Luke Rheinhart - The Diceman

`I understand.'

`Certain attendants and nurses have reported that a large number of patients were volunteering for your sex research

project and have claimed that prostitutes were being supplied to the patients.'

`You can read my report when it's done.'

Dr. Cobblestone banged his cane a third time.

`A report has reached us that you yourself participated in . . . as . . . as . . . in this experiment.'

`Naturally.'

`Naturally?' asked Dr. Mann.

`I participated in the experiment'

'But our report stated that…' Dr. Cobblestone's face grew red with his exasperation at not finding the right words. `…

that you interacted with the subjects . . sexually.'

'Ahh,' said Dr. Rhinehart.

`Well?' asked Dr. Mann.

`Some neurotic young person I presume is the author of this slander?' said Dr. Rhinehart.

`Yes, yes,' said Dr. Cobblestone quickly.

`Projecting his latent desires onto the dreaded authority figure?' Dr. Rhinehart went on.

`Precisely,' said Dr. Cobblestone, relaxing just a bit.

`Tragic. Is someone trying to help him?'

`Yes,' replied Dr. Cobblestone. `Yes. Dr. Vener has . . . How did you know it was a young man?'

'George Lovelace Ray O'Reilly. Projection, compensation, displacement, anal-cathexis.'

`Ah, yes.'

`Is there anything else?' said Dr. Rhinehart, making motions of rising to leave.

`I'm afraid there is, Luke,' said Dr. Mann.

`I see.'

Dr. Cobblestone gripped his cane carefully in both hands and, aiming, banged it a fourth time on the floor between his

legs.

`What's this about dice, young man?' he asked.

`Dice?'

'One of your patients has complained that you're making him play some strange game with dice.'

`The new one, Mr. Spezio?'

`Yes.'

`We have patients working with clay, cloth, paper, wood, leather, beads, cardboard, lathes, wire … I saw no reason not

to let a few select patients begin playing with dice.'

`I see,' said Dr. Cobblestone.'

`Why?' asked Dr. Mann blandly.

`You can read my report when it's done.'

No one spoke for a while.

`Anything else?' Dr. Rhinehart asked at last.

The two older men glanced uneasily at each other and Dr. Cobblestone cleared his throat.

`Your general behavior lately, Luke,' said Dr. Mann.

`Ahhh.'

'Your impolite and … unusual behavior in our last board meeting,' said Dr. Cobblestone.

`Yes.'

`Your erratic, socially upsetting eccentricities,' said Dr. Mann.

`Your interruption of Dr. Wink,' added Dr. Cobblestone.

`We've received complaints from a few nurses here at QSH, several board members naturally, from Mr. Spezio, and…'

`And?' suggested Dr. Rhinehart.

`And I myself am not blind.'

'Ahh.'

`Batman over the telephone is not my idea of a joke.'

There was a silence.

`Your behavior has been undignified and unprofessional,' said Dr. Cobblestone.

Silence.

`You can read my report when it's done,' said Dr. Rhinehart finally.

Silence.

`Your report?' asked Dr. Cobblestone.

`I'm writing an article on the variety of human response to socially eccentric behavior.'

`Yes, yes, I see,' said Dr. Cobblestone.

`My hypothesis is-'

`No more, Luke,' said Dr. Mann.

`Pardon?'

`No more. You've just about convinced everyone, but Jake that you're splitting apart. He alone has faith'

`My hypothesis is-'

'No more. Your friends have protected you all they're going to. Either back into the old Luke Rhinehart or you're finished as a psychiatrist' Dr. Cobblestone arose solemnly.

`And if you wish to bring up your idea for some sort of new center to help our patients you must have it placed on the agenda before our meeting.'

`I understand,' said Dr. Rhinehart, also standing.

`No, more, Luke,' said Dr. Mann.

Dr. Rhinehart understood.

Chapter Thirty-six

I should have known when Lil sat me down on the armchair opposite her without even touching her champagne that there was trouble. As part of a one-in-six die decision I had been courting her anew with all the unselfish and romantic love I could imagine, and we'd been having a marvelous week. I'd climaxed four days of traditional courting (two plays, a concert, an evening of love on hashish) by suggesting that we end Love Lil Week by taking a three-day skiing holiday at a Canadian ski resort. I had bought her flowers at the airport and champagne for our first night. It had begun snowing thickly after we arrived and although the next day we both skied like untrained walruses, we soon made an art out of tumbling. The snow fell lightly and wetly in the afternoon and we removed our skis and made snowballs and wrestled and rolled and munched the snow more or less like a couple of aged dogs reliving their puppyhood, I a Saint Bernard and she a collie. She was pretty and bright-eyed and girlishly athletic, and I was handsome and affectionate and boyishly uncoordinated, and we enjoyed playing together again. We danced before a roaring fire and drank more champagne and played brilliant bridge against a couple from Boston and made sweet love under a foot-high mountain of blankets and slept the sleep of the just.

We did the same the next day and the next, and on our last evening, a little high on champagne and marijuana, we spent half an hour holding hands in front of the fire and another ten minutes sitting on our bed with the lights off staring out our window at the moonlight lighting in pale blue the slopes of snow which stretched away from the hotel. I'd opened yet another bottle of champagne and felt warm and complete and serene. The touch of Lil's hand seemed holy. But then Lil asked me to sit opposite her in the armchair and shook her head when I tried to hand her a glass of champagne, and I knew there was trouble.

After turning on the bedside lamp. I looked up at her and was surprised to see tears in her eyes. She reached forward and took one of my hands and drew it to her face. Her lips touched my fingers delicately and she looked into my eyes. She smiled, slightly, lovingly, but with a tear running down one side of her face.

`Luke,' she said, and she paused for several seconds looking into my eyes. `What have you been acting so strangely for

so long now?'

'Ah Lil,' I began, `I'd like to tell you . . .' and I stopped.

`I know you aren't really unbalanced,' she went on. `It's some . . theory you're working on, isn't it?'

The warmth I'd been feeling froze, the lover solidified to stone. Sitting mute, hand being held, was a wary dice man.

`Please tell me,' she said. She was wetting her lips and squeezing my hand.

`Luke, we're together again. I feel so whole, so full of love for you, yet . . . I know that tomorrow, the next day, you

may change again. Everything that has made these last few days so sweet will disappear. And I don't know why: And I

won't know why.'

Maybe Lil could become the Dice Woman. It sounded like the name of a villainess on the Batman show but it offered me at the moment the only rationalization I could find for betraying the secret of my life and permitting me to hold Lil's happiness and love. I wavered. The band downstairs was playing a waltz. It wasn't too modern a ski resort..

`I…' I started. The dice man still fought.

`Tell me,' she said.

`I've been experimenting, Lil,' I began for a third time, `with practicing eccentric behavior, unusual roles, attitudes,

emotions - in order to discover the variety of human nature.'

I paused: wide-eyed she waited for what I was going to say. Narrow-eyed, so did I. I reached to my side and turned off the light again. Our faces, separated by only three feet, were still quite visible in the moonlight. `I didn't want to tell you until . . . I had learned whether the experiment had value: you might have rejected me, fought