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 enough times to repeat it forwards and backwards – how a guy has to learn to get along in a group before he’ll be able to function in a normal society; how the group can help the guy by showing him where he’s out of place; that society decides who’s sane and who isn’t. The doctor goes into the theory every time we get a new patient on the ward. He says that the goal of the Therapeutic Community is a democratic ward; the patients themselves run this ward and work toward becoming normal citizens, who will go back Outside onto the street. He says that the chief method of therapy is the discussing of all personal, emotional problems in the group,in front of patients and staff. Talk, he says, discuss, confess. And if a friend says something during the course of your everyday conversation, write it down in the logbook, where the staff can see it. It’s not, as the movies call it, “squealing,” it’s helping your fellow. Bring these old sins into the open, participate in Group Discussion, help yourself and your friends probe into the secrets of the subconscious. There should be no need for secrets among friends.

Our goal, he usually ends by saying, is to make this as much like your own democratic, free neighborhoods as possible – a little world Inside that is a small prototype of the big world Outside in which you will one day take your place again.

At this point the Big Nurse usually stops him, and in the pause old Pete stands up and tells everybody how tired he is, and the nurse tells somebody to calm him, so the meeting can continue, and Pete is usually calmed and the meeting goes on.

Only once, four or five years ago, it was different. The doctor had finished his speech, and the nurse had asked, “Who will start? Tell us about those old secrets.” And she’d put all the Acutes in a trance by sitting there in silence for twenty minutes after the question. When twenty minutes had passed, she looked at her watch and said, “So, there’s not a man among you that has done something that he has never confessed?” She reached in the basket for the logbook. “Must we go over past history?”

At the sound of those words coming from her mouth, some acoustic device in the walls turned on. The Acutes stiffened. Their mouths opened in unison. Her eyes stopped on the first man along the wall.

His mouth worked. “I robbed a cash register in a service station.”

She moved to the next man.

“I tried to take my little sister to bed.”

Her eyes clicked to the next man.

“I – one time – wanted to take my brother to bed.”

“I killed my cat when I was six. Oh, God forgive me, I stoned her to death and said my neighbor did it.”

“I lied about trying. I did take my sister!”

“So did I! So did I!”

“And me! And me!”

It was better than she’d dreamed. They were all shouting, telling things that wouldn’t ever let them look one another in the eye again. The nurse was nodding at each confession and saying ’Yes, yes, yes’.

Then old Pete was on his feet. “I’m tired!” he shouted, a strong, angry tone to his voice that no one had ever heard before.

Everyone stopped shouting. They were somehow ashamed. It was as if he had suddenly said something that was real and true and important and it had put all their childish shouting to shame. The Big Nurse was furious. She turned and glared at him, the smile left her face.

“Somebody, calm poor Mr. Bancini,” she said.

Two or three got up. They tried to calm, pat him on his shoulder. But Pete didn’t stop. “Tired! Tired!” he kept on.

Finally the nurse sent one of the black boys to take him out of the day room by force. She forgot that the black boys didn’t hold any control over people like Pete.

Pete’s been a Chronic all his life. Even though he didn’t come into the hospital till he was over fifty, he’d always been a Chronic. His head had been traumatized at the time of his birth by the tongs with which the doctor had jerked him out. And this made him forever as simple as a kid of six.

But one good thing – being simple like that put him out of the influence of the Combine. They weren’t able to adjust him. So they let him get a simple job on the railroad, where he waved a red, green or yellow lantern at the trains according to the position of the switch. And his head wagged according to the position of that switch. And he never had any controls installed in him.

That’s why the black boy didn’t have any influence over him. But the black boy didn’t think of that any more than the nurse did when she ordered to take Pete from the day room. The black boy walked right up and gave Pete’s arm a jerk toward the door.

“Tha’s right, Pete. Let’s go to the dorm.”

Pete shook his arm free. “I’m tired,” he warned.

“C’mon, old man. Let’s go to bed and be still like a good boy.”

“Tired…”

“I said you goin’ to the dorm, old man!”

The black boy jerked at his arm again, Pete stopped wagging his head. He stood up straight and steady, and his eyes came clear as blue neon. And the hand on that arm that the black boy was holding became a strong fist. Nobody was paying any attention to this old guy and his old song about being tired. Everybody thought that he would be calmed down as usual and the meeting would go on. They didn’t see the hand that had turned into a strong fist. Only I saw it. I stared at it and waited, while the black boy gave Pete’s arm another jerk toward the dorm.

“Ol’ man, I say you got —”

He saw the fist, but he was a bit too late. Pete’s fist pressed the black boy into the wall, the plaster cracked and he then slid down to the floor.

The nurse ordered the other two black boys to take Pete. They almost reached Pete when they remembered that Pete wasn’t wired under control like the rest of us.

Pete stood there in the middle of the floor, swinging that fist back and forth at his side. Everybody was watching him now. He looked from the big black boy to the little one, and when he saw that they weren’t going to come any closer he turned to the patients.

“You see – it’s a lot of boloney,” he told them, “it’s all a lot of boloney.”

The Big Nurse began to move toward her wicker bag. “Yes, yes, Mr. Bancini,” she was saying, “now if you’ll just be calm —”

“That’s all it is, a lot of boloney, nothing else.” His voice lost its strength, became urgent as if he didn’t have much time to finish what he had to say. “You see, I can’t help it, I can’t – don’t you see. I was born dead. Not you. You weren’t born dead. Ahhhh, it’s been hard…”

He started to cry. He couldn’t make the words come out right anymore; he opened and closed his mouth to talk but he couldn’t sort the words into sentences any more. He shook his head to clear it and blinked at the Acutes:

“Ahhhh, I… tell… you… I tell you.”

His fist became an open hand again. He held it cupped out in front of him as if he was offering something to the patients.

“I can’t help it. I was born a failure. I had so many injuries that I died. I was born dead. I can’t help it. I’m tired. I’m giving up trying. You got chances. You got it easy. I was born dead an’ life was hard. I’m tired. I’m tired out talking and standing up. I’ve been dead fifty-five years.”

The Big Nurse gave him a shot. There wasn’t really any need for the shot; his head had already begun to wag back and forth and his eyes were dull. The effort of the last couple of minutes had worn him out finally and completely, once and for all – you could just look at him and tell he was finished.

He had come to life for maybe a minute to try to tell us something, something none of us tried to understand, and the effort had drained him dry.

“I’m… tired…”

“Now. I think if you two boys are brave enough, Mr. Bancini will go to bed like a good fellow.”

“…aw-fully tired.”

Pete never tried anything like that again, and he never will. Now, when he starts acting up during a meeting and they try to calm him, he always calms. He’ll still get up from time to time and wag his head and let us know how tired he is, but it’s not a complaint or excuse or warning any more – he’s finished with that; it’s like an old useless clock that just keeps ticking and cuckooing without meaning nothing.

At two o’clock the group meeting is over.The nurse looks at her watch and tells us to bring the tables back into the room and we’ll resume this discussion again at one tomorrow. The Acutes click out of their trance, look for an instant in Harding’s direction. Their faces burn with shame; they feel that they have woken up to the fact that they have been played for fools again. They all are avoiding Harding. They’ve been maneuvered again into grilling one of their friends as if he was a criminal and they were all prosecutors and judge and jury. For forty-five minutes they have been cutting a man to pieces, almost as if they enjoyed it, asking him: What’s he think is the matter with him that he can’t please the little lady; why’s he insist that she has never had anything to do with another man; how’s he expect to get well if he doesn’t answer honestly? – questions and insinuations till now they feel bad about it.

McMurphy’s eyes follow all of this. He doesn’t get out of his chair. He looks puzzled again. He sits in his chair for a while, watching the Acutes.Then finally he stands up from his arm chair, yawns and stretches, and walks over to where Harding is off by himself.

McMurphy looks down at Harding a minute.Then he takes a nearby chair and straddle sit like a tiny horsein front of Harding. Harding is staring straight ahead, humming to himself, trying to look calm. But he isn’t calm at all.

McMurphy lights a cigarette, puts his cigarette between his teeth and looks at Harding for a while, then starts talking with that cigarette wagging up and down in his lips.

“Well say, buddy, is this the usual procedure for these Group Ther’py meetings?”

“Usual procedure?” Harding’s humming stops. He still stares ahead, past McMurphy’s shoulder.

“Flock of chickens at a peckin’ party?”

Harding’s head turns with a jerk and his eyes find McMurphy. He sits back in his chair and tries to look relaxed.

“A ’pecking’ party?” I fear I have not the slightest idea what you’re talking about.”

“Why then, I’ll just explain it to you.” McMurphy raises his voice. He doesn’t look at the other Acutes behind him, but he’s talking specially to them. “The flock gets sight of a spot of blood on some chicken and they all go to peck at it, see, till they tear the chicken to shreds, blood and bones and feathers. But usually a couple of the flock gets spots in the process, then it’s their turn. And a few more get spots and get pecked to death, and more and more. Oh, a peckin’ party can wipe out the whole flock in a matter of a few hours, buddy, I’ve seen it. A mighty awesome sight. The only way to prevent it – with chickens – is to put blinders on them. So’s they can’t see.”

Harding leans back in the chair. “A pecking party. That certainly is a pleasant analogy, my friend.”

“And that meeting, buddy, if you want to know the dirty truth, reminded me of a flock of dirty chickens.”

“So that makes me the chicken with the spot of blood, friend?”

“That’s right, buddy.”

“And you want to know somethin’ else, buddy? You want to know who pecks that first peck?”

Harding doesn’t answer and waits.

“It’s that old nurse, that’s who.”

Harding is trying to act calm.

“So,” he says, “it’s as simple as that, as stupidly simple as that. You’re on our ward six hours and have already simplified all the work of Freud, Jung, and Maxwell Jones and summed it up in one analogy: it’s a ’peckin party’.”

“I’m not talking about Fred Yoong and Maxwell Jones, buddy, I’m just talking about that meeting and what that nurse and those other bastards did to you.”

“Did to me?”

“That’s right. It seems that you have done something to make some enemies here in this place, buddy.”

“It seems that you don’t understand that any question or discussion raised by Miss Ratched is done solely for therapeutic reasons? I see that you haven’t understood a word of Doctor Spivey’s theory of the Therapeutic Community. I’m disappointed in you, my friend, oh, very disappointed. This morning I thought that you were more intelligent. But I was mistaken.”

“The hell with you, buddy.”

“Oh, yes; I forgot to add that I noticed your primitive brutality also this morning. Psychopath with definite sadistic tendencies, probably motivated by an egomania. Yes. As you see, all these natural talents certainly make you a competent therapist quite capable of criticizing Miss Ratched’s meeting procedure, in spite of the fact that she is an experienced psychiatric nurse with twenty years in the field. Yes, with your talent, my friend, you could work subconscious miracles, soothe the aching identity and heal the wounded superego. You could probably cure the whole ward, Vegetables and all, in six short months.”

McMurphy asks him calmly, “And you really think that these meetings are to cure you?”

“The staff desires our cure as much as we do. They aren’t monsters. Miss Ratched may be a strict middle-aged lady, but she’s not some kind of giant monster of the poultry clan, sadistically pecking out our eyes.”

“No, buddy, not that. She isn’t peckin’ at your eyes. She’s peckin’ at your balls, buddy, at your everlovin’ balls.”

Harding tries to grin, but his face and lips are so white that the grin is lost. He stares at McMurphy. McMurphy takes the cigarette out of his mouth and repeats what he said.

“Right at your balls. No, that nurse isn’t some kind of monster chicken, buddy, she is a ball-cutter. I’ve seen a thousand of ’em, old and young, men and women. Seen ’em all over the country and in the homes – people who try to make you weak so that they can make you follow their rules, live according to their rules. And the best way to do this, to make you knuckle under, is to weaken you by gettin you where it hurts the worst. If you’re in a fight against a guy who wants to win by making you weaker, then watch for his knee, he’s gonna go for your balls. There’s nothing worse. It makes you sick, it takes every bit of strength you got. And that’s what that old buzzard is doing, going for your balls, your vitals.”

“Our dear Miss Ratched? Our sweet, smiling, tender angel of mercy, Mother Ratched, a ball-cutter? Why, friend, that’s most unlikely.”

“Buddy, don’t give me that tender little mother crap. She may be a mother, but she’s tough as knife metal. She fooled me with that kindly little old mother bit for maybe three minutes when I came in this morning, but no longer. I don’t think she’s really fooled any of you guys for any six months or a year, neither. Hooowee, I’ve seen some bitches in my time, but she takes the cake.”

“A bitch? But a moment ago she was a ball-cutter, then a buzzard – or was it a chicken? Your metaphors are bumping into each other, my friend.”

“The hell with that; she’s a bitch and a buzzard and a ball-cutter, and don’t kid me, you know what I’m talking about.”

Harding continues to argue.

“Why, look here, my friend Mr. McMurphy, our Miss Ratched is a real angel of mercy, and everyone knows it. She works hard for the good of all, day after day, five long days a week. That takes heart, my friend, heart. In fact, she even further serves mankind on her weekends by doing generous volunteer work about town. She prepares various canned goods, cheese, soap and presents it to some poor young couple having a difficult time financially.” His hands fly in the air, making the picture he is describing. “Ah, look: There she is, our nurse. Her gentle knock on the door. The ribboned basket. The young couple overjoyed to the point of speechlessness. The husband open-mouthed, the wife weeping openly. She places the basket in the center of the floor. And when our angel leaves – throwing kisses, smiling – she is so full of human kindness within her large bosom, that she is beside herself with generosity. Be-side herself, do you hear? Pausing at the door, she draws the young wife to one side and offers her twenty dollars of her own: ’Go, you poor unfortunate child, go, and buy yourself a decent dress. I realize that your husband can’t afford it, but here, take this, and go.’ And the couple is forever indebted to her generosity.”

When he stops talking, the ward is completely silent. I don’t hear anything except a weak reeling rhythm. It’s a tape recorder somewhere getting all of this.

Harding looks around, sees everybody’s watching him, and he tries to laugh. The squeaking sound of that laugh is awful. He can’t stop it. But finally, he stops and lets his face fall into his waiting hands.

“Oh the bitch, the bitch, the bitch,” he whispers through his teeth.

McMurphy lights another cigarette and offers it to him; Harding takes it without a word. McMurphy watches while Harding’s twitching and jerking slows down and the face comes up from the hands.

“You are right,” Harding says, “about all of it.” He looks up at the other patients who are watching him. “No one’s ever dared say it before, but there’s not a man among us that doesn’t think it, that doesn’t feel just as you do about her and the whole business – feel it somewhere down deep in his scared little soul.”

McMurphy frowns and asks, “What about that little doctor? He might be a little slow in the head, but not so much as not to be able to see how she’s taken over and what she’s doing.”

“Doctor Spivey… is exactly like the rest of us, McMurphy. He’s a frightened, ineffectual little rabbit, totally incapable of running this ward without our Miss Ratched’s help, and he knows it. And, worse, she knows that he knows it and reminds him every chance she gets.”

“Why doesn’t he fire her?”

“In this hospital,” Harding says, “it’s not in the doctor’s power to hire and fire. That power goes to the supervisor, and the supervisor is a woman, a dear old friend of Miss Ratched’s; they were Army nurses together in the thirties. We are victims of a matriarchy here, my friend, and the doctor is just as helpless against it as we are. He knows that Ratched can simply pick up the phone and call the supervisor and mention, for example, that the doctor, it seems, is making a great number of requisitions for Demerol —”

“What’s Demerol, Harding?”