The Dice Man

Luke Rheinhart

I dragged myself to it with the enthusiasm of a man with diarrhea moving toward the toilet: I had a compulsive need to get it out but had some months earlier come to the conclusion that all I was producing was shit.


Three weeks later, `Mrs. P.' (Jake's choice of pseudonyms is only one of his unerring talents)


`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.


Being called to a director's office at QSH reminded Rhinehart of being summoned to the principal's office at age eight for winning money off sixth graders at craps. His problems hadn't changed much.


But we must come to realize that every word is perfect, including those we scratch out. As my pen moves across this page the whole world writes.


I wanted to murder in such a way that Agatha Christie would be pleased and not offended. I wanted to commit a crime so perfect that no one would suspect anything, not the murdered, not the police, not even me.