I remember all this part real clear. I remember the way he closed one eye and tipped his head back and looked down across that healing wine-colored scar on his nose, laughing at me. I thought at first that he was laughing because of how funny it looked, an Indians face and black, oily Indians hair on somebody like me. I thought maybe he was laughing at how weak I looked. But thens when I remember thinking that he was laughing because he wasnt fooled for one minute by my deaf-and-dumb act; it didnt make any difference how cagey the act was, he was onto me and was laughing and winking to let me know it.
Whats your story, Big Chief? You look like Sittin Bull on a sitdown strike. He looked over to the Acutes to see if they might laugh about his joke; when they just sniggered he looked back to me and winked again. Whats your name, Chief?
Billy Bibbit called across the room. His n-n-name is Bromden. Chief Bromden. Everybody calls him Chief Buh-Broom, though, because the aides have him sweeping a l-large part of the time. Theres not m-much else he can do, I guess. Hes deaf. Billy put his chin in hands. If I was d-d-deaf he sighed I would kill myself.
McMurphy kept looking at me. He gets his growth, hell be pretty good-sized, wont he? I wonder how tall he is.
I think somebody m-m-measured him once at s-six feet seven; but even if he is big, hes scared of his own sh-sh-shadow. Just a bi-big deaf Indian.
When I saw him sittin here I thought he looked some Indian. But Bromden aint an Indian name. What tribe is he?
I dont know, Billy said. He was here wh-when I c-came.
I have information from the doctor, Harding said, that he is only half Indian, a Columbia Indian, I believe. Thats a defunct Columbia Gorge tribe. The doctor said his father was the tribal leader, hence this fellows title, Chief. As to the Bromden part of the name, Im afraid my knowledge in Indian lore doesnt cover that.
McMurphy leaned his head down near mine where I had to look at him. Is that right? You deef, Chief?
Hes de-de-deef and dumb.
McMurphy puckered his lips and looked at my face a long time. Then he straightened back up and stuck his hand out. Well, what the hell, he can shake hands cant he? Deef or whatever. By God, Chief, you may be big, but you shake my hand or Ill consider it an insult. And its not a good idea to insult the new bull goose loony of the hospital.
When he said that he looked back over to Harding and Billy and made a face, but he left that hand in front of me, big as a dinner plate.
I remember real clear the way that hand looked: there was carbon under the fingernails where hed worked once in a garage; there was an anchor tattooed back from the knuckles; there was a dirty Band-Aid on the middle knuckle, peeling up at the edge. All the rest of the knuckles were covered with scars and cuts, old and new. I remember the palm was smooth and hard as bone from hefting the wooden handles of axes and hoes, not the hand youd think could deal cards. The palm was callused, and the calluses were cracked, and dirt was worked in the cracks. A road map of his travels up and down the West. That palm made a scuffing sound against my hand. I remember the fingers were thick and strong closing over mine, and my hand commenced to feel peculiar and went to swelling up out there on my stick of an arm, like he was transmitting his own blood into it. It rang with blood and power: It blowed up near as big as his, I remember.
Mr. McMurry.
Its the Big Nurse.
Mr. McMurry, could you come here please?
Its the Big Nurse. That black boy with the thermometer has gone and got her. She stands there tapping that thermometer against her wrist watch, eyes whirring while she tries to gauge this new man. Her lips are in that triangle shape, like a dolls lips ready for a fake nipple.
Aide Williams tells me, Mr. McMurry, that youve been somewhat difficult about your admission shower. Is this true? Please understand, I appreciate the way youve taken it upon yourself to orient with the other patients on the ward, but everything in its own good time, Mr. McMurry. Im sorry to interrupt you and Mr. Bromden, but you do understand: everyone must follow the rules.
He tips his head back and gives that wink that she isnt fooling him any more than I did, that hes onto her. He looks up at her with one eye for a minute.
Ya know, maam, he says, ya know that is the exact thing somebody always tells me about the rules
He grins. They both smile back and forth at each other, sizing each other up.
just when they figure Im about to do the dead opposite.
Then he lets go my hand.
4
In the glass Station the Big Nurse has opened a package from a foreign address and is sucking into hypodermic needles the grass-and-milk liquid that came in vial in the package. One of the little nurses, a girl with one wandering eye that always keeps looking worried over her shoulder while the other one goes about its usual business, picks up the little tray of filled needles but doesnt carry them away just yet.
What, Miss Ratched, is your opinion of this new patient? I mean, gee, hes good-looking and friendly and everything, but in my humble opinion he certainly takes over.
The Big Nurse tests a needle against her fingertip. Im afraid she stabs the needle down in the rubber-capped vial and lifts the plunger that is exactly what the new patient is planning: to take over. He is what we call a manipulator, Miss Flinn, a man who will use everyone and everything to his own ends.
Oh. But. I mean, in a mental hospital? What could his ends be?
Any number of things. Shes calm, smiling, lost in the work of loading the needles. Comfort and an easy life, for instance; the feeling of power and respect, perhaps; monetary gain perhaps all of these things. Sometimes a manipulators own ends are simply the actual disruption of the ward for the sake of disruption. There are such people in our society. A manipulator can influence the other patients and disrupt them to such an extent that it may take months to get everything running smooth once more. With the present permissive philosophy in mental hospitals, its easy for them to get away with it. Some years back it was quite different. I recall some years back we had a man, a Mr. Taber, on the ward, and he was an intolerable Ward Manipulator. For a while. She looks up from her work, needle half filled in front of her face like a little wand. Her eyes get far-off and pleased with the memory. Mistur Tay-bur, she says.
But, gee, the other nurse says, what on earth would make a man want to do something like disrupt the ward for, Miss Ratched? What possible motive?
She cuts the little nurse off by jabbing the needle back into the vials rubber top, fills it, jerks it out, and lays it on the tray. I watch her hand reach for another empty needle, watch it dart out, hinge over it, drop.
You seem to forget, Miss Flinn, that this is an institution for the insane.
The Big Nurse tends to get real put out if something keeps her outfit from running like a smooth, accurate, precision-made machine. The slightest thing messy or out of kilter or in the way ties her into a little white knot of tight-smiled fury. She walks around with that same doll smile crimped between her chin and her nose and that same calm whir coming from her eyes, but down inside of her shes tense as steel. I know, I can feel it. And she dont relax a hair till she gets the nuisance attended to what she calls adjusted to surroundings.
Under her rule the ward Inside is almost completely adjusted to surroundings. But the thing is she cant be on the ward all the time. Shes got to spend some time Outside. So she works with an eye to adjusting the Outside world too. Working alongside others like her who I call the Combine, which is a huge organization that aims to adjust the Outside as well as she has the Inside, has made her a real veteran at adjusting things. She was already the Big Nurse in the old place when I came in from the Outside so long back, and shed been dedicating herself to adjustment for God knows how long.