The Dice Man (6 page)

'Tell me about your son, Pastor Cannon,' I said, seating myself in the wooden desk chair and leaning forward with my sincere professional look. Pastor Cannon cocked his head judiciously, crossed one leg over the other and cleared his throat.

`My son is a mystery,' he said. `It's incredible to me that he should exist. He's totally intolerant of others. You ... if you've read what's in that folder you know the details. Two weeks ago though - another example. Eric [he glanced nervously at the boy, who was apparently looking out or at the window) hasn't been eating well for a month. Hasn't been reading or writing. He burned everything he'd written oven two months ago. An incredible amount. He doesn't speak much to anyone anymore. I was surprised he answered you .... Two weeks ago, at the dinner table, Eric playing saint with a glass of water, I remarked to our guest that night, a Mr. Houston of Pace Industries, a vice-president, that I almost hoped sometimes that there would be a third World War because I couldn't see how else the world would ever be rid of Communism. It's a thought we've all had at one time or another. Eric threw the water in my face. He smashed his glass on the floor.'

He was peering intently at me, waiting for a reaction. When I merely looked back he went-on: `I wouldn't mind for myself, but you can imagine how upset my wife is made by such scenes, and this is typical.'

`Yes,' I said. `Why do you think he did it?'

`He's an egomaniac. He doesn't see things as you and I do. He doesn't want to live as we do. He thinks that all Catholic priests, most teachers and myself are all wrong, but so do many others without always making trouble about it. And that's the crux. He takes life too seriously. He never plays, or at least never when most people want him to. He's always playing, but never what he's supposed to. He's always making war for his way of life. This is a great land of freedom but it isn't made for people who insist on insisting on their own ideas. Tolerance is our byword and Eric is above all intolerant.'

'Sorry about that, Dad,' Eric suddenly said, and with a friendly smile got up and took a position directly behind and between his parents with a hand resting on the back of each of their chairs. Pastor Cannon looked at me as if he were trying to read by the expression on my face exactly how much longer he had to live.
`Are you intolerant, Eric?' I asked.

`I'm intolerant of evil and stupidity,' he said.

`But who gives you the right,' his father said, turning partly around to confront his son, `to tell everyone what's good and evil?'

'It's the divine right of kings,' Eric replied, smiling.

His father turned back to me and shrugged. `There you are,' he said. `And let me give you another example. Eric, when ha was thirteen years old, mind you, stands up in the middle of my church during a crowded midmorning Communion and says aloud above the kneeling figures: 'That it should come to this," and walks out.'

We all remained as we were without speaking, as if I were the concentrating photographer and they about to have their family portrait taken.

`You don't like modern Christianity?' I finally said to Eric.

He rang his fingers through his long black hair, looked up briefly at the ceiling and screamed.

His father and mother came out of their chairs like rats o$ as electric grid and both stood trembling, watching their son, hands at his side, a slight smile on his face, screaming.

A white-suited Negro attendant entered the office and then another. They looked at me for instructions. I waited for Eric's second lungful scream to end to see if he would begin another. He didn't. When he had finished, he stood quietly for a moment and then said to no one in particular: Time to go.'

`Take him to the admissions ward, to Dr. Vener for his physical. Give this prescription to Dr. Vener.'

I scribbled out a note for a mild sedative and watched the two attendants look warily at the boy.

`Will he come quietly?' the smaller of the two asked.

Eric stood still a moment longer and then did a rapid two step followed by an irregular jig toward the door. He sang: `We're OFF to see the Wizard, the Wonderful Wizard of Oz. We're OFF...'

Exit dancing. Attendants follow, last seen each reaching to grasp one of his arms. Pastor Cannon had a comforting arm around his wife's shoulder. I had rung for a student nurse.

`I'm very sorry, Dr. Rhinehart,' Pastor Cannon said. `I was afraid something like this would happen but I felt that you ought to see for yourself how he acts.'

`You're absolutely right,' I said.

Where's one other thing,' said Pastor Cannon. `My wife and I were wondering whether it might be possible if .. . I understand it is sometimes possible for a patient to have a single room. I came around my desk and walked up quite close to Pastor Cannon, who still had an arm around his wife.

`This is a Christian institution, Pastor,' I said. `We believe firmly in the brotherhood of all men. Your son will share a bedroom with fifteen other healthy, normal American mental patients. Gives them a feeling of belonging and togetherness. If your son feels the need for a single, have him slug an attendant or two, and they'll give him his own room: the state even provides a jacket for the occasion.'
His wife flinched and averted her eyes, but Pastor Cannon hesitated only a second and then nodded his head.

`Absolutely right. Teach the boy the realities of life. Now, about his clothing-'
`Pastor Cannon,' I said sharply. `This is no Sunday school. This is a mental hospital. Men are sent here when they
refuse to play our normal games of reality. Your son has been sucked up by the wards; you'll never see him the same
again, for better or worse. Don't talk so blithely about rooms and clothes; your son is gone.'

His eyes changed from momentary fright into a cold glare, and his arm fell from around his wife.

`I never had a son,' he said.

And they left.

When I got home, Lillian and Arlene Ecstein were collapsed side by side on the couch in their slacks and both were laughing as if they'd just finished splitting a bottle of gin. Arlene, by the way, always seems permanently eclipsed by the brilliant pinwheeling light of her husband: A little short from my six foot-four point of view, she usually looked prim and prudish with thick horn-rimmed glasses like Jake's and undistinguished black hair tied back in a bun. Although there were unconfirmed rumors that on her otherwise slender body she owned two marvelously full breasts, the baggy sweaters, men's shirts, loose blouses and over sized smocks she always wore resulted in no one's noticing her breasts until they'd known her for several months - by which time they'd forgotten all about her.

In her own sweet, simpleminded way I think she may once have given me a housewifely come-on, but being married, a dignified professional man, a loyal friend and having already forgotten all about her, I had resisted. (As I recall she spent one whole evening asking me to take pieces of lint off her smock: I spent the evening taking pieces of lint off her smock.) On the other hand, vaguely, late at night, after a hard day at the mental hospital, or when Lil and the children all had the 'flu or diarrhea or measles, I would feel regret at being married, a dignified professional man and a loyal friend. Twice I had daydreamed of somehow engulfing one entire Arlene breast in my mouth. It was clear that were fate ever to give me a reasonable opportunity - e.g. she were to climb naked into bed with me - I would yield; we would have one fine quick fire of first fornication and then settle into some dull routine of copulation on the q.t. But as long as the initiative were left to me I would never do anything about it. The two-thirds married professional man friend would always dominate the bored animal. And, as you, my friend, know, the combination would be miserable.

Although Lil's laugh was loud, even raucous, Arlene's was like a steady muffled machine-gun; she slumped lower on the couch as she laughed, while Lil stiffened her back and chortled at the ceiling.

`Well, what have you two been doing lately?' I asked, sliding my briefcase-under the desk and hanging my raincoat neatly in a puddle on the floor just inside the kitchen.

`We've just been splitting a bottle of gin,' Lil said happily.

`It was that or dope and we couldn't find any dope,' Arlene added. `Jake doesn't believe in LSD and Lil couldn't find yours.'

`That's strange. Lil knows I always keep it in the boy's toy cabinet.'

`I was wondering why Larry went off to school without a fuss this morning,' Lil said, and, having said something amusing, she stopped laughing.

`Well, what's the occasion? Is one of you getting divorced or having an abortion?'

I asked, fixing myself a martini from the still two-thirds full bottle of gin. `Don't be silly,' Lil said. `We'd never dream of such high points. Our lives ooze. Not ooze excitement or sex appeal, just ooze.'

`Like vaginal jelly from a tube,' Arlene added.

They sat slumped on the couch looking grief-stricken for half a minute and then Lil perked up.

`We might form a Psychiatrists' Wives Invitational Club, Arlene,' she said. `And not invite Luke and Jake.'

`I would hope not,' I said and pulled a desk chair around and, straddling it theatrically, drink in hand, faced the females with fatigue.

`We could be charter members of PWIC,' Lil went on, scowling. `I can't quite figure out what good it will do us.'

Then she giggled. `Perhaps, though, our PWIC will grow bigger than yours,' and both women, after staring at me pleasantly for a few seconds, began giggling stupidly.

`We could have our first social project by changing husbands for a week,' said Arlene.

`Neither of us would notice any difference,' Lil said.

That's not true. Jake brushes his teeth in a very original way, and I bet Luke has abilities I don't know about.'

`Believe me,' Lil said, `he doesn't'

`Sssss,' said Arlene. `You shouldn't show public contempt for your husband. It will bruise his ego.'

`Thank you, Arlene,' I said.

`Luke's an in-tell-i-gent man,' she managed to get out. `I'm not even a liberal arts woman, and he's studied .. he's studied...'

`Urine and stools,' completed Lil, and they laughed.

Why is it that I can lead my life of quiet desperation with complete poise, dignity and grace, while most women I know insist on leading lives of quiet desperation which are noisy. I was giving the question serious thought when I noticed Lil and Arlene crawling toward me on their knees, their, hands clasped in supplication.

`Save us, O Master of the Stools, we're bored.'

`Give us the word!' It was good to be back in the quiet of home and fireside after a trying day with the mentally disturbed.

`O Master, help us, our lives are yours.'

The effect of two crawling, begging, drunken women wiggling their way toward me was that I got an erection, not professionally or maritally the most helpful response, but sincere. Somehow I felt that more was expected of a sage.

`Rise, my children,' I said gently and I myself now stood up before them.

`O. Master, speak!' Arlene said, on her knees.

`You wish to be saved? To be reborn?' `Oh, yes!'

`You wish a new life?'

'Yes, yes!'

'Have you tried the new All with Borax?'

They collapsed forward in groans and giggles, but straightened quickly with a `We have, we have, but still no satori' (from Lily, and `even Mr. Clean' (from Arlene).

`You must cease caring,' I said. `You must surrender everything. EVERYTHING.'

`Oh. Master, here, in front of your wife!' and they both giggled and fluttered like sparrows in heat.

`EVERYthing,' I boomed irritably. `Give up all hope, all illusion, all desire.'

`We've tried.'

`We've tried and still we desire.'

`We still desire not to desire and hope to be without hope and have the illusion we can be without illusions.'

`Give up, I say. Give up everything, including the desire to be saved. Become as weeds that grow and die unnoticed in the fields. Surrender to the wind.'

Lillian suddenly stood up and walked to the liquor cabinet.

`I've heard it all before,' she said, `and the wind turns out to be a lot of hot air.'

`I thought you were drunk.'

'The sight of you preaching is enough to sober-anyone.' Arlene, still on her knees, said strangely, blinking through her thick glasses, `But I'm still not saved. I want to be saved.'

'You heard him, give up.'

'That's salvation?'

"That's all he offers. Can Jake do better?'

'No, but I can get a family discount with Jake.'

And they laughed.

`Are you two really drunk?' I asked.

'I am, but Lil says she wants all her faculties intact to stay one up on you. Jake's not home so I've giving my faculty a vacation.'

`Luke never loses any of his faculties: they've all got tenure,' Lil said. `That's why they're all senile.'

Lil smiled a first bitter and then pleased-with-herself smile and raised a fresh martini in mock toast to my senile faculties. With slow dignity I moved off to my study. There are moments even a pipe can't dignify. 

The poker that evening was a disaster. Lillian and Arlene were exaggeratedly gay at first (their bottle of gin nearly empty) and, after a series of reckless raises, exaggeratedly broke thereafter. Lil then proceeded to raise even more recklessly (with my money), while Arlene subsided into a sensually blissful indifference. Dr. Mann's luck was deadening. In his totally bored, seemingly uninterested way, he proceeded to raise dramatically, win, bluff people out, win, or fold early and miss out on only small pots. He was an intelligent player, but when the cards went his way his blandness made him seem superhuman. That this blubbery god was crumbling potato chips all over the table was a further source of personal gloom, Lil seemed happy that it was Dr. Mann winning big and not I, but Dr. Felloni, by the vigor with which she nodded her head after losing a pot to him, also seemed vastly irritated.

At about eleven Arlene asked to be dealt out, and, announcing drowsily that losing at poker made her feel sexy and sleepy, left for her apartment downstairs. Lil drank and battled on, won two huge pots at a seven-card-stud game with dice that she liked to play, became gay again, teased me affectionately, apologized for being irritable, teased Dr. Mann for winning so much, then ran from the table to vomit in the bathtub.