The Man Who Fell to Earth

“Uh huh,” she said. “Too damn cold, in fact.” She took the bottle from the sack, and he heard it clink against other, still hidden, companions. She looked at it speculatively. “I didn’t buy it at Reichmann’s this time. Today was my day for the welfare check, and I just got it as I come out of the welfare building. There’s a little store there called Goldie’s Quickie. Gets a lot of the welfare business.” She took a tumbler from a row of them that sat on top of the ancient, red-painted bookshelf and set it on the window ledge. Then, with a kind of lazy abstraction that characterized her dealings with liquor, she pulled a bottle of gin from the bag, and stood now, a wine bottle in one hand, a bottle of gin in the other, as if undecided which to set down first. “They keep all the wine in a regular refrigerator, and it gets too cold. I should of bought it over at Reichmann’s.” She finally set the wine bottle down, and opened the gin.

“That’s all right,” he said. “It shouldn’t take long to warm up.”

“I’ll just set it here, and just any time you want some you ask me, hear?” She poured herself a half tumbler of the gin and then went into the little kitchen. He heard her clinking the sugar bowl, spooning in the sugar that she always put in her gin, and then she returned in a minute, drinking as she walked. “Damn, I like gin!” she said, in a self-satisfied tone.

“I don’t believe I’ll be able to go to church.”

She looked genuinely disappointed. She came over and sat awkwardly in the aged chintz-covered chair that faced his, pulling her print skirt over her knees with one hand while she held the glass with the other. “I’m sorry. Its a real good church, and high-class too. You wouldn’t be out of place at all.” He noticed for the first time that she was wearing a diamond ring. She had probably bought it with his money. He did not begrudge it to her; she had certainly earned it by the care she had taken of him. In spite of her habits and her talk, she was an excellent nurse. And she wasn’t curious about him.

Not wanting to talk further about the church, he remained silent while she settled herself comfortably in the chair and began working seriously on her gin. She was the sort of irregular and sentimental churchgoer whom television interviewers would call deeply religious — she claimed that her religion was a great source of strength. It consisted largely of attending Sunday afternoon lectures about personal magnetism and Wednesday evening lectures about men who became successful in business through prayer. Its faith was based on a belief that whatever happened, all would be well; its morality was that each must decide for himself what was right for him. Betty Jo apparently had decided on gin and relief, as had a great many others.