One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest / Пролетая над гнездом кукушки. Кен КизиЧитать онлайн книгу.
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