Ruckly is another Chronic came in a few years back as an Acute, but him they overloaded in a different way: they made a mistake in one of their head installations. He was being a holy nuisance all over the place, kicking the black boys and biting the student nurses on the legs, so they took him away to be fixed. They strapped him to that table, and the last anybody saw of him for a while was just before they shut the door on him; he winked, just before the door closed, and told the black boys as they backed away from him, Youll pay for this, you damn tarbabies.
And they brought him back to the ward two weeks later, bald and the front of his face an oily purple bruise and two little button-sized plugs stitched one above each eye. You can see by his eyes how they burned him out over there; his eyes are all smoked up and gray and deserted inside like blown fuses. All day now he wont do a thing but hold an old photograph up in front of that burned-out face, turning it over and over in his cold fingers, and the picture wore gray as his eyes on both sides with all his handling till you cant tell any more what it used to be.
The staff, now, they consider Ruckly one of their failures, but Im not sure but what hes better off than if the installation had been perfect. The installations they do nowadays are generally successful. The technicians got more skill and experience. No more of the button holes in the forehead, no cutting at all they go in through the eye sockets. Sometimes a guy goes over for an installation, leaves the ward mean and mad and snapping at the whole world and comes back a few weeks later with black-and-blue eyes like hed been in a fist-fight, and hes the sweetest, nicest, best-behaved thing you ever saw. Hell maybe even go home in a month or two, a hat pulled low over the face of a sleepwalker wandering round in a simple, happy dream. A success, they say, but I say hes just another robot for the Combine and might be better off as a failure, like Ruckly sitting there fumbling and drooling over his picture. He never does much else. The dwarf black boy gets a rise out of him from time to time by leaning close and asking, Say, Ruckly, what you figure your little wife is doing in town tonight? Rucklys head comes up. Memory whispers someplace in that jumbled machinery. He turns red and his veins clog up at one end. This puffs him up so he can just barely make a little whistling sound in his throat. Bubbles squeeze out the corner of his mouth, hes working his jaw so hard to say something. When he finally does get to where he can say his few words its a low, choking noise to make your skin crawl Fffffffuck da wife! Fffffffuck da wife! and passes out on the spot from the effort.
Ellis and Ruckly are the youngest Chronics. Colonel Matterson is the oldest, an old, petrified cavalry soldier from the First War who is given to lifting the skirts of passing nurses with his cane, or teaching some kind of history out of the text of his left hand to anybody thatll listen. Hes the oldest on the ward, but not the ones been here longest his wife brought him in only a few years back, when she got to where she wasnt up to tending him any longer.
Im the one been here on the ward the longest, since the Second World War. I been here on the ward longern anybody. Longern any of the other patients. The Big Nurse has been here longern me.
The Chronics and the Acutes dont generally mingle. Each stays on his own side of the day room the way the black boys want it. The black boys say its more orderly that way and let everybody know thats the way theyd like it to stay. They move us in after breakfast and look at the grouping and nod. Thats right, gennulmen, thats the way. Now you keep it that way.
Actually there isnt much need for them to say anything, because, other than me, the Chronics dont move around much, and the Acutes say theyd just as leave stay over on their own side, give reasons like the Chronic side smells worse than a dirty diaper. But I know it isnt the stink that keeps them away from the Chronic side so much as they dont like to be reminded that heres what could happen to them someday. The Big Nurse recognizes this fear and knows how to put it to use; shell point out to an Acute, whenever he goes into a sulk, that you boys be good boys and cooperate with the staff policy which is engineered for your cure, or youll end up over on that side.
(Everybody on the ward is proud of the way the patients cooperate. We got a little brass tablet tacked to a piece of maple wood that has printed on it: CONGRATULATIONS FOR GETTING ALONG WITH THE SMALLEST NUMBER OF PERSONNEL OF ANY WARD IN THE HOSPITAL. Its a prize for cooperation. Its hung on the wall right above the log book, right square in the middle between the Chronics and Acutes.)
This new redheaded Admission, McMurphy, knows right away hes not a Chronic. After he checks the day room over a minute, he sees hes meant for the Acute side and goes right for it, grinning and shaking hands with everybody he comes to. At first I see that hes making everybody over there feel uneasy, with all his kidding and joking and with the brassy way he hollers at that black boy whos still after him with a thermometer, and especially with that big wide-open laugh of his. Dials twitch in the control panel at the sound of it. The Acutes look spooked and uneasy when he laughs, the way kids look in a schoolroom when one ornery kid is raising too much hell with the teacher out of the room and theyre all scared the teacher might pop back in and take it into her head to make them all stay after. Theyre fidgeting and twitching, responding to the dials in the control panel; I see McMurphy notices hes making them uneasy, but he dont let it slow him down.
Damn, what a sorry-looking outfit. You boys dont look so crazy to me. Hes trying to get them to loosen up, the way you see an auctioneer spinning jokes to loosen up the crowd before the bidding starts. Which one of you claims to be the craziest? Which one is the biggest loony? Who runs these card games? Its my first day, and what I like to do is make a good impression straight off on the right man if he can prove to me he is the right man. Whos the bull goose loony here?
Hes saying this directly to Billy Bibbit. He leans down and glares so hard at Billy that Billy feels compelled to stutter out that he isnt the buh-buh-buh-bull goose loony yet, though hes next in luh-luh-line for the job.
McMurphy sticks a big hand down in front of Billy, and Billy cant do a thing but shake it. Well, buddy, he says to Billy, Im truly glad youre next in luh-line for the job, but since Im thinking about taking over this whole show myself, lock, stock, and barrel, maybe I better talk with the top man. He looks round to where some of the Acutes have stopped their card-playing, covers one of his hands with the other, and cracks all his knuckles at the sight. I figure, you see, buddy, to be sort of the gambling baron on this ward, deal a wicked game of blackjack. So you better take me to your leader and well get it straightened out whos gonna be boss around here.
Nobodys sure if this barrel-chested man with the, scar and the wild grin is play-acting or if hes crazy enough to be just like he talks, or both, but they are all beginning to get a big kick out of going along with him. They watch as he puts that big red hand on Billys thin arm, waiting to see what Billy will say. Billy sees how its up to him to break the silence, so he looks around and picks out one of the pinochle-players: Handing, Billy says, I guess it would b-b-be you. Youre p-president of Pay-Pay-Patients Council. This m-man wants to talk to you.