One flew over cuckoo's nest

and nods himself and says, “Fine, fine,” and settles his hands on his knees. “Very good. Now. If that’s decided — I seem to have forgotten what we were planning to talk about this morning?”

The nurse’s head gives that one little jerk again, and she bends over her basket, picks up a folio. She fumbles with the papers, and it looks like her hands are shaking. She draws out a paper, but once more, before she can start reading out of-it, McMurphy is standing and holding up his hand and shifting from foot to foot, giving a long, thoughtful, “Saaaay,” and her fumbling stops, freezes as though the sound of his voice froze her just like her voice froze that black boy this morning. I get that giddy feeling inside me again when she freezes. I watch her close while McMurphy talks.

“Saaaaay, Doctor, what I been dyin’ to know is what did this dream I dreamt the other night mean? You see, it was like I was me, in the dream, and then again kind of like I wasn’t me — like I was somebody else that looked like me — like — like my daddy! Yeah, that’s who it was. It was my daddy because sometimes when I saw me — him — I saw there was this iron bolt through the jawbone like daddy used to have—”

“Your father has an iron bolt through his jawbone?”

“Well, not any more, but he did once when I was a kid. He went around for about ten months with this big metal bolt going in here and coming out here! God, he was a regular Frankenstein. He’d been clipped on the jaw with a pole ax when he got into some kinda hassle with this pond man at the logging mill — Hey! Let me tell you how that incident came about. …”

Her face is still calm, as though she had a cast made and painted to just the look she wants. Confident, patient, and unruffled. No more little jerk, just that terrible cold face, a calm smile stamped out of red plastic; a clean, smooth forehead, not a line in it to show weakness or worry; flat, wide, painted-on green eyes, painted on with an expression that says I can wait, I might lose a yard now and then but I can wait, and be patient and calm and confident, because I know there’s no real losing for me.

I thought for a minute there I saw her whipped. Maybe I did. But I see now that it don’t make any difference. One by one the patients are sneaking looks at her to see how she’s taking the way McMurphy is dominating the meeting, and they see the same thing. She’s too big to be beaten. She covers one whole side of the room like a Jap statue. There’s no moving her and no help against her. She’s lost a little battle here today, but it’s a minor battle in a big war that she’s been winning and that she’ll go on winning. We mustn’t let McMurphy get our hopes up any different, lure us into making some kind of dumb play. She’ll go on winning, just like the Combine, because she has all the power of the Combine behind her. She don’t lose on her losses, but she wins on ours. To beat her you don’t have to whip her two out of three or three out of five, but every time you meet. As soon as you let down your guard, as soon as you lose once, she’s won for good. And eventually we all got to lose. Nobody can help that.

Right now, she’s got the fog machine switched on, and it’s rolling in so fast I can’t see a thing but her face, rolling in thicker and thicker, and I feel as hopeless and dead as I felt happy a minute ago, when she gave that little jerk — even more hopeless than ever before, on account of I know now there is no real help against her or her Combine. McMurphy can’t help any more than I could. Nobody can help. And the more I think about how nothing can be helped, the faster the fog rolls in.

And I’m glad when it gets thick enough you’re lost in it and can let go, and be safe again.

10

There’s a Monopoly game going on in the day room. They’ve been at it for three days, houses and hotels everywhere, two tables pushed together to take care of all the deeds and stacks of play money. McMurphy talked them into making the game interesting by paying a penny for every play dollar the bank issues them; the monopoly box is loaded with change.

“It’s your roll, Cheswick.”

“Hold it a minute before he rolls. What’s a man need to buy thum hotels?”

“You need four houses on every lot of the same color, Martini. Now let’s go, for Christsakes.”

“Hold it a minute.”

There’s a flurry of money from that side of the table, red and green and yellow bills blowing in every direction.

“You buying a hotel or you playing happy new year, for Christsakes?”

“It’s your dirty roll, Cheswick.”

“Snake eyes! Hoooeee, Cheswicker, where does that put you? That don’t put you on my Marvin Gardens by any chance? That don’t mean you have to pay me, let’s see, three hundred and fifty dollars?”

“Boogered.”

“What’s thum other things? Hold it a minute. What’s thum other things all over the board?”

“Martini, you been seeing them other things all over the board for two days. No wonder I’m losing my ass. McMurphy, I don’t see how you can concentrate with Martini sitting there hallucinating a mile a minute.”

“Cheswick, you never mind about Martini. He’s doing real good. You just come on with that three fifty, and Martini will take care of himself; don’t we get rent from him every time one of his ‘things’ lands on our property?”

“Hold it a minute. There’s so many of thum.”

“That’s okay, Mart. You just keep us posted whose property they land on. You’re still the man with the dice, Cheswick. You rolled a double, so you roll again. Atta boy. Faw! a big six.”

“Takes me to… Chance: ‘You Have Been Elected Chairman of the Board; Pay Every Player—’ Boogered and double boogered!”

“Whose hotel is this here for Christsakes on the Reading Railroad?”

“My friend, that, as anyone can see, is not a hotel; it’s a depot.”

“Now hold it a minute—”

McMurphy surrounds his end of the table, moving cards, rearranging money, evening up his hotels. There’s a hundred dollar bill sticking out of the brim of his cap like a press card; mad money, he calls it.

“Scanlon? I believe it’s your turn, buddy.”

“Gimme those dice. I’ll blow this board to pieces. Here we go. Lebenty Leben, count me over eleven, Martini.”

“Why, all right.”

“Not that one, you crazy bastard; that’s not my piece, that’s my house.”

“It’s the same color.”

“What’s this little house doing on the Electric Company?”

“That’s a power station.”

“Martini, those ain’t the dice you’re shaking—”

“Let him be; what’s the difference?”

“Those are a couple of houses!”

“Faw. And Martini rolls a big, let me see, a big nineteen. Good goin’, Mart; that puts you — Where’s your piece, buddy?”

“Eh? Why here it is.”

“He had it in his mouth, McMurphy. Excellent. That’s two moves over the second and third bicuspid, four moves to the board, which takes you on to — to Baltic Avenue, Martini. Your own and only property. How fortunate can a man get, friends? Martini has been playing three days and lit on his property practically every time.”

“Shut up and roll, Harding. It’s your turn.”

Harding gathers the dice up with his long fingers, feeling the smooth surfaces with his thumb as if he was blind. The fingers are the same color as the dice and look like they were carved by his other hand. The dice rattle in his hand as he shakes it. They tumble to a stop in front of McMurphy.

“Faw. Five, six, seven. Tough luck, buddy. That’s another o’ my vast holdin’s. You