`Have a good time, son,' I said as he left.
`Dr. Rhinehart, I think the patients are whispering among themselves,' one of my big attendants said about three
minutes later.
`A dirty joke no doubt,' I said.
`That Arturo Jones has been going around to everyone whispering.'
`I told him to remind everyone to catch the bus back to the island with us.'
`What if someone tries to make a break for it?'
'Apprehend him gently but firmly.'
`What if they all make a break for it?'
`Apprehend those with the most acute socially debilitating illnesses - the zombies and killers in brief - and leave the
rest to the police.'
I smiled at him serenely. `But no violence. We must not give our hospital attendants a bad name. We must not upset
the audience.'
`Okay, Doctor.'
I seated myself between the most clearly homicidal patients, and when the men in our row began to rise to join the
dance to the stage, I wrapped one of my huge arms around the throat of each of them and squeezed until they seemed strangely sleepy. I then watched the interesting opening to Act II Where thirty or so oddly dressed members of the cast who had apparently been posing as members of the audience around me began to dance down the aisles and upon to the stage frolicking with each other in a friendly roughhouse way. The onstage part of the cast pretended slight confusion but continued to sing on as the new weirdies mixed with the Act I wierdies and sang and danced and frolicked, all singing the opening number `Where Do I Go?' until most of the newcomers had gone.
The police questioned me for about half an hour at the theater, and I phoned the hospital and told the appropriate staff members there of the slight difficulties we had encountered and I phoned Dr. Mann at my apartment and informed him that thirty-three patients had escaped from Hair. My phone call had pulled him away from a hand in which he was holding a full house, aces over jacks, and he was as upset as I've ever heard him.
`My God, my God Luke, thirty-three patients. What have you done? What have you done?'
`But your letter said `What letter? NO, no, no, Luke, you know I would never write any letter about thirty-three - oh! #161;you know it! How could you do it?'
`I tried to see you, to phone you.'
`But you didn't seem upset. I had no idea. Thirty-three patients!'
`We held onto five.'
`Oh Luke, my God, the papers, Dr. Esterbrook, the Senate Committee on Mental Hygiene, my God, my God.'
`They're just people,' I said. `Why didn't someone call me during the day, a note, a messenger, something? Why was
everyone so stupid? To take thirty-three patients off the ward'
`Thirty-eight.'
`To a Broadway musical'
`Where should we have taken them? Your letter said `Don't say that! Don't mention any letter by me!'
`But I was just-'
`To Hair!' and he choked. `The newspapers, Esterbrook, Luke, Luke, what have you done?'
`It'll be all right, Tim. Mental patients are always recaptured.'
`But no one ever reads about that. They get loose - that's news.'
`People will be impressed with our permissive, progressive policies. As you said in your let-'
`Don't say that! We must never let a patient out of the hospital again. Never.'
`Relax, Tim, relax, I've got to talk some more to the police and the reporters and '
`Don't say a word! I'm coming down. Say you've got laryngitis. Don't talk.'
`I've got to go now, Tim. You hurry on down.'
`Don't say-'
I hung up.
I talked to police and the reporters and minor hospital officials and then Dr. Mann in person for another hour and a half, not getting back to the poker party at my apartment until close to midnight.
Lil, I'm happy to report, was winning substantially, with Miss Welish and Fred Boyd the primary losers and Jake and Arlene breaking even. They were all rather interested in what had happened to so upset Dr. Mann, but I played it down, called it a minor Happening, a tempest in a teapot, implied that some subversive underground group had conspired a series of forgeries, and insisted I was sick of the subject and wanted to play poker.
I was tremendously keyed up and could barely sit still in my chair, but they kindly dealt me in, and by ignoring their further questions I was finally left to concentrate on my abominably bad luck with the cards. I lost badly to Fred Boyd on the first hand and even worse to Arlene on the second. By the end of seven hands without a winner I was thoroughly depressed and everyone else (except Miss Welish, who was sleepy and bored) was quite gay. The phone had rung just once and I had told the police that I didn't know how I had been cut off during my attempted phone call to Dr. Mann that afternoon, but that it obviously wasn't me since I was talking on the phone at the time.
I told them that I talked to Arturo Jones at Hair because he was an acute drama critic and that I had single-handedly held on to two of the most dangerous patients and that I'd appreciate a little respect since I felt badly enough about losing as it was.
I lost two more hands of poker and got gloomier and the party broke up with Fred telling about how he was using dice therapy with two of his patients and Jake telling me about a sentence he'd written in his article, and they were gone and Lil, laughing happily, went off to bell. I, despite several of her most obscene kisses, remained behind slumped in the easy chair brooding about my fate.
Chapter Fifty-five
The events which occurred between 1.30 A.M. and 3.30 A.M. that morning, being of some historical note, must be recorded objectively. Dr. Rhinehart had realized for several weeks that the early morning hours of August 13 were, in effect, the first anniversary of his relationship with the Die. He had planned to do as he had at the beginning of 1969; create a list of longer range options from which the Die would choose to direct his life.
He found, however, that he was too distraught over the possible consequences of his activities of the previous day to concentrate on options running much longer than a few minutes. A year before, he had been bored and restless; now he was overexcited and restless. He lunged back and forth across the living room, gritting his teeth, clenching his fists, stroking them against his tensed belly, gulping in huge lungfuls of air, trying to determine whether the police would be able to build a convincing case against him. His only hope, as he saw it, was that when one or more of Mr. Cannon's or Mr. Jones's recaptured followers began alleging that he (Dr. Rhinehart) had aided and abetted their escape, their allegations would be taken as the statements of mentally imbalanced persons, creatures legally unfit to give reliable testimony. Dr. Rhinehart spent close to twenty minutes concocting his defense - mostly a lengthy indictment of the secret black and hippie conspiracy to frame all white doctors named Rhinehart.
At last, however, in exasperation at his nervousness, Dr. Rhinehart returned to reality and cast a die to determine whether he would brood about his problems with the police and Dr. Mann for zero, five, ten or thirty minutes or one day, or until the problems were resolved, and the die ordered ten more minutes. When the time had elapsed, he breathed an immense sigh and smiled.
`Now. Where are we?' he thought.