Luke Rheinhart - The Diceman

`I'm not sweet! You bitch. I'll stick a dustmop up your-'

`Time,' she said. `It's time.'

`I don't give a fuck. I'd like to chop off your mousy head and peddle your cunt to lepers. I'd like-'

`The three minutes is up, Luke,' she said quietly.

`Oh,' I said, towering over her and slobbering.

`Oh. Sorry about that,' I added.

`It's enough for now,' she said. `And thanks.'

She then proceeded to bury her face in my belly and we went on to a fine fierce diceless fuck, such as is usually

associated with the highly charged emotions of the beginnings or ending of an affair. She'd been compassionate or

loving ever since.

Mostly. That morning when the Die chose tennis we drove afterward to a beach on the bay and swam and played keep away with Larry and Evie and sunned and swam and back at the farm house had nice stiff gin drinks and talked some more, eating soup and cheeseburgers and smoking pot and while Lil made brownies Miss Welish played her guitar and Fred and I sang a duet about Harvard and Cornell and we smoked more pot and retired to our rooms, Lil and I making a slow, languorous giggly love and she cried, and Fred wandered in naked and asked if he could join us in an orgy and after casting the Die I had to say no and he said fuck the Die and I cast again which said that he could fuck the Die but not us and Miss Welish came in, Lil not casting the Die but saying no, and we all sat around discussing poetry and

promiscuity and pot and pornography and the pill and possible positions and penises and pudenda and potency and

permissiveness and playing and pricks.

Much later I made another long, languorous, giggly love to Lil who was all honeyed up from all the talk and before we

fell asleep she said to me dreamily `Now the dice man has a home' and I said `mmmm' and we slept.

Chapter Fifty-two

`I want you to help me to escape,' Eric said quietly, holding the tuna-fish-salad sandwich in his hands lightly, as if it

were delicate. We were in the Ward W cafeteria crowded in amongst other patients and their visitors. I was dressed

casually in an old black suit and a black turtleneck shirt, he was in stiff gray mental-hospital fatigues.

`Why?' I asked, leaning toward him so I could hear better over the surrounding din of voices.

`I've got to get out; I'm not doing anything here anymore.'

He was looking past my shoulder at the chaos of men in line behind my back.

`But why me? You know you can't trust me,' I said.

`I can't trust you, they can't trust you, no one can trust you.'

`Thanks'

`But you're the only untrustworthy one on their side who knows enough to help us.'

`I'm honored. 'I smiled, leaning back in my chair and self-consciously taking a sip from the straw leading into my

paper carton of chocolate milk. I missed the beginning of his next sentence.

`. . . will leave. I know that. Somehow it will come to pass.'

`What?' I said leaning forward again.

`I want you to help me to escape.'

`Oh, that,' I said. `When?'

'Tonight.'

`Ahhhh,' I said, like a doctor being given an especially interesting set of symptoms.

`Tonight at 8 P.M.'

`Not eight fifteen?'

`You will charter a bus to take a group of patients to see Hair in Manhattan. The bus will arrive at 7.45 P.M. You will

come in and lead us out.'

`Why do you want to see Hair?'

His dark eyes darted at me briefly, then back to chaos beyond my shoulder.

`We're not going to see Hair. We're escaping,' he went on quietly. `You'll let us all off on the other side of the bridge.'

`But no one can leave the hospital like that without a written order signed by Dr. Mann or one of the other directors of

the hospital.'

'You will forge the order. If a doctor gives it to the nurse in charge no one will suspect a forgery.'

`After you're free, what happens to me?'

He looked across at me calmly and with utter conviction said `That is not important. You are a vehicle.'

`I am a vehicle,' I said.

We looked at each other.

`A bus, to be exact,' I added.

`You are a vehicle, you will be saved.'

'That's a relief to know.'

We stared at each other.

`Why should I do this?' I finally asked. The noise around us was terrific and we had unconsciously brought our heads

closer and closer to each other until they were separated now by only six inches. For the first time a hint of a smile

crossed his lips.

'Because the die will tell you to,' he answered softly.

`Ahhh,' I said, like a doctor who has finally found the symptom which makes the whole syndrome come together. 'The

Die will tell me to '

`You will consult it now,' he said.

`I will consult it now.'

I reached into my suit-coat pocket and pulled out two green dice.

`As I may have already explained to you, I control the options and their probability.'

'It makes no difference,' Eric said.

`But I don't think much of the option to lead you in-such an escape.'

'It makes no difference,' he said, his slight smile returning.

`How many am I supposed to take to Hair with you?'

`Thirty-seven,' he said quietly.

I believe my mouth fell open.

`I, Dr. Lucius M. Rhinehart, am going to lead thirty-seven patients in the largest and most sensational mental-hospital

escape in American history tonight at eight?'

'Thirty-eight,' he said.

'Ah, thirty-eight,' I said. We probed into each other's eyes at six-inch range, and he seemed utterly without the slightest

doubt about the outcome of events.'

`Sorry,' I said, feeling angry. 'This is the, best I can do.'

I thought for several seconds and then went on: `I'm going to cast one die. If it's a two or a six I'll try to help you and

thirty-seven others escape somehow from this hospital sometime tonight.'

He didn't reply. `All right?'

'Go ahead and shake a six,' he said quietly. I stared back at him for a moment and then cupped my hands, shook the

die hard against my palms and flipped it onto the table between my empty milk carton and two lumps of tuna salad

and the salt. It was a two.

`Ha!' I said instinctively.

`Bring us some money too,' he said, leaning back slightly but without expression. `About a hundred bucks should do.'

He pushed back his chair and stood up and looked down at me with a bright smile.

`God works in mysterious way,' he said.

I looked back at him and for the first time realized that I too wanted not my will but the Die's will to be done.

`Yes,' I said. `The vehicles of God come in many shapes and-'

`See you tonight,' he said and edged his way out of the cafeteria.

Actually I wouldn't mind seeing Hair again, I thought, and then, smiling in dazed awe at the day I had before me, I set

to work planning the Great Mental Hospital Escape.

Chapter Fifty-three

`You're cured,' Jake said. `If I do say so myself.'

`I'm not sure, Jake.'

I said. We were in his office that afternoon and he was trying to tell me that this would be our last analytic session

together.

`Your interest in dice therapy has given you a rational base upon which to work with the dice. Before, you were using

the dice to escape your responsibilities. Now they have become your responsibility.'

`That's very acute, I must admit. But how do we know the Die won't flip me off in some new direction?'

`Because you've got a purpose now. A goal. You control the options, right?'

'True.'

`You think dice therapy's hot stuff, right?'

'Sometimes.'

`You aren't going to risk the advance of dice therapy for another roll in the hay with some dumb broad. You're not.

You know now what you want.'

`A smart broad?'

`The advance of dice therapy. The advance of dice therapy. It gives your life precisely that foundation which it's been