`Moreover, you've got Lil trying dice therapy, your kids. Your new self is being accepted. You don't have to play the
fool anymore.'
`I see.'
`I even accept the new Luke. Arlene has introduced me to several, Ah, positions of dice therapy. I spoke to Boggles.
Dice therapy makes sense.'
`1t does?'
`Of course it does.'
`But it will tend to break down the sense of a stable self so necessary for a human to feel secure.'
`Only superficially. Actually, it builds a dice-student's - Jesus, I'm using your terms already - a patient's strength by
forcing him into continual conflict with others.'
`Builds ego strength?'
'Sure. You're not afraid of anything now, are you?'
`Well, I don't know.'
`You've made an ass of yourself so many times that you can't be hurt.'
'Ahh, very acute.'
'That's ego strength.'
`Without any ego.'
`Semantics, but it's what we're after. I can't be hurt because I analyze everything. A scientist examines his wound, his
wounder and his healer with equal neutrality.'
`And the dice-student obeys the dice decision, good and bad, with equal passion.'
`Right,' he said.
`But what kind of a society will it be if people begin consulting the Die to make their decisions?'
`No problem. People are only as eccentric as their options and most of the people who will go through dice therapy are
going to develop just like you; that's what makes your case so important. They're all going to go through a period of
chaotic rebellion and then move into a lifetime of moderate, rational use of the dice consistent with some overall
purpose.'
'That's very nice, Jake,' I said and leaned back on the couch from the alert sitting position I had been in.
`I'm depressed,' I added.
`Moderate, rational use of the dice is rational and moderate and every man should try it.'
`But the dicelife should be unpredictable and irrational and immoderate. If it isn't, it isn't dicelife.'
`Nonsense. You're following the dice these days, right?'
`Yes.'
`You're seeing your patients, living with your wife, seeing me regularly, paying your bills, talking to your friends,
obeying the laws: you're leading a healthy, normal life. You're cured.'
`A healthy, normal life -'
`And you're not bored anymore.'
`A healthy, normal life unbored -'
`Right. You're cured.'
`It's hard to believe.'
`You were a tough nut to crack.'
`I don't feel any different than I did three months ago.'
`Dice therapy, purpose, regularity, moderation, sense of limits: you're cured.'
`So this is the end of my booster analysis?'
`It's all over but the shouting.'
'How much do I owe you?'
`Miss R'll have the bill for you when you leave.'
`Well, thank you, Jake.'
`Luke, baby, I'm finishing up 'The Case of the Six-Sided Man' this afternoon and after poker tonight. I thank you.'
`It's a good article?'
`Tougher the case, better the article. By the way I've asked old Arnie Weissman to try to get you invited to speak at
this fall's annual AAPP convention - on Dice Therapy. Pretty good, huh?'
`Well, thank you, Jake.'
`Thought I'd present 'The Case of the Six-Sided Man' on the same day.'
'The dynamic duo,' I said.
`I thought of titling the article 'The Case of the Mad Scientist,' but settled on 'The Six-Sided Man.'
What do you think?'
`The 'Case of the Six-Sided Man.'
'It's beautiful.'
Jake came around from behind his neat desk and put his arm way up on my shoulder and grinned up into my face.
`You're a genius, Luke, and so am I, but moderation.'
'So long,' I said, shaking his hand.
`See you tonight for poker,' he said as I was leaving.
`Oh that's right. I'd forgotten. I may be a bit late. But I'll see you.'
As I was softly closing the door behind me, he caught my eye one last time and grinned.
`You're cured,' he said.
`I doubt it, Jake, but you never can tell. Die be with you.'
`You too, baby.'
Chapter Fifty-four
[From The New York Times, Wednesday, August 13, 1969, late edition.] In the largest mass escape in the history of
New York State Mental Institutions, thirty-three patients of Queensborough State Hospital of Queens escaped last
night during a performance of Hair at the Blovill Theater in midtown Manhattan.
By 2 A.M. this morning ten of these had been recaptured by city police and hospital officials, but twenty- three
remained at large.
At the Blovill Theater the patients sat through the first act of the hit musical Hair, but as the second act was beginning they made their escape. Most of the patients began to snake-dance their way onto the stage to the music of the first number of Act 2 `Where Do I Go?', mingled with the cast, and then fled backstage and hence to the street. The Blovill
audience apparently assumed the performance of the patients was part of the show.
Hospital officials claim that someone apparently forged the signature of Hospital Director Timothy L. Mann, M.D., on documents ordering staff members to make arrangements to transport thirty-eight patients from the admissions ward to see the musical by chartered bus.
Dr. Lucius M. Rhinehart, whom the forged documents had ordered to organize and guide the expedition, stated that he and his attendants had concentrated on holding the three or four potentially dangerous patients and
