The Man Who Fell to Earth

by Tevis, Walter

“Oh, ‘Goodbye.’ ‘Go to hell.’ Things of that sort.”

  Bryce was feeling increasingly uncomfortable. For a moment he wished he had brought Betty Jo with him. Betty Jo would be marvelous for restoring sanity, for making things understandable, even bearable. But then Betty Jo happened to believe that she was in love with T. J. Newton, and that might even be more awkward than this. He remained silent, not knowing what in the world to say.

  “Well, Nathan—I suppose you won’t mind if I call you Nathan. Now that you’ve found me, what do you want of me?” He smiled beneath the glasses and the ridiculous hat. His smile seemed as old as the moon; it was hardly a human smile at all.

  Bryce suddenly felt embarrassed, at the smile, at Newton’s grave, tired, terribly weary tone of voice. He poured himself a drink before answering, inadvertently clinking the bottle mouth against the glass. Then he drank, looking hard at Newton, at the flat, unreflecting green of Newton’s glasses. He held the clear plastic drinking glass between both hands, elbows on the table, and said, “I want you to save the world, Mr. Newton.”

  Newton’s smile did not change, and his reply was immediate. “Is it worth saving, Nathan?”

  He had not come here to exchange ironies. “Yes,” he said. “I think it’s worth saving. I want to live out my life, anyway.”

  Abruptly Newton leaned forward in his chair toward the bar. “Mr. Elbert,” he called, “Mr. Elbert.”

  The bartender, a small man with a sad, pinched face, looked up from his reveries. “Yeah, dad?” he said gently.

  “Mr. Elbert,” Newton said, “are you aware that I’m not a human being? Did you know that I’m from another planet, Anthea by name, and that I came here on a spaceship?”

  The bartender shrugged. “I’ve heard that,” he said.

  “Well I am and I did,” Newton said, “Oh, I did indeed.” He paused, and Bryce stared at him—shocked not by what Newton had said, but by the childish, adolescent, silly quality in his voice. What had they done to him? Had they only blinded him?

  Newton called to the bartender again. “Mr. Elbert, do you know why I came to this world?”

  This time the bartender did not even look up. “No, dad,” he said, “I haven’t heard.”

  “Well, I came to save you.” Newton’s voice was precise, ironical, but there was a hint of hysteria in it. “I came to save you all.”

  Bryce could see the bartender smile a private smile. Then, still behind the bar, he said, “You’d better get with it, dad. We need saving fast.”

  Then Newton hung his head, whether in shame, despair, or fatigue Bryce could not tell. “Oh, yes indeed.” he said in what was almost a whisper. “We need saving fast.” Then he looked up and smiled at Bryce. “Do you see Betty Jo?” he asked.

  That caught him off guard. “Yes…”

  “How is she? How is Betty Jo?”

  “She’s all right. She misses you.” And then, “As Mr. Elbert said, ‘We need saving fast.’ Can you do it?”

  “No. I’m sorry.”

  “Isn’t there a chance?”

  “No. Of course not. The government knows all about me…”

  “You told them?”

  “I might have; but it wasn’t necessary. They seem to have known for a long time. I think we were naive.”

  “Who? You and I?”

  “You. I. My people back home, my wise people…” He called out softly, “We were naive, Mr. Elbert.”

  Elbert’s reply was as soft. “That a fact, dad?” He sounded genuinely concerned, as if he really believed, for a moment, what Newton was talking about.

  “You came a long way.”

  “Oh, I did indeed. And on a small ship. Sail on, sail on, and on… It was a very long trip, Nathan, but I spent much of the time reading.”

  “Yes. But I didn’t mean that. I meant you’ve come a long way since you’ve been here. The money, the new ship…”

  “Oh I’ve made a lot of money. I still make a lot. More than ever. I have money in Louisville and money in New York and five hundred dollars in my pocket and a Medicare pension from the government. I’m a citizen now, Nathan. They made me a citizen. And perhaps I could draw unemployment insurance. Oh, World Enterprises is a going concern, without my running it at all, Nathan. World Enterprises.”

  Bryce, appalled by the strange way that Newton looked and talked, found it difficult to keep his eyes on him, so he looked down at the table instead. “Can’t you finish the ship?”

  “Do you think they’d let me?”

  “With all your money…”

  “Do you think I want to?”

  Bryce glanced up at him. “Well, do you?”

  “No.” Then, suddenly, Newton’s face fell into its older, more composed, more human appearance. “Or yes, I suppose I do want to, Nathan. But not enough. Not enough.”

  “Then what about your own people? What about your family?”

  Newton smiled that unearthly smile again. “I imagine they’ll all die. But, then, they’ll probably outlive you.”

  Bryce was surprised at his own words. “Did they ruin your mind when they ruined your eyes, Mr. Newton?”

  Newton’s expression did not alter. “You don’t know anything at all about my mind, Nathan. That’s because you’re a human being.”

  “You’ve changed, Mr. Newton.”

  Newton laughed softly. “Into what, Nathan? Have I changed into something new, or back into something old?”

  Bryce did not know what to say to this, and he kept silent.

  Newton poured himself a small drink and set it on the table. Then he said. “This world is doomed as certainly as Sodom, and I can do nothing whatever about it.” He hesitated. “Yes, a part of my mind is ruined.”

  Bryce, searching for protest, said, “The ship…”

  “The ship is useless. It had to be finished on time, and now there isn’t enough time. Our planets won’t be close enough to one another for seven more years. They are already moving apart. And the United States would never let me build it. If I built it they would never let me launch it. And if I did launch it they would arrest the Antheans who returned on it, and probably blind them. And ruin their minds…”

  Bryce finished his drink. “You said you had a weapon.”

  “Yes, I said that. I was lying. I don’t have any weapon.”

  “Why should you lie…?”

  Newton leaned forward, putting his elbows carefully on the table. “Nathan. Nathan. I was afraid of you then. I am afraid now. I have been afraid of all manner of things every moment I have spent on this planet, on this monstrous, beautiful, terrifying planet with all its strange creatures and its abundant water, and all of its human people. I am afraid now. I will be afraid to die here.”

  He paused, and then when Bryce still said nothing, began to talk again. “Nathan, think of living with the monkeys for six years. Or think of living with the insects, of living with the shiny, busy, mindless ants.”

  Bryce’s mind, for several minutes, had been becoming extremely clear. “I think you’re lying, Mr. Newton. We aren’t insects to you. Maybe we were at first, but we aren’t now.”

  “Oh yes, I love you, certainly. Some of you. But you’re insects anyway. However, I may be more like you than I am like me.” He smiled his old, wry smile. “After all, you’re my field of research, you humans. I’ve studied you all my life.”

  Abruptly the bartender called to them. “You fellows want clean glasses?”

  Newton drained his. “By all means,” he said, “bring us two clean glasses, Mr. Elbert.”

  While Mr. Elbert was sopping the table with a large orange rag Newton said, “Mr. Elbert. I’ve decided not to try to save us, after all.”

  “That’s too bad,” Elbert said. He set the clean glasses on the damp table. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “It is a pity, isn’t it?” He groped for a newly placed gin bottle, found it, poured. Pouring gin, he said, “Do you see Betty Jo often, Nathan?”

  “Yes. Betty Jo and I
live together now.”

  Newton took a sip from his drink. “As lovers?”

  Bryce laughed softly. “Yes, as lovers, Mr. Newton.”

  Newton’s face had become impassive, with the impassivity that Bryce had learned was a mask for his feelings. “Then life goes on.”

  “Well, what in the name of heaven do you expect?” Bryce said. “Of course life goes on.”

  Suddenly Newton began to laugh. Bryce was astonished; he had never heard him laugh before. Then, still trembling with the wave of laughter, Newton said, “It’s a good thing. She won’t be lonely now. Where is she?”

  “At home in Louisville, with her cats. Drunk probably.”

  Newton’s voice was steady again. “Do you love her?”

  “You’re trying to be stupid,” Bryce said. He had not liked the laughter. “She’s a good woman. I’m happy with her.”

  Newton smiled now, gently. “Don’t misunderstand my laughing, Nathan. I think it’s a fine thing, the two of you. Are you married?”

  “No. I’ve thought about it.”

  “By all means marry her. Marry her and go off on a honeymoon. Do you need money?”

  “That’s not why I haven’t married her. But I could use some money, yes. Do you want to give me some?”

  Newton laughed again. He seemed greatly pleased. “By all means, yes. How much do you want?”

  Bryce took a drink. “A million dollars.”

  “I’ll write you a check,” Newton groped in his shirt pocket, pulled out a check book, set it on the table. It was from the Chase Manhattan Bank. “I used to watch that show about the million dollar check on television.” he said. “Back home.” He pushed the check toward Bryce. “You fill it out and I’ll sign it.”

  Bryce took his Woolworth ballpoint pen from his pocket and wrote his name on the check and then the figures $1,000,000. Then he wrote out, carefully. One Million Dollars. He pushed the book across the table. “It’s made out,” he said.

  “You’ll have to direct my hand.”

  So Bryce stood up, walked around the table, placed the pen in Newton’s hand and held it while the Anthean wrote out. Thomas Jerome Newton, in a clear, steady hand.

  Bryce put the check in his billfold. “Do you remember.” Newton said, “a motion picture, shown on television, called A Letter to Three Wires?”

  “No.”

  “Well I learned to write English longhand from a photograph of that letter, twenty years ago on Anthea. We had clear reception, from several channels, of that motion picture.”

  “You have good clear handwriting.”

  Newton smiled. “Of course I have. We did everything extremely well. Nothing was overlooked, and I worked very hard to become an imitation human being.” He turned his face up toward Bryce’s, as if he could actually see him. “And of course I succeeded.”

  Bryce, saying nothing, returned to his seat. He felt that he should show sympathy, or something, but he felt nothing at all. So he remained quiet.

  “Where will you and Betty Jo go? With the money?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe to the Pacific, to Tahiti. We’ll probably take an air-conditioner with us.”

  Newton was beginning to smile the moon smile, the unearthly Anthean smile, again. “And stay drunk, Nathan?”

  Bryce was uneasy. “We might try that,” he said. He did not really know what he was going to do with a million dollars. People were supposed to ask themselves what they would do if someone gave them a million dollars, but he never had asked himself that. Maybe they would, indeed, go to Tahiti and stay drunk in a hut, if there were any huts in Tahiti anymore. If not, they could stay at the Tahiti Hilton.

  “Well, I wish you Godspeed,” Newton said. And then, “I’m glad I could do something with the money. I have an awful lot of money.”

  Bryce stood up to leave, feeling tired and a little drunk. “And there’s no chance…?”

  Newton smiled up at him even more strangely than before; the mouth beneath the glasses and hat was like an awkwardly curved line in a child’s drawing of a smile. “Of course, Nathan,” he said. “Of course there’s a chance.”

  “Well,” Bryce said. “I thank you for the money.”

  Because of the dark glasses Bryce could not see Newton’s eyes, but it seemed to him as though Newton were looking everywhere. “Easy come, easy go, Nathan,” he said. “Easy come, easy go.” Newton began to tremble. His angular body began to lean forward and the felt hat fell silently on the table, showing his chalk-white hair. Then his Anthean head fell on to his spindly Anthean arms and Bryce saw that he was crying.

  For a moment Bryce stood quiet, staring at him. Then he walked around the table and, kneeling, laid his arm across Newton’s back, and held him gently, feeling the light body trembling in his hands like the body of a delicate, fluttering, anguished bird.

  The bartender had come over and when Bryce looked up the bartender said, “I’m afraid that the fellow needs help.”

  “Yes,” Bryce said. “Yes, I guess he does.”