The Dice Man

by Luke Rhinehart

  '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 lacking since you rejected your father in the form of Freud and Dr. Mann and began this random rebellion.'

  `But a good dice therapist must lead a random life.'

  `But he's got to meet the patient regularly. He's got to show up ' `Mmmmm.'

  `He's got to listen. He's got to teach.'

  `Hmmm.'

  `Moreover, you've got Lil trying dice therapy, your kids. Your new self is being accepted. You don't have to play the fool anymore.'

  `I see.'

  `I even accept the new Luke. Arlene has introduced me to several, Ah, positions of dice therapy. I spoke to Boggles. Dice therapy makes sense.'

  `1t does?'

  `Of course it does.'

  `But it will tend to break down the sense of a stable self so necessary for a human to feel secure.'

  `Only superficially. Actually, it builds a dice-student's - Jesus, I'm using your terms already - a patient's strength by forcing him into continual conflict with others.'

  `Builds ego strength?'

  'Sure. You're not afraid of anything now, are you?'

  `Well, I don't know.'

  `You've made an ass of yourself so many times that you can't be hurt.'

  'Ahh, very acute.'

  'That's ego strength.' `Without any ego.'

  `Semantics, but it's what we're after. I can't be hurt because I analyze everything. A scientist examines his wound, his wounder and his healer with equal neutrality.'

  `And the dice-student obeys the dice decision, good and bad, with equal passion.'

  `Right,' he said.

  `But what kind of a society will it be if people begin consulting the Die to make their decisions?'

  `No problem. People are only as eccentric as their options and most of the people who will go through dice therapy are going to develop just like you; that's what makes your case so important. They're all going to go through a period of chaotic rebellion and then move into a lifetime of moderate, rational use of the dice consistent with some overall purpose.'

  'That's very nice, Jake,' I said and leaned back on the couch from the alert sitting position I had been in.

  `I'm depressed,' I added.

  `Moderate, rational use of the dice is rational and moderate and every man should try it.'

  `But the dicelife should be unpredictable and irrational and immoderate. If it isn't, it isn't dicelife.'

  `Nonsense. You're following the dice these days, right?'

  `Yes.'

  `You're seeing your patients, living with your wife, seeing me regularly, paying your bills, talking to your friends, obeying the laws: you're leading a healthy, normal life. You're cured.'

  `A healthy, normal life -'

  `And you're not bored anymore.'

  `A healthy, normal life unbored -'

  `Right. You're cured.'

  `It's hard to believe.'

  `You were a tough nut to crack.'

  `I don't feel any different than I did three months ago.'

  `Dice therapy, purpose, regularity, moderation, sense of limits: you're cured.'

  `So this is the end of my booster analysis?'

  `It's all over but the shouting.'

  'How much do I owe you?'

  `Miss R'll have the bill for you when you leave.' `Well, thank you, Jake.'

  `Luke, baby, I'm finishing up "The Case of the Six-Sided Man" this afternoon and after poker tonight. I thank you.'

  `It's a good article?'

  `Tougher the case, better the article. By the way I've asked old Arnie Weissman to try to get you invited to speak at this fall's annual AAPP convention - on Dice Therapy. Pretty good, huh?'

  `Well, thank you, Jake.'

  `Thought I'd present "The Case of the Six-Sided Man" on the same day.'

  'The dynamic duo,' I said.

  `I thought of titling the article "The Case of the Mad Scientist," but settled on "The Six-Sided Man."

  What do you think?'

  `The "Case of the Six-Sided Man."

  'It's beautiful.'

  Jake came around from behind his neat desk and put his arm way up on my shoulder and grinned up into my face.

  `You're a genius, Luke, and so am I, but moderation.'

  'So long,' I said, shaking his hand.

  `See you tonight for poker,' he said as I was leaving.

  `Oh that's right. I'd forgotten. I may be a bit late. But I'll see you.'

  As I was softly closing the door behind me, he caught my eye one last time and grinned.

  `You're cured,' he said.

  `I doubt it, Jake, but you never can tell. Die be with you.'

  `You too, baby.'

  Chapter Fifty-four

  [From The New York Times, Wednesday, August 13, 1969, late edition.] In the largest mass escape in the history of New York State Mental Institutions, thirty-three patients of Queensborough State Hospital of Queens escaped last night during a performance of Hair at the Blovill Theater in midtown Manhattan.

  By 2 A.M. this morning ten of these had been recaptured by city police and hospital officials, but twenty-three remained at large.

  At the Blovill Theater the patients sat through the first act of the hit musical Hair, but as the second act was beginning they made their escape. Most of the patients began to snake-dance their way onto the stage to the music of the first number of Act 2 `Where Do I Go?', mingled with the cast, and then fled backstage and hence to the street. The Blovill audience apparently assumed the performance of the patients was part of the show.

  Hospital officials claim that someone apparently forged the signature of Hospital Director Timothy L. Mann, M.D., on documents ordering staff members to make arrangements to transport thirty-eight patients from the admissions ward to see the musical by chartered bus.

  Dr. Lucius M. Rhinehart, whom the forged documents had ordered to organize and guide the expedition, stated that he and his attendants had concentrated on holding the three or four potentially dangerous patients and could not make an effort to pursue the majority when they fled backstage. In all, five patients were restrained within the theater.

  `The excursion was ill-tuned and ill-planned - ridiculous in fact and I knew it,' he said. `But I attempted on four separate occasions to get in touch with Dr. Mann to question him about the request, and, failing, had no choice but to carry it out.'

  Police indicated that the size of the mass escape, the character of some of the patients involved, and the complicated series of forgeries needed to fool responsible staff members indicate a plot of major proportions.

  Among those who escaped were Arturo Toscanini Jones, a Black Party member who recently made news when he spat in Mayor Lindsay's face during one of the mayor's walking tours of Harlem, and hippie figure Eric Cannon, whose followers recently caused a disturbance at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine during the Easter Mass.

  A complete list of the names of those who have escaped was being withheld pending communication by hospital officials with the relatives of those who fled.

  The patients who escaped were dressed for the most part in khakis and tee-shirts and informal footwear such as sneakers, sandals, and slippers. A few patients, it was reliably reported, had been wearing pajama tops or bathrobes.

  Police warned that some of the patients might be dangerous if cornered and urged citizens to approach all known escapees with caution. They noted that among them were two of Mr. Jones's Black Party followers.

  A full investigation of the breakout was under way.

  Officials of the Blovill Theater and Hair Productions, Inc., denied that they had managed the mass escape as a publicity stunt.

  How simple it all seems now reading about it again in the Time
s. Forge documents, charter bus, drive to theater, flee during performance.

  Do you have any idea how many documents have to be forged to get one single patient released for one single hour from a mental hospital? From the time I left Eric at 11.30 A.M. that morning until my analytic hour with Jake at 3 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 fortyfive 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 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 t
hirty-three - oh! you know it! How could you do it?'

  `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.