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by PV

  Being an American I had to kill. No self-respecting Dice Man could honestly write down options day after day without including a murder or a real rape. I did, in fact, begin to include as a long shot the rape of some randomly selected female, but the dice ignored it. Reluctantly, timidly, with my old friend dread reborn and moiling in my guts, I also created a long-shot option of `murdering someone.’

  I gave it only one chance in thirty-six (snake eyes) and three, four times spread out over a year the Die ignored it, but then, one lovely Indian Summer day, with the birds twittering outside in the bushes of my newly rented Catskill farmhouse, the autumn leaves blowing and blinding in the sun and a little beagle puppy I’d just been given wagging his tail at my feet, the Die, given ten different options of varying probabilities dropped double ones snake eyes: �� will try to murder someone.’

  I felt acute anxiety and excitement combined, but not the doubt in the world that I would do it. Leaving Lil had been hard (although I sneer at my anxieties now), but killing ‘someone’ seemed no more difficult than holding up a drugstore or robbing a bank. There was a bit of anxiety because my life was being put in jeopardy; there was the excitement of the chase; and there was curiosity: what person shall I kill? The great advantage of being brought up in a culture of violence is that it doesn’t really matter who you kill: Negroes, Vietnamese or your mother - as long as you can make a reason for it, the killing will feel good. As the Dice Man, however, I felt obligated to let the Die choose the victim. I flipped a die saying ��dd’ I would murder someone I knew, ��ven’ it would be a stranger. I assumed for some reason that the Die would prefer a stranger, but the die showed a ��ne’; odd - someone I knew.

  I decided that in all fairness one of the people I might kill was myself and that my name should take its chances with the rest. Although ��knew’ hundreds of people, I didn’t think the Die intended me to spend days trying to remember all my friends so that I wouldn’t deny any of them the option of being murdered. I created six lists each with six places for the names of people I knew, I put Lil, Larry, Evie, Jake, my mother and myself at the top of each of the six different lists. For second names on each list I added Arlene, Fred Boyd, Terry Tracy, Joseph Fineman, Elaine Wright (a new friend of that period) and Dr. Mann. For number threes: Linda Reichman, Professor Boggles, Dr. Krum, Miss Reingold, Jim Frisby (my new landlord in the Catskills) and Frank Osterflood. And so on. I won’t give you the whole thirty-six, but to show I tried my best to include everyone, I should note that for the last six on each list I made six general categories: a business acquaintance, someone I had met first at a party, someone I knew only through letters or through reading (e.g. famous people), someone I haven’t seen in at least five years, a CETRE student or staff member not previously listed and someone wealthy enough to justify robbing and killing.

  I then casually cast a die to see from which of the six lists the die would choose a victim. The die chose list number two: Larry, Fred Boyd, Frank Osterflood, Miss Welish, H. J. Wipple (philanthropic benefactor of the Dice Centers) or someone I had first met at a party.

  Anxiety flushed through my system like a poison, primarily at the thought of killing my son. I had only seen him once since leaving so suddenly fifteen months before and he had been distant and embarrassed after a first leap into my arms of genuine affection. He was also the first diceboy in world history and it would be a shame .. . No, no, not Larry. Or at least let’s hope not. And Fred Boyd, my right arm, one of the leading practitioners and advocates of dice therapy and a man I liked very much. His in-and-out relationship with Lil made the murder of either him or Larry particularly unpleasant; to murder Fred seemed motivated and was thus doubly disturbing.

  Anxiety is a difficult emotion to describe. The colorful leaves outside the window no longer seemed vibrant; they seemed glossy as if being revealed in an overexposed Technicolor film. The twitter of the birds sounded like a radio commercial. My new beagle puppy snored in a corner as if she were a debauched old bitch. The day seemed overcast even as the sun reflecting off a white tablecloth in the dining room blinded my eyes.

  Still, there was a Die to be served. I prayed

  ��h Holy Die,

  Thy hand is raised to fall and I thy simple sword.

  Wield me.

  Your Way is beyond our comprehension.

  If I must sacrifice my son in thy Name, my son shall die:

  lesser Gods than Thee have demanded thus of their followers. If I

  must cut off my right arm to show the

  Greatness of Thy Accidental Power, my arm shall fall.

  You have made me great by thy commands, you have made me joyful and free. You have chosen that I kill, I shall kill.

  Great Creator Cube, help me to kill.

  Choose thy victim that I may strike.

  Point the way that I thy sword may enter.

  He who is chosen will die smiling in the fulfillment of thy Whim.

  Amen.’

  I dropped a die to the floor quickly, as if it were a snake. A three: it was my duty to try to kill Frank Osterflood.

  Chapter Seventy-seven

  From the Bhagavad-Gita To Arjuna, who was thus overcome by pity, whose eyes were filled with tears and who was troubled and much depressed in mind, the Lord Krishna said Whence has come to thee this dejection of spirit in this hour of crisis? It is unknown to men of noble mind; it does not lead to heaven; on earth it causes disgrace, O Arjuna.

  Yield not to this unmanliness, O Arjuna, for it does not become thee. Cast off this petty faintheartedness and arise, O

  Oppressor of the foes.

  Arjuna said How can I strike, O Krishna, O slayer of foes? It is better to live in this world by begging than to slay another … My very being ‘is stricken with pity. With my mind bewildered about my duty, I ask Thee to tell me that which I should do.

  Having thus addressed the Lord Krishna, the mighty Arjuna said to Krishna: �� will not kill,’ and become silent.

  To him thus depressed in the midst of two paths, Krishna, smiling as it were, spoke this word. The Blessed Lord said Thou grievest for one whom thou shouldst not grieve for, and yet thou speakest words about wisdom. Wise men do not grieve for the dead or the living.

  Never was there a time when I was not, nor thou, nor these lords of men, nor will there ever be a time hereafter when we shall cease to be.

  As the soul passes in this body through childhood, youth and age, even so it its taking on of another body. The sage is not perplexed by this.

  Of the nonexistent there is no coming to be; of the existent there is no ceasing to be. Know thou that that by which all this is pervaded is indestructible. Of this immutable being, no one can bring about the destruction. Therefore, O

  Arjuna, thy duty shouldst be performed.

  He who thinks that he slays and he who thinks that he is slain; both of them fail to perceive the truth; no one slays, nor is one slain. Therefore, O Arjuna, thy duty shouldst be performed.

  He is never born, nor does he die at any time, nor having once come to be does he again cease to. be. He is unborn, eternal, permanent and primeval. He is not slain when the body is slain. Therefore, knowing him as such, thou shouldst not grieve and thy duty shouldst be performed. Pick up thy die, O Arjuna, and kill.

  (Edited for The Book of the Die)

  Chapter Seventy-eight

  I hadn’t heard of Frank Osterflood in close to a year, and I genuinely looked forward to seeing him again. He had responded pretty well for a while to dice therapy first with me and then in a group with Fred Boyd. When he experienced the need to rape someone - boy or girl - as an arbitrary decision of the dice, it freed him from the great burden of guilt, which had normally accompanied and magnified the act. And with the elimination of the guilt he discovered he had lost much of his desire to rape. I insisted, of course, that he had to try to carry through with any dice-dictated rape even though he didn’t feel like it. He succeeded, found it a disgusting experience. I praise
d him for following the will of the Die, and he cut back drastically on the possibility of rape among his options and then eliminated it.

  He enjoyed spending his money in random ways and then, much to my surprise, he married a woman as the result of a dice decision. Marriage turned out to be an apparent disaster. I had disappeared from the world at that time, but I heard from Fred Boyd that Frank had given up both his wife and the dicelife and was drifting again from job to job. Whether he was expressing his old aggressions in his old ways we didn’t know.

  I had no desire to limit my dicelife by spending it all in prison so advanced planning was called for. Interrupting my work at the Catskill CETRE for a week I went on ��business trip’ to New York. I discovered that Osterflood was living at his old apartment on the East Side about four blocks from where I used to live. Ah, the memories. He seemed to be working for a brokerage firm on Wall Street and was gone for nine hours each day. The first night I trailed him he went out to dinner, a movie, a discotheque and returned home alone and presumably read or watched television and then slept.

  It’s a rather interesting experience to spend an evening trailing a man you’re planning to murder the next day; watching him yawn, become irritable when he can’t find the right change for a newspaper, smile at some thought he’s having. In general, Osterflood seemed rather nervous, I thought, tensed up - as if someone were trying to murder him.

  I began to realize that murder is not as easy as it’s cracked up to be. I couldn’t loiter outside Osterflood’s apartment a second consecutive night: my giant form was entirely too conspicuous. When and where to kill him? He was a big, muscular man, probably the only man on my original list of thirty-six that I wouldn’t want to meet in a dark alley after I’d just fired a shot at him and missed I had brought my .38 revolver I still possessed from my pre-dice, suicide-considering days, and I was pretty accurate at ten feet or less; I figured Big Frank would need a hole in the head to take him down. I also brought slang some strychnine to help along in that way should the opportunity arise.

  My main problem was that if I killed him in his apartment I would have trouble escaping unnoticed. Gun shots in East Side apartments renting for four hundred dollars a month are not especially common. His apartment had a doorman, an elevator man, perhaps a hired security man, probably no stairwell. To shoot Osterflood in the street or in an alley was also dangerous since although gunshots were there much more frequent, nevertheless, people usually had enough curiosity to look over at what was happening. I was simply too big to be anonymous.

  I suddenly realized that living in New York City, Frank Osterflood - and every other New Yorker - lived year after year without once, ever, being more than twenty feet from some other human being. Usually he was within ten feet of a dozen people. He had no private, isolated life in which he might be totally by himself and meditate and commune with himself and take stock and be murdered. I resented it deeply.

  I couldn’t afford to wait around; I wanted to hurry back to Catskill to continue developing the Catskill Dice Center, there to make people happy and joyfilled and free again.

  Somehow I had to lure him away from the warren of Manhattan. But how? Was he interested in boys these days? Or girls? Or men? Or women? Or money? Or what? What was the hook that would drag him out of the cesspool of the city into the lovely, lonely autumn of the woods? How would I prevent his telling someone that he had seen me again, that he was going someplace with me? The only method that I could dimly see was to accost him as he returned from work, invite him to dinner and then lure him out of the city on some spontaneously combusted pretext and, on some isolated country road, miles from the nearest other human being communing with himself, shoot him. It seemed very messy and haphazard, and I was determined to commit a nice clean crime - without any sick emotions, without fuss, with dignity, grace and aesthetic bliss. I wanted to murder in such a way that Agatha Christie would be pleased and not offended. I wanted to commit a crime so perfect that no one would suspect anything, not the murdered, not the police, not even me.

  Of course, such a crime would be impossible, so I retreated to my earlier ideal-that I should murder without fuss, emotion or violence arid with dignity, grace and aesthetic bliss. It was the very least I owed the victim.

  But how! The Die only knows. I certainly couldn’t see how. I would have to have faith. I would have to get myself with Osterflood and see what turned up. I’d never read of an Agatha Christie murderer proceeding in quite this way, but it was all I could do on twenty-four hours’ notice.

  `Frank, baby,’ I said the next evening as he emerged from his taxi. `Long time, no see. It’s your old buddy Lou Smith; you must remember me. Good to see you again.’

  I pumped his hand as the taxi pulled away and, still hoping to prevent him from uttering my. name within earshot of the doorman, I threw my arm around his shoulder and whispered that we were being trailed and began marching him away.

  `But Dr-‘

  `Had to see you. They’re trying to get you,’ I whispered as we moved up the block.

  `But who’s trying `Tell you all about it at dinner.’

  He stopped about thirty feet from his apartment.

  `Look, Dr. Rhinehart, I … I’ve got an important … appointment this evening. I’m sorry, but-‘ I had hailed another taxi and it careered over to our curb lusting after our East Side money.

  `Dinner first. Got to talk first. Someone’s trying to murder you.’

  `What?’

  `Get in, quick.’

  Inside the taxi I got my first good look at Frank Osterflood; he was a bit heavier about the jowls than he had been before and seemed more nervous and tense, but it might have been his concern about dying. His hair was nicely trimmed and brushed, his expensive suit fit flawlessly, and he gave off the pleasant odor of some heroic after-shave lotion. He looked like a highly successful, well-paid, socially placed thug.

  ‘- To murder me?’ he said, staring into my face is search of a jocular smile. I had glanced at my watch; it was six thirty-seven.

  ��‘m afraid so,’ I said. �� learned from some of my dicepeople that they’re planning to murder you.’ I stared sincerely into his face. `Maybe tonight even.’

  �� don’t understand,’ he said, looking away. ��nd where are we going now?’

  `Restaurant in Queens. Very good hors d’oeuvres.’

  `But why? Who? What have I done?’

  I shook my head slowly from side to side, while Osterflood stared nervously out at the passing traffic and seemed to flinch every time a car drew up alongside us.

  ��h, Frank, you don’t have to hide things from me. You know you’ve done some things that … well, might upset some people. Someone, someone has found it’s you. They plan to kill you. I’m here to help.’ He glanced back at me nervously.

  �� don’t need any help. I’ve got to go someplace at - at eight-thirty. Don’t need help.’

  Tight-jawed, he stared straight ahead at the somewhat un-artistic photograph of Antonio Rosco Fellini, driver of the cab.

  ��h, but you do, Frank. Your little appointment at eight-thirty may be your rendezvous with death. You’d better let me come along.’

  �� don’t understand,’ he said. `Since dice therapy with you and Dr. Boyd I haven’t, I haven’t … done anything I haven’t paid for.’

  ��hhhh,’ I said vaguely, searching for my next line.

  ��xcept my wife.’

  `Where’s this place again?’ shouted back Antonio Rosco Fellini. I told him.

  ��nd my wife has left me and is suing me and if I die she won’t get a cent.’

  `But those early days in Harlem, Frank. They may know.’

  He hesitated and stared over at me wide-eyed in fear.

  `But I’m leaving my money partly to the NAACP,’ he said.

  `Maybe they don’t know that,’ I said.

  `Probably no one knows,’ he said sadly. �� just recently decided.’

  ‘Ah,
and when did you decide?’

  ‘Just now, a minute ago.’

  We drove on in silence for a while, Osterflood twice looking mind us to see if we were being followed. He reported that we were.

  `What’s this appointment about tonight, Frank?’

  ‘None of your business,’ he answered quickly.

  `Frank, I’m trying to help you. Someone may be trying to murder you tonight.’ He looked back at me uncertainly.

  �� … I’ve got a date,’ he said.

  ��hhhh,’ I said. `But it’s a woman that I … that … she likes money.’

  `Where are you to meet her?’

  ‘In … er … Harlem.’

  His eyes flickered off hopefully at a bus stopped beside us, as if it might contain a plainclothesman or CIA man or FBI man. There were undoubtedly a few of each, but they were out of his reach.

  `Does she live alone?’ I asked. It was six forty-eight.

  ��h … Well, yes.’

  `What is she like?’

  `She’s disgusting!’ he spit out emphatically. `Flesh, flesh, flesh - a woman,’ he added.

  ‘Ahh,’ I said, disappointed. `Do you think there’s any chance at all that she might be involved in a plot?’

  ��‘ve known her three months. She thinks I’m a professional wrestler. No. No. She’s horrible, but she’s not - it’s not her.’

  `Look,’ I said impulsively. `Tonight the place for you to be is away from your apartment and out of public places.