Luke Rhinehart - The Search for the Dice Man

‘In those days,’ said Honoria, ‘parents were so stupidly liberal, their rebellious children didn’t have to worry about money – doting parents sent moneygrams. Today we know better. Rebellious youth are disinherited before their hair even reaches the back of their neck. Reserve your compassion for condors and spotted owls.’

‘Actually it’s that we know better now,’ I said, thinking that the sixties and my father were part of the same sickness. ‘We want to make something of our lives instead of drifting with some flow that eventually strands us in a bog.’

‘Yes, but the flowing and the bogs often seem so much more interesting than the upward march on the treadmill,’ said Kim, grinning a challenge at me.

‘Nonsense,’ snapped Honoria, wriggling her bottom on the chair in annoyance. ‘What’s wrong with minding the store? Perhaps for you and the sixties the treadmill symbolizes repetitious drudgery. For us it symbolizes staying in shape and getting ahead.’

‘Maybe so, but getting ahead for what?’ countered Kim, her eyes getting brighter and a flush appearing on her cheeks. ‘Staying in shape for what? As far as I can see people stay in shape in order to do better on the treadmill, and get ahead in order to get further ahead. Where’s the joy? Where’s the payoff?’

‘The payoff is a six-figure income,’ said Honoria. ‘Not to mention that you yourself are being paid to get people to pay good money to use the treadmills.’

‘Touché,’ said Kim with a grin. ‘But I’d still like to know if a place exists where people don’t care about the amount of their income.’

‘Oh, I’m sure you can find them all over,’ conceded Honoria. ‘And they’re undoubtedly living in wrecks and hovels. You know, Kim, you might be living in one yourself if it weren’t for us treadmill types.’

‘Touché again!’ Kim said. ‘But remember, I often have lived in tents, teepees, shacks and hovels. I just visit you and Uncle Willy every now and then to get back to my roots.’

‘You’d probably be right at home in Lukedom, then,’ commented Honoria, signalling to a passing waiter for another drink.

‘This is all very nice,’ I interrupted, shaking my head at the sparring, and then addressing Honoria. ‘But I’d still like you to come with me.’ I reached across and took her hand and went on with an exaggerated seriousness. ‘Come and console me as I plunge into the lower depths in an effort to redeem my long-lost father and win your hand in marriage.’

‘Silly boy,’ said Honoria, mollified. ‘I think the myth insists the prince go off by himself and slay the dragon. He doesn’t drag the princess along with him.’

‘That’s right,’ agreed Kim. ‘Maybe you should take me instead. I’ll be Sancho Panza to your Don Quixote. And then maybe I’ll stay in Lukedom and become a cube or whatever you call your father’s followers.’

‘I call them jerks,’ I said.

‘Yes, take Kim,’ said Honoria, stiffening. ‘She won’t mind a little mud and diarrhoea and, fitting in, she might find out things you couldn’t.’

‘I’m not taking Kim,’ I said firmly, fighting the racing of my pulse at the prospect. ‘I want you to go – just for a few days. It’ll certainly be more interesting than another trek upstate.’

‘Perhaps,’ said Honoria. As she paused to reconsider, she finished the last of her drink. ‘Just until Sunday night. You promise?’

‘Hey, I either find my father or get a lead or I don’t. How long can it take to get an address?’

‘You don’t love me,’ moped Kim exaggeratedly. ‘You prefer your fiancée to me.’

‘It can take a long lime to get an address – as the FBI has discovered,’ commented Honoria, her mind on the business trip and ignoring Kim’s taunt.

‘Well?’ I persisted, still holding Honoria’s hand.

‘I suppose I’ll have to come along just to keep you out of trouble,’ sighed Honoria.

I smiled and released her hand.

‘Good,’ I announced, having managed to keep chaos again at bay.

Although also smiling, Kim shook her head.

‘Lukedom will be wasted on you two,’ said Kim. ‘It’ll be like sending two nuns to a Playboy mansion.’

‘Or two Kims to a meeting of securities analysts.’ countered Honoria, standing up to leave. ‘But duty calls.’

‘Says who?’ said Kim.

On our drive south, Honoria and I stayed that first night at a small motel in northern Virginia, arriving at about ten, Honoria a trifle irritated that we’d passed up a Holiday Inn a half-hour earlier and had to settle for something called ‘The Molvadian Motel’ on the outskirts of nowhere. Actually the room was indistinguishable from one in a Holiday Inn – except perhaps to the two architects involved – and the television offerings were absolutely identical.

Being young and engaged, and intelligent and well brought up, we got right to it after quick showers and made hot and horny love for forty minutes. Then we found our attentions wandering to a PBS special on the greenhouse effect. This led us naturally to a serious discussion of the investment possibilities inherent in Long Island and Miami being three feet under water and the Berkshires becoming the new sun belt – possibly the new east coast line as well. We were both annoyed that the greenhouse effect would apparently take effect only very slowly over the next half-century, thus minimizing the possibilities of dramatic short-term capital gains.

Nevertheless, we concluded that we should be bullish on the American midwest and sell short the south east, since the latter was likely to become either a desert or part of the Atlantic Ocean, either of which alternatives would decrease its value. We discussed ways of selling short the south east but could think of nothing better than shorting the stock of Disney whose Disney World in Orlando, unless convened to an underwater theme park, would suffer a pronounced decrease in both gross and net. Cotton prices would soar. Companies involved in building bridges would do well. Perhaps boat-building would make a comeback.

We were soon as deeply engrossed in our speculations about how to play the greenhouse effect as we had been earlier in our lovemaking, the only difference being we reached no climax in our discussion. Instead Honoria suddenly found our speculations the most boring and unproductive thing she’d done in weeks and announced she was going to sleep. I made a few tentative pokes with various parts of my anatomy at various parts of hers, but receiving nothing more encouraging than a rather unsexy mooing sound, I soon rolled over to go to sleep. However, I spent the next fifteen minutes daydreaming about cornering the market in sugar beets just before the millions of acres of sugar beet fields were flooded, thus becoming the richest man in the world since the Hunt family. Vaguely, just as I fell asleep, I remembered that the Hunt brothers had recently declared bankruptcy.

FROM LUKE’S JOURNAL

In the beginning was Chance, and Chance was with God and Chance was God: of this much we and sophisticated twentieth-century scientists are certain. While the old physics saw purpose, the new sees chance. When the old saw reassuring and ubiquitous causal nexus, the new sees ubiquitous randomness. When the old probed deeper they always found cause; when the modern physicist probes deeper he always finds chance.

‘Was God playing dice when he created the universe?’ The New York Times asked a Nobel Prize-winning biologist.

‘Yes,’ was the reply.

The next day we ploughed on. Crossing the flat heartland of the central valley of Virginia I concluded that after you’d seen one cornfield you’d seen them all – unless of course I was long or short corn futures, in which case I’d have gotten out of the car every thirty miles to measure the height of the corn.