Luke Rheinhart - The Diceman

The restaurant was noisy and expensive, and, except for Dr. Mann, who loved every trough he had ever fed in, we all hated it and went there because every other restaurant we had tried in the convenient area was also crowded, noisy and expensive. I usually spent so much nervous energy trying to hear what my friends were saying over the clattering of voices, dishes and 'soft' music and trying to avoid watching Dr. Mann eating that I never remember whether the food was good or not. At any rate I rarely got sick on it.

'Only ten percent of our subjects believe that masturbation is "punished by God eternally",' Dr. Felloni was saying as Jake I sat down opposite each other at the tiny table. She was apparently talking about a research project she and I were jointly directing and she smiled formally and equally to her left at Jake and to her right at me, and continued: 'Thirty and a third percent believe that masturbation is "punished by God finitely"; forty percent that it is physically unhealthy two and one-half percent believe that there is danger of pregnancy seventy-five per -'

'Danger of pregnancy?' Jake broke in as he turned from accepting a menu.

'We use the same multiple choices' she explained smiling, 'for masturbation, kissing, petting, premarital and post #161;marital heterosexual intercourse, homosexual petting, and homosexual sodomy So far, subjects have indicated that there is danger of pregnancy only with masturbation, petting to orgasm, and heterosexual intercourse.'

I smiled to Jake, but he was squinting at Dr. Felloni.

'Well' Jake asked her, `what's the question you're reeling off percentages for?'

'We ask, "For what reasons, if any, do you believe that sexually exciting yourself through fantasy, reading, looking at pictures or manual excitation is bad?"

`Do you give them a choice of reasons for why masturbation flood?'

Dr. Mann asked, wiping his lower lip with a piece of roll.

'Certainly,' Dr. Felloni replied. `A subject can answer that he approves of masturbation for any of six options: (1) It is enjoyable (2) it releases tension; (3) it is a natural way of expressing love; (4) it is something one should experience to be complete (5) procreates the race; (6) it is the social thing to do.'

Jake and I now both began laughing. When we quieted she assured Jake that only the first two choices had been chosen for masturbation, except for one person who had indicated that masturbation was valuable as a way of expressing love. She had determined in a recent interview, however, that the eject had checked that item in a cynical frame of mind.

I don't know why you ever got involved in this thing,' Jake said, turning to me suddenly. `Social psychologists have been turning out studies like yours for decades. You're digging in sterile ground.'

Dr. Felloni nodded politely at Jake's words as she did whenever someone was uttering anything which might vaguely be construed as criticism of her or her work. The more vigorous and direct the criticism the more vigorously she nodded her head. It was my hypothesis that were a prosecuting attorney ever to attack her for a full hour there would be no need for a guillotine: her neck would have melted away, and her head, still nodding, would be rolling on the floor at the prosecutor's feet. She replied to Jake:

`Our plan to evaluate the validity of the multiple choice answers by in-depth interviews of every subject is, however, a genuine contribution.'

`You'll spend - my God - a hundred and twenty hours verifying the obvious: namely, multiple-choice attitude tests are unreliable.'

`Yes, but remember we got a foundation grant,' I said.

`So what? Why didn't you request it fob something original, something worthwhile?'

`We wanted a foundation grant,' I answered ironically.

Jake gave me his I-see-into-your-soul squint and then laughed.

`We couldn't think of anything original or worthwhile,' I added, laughing too, `so we decided to do this: Dr. Felloni

managed to nod and frown, both vigorously.

`You'll discover that sexual intercourse is more frequently approved after marriage than before,' said Jake, `that

homosexuals approve of homosexuality, that-'

`Our results' Dr. Felloni said quietly, `may not fulfil conventional expectation. We may discover from our in-depth

interviews that subjects misrepresent their attitudes and experiences in a way that previous experimenters did not

guess.'

'She's right, Jake. I agree the whole thing seems a mammoth bore and may lead to the verification of the obvious, but it

might not.'

`It will,' Dr. Mann said.

`What?' I said.

`It will verify the obvious and nothing more.'

He looked up at me for the first time. His jowls were a Santa Claus pink, either from alcohol or anger. I couldn't tell.

'So why do you waste your time? Renata could do the whole thing herself without your help.'

`It's an entertaining time-filler. I often daydream of publishing embellished results to parody such experiments. You

know. "Ninety-five percent of American youth believe that masturbation is a better way of expressing friendship and

love than intercourse."

'Your experiment is a parody without embellishment,' Dr. Mann said.

There was a silence, if you can exclude the cacophony of voices, dishes and music of the surrounding hubbub.

'Our experiment,' Dr. Felloni finally said with a gallop of nods, `will offer new insight into the relations between

sexual behavior, sexual tolerance and personality stability.'

'I read your letter to the Esso Foundation,' Dr. Mann said.

'I know a teen-age girl that could run intellectual rings around most of us here,' Jake said, changing the subject with

out blinking an eye. `She knew everything, brains coming out of her ears. I was within weeks of a major breakthrough.

But she died'

'She died?' I asked.

'Fell from the Williamsburg Bridge into the East River. I confess I see her as one of my two or three possible failures.'

'Look, Tim' I said turning back to Dr. Mann. `I agree our experiment borders on nonsense, but in an absurd world, one

can only go with the flow.'

'I'm not interested in your metaphysical speculations.'

`Or my scientific ones. Maybe I'd better stick to talking about the stock market.'

'. `Oh come off it now, you too,' Jake said. `Ever since Luke wrote his paper on "Taoism, Zen and Analysis", Tim has

been feting as if he'd been converted to astrology.'

'At least with astrology,' said Dr. Mann, looking coldly at `one still tries to predict something important. With Zen

drifts into Nirvana without thought or effort'

`One doesn't drift into Nirvana,' I said helpfully. 'The drifting is Nirvana.'

`A convenient theory,' Dr. Mann said.

'All good theories are.'

'Gold stocks and General Motors have risen an average of two points a week so far this month,' Dr. Felloni said,

nodding.

`Yeah,' said Jake, `and you'll notice that Waste Products, Inc., Dolly's Duds and Nadir Technology are all rising.'

Dr. Mann and I continued to look at each other, he with warm red face and chill blue eyes, and I with what I intended

to be cheerful detachment.

`My stock seems rather low these days,' I said.

`Perhaps it's gravitating to its natural level,' he replied.

`It may yet rally.'

`Drifters don't rally.'

`Yes they do,' I said. 'You just don't understand Zen.'

`I feel blessed,' Dr. Mann said.

`You've got eating, let me have my Zen and sex experiments.'

`Eating doesn't interfere with my productivity.'

'I rather imagine it increases it.'

Ha flushed even more and pushed back his chair.

`Oh shit,' said Jake. `Will you two stop it. Tim, you're sitting there like a fat Buddha attacking Luke's Buddhism, and