Alone in an unaccustomed bed, listening to startling and unnerving sounds, I slept badly and was awakened by a cacophony of bird calls, caws, coos and warbles that made me wonder how anyone in the country ever managed to sleep past daybreak. I was used to getting up at seven each morning to catch the results of the overnight trading in Tokyo, but the birds must have been even more interested in the markets since they started at six. Wobbly, blurry eyed, I dressed and went down the stairs to pretend to conform to Lukedom and see what I could find.
The dicetrainer turned out to be a she – the young woman in purple slacks and matching print top who had found everything ‘wonderful’ at the orientation centre. This morning she was dressed in a severe grey suit and her name was no longer Wendy. She introduced herself as Ms Kalb, Kathy Kalb. It was her task, she announced, to let you people – there were ten or eleven others besides me – discover how we could enrich our lives by letting chance come in.
The class – if that’s what it was – took place in a small room in the back of the orientation building. There were thirteen or fourteen old school desk-chairs and a small lectern. Kathy paced in front of the students, a half-dozen sitting in each of the first two rows, and me alone in the third. I thought it was all very shabby. I almost felt embarrassed for my father. This was all that was left of the Dice Man’s legacy? A flaky female in a run-down back room preaching about letting chance, like a poor man’s holy ghost, into our lives? And to find Luke I was going to have to sit through it!
Kathy, it turned out, was no fool. She knew what she was talking about, cared what she was talking about, and didn’t give a damn if we were stupid or resisting or fawning or what we were. She made it clear in her manner that everyone was a total fool and that the only salvation lay in flexible multiple foolishness rather than rigid single foolishness.
‘Die-ing is simple,’ she began. ‘Instead of doing what your usual self wants to do, list some other options that a small part of you feels might be possible or interesting, and then cast a die to choose from among them. At the simplest level the dice choose among films, books, clothing, food, friends and activities open to you at a given time. At a more challenging level, the dice come to choose how you act, which kind of person you pretend to be – which kind of person you in effect are.’
She strode back and forth in front of us, stopping to peer intensely first at one person and then another.
‘Our basic principles are also simple. First, all humans in complex and contradictory societies are filled with many inconsistent attitudes and desires. The normal self fights these contradictions and is miserable. The wise man embraces them and flows.
‘Secondly, to go from the cage of a single self to the amusement park of multiple living you need to exercise, to play games which break down your self-imposed limitations, to permit the expression of a variety of emotions, talents and ways of living.
‘Of course the killing of your self is almost as difficult as physical suicide – although generally more rewarding. Here in Lukedom we’ve made this process easier by creating an environment where inconsistency and multiple role-playing is the norm, where no one cares who you are or what you did in the past. Here you can use new names, masks and costumes to enhance your role-playing. This immersion in an environment in which many people are changing their lives as often as their clothes, and where they have no expectation that you will be the same person day after day, should help to release you from the pressure to be your “usual” self.
‘Just die,’ she continued, moving back to the centre of the room and seeming to address everyone rather than one person in particular. ‘Let go. Cease being you. I don’t care if you’re here hoping to find salvation, success in the outside business world, orgies, or to locate Luke Rhinehart, you won’t get what you want no matter what you do unless you die, let go, cease to exist. Give up the asshole you think you are and try being a new one. Notice the improvement – no, notice nothing, just be.
‘The dice are nothing special,’ she went on, resuming her pacing, glaring, stopping, spitting out some words, caressing others. ‘Just a gimmick to dramatize the arbitrariness of decision-making. If you flip a coin to decide which movie to go to you are letting go of a small piece of the dominant jerk you think you are. If you flip a coin to decide how you’re going to behave with your boss you’re letting go of a bigger piece. Flipping dice is a gimmick to help you let go of larger and larger pieces of your self. So don’t get addicted. The diceperson can be as big a jerk as the next, so you’ve got to give him up too’
I was surprised at the way I began to be interested in her spiel. I’d sat down filled with anticipatory resentment, had at first internally criticized Ms Kalb’s dress, speaking voice and verbal style, but then gradually found my mind being engaged by what she was saying, perhaps because she so clearly didn’t give a damn whether I approved or not. I had never given any serious thought to what my father had been about, except to reject it out of hand, but she was getting through. She acted as if she were providing a service that people could take or leave as they saw fit, and she couldn’t care less.
‘It’s easy to cheat at diceliving,’ she went on. ‘Everyone does it all the time. You simply say to yourself that the basic lovable jerk you are is still intact, but that because it’s trendy or convenient or fun you’re now going to pretend for an hour or a day to be a new, different jerk …
‘Won’t work,’ she announced after a brief pause. ‘Life is strange: it only really works when you lose awareness of who you are and immerse yourself in an act, a role, a life. Surrender to the roll of roles, surrender to each new act, surrender to newness and change …’
After about an hour of Kathy’s talking and answering questions, she broke the group up into smaller units. We were given specific assignments, some to do with jobs during the rest of the day, some to do with more training with other guides. Kathy, aka Wendy, then took me on personally in a one-on-one session that didn’t go quite as I liked.
‘What are you afraid of losing?’ she began abruptly, sitting opposite me only inches away in the ridiculous desk-chairs that passed for seating arrangements. We were now alone in the room and I was ill-at-ease, trying to pretend to go along with all this while on the one hand having to fight really going along with it, and absolutely refusing to go along with it on the other.
‘Nothing, that I’m aware of,’ I answered, trying a half-smile that implied I was looking forward to playing whatever silly games she might suggest.
‘Good,’ she countered. ‘Get undressed.’
‘Beg pardon?’
Take off all your clothes,’ she said. ‘Stand nude in front of me.’
I looked at her, calculating. What had this to do with the dicelife? Was this some sort of personal test? Did I pass it by undressing or by not undressing?
‘I’ll have to consult the dice,’ I said, with sudden inspiration. I look out the green die I’d been given at the beginning of the session and idly shook it in my right hand.
‘If the die falls a “six",’ I announced, adopting again my half-smile, ‘I’ll undress. If it doesn’t, I won’t.’
I dropped the die on the desk pan of my chair: a ‘three.’
‘Well, well,’ I said. ‘It looks like I remain the well-dressed man.’
‘Fine. What are you afraid of losing?’ She gazed at me without the least decipherable expression, waiting.
I was unable to suppress a tiny grimace.
‘Nothing … that I’m aware of,’ I repeated.
‘Fine,’ said Kathy. ‘Give me a cheque for two thousand dollars.’
Two thousand dollars. I found myself wendering how she’d arrived at that particular figure. If she’d said a hundred dollars I might have made out the cheque with a yawn; if she’d said a hundred thousand dollars, I’d have simply shaken my head. Two thousand, though. What kind of a test was this?
‘I’ll have to consult the die,’ I said after a long hesitation.
‘Fine.’
‘If it’s a “six” I’ll give you a cheque for two thousand dollars,’ I said. ‘If not, I won’t.’ I dropped the die. I noticed that Kathy didn’t even bother to look at the result. It was a ‘one.’ I was still solvent.
‘So,’ she said even before I announced the result. ‘What are you afraid of losing?’
This time I paused to consider what was going on.
‘Well.’ I finally said, ‘quite a few things, I guess.’ Her expression didn’t change: not a single flicker of triumph in response to my changed answer.
‘For one thing I’m afraid of being made a fool of. By standing nude in front of a sexless woman just because she tells me to. Or giving away money in a silly way. I’m sure there are others.’
She stared at me a moment.
‘And what would you lose if you lost what you’re afraid of losing?’ she asked.
I frowned. Was I stuck in a dialogue with Gertrude Stein? I would lose what I lost when I lost it. What did she mean?
‘What would you lose if you were made a fool of?’ she asked, as if hearing my unspoken question.
‘Dignity … self-respect …’ I suggested. ‘Sense of being a reasonable man.’
‘Fine,’ said Kathy. ‘What would you lose if you lost your dignity?’
‘My dignity,’ I countered quickly, feeling a little annoyed.
‘How much is your dignity worth?’
Damn it! Where was this conversation going?
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean how much, in dollars,’ she explained, ‘would someone have to pay you to lose your dignity?’
‘Depends on how much of my dignity I had to lose,’ I answered, smiling.
‘Fine,’ she said. ‘How much to undress and stand nude in front of me?’
I let out a deep breath, becoming aware as I did that I must be tense.
‘Oh, maybe … three hundred dollars,’ I said. ‘I’m an easy lay.’
‘Fine,’ she said and pulled out a small purse from her suit jacket pocket. Barely looking at it, she drew out three hundred-dollar bills. ‘Here’s three hundred dollars. Take off all your clothes.’
Jesus H. Christ. How had my father managed to bring me to this? Was Luke behind her, staying awake all night thinking up things to make me do the next day?
I felt my face flushing, not from embarrassment but from anger and indecision.
‘But now …’ I began tentatively, ‘I’m afraid of losing my dignity by accepting three hundred dollars for undressing.’ I hesitated a moment more and then grinned.
‘That loss of dignity is worth, oh, another three hundred dollars.’ I said in triumph.
‘Fine,’ she said. ‘And so on. I assume another piece of your dignity would be at risk if you accepted three hundred dollars for accepting three hundred dollars, and so on. It appears you have something of an infinitely regressing dignity.’
‘So it appears.’ I said, feeling I’d squirmed off the hook.
‘Fine,’ she shot back. ‘Take off all your clothes.’
Here we go again.
‘Beg pardon?’
‘Here is the three hundred dollars,’ she said. ‘Take off all your clothes.’
‘But I told you. I have other dignities which also have their price.’ She looked at me neutrally.
‘Tell me, what do you gain by having dignity?’ she finally asked.
Oh, Jesus, Jesus. I felt like a guilty man in the witness stand being harassed by a clever prosecutor. I let out another big sigh.
‘I don’t have the faintest idea,’ I said.
‘Tell me, do you think I could undress and stand naked in front of you?’
I knew the answer.
‘I think you could.’
‘And, in your eyes, would I lose dignity?’
‘Maybe, maybe not.’
She stood up then and began to undress. In less than a minute she had taken off all of her clothes, placed them neatly on her chair and was standing naked in front of me. She was an attractive woman, but like most human bodies, hers had its flaws: a mole here, a little too much flab there, breasts that didn’t quite fit any of my images of perfection. Nevertheless she stood in front of me with precisely the same expression she’d had earlier. There was no doubt at all that she had as much dignity now as before, perhaps even more. Definitely more.
‘You don’t lose any dignity,’ I commented in a low voice.
‘Fine,’ she said, and turned to begin to dress. ‘Then you too might undress in such a way that it would involve not losing any dignity, right?’
‘Right.’ I felt the prosecutor, half-naked as she might now be, was closing in for the kill.
‘Then doing something foolish – as I have just done,’ she concluded, still buttoning her blouse, ‘can be an act of strength and dignity.’
‘Yes,’ I said, trying to re-establish the half-smile of superior irony.
‘Why?’
Why? I felt briefly that I must have lost the drift of the discussion.
‘Why?’ I echoed.
‘What was it about my standing nude that distinguished it from … a foolish standing nude?’ I thought about it.
‘You so obviously don’t care what anyone thinks,’ I finally answered. You expect neither approval nor disapproval and don’t care which comes. Others – the fools – would look as if they cared very much what people were thinking, and as if they were standing there against their will.’
‘Let’s assume I cast a die first to determine whether I undress and the die ordered my nakedness. Would my dignity be less?’
Now that was an interesting question.
‘No,’ I answered. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘So it can’t be simply free will,’ she suggested. ‘Then what is it?’
‘I suppose,’ I said, ‘that what counts is your having confidence in what you’re doing – no! No, it’s not that. It’s almost as if there wasn’t any you there either to have confidence or not have it. You simply do things one after another but don’t seem to score points as you do so. There’s no evaluation going on.’
She nodded. I was beginning to feel now less like the defendant in a hopeless trial than like a schoolboy slowly learning from a no-nonsense teacher.
‘Uncertainty … wobbling … vacillation – usually because of fears of evaluation,’ I found myself continuing. ‘These are the hallmarks of the fool, or the seeming fool at least.’
‘Just doing what you’re doing while you’re doing it,’ she confirmed. ‘No matter how foolish or arbitrary it may be.’ She paused and smiled.
‘Get undressed,’ she said.