5
Before noontime theyre at the fog machine again but they havent got it turned up full; its not so thick but what I can see if I strain real hard. One of these days Ill quit straining and let myself go completely, lose myself in the fog the way some of the other Chronics have, but for the time being Im interested in this new man I want to see how he takes to the Group Meeting coming up.
Ten minutes to one the fog dissolves completely and the black boys are telling Acutes to clear the floor for the meeting. All the tables are carried out of the day room to the tub room across the hall leaves the floor, McMurphy says, like we was aiming to have us a little dance.
The Big Nurse watches all this through her window. She hasnt moved from her spot in front of that one window for three solid hours, not even for lunch. The dayroom floor gets cleared of tables, and at one oclock the doctor comes out of his office down the hall, nods once at the nurse as he goes past where shes watching out her window, and sits in his chair just to the left of the door. The patients sit down when he does; then the little nurses and the residents straggle in. When everybodys down, the Big Nurse gets up from behind her window and goes back to the rear of the Nurses Station to that steel panel with dials and buttons on it, sets some kind of automatic pilot to run things while shes away, and comes out into the day room, carrying the log book and a basketful of notes. Her uniform, even after shes been here half a day, is still starched so stiff it dont exactly bend any place; it cracks sharp at the joints with a sound like a frozen canvas being folded.
She sits just to the right of the door.
Soon as shes sat down, Old Pete Bancini sways to his feet and starts in wagging his head and wheezing. Im tired. Whew. O Lord. Oh, Im awful tired the way he always does whenever theres a new man on the ward who might listen to him.
The Big Nurse doesnt look over at Pete. Shes going through the papers in her basket. Somebody go sit beside Mr. Bancini, she says. Quiet him down so we can start the meeting.
Billy Bibbit goes. Pete has turned facing McMurphy and is lolling his head from side to side like a signal light at a railroad crossing. He worked on the railroad thirty years; now hes wore clean out but stills functioning on the memory.
Im ti-i-uhd, he says, wagging his face at McMurphy. Take it easy, Pete, Billy says, lays a freckled hand on Petes knee.
Awful tired
I know, Pete pats the skinny knee, and Pete pulls back his face, realizes nobody is going to heed his complaint today. The nurse takes off her wrist watch and looks at the ward clock and winds the watch and sets it face toward her in the basket. She takes a folder from the basket.
Now. Shall we get into the meeting?
She looks around to see if anybody else is about to interrupt her, smiling steady as her head turns in her collar. The guys wont meet her look; theyre all looking for hangnails. Except McMurphy. Hes got himself an armchair in the corner, sits in it like hes claimed it for good, and hes watching her every move. Hes still got his cap on, jammed tight down on his red head like hes a motorcycle racer. A deck of cards in his lap opens for a one-handed cut, then clacks shut with a sound blown up loud by the silence. The nurses swinging eyes hang on him for a second. Shes been watching him play poker all morning and though she hasnt seen any money pass hands she suspects hes not exactly the type that is going to be happy with the ward rule of gambling for matches only. The deck whispers open and clacks shut again and then disappears somewhere in one of those big palms.
The nurse looks at her watch again and pulls a slip of paper out of the folder shes holding, looks at it, and returns it to the folder. She puts the folder down and picks up the log book. Ellis coughs from his place on the wall; she waits until he stops.
Now. At the close of Fridays meeting we were discussing Mr. Hardings problem concerning his young wife. He had stated that his wife was extremely well endowed in the bosom and that this made him uneasy because she drew stares from men on the street. She starts opening to places in the log book; little slips of paper stick out of the top of the book to mark the pages. According to the notes listed by various patients in the log, Mr. Harding has been heard to say that she damn well gives the bastards reason to stare. He has also been heard to say that he may give her reason to seek further sexual attention. He has been heard to say, My dear sweet but illiterate wife thinks any word or gesture that does not smack of brickyard brawn and brutality is a word or gesture of weak dandyism.
She continues reading silently from the book for a while, then closes it.
He has also stated that his wifes ample bosom at times gives him a feeling of inferiority. So. Does anyone care to touch upon this subject further?
Harding shuts his eyes, and nobody else says anything. McMurphy looks around at the other guys, waiting to see if anybody is going to answer the nurse, then holds his hand up and snaps his fingers, like a school kid in class; the nurse nods at him.
Mr. ah McMurry?
Touch upon what?
What? Touch
You ask, I believe, Does anyone care to touch upon
Touch upon the subject, Mr. McMurry, the subject of Mr. Hardings problem with his wife.
Oh. I thought you mean touch upon her something else.
Now what could you
But she stops. She was almost flustered for a second there. Some of the Acutes hide grins, and McMurphy takes a huge stretch, yawns, winks at Harding. Then the nurse, calm as anything, puts the log book back in the basket and takes out another folder and opens it and starts reading.
McMurry, Randle Patrick. Committed by the state from the Pendleton Farm for Correction. For diagnosis and possible treatment. Thirty-five years old. Never married. Distinguished Service Cross in Korea, for leading an escape from a Communist prison camp. A dishonorable discharge, afterward, for insubordination. Followed by a history of street brawls and barroom fights and a series of arrests for Drunkenness, Assault and Battery, Disturbing the Peace, repeated gambling, and one arrest for Rape.
Rape? The doctor perks up.
Statutory, with a girl of
Whoa. Couldnt make that stick, McMurphy says to the doctor. Girl wouldnt testify.
With a child of fifteen.
Said she was seventeen, Doc, and she was plenty willin. A court doctors examination of the child proved entry, repeated entry, the record states
So willin, in fact, I took to sewing my pants shut.
The child refused to testify in spite of the doctors findings. There seemed to be intimidation. Defendant left town shortly after the trial.
Hoo boy, I had to leave. Doc, let me tell you he leans forward with an elbow on a knee, lowering his voice to the doctor across the room that little hustler would of actually burnt me to a frazzle by the time she reached legal sixteen. She got to where she was tripping me and beating me to the floor.
The nurse closes up the folder and passes it across the doorway to the doctor. Our new Admission, Doctor Spivey, just like shes got a man folded up inside that yellow paper and can pass him on to be looked over. I thought I might brief you on his record later today, but as he seems to insist on asserting himself in the Group Meeting, we might as well dispense with him now.
The doctor fishes his glasses from his coat pocket by pulling on the string, works them on his nose in front of his eyes. Theyre tipped a little to the right, but he leans his head to the left and brings them level. Hes smiling a little as he turns through the folder, just as tickled by this new mans brassy way of talking right up as the rest of us, but, just like the rest of us, hes careful not to let himself come right out and laugh. The doctor closes the folder when he gets to the end, and puts his glasses back in his pocket. He looks to where McMurphy is still leaned out at him from across the day room.
Youve it seems no other psychiatric history, Mr. McMurry?
McMurphy, Doc.
Oh? But I thought the nurse was saying
He opens the folder again, fishes out those glasses, looks the record over for another minute before he closes it, and puts his glasses back in his pocket. Yes. McMurphy. That is correct. I beg your pardon.
Its okay, Doc. It was the lady there that started it, made the mistake. Ive known some people inclined to do that. I had this uncle whose name was Hallahan, and he went with a woman once who kept acting like she couldnt remember his name right and calling him Hooligan just to get his goat. It went on for months before he stopped her. Stopped her good, too.
Oh? How did he stop her? the doctor asks.
McMurphy grins and rubs his nose with his thumb. Ah-ah, now, I cant be tellin that. I keep Unk Hallahans method a strict secret, you see, in case I need to use it myself someday.
He says it right at the nurse. She smiles right back at him, and he looks over at the doctor. Now, what was you asking about my record, Doc?
Yes. I was wondering if youve any previous psychiatric history. Any analysis, any time spent in any other institution?
Well, counting state and county coolers
Mental institutions.
Ah. No, if thats the case. This is my first trip. But I am crazy, Doc. I swear I am. Well here let me show you here. I believe that other doctor at the work farm
He gets up, slips the deck of cards in the pocket of his jacket, and comes across the room to lean over the doctors shoulder and thumb through the folder in his lap. Believe he wrote something, back at the back here somewhere
Yes? I missed that. Just a moment. The doctor fishes his glasses out again and puts them on and looks to where McMurphy is pointing.
Right here, Doc. The nurse left this part out while she was summarizing my record. Where it says, Mr. McMurphy has evidenced repeated I just want to make sure Im understood completely, Doc repeated outbreaks of passion that suggest the possible diagnosis of psychopath. He told me that psychopath means I fight and fuh pardon me, ladies means I am he put it overzealous in my sexual relations. Doctor, is that real serious?
He asks it with such a little-boy look of worry and concern all over his broad, tough face that the doctor cant help bending his head to hide another little snicker in his collar, and his glasses fall from his nose dead center back in his pocket. All of the Acutes are smiling too, now, and even some of the Chronics.
I mean that overzealousness, Doc, have you ever been troubled by it?
The doctor wipes his eyes. No, Mr. McMurphy, Ill admit I havent. I am interested, however, that the doctor at the work farm added this statement: Dont overlook the possibility that this man might be feigning psychosis to escape the drudgery of the work farm. He looks up at McMurphy. And what about that, Mr. McMurphy?
Doctor he stands up to his full height, wrinkles his forehead, and holds out both arms, open and honest to all the wide world do I look like a sane man?
The doctor is working so hard to keep from giggling again he cant answer. McMurphy pivots away from the doctor and asks the same thing of the Big Nurse: Do I? Instead of answering she stands up and takes the manila folder away from the doctor and puts it back in the basket under her watch. She sits back down.
Perhaps, Doctor, you should advise Mr. McMurry on the protocol of these Group Meetings.
Maam, McMurphy says, have I told you about my uncle Hallahan and the woman who used to screw up his name?
She looks at him for a long time without her smile. She has the ability to turn her smile into whatever expression she wants to use on somebody, but the look she turns it into is no different, just a calculated and mechanical expression to serve her purpose. Finally she says, I beg your pardon, Mack-Murph-y. She turns back to the doctor. Now, Doctor, if you would explain
The doctor folds his hands and leans back. Yes. I suppose what I should do is explain the complete theory of our Therapeutic Community, while were at it. Though I usually save it until later. Yes. A good idea, Miss Ratched, a fine idea.
Certainly the theory too, doctor, but what I had in mind was the rule, that the patients remain seated during the course of the meeting.
Yes. Of course. Then I will explain the theory. Mr. Mc-Murphy, one of the first things is that the patients remain seated during the course of the meeting. Its the only way, you see, for us to maintain order.
Sure, Doctor. I just got up to show you that thing in my record book.
He goes over to his chair, gives another big stretch and yawn, sits down, and moves around for a while like a dog coming to rest. When hes comfortable, he looks over at the doctor, waiting.
As to the theory The doctor takes a deep, happy breath. Ffffuck da wife, Ruckly says. McMurphy hides his mouth behind the back of his hand and calls across the ward to Ruckly in a scratchy whisper, Whose wife? and Martinis head snaps up, eyes wide and staring. Yeah, he says, whose wife? Oh. Her? Yeah, I see her. Yeah.
Id give a lot to have that mans eyes, McMurphy says of Martini and then doesnt say anything all the rest of the meeting. Just sits and watches and doesnt miss a thing that happens or a word thats said. The doctor talks about his theory until the Big Nurse finally decides hes used up time enough and asks him to hush so they can get on to Harding, and they talk the rest of the meeting about that.
McMurphy sits forward in his chair a couple of times during the meeting like he might have something to say, but he decides better and leans back. Theres a puzzled expression coming over his face. Something strange is going on here, hes finding out. He cant quite put his finger on it. Like the way nobody will laugh. Now he thought sure there would be a laugh when he asked Ruckly, Whose wife? but there wasnt even a sign of one. The air is pressed in by the walls, too tight for laughing. Theres something strange about a place where the men wont let themselves loose and laugh, something strange about the way they all knuckle under to that smiling flour-faced old mother there with the too-red lipstick and the too-big boobs. And he thinks hell just wait a while to see what the story is in this new place before he makes any kind of play. Thats a good rule for a smart gambler: look the game over awhile before you draw yourself a hand.
* * *Ive heard that theory of the Therapeutic Community enough times to repeat it forwards and backwards how a guy has to learn to get along in a group before hell be able to function in a normal society; how the group can help the guy by showing him where hes out of place; how society is what decides whos sane and who isnt, so you got to measure up. All that stuff. Every time we get a new patient on the ward the doctor goes into the theory with both feet; its pretty near the only time he takes things over and runs the meeting. He tells how the goal of the Therapeutic Community is a democratic ward, run completely by the patients and their votes, working toward making worth-while citizens to turn back Outside onto the street. Any little gripe, any grievance, anything you want changed, he says, should be brought up before the group and discussed instead of letting it fester inside of you. Also you should feel an ease in your surroundings to the extent you can freely discuss emotional problems in front of patients and staff. Talk, he says, discuss, confess. And if you hear a friend say something during the course of your everyday conversation, then list it in the log book for the staff to see. Its not, as the movies call it, squealing, its helping your fellow. Bring these old sins into the open where they can be washed by the sight of all. And participate in Group Discussion. Help yourself and your friends probe into the secrets of the subconscious. There should be no need for secrets among friends.