The Diceman

`Would you care to explain your vote?'

Dr. Weinburger asked gently after a while.

Dr. Moon's body was begi

were now only half open.

`My vote's obvious,' he said weakly. `Get on with it'

Dr Weinburger stood up with a dignified smile on his face.

`The vote on the motion to expel Dr. Rhinehart being tied at two to two, the chairman is obliged to cast his vote to

break the tie.'

He paused briefly and poked formally at the crumpled papers in front of him. `I vote yes. Consequently, by a vote of

three to two, Dr. Rhinehart is expelled from PANY. A letter will be sent to -'

`Point of order,' came Dr. Moon's weak voice, his eyes now open just a slit, as if permitting people only the tiniest of

glances into his red inferno.

`Beg pardon?' said the surprised chairman.

"Cording to our, bylaws . . . man presenting charges 'gainst colleague can't . . . vote . .. on motion to accept . . .

charges.'

`I'm afraid I don't understan-' `Created bylaw m'self in thirty-one,' continued Dr. Moon with a gasp. He seemed to be

trying to push himself away from Dr. Ma

can't vote.'

No one spoke. There was only the hoarse explosive rattle of Dr. Moon's occasional breath.

Dr. Ma

'Vote's two to one for acquittal,' said Dr. Moon and, after a desperate, hollow, rattling intake of air, he finished

`Chairman of committee can't vote except to break ties.'

`Dr. Moon, sir,' said Dr. Weinburger weakly, bracing himself against the table to keep himself from fainting: `Could

you please consider changing your vote or at least explaining it?'

The red coals of Dr. Moon's dying eyes blazed forth one last time from the face which looked as if it had suffered all

the miseries of every human that had ever lived.

`M'vote's obvious,' he said.

Dr. Weinburger began re-crumpling the papers which he had finished neatening in front of him.

`Dr. Moon, sir,' he said again weakly. 'Would you consider changing your vote in order to … simplify … to simplify …

Dr. Moon! Dr. Moon!' But the silence in the room was total.

Was total.

Chapter Fifty

Dr. Moon's death in the line of duty was greeted with mixed reviews in the psychiatric world of New York as was my

momentary escape from the fate I so obviously deserved. I quietly resigned from PANY, but Dr. Weinburger wrote a personal letter to the president of the AMA; my removal from the elite sections of civilization continued its slow, rational, bureaucratic course.

They probably would have kept me locked up in Kolb Clinic forever, but Jake Ecstein was my psychiatrist and unlike most other ambitious, successful doctors, Jake listened only to Jake. Thus, when I seemed perfectly normal (it was back to Normalcy Month) he ordered them to let me out. It seemed an unreasonable thing to do, even to me.

Chapter Fifty-one

`Luke, you're a quack,' Fred Boyd said to me, smiling and looking out our kitchen windows toward the old barn and

poison ivy fields.

`Mmmm,' I said, as Lil moved past our table back outdoors to get the groceries.

`A Phi Beta Kappa quack, a brilliant quack, but a quack,' he skid.

`Thanks, Fred. You're kind.'

`The trouble is,' he said, dunking a somewhat stale doughnut into his lukewarm coffee, `that some of it makes sense.

That confuses the issue. Why can't you just be a complete fool or charlatan?'

`Huh. Never thought of that. I'll have to let the Die consider it' Lil and Miss Welish came in from the yard with the

two children clamoring after them, clawing at the bags of groceries Lil carried in her arms. When Lil took out a box of

cookies and distributed three each to the two children, they wandered back outdoors, arguing halfheartedly about who

had the largest.

Miss Welish, dressed in white te

up some fresh coffee and deliver the fresh pastry we'd been promised. Fred watched her, sighed, yawned and tipped

way back in his chair, his hands clasped behind his head.

`And where's it all going to end, I wonder?' he said.

`What?' I asked.

`Your dice therapy business: `The Die only knows.'

`Seriously. What do you think you'll achieve?'

`Try it yourself,' I said.

`I have. You know I have. And it's fun; I admit it. But my God, if I took it seriously I'd have to change completely.'

`Precisely.'

`But I like the way I am: `So do I, but I'm getting bored with you,' I said. `It's variety and unpredictability we like in

our friends. Those capable of the unexpected we cherish; they capture us because we're intrigued by how they "work."

After a while we learn how they work, and our boredom resumes. You've got to change, Fred.'

'No, he hasn't,' said Lil, bringing us lemonade, a Sara Lee Coffee Cake and a bottle of vitamins and sitting at the end

of the table. `I liked Luke the way he was before, and I want Fred to stay just the way he is.'

`It's just not so, Lil. You were bored and unhappy with me before I became the Dice Man. Now you're entertained and

unhappy. That's progress.'

Lil shook her head.

`If it weren't for Fred, I don't think I'd have survived, but he's made me see your behavior for what it is: the sick

rebellion of an elephantine child.'

`Fred!'

'Now wait a minute, Lil,' he said. `That isn't quite what I think at all.'

`All right,' Lil said'. 'The sick rebellion of an elephantine Phi Beta Kappa child quack.'

'That's better,' he said, and we laughed.

Miss Welish brought us coffee and sat down with her cup in the chair in front of the window. She smiled at our thank #161;you's and took a big bite out of a sugared bun.

`Actually,' Lil said, `now that you've let me know what you're up to and I no longer give a damn about you, I find it

interesting. You should have told me about your dicelife before.'

`The dice didn't tell me to.'

`Don't you ever do anything all by yourself?' Miss Welish asked.

`Not if I can help it.'

`Luke is the only man I've ever known,' Fred said, `who consults his God every time before going to the john.'

`I think Dr. Rhinehart is a true scientist,' Miss Welish said. We all looked at her. She flushed.

`He doesn't let personal considerations enter into anything he does,' she went on. She flushed again. `So I've noticed,' said Lil. There was a somewhat embarrassed silence. Lil had questioned me extensively on my return from the clinic about what had occurred in Dr. Ma

`The only problem I can see with all this,' Fred said, `is that you've got a poor sense of limits, Luke. To a degree, dice living has value, extraordinary value. I've experienced it. I've talked to Orv Boggles and that Tracy girl and a couple of other students of yours and I know. But good God, Luke, the trouble you've caused by not taking it easy, not using common sense.'