them.
“Hell’s bells, listen at you,” McMurphy says. “All I hear is gripe, gripe, gripe. About the nurse or the staff or the hospital. Scanlon wants to bomb the whole outfit. Sefelt blames the drugs. Fredrickson blames his family trouble. Well, you’re all just passing the buck.”
He says that the Big Nurse is just a bitter, icy-hearted old woman, and all this business trying to get him to lock horns with her is a lot of bull—wouldn’t do anybody any good, especially him. Getting shut of her wouldn’t be getting shut of the real deep-down hang-up that’s causing the gripes.
“You think not?” Harding says. “Then since you are suddenly so lucid on the problem of mental health, what is this trouble? What is this deep-down hang-up, as you so cleverly put it.”
“I tell you, man, I don’t know. I never seen the beat of it.” He sits still for a minute, listening to the hum from the X-ray room; then he says, “But if it was no more’n you say, if it was, say, just this old nurse with her sex worries, then the solution to all your problems would be to just throw her down and solve her worries, wouldn’t it?”
Scanlon claps his hands. “Hot damn! That’s it. You’re nominated, Mack, you’re just the stud to handle the job.”
“Not me. No sir. You got the wrong boy.”
“Why not? I thought you’s the super-stud with all that whambam.”
“Scanlon, buddy, I plan to stay as clear of that old buzzard as I possibly can.”
“So I’ve been noticing,” Harding says, smiling. “What’s happened between the two of you? You had her on the ropes for a period there; then you let up. A sudden compassion for our angel of mercy?”
“No; I found out a few things, that’s why. Asked around some different places. I found out why you guys all kiss her ass so much and bow and scrape and let her walk all over you. I got wise to what you were using me for.”
“Oh? That’s interesting.”
“You’re blamed right it’s interesting. It’s interesting to me that you bums didn’t tell me what a risk I was running, twisting her tail that way. Just because I don’t like her ain’t a sign I’m gonna bug her into adding another year or so to my sentence. You got to swallow your pride sometimes and keep an eye out for old Number One.”
“Why, friends, you don’t suppose there’s anything to this rumor that our Mr. McMurphy has conformed to policy merely to aid his chances of an early release?”
“You know what I’m talking about, Harding. Why didn’t you tell me she could keep me committed in here till she’s good and ready to turn me loose?”
“Why, I had forgotten you were committed.” Harding’s face folds in the middle over his grin. “Yes. You’re becoming sly. Just like the rest of us.”
“You damn betcha I’m becoming sly. Why should it be me goes to bat at these meetings over these piddling little gripes about keeping the