“Well say, buddy, is this the way these leetle meetings usually go?”

“Usually go?” Harding’s humming stops. He’s not chewing his cheeks any more but he still stares ahead, past McMurphy’s shoulder.

“Is this the usual pro-cedure for these Group Ther’py shindigs? Bunch of chickens at a peckin’ party?”

Harding’s head turns with a jerk and his eyes find McMurphy, like it’s the first time he knows that anybody’s sitting in front of him. His face creases in the middle when he bites his cheeks again, and this makes it look like he’s grinning. He pulls his shoulders back and scoots to the back of the chair and tries to look relaxed.

“A ‘pecking party’? I fear your quaint down-home speech is wasted on me, my friend. I have not the slightest inclination what you’re talking about.”

“Why then, I’ll just explain it to you.” McMurphy raises his voice; though he doesn’t look at the other Acutes listening behind him, it’s them he’s talking to. “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.”

Harding laces his long fingers around a knee and draws the knee toward him, leaning back in the chair. “A pecking party. That certainly is a pleasant analogy, my friend.”

“And that’s just exactly what that meeting I just set through reminded me of, buddy, if you want to know the dirty truth. It reminded me of a flock of dirty chickens.”

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

“That’s right, buddy.”

They’re still grinning at each other, but their voices have dropped so low and taut I have to sweep over closer to them with my broom to hear. The other Acutes are moving up closer too.

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

Harding waits for him to go on.

“It’s that old nurse, that’s who.”

There’s a whine of fear over the silence. I hear the machinery in the walls catch and go on. Harding is having a tough time holding his hands still, but he keeps 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 crummy meeting and what that nurse and those other bastards did to you. Did in spades.”

“Did to me?”

“That’s right, did. Did you every chance they got. Did you coming and did you going. You must of done something to makes a passle of enemies here in this place, buddy, because it seems there’s sure a passle got it in for you.”

“Why, this is incredible. You completely disregard, completely overlook and disregard the fact that what the fellows were doing today was for my own benefit? That any question or discussion raised by Miss Ratched or the rest of the staff is done solely for therapeutic reasons? You must not have heard a word of Doctor Spivey’s theory of the Therapeutic Community, or not have had the education to comprehend it if you did. I’m disappointed in you, my friend, oh, very disappointed. I had judged from our encounter this morning that you were more intelligent — an illiterate clod, perhaps, certainly a backwoods braggart with no more sensitivity than a goose, but basically intelligent nevertheless. But, observant and insightful though I usually am, I still make mistakes.”

“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 unreasoning egomania. Yes. As you see, all these natural talents certainly qualify you as a competent therapist and render you quite capable of criticizing Miss Ratched’s meeting procedure, in spite of the fact that she is a highly regarded psychiatric nurse with twenty years in the field. Yes, with your talent, my friend, you could work subconscious miracles, soothe the aching id and heal the wounded superego. You could probably bring about a cure for the whole ward, Vegetables and all, in six short months, ladies and gentlemen or your money back.”

Instead of rising to the argument, McMurphy just keeps on looking at Harding, finally asks in a level voice, “And you really think this crap that went on in the meeting today is bringing about some kinda cure, doing some kinda good?”

“What other reason would we have for submitting ourselves to it, my friend? 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, bent on sadistically pecking out our eyes. You can’t believe that of her, can you?”

“No, buddy, not that. She ain’t peckin’ at your eyes. That’s not what she’s peckin’ at.”

Harding flinches, and I see his hands begin to creep out from between his knees like white spiders from between two moss-covered tree limbs, up the limbs toward the joining at the trunk.

“Not our eyes?” he says. “Pray, then, where is Miss Ratched pecking, my friend?”

McMurphy grinned. “Why, don’t you know, buddy?”

“No, of course I don’t know! I mean, if you insi—”

“At your balls, buddy, at your everlovin’ balls.”

The spiders reach the joining at the trunk and settle there, twitching. Harding tries to grin, but his face and lips are so white 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 ain’t some kinda monster chicken, buddy, what she is 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 they can get you to toe the line, to follow their rules, to live like they want you to. And the best way to do this, to get you to knuckle under, is to weaken you by gettin’ you where it hurts the worst. You ever been kneed in the nuts in a brawl, buddy? Stops you cold, don’t it? There’s nothing worse. It makes you sick, it saps every bit of strength you got. If you’re up against a guy who wants to win by making you weaker instead of making himself stronger, then watch for his knee, he’s gonna go for your vitals. And that’s what that old buzzard is doing, going for your vitals.”

Harding’s face is still colorless, but he’s got control of his hands again; they flip loosely before him, trying to toss off what McMurphy has been saying:

“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 big as a damn barn and 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’s face and hands are moving faster than ever now, a speeded film of gestures, grins, grimaces, sneers. The more he tries to stop it, the faster it goes. When he lets his hands and face move like they want to and doesn’t try to hold them back, they flow and gesture in a way that’s real pretty to watch, but when he worries about them and tries to hold back he becomes a wild, jerky puppet doing a high-strung dance. Everything is moving faster and faster, and his voice is speeding up to match.