The Man Who Fell to Earth

Suddenly her voice got light, as though she had been near hysteria and had just drawn back from it. “You sure are a mess,” she said.

“I imagine.” He turned his face toward the back of the couch, trying to avoid the lights. “Can you… can you just leave me alone? I’ll be better… if I can rest.”

She laughed softly. “I don’t see how. This here’s an office; there’s going to be people filling it up in the morning. The elevator boy gave me the key.”

“Oh.” He had to do something about the pain, or he would not stay conscious long. “Listen.” he said. “I have a hotel key in my pocket, the Brown Hotel. It’s three blocks from here, down the street you take as—”

“I know where the Brown Hotel is.”

“Oh. That’s fine. Can you take the key and get a black briefcase from the bedroom closet in the room? And bring it to me? I have… medicine in it. Please.”

She was silent.

“I can pay you….”

“That’s not what I’m worried about.” He turned and opened his eyes to look at her a moment. Her broad face was frowning, the eyebrows wrinkled in a kind of parody of deep thought. Then she laughed loosely, not looking at him. “I don’t know as they’d let me in the Brown Hotel — or let me walk into one of the rooms, like I owned it.”

“Why not?” It hurt him somewhere in his chest to talk. He felt as though he would faint again before long. “Why can’t you?”

“You don’t know much about clothes, do you, mister? You look like you never had to worry. I ain’t wearing nothing but a country dress, and that torn. And they might not like my breath.”

“Oh!” he said.

“Gin. But maybe I could…” She looked thoughtful. “No, I couldn’t.”

He felt himself going watery again, his body felt as if he were floating. Blinking, he forced himself to hold on, trying to ignore the weakness, the pain. “In my billfold. Get the twenty-dollar bills. Give the bellboys the money. You can do it.” The room was spinning about him, the lights going fainter now, seeming to move in dim procession, across his vision. “Please.”

He felt her fumbling in his pocket, felt her hot breath on his face, then, after a moment, heard her gasp. “Lordy!” she said, “if you ain’t loaded…! Why I could run off with this.”

“Don’t,” he said. “Please help me. I’m rich. I can…”

“I won’t,” she said wearily. And then, more brightly, “You just hang on, mister. I’ll get back with your medicine, if I have to buy the hotel. You just take it easy.”

He heard her closing the door behind her as he fainted…

It seemed only a moment later that she was back in the room, panting, and had the briefcase open on the desk.

And then, after he had taken the pain capsules and the pills that would help heal his leg, the elevator operator came in with a man who said he was the building superintendent and Newton had to reassure them that he would sue no one, that, really, he felt fine and that all would be well. No, he did not need an ambulance. Yes, he would sign a waiver to absolve the building of responsibility. Now would they get him to a taxi? He almost fainted again, several times, during this frenetic discussion, and when it was over he did faint again.

He awoke in a taxi with the woman. She was shaking him gently. “Where do you want to go?” She said, “Where’s your home?”

He stared at her. “I… I don’t really know.”

7

He looked up from his reading, somewhat startled. He had not known she was in the room. She frequently did that, seemed to appear from nowhere, and her hoarse, serious voice could be irritating to him. But she was a good woman, and entirely unsuspicious. In four weeks he had grown very fond of her, as if she were a kind of useful pet. He shifted his leg to a more comfortable position before he answered. “You’ll be going to church this afternoon, won’t you?” He looked over his shoulder at her. She must have just come in; she was carrying a red plastic grocery bag, hugging it against her heavy bosom as if it were a child.

She grinned at him a little foolishly, and he realized that she was probably already somewhat drunk, even though it was early afternoon. “That’s what I mean, Mr. Newton. I thought you might want to go to church.” She set the bag on the table by the air-conditioner — the one he had bought for her during his first week at her home. “I got you some wine.” she said.

He turned back toward his leg, propped up in front of him on a flimsy little crate that was weighted down with old comic books, her only reading material. He was annoyed. Her buying wine meant that she definitely intended to get drunk that evening, and, although she held her liquor well, he was always made apprehensive by her drunkenness. Even though she commented often and with amused wonder upon his lightness and frailty, she probably still had no idea of the harm she could do his frame — his slight, birdlike bones — if she were ever to stumble over him, fall on him, or even merely slap him hard. She was a sturdy, fleshy woman, and outweighed him by at least fifty pounds. “It was thoughtful of you to bring the wine, Betty Jo,” he said. “Is it chilled?”