The Diceman

I told them that I talked to Arturo Jones at Hair because he was an acute drama critic and that I had single-handedly held on to two of the most dangerous patients and that I'd appreciate a little respect since I felt badly enough about losing as it was.

I lost two more hands of poker and got gloomier and the party broke up with Fred telling about how he was using dice therapy with two of his patients and Jake telling me about a sentence he'd written in his article, and they were gone and Lil, laughing happily, went off to bell. I, despite several of her most obscene kisses, remained behind slumped in the easy chair brooding about my fate.

Chapter Fifty-five

The events which occurred between 1.30 A.M. and 3.30 A.M. that morning, being of some historical note, must be recorded objectively. Dr. Rhinehart had realized for several weeks that the early morning hours of August 13 were, in effect, the first a

He found, however, that he was too distraught over the possible consequences of his activities of the previous day to concentrate on options ru

At last, however, in exasperation at his nervousness, Dr. Rhinehart returned to reality and cast a die to determine whether he would brood about his problems with the police and Dr. Ma

`Now. Where are we?' he thought.

He then recalled that it was his a

normal people were to condemn him and for which future generations of dicepeople have admired him, he dictated

that should he flip a one, a three or a five he would go downstairs and try to engage in sexual congress with Mrs.

Ecstein. The Die fell three and he arose, informed his wife that he was going for a walk and left the apartment.

Since this episode is of little importance, we report it in Dr. Rhinehart's own words .

I clumped down the stairs, past the rusty railing and cast-off advertising circular and rang the doorbell. It was 2.20

A.M., a little late this year, and certainly no time for a little tete-a-tete. Arlene came bleary-eyed clutching Jake's old

bathrobe - to her throat.

`Oh,' she said.

`I've come to engage in sexual congress, Arlene.'

`Come in,' she said.

`The dice told me to do it again.'

`But Jake's here,' she said, blinking her eyes absently and letting the robe fall slightly open.

`He's working in his study at the end of the hall.'

`I'm sorry, but you know how the Die is,' I said.

`I promised not to hide anything from him anymore.'

`But did you consult the Die about that?'

`Oh, you're right.'

She turned and went down the hall a short way and then into her bedroom: I joined her at her vanity table, where

successive flips of a die determined that she was to tell Jake everything and that she was to permit sexual congress

with me, but only in Kama Sutra positions eighteen and twenty-six, which, she said, were particularly suited for

women in their fifth month of pregnancy.

I then followed her up the hall and watched over her shoulder as she stood in the slightly open doorway of Jake's study

looking in at her husband hard at work at his desk.

`Jake?' she said tentatively.

`What's up?' he barked back, not looking up. - `Luke's here,' she said.

`Oh. Come on in Luke baby, I'm just about finished.'

`We're sorry to bother you, Jakie,' Arlene said, `but the Die said Luke had to-'

`I've got a ring-linger last chapter, Luke, if I do say so myself,' Jake said, smiling, and scratching furiously with his

pen across some errant phrase.

`- engage in sexual congress,' I heard Arlene finish.

`What's that?' Jake said and looked up again.

`What?'

`It's our a

He scratched his throat and grimaced and looked a little a

`Oh that,' he finally said. `Jesus, Moses, Freud. I don't know what the world's coming to.'

He stared at us both a long time, squinting horribly. Then he reached to his side, rolled a die across his desk and

frowned again. `Yeah, well, take it easy with my bathrobe.'

`We will,' Arlene said, wheeling around with a beaming smile, and she bounced past me back up the hall to her room.

Dr. Rhinehart returned to his own apartment approximately thirty-eight minutes after leaving it and again felt

depressed. The exhilaration he had felt a year ago upon returning from a superficially similar undertaking was absent. He cast himself into the easy chair in his living room in a tired, anxious, apathetic state such as he had not previously experienced in his dicelife. When he became aware again of his merely human anxiety, he grunted an extremely loud `Ahhggh,' and surged out of the chair to get paper, pencil and dice.

As he returned from his study to the living room, however, he was met by his wife, who had been awakened by his

loud grunt and stood in the bedroom doorway to inquire sleepily if everything was all right. `Everything is confused and unreliable,' Dr. Rhinehart said irritably. `If I could only count definitely upon either the stupidity or the intelligence of the police `Come to bed, Lukie,' his wife said and lifted her slender arms up around his neck and leaned sleepily against him. The bed warmed body that Dr. Rhinehart's hands found themselves enclosing was unconfused and reliable, and with a different sounding `Ahhhh' he lowered his head and embraced his wife.

`But I have miles to go before I sleep,' he said softly when he had broken their kiss.

`Come to bed,' Mrs. Rhinehart said. `The police will never touch you when you're in your wife's bed.'

`Had I but world enough and time-'

`There's plenty of time - come,' and she began to drag her husband into their bedroom. 'I've even dreamed of a new

option,' she said.

But Dr. Rhinehart had stopped a few feet inside the door, and, slump-shouldered and bedraggled, he said: 'But I have

miles to go before I sleep.'

Mrs. Rhinehart, still holding one of his large hands in hers, turned dreamily and smiled and yawned.

`I'll be waiting, sweetheart,' she said, and with an unintended swinging of the more desirable parts of her anatomy, she

moved to her bed and climbed in.

`Goodnight, Lil,' Dr. Rhinehart said.

`Mmmm,' she said. `Check the kids 'fore you come.'

Dr. Rhinehart, still holding in his left hand the paper, pen and two dice, walked quickly to the children's bedroom and

tiptoed in to look at Larry and Evie. They were sound asleep, Larry with his mouth open like a child drunk and Evie