Luke Rheinhart - The Diceman

At the age of forty-one it is complete; the male, resigning his six head-coach-ships, once again dreams of conquering the world. The accumulated bitterness of the years asserts itself, he becomes as fast as a speeding bullet, as powerful as a locomotive and can leap buildings with three powerful strides. He becomes a General Curtis LeMay and bombs China back into the Stone Age. He becomes a Spiro Agnew and puts the blacks and hippies and liberals firmly in then places. His wife and children are being tortured to death in some horribly creative way: over a fire at the end of sharpened sticks they are being roasted as marshmallows. Sometimes he arrives in time to save his children, sometimes even his wife. But most times he arrives just too late. The giant state funeral procession in which, in tears, he is marching is attacked by the enemy, and leaping back into action with his tactical nuclear weapons . . .

The Rhinehart Power Pattern for Men should now be clear. In Dice Therapy we can predict with great precision the roles which a male student will most want to play by examining his age and relating it to our pattern. There exist variations, of course, some men mature late, and others, a few, are precocious. Eric Cannon, for example, at only nineteen, was saving the world, and I at the age of only thirty-five, am again, as at age eight, in the process of destroying it…

Chapter Thirty-four

I had only one session with Eric Cannon to try to introduce him to dice therapy, because he and his father had reached some kind of agreement whereby Eric was to be released three days later. He was naturally keyed up about leaving and didn't listen carefully as I began a Socratic dialogue to get him into dice therapy. Unfortunately, the Socratic method entails a second person at least willing to grunt periodically and since Eric remained absolutely mute I gave up and told him in a twenty-minute lecture what a dicelife was all about. He became quite alert. When I'd finished he shook his head from side to side slowly.

`How do you stay loose, Doc?' he asked. `How do you keep yourself on that side of the desk?'

`What do you mean?'

`How come they don't lock you up?'

I smiled.

`I am a professional man,' I answered.

`A professional loony. Giving psychotherapy.'

He shook his head again. `Poor Dad. He thought I was being cured.'

`The concept of the dicelife doesn't fascinate you?'

`Of course it does. You've turned yourself into a sort of computer like our air force use in Vietnam. Only instead of

trying to kill the maximum number of the enemy, you program yourself to drop your bombs at random.'

`You miss the point. Since there is no real enemy, all of life's wars are games, and the dicelife permits a variety of war games instead of the continual sluggish trench warfare of the typical life.' "`There is no enemy,"' he quoted quietly, looking at the floor in front of him. ` "There is no enemy." If there's one

thing that makes me want to puke more than anything else it's people who think there is no enemy. Your dicelife is a hundred times as sick as my father even. He's blind, so he's got an excuse, but you! "No enemy! "' And Eric writhed in his chair, his face distorted with tension. He twisted his muscular body upward until he was standing, his neck still rolling tensely, his eyes on the ceiling. Clenching his fists he finally held himself reasonably quiet.

`You big fool,' he said. `This world is a madhouse with killers loose, torturers, sick depraved sadists running churches,

corporations, countries. It could be different, could be better, and you sit on your lump of fat and toss dice.'

I didn't say anything since I was not in the mood for a wrestling match and was, as I listened, for some reason feeling

guilty.

`You know this hospital is a farce, but tragic suffering - a tragic farce. You know there are nuts running this place #161;nuts! - not even counting you! - that makes most inmates look like Ozzie and Marriat and David and Ricky. You know what American racism is. You know what the war in Vietnam is. And you toss dice! You toss dice!' He banged both fists down on the desk before me two, three, four times, his long hair falling forward at each blow like a black mantilla. Then he stopped.

`I'm leaving, Doc,' he said to me calmly. `I'm going out into the world and try to make it better. You can stay here and

drop your random bombs.'

`Just a minute, Eric.'

I stood up. `Before you go-'

`I'm leaving. Thanks for the pot, thanks for the silences, thanks even for the games, but don't say another word about

tossing your fucking dice, or I'll kill you.'

`Eric. . I'm . . . You're…' He left.

Chapter Thirty-five

Dr. Rhinehart should have known when Mr. Mann summoned him to his office at QSH that there was trouble. And

seeing old Cobblestone erect and solemn as he entered made Dr. Rhinehart certain there was trouble. Dr. Cobblestone

is tall and thin and gray-haired, and Dr. Mann is short and plump and balding, but their facial expressions were

identical: stern, firm, severe. Being called to a director's office at QSH reminded Rhinehart of being summoned to the

principal's office at age eight for winning money off sixth graders at craps. His problems hadn't changed much.

`What's this about dice, young man?' Dr. Cobblestone asked sharply, leaning forward in his chair and banging once

noisily on the floor the cane he held upright between his legs. He was the senior director of the hospital.

`Dice?' asked Dr. Rhinehart, a puzzled expression on his face. He was wearing blue jeans, a white T-shirt and

sneakers, a dice decision which had made Dr. Mann pale when he had entered the office. Dr. Cobblestone had not

seemed to notice.

`I think we ought to take things in the order you suggested earlier,' Dr. Mann said to his co-director.

`Ah yes. Yes, indeed: Dr. Cobblestone banged his cane again as if it were some accepted signal for the restarting of a

game. `What's this we've heard about your using prostitutes and homosexuals in your sex research?'

Dr. Rhinehart didn't answer immediately but looked intently from one stern face to another. He said quietly: `The

research will be detailed in our report. Is there anything wrong?'

`Dr. Felloni says she has withdrawn entirely from the project,' said Dr. Mann.

'Ahh. She's back from Zurich?'

'She states she withdraw because subjects were being asked to commit immoral acts,' said Dr. Cobblestone.

`The subjects of the experiment was sexual change.'

`Were the subjects asked to commit immoral acts?' Dr. Cobblestone continued.

`The instructions made it clear that they didn't have to do anything they didn't want to.'

`Dr. Felloni reports that the project encouraged young people to fornicate,' said Dr. Mann neutrally.

`She should know. She helped me draw up the instructions.'

`Does the project encourage young people to fornicate?' asked Dr. Cobblestone.

`And old people t- Look, I think perhaps you ought to ask to have a copy of my research report when it's finished.'

The two stern faces had not relaxed, and Dr. Cobblestone went on `One of your subjects claims that he was raped.'

`That's true,' replied Dr. Rhinehart. `But our investigation indicated that he either fantasized or prevaricated the rape to

suppress his active unconscious participation in the act of which he complains.'

`What's that?' said Dr. Cobblestone, irritably cupping an ear at Dr. Rhinehart.

`He enjoyed being laid and is lying about the rape.'

`Oh. Thank you.'

`You realize, Luke,' said Dr. Mann, `that in letting you use some of our patients here at QSH for your research that we are legally and morally responsible for what occurs in that research.'