you mean touch upon her – something else.”
“Now what could you —”
But she stops. Some of the Acutes hide grins, and McMurphy stretches himself, yawns, winks at Harding. Then the nurse, calm as anything, puts the logbook back in the basket and takes out another folder and opens it and starts reading.
“McMurry, Randle Patrick. Sent 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 looks up.
“Statutory, with a girl of —”
“Whoa. Couldn’t stick that,” McMurphy says to the doctor. “Girl wouldn’t testify.”
“With a child of fifteen.”
“Said she was seventeen, Doc, and she was plenty willin’.”
“A court doctor’s examination of the child proved entry, repeated entry, the record states —”
“So willin’, in fact, I began to sew my pants shut.”
“The child refused to testify in spite of the doctor’s findings. It seems, there was intimidation. Defendant left town shortly after the trial.”
“Hoo boy, I had to leave. Doc, let me tell you” – he leans forward to the doctor across the room, lowering his voice – “that little hustler would have actually frazzled me by the time she reached legal sixteen.”
The nurse closes up the folder and passes it across the doorway to the doctor.
The doctor puts his glasses on. He’s smiling a little as he turns through the folder, but he doesn’t let himself laugh. The doctor closes the folder when he gets to the end, and puts his glasses back in his pocket. He looks at McMurphy.
“You’ve no other psychiatric history, Mr. McMurry?”
“McMurphy, Doc.”
“Oh? But I thought – the nurse was saying —”
He opens the folder again, looks through the record for another minute before he closes it, and puts his glasses back in his pocket. “Yes. McMurphy. That is correct. I beg your pardon.”
“It’s okay, Doc. That lady there made the mistake. I’ve known some people who did that. I had this uncle whose name was Hallahan, and he went with a woman once who acted as if she couldn’t remember his name right and called him Hooligan just to get his goat. It went on for months before he stopped her. Stopped her well, too.”
“Oh? How did he stop her?” the doctor asks.
McMurphy grins and rubs his nose with his thumb. “Ah-ah, now, I can’t tell that. I keep Uncle Hallahan’s method a strict secret, you see, in case I need to use it myself someday.”
He says it and looks right at the nurse. She smiles right back at him, and he looks over at the doctor. “Now; what were you asking about my record, Doc?”
“Yes. I asked if you’ve any previous psychiatric history. Any analysis, any time spent in any other institution?”
“Well, speaking of state and county coolers —”
“Mental institutions.”
“Ah. No, this is my first trip. But I am crazy, Doc. I really am. Well here – let me show you here. I believe that other doctor at the work farm…”
He gets up and comes across the room, leans over the doctor’s shoulder and thumbs 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 takes his glasses out again and puts them on and looks to where McMurphy is pointing.
“Right here, Doc. The nurse didn’t read it while she was summarizing my record. Where it says, ’Mr. McMurphy has evidenced repeated – I just want to make sure I’m 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 that I am, as he put it, overzealous in my sexual relations. Doctor, is that very serious?”
He asks it with such a little-boy look of worry all over his broad, tough face that the doctor bends his head to hide another little smile in his collar, and his glasses fall from his nose 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, I’ll admit I haven’t. I am interested, however, that the doctor at the work farm added this statement: ’But there’s the possibility that this man might be feigning psychosis to escape the hard work 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 saneman?”
The doctor can’t answer because he tries not to snigger again. McMurphy turns away from the doctor and asks the same thing of the Big Nurse: “Do I?” She doesn’t answer. She stands up and takes the 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 rules of these Group Meetings.”
“Ma’am,” McMurphy says, “have I told you about my uncle Hallahan and the woman who didn’t pronounce his name properly?”
She looks at him for a long time without her smile. 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 think I’ll explain the complete theory of our Therapeutic Community, while we’re at it. Though I usually speak about it 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 stay seated during the meeting”.
“Yes. Of course. Then I will explain the theory. Mr. McMurphy, one of the first things is that the patients stay seated during the meeting.”
“Sure, Doctor. I just got up to show you that thing in my record book.”
He goes back to his chair, stretches himself again and yawns, sits down, and moves around for a while like a dog coming to rest. When he’s comfortable, he looks over at the doctor, waiting.
“As to the theory…” The doctor takes a deep, happy breath.
McMurphy doesn’t say anything all the rest of the meeting. Just sits and watches and doesn’t miss a thing that happens or a word that’s said. The doctor talks about his theory until the Big Nurse finally decides he’s used up time enough and asks him to stop so they can talk about Harding, and they talk the rest of the meeting about that.
McMurphy sits forward in his chair a couple of times during the meeting as if he might have something to say, but he decides better and leans back. There’s a puzzled expression on his face. He thinks that something strange is going on here. He can’t quite put his finger on it. There’s something strange about a place where the men don’t 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 that he’ll just wait awhile and see what the story is in this new place before he makes any kind of play. That’s a good rule for a clever gambler: watch the game awhile before you draw yourself a hand.
I’ve heard that theory of the Therapeutic Community