The Die giveth and the Die taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Die.
Chapter Eighty-seven
Dear Mr. Rhinehart and Company, We are deeply indebted to you here at Fedel's for the fine catalytic effect your theory of the dice life has had on sales and profits and on our lives. My business life had been giving me less and less satisfaction over the years. I had the usual ulcer and mistress, and I divorced my wife and took a dose of LSD or something and went to discotheques, but nothing helped: my profits and my indifference remained steady. Then I read an article about you in The New Yorker which I detest and never read, and located a follower of yours here in Columbus and I and my business haven't been the same since.
The first thing the dice told me to do was raise wages across the board thirty percent and write commending personal letters to everyone. Efficiency jumped forty-three percent that month (it dropped back twenty-eight percent the next). Then the dice ordered me to stop manufacturing conventional hats (the family product for sixty-seven years), but to make experimental hats. My designers went out of their minds in ecstasy. Our first line of hats (you may have read about them in Ladies' Wear) was the highly successful `Boat Sombrero,' essentially a cowboy hat with a brim that tapers flush to the peak at the sides but flows out four inches in front and back.
Although our profits declined fifteen percent, our sales leapt twenty percent and I wasn't bored anymore. Our second design was the rainhat that looks like a Ku Klux Klan hood and is made of brightly colored plastic suitable for both sexes. It's not going well at all (except in the South) but all of us at Fedel's think it's great. My profits turned at this point into a loss, but the Die's will be done.
The Die then insisted we drop our number one moneymaking line of cheap men's expensive hats. Our retailers were appalled, but we were so engrossed in our third experimental design (the designer claims the Die make a key decision on it) that we didn't care. The `pancake' or `halo' (we haven't consulted the Die yet) is a disc-shaped headgear that works on the principle of the academic mortar board, but comes in a variety of colors, materials and shapes, although it is usually elliptical or circular. Our retail outlets are very skeptical, but have ordered so many on the basis of the success of the Boat Sombrero' that we're months behind in orders all ready.
We're deeply in debt, but our top designers and management personnel have all voluntarily taken fifty percent wage cuts in exchange for a share of the profits on our `halo' line and we're going to survive. The Die last week ordered a designer of ours to design a hat that covers the whole body and although some of us are doubtful, he is going ahead with enthusiasm.
To think I used to design and sell the same type of hat year after year! Please send us all your publications, and thank you for your help.
Sincerely yours, Joseph Fedel, President Fedel's Hats, Columbus, Ohio.
Chapter Eighty-eight
Professor Boggles at a CETRE
Dear Luke, I am a rational, linear, verbal, discursive, literary man and even your previous absurdities prepared me only minimally for the shock of my first week in the Catskill CETRE. I dutifully expressed anger, played Hamlet, pretended to be a fool, acted like an enraged tiger; I even swished my considerable hips effeminately when the Die tried to turn me into a woman. However, I did all this in isolation; I saw to it that none of my role-playing involved active interaction with other people. When other people attempted to impose their `selves' on me I became cynical inside, no matter what I was halfheartedly doing outside.
A middle-aged woman grossly importuned me to seduce her and the Die dictated that I ought to respond favorably. I found myself slobbering on her neck and squeezing her expansive bosom but feeling totally detached. My phallus remained detumescent. After five minutes she huffed off to someone else.
My awakening came on the fifth day, in the creativity room. The Die had chosen for me the assignment to write four pages using a new language - one employing primarily words from known vocabularies but combining them in a new grammar, syntax and diction. I was to try to express real feelings. I sat for an hour and couldn't get past doodles. Then
-I finally wrote a sentence `Muckme piddles ping pong poetry.'
I liked the sound of it but the syntax was too regular. I wrote a second `Skinned. Skinniedup, baked. Stick a.'
That I felt was better, but lacking in verbs.
`Farceuncle midwoof floops on the conch Harkening strayners at the dolor.'
I smiled to myself: I felt I was getting closer to truth.
`Missy-led clanker retchatches purr purr floops midwoof flushiting. I wonted crandy. Yo no crandy git, dabby sated. Yo knotted again, he, replyed jobbily. Fluckit shushit. Hotbam mastar.'
But I was supposed to be expressing real feelings. How might I do that without being absurdly clear and trivial? I must proceed further, I thought: 'Mime a riter. A riter is sumun who rights. Words, wurts, worst ... what too due? Fusshackle thought, ruddycup the blissbiz pronotions gaym, baby gone. Flat chance I have of whining a prize. Holy Muffer, merry of God . . . Ahhh.'
Remaindered Redeemer, where dost thou go? Kink of the Whirl, you knot me so I ken not. Rash anality has deshitted me Of all my straineth. I beg you show me merdesee. Yoose your head, your my-end, your braying! Your rashan. ality 1. He rashandill l (A reckoning crew will destroy us all.) Member, an hefull man is one who unjoys life, finds many playsures. He is a cheyeheld who nose nothink. Be rashanal and use sickology. But write, rite, right, reyet 1 Got is the kink of the Universe (Ice died for our since I ) Got is the kink of the Whirl (He nailrows what is wide and free) God makes ridid what is fleshible (To him who hass much shall be piled) The seven deadly Since he names, The thinks we've done, we must do penitentiary for (Luff, Hee says, is oil) Got so luffed the whirl that he graved is unly beGotten son that those that bleaf he died for their since may have infernal life.
Ah, Luke, I wrote on and on, for two and a half hours I wrote all glorious nonsense and sense so interfused it will take my graduate students decades to decipher it all. It's beautiful. I felt so good the next fat female that bloated her boobs for Boggles was erected on the spot. Dear Luke, you are utterly amid and I your faithfool decipherpill.
Yours, Gobbles.
Chapter Eighty-nine
[Being a questioning of Dr: Lucius Rhinehart by Inspector Nathaniel Putt of the New York City police regarding the unfortunate rigidification of Mr. Franklin Delano Osterflood.]
'It's good to see you again, Inspector Putt,' Dr. Rhinehart said. 'How have you been?'
'Fine, thank - Sit down, Rhinehart' 'Thank you. You've got a new couch.'
'You know why I've called you in?'
'No, I'm afraid I don't. Lost some more mental patients?'
'Do you know a man named Frank Osterflood?' 'Yes, I do. He was a-'
'When did you last see him?'
Dr. Rhinehart pulled out a die, shook it in his cupped hands and leaned forward to drop it on the inspector's desk. After examining the results he said 'About a week ago.'
Inspector Putt's eyes glittered minutely.
'You . . . saw . . . him . . . one week ago.'
'Yes, about then. Why? What's Frank up to these days? Nothing serious, I hope.'
`Please describe your meeting with him.'
'Mmmmm. I remember I ran into him purely by chance on the street near his apartment. We decided to go to dinner together.'
'Go on.'
'After dinner, he suggested we go visit a girlfriend of his in Harlem. So we went.'
'Go on.'
'I spent a couple of hours with Osterflood with his girlfriend and then I left' 'What took place at this girlfriend's place?'
'We watched some television. And, well, Osterflood engaged the girl in sexual congress and then I engaged her in sexual congress. It was a joint session you might say.'
'Did Osterflood leave with you?'
'No. I left alone.'
'What was he doing when you left?'
'He was sleeping on the liv
ing room rug.'
'What was Osterflood's relation to this girl?'
`I'd say it was basically masochistic. Sadistic elements too.'
`Did the girl seem to like him?'
'She seemed to take pleasure in her interaction with him.'
`You say Osterflood was asleep when you left'
'Yes.'
`Was he drunk?'
`Probably.'
`Was he in good health?' `Mmmm. No. He was overweight, had eaten too much that night. Had digestive problems. Was exhausting himself in acts of atonement.'
Inspector Putt stared coldly at Dr. Rhinehart and then asked abruptly 'Who prepared the drinks for everyone that night?'
'Ahh. The drinks.'
'Yes, the drinks.'
Dr. Rhinehart bounced the die on the desk a second time. He smiled.
'Mr. Osterflood prepared the drinks.'
'Osterflood!' `I found several of my Scotches unfriendlily watered-down, but the service was otherwise fine.'
The inspector's face and eyes became exceptionally cold as he stared at Dr. Rhinehart.
'Did the die tell you to murder Osterflood that night?'
'Oh I doubt it. But it's an interesting question. Let's see.'
Dr. Rhinehart dribbled the die a third time, and then looked up brightly at his questioner. 'Nope.'
'I see. I suppose that's the truth,' Inspector Putt sneered.
`It's what the die told me to say.'
The two men looked at each other and then the inspector, tight-lipped, pushed a button on the side of his desk and told the detective who came to the door to 'bring her in.'
Gina entered, dressed conservatively in a knee-length skirt, a heavy blouse and an ill-fitting jacket.
`That's the man,' she said.
'Sit down,' said the inspector.
`That's him.'
'Hi, Gina,' Dr. Rhinehart said.
`He admits it See, he admits it'
'Sit down, Gina,' the detective said.
`Miss Potrelli to you, fuzz-face.'
'Please briefly repeat your story of how the evening with Osterflood went,' said the inspector.
This guy and Frank came to my apartment and I gave them both a fuck. This guy served the drinks. Osterflood began to act as if he'd been drugged and was getting woozy and this guy dragged him off.'
'Dr. Rhinehart?' Inspector Putt said coldly.
'Mr. Osterflood and I paid a social call on Miss Potrelli. Frank made us all several drinks while we watched television and engaged in sexual congresses. I left with Frank lying on the floor with a blissful smile on his face. Where is old Frank, by the way?'
'He's dead, damn you,' said Gina.
'Shuttup,' said the inspector and then went on quietly: 'The body of Frank Osterflood was discovered on November 15 in the East River under the Triborough Bridge. An autopsy has revealed that he'd been dead about two days. He was poisoned with strychnine.'
He looked only at Rhinehart. 'You or Gina here - one of you - was the last one to see Osterflood alive.'
`Maybe he just took a midnight swim in the East River and accidentally swallowed some water,' suggested Dr. Rhinehart.
`The percentage solution of strychnine in the East River,' said Inspector Putt soberly, 'is still at acceptable levels.'
'But then I wonder what happened to him,' said Dr. Rhinehart.
`Traces of strychnine have been found on the shelf above Gina's liquor cabinet and in the rug in front of the TV set.'
'How interesting.'
'You mixed the drinks!' Gina said shrilly.
'I did? No, my story is that Osterflood mixed them.'
Dr. Rhinehart scowled in concentration. 'Maybe a dice decision made him decide to kill himself in retribution for his sins. He showed certain masochistic tendencies.'
'You mixed the drinks and you left with him,' Gina said again shrilly.
'Not according to my story, Miss Potrelli. According to my story I left first and he left later.'
'Oh,' she said. 'You're a liar.'
'Let's just say we have different stories. This confuses the inspector and makes him uneasy.'
'There are already four other witnesses who claim that they saw you leave with Osterflood, Rhinehart" said the detective.
'Ahh, four! That shows initiative, Gina. It would be a shame to waste those witnesses.'
Dr. Rhinehart retrieved his die from the desk and dropped it onto the couch beside his thigh.
'I left with Osterflood, Inspector.'
'Where did you go?'
'Where did we go, Gina?'
`You took a tax-' `Shuttup! Get her out of here.'
Gina was removed from the room by the detective.
`We got in a taxi, I believe. I got off at the Lexington Avenue subway stop at 125th Street. I needed to relieve myself. Osterflood went on. He was quite drunk and I felt slightly guilty about leaving him with a suspiciously cheerful cabby, but I was drunk too. I found a urinal near-'
'Why did you lie to us the first time?'
`Who says I lied to you the first time?'
`You've just changed your story.'
'Details.'
'Gina's witnesses exposed your lie.'
`Come now, Inspector, you know full well that her four witnesses are even less reliable than the dice, and that's going some.'
`Shuttup!'
'And besides, the Die told me to change the story.'
The inspector was glaring at Dr. Rhinehart.
`You'd better consult your dice again,' he said. 'No cabby in the city remembers picking up two big white men in Harlem that evening, or for that matter any evening in the last five years. You, as a doctor, would have recognized the symptoms of strychnine poisoning as different from simple drunkenness. We know Gina and her four witnesses are lying. We know you're lying. We know Osterflood was murdered at Gina's and never left there alive.
Inspector Putt and Dr. Rhinehart stared at each other.
`Wow!' Dr. Rhinehart said after awhile. He leaned forward on the couch, wide-eyed, attentive, interested, and asked intently: `Who killed him?'
Chapter Ninety
Dear Doc, The Die told me to write you. Can't think of much to say.
Die bless you, Fred Weedmuller, Porksnout, Texas.
Chapter Ninety-one
A week after my interview with him, Inspector Putt announced to anyone who was interested that new evidence (undisclosed) indicated conclusively that Osterflood must have committed suicide probably. Privately, he informed friends and informers that it was clear he couldn't possibly get a conviction against either Gina or me. Gina wouldn't have murdered Osterflood so premeditatedly in her own apartment with another white man present, and strychnine, he noted, is not the usual mode of murder of `abused Harlem whores' Moreover, her four witnesses, while obviously they were lying, nevertheless would raise a shadow of doubt in the minds of a few radlib jurors.
Dr. Rhinehart would be impossible to convict because no jury, radlib or one hundred and ten percent American, could be expected to understand Rhinehart's motivation. The inspector admitted he himself wasn't certain he understood it. 'He did it because the dice told him to,' the D.A. would proclaim and the defense attorneys would lead the general laughter which would follow. The world was changing too rapidly for the typical juror, no matter, how American, to keep up. Moreover, even inspector Putt was beginning to doubt that Rhinehart had done it, for, though he was certainly capable of murder, Rhinehart, if the Die had told him to do it, would clearly not have done such a debauched, confused, messy, unaesthetic, incompetent job of it.
Nevertheless, Inspector Putt had called me for one last confrontation and had concluded a long lecture with the ringing words 'Someday Rhinehart, the law is going to catch up with you. Someday the furies are going to come home to roost. Someday the sins you are committing in the name of your dice games are going to be taken out of the bank. Someday, you will learn, crime, even in the United States; does not pay.'
'I'm sure you're
right,' I said, shaking his hand as I left. 'But is there any hurry ?'
So my dicelife went on. I gave the Die one chance in six that I do everything in my power to bring Osterflood back to life again, but the option lost out to another one-in-six shot: that I spend three days in mourning for Frank, and that I compose a few prayers and parables for the occasion.
On January 1, 1971, I. had my third annual Fate Day to determined my long-range role for the year. The Die was given the options that (1) sometime that year I marry Linda Reichman, Terry Tracy, Miss Reingold, or a woman chosen at random (I felt that if I couldn't make a go of a dice-marriage with someone, then the nuclear family might be in danger); (2) I give up the dice for the year and begin an entirely new career of some sort (this no longer frightening option was inspired by Fuigi Arishi's article I had read that day on `The Withering Away of the Die'); (3) I begin revolutionary activity against the established clods of the world, my purpose being to expose hypocrisy and injustice, shame the unjust, awaken and arouse the oppressed and, in general, to wage an unending war against crime: namely, to smash society as radically as I am trying to smash society in me' (I'd read a month or two before that Eric Cannon and Arturo Jones had formed an underground revolutionary group and the memory that day made me feel heroic: I wasn't sure what my words meant that I do; but the ring of them made me sit proud on the living room rug where I was preparing to cast the dice); (4) I work during the year on books and articles and novels and stories about whatever the Die dictated, completing at least the equivalent of two books (I resented the bum job of publicity work that was being done for our Dice Centers and the DICELIFE Foundation and vaguely pictured myself coming to the rescue); (5) I continue my multiple activities in promoting diceliving throughout the world, the nature of my contribution to be determined by the Die (it's what I most felt like doing: Linda and Jake and Fred and Lil were all sporadically part of our diceteam, and the dicelife without other dicepeople is often lonely); and (6) I spend the whole year limiting my options to the duration of one day only, so that, indeed (to quote the inspired rhetoric of my '71 Fate Day), 'each day's dawning bring a new birth, while others ignore it and grow old.'