Bowing my head, I said: “Let us pray.”
He stopped openmouthed in midyawn, his arms clasped behind his head, and stared. Then he drew in his legs, leaned forward and lowered his head.
“Dear God,” I said aloud, “help us this hour to serve Thy will, be in tune with Thy soul and breathe each breath to Thy glory. Amen.”
I sat down with my eyes still lowered, wondering where I went from here. In most of my early sessions with Eric, I had been my usual nondirective self and, much to my discomfiture, he became the first patient in recorded psychiatric history who, through his first three consecutive therapy sessions, was able to sit silent and thoroughly relaxed. In the fourth he talked nonstop the entire hour on the state of the ward and world. In subsequent sessions he had alternated between silence and soliloquy. In the previous three weeks I had tried only a couple of dice-dictated experiments and had assigned Eric to try feeling love for all figures of authority but he had met all my ploys with silence. When I raised my head now, he was looking at me alertly. Black eyes pinning me where I sat, he reached into his pocket, leaned forward and wordlessly offered me a cigarette.
“Thank you, no,” I said.
“Just one Jesus to another,” he said with a mocking smile.
“No thank you.”
“What’s with the prayer bit?” he asked.
“I feel … religious today,” I answered, “and I—”
“Good for you,” he said.
“—wanted you to share my feeling.”
“Who are you to be religious?” he asked with sudden coolness.
“I … I am … I am Jesus,” I answered.
For a moment his face held its cool alertness, then it broke into a contemptuous smile.
“You haven’t got the will,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“You don’t suffer, you don’t care enough, you don’t have the fire to be a Christ actually living on the earth.”
“And you, my son?”
“And I do. I’ve had a fire burning in my gut every moment of my life to wake this world up, to lash the fucking bastards out of the temple.”
“But what of love?”
“Love!?” he barked at me, his body now straight and tense in the chair. “Love …” he said more quietly. “Yeah, love. I feel love for those who suffer, those on the rack of the machine, but not for the guys at the controls, not for the torturers, not for them.”
“Who are they?”
“You, buddy, and every guy in a position to change the machine or bust it or quit working on it who doesn’t.”
“I’m part of the machine?”
“Every moment you play along with this farce of therapy, you’re driving your nail into the old cross.”
“But I want to help you, to give you health and happiness.”
“Careful, you’ll make me puke.”
“And if I stopped working for the machine?”
“Then there’d be some hope for you. Then I might listen; then you would count.”
“But if I leave the system how will I ever see you again?”
“There are visiting hours. And I’m only going to be with you here for a little while.”
We sat in our respective chairs eyeing each other with alert curiosity.
“You aren’t surprised that I began our session with a prayer or that I am Jesus?”
“You play games. I don’t know why, but you do. It makes me hate you less than the others but know I should never trust you.”
“Do you think you’re Christ?”
His eyes shifted away from mine to the sooty window.
“He who has ears to hear let him hear,” he said.
“I’m not sure you love enough,” I said. “I feel that love is the key to it all, and you seem to have hate.”
He returned his gaze to me slowly.
“You must fight, Rhinehart. No games. You must know your friend and love him and know your enemy and attack.”
“That’s hard,” I said.
“Just open your eyes. The man behind the machine, Rhinehart, and the man who is part of the machine: they’re not hard to see. The lying and cheating and manipulating and killing: you’ve seen them. Just walk along the street and open your eyes and you won’t lack for targets.”
“But do you ask us to kill them?”
“I ask you to fight them. There’s a worldwide war on and everybody’s drafted and you’re either for the machine or you’re against it, a part of it, or getting your balls raked by it every day. Life today is a war whether you want it to be or not, and so far, Rhinehart, you’ve been doing your part for the other side.”
“But thou shalt love thy enemies,” I said.
“Sure. And thou shalt hate evil,” he answered.
“Judge not, that ye be not judged.”
“He who sits on a fence, gets it up his ass,” he replied without a smile.
“I lack the fire; I like everybody,” I said sadly.
“You lack the fire.”
“What am I good for then? I wish to be a religious person.”
“A disciple, maybe,” he said.
“One of the twelve?”
“Most likely. You charge thirty bucks an hour?”
Sitting opposite Arturo Toscanini Jones a half hour later I felt depressed and tired and unJesusy and didn’t say much. Since as usual Jones was quiet too, we sat there pleasantly isolated in our private worlds until I rustled up enough energy to try to carry out my role.
“Mr. Jones,” I finally said, looking at his tensed body and frowning face, “although I agree that you’re right not to trust any white man, assume for a moment that I, because perhaps of some neurosis of my own, feel an overwhelming warmth toward you and want to help you in any way possible. What might I be able to do?”
“Get me out of here,” he said.
“And after I’ve helped you be released what then might I do?”
“Get me out of here. Until I’m free I can’t think about anything else. On the outside, well …”
“What would you do on the outside?”
He turned on me sharply.
“Goddam it, man, I said get me out of here, not more talk. You said you wanted to help and you keep on rapping.” I stood up and walked over to the sooty window and looked out at a group of patients playing a listless game of softball.
“Okay. I’ll have you released. You can go home this afternoon, before supper. It will be slightly illegal and I may get into trouble, but if freedom is all I can give you then that’s what I’ll give.”
“You puttin’ me on?”
“You’ll be back in the city within an hour if I have to drive you there myself.”
“What’s the catch? If I can go free today why couldn’t I go free a month ago? I ain’t changed none.” He sneered at his own grammar.
“Yes, I know. But I have.”
He stared suspiciously and I stared back, feeling serious and ham-actor noble. The urge to suggest verbally that I was being great for doing this was strong, but humble Jesus won out.
“Come on,” I said. “Let’s go and get your clothes and get out of here.”
As it turned out, it took more than an hour to get Arturo Toscanini Jones released and even then, as I had feared, it was illegal. I got him released from the ward in my custody, but such a release did not technically give him permission to leave the hospital. That took formal action of one of the directors and was impossible for that afternoon. I’d talk to Dr. Mann at lunch on Friday, or maybe phone.
I drove Jones to his mother’s home at 142nd Street. Neither of us said a single word during the entire drive and when I let him out he said only: “Thanks for the ride.”
“That’s okay,” I answered.
After a barely perceptible pause he slammed the door and strode away.
Strike up another scoreless inning for Jesus.
I was exhausted by the time I had gotten Arturo released from the hospital and my silence
with him in the car was partly fatigue. Trying minute after minute to be someone not totally natural to the personality, as Jesus was for me, was hard work. Impossible work, as a matter of fact. During that whole day I noticed that after about forty minutes of being a loving Jesus my system would simply break down into apathy and indifference. If I continued the role past the forty-minute point it was purely mechanical rather than felt.
As I drove toward my rendezvous with Arlene my bleary mind tried to scrutinize my relations with her. Christianity frowns on adultery: this much I was able to come up with. Our relationship was a sin. Should Jesus simply avoid a rendezvous with his mistress? No. He would want to express his love for her. His agape. He would want to remind her of various relevant commandments.
Such was the intention of Jesus when he met Mrs. Jacob Ecstein that afternoon at the corner of 125th Street and Lexington Avenue in Harlem and drove to an obscure section of the parking lot at La Guardia Airport overlooking the bay. The woman was cheerful and relaxed and spoke during most of the drive about Portnoy’s Complaint, a book which Jesus had not read. It was clear from her speaking, however, that the author of the novel had not discovered love, and that the effect upon Mrs. Ecstein was to increase her cynical, guiltless, shameless devil-may-care immersion in her sin. It seemed to Jesus precisely the wrong mood for his beginning to discuss Judao-Christian love.
“Arlene,” spoke Jesus, after he had parked, “do you ever feel great warmth and love toward people?”
“Only for you, lover,” she replied.
“Have you never felt a great rush of warmth and love toward some person or toward all humanity?”
The woman cocked her head and thought.
“Occasionally.”
“To what do you attribute it?”
“Alcohol.”
The woman unzipped the fly of Jesus and reached a hand in and enclosed the Sacred Tool. It was, all accounts agree, filled only with agape.
“My daughter,” he said, “are you not concerned with causing unhappiness to your husband or to Lillian?”
She stared at him.
“Of course not. I love this.”
“Are your husband’s feelings of no concern to you?”
“Jake’s feelings!” she shouted. “Jake is completely well-adjusted. He doesn’t have any feelings.”
“Not even love?”
“Perhaps once a week he has that.”
“But Lillian has feelings. God has feelings.”
“I know, and I think what you’re doing to her is cruel.”
“That is true, and you and Dr. Rhinehart must stop doing that which is so clearly sinful and which must hurt her.”
“We’re not doing anything, it’s you that makes her suffer.”
“Dr. Rhinehart will be a better man.”
“Good. I hate to see her so upset with you.” She gave the Sacred Tool a little friendly squeeze and then lowered her head to His lap and sucked in the Spiritual Spaghetti.
“But Arlene!” He said. “Dr. Rhinehart’s making love to you is fornication, is what might hurt her.”
The woman tempted Jesus further with her serpent’s tongue, but producing no measurable effect, raised herself. Denied her sinful pleasure she looked peevish.
“What are you talking about? What’s fornication, another of your perversions?”
“Physical intercourse with Dr. Rhinehart is a sin.”
“Who’s this Dr. Rhinehart you keep talking about? What’s the matter with you today?”
“What you have been doing is cruel and selfish and against the Word of God. Your affair might have disastrous effects upon Lillian and the children.”
“How!?”
“If they found out.”
“She’d only divorce you.”
Jesus stared at the woman.
“We are speaking of human beings and of the Sacred Institution of Marriage,” He said.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Jesus became wrathful and thrust the woman’s hand away and zipped up the Holy Fly.
“You are so buried in your sin you cannot see what you do.”
The woman was angry too.”
“You’ve been enjoying yourself for three months and now all of a sudden you discover sin and that I’m a sinner.”
“Dr. Rhinehart is a sinner too.”
The woman poked back at the Crotch.
“Not much of a one today,” she said.
Jesus stared out through the windshield of the car at a small cruiser plodding across the bay. Two gulls which had been following it swerved away and spiraled up about fifty feet and then spiraled down and over toward Him, wheeling out of sight past the car. A signal? A Sign?
Jesus realized humbly that of course he was being insane. By fucking Mrs. Ecstein with great gusto for months in the body of Dr. Rhinehart He had confused her. It was difficult for her to recognize Him in the body of someone she had known playing the role of a sinner. Looking over at her, he saw her staring crossly out over the water, her hands clasping a half-finished almond bar in her lap. Her bare knees suddenly appeared to Him as those of a little child, her emotions those of a little girl. He remembered His injunction about children.
“I’m very very sorry Arlene. I’m insane. I recognize this. I’m not always myself. I frequently lose myself. To cast you off by suddenly talking about sin and Lil and Jake must seem cruel hypocrisy.”
When she turned to face Him He saw tears brimming at her eyes.
“I love your cock and you love my breasts and that’s not a sin.”
Jesus considered these words. They did seem reasonable.
“It is good,” He said. “But there are greater goods.”
“I know that, but I like yours.”
They stared at each other: two alien spiritual worlds.
“I have to go now,” He said. “I may return. My insanity is sending me away. My insanity says I will not be able to make love to you for a while.” Jesus started the car.
“Boy,” she said and took a healthy bite from the almond bar, “you ought to be seeing a psychiatrist yourself five times a week if you ask me.”
Jesus drove them back to the city.
14
Eventually, it had to happen: the dice decided that Dr. Rhinehart should spread their plague—he was ordered to corrupt his innocent children into the dicelife.
He easily maneuvered his wife to a long three-day visit to her parents in Daytona Beach, employing the horrible premise that the nursemaid Mrs. Roberts and he would take perfect care of the children. He then maneuvered Mrs. Roberts to Radio City Music Hall.
Rubbing his hands together and grinning hysterically, Dr. Rhinehart began to implement his hideous plan of drawing his innocent children into his web of sickness and depravity.
“My children,” he said to them from the living room couch in a fatherly tone of voice (Oh! the cloak which evil wears!), “I have a special game for us to play today.”
Lawrence and little Evie clustered close to their father like innocent moths to a deadly flame. He took from his pocket and placed on the arm of the couch the two dice: those awful seeds which had already borne such bitter fruit.
The children stared at the dice wide-eyed; they had never seen evil directly before, but the shimmering green light which the dice emitted sent through each of their hearts a deep convulsive shudder. Suppressing his fear, Lawrence said bravely:
“What’s the game, Dad?”
“Me too,” said Evie.
“It’s called the dice man game.”
“What’s that?” asked Lawrence. (Only seven years old, yet so soon to be aged in evil.)
“The dice man game goes like this: we write down six things we might do and then we shake a die to see which one we do.”
“Huh?”
“Or write down six persons you might be and then shake the dice and see which one you are.”
Lawrence and Evie stared at their father, stunned with the enormity
of the perversion.
“Okay,” said Lawrence.
“Me too,” said Evie.
“How do we decide what to write down?” asked Lawrence.
“Just tell me any strange thing which you think might be fun and I’ll write it down.”
Lawrence thought, unaware of the downward spiral that this first step might mean.
“Go to the zoo,” he said.
“Go to the zoo,” said Dr. Rhinehart and walked nonchalantly to his desk for paper and pencil to record this infamous game.
“Climb to the roof and throw paper,” Lawrence said. He and Evie had joined their father at the desk and watched as he wrote.
“Go beat up Jerry Brass,” Lawrence went on.
Dr. Rhinehart nodded and wrote.
“That’s number three,” he said.
“Play horsey with you.”
“Hooray,” said Evie.
“Number four.”
There was a silence.
“I can’t think of any more.”
“How about you, Evie?”
“Eat ice cream.”
“Yeah,” said Lawrence.
“That’s number five. Just one more.”
“Go for a long hike in Harlem,” shouted Lawrence, and he ran back to the couch and got the dice. “Can I throw?”
“You can throw. Just one, remember.”
He cast across the floor of his fate a single die: a four—horsey. Ah gods, in what nag’s clothing comes the wolf.
They played, raucously, for twenty minutes and then Lawrence, already, Reader, I lament to say, hooked, asked to play dice man again. His father, smiling and gasping for breath, wobbled to the desk to write another page of the book of ruin. Lawrence added some new alternatives and left some old ones and the dice chose: “Go beat up Jerry Brass.”
Lawrence stared at his father.
“What do we do now?” he asked.
“You go downstairs and ring the Brass’s doorbell and ask to see Jerry and then you try to beat him up.”
Lawrence looked down at the floor, the enormity of his folly beginning to sink into his little heart.
“What if he’s not home?”
“Then you try again later.”
Dice Man Page 10