Luke Rheinhart - The Diceman

`I tried to see you, to phone you.'

`But you didn't seem upset. I had no idea. Thirty-three patients!'

`We held onto five.'

`Oh Luke, my God, the papers, Dr. Esterbrook, the Senate Committee on Mental Hygiene, my God, my God.'

`They're just people,' I said. `Why didn't someone call me during the day, a note, a messenger, something? Why was

everyone so stupid? To take thirty-three patients off the ward'

`Thirty-eight.'

`To a Broadway musical'

`Where should we have taken them? Your letter said `Don't say that! Don't mention any letter by me!'

`But I was just-'

`To Hair!' and he choked. `The newspapers, Esterbrook, Luke, Luke, what have you done?'

`It'll be all right, Tim. Mental patients are always recaptured.'

`But no one ever reads about that. They get loose - that's news.'

`People will be impressed with our permissive, progressive policies. As you said in your let-'

`Don't say that! We must never let a patient out of the hospital again. Never.'

`Relax, Tim, relax, I've got to talk some more to the police and the reporters and '

`Don't say a word! I'm coming down. Say you've got laryngitis. Don't talk.'

`I've got to go now, Tim. You hurry on down.'

`Don't say-'

I hung up.

I talked to police and the reporters and minor hospital officials and then Dr. Mann in person for another hour and a half, not getting back to the poker party at my apartment until close to midnight.

Lil, I'm happy to report, was winning substantially, with Miss Welish and Fred Boyd the primary losers and Jake and Arlene breaking even. They were all rather interested in what had happened to so upset Dr. Mann, but I played it down, called it a minor Happening, a tempest in a teapot, implied that some subversive underground group had conspired a series of forgeries, and insisted I was sick of the subject and wanted to play poker.

I was tremendously keyed up and could barely sit still in my chair, but they kindly dealt me in, and by ignoring their further questions I was finally left to concentrate on my abominably bad luck with the cards. I lost badly to Fred Boyd on the first hand and even worse to Arlene on the second. By the end of seven hands without a winner I was thoroughly depressed and everyone else (except Miss Welish, who was sleepy and bored) was quite gay. The phone had rung just once and I had told the police that I didn't know how I had been cut off during my attempted phone call to Dr. Mann that afternoon, but that it obviously wasn't me since I was talking on the phone at the time.

I told them that I talked to Arturo Jones at Hair because he was an acute drama critic and that I had single-handedly held on to two of the most dangerous patients and that I'd appreciate a little respect since I felt badly enough about losing as it was.

I lost two more hands of poker and got gloomier and the party broke up with Fred telling about how he was using dice therapy with two of his patients and Jake telling me about a sentence he'd written in his article, and they were gone and Lil, laughing happily, went off to bell. I, despite several of her most obscene kisses, remained behind slumped in the easy chair brooding about my fate.

Chapter Fifty-five

The events which occurred between 1.30 A.M. and 3.30 A.M. that morning, being of some historical note, must be recorded objectively. Dr. Rhinehart had realized for several weeks that the early morning hours of August 13 were, in effect, the first anniversary of his relationship with the Die. He had planned to do as he had at the beginning of 1969; create a list of longer range options from which the Die would choose to direct his life.

He found, however, that he was too distraught over the possible consequences of his activities of the previous day to concentrate on options running much longer than a few minutes. A year before, he had been bored and restless; now he was overexcited and restless. He lunged back and forth across the living room, gritting his teeth, clenching his fists, stroking them against his tensed belly, gulping in huge lungfuls of air, trying to determine whether the police would be able to build a convincing case against him. His only hope, as he saw it, was that when one or more of Mr. Cannon's or Mr. Jones's recaptured followers began alleging that he (Dr. Rhinehart) had aided and abetted their escape, their allegations would be taken as the statements of mentally imbalanced persons, creatures legally unfit to give reliable testimony. Dr. Rhinehart spent close to twenty minutes concocting his defense - mostly a lengthy indictment of the secret black and hippie conspiracy to frame all white doctors named Rhinehart.

At last, however, in exasperation at his nervousness, Dr. Rhinehart returned to reality and cast a die to determine whether he would brood about his problems with the police and Dr. Mann for zero, five, ten or thirty minutes or one day, or until the problems were resolved, and the die ordered ten more minutes. When the time had elapsed, he breathed an immense sigh and smiled.

`Now. Where are we?' he thought.

He then recalled that it was his anniversary, and with that inhuman casualness for which future generations of healthy

normal people were to condemn him and for which future generations of dicepeople have admired him, he dictated

that should he flip a one, a three or a five he would go downstairs and try to engage in sexual congress with Mrs.

Ecstein. The Die fell three and he arose, informed his wife that he was going for a walk and left the apartment.

Since this episode is of little importance, we report it in Dr. Rhinehart's own words .

I clumped down the stairs, past the rusty railing and cast-off advertising circular and rang the doorbell. It was 2.20

A.M., a little late this year, and certainly no time for a little tete-a-tete. Arlene came bleary-eyed clutching Jake's old

bathrobe - to her throat.

`Oh,' she said.

`I've come to engage in sexual congress, Arlene.'

`Come in,' she said.

`The dice told me to do it again.'

`But Jake's here,' she said, blinking her eyes absently and letting the robe fall slightly open.

`He's working in his study at the end of the hall.'

`I'm sorry, but you know how the Die is,' I said.

`I promised not to hide anything from him anymore.'

`But did you consult the Die about that?'

`Oh, you're right.'

She turned and went down the hall a short way and then into her bedroom: I joined her at her vanity table, where

successive flips of a die determined that she was to tell Jake everything and that she was to permit sexual congress

with me, but only in Kama Sutra positions eighteen and twenty-six, which, she said, were particularly suited for

women in their fifth month of pregnancy.

I then followed her up the hall and watched over her shoulder as she stood in the slightly open doorway of Jake's study

looking in at her husband hard at work at his desk.

`Jake?' she said tentatively.

`What's up?' he barked back, not looking up. - `Luke's here,' she said.

`Oh. Come on in Luke baby, I'm just about finished.'

`We're sorry to bother you, Jakie,' Arlene said, `but the Die said Luke had to-'

`I've got a ring-linger last chapter, Luke, if I do say so myself,' Jake said, smiling, and scratching furiously with his

pen across some errant phrase.

`- engage in sexual congress,' I heard Arlene finish.

`What's that?' Jake said and looked up again.

`What?'

`It's our anniversary,' I added.

He scratched his throat and grimaced and looked a little annoyed.

`Oh that,' he finally said. `Jesus, Moses, Freud. I don't know what the world's coming to.'

He stared at us both a long time, squinting horribly. Then he reached to his side, rolled a die across his desk and