At 1 p.m., the Acutes assemble for their daily meeting with Big Nurse and Doctor Spivey. Big Nurse opens the session by reading notes that other patients have submitted on Dale Harding. Big Nurse asks if any member of the group would like to touch upon the matter further. McMurphy uses the opportunity to make an off-color remark about touching the breasts of Harding's wife, a statement that catches Big Nurse off guard and flusters her.
To cover her frustration, Big Nurse reads McMurphy's file. He received a Distinguished Service Cross in Korea for leading an escape from a prison camp, but was dishonorably discharged for fighting and insubordination. He also was once charged with the statutory rape of a 15-year-old girl. McMurphy says that the girl's insatiable sexual appetite made him take "to sewing my pants shut," and that he was forced to leave town because the girl would have "burnt me to a frazzle by the time she reached legal sixteen."
In his discussion with Doctor Spivey, McMurphy makes a veiled threat to Big Nurse and repeats that the work farm doctor has diagnosed him as a potential psychotic. Doctor Spivey responds that the doctor also suggests that McMurphy could be feigning mental instability to get out of work detail.
McMurphy's joking and Doctor Spivey's obvious enjoyment of his behavior cause Big Nurse to place control of the meeting back into the hands of Doctor Spivey.
McMurphy approaches Harding to discuss the meeting, calling it a "pecking party." Harding defends Big Nurse, but McMurphy refers to her as "a bitch and a buzzard and a ball-cutter." Harding tries to refute McMurphy but ends up convincing himself that McMurphy is correct.
