Dice Man

by Luke Rhinehart

  “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, the 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?”

  “That’s thoughtful, 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.

  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.”

  55

  [From The New York Times, Wednesday, March 11, 1970, 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 II, “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 J. 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-timed and ill-planned—ridiculous in fact and I knew it,” he said. “But I failed 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 spit in Mayor Lindsay’s face during one of the Mayor’s walking tours of Harlem, and hippie figure Eric Cannon, whose followers last year 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, underneath gray hospital overcoats.

  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 underway.

  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 Times. 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.

  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, want to watch the Met’s 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 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 Klug, but I myself am taking only people who call themselves Smith, Peterson and Klug.”

  He rushed away.

  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, overcoats and sweat suits and lead by an utterly serene nineteen-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 in a Broadway theater? And looked natural? And relaxed? When half the seats were in the front row?

  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.”

  “They’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 house lights 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 Eric 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 up onto the stage frolicking with each other in a friendly roughhouse way. The on-stage part of the cast pretended slight confusion but continued to sing on as the new weirdies mixed with the Act I weirdies 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 and informed him that thirty-three patients had escaped from Hair. 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 to thirty-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 enjoyed telling the reporters and police that it was all because of Dr. Mann’s letter.

  56

  Dear Dr. Rhinehart,

  I admire your work so much. My husband and I do our dice exercises every morning after breakfast and again before bedtime and we feel years younger. When are you going to have your own TV show? Before we began playing with emotional roulette and Exercise K we almost never spoke to each other, but now we’re always shouting or laughing even when we’re not playing dice games. Could you please give us some advice as to how we might better bring up our daughter Ginny to serve the Die?

  She’s a willful girl and doesn’t say her prayers to It regular and is almost always the same sweet shy girl and frankly we’re worried. We’ve tried to get her to do the dice exercises with us in the morning or by herself, but nothing seems to work. My husband beats her every now and then when the Die say to but it doesn’t help much either. The only dicedoctor in these parts left for Antarctica three months ago so we have no one to turn to but you.

  Yours by Chance,

  Mrs. A. J., Kempton, Missouri

  Dear Dr. Rhinehart,

  I discovered my sixteen-year-old daughter on our living room couch with the postman this afternoon, and she referred me to you. What the hell is this all about?

  Sincerely yours,

  John Rush

  Dear Dr. Rhinehart,

  I have been a fan of yours ever since I read that interview in Playboy. I have been trying to practice the dicelife now for almost a year but I must warn you that when my girl took up using the dice and we tried some of those dice sex exercises some real problems developed. The sex exercises were fine, but my girl keeps telling me the Die won’t let her see me anymore for a while. Sometimes she makes a date and then breaks it, blaming the Die. Aren’t there some sort of rules I can impose on her? Do you have a code of dice ethics for girls I could show her?

  Also another girl I introduced to the dicelife began insisting that I ought to include as an option that I marry her. I only give it one chance in thirty-six, but she insists I cast the dice about it every time I go out with her. What is the probability of my losing if I date her ten more times? Twenty? Please include a table or graph if possible.

  You’ve got some good ideas, but I hope you do more thinking about
how special rules might be developed for girl dicepeople. I’m getting worried.

  Sincerely,

  George Doog

  57

  Naturally Dr. Rhinehart had felt a little guilty about leaving his wife and children without the slightest hint of when he might by chance return, but the Die advised him to forget about it. Then eight months after he’d left home, a few hours before he was to be questioned further about the Great Mental Hospital Escape, Whim chose one of his random whims and ordered him to return to his apartment and try to seduce his wife.

  Mrs. Rhinehart greeted him at two o’clock in the afternoon in a stylish new pantsuit he’d never seen before and a cocktail in her hand.

  “I’ve got a visitor now, Luke,” she said quietly. “If you want to see me come back about four.”

  It was not precisely the greeting Dr. Rhinehart had expected after four months of mysterious disappearance, and while he was rallying his mental faculties for a suitable riposte he discovered the door had gently been closed in his face.

  Two hours later he tried again.

  “Oh, it’s you,” said Mrs. Rhinehart as she might have greeted a plumber just back with a fresh tool. “Come on in.”

  “Thank you,” said Dr. Rhinehart with dignity.

  His wife walked ahead of him into the living room and offered him a seat, herself leaning against a new desk covered with papers and books. Dr. Rhinehart stood dramatically in the middle of the room and looked intently at his wife.

  “What’ve you been doing?” she asked, with a tone of bored interest discouragingly close to what she might have used asking her son Larry the same question after he’d been out of the house for twenty minutes.

  Speechless for a few seconds, Dr. Rhinehart nevertheless managed to look intently at his wife.

  “Oh, I’ve been working with mental patients lately, I guess. And with group dice therapy and some Dice Centers I’m developing.”

  “How nice,” Mrs. Rhinehart said. She moved away from the desk over in front of a new painting Dr. Rhinehart had never seen before and glanced at some mail which was lying on a table beneath the painting. Then she turned back to him.