trying to push himself away from Dr. Mann's shoulder but lacked the strength. `Peerman brought charges. Peerman
can't vote.'
No one spoke. There was only the hoarse explosive rattle of Dr. Moon's occasional breath.
Dr. Mann finally said in a very quiet voice `1n that case the vote is two to two.'
'Vote's two to one for acquittal,' said Dr. Moon and, after a desperate, hollow, rattling intake of air, he finished
`Chairman of committee can't vote except to break ties.'
`Dr. Moon, sir,' said Dr. Weinburger weakly, bracing himself against the table to keep himself from fainting: `Could
you please consider changing your vote or at least explaining it?'
The red coals of Dr. Moon's dying eyes blazed forth one last time from the face which looked as if it had suffered all
the miseries of every human that had ever lived.
`M'vote's obvious,' he said.
Dr. Weinburger began re-crumpling the papers which he had finished neatening in front of him.
`Dr. Moon, sir,' he said again weakly. 'Would you consider changing your vote in order to … simplify … to simplify …
Dr. Moon! Dr. Moon!' But the silence in the room was total.
Was total.
Chapter Fifty
Dr. Moon's death in the line of duty was greeted with mixed reviews in the psychiatric world of New York as was my
momentary escape from the fate I so obviously deserved. I quietly resigned from PANY, but Dr. Weinburger wrote a personal letter to the president of the AMA; my removal from the elite sections of civilization continued its slow, rational, bureaucratic course.
They probably would have kept me locked up in Kolb Clinic forever, but Jake Ecstein was my psychiatrist and unlike most other ambitious, successful doctors, Jake listened only to Jake. Thus, when I seemed perfectly normal (it was back to Normalcy Month) he ordered them to let me out. It seemed an unreasonable thing to do, even to me.
Chapter Fifty-one
`Luke, you're a quack,' Fred Boyd said to me, smiling and looking out our kitchen windows toward the old barn and
poison ivy fields.
`Mmmm,' I said, as Lil moved past our table back outdoors to get the groceries.
`A Phi Beta Kappa quack, a brilliant quack, but a quack,' he skid.
`Thanks, Fred. You're kind.'
`The trouble is,' he said, dunking a somewhat stale doughnut into his lukewarm coffee, `that some of it makes sense.
That confuses the issue. Why can't you just be a complete fool or charlatan?'
`Huh. Never thought of that. I'll have to let the Die consider it' Lil and Miss Welish came in from the yard with the
two children clamoring after them, clawing at the bags of groceries Lil carried in her arms. When Lil took out a box of
cookies and distributed three each to the two children, they wandered back outdoors, arguing halfheartedly about who
had the largest.
Miss Welish, dressed in white tennis shirts and blouse, bounced girlishly and a bit chubbily across the floor to hustle
up some fresh coffee and deliver the fresh pastry we'd been promised. Fred watched her, sighed, yawned and tipped
way back in his chair, his hands clasped behind his head.
`And where's it all going to end, I wonder?' he said.
`What?' I asked.
`Your dice therapy business: `The Die only knows.'
`Seriously. What do you think you'll achieve?'
`Try it yourself,' I said.
`I have. You know I have. And it's fun; I admit it. But my God, if I took it seriously I'd have to change completely.'
`Precisely.'
`But I like the way I am: `So do I, but I'm getting bored with you,' I said. `It's variety and unpredictability we like in
our friends. Those capable of the unexpected we cherish; they capture us because we're intrigued by how they "work."
After a while we learn how they work, and our boredom resumes. You've got to change, Fred.'
'No, he hasn't,' said Lil, bringing us lemonade, a Sara Lee Coffee Cake and a bottle of vitamins and sitting at the end
of the table. `I liked Luke the way he was before, and I want Fred to stay just the way he is.'
`It's just not so, Lil. You were bored and unhappy with me before I became the Dice Man. Now you're entertained and
unhappy. That's progress.'
Lil shook her head.