One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

by Ken Kesey

  All this morning I been waiting for them to fog us in again. The last few days they been doing it more and more. It's my idea they're doing it on account of McMurphy. They haven't got him fixed with controls yet, and they're dying to catch him off guard. They can see he's due to be a problem; a half a dozen times already he's roused Cheswick and Harding and some of the others to where it looked like they might actually stand up to one of the black boys--but always, just the time it looked like the patient might be helped, the fog would start, like it's starting now.

  I heard the compressor start pumping in the grill a few minutes back, just as the guys went to moving tables out of the day room for the therapeutic meeting, and already the mist is oozing across the floor so thick my pants legs are wet. I'm cleaning the windows in the door of the glass station, and I hear the Big Nurse pick up the phone and call the doctor to tell him we're just about ready for the meeting, and tell him perhaps he'd best keep an hour free this afternoon for a staff meeting. "The reason being," she tells him, "I think it is past time to have a discussion of the subject of Patient Randle McMurphy and whether he should be on this ward or not." She listens a minute, then tells him, "I don't think it's wise to let him go on upsetting the patients the way he has the last few days."

  That's why she's fogging the ward for the meeting. She don't usually do that. But now she's going to do something with McMurphy today, probably ship him to Disturbed. I put down my window rag and go to my chair at the end of the line of Chronics, barely able to see the guys getting into their chairs and the doctor coming through the door wiping his glasses like he thinks the blurred look comes from his steamed lenses instead of the fog.

  It's rolling in thicker than I ever seen it before.

  I can hear them out there, trying to go on with the meeting, talking some nonsense about Billy Bibbit's stutter and how it came about. The words come to me like through water, it's so thick. In fact it's so much like water it floats me right up out of my chair and I don't know which end is up for a while. Floating makes me a little sick to the stomach at first. I can't see a thing. I never had it so thick it floated me like this.

  The words get dim and loud, off and on, as I float around, but as loud as they get, loud enough sometimes I know I'm right next to the guy that's talking, I still can't see a thing.

  I recognize Billy's voice, stuttering worse than ever because he's nervous. "... fuh-fuh-flunked out of college be-be-cause I quit ROTC. I c-c-couldn't take it. Wh-wh-wh-whenever the officer in charge of class would call roll, call 'Bibbit,' I couldn't answer. You were s-s-supposed to say heh--heh--heh ..." He's choking on the word, like it's a bone in his throat. I hear him swallow and start again. "You were supposed to say, 'Here sir,' and I never c-c-could get it out."

  His voice gets dim; then the Big Nurse's voice comes cutting from the left. "Can you recall, Billy, when you first had speech trouble? When did you first stutter, do you remember?"

  I can't tell is he laughing or what. "Fir-first stutter? First stutter? The first word I said I st-stut-tered: m-m-m-m-mamma."

  Then the talking fades out altogether; I never knew that to happen before. Maybe Billy's hid himself in the fog too. Maybe all the guys finally and forever crowded back into the fog.

  A chair and me float past each other. It's the first thing I've seen. It comes sifting out of the fog off to my right, and for a few seconds it's right beside my face, just out of my reach. I been accustomed of late to just let things alone when they appear in the fog, sit still and not try to hang on. But this time I'm scared, the way I used to be scared. I try with all I got to pull myself over to the chair and get hold of it, but there's nothing to brace against and all I can do is thrash the air, all I can do is watch the chair come clear, clearer than ever before to where I can even make out the fingerprint where a worker touched the varnish before it was dry, looming out for a few seconds, then fading on off again. I never seen it where things floated around this way. I never seen it this thick before, thick to where I can't get down to the floor and get on my feet if I wanted to and walk around. That's why I'm so scared; I feel I'm going to float off someplace for good this time.

  I see a Chronic float into sight a little below me. It's old Colonel Matterson, reading from the wrinkled scripture of that long yellow-hand. I look close at him because I figure it's the last time I'll ever see him. His face is enormous, almost more than I can bear. Every hair and wrinkle of him is big, as though I was looking at him with one of those microscopes. I see him so clear I see his whole life. The face is sixty years of southwest Army camps, rutted by iron-rimmed caisson wheels, worn to the bone by thousands of feet on two-day marches.

  He holds out that long hand and brings it up in front of his eyes and squints into it, brings up his other hand and underlines the words with a finger wooden and varnished the color of a gunstock by nicotine. His voice as deep and slow and patient, and I see the words come out dark and heavy over his brittle lips when he reads.

  "Now ... The flag is ... Ah-mer-ica. America is ... the plum. The peach. The wah-ter-mel-on. America is ... the gumdrop. The pumpkin seed. America is ... tell-ah-vision."

  It's true. It's all wrote down on that yellow hand. I can read it along with him myself.

  "Now ... The cross is ... Mex-i-co." He looks up to see if I'm paying attention, and when he sees I am he smiles at me and goes on. "Mexico is ... the wal-nut. The hazelnut. The ay-corn. Mexico is ... the rain-bow. The rain-bow is ... wooden. Mexico is ... woo-den."

  I can see what he's driving at. He's been saying this sort of thing for the whole six years he's been here, but I never paid him any mind, figured he was no more than a talking statue, a thing made out of bone and arthritis, rambling on and on with these goofy definitions of his that didn't make a lick of sense. Now, at last, I see what he's saying. I'm trying to hold him for one last look to remember him, and that's what makes me look hard enough to understand. He pauses and peers up at me again to make sure I'm getting it, and I want to yell out to him Yes, I see: Mexico is like the walnut; it's brown and hard and you feel it with your eye and it feels like the walnut! You're making sense, old man, a sense of your own. You're not crazy the way they think. Yes ... I see ...

  But the fog's clogged my throat to where I can't make a sound. As he sifts away I see him bend back over that hand.

  "Now ... The green sheep is ... Can-a-da. Canada is ... the fir tree. The wheat field. The cal-en-dar ..."

  I strain to see him drifting away. I strain so hard my eyes ache and I have to close them, and when I open them again the colonel is gone. I'm floating by myself again, more lost than ever.

  This is the time, I tell myself. I'm going for good.

  There's old Pete, face like a searchlight. He's fifty yards off to my left, but I can see him plain as though there wasn't any fog at all. Or maybe he's up right close and real small, I can't be sure. He tells me once about how tired he is, and just his saying it makes me see his whole life on the railroad, see him working to figure out how to read a watch, breaking a sweat while he tries to get the right button in the right hole of his railroad overalls, doing his absolute damnedest to keep up with a job that comes so easy to the others they can sit back in a chair padded with cardboard and read mystery stories and girlie books. Not that he ever really figured to keep up--he knew from the start he couldn't do that--but he had to try to keep up, just to keep them in sight. So for forty years he was able to live, if not right in the world of men, at least on the edge of it.

  I can see all that, and be hurt by it, the way I was hurt by seeing things in the Army, in the war. The way I was hurt by seeing what happened to Papa and the tribe. I thought I'd got over seeing those things and fretting over them. There's no sense in it. There's nothing to be done.

  "I'm tired," is what he says.

  "I know you're tired, Pete, but I can't do you no good fretting about it. You know I can't."

  Pete floats on the way of the old colonel.

  Here comes Billy Bibbit, the
way Pete come by. They're all filing by for a last look. I know Billy can't be more'n a few feet away, but he's so tiny he looks like he's a mile off. His face is out to me like the face of a beggar, needing so much more'n anybody can give. His mouth works like a little doll's mouth.

  "And even when I pr-proposed, I flubbed it. I said 'Huh-honey, will you muh-muh-muh-muh-muh ... till the girl broke out l-laughing."

  Nurse's voice, I can't see where it comes from: "Your mother has spoken to me about this girl, Billy. Apparently she was quite a bit beneath you. What would you speculate it was about her that frightened you so, Billy?"

  "I was in luh-love with her."

  I can't do nothing for you either, Billy. You know that. None of us can. You got to understand that as soon as a man goes to help somebody, he leaves himself wide open. He has to be cagey, Billy, you should know that as well as anyone. What could I do? I can't fix your stuttering. I can't wipe the razor-blade scars off your wrists or the cigarette burns off the back of your hands. I can't give you a new mother. And as far as the nurse riding you like this, rubbing your nose in your weakness till what little dignity you got left is gone and you shrink up to nothing from humiliation, I can't do anything about that, either. At Anzio, I saw a buddy of mine tied to a tree fifty yards from me, screaming for water, his face blistered in the sun. They wanted me to try to go out and help him. They'd of cut me in half from that farmhouse over there.

  Put your face away, Billy.

  They keep filing past.

  It's like each face was a sign like one of those "I'm Blind" signs the dago accordion players in Portland hung around their necks, only these signs say "I'm tired" or "I'm scared" or "I'm dying of a bum liver" or "I'm all bound up with machinery and people pushing me alla time." I can read all the signs, it don't make any difference how little the print gets. Some of the faces are looking around at one another and could read the other fellow's if they would, but what's the sense? The faces blow past in the fog like confetti.

  I'm further off than I've ever been. This is what it's like to be dead. I guess this is what it's like to be a Vegetable; you lose yourself in the fog. You don't move. They feed your body till it finally stops eating; then they burn it. It's not so bad. There's no pain. I don't feel much of anything other than a touch of chill I figure will pass in time.

  I see my commanding officer pinning notices on the bulletin board, what we're to wear today. I see the US Department of Interior bearing down on our little tribe with a gravel-crushing machine.

  I see Papa come loping out of a draw and slow up to try and take aim at a big six-point buck springing off through the cedars. Shot after shot puffs out of the barrel, knocking dust all around the buck. I come out of the draw behind Papa and bring the buck down with my second shot just as it starts climbing the rimrock. I grin at Papa.

  I never knew you to miss a shot like that before, Papa.

  Eye's gone, boy. Can't hold a bead. Sights on my gun just now was shakin' like a dog shittin' peach pits.

  Papa, I'm telling you: that cactus moon of Sid's is gonna make you old before your time.

  A man drinks that cactus moon of Sid's, boy, he's already old before his time. Let's go gut that animal out before the flies blow him.

  That's not even happening now. You see? There's nothing you can do about a happening out of the past like that.

  Look there, my man ...

  I hear whispers, black boys.

  Look there that old fool Broom, slipped off to sleep.

  Tha's right, Chief Broom, tha's right. You sleep an' keep outta trouble. Yasss.

  I'm not cold any more. I think I've about made it. I'm off to where the cold can't reach me. I can stay off here for good. I'm not scared any more. They can't reach me. Just the words reach me, and those're fading.

  Well ... in as much as Billy has decided to walk out on the discussion, does anyone else have a problem to bring before the group?

  As a matter of fact, ma'am, there does happen to be something ...

  That's that McMurphy. He's far away. He's still trying to pull people out of the fog. Why don't he leave me be?

  "... remember that vote we had a day or so back--about the TV time? Well, today's Friday and I thought I might just bring it up again, just to see if anybody else has picked up a little guts."

  "Mr. McMurphy, the purpose of this meeting is therapy, group therapy, and I'm not certain these petty grievances--"

  "Yeah, yeah, the hell with that, we've heard it before. Me and some of the rest of the guys decided--"

  "One moment, Mr. McMurphy, let me pose a question to the group: do any of you feel that Mr. McMurphy is perhaps imposing his personal desires on some of you too much? I've been thinking you might be happier if he were moved to a different ward."

  Nobody says anything for a minute. Then someone says, "Let him vote, why dontcha? Why ya want to ship him to Disturbed just for bringing up a vote? What's so wrong with changing time?"

  "Why, Mr. Scanlon, as I recall, you refused to eat for three days until we allowed you to turn the set on at six instead of six-thirty."

  "A man needs to see the world news, don't he? God, they coulda bombed Washington and it'd been a week before we'd of heard."

  "Yes? And how do you feel about relinquishing your world news to watch a bunch of men play baseball?"

  "We can't have both, huh? No, I suppose not. Well, what the dickens--I don't guess they'll bomb us this week."

  "Let's let him have the vote, Miss Ratched."

  "Very well. But I think this is ample evidence of how much he is upsetting some of you patients. What is it you are proposing, Mr. McMurphy?"

  "I'm proposing a revote on watching the TV in the afternoon."

  "You're certain one more vote will satisfy you? We have more important things--"

  "It'll satisfy me. I just'd kind of like to see which of these birds has any guts and which doesn't."

  "It's that kind of talk, Doctor Spivey, that makes me wonder if the patients wouldn't be more content if Mr. McMurphy were moved."

  "Let him call the vote, why dontcha?"

  "Certainly, Mr. Cheswick. A vote is now before the group. Will a show of hands be adequate, Mr. McMurphy, or are you going to insist on a secret ballot?"

  "I want to see the hands. I want to see the hands that don't go up, too."

  "Everyone in favor of changing the television time to the afternoon, raise his hand."

  The first hand that comes up, I can tell, is McMurphy's, because of the bandage where that control panel cut into him when he tried to lift it. And then off down the slope I see them, other hands coming up out of the fog. It's like ... that big red hand of McMurphy's is reaching into the fog and dropping down and dragging the men up by their hands, dragging them blinking into the open. First one, then another, then the next. Right on down the line of Acutes, dragging them out of the fog till there they stand, all twenty of them, raising not just for watching TV, but against the Big Nurse, against her trying to send McMurphy to Disturbed, against the way she's talked and acted and beat them down for years.

  Nobody says anything. I can feel how stunned everybody is, the patients as well as the staff. The nurse can't figure what happened; yesterday, before he tried lifting that panel, there wasn't but four of five men might of voted. But when she talks she don't let it show in her voice how surprised she is.

  "I count only twenty, Mr. McMurphy."

  "Twenty? Well, why not? Twenty is all of us there--" His voice hangs as he realizes what she means. "Now hold on just a goddamned minute, lady--"

  "I'm afraid the vote is defeated."

  "Hold on just one goddamned minute!"

  "There are forty patients on the ward, Mr. McMurphy. Forty patients, and only twenty voted. You must have a majority to change the ward policy. I'm afraid the vote is closed."

  The hands are coming down across the room. The guys know they're whipped, are trying to slip back into the safety of the fog. McMurphy is on his feet.

 
; "Well, I'll be a sonofabitch. You mean to tell me that's how you're gonna pull it? Count the votes of those old birds over there too?"

  "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.