Luke Rheinhart - The Diceman

P.M. I was continually typing documents, forging Dr. Mann's signature and rushing away to have the orders delivered to the appropriate staff. I got so I could sign Dr. Mann's signature faster and more accurately than he. As it was, I still had signed eighty-six fewer documents than were legally required for such an excursion.

Would you be suspicious if someone called up in muffled voice with a hint of a Negro accent and requested a forty-five seat bus to take thirty-eight mental patients to a Broadway musical on six hours' notice that very evening. Have you ever tried to lead thirty-eight mental patients off a ward when half of them don't know where they're going or don't want to go, aren't dressed for it or want to watch the Mets' night game on TV? Since I didn't know which thirty-eight of the forty-three patients on the ward my sponsor wanted to lead to freedom, I had to choose at random thirty-eight names - which naturally did not correspond with those Mr. Cannon had in mind. Do you think that the head nurse or Dr. Lucius M. Rhinehart would permit any substitution for the names on this list? `Look here, Rhinehart, two of my best men are not on this list,' Arturo whispered desperately into my ear at seven fifty-three that night.

'They'll have to see Hair another night,' I said.

`But I want these men,' he went on fiercely.

`These are the thirty-eight names on the list. These are the thirty-eight patients whom I will escort to Hair.

He dragged me farther off into the corner.

`But Cannon said only that the dice said-'

`The dice said only that I would try to help Mr. Cannon and thirty-seven other mental patients escape. It mentioned no

names. If you want to take some initiative, I assure you I don't know Smith from Peterson from Kling, but I myself am

taking only people who call themselves Smith, Peterson and Klug.'

He rushed away.

Five minutes later Head Nurse Herbie Flamm waddled up `Say, Dr. Rhinehart, I don't see Heckelburg on this list but I

just saw him leave with that last group with your attendants.'

'Heckelburg?' I said. `Perhaps not. I'll check.'

I walked away.

Flamm caught me again just as I was leaving.

`Sorry to bother you again, Doc, but four of the guys on your list are still here and four guys who aren't on your list

have just left.'

`Are you positive, Mr. Flamm, that you now have five patients left on the ward?'

`Yes sir.'

`And that only thirty-eight have left?'

'Yes sir.'

`Are you sure my name is Rhinehart?'

He stared up at me and began using his big belly nervously.

`Yes, sir. I think so, sir.'

`Yon think my name is Rhinehart?'

`Yes Sir.'

`Who is that patient - over there?'

I asked, pointing to one I'd never seen before and hoped was a new admission.

'Er . . . ah . . . him?'

`Yes, he,' I said coldly towering over him.

`I'll have to check with the attendant, Higgens. He-'

`We're going to be late for the opening curtain, Mr. Flamm. I'm afraid I can't rely on your fuzzy memory for names to delay us any longer. Goodbye.' `Goo - goodbye, Doc-'

'Rhinehart. Remember it.' Have you ever walked down Broadway in the middle of a line of thirty-eight men dressed variously in khakis, sneakers, sandals, Bermuda shorts, hospital fatigues, torn T-shirts, African capes, bathrobes, bedroom slippers, pajama tops and sweat suits and led by an utterly serene eighteen-year-old boy wearing a white hospital robe and whistling `The Battle Hymn of the Republic'? Have you ever then walked beside the beatific boy to lead such a line into a Broadway theater? And looked natural? And relaxed? When half the seats were in the front row? (The summer doldrums made it possible for me to get seats at the last minute - 4.30 P.M. that afternoon - but twenty of them cost $8.50 apiece.) Have you then tried to seat thirty-eight odd people when half the seats were scattered like buckshot over a five-hundred seat theater? When three of your patients were walking zombies, four manic-depressives and six alert homosexuals? Have you then tried to maintain a sense of dignity, firmness and authority when one of these unfortunates keeps coming up to you and whispering hysterically about when are they all supposed to escape?

`Rhinehart!' Arturo X hissed at me in anguish. `What the hell are we doing here at Hair?'

`My orders were to bring you to Hair. This I have done. The die specifically rejected the option that I release you on

Lexington Avenue. I hope you enjoy yourself.'

'There're four pigs standing at the back. I saw them when we came in. Is this some. sort of trap?'

`I know nothing about the police. There are other ways out of a theater. I hope you enjoy yourself. Be happy.'

`The Goddam houselights are dimming. What the hell are we supposed to do?'

`Listen to the music. I have brought you to Hair. Enjoy yourself. Dance. Be happy.'

Through it all Erie Cannon retained the serenity of a golfer with a two-inch putt and never once approached me #161;

except .for two seconds just after the end of the first act (`Groovy show, Dr. Rhinehart, glad we came'). But Arturo X

squirmed in his seat every second that he wasn't lunging up the aisle to speak to one of his followers or to me.

`Look, Rhinehart,' he hissed at me near the end of the intermission. `What will you do if we all get up and dance and

go onto the stage?'

`I have brought you to Hair. I want you to enjoy yourselves. Be happy. Dance. Sing.'

He stared into my eyes like an oculist searching for signs of retinal decomposition and then barked out a short laugh.

'Jesus…' he said.

`Have a good time, son,' I said as he left.

`Dr. Rhinehart, I think the patients are whispering among themselves,' one of my big attendants said about three

minutes later.

`A dirty joke no doubt,' I said.

`That Arturo Jones has been going around to everyone whispering.'

`I told him to remind everyone to catch the bus back to the island with us.'

`What if someone tries to make a break for it?'

'Apprehend him gently but firmly.'

`What if they all make a break for it?'

`Apprehend those with the most acute socially debilitating illnesses - the zombies and killers in brief - and leave the

rest to the police.'

I smiled at him serenely. `But no violence. We must not give our hospital attendants a bad name. We must not upset

the audience.'

`Okay, Doctor.'

I seated myself between the most clearly homicidal patients, and when the men in our row began to rise to join the

dance to the stage, I wrapped one of my huge arms around the throat of each of them and squeezed until they seemed strangely sleepy. I then watched the interesting opening to Act II Where thirty or so oddly dressed members of the cast who had apparently been posing as members of the audience around me began to dance down the aisles and upon to the stage frolicking with each other in a friendly roughhouse way. The onstage part of the cast pretended slight confusion but continued to sing on as the new weirdies mixed with the Act I wierdies and sang and danced and frolicked, all singing the opening number `Where Do I Go?' until most of the newcomers had gone.

The police questioned me for about half an hour at the theater, and I phoned the hospital and told the appropriate staff members there of the slight difficulties we had encountered and I phoned Dr. Mann at my apartment and informed him that thirty-three patients had escaped from Hair. My phone call had pulled him away from a hand in which he was holding a full house, aces over jacks, and he was as upset as I've ever heard him.

`My God, my God Luke, thirty-three patients. What have you done? What have you done?'

`But your letter said `What letter? NO, no, no, Luke, you know I would never write any letter about thirty-three - oh! #161;you know it! How could you do it?'