One flew over cuckoo's nest

trace of her little pasted smile; every laugh was being forced right down her throat till it looked as if any minute she’d blow up like a bladder.

McMurphy draped one bare leg over the edge of the sofa and pulled his cap down to keep the light from hurting his reddened eyes, and he kept licking out a tongue that looked like it had been shellacked by that cough syrup. He looked sick and terrifically tired, and he kept pressing the heels of his hands against his temples and yawning, but as bad as he seemed to feel he still held his grin and once or twice went so far as to laugh out loud at some of the things the nurse kept turning up.

When the nurse went in to call the Main Building to report Mr. Turkle’s resignation, Turkle and the girl Sandy took the opportunity to unlock that screen again and wave good-by to all and go loping off across the grounds, stumbling and slipping on the wet, sun-sparkle grass.

“He didn’t lock it back up,” Harding said to McMurphy. “Go on. Go on after them!”

McMurphy groaned and opened one eye bloody as a hatching egg. “You kidding me? I couldn’t even get my head through that window, let alone my whole body.”

“My friend, I don’t believe you fully comprehend—”

“Harding, goddam you and your big words; all I fully comprehend this morning is I’m still half drunk. And sick. Matter of fact, I think you’re still drunk too. Chief, how about you; are you still drunk?”

I said that my nose and cheeks didn’t have any feeling in them yet, if this could be taken to mean anything.

McMurphy nodded once and closed his eyes again; he laced his hands across his chest and slid down in his chair, his chin settling into his collar. He smacked his lips and smiled as if he were napping. “Man,” he said, “everybody is still drunk.”

Harding was still concerned. He kept on about how the best thing for McMurphy to do was get dressed, quickly, while old Angel of Mercy was in there calling the doctor again to report the atrocities she had uncovered, but McMurphy maintained that there wasn’t anything to get so excited about; he wasn’t any worse off than before, was he? “I’ve took their best punch,” he said. Harding threw up his hands and went off, predicting doom.

One of the black boys saw the screen was unlocked and locked it and went into the Nurses’ Station for the big flat ledger, came back out running his finger down the roll and lipping the names he read out loud as he sighted the men that matched up with them. The roll is listed alphabetically backwards to throw people off, so he didn’t get to the Bs till right at the last. He looked around the day room without taking his finger from that last name in the ledger.

“Bibbit. Where’s Billy Bibbit?” His eyes were big. He was thinking Billy’d slipped out right under his nose and would he ever catch it. “Who saw Billy Bibbit go, you damn goons?”

This set people to remembering just where Billy was; there were whispers and laughing again.

The black boy went back into the station, and we saw him telling the nurse. She smashed the phone down in the cradle and came out the door with the black boy hot after her; a lock of her hair had broken loose from beneath her white cap and fell across her face like wet ashes. She was sweating between her eyebrows and under her nose. She demanded we tell her where the Eloper had gone. She was answered with a chorus of laughter, and her eyes went around the men.

“So? He’s not gone, is he? Harding, he’s still here — on the ward, isn’t he? Tell me. Sefelt, tell me!”

She darted the eyes out with every word, stabbing at the men’s faces, but the men were immune to her poison. Their eyes met hers; their grins mocked the old confident smile she had lost.

“Washington! Warren! Come with me for room check.”

We rose and followed as the three of them went along, unlocking the lab, the tub room, the doctor’s office. … Scanlon covered his grin with his knotty hand and whispered, “Hey, ain’t it gonna be some joke on of Billy.” We all nodded. “And Billy’s not the only one it’s gonna be a joke on, now that I think about it; remember who’s in there?”

The nurse reached the door of the Seclusion Room at the end of the hall. We pushed up close to see, crowding and craning to peep over the Big Nurse and the two black boys as she unlocked it and swung it open. It was dark in the windowless room. There was a squeak and a scuffle in the dark, and the nurse reached out, flicked the light down on Billy and the girl where they were blinking up from that mattress on the floor like two owls from a nest. The nurse ignored the howl of laughter behind her.

“William Bibbit!” She tried so hard to sound cold and stern. “William… Bibbit!”

“Good morning, Miss Ratched,” Billy said, not even making any move to get up and button his pajamas. He took the girl’s hand in his and grinned. “This is Candy.”

The nurse’s tongue clucked in her bony throat. “Oh, Billy Billy Billy — I’m so ashamed for you.”

Billy wasn’t awake enough to respond much to her shaming, and the girl was fussing around looking under the mattress for her nylons, moving slow and warm-looking after sleep. Every so often she would stop her dreamy fumbling and look up and smile at the icy figure of the nurse standing there with her arms crossed, then feel to see if her sweater was buttoned, and go back to tugging for her nylon caught between the mattress and the tile floor. They both moved like fat cats full of warm milk, lazy in the sun: I guessed they were still fairly drunk too.

“Oh, Billy,” the nurse said, like she was so disappointed she might break down and cry. “A woman like this. A cheap! Low! Painted—”

“Courtesan?” Harding suggested. “Jezebel?” The nurse turned and tried to nail him with her eyes, but he just went on. “Not Jezebel? No?” He scratched his head in thought. “How about Salome? She’s notoriously evil. Perhaps ‘dame’ is the word you want. Well, I’m just trying to help.”

She swung back to Billy. He was concentrating on getting to his feet. He rolled over and came to his knees, butt in the air like a cow getting up, then pushed up on his hands, then came to one foot, then the other, and straightened. He looked pleased with his success, as if he wasn’t even aware of us crowding at the door teasing him and hoorahing him.

The loud talk and laughter swirled around the nurse. She looked from Billy and the girl to the bunch of us behind her. The enamel-and-plastic face was caving in. She shut her eyes and strained to calm her trembling, concentrating. She knew this was it, her back to the wall. When her eyes opened again, they were very small and still.

“What worries me, Billy,” she said — I could hear the change in her voice—”is how your poor mother is going to take this.”

She got the response she was after. Billy flinched and put his hand to his cheek like he’d been burned with acid.

“Mrs. Bibbit’s always been so proud of your discretion. I know she has. This is going to disturb her terribly. You know how she is when she gets disturbed, Billy; you know how ill the poor woman can become. She’s very sensitive. Especially concerning her son. She always spoke so proudly of you. She al—”

“Nuh! Nuh!” His mouth was working. He shook his head, begging her. “You d-don’t n-n-need!”

“Billy Billy Billy,” she said. “Your mother and I are old friends.”

“No!” he cried. His voice scraped the white, bare walls of the Seclusion Room. He lifted his chin so he was shouting at the moon of light in the ceiling. “N-n-no!”

We’d stopped laughing. We watched Billy folding into the floor, head going back, knees coming forward. He rubbed his hand up and down that green pant leg. He was shaking his head in panic like a kid that’s been promised a whipping just as soon as a willow is cut. The nurse touched his shoulder to comfort him. The touch shook him like a blow.

“Billy, I don’t want her to believe something like this of you — but what am I to think?”

“Duh-duh-don’t t-tell, M-M-M-Miss Ratched. Duh-duh-duh—”

“Billy, I have to tell. I hate to believe you would behave like this, but, really, what else can I think? I find you alone, on a mattress, with this sort of woman.”

“No! I d-d-didn’t. I was—” His hand went to his cheek again and stuck there. “She did.”

“Billy, this girl could not have pulled you in here forcibly.” She shook her head. “Understand, I would like to believe something else — for your poor mother’s sake.”

The hand pulled down his cheek, raking long red marks. “She d-did.” He looked around him. “And M-M- McMurphy! He did. And Harding! And the-the-the rest! They t-t-teased me, called me things!”

Now his face was fastened to hers. He didn’t look to one side or the other, but only straight ahead at her