The Dice Man (27 page)

Except our hero, whose income continues to be modest. At the age of twenty-five he has reached the first apex of the Rhinehart Power Pattern for Men: the dream of reforming the world. By the age of twenty-eight or nine regression has begun. His wife is reminding him that the world is still unreformed and that other men are earning ... et cetera. He returns to his dreams of success. Only now they are more modest, more limited. Now he rules only Pierce, Perkins and Poof and not General Motors. Now his coup on the stock market is only a thousand dollars, not four million. Middle age, like rigor mortis, has set in.

The regression continues: in three or four years he reassumes his position as managing director of a harem, but it isn't what it used to be. It is populated with secretaries, receptionists and, on particularly good days, a famous movie star. Jane Fonda, while protest picketing at Pierce, Perkins and Poof, takes one glance at him and drags him off to a commune where - but it doesn't seem quite real, so he returns to the conquering of the little telephone operator Maggie Blemish.

At the age of thirty-seven he suddenly resigns from Pierce, Perkins and Poof to join the New York Football Giants. The prospect of running 109 yards or dragging fourteen men on his back no longer seems as jolly as it did at the age of thirteen, so he joins the Giants as head coach. Although his team has finished dead last for six consecutive seasons and still has the same incompetent men, our male introduces a new spread formation with three running quarterbacks separated by thirty yards and a center who can hike the ball to any one of them, and the Giants, running new quadruple reverses off fake-draw quick kicks, all season, win fourteen straight. He takes over as head coach of the New York Hockey Rangers at midseason and, thanks to a revolutionary introduction of six men into the forward line - but the pattern is familiar.

At the age of forty-one it is complete; the male, resigning his six head-coach-ships, once again dreams of conquering the world. The accumulated bitterness of the years asserts itself, he becomes as fast as a speeding bullet, as powerful as a locomotive and can leap buildings with three powerful strides. He becomes a General Curtis LeMay and bombs China back into the Stone Age. He becomes a Spiro Agnew and puts the blacks and hippies and liberals firmly in then places. His wife and children are being tortured to death in some horribly creative way: over a fire at the end of sharpened sticks they are being roasted as marshmallows. Sometimes he arrives in time to save his children, sometimes even his wife. But most times he arrives just too late. The giant state funeral procession in which, in tears, he is marching is attacked by the enemy, and leaping back into action with his tactical nuclear weapons . . .

The Rhinehart Power Pattern for Men should now be clear. In Dice Therapy we can predict with great precision the roles which a male student will most want to play by examining his age and relating it to our pattern. There exist variations, of course, some men mature late, and others, a few, are precocious. Eric Cannon, for example, at only nineteen, was saving the world, and I at the age of only thirty-five, am again, as at age eight, in the process of destroying it...

I had only one session with Eric Cannon to try to introduce him to dice therapy, because he and his father had reached some kind of agreement whereby Eric was to be released three days later. He was naturally keyed up about leaving and didn't listen carefully as I began a Socratic dialogue to get him into dice therapy. Unfortunately, the Socratic method entails a second person at least willing to grunt periodically and since Eric remained absolutely mute I gave up and told him in a twenty-minute lecture what a dicelife was all about. He became quite alert. When I'd finished he shook his head from side to side slowly.
`How do you stay loose, Doc?' he asked. `How do you keep yourself on that side of the desk?'

`What do you mean?'

`How come they don't lock you up?'

I smiled.

`I am a professional man,' I answered.

`A professional loony. Giving psychotherapy.'

He shook his head again. `Poor Dad. He thought I was being cured.'

`The concept of the dicelife doesn't fascinate you?'

`Of course it does. You've turned yourself into a sort of computer like our air force use in Vietnam. Only instead of trying to kill the maximum number of the enemy, you program yourself to drop your bombs at random.'

`You miss the point. Since there is no real enemy, all of life's wars are games, and the dicelife permits a variety of war games instead of the continual sluggish trench warfare of the typical life.'

"`There is no enemy,"' he quoted quietly, looking at the floor in front of him. ` "There is no enemy." If there's one thing that makes me want to puke more than anything else it's people who think there is no enemy. Your dicelife is a hundred times as sick as my father even. He's blind, so he's got an excuse, but you! "No enemy! "' And Eric writhed in his chair, his face distorted with tension. He twisted his muscular body upward until he was standing, his neck still rolling tensely, his eyes on the ceiling. Clenching his fists he finally held himself reasonably quiet.

`You big fool,' he said. `This world is a madhouse with killers loose, torturers, sick depraved sadists running churches, corporations, countries. It could be different, could be better, and you sit on your lump of fat and toss dice.'

I didn't say anything since I was not in the mood for a wrestling match and was, as I listened, for some reason feeling guilty.

`You know this hospital is a farce, but tragic suffering - a tragic farce. You know there are nuts running this place nuts! - not even counting you! - that makes most inmates look like Ozzie and Marriat and David and Ricky. You know what American racism is. You know what the war in Vietnam is. And you toss dice! You toss dice!' He banged both fists down on the desk before me two, three, four times, his long hair falling forward at each blow like a black mantilla. Then he stopped.

`I'm leaving, Doc,' he said to me calmly. `I'm going out into the world and try to make it better. You can stay here and drop your random bombs.'

`Just a minute, Eric.'

I stood up. `Before you go-'

`I'm leaving. Thanks for the pot, thanks for the silences, thanks even for the games, but don't say another word about tossing your fucking dice, or I'll kill you.'

`Eric. . I'm . . . You're...'

He left. 

Dr. Rhinehart should have known when Mr. Mann summoned him to his office at QSH that there was trouble. And seeing old Cobblestone erect and solemn as he entered made Dr. Rhinehart certain there was trouble. Dr. Cobblestone is tall and thin and gray-haired, and Dr. Mann is short and plump and balding, but their facial expressions were identical: stern, firm, severe. Being called to a director's office at QSH reminded Rhinehart of being summoned to the principal's office at age eight for winning money off sixth graders at craps. His problems hadn't changed much.

`What's this about dice, young man?' Dr. Cobblestone asked sharply, leaning forward in his chair and banging once noisily on the floor the cane he held upright between his legs. He was the senior director of the hospital.

`Dice?' asked Dr. Rhinehart, a puzzled expression on his face. He was wearing blue jeans, a white T-shirt and sneakers, a dice decision which had made Dr. Mann pale when he had entered the office. Dr. Cobblestone had not seemed to notice.

`I think we ought to take things in the order you suggested earlier,' Dr. Mann said to his co-director.

`Ah yes. Yes, indeed: Dr. Cobblestone banged his cane again as if it were some accepted signal for the restarting of a game. `What's this we've heard about your using prostitutes and homosexuals in your sex research?'

Dr. Rhinehart didn't answer immediately but looked intently from one stern face to another. He said quietly: `The research will be detailed in our report. Is there anything wrong?'

`Dr. Felloni says she has withdrawn entirely from the project,' said Dr. Mann.

'Ahh. She's back from Zurich?'

'She states she withdraw because subjects were being asked to commit immoral acts,' said Dr. Cobblestone.

`The subjects of the experiment was sexual change.'

`Were the subjects asked to commit immoral acts?' Dr. Cobblestone continued.

`The instructions made it clear that they didn't have to do anything they didn't want to.'

`Dr. Felloni reports that the project encouraged young people to fornicate,' said Dr. Mann neutrally.

`She should know. She helped me draw up the instructions.'

`Does the project encourage young people to fornicate?' asked Dr. Cobblestone.

`And old people t- Look, I think perhaps you ought to ask to have a copy of my research report when it's finished.'

The two stern faces had not relaxed, and Dr. Cobblestone went on `One of your subjects claims that he was raped.'

`That's true,' replied Dr. Rhinehart. `But our investigation indicated that he either fantasized or prevaricated the rape to suppress his active unconscious participation in the act of which he complains.'

`What's that?' said Dr. Cobblestone, irritably cupping an ear at Dr. Rhinehart.

`He enjoyed being laid and is lying about the rape.'

`Oh. Thank you.' `You realize, Luke,' said Dr. Mann, `that in letting you use some of our patients here at QSH for your research that we are legally and morally responsible for what occurs in that research.'

`I understand.'

`Certain attendants and nurses have reported that a large number of patients were volunteering for your sex research project and have claimed that prostitutes were being supplied to the patients.'

`You can read my report when it's done.'

Dr. Cobblestone banged his cane a third time.

`A report has reached us that you yourself participated in . . . as . . . as . . . in this experiment.'

`Naturally.'

`Naturally?' asked Dr. Mann.

`I participated in the experiment'

'But our report stated that...' Dr. Cobblestone's face grew red with his exasperation at not finding the right words. `... that you interacted with the subjects . . sexually.'

'Ahh,' said Dr. Rhinehart.

`Well?' asked Dr. Mann.

`Some neurotic young person I presume is the author of this slander?' said Dr. Rhinehart.

`Yes, yes,' said Dr. Cobblestone quickly.

`Projecting his latent desires onto the dreaded authority figure?' Dr. Rhinehart went on.

`Precisely,' said Dr. Cobblestone, relaxing just a bit.

`Tragic. Is someone trying to help him?'

`Yes,' replied Dr. Cobblestone. `Yes. Dr. Vener has . . . How did you know it was a young man?'

'George Lovelace Ray O'Reilly. Projection, compensation, displacement, anal-cathexis.'

`Ah, yes.'

`Is there anything else?' said Dr. Rhinehart, making motions of rising to leave.

`I'm afraid there is, Luke,' said Dr. Mann.

`I see.'

Dr. Cobblestone gripped his cane carefully in both hands and, aiming, banged it a fourth time on the floor between his legs.

`What's this about dice, young man?' he asked. `Dice?'

'One of your patients has complained that you're making him play some strange game with dice.'

`The new one, Mr. Spezio?'

`Yes.'

`We have patients working with clay, cloth, paper, wood, leather, beads, cardboard, lathes, wire ... I saw no reason not to let a few select patients begin playing with dice.'

`I see,' said Dr. Cobblestone.'

`Why?' asked Dr. Mann blandly.

`You can read my report when it's done.'

No one spoke for a while.

`Anything else?' Dr. Rhinehart asked at last.

The two older men glanced uneasily at each other and Dr. Cobblestone cleared his throat.

`Your general behavior lately, Luke,' said Dr. Mann.

`Ahhh.'

'Your impolite and ... unusual behavior in our last board meeting,' said Dr. Cobblestone.

`Yes.'

`Your erratic, socially upsetting eccentricities,' said Dr. Mann.

`Your interruption of Dr. Wink,' added Dr. Cobblestone.

`We've received complaints from a few nurses here at QSH, several board members naturally, from Mr. Spezio, and...'

`And?' suggested Dr. Rhinehart.

`And I myself am not blind.'

'Ahh.'

`Batman over the telephone is not my idea of a joke.'

There was a silence.

`Your behavior has been undignified and unprofessional,' said Dr. Cobblestone.

Silence.

`You can read my report when it's done,' said Dr. Rhinehart finally.

Silence. `Your report?' asked Dr. Cobblestone.

`I'm writing an article on the variety of human response to socially eccentric behavior.'

`Yes, yes, I see,' said Dr. Cobblestone.

`My hypothesis is-'

`No more, Luke,' said Dr. Mann.

`Pardon?'

`No more. You've just about convinced everyone, but Jake that you're splitting apart. He alone has faith'

`My hypothesis is-'

'No more. Your friends have protected you all they're going to. Either back into the old Luke Rhinehart or you're finished as a psychiatrist' Dr. Cobblestone arose solemnly.

`And if you wish to bring up your idea for some sort of new center to help our patients you must have it placed on the agenda before our meeting.'

`I understand,' said Dr. Rhinehart, also standing.

`No, more, Luke,' said Dr. Mann.

Dr. Rhinehart understood.

I should have known when Lil sat me down on the armchair opposite her without even touching her champagne that there was trouble. As part of a one-in-six die decision I had been courting her anew with all the unselfish and romantic love I could imagine, and we'd been having a marvelous week. I'd climaxed four days of traditional courting (two plays, a concert, an evening of love on hashish) by suggesting that we end Love Lil Week by taking a three-day skiing holiday at a Canadian ski resort. I had bought her flowers at the airport and champagne for our first night. It had begun snowing thickly after we arrived and although the next day we both skied like untrained walruses, we soon made an art out of tumbling. The snow fell lightly and wetly in the afternoon and we removed our skis and made snowballs and wrestled and rolled and munched the snow more or less like a couple of aged dogs reliving their puppyhood, I a Saint Bernard and she a collie. She was pretty and bright-eyed and girlishly athletic, and I was handsome and affectionate and boyishly uncoordinated, and we enjoyed playing together again. We danced before a roaring fire and drank more champagne and played brilliant bridge against a couple from Boston and made sweet love under a foot-high mountain of blankets and slept the sleep of the just.