Extracts from Kesey's Masterwork : 5/5
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The fat man hollers and jumps out of the swing and sidles away through the dust, holding his hat up in front of the sun so's he can see what's up there in the juniper tree making such a racket. When he sees it's nothing but a speckled chicken he spits on the ground and puts his hat on.
'I, myself, sincerely feel,' he says, 'that whatever offer we make on this ... metropolis will be quite sufficient.'
'Could be. I still think we should make some effort to speak with the Chief-'
The old woman interrupts him by taking one ringing step forward. 'No.' This is the first thing she's said. 'No,' she says again in a way that reminds me of the Big Nurse. She lifts her eyebrows and looks the place over. Her eyes spring up like the numbers in a cash register; she's looking at Mamma's dresses hung so careful on the line, and she's nodding her head.
'No. We don't talk with the Chief today. Not yet. I think ... that I agree with Brickenridge for once. Only for a different reason. You recall the record we have shows the wife is not Indian but white? White. A woman from town. Her name is Bromden. He took her name, not she his. Oh, yes, I think if we just leave now and go back into town, and, of course, spread the word with the townspeople about the government's plans so they understand the advantages of having a hydro-electric dam and a lake instead of a cluster of shacks beside a falls, then type up an offer - and mail it to the wife, you see, by mistake? I feel our job will be a great deal easier.'
She looks off to the men on the ancient, rickety, zigzagging scaffolding that has been growing and branching out among the rocks of the falls for hundreds of years.
'Whereas if we meet now with the husband and make some abrupt offer, we may run up against an untold amount of Navaho stubbornness and love of - I suppose we must call it home.'
I start to tell them he's not Navaho, but think what's the use if they don't listen? They don't care what tribe he is.
The woman smiles and nods at both the men, a smile and a nod to each, and her eyes ring them up, and she begins to move stiffly back to their car, talking in a light, young voice.
'As my sociology professor used to emphasize, "There is generally one person in every situation you must never underestimate the power of."'
And they get back in the car and drive away, with me standing there wondering if they ever even saw me.
I was kind of amazed that I'd remembered that. It was the the first time in what seemed to me centuries that I'd been able to remember much about my childhood. It fascinated me to discover I could still do it. I lay in bed awake, remembering other happenings, and just about that time, while I was half in a kind of dream, I heard a sound under my bed like a mouse with a walnut. I leaned over the edge of the bed and saw the shine of metal biting off pieces of gum I knew by heart. The black boy named Geever had found where I'd been hiding my chewing gum; was scraping the pieces off into a sack with a long,lean pair of scissors open like jaws.
I jerked back up under the covers before he saw me looking.My heart was banging in my ears, scared he'd seen me. I wanted to tell him to get away, to mind his own business and leave my chewing gum alone, but I couldn't even let on I heard. I lay still to see if he'd caught me bending over to peek under the bed at him, but he didn't give any sign - all I heard was the zzzth-zzzth of his scissors and pieces falling into the sack, reminded me of hailstones the way they rattle on our tar-paper roof. He clacked his tongue and giggled to himself.
'Um-ummm.Lord gawd amighty. Hee. I wonder how many times this muthuh chewed some o' this stuff? Just as hard.'
McMurphy heard the black boy muttering to himself and woke and rolled up to one elbow to look at what he was up to at this hour down on his knees under my bed. He watched the black boy a minute,rubbing his eyes to be sure of what he was seeing, just like you see little kids rub their eyes; then he saw up completely.