All I know is this: nobody’s very big in the first place, and it looks to me like everybody spends their whole life tearing everybody else down. – Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest Published
(February 1, 1962)
Back in the mid-Seventies, I lived in a tiny bungalow, two blocks from Oregon’s Capitol building.
The World’s Slowest Professional Runner, one of my training routes brought me around the state hospital for the criminally insane. Right by the exercise yard where Jack Nicholson tried to teach Chief Bromden how to play basketball.
Every once in a while, I’d see a furtive blank face stare at me from behind wired windows.
And wonder who he was and what he had done.
Frequently, far too frequently it seemed, ’cause you know, living not far away, the Statesman-Journal would report an escape from the Cuckoo’s Nest.
Something like… “Michael Brady, dangerous to himself and others, was found to be missing today. Brady, who killed most of his family, some neighbors and the high school marching band, was last seen headed down State Street towards….”
Maybe a month later.
“Norm Moore, dangerous to himself and others, escaped this morning from the et cetera. Mr. Moore was found unable to stand trial after doing some egregious shit that is too disturbing to report.”
Not long after.
“Joey Billy Bobby Montague, dangerous to himself and others, apparently dug a tunnel halfway to the Capitol building and missed breakfast and his medication this morning. Mr. Montague, a recent Republican candidate for Congress, took voter suppression to an entirely new level. And not all the bodies have been found. Last seen headed toward a tiny bungalow, two blocks from the Capitol building.”
And NEVER, AT NO TIME, was there ever a follow-up article about catching these guys.
All I know, they might still be out there.
Been to the Cuckoo’s Nest. Smelled it, heard the sounds, the noises, the screams.
Just visiting, mind you.
I read the book, of course, which enhanced my desire to be an actual writer.
Loved the movie. Right up there with ‘Cool Hand Luke.’
Sitting in the movie theater, when the Director of the hospital came on screen – the real executive played himself – I blurted out loud – “I hot tub with that guy all the time!” Belonged to the same gym.
Not long after, 1980, I was dining in Kesey’s home, eating whatever wholesome vittles Faye put before us. Wrestling mats as rugs and a discordantly painted bus decaying out back.
Kesey and I cooked up an Olympic plan. All I can say about it. We remained friendly but never worked together again. But that’s another story.
Frank still gives me that look.
Anyway, I read the book, and I took the liberty of putting together an anniversary synopsis for you.
Big Chief Bromden tells the tale of a psychiatric ward, run by oppressive Nurse Ratched, where the old Indian is a deaf and dumb patient. But not really. “I lay in bed... and thought it over, about my being deaf, about the years of not letting on I heard what was said, and I wonder if I can ever act any other way again. But I remembered one thing: it wasn't me that started acting deaf; it was people that first started acting like I was too dumb to hear or see or say anything at all.” A new patient, Randle McMurphy, shocks the ward with bawdy boisterousness, He's a bull-goose gambler swindled a transfer from a work farm. “No wife wanting new linoleum. No relatives pulling at him with watery old eyes. No one to care about, which is what makes him free enough to be a good con man.” McMurphy not a real fan of work. During the patients' group meeting, Ratched and McMurphy antagonize each other. McMurphy analyzes Ratched's cruel methods and bets he can make her lose her temper within a week. McMurphy taunts Ratched. “The flock gets sight of a spot of blood on some chicken and they all go to peckin’ at it, see, till they rip the chicken to shreds, blood and bones and feathers. But usually a couple of the flock gets spotted in the fracas, then it’s their turn. And a few more gets spots and gets 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 seen it. A mighty awesome sight. The only way to prevent it—with chickens—is to clip blinders on them. So’s they can’t see.” Ratched denies McMurphy's request to watch baseball, he proposes a vote at two group meetings. Most patients support him in the second vote, but Ratched still refuses it. At the time of the game, “If somebody'd of come in and took a look, men watching a blank TV, a fifty-year old woman hollering and squealing at the back of their heads about discipline and order and recriminations, they'd of thought the whole bunch was crazy as loons.” McMurphy turns on the TV, but Ratched cuts its power. McMurphy remains seated, other patients join him in front of the blank TV, Ratched loses her composure, and McMurphy wins his bet.
Let me tell you about the book.
“There’s no doubt in my mind that McMurphy’s won, but I’m not sure what.”
Ratched discusses McMurphy with the staff and makes him clean the latrines, but he continues to nettle her. “The most work he did on [the urinals] was to run a brush once or twice apiece, singing some song as loud as he could in time to the swishing brush; then he'd splash in some Clorox and he'd be through. ... And when the Big Nurse...came in to check McMurphy's cleaning assignment personally, she brought a little compact mirror and she held it under the rim of the bowls. She walked along shaking her head and saying, "Why, this is an outrage... an outrage..." at every bowl. McMurphy sidled right along beside her, winking down his nose and saying in answer, "No; that's a toilet bowl...a TOILET bowl.” McMurphy surprised to learn Ratched has the power to keep him locked up forever, he starts to behave better. He questions why other patients don't let themselves out as they have the power to. “You’re just a young kid. What are you doin’ here? You oughta be out in a convertible, why… bird-doggin’ chicks and bangin’ beaver. What are ya doin’ here, for Christ’s sake? What’s funny about that? Jesus, I mean, you guys do nothin’ but complain about how you can’t stand it in this place here and then you haven’t got the guts just to walk out!” When Ratched announces she and Spivey are taking away the patients' game room as punishment for their earlier rebellion, McMurphy punches through the glass enclosing the nurses' station.
When Ratched rejects his petition to spend time outside, McMurphy shatters the station's replacement glass. Spivey grants McMurphy's request “I was actually going out of the hospital with two whores on a fishing boat; I had to keep saying it over and over to myself to believe it.” to take a fishing trip with other patients, and Ratched tries to frighten them with news about rough weather and wrecked boats. McMurphy pays Bromden's fee for the fishing trip “You’re not an idiot. Huh! You’re not a goddamn looney now, boy. You’re a fisherman!” and convinces Spivey to join them. Despite some problems with the boat captain and the police, they have a good time. On the way back, McMurphy passes his boyhood house, remembers the first time he had sex, and that wears him out.
After a fistfight, Ratched sends McMurphy and Bromden for electroshock therapy. “Anointest my head with conductant. Do I get a crown of thorns?” The night they return, the prostitutes Candy and Sandy sneak in and several patients have a party. Convinced by other patients to escape, McMurphy goes to bed with Sandy, asking to be awoken before the morning, but is discovered by the staff. Ratched finds Billy sleeping with Candy, threatens to tell his mother, and he commits suicide. Ratched taunts McMurphy, “I hope you’re finally satisfied. Playing with human lives—gambling with human lives—as if you thought of yourself to be a God!” he smashes through the station's glass door, rips open her uniform, and tries to strangle her. In the following days, several patients leave the ward. McMurphy gets a lobotomy. Please understand: We do not impose certain rules and restrictions on you without a great deal of thought about their therapeutic value. A good many of you are in here because you could not adjust to the rules of society in the Outside World, because you refused to face up to them, because you tried to circumvent them and avoid them. At some time—perhaps in your childhood—you may have been allowed to get away with flouting the rules of society. When you broke a rule you knew it. You wanted to be dealt with, needed it, but the punishment did not come. That foolish lenience on the part of your parents may have been the germ that grew into your present illness. I tell you this hoping you will understand that it is entirely for your own good that we enforce discipline and order. Bromden suffocates McMurphy with a pillow and escapes the hospital. The End.
When I was young, I liked to think I was Patrick McMurphy.
The whole time, of course, working my way to become Chief Bromden.
Running to freedom.
