"But I tried though," he says. "Goddammit, I sure as hell did that much, now, didn't I?" — Ken Kesey

I watched and tried to figure out what he would have done. I was only sure of one thing: he wouldn't have left something like that sit there in the day room with his name tacked on it for twenty or thirty years so the Big Nurse could use it as an example of what can happen if you buck the system. I was sure of that.

"What worries me, Billy," she said — I could hear the change in her voice — "is how your mother is going to take this."

Along the western slopes of the Oregon Coastal Range . . . come look: the hysterical crashing of tributaries as they merge into the Wakonda Auga River . . .