The Search for the Dice Man

by Luke Rhinehart

  ‘Your fucking Dice Man calling I could have been diceboy to your Dice Man, Robin to your Batman.’

  Although Macavoy hadn’t got all of the next parts of their conversation he’d heard enough to realize that the tall older man was none other than Luke Rhinehart himself, snuck into Lukedom to see his long-lost son.

  If Larry and Baldy had been trembling with their emotions there in the woods, Agent Macavoy was trembling with his. After dozens of agents had failed, he, James Macpherson Macavoy, had located the illusive, dissembling Luke Rhinehart.

  When the two of them ended their talk and split up, Macavoy chose to follow Luke back to the orientation building. He waited an hour until the bald bastard had come out again. He then tailed him through the village to a house up a sidestreet: number six Boxcars Street, a modest two-family clapboard house perched up on cement blocks. The guy knew enough to live low key. Then he rushed to the nearest pay phone to call Putt at the Bureau.

  ‘No, don’t try to arrest him yourself,’ Putt said after being filled in. ‘I can be there with backups tomorrow – maybe even this evening. By two tomorrow afternoon we’ll be ready to make the arrest.’

  ‘Should I keep close to the father?’

  ‘If you can,’ said Putt after a pause. ‘No, wait. I don’t want to risk his getting wise to someone following him and have him take off. Let him go for now. You know where he’s staying and what he looks like. We’ll be able to locate him again after I get there with backups.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Meanwhile, contact the local authorities. See if they can provide some bodies for us. Don’t tell them who we’re after or exactly when you’ll need them. Act as if it’s a minor matter.’

  ‘Right. Got it, chief.’

  31

  By the middle of her second day in Lukedom Kim realized that though she was excited by some of Lukedom’s experiments, she was also disappointed at what she finally thought of as its ‘institutionalized spontaneity.’ Spontaneity should be spontaneous, and she wasn’t sure it really worked when it was contrived by the dice or some diceguide. On the other hand, how else could you get unspontaneous people to be spontaneous?

  She was flattered that Michael Way seemed to single her out for special attention, though after listening to him for hours she concluded that for all his attacks on the folly of ego and self, he had at least the trace of one of the biggest egos she’d ever known. Of course it could just be his high-toned English accent. Although he could make fun of himself, his ‘spontaneity’ sometimes seemed as controlled as most people’s rationality.

  The previous evening he’d taken her to the church, where she’d met Dr Ecstein. She couldn’t help comparing him with the man she’d read about in The Dice Man, a copy of which she’d been reading since she arrived. All the fierce ambition he’d had twenty years before seemed gone; he was now more like a benevolent rabbi.

  Then Michael had taken her on a moonlit jaunt along a stream that skirted the centre of town. If he was making a pass his technique seemed to be to show how wise he was.

  The philosophy of ego-destruction was familiar to her from her interest in Eastern mysticisms. She saw that diceliving was a way to humiliate and break down the socialized self – a goal of several Eastern traditions. But it seemed more akin to LSD and the other powerful psychedelics that seekers had used two decades earlier – useful for some, dangerous for most.

  So she argued with him a bit, made sure he noticed how intelligent and well read she was on these matters.

  ‘But what brought you to all this?’ she asked. ‘Making a fool of yourself – as diceliving necessitates – seems awfully un-English.’

  ‘Well, exactly,’ he said easily. ‘We English are much more tightly hammered into our square boxes by society than you Americans. So we need all the explosives we can find to break free.’

  ‘Are there any places like this in England?’

  He smiled – almost to himself.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ he answered. ‘Actually more than here.’

  ‘How come we don’t read about them?’ asked Kim.

  ‘Ah, well, that’s a question now, isn’t it?’

  Their wandering had brought them back towards the remaining lights of the village.

  ‘Well, is there an answer?’ asked Kim, suddenly aware of how tired she’d become.

  ‘Yes, but I’m afraid it’s hardly appropriate to give to casual Lukedom visitors – no offence intended.’

  ‘Classified stuff, huh?’ said Kim, and then added: ‘Say, I just realized I need a place to stay tonight. Is there a dorm or something for newcomers, or a cheap motel?’

  ‘Actually there are both,’ said Way. ‘There are cots at the orientation centre and rooms at two hotels in town. But you’re welcome to stay at my place. I’ve two spare bedrooms.’

  ‘No, thanks,’ she found herself replying easily. ‘I want to sample this place the way most people do. I’ll try the dorm.’

  She was happy to see him appear disappointed at her decision, and so wheeled away into the dorm before he could respond.

  The next morning she’d gone to orientation and been ‘trained’ by a guide named Ray and another named Kathy. It had seemed like a cross between boot camp and an encounter session from the seventies. Again, she thought she saw what they were up to, but thought it was pretty strong medicine for most people. After the lunch break she’d cut her afternoon session and taken a short hike out of town. She visited the teepee village and met people she might well have met at some of the ashrams she’d visited. Many were indifferent to the dice business and were in Lukedom mainly because it was cheap. She felt a little uneasy thinking that living simply and cheaply and purposelessly in a teepee was probably where her life was heading.

  When she returned to orientation she was randomly selected to man the cash register at the orientation restaurant for an hour. As she went through the motions of receiving the money and returning the change – it came to her much more easily than she had assumed it would – she thought about her feelings. She was surprised that despite all her listening to Michael and the other diceguides, she still had a strong resistance to using the dice. She could use them in silly little trivial ways or to show off, but when it came to doing something that might be really different for her, she drew back.

  She tried to convince herself that she was already free and flexible and multiple without the dice, and that her resistance was reasonable. Nevertheless she sensed that she was strongly attached to her free-wheeling spirit and resisted appearing otherwise – options which the dice sometimes chose.

  The main thing that disappointed her about Lukedom was that it didn’t seem as much fun as Luke himself. She had finished Luke’s The Dice Man and thought that though Luke sounded a little sick at times, he was fun! He was playful, a man who really did seem to have gotten rid of his ego, who didn’t care what people thought of him or where the dice took him. But Lukedom seemed a rather serious place, more like many of the ashrams she had visited or lived in briefly over the years. Where could there ever be any spontaneous warmth or communication if everyone was on stage all the time trying on new roles? It was exhausting.

  After her stint at the cash register, she grabbed a bite to eat, sitting with a young woman her age who had been in Lukedom for eight months. The woman seemed to be utterly serious about the need to free herself from feminine stereotypical role-playing and argued that Lukedom was offering the solution to the oppression of women. Kim could see that the breaking down of society’s normal attitudes might be liberating for any of those oppressed by those attitudes, but she wondered what would emerge in its place. In Lukedom jobs and roles were so randomized that women were as likely to be carpenters, plumbers or bank presidents as men, and men cooks, housekeepers or babysitters. From a woman’s point of view it was a clear improvement over most societies, although the plumbing must sometimes suffer. Susan, it turned out, was working for the next two months as crew boss of a gang of men and women renova
ting houses on the south edge of town and claimed she was better than any of them at her job.

  After that talk, Kim sat down alone on a bench in the sun and finished off her iced tea from lunch.

  She realized she was glad that Larry still seemed so uneasy in her presence. Despite all his earnest efforts, he was hooked on her. And she was glad. One of her not-completely-hidden motives for coming to Lukedom, especially after Honoria gave him back his ring, was to be with Larry, to ‘see what developed.’ Despite his seeming to be the sort of man she usually made fun of, she liked Larry – probably more than ‘liked.’

  She felt a little guilty that she enjoyed seeing him struggling with his need for control against her, struggling to convince himself marrying Honoria was what he wanted. But depressing too. He had a lot of things in him waiting to break free, but she doubted they would ever make it. The reason she hadn’t let herself get involved with him was not only Honoria, but because she feared Larry would make of their affair something melodramatic. He would be passionate and brooding, loving her for their physical connecting and haling her for taking him away from the straight and narrow path to fame and fortune he had set out for himself. She knew that being loved by a neurotic was a sure formula for misery. Larry would have to be miserable without her. Although she had to admit she was sorely tempted.

  32

  I didn’t go with my ‘father’ back to the orientation building, but instead turned back to hike along the stream that ran along the west edge of the community. There in the twenty-foot-deep cut through which the stream meandered I could escape the questioning of the diceguides about my confrontation with my ‘father.’ After a twenty-minute hike, stumbling over the rocks and boulders that contained the streambed, occasionally fighting through overgrown shrubs and brambles, I came to a huge boulder against which the water gurgled noisily. I sat down on a cluster of smaller stones and leaned back against the big boulder to stare at the water as it splashed its way through the maze of boulders and fallen logs towards me. Then I cried.

  As I did I remembered – for the first time in years – how, when I was twelve, I had sobbed and kicked and raged when my mother had told me that Luke was probably never coming back again. I had raged both against Luke for leaving and against Mom for not having stopped it and for not being angrier at the desertion. I’d cried then because I loved him and had only good memories of him. And I guess I cried again that afternoon for the same reasons.

  After a short while I stopped crying and suddenly smiled and shook my head. I spend half a lifetime hating a man, and then, because some bald-headed guy pretends to be him, I find that I love the man I hate. I wiped away the tears with the sleeve of my sweatshirt. Of course, I still hated him too.

  But while thinking about the confrontation, I abruptly remembered that when Abe Lister had been walking away back towards the town after we’d finished, a man had slipped out from behind a tree and begun walking casually after him. And by God, the man was one of the FBI men – the lanky one – that had come to see me five weeks earlier!

  I had dimly known it was he when I first saw him, but in the midst of the emotional turmoil of the moment the presence of an FBI agent in Lukedom hadn’t registered; now it did. What was going on? Was Abe Lister somehow an important lead to Luke himself?

  I felt a shiver of excitement. Old Baldy had certainly known a lot more about Luke and our past relationship than I’d told him in the brief background I’d given before we were sent off to confront. He’d even known about Luke’s phone call after Mom’s accident: only Luke’s closest associates could possibly know that! The FBI must have known that Lister was somehow important and sent an agent to follow him in their search for Luke. My father must be here!

  Chance chose waiting on table in the orientation restaurant for my luncheon assignment; I supposed it was a step up from washing dishes. Little did I know. The people in the Lukedom community were probably no better or worse to wait on than those in the outside world, which means that I found them pretty unbearable. First I had to deal with the fact that the people I waited on didn’t know I existed; I was R2-D2 with hair as far as they were concerned. They gave their orders with no more personal interest than they would had they been speaking into a McDonald’s drive-in recessed microphone. And when I brought their orders they sometimes looked at the plate as if suspicious I was shortchanging them on the peas.

  And tips. Although I thought I was superior to the pittances I might receive as tips, when a large table of six, whose chance-determined tab had come to a hundred and twenty dollars, didn’t consult the dice and left me only a five-dollar bill, I was outraged. What nerve! What deadbeats! And I’d even brought them a second plate of rolls without being asked!

  Back in orientation for an afternoon session I was annoyed to see Kim laughing with Ray as if they were old friends, even grabbing his hand briefly when making a point. When she saw me, however, she left Ray and came happily over to ask how my morning session had gone. I mumbled something vague, causing her to gaze up at me mischievously.

  ‘Well, I had better luck confronting you,’ she announced. ‘Although I don’t think Ray made a very convincing Larry – too soft.’

  ‘Oh?’ I said, reluctantly sitting in one of the stupid desk-chairs for the afternoon session.

  Kim squeezed into a chair beside me, edging it closer to mine with a loud scratching sound.

  ‘Essentially I accused you of desiring me and not doing anything about it,’ she explained saucily. ‘And accused myself of stringing you along without having decided how I feel about you.’

  ‘I see,’ I said, both pleased and annoyed at her pert frankness. ‘And how did I respond?’

  ‘You said you weren’t about to mess up your life by giving in to a temporary lust,’ she answered, smiling at me.

  ‘Sounds reasonable,’ I said, trying to maintain the traditional male coolness.

  ‘That’s what I said too,’ said Kim. ‘Although at the same time your reasonableness pisses me off.’

  Our dialogue was broken by Kathy and Ray beginning the afternoon training with a lecture from Ray on the ways confronting archetypal figures in your life tended to free up aspects of your life that were stuck, and then a second shorter one from Kathy urging us to give as a regular option our living for a time without any role or personality. Ultimately, she suggested, once we were able to go from role to role or attitude to attitude by the whims of the dice, we’d in effect be able to be ‘roleless’ most of the time. Exactly what this ‘roleless’ state would be like wasn’t clear.

  I was paired up with the red-headed woman sitting in front of me for an exercise in trying to experience this rolelessness, but flunked it badly. When Ray then paired me up with Kim for her childhood ‘confront’, the same exercise I’d done in the morning, I felt anxiety – why, I didn’t know. I was to play her father, Ray sat with us for about fifteen minutes, softly asking Kim to fill me in about her parents, particularly her father.

  Kim cheerfully explained that her father was an artist, an oil painter, who had never quite made it in the art world, instead becoming a competent, if low-paid, layout artist for a series of ad agencies. Because he was nearly twenty years older than Kim’s mother and more interested in oils than oil, he’d been considered by the Battles a disastrous choice for the young Susan Battle. As a result, despite all his efforts, he was usually snubbed. When he died of cancer at fifty-five it was considered by some to be the most socially acceptable thing he’d ever done.

  Unfortunately Kim’s mother almost immediately remarried – this time an even worse choice than her first: an elegant drifter whose major skill was making minor money in shady ways – penny stocks, disguised pyramid schemes, mail-order fraud, the usual small-time scams that men of wealth, who operate only on a grand scale, sneer at. Kim’s mother’s rehabilitation as a Battle thus lasted only the length of her brief widowhood; her new ostracism was total and final. Kim, the only child, was dragged with the couple from here to ther
e for almost three years until Kim’s mother died of a cancerous brain tumour. Her stepfather, with brisk efficiency, promptly mailed Kim back off east to her aged grandmother. Kim lived with her for three years and was then, when the grandmother died, passed on to Mr and Mrs William Fanshawe Battle III.

  From that background I could understand Kim’s love–hate relationship with the Battles, but still didn’t see how I could effectively pretend to be her dad.

  We were sent outside the building for our confront and immediately headed across the stream and a sloping meadow towards the long rolling mountain that was the eastern wall that enclosed Lukedom in its valley.

  ‘You sold out,’ Kim suddenly said to me as we clomped slowly through the knee-high grass.

  For a moment I was taken aback, feeling she was talking about me instead of the long-ago father.

  ‘Not at all,’ I said. ‘I was good at what I did and I made money – that’s not selling out.’

  ‘You let those Battles push you around all your life,’ she went on with surprising ferocity, ‘bowing and scraping for any scrap they’d let fall your way.’

  ‘I had your mother to think about,’ I said, after a pause. ‘She needed them, and I went along.’

  Kim halted at the edge of the field that lay at the base of the steeper slope at the beginning of the mountain and turned to me.

  ‘Yes, but what did you want?’ she said. ‘Why couldn’t you take her your way?’

  I turned away, trying to get into the soul of someone who had a talent but let it moulder and die in order to to what? To survive? To please his wife? To enjoy a higher society? Nothing quite rang true.

  ‘I’ m not sure why I –’

  ‘You denied yourself!’ Kim interrupted. ‘You lived a lie! There would have been nothing wrong with trying to be a Battle if it was only something you really wanted!’