The Diceman

by Luke Rheinhart

  Chapter Forty-one

  As I sit here writing of that distant night, the tragedies and comedies bloom like flowers around me still, and I continue on from day to day or year to year to play a role, and certainly, sooner or later, I'll abandon that of dice man too. A role, a role. Star billing one day, walk-on the next. Vaudeville standup comic Shakespearian-fool. Alceste in the morning, Gary Cooper and a hippie during the day, Jesus at night. I no longer remember precisely when I stopped acting: when the fallen die began to click to life roles where there was no residual me fighting them and no dice man me feeling proud, only lives being lived. I do remember that alone in that room that night after Lil left I felt a full joyous uninhibited grief. I was in pain, I suffered, I was there.

  And you, Friend, sprawled on your bed or sitting in your chair, you giggle perhaps as I slobber as Caliban, smile at my sufferings as an honest man, or sigh when I ponderously play the fool, philosophizing my madness, lecturing you on the metaphor of life as play. But I am the honest man - with all his senseless suffering for those who will feel; I am the fool. I've been Raskolnikov climbing the stairs, Julien Sorel hearing the clock strike ten, Molly Bloom writhing beneath the rhythmic push of Blazes Boylan's prick. Agonies are one of my changes of garments - fortunately not worn as often as my motley - of the fool.

  And you, Reader, good friend and fellow fool my reader, you, yes you, my sweet cipher, are the Dice Man. Having read this far, you are doomed to carry with you burned forever in your soul the self I've here portrayed: the Dice Man. You are multiple and one of you is me. I have created in you a flea which will forever make you itch. Ah, Reader, you never should have let me be born. Other selves bite now and then no doubt. But the Dice Man flea demands to be scratched at every moment: he is, insatiable. You will never know an itchless moment again - unless, of course, you become the flea.

  Chapter Forty-two

  On the edge of the bed, alone, the party outside seeming to settle into precisely the businesslike buzz it manifested before, Luke Rhinehart sat hunched over, numbed. There was no retreat He was the Dice Man or he was no one. His body knew, dough he could not yet be aware consciously, that Luke Rhinehart was now an impossible existence. Numbed, he disturbed the Die by not consulting the watch for almost ten minutes. Then, having no place else to go, no one else to be, he took out the watch with the die and looked.

  Slowly he straightened himself up and, standing, bowed his head in a brief prayer. Then he smoothed down his clothing and his hair and moved toward the party. He wanted first see his wife to abase himself before her. He walked down the hall to the living room and from the doorway squinted through the random clusters of faces, looking for her. Those talking and drinking paid him no special attention, but Mrs. Ecstein came up behind him and said that his wife was in Dr. Mann's office: He followed her down the hall and over the broken glass to the office. He found Dr. Mann and Dr. Ecstein standing awkwardly on either side of his wife, who sat, childlike, on the edge of Dr. Mann's consulting couch.

  The sight of her, hunched over and small, her face pale but streaked with smeared eye shadow, her hair in disarray, an ugly man's sweater draped clumsily over her shoulders, knocked Dr. Rhinehart without conscious intention to his with his chest and head too lowering forward until he groveled at his wife's feet.

  The room was silent that they could all hear quite distinctly from the centre of the house the ratatattat of Dr. Krum's laughter: `Forgive me, Lil, I am mad,' Dr. Rhinehart said.

  Ne one spoke. Rhinehart raised his head and chest from the floor to look at his wife and he said: `For what I have done there is no forgiveness in this world; but I am repentant. I . . . I have been purified … by the hell that I am causing. I..' His eyes suddenly brightened with eagerness `I feel only love for you and for all here. The world can be a blessed place if we but love one another.'

  'Luke, baby, what are you . . .?' Dr. Ecstein said, and he took a step forward as if to raise Dr. Rhinehart up but stopped.

  `Beautiful, beautiful Jake, I'm talking about love.'

  Dr. Rhinehart shook his head slowly as if confused, and a childlike smile appeared on his face. `I've been all mixed up,

  all wrong; love, loving, loveliness is all there is: He turned and stretched out his arms to his wife. 'Lil, my darling, you

  must realize that Heaven is here, is now, with me.'

  His wife returned his gaze for a moment and then slowly raised her eyes to Dr. Mann beside her. A look of immense

  relief began to appear on her face.

  `He is insane, isn't he?' she asked.

  'I don't know,' Dr. Mann said. `Now, of course, but he keeps changing so. It may be only temporary.'

  'You fools, we've all been insane,' Dr. Rhinehart said. `I but look at each of you and love. God is shining forth from

  each of you like fluorescent lights. Open your eyes and see: He was erect now on his knees, his fists clenched and his

  face strangely exalted.

  `Better give him a shot of sodium amaytol, Tim,' Dr. Ecstein said to Dr. Mann in a whisper.

  `I've only got pills here in the house,' Dr. Mann whispered back.

  `Careless,' Dr. Ecstein said.

  `But why why why,' Dr. Rhinehart began forcefully, `do you want to quiet God? I am among you spraying love and

  you do not hear, do not see, do not let it refresh you.'

  He arose. `I must beg forgiveness of that poor innocent girl and show her my new love.'

  And he abruptly strode from the room.

  Down the hall and over the broken glass again and into the living room. Miss Welish was with Dr. Boyd beside the

  bookcase in one corner. When he went to them, Dr. Boyd came protectively between Dr. Rhinehart and the girl.

  `What now, Luke?' he said.

  `I am deeply sorry for the insane attack I made on you, Miss Welish. I sincerely regret it. Only now do I see the true

  meaning of love.'

  Miss Welish, round-eyed, peeked around her escort's shoulder.

  `Oh come off it, Luke,' Dr. Boyd said.

  'You are beautiful; you are both beautiful, and I deeply regret having marred this wonderful evening.'

  'I hope I didn't hurt you,' Miss Welish said.

  'My pain was the initial source of my seeing the light. I can't thank you enough.'

  'Any time,' Dr. Boyd said. `Come on, Joya, let's leave.'

  `But I have to. . ' The voice of Miss Welish was lost behind the retreating figure of Dr. Boyd.

  `You are better, true?' Dr. Krum said suddenly from below and beside Dr. Rhinehart as the two others moved away.

  The min, elderly former Big Deal was with him, and so was a fiftyish Important Person puffing on a pipe. As they

  began talking, Dr. Weinburger, president of PANY, the chubby middle-aged woman joined them.

  `I am whole at last,' Dr. Rhinehart replied.

  'What was this about the dice man, hey? Vas interesting.'

  `The Dice Man is a deeply sick concept, totally lacking in love.'

  `Seemed a bit schizophrenic the way Dr. Krum described it,' said Dr. Weinburger.

  `But the idea of destroying the personality: is interesting,' Dr. Krum went on.

  `Only if it shatters the shell which hides our love,' Dr. Rhinehart replied.

  `Love?' Dr. Weinburger inquired.

  `Our love.'

  `Vat has love to do vith anything?' asked Dr. Krum.

  `Love has something to do with everything. If I do not love I am dead.'

  `How true,' the woman said.

  `My whole recent life has been thrown away in a cold, mechanical dicelife. I see that now as clearly as your beautiful,

  handsome faces.'

  'Luke, I'd like you to come outdoors with me for a few minutes now,' Dr. Ecstein's voice said at Dr. Rhinehart's side.

  `I will, Jake, but I must explain something first to' Dr. Krum.'

  He turned to the little man beside him with a warm, pleading expression.

  'Y
ou must stop your work with pigeons and work only with man. You can never approach what is essential to man's health and happiness through torturing chickens and pigeons. Schizophrenia is a failure to love, a failure to see loveliness. It will never be cured by a drug.'

  `Oh, Dr. Rhinehart, you are being sentimental like poet,' Dr. Krum said.

  `A single line of Shelley tells us more of man than all your chicken pigeon droppings ever can.'

  `People haf been spouting love two thousand years. Nothing. With chemicals we change the world.'

  'Thou shah not kill,' Dr. Rhinehart said.

  We do not kill, only make psychotics.'

  `You do not love your chickens.'

  `Is impossible. No one who works with chickens can ever luf them.'

  'A spiritual man loves all with a spiritual love that is never selfish, possessive or physical.'

  `Oh, for Christ's sake, Luke Dr. Ecstein said.

  `Precisely,' said Dr. Rhinehart. `Excuse me a moment.'

  With the eminent physicians looking on, Dr. Rhinehart consulted his watch case. He groaned.

  `Is late?'

  Dr. Krum asked.

  Dr. Rhinehart's eyes swiveled over the room like artillery radar seeking its target.

  `I didn't know Dr. Rhinehart was an existentialist humanist,' the woman said.

  `He's a nut,' Dr. Ecstein said, `even if he is my patient'

  `Meetcha outside in five minutes, Jake. So long fellas,' Dr. Rhinehart said and strode off toward the entrance hall, but

  after passing a cluster of people behind the couch he veered to his right and went down the same hallway again.

  As he crunched over the broken glass he saw Miss Welish and Mrs. Ecstein emerging from the room opposite the one

  he had been carried to. They stopped at the end of the hall and looked at him warily.

  'Lil's been given a pill and is resting,' Mrs. Ecstein said. `I don't think you should disturb her.'

  `My God, Arlene, your boobs make my mouth water. Let's go into the john.'

  Mrs. Ecstein stared at him for a moment. She looked sideways at Miss Welish and then back to the doctor. Then, still

  staring at her mentor, she shook her tiny purse up and down three times, opened it a crack, and peeked in. Closing the

  purse, she said: `I love your big prick, Luke. Let's go: Miss Welish looked in awe from one to the other.

  `You too, baby;' Dr. Rhinehart said to her.

  `Come along, Joya,' Mrs. Ecstein said. `It'll be fun.'

  She touched Miss Welish lightly on the breasts and went into the bathroom to her left. Miss Welish watched Mrs. Ecstein leave and then found herself face to face with Dr. Rhinehart again.

  `Most beautiful body in the world, baby, except your knee. Let's go.'

  She stared at him.

  `But here?' she said.

  `Here and now, baby, that's all there is' He moved around her to the bathroom, held the door open and waited. With a swift backward glance up the empty hallway she walked toward the bathroom.

  `You people are really amazing,' she said. `Are all psychiatrists' parties like this?'

  `Only Dr. Mann's,' Dr. Rhinehart said and followed her in.

  Chapter Forty-three

  [Being excerpts from Dr. Ecstein's case history entitled, `The Case of the Six-Sided Man'.]

  After R had erratically broken off his conversation with the three psychiatrists, he left the party area. The three discussed the situation briefly and then were joined by Dr. M. after further discussion it was decided that R ought to be taken immediately to a private clinic. M telephoned the Clinic and asked for an ambulance. M and Dr. E. then went along with Dr. B to locate R.

  He was not outside, nor was he in M's office, but it was soon ascertained that he had locked himself in the bathroom. At first the doctors were concerned for R's life, but were reassured by the sound of other voices from the room. He called to those inside, but received no answer. B banged loudly on the door until E warned him it might be dangerous to excite R. For two minutes M tried to talk rationally with the patient but E, B and M heard only grunts in reply. B wanted to break the door down and enter, but M and E urged caution considering R's bulk and strength. An ambulance with attendants would soon arrive. Then female screams were heard from within the bathroom, and it was ascertained that the women with R were in all likelihood A and JW, female acquaintances of E and B. The door was broken down. It was disclosed that R had been in the process of raping the two females. The clothes of both were in extreme disarray and R's genitals were exposed and tumescent. He stood in the center of the room slobbering lasciviously and grunting. He seemed to have regressed to the bestial state. He could answer none of our questions and resisted our efforts to separate him from the females only in the most clumsy and ineffectual way. He had become docile.

  The two females seemed in a state of shock and could not explain their delay in calling for help. Whether it was the threat of R's great strength or some inexplicable hypnotic power occasionally exerted by the mentally imbalanced has never been determined. B had a different theory: Eventually, both females emerged from shock and burst into tears.

  `It was horrible,' said A.

  `The things he tried to make us do,' said JW.

  R only slobbered and grunted. The doctors had to dress him themselves, since he seemed incapable of it himself. K and M both advanced the hypothesis that the patient had subsided into a catatonic state. E, however, even at this early date, was able to postulate that R's breakdowns were random and sporadic and that a spontaneous remission of symptoms should be expected.

  Such was the case. Ten minutes later as all sat quietly and in great fatigue waiting for an ambulance, R began talking again. He apologized sincerely and realistically for his behavior, praised the doctors for the gentle and intelligent way they had handled a difficult situation, reassured them that he was now at last completely himself again, and after twenty minutes or so had most of those present laughing at the whole situation, then abruptly, just as the ambulance arrived, he threw himself on the only woman left in the room. Dr. F, and seemed, to be attempting coitus. The attendants and doctor arrived, he was pulled off, an injection was administered and the patient was taken to - Clinic ….

  Thus, the following day, June 16, E, as his psychiatrist, was able to visit him. It soon became apparent that R was under the illusion that he was a young hippie of extremely sarcastic, bent. Although he related to E, it was in a negative, aggressive way. The patient, although in complete contact with reality and often extremely observant, was not himself, and thus was still insane.

  On June 17 it was reported by the clinic that the patient spent his time in total silence, staring into space and occasionally grunting. He had to be spoon-fed and was unable to control his excretory functions. It seemed that a permanent catatonic state might have been reached.

  But R's recuperative powers continued to amaze. On the next day it was reported that he was talking again, relating well to the staff and physicians and requesting reading material, mostly of a religious nature. This last fact naturally worried E, but on June 19, 20 and 21 no new change was reported, so on June 22 E visited R again at the clinic..

  Chapter Forty-four

  While I bounced nicely from role to role in the Kolb Clinic, the rest of the world continued, I regret to say, to exist. Dr. Mann informed me that the executive committee of PANY had decided to consider the motion of Dr. Peerman for my expulsion from the organization at its monthly meeting on June 30. He believed that although he himself was urging the committee to permit me to quietly resign, it was almost certain that they would vote to expel me and to write to the AMA suggesting that organization do the same.

  Arlene wrote me that the dice, had told her that I was the father of the baby-to-be and that she had told Lil and Jake and most of the rest of the world the truth, or most of it, and thus Jake knew of our affair and of the dicelife. She said she couldn't come to therapy for a while.

  Lil came to
visit me just once to congratulate me on my future fatherhood and to announce that she had initiated divorce proceedings by taking out the necessary separation papers and that her lawyer would be visiting me shortly. (He did, but I was in the state of catatonia at the time.) She stated that separation and divorce were clearly best for both of us especially since I would undoubtedly be spending much of the rest of my life in mental institutions.

  Dr. Vener of QSH told me that my former patient Eric Cannon had, after two months of leading a growing herd-of hippies in Brooklyn and in the East Village, been recommitted to the hospital by his father and was asking to see me. He also noted that Arturo Toscanini Jones had also been recommitted - on a technicality unearthed by diligent police #161;and was not asking to see me.

  In fact, the only good news I was getting from the rest of the world was from my patients in dice therapy. All took my being locked up perfectly in their stride, continued to develop their dicelife on their own and waited patiently and confidently for my return to them. Terry Tracy visited me twice at the clinic and spent two and a half hours trying to convert me to the Ultimata-Truth of the Religion of the Die. I was deeply moved.

  Professor Boggles wrote me a long letter about a mystical experience he had had in Central Park after following the Die writing a particularly nonsensical article on Theodore and the Lyrical Impulse. Two of my new patients visited me regularly during my second wok at the clinic and dad me continue therapy with them there.

  Arlene, too, seemed to grow in dice stature during this crisis period. Her letter explaining what was happening on the home front made me quite proud of her and prepared me for my interviews with Jake. She told me that Jake had taken her confession of infidelity quite calmly but had bawled her out for keeping it all to herself. It seems it was her ethical duty to provide him with as much information as possible about herself and everyone she knew since he could not fulfil his therapeutic duties without honesty and information. She had therefore gone on to tell him about her own and my dicelife and our dice games together. He had taken extensive notes and asked a lot of questions but was very calm. He had ordered her to limit her dicelife to the socially conventional until he had an opportunity to study the situation. She had then suggested that it might be of help to him if he experimented with some of the dice games with her in order to understand her problems and my problems better. He agreed, and they had had the best night together that they had had since high school days. Jake said he found it interesting. Arlene wrote that she could come visit me as soon as the Die said it was okay.