a rather beautiful young woman. Still – for the sake of argument, could you get it up over her even if she wasn’t old, even if she was young and had the beauty of Helen?”
“I don’t know Helen, but I see what you’re drivin’ at. And you’re by God right. I couldn’t get it up over old frozen face in there even if she had the beauty of Marilyn Monroe.”
“There you are. She’s won.”
That’s it. Harding leans back and everybody waits for what McMurphy’s going to say next. McMurphy can see he’s backed up against the wall. He looks at the faces a minute, then shrugs and stands up from his chair.
“Well, what the hell, it’s no skin off my nose.”
“That’s true, it’s no skin off your nose.”
“And I damn well don’t want to have some old fiend of a nurse after me with three thousand volts. Not when there’s nothing in it for me but the adventure.”
“No. You’re right.”
Harding’s won the argument, but nobody looks too happy. McMurphy hooks his thumbs in his pockets and tries a laugh.
“No sir, I never heard of anybody offering a twenty-bone bounty for bagging a ball-cutter.”
Everybody grins at this with him, but they’re not happy. I’m glad McMurphy is going to be cagey after all and not get sucked in on something he can’t whip, but I know how the guys feel; I’m not so happy myself. McMurphy lights another cigarette. Nobody’s moved yet. They’re all still standing there, grinning and uncomfortable. McMurphy rubs his nose again and looks away from the bunch of faces hung out there around him, looks back at the nurse and chews his lip.
“But you say… she don’t send you up to that other ward unless she gets your goat? Unless she makes you crack in some way and you end up cussing her out or busting a window or something like that?”
“Unless you do something like that.”
“You’re sure of that, now? Because I’m getting just the shadiest notion of how to pick up a good purse off you birds in here. But I don’t want to be a sucker about it. I had a hell of a time getting outa that other hole; I don’t want to be jumping outa the fryin’ pan into the fire.”
“Absolutely certain. She’s powerless unless you do something to honestly deserve the Disturbed Ward or EST. If you’re tough enough to keep her from getting to you, she can’t do a thing.”
“So if I behave myself and don’t cuss her out – ”
“Or cuss one of the aides out.”
“ – or cuss one of the aides out or tear up jack some way around here, she can’t do nothing to me?”
“Those are the rules we play by. Of course, she always wins, my friend, always. She’s impregnable herself, and with the element of time working for her she eventually gets inside everyone. That’s why the hospital regards her as its top nurse and grants her so much authority; she’s a master at forcing the trembling libido out into the open – ”
“The hell with that. What I want to know is am I safe to try to beat her at her own game? If I come on nice as pie to her, whatever else I in-sinuate, she ain’t gonna get in a tizzy and have me electrocuted?”
“You’re safe as long as you keep control. As long as you don’t lose your temper and give her actual reason to request the restriction of the Disturbed Ward, or the therapeutic benefits of Electro Shock, you are safe. But that entails first and foremost keeping one’s temper. And you? With your red hair and black record? Why delude yourself?”
“Okay. All right.” McMurphy rubs his palms together. “Here’s what I’m thinkin’. You birds seem to think you got quite the champ in there, don’t you? Quite the – what did you call her? – sure, impregnable woman. What I want to know is how many of you are dead sure enough to put a little money on her?”
“Dead sure enough…?”
“Just what I said: any of you sharpies here willing to take my five bucks that says that I can get the best of that woman – before the week’s up – without her getting the best of me? One week, and if I don’t have her to where she don’t know whether to shit or go blind, the bet is yours.”
“You’re betting on this?” Cheswick is hopping from foot to foot and rubbing his hands together like McMurphy rubs his. “You’re damned right.”
Harding and some of the others say that they don’t get it.
“It’s simple enough. There ain’t nothing noble or complicated about it. I like to gamble. And I like to win. And I think I can win this gamble, okay? It got so at Pendleton the guys wouldn’t even lag pennies with me on account of I was such a winner. Why, one of the big reasons I got myself sent here was because I needed some new suckers. I’ll tell you something: I found out a few things about this place before I came out here. Damn near half of you guys in here pull compensation, three, four hundred a month and not a thing in the world to do with it but let it draw dust. I thought I might take advantage of this and maybe make both our lives a little more richer. I’m starting level with you. I’m a gambler and I’m not in the habit of losing. And I’ve never seen a woman I thought was more man than me, I don’t care whether I can get it up for her or not. She may have the element of time, but I got a pretty long winning streak goin’ myself.”
He pulls off his cap, spins it on his finger, and catches it behind his back in his other hand, neat as you please.
“Another thing: I’m in this place because that’s the way I planned it, pure and simple, because it’s a better place than a work farm. As near as I can tell I’m no loony, or never knew it if I was. Your nurse don’t know this; she’s not going to be looking out for somebody coming at her with a trigger-quick mind like I obviously got. These things give me an edge I like. So I’m saying five bucks to each of you that wants it if I can’t put a betsy bug up that nurse’s butt within a week.”
“I’m still not sure I – ”
“Just that. A bee in her butt, a burr in her bloomers. Get her goat. Bug her till she comes apart at those neat little seams, and shows, just one time, she ain’t so unbeatable as you think. One week. I’ll let you be the judge whether I win or not.”
Harding takes out a pencil and writes something on the pinochle pad.
“Here. A lien on ten dollars of that money they’ve got drawing dust under my name over in Funds. It’s worth twice that to me, my friend, to see this unlikely miracle brought off.”
McMurphy looks at the paper and folds it. “Worth it to any of the rest of you birds?” Other Acutes line up now, taking turns at the pad. He takes the pieces of paper when they’re finished, stacking them on his palm, pinned under a big stiff thumb. I see the pieces of paper crowd up in his hand. He looks them over.
“You trust me to hold the bets, buddies?”
“I believe we can be safe in doing that,” Harding says. “You won’t be going any place for a while.”
6
One Christmas at midnight on the button, at the old place, the ward door blows open with a crash, in comes a fat man with a beard, eyes ringed red by the cold and his nose just the color
