A Saucer of Loneliness

by Theodore Sturgeon

  “It was you chased me,” said the man. “Oh God.” He tucked himself up on the bench in a uterine position and began to weep.

  “Cut that out,” Don snarled. “I ain’t hit you. If I wanted I coulda thrown you in front of that train, right?”

  “Yeah, instead you saved me f’m that killer,” said the man brokenly. “Y’r a prince, mister. Y’r a real prince, that’s what you are.”

  “You goin’ to stay away from that girl?”

  “Your girl? Look, I’ll never even walk past her house no more. I’ll kill anybody looks at her.”

  “Never mind that. Just you stay away from her.”

  The express roared in. Don rose and so did the man. Don shoved him back to the bench. “Take the next one.”

  “Yeah, sure, anything you say. Just you say the word.”

  Don thought, I’ll ask him what it is that makes it worth the risk, chance getting sent up for life just for a thing like that. Then, No, he thought. I think I know why. He got on the train.

  He sat down and stared dully ahead. A man will give up anything, his freedom, his life even, for a sense of power.

  Q. How much am I giving up?

  A. How should I know?

  He looked at the advertisements. “Kulkies are better.” “The better skin cream.” He wondered if anyone ever wanted to know what these things were better than. “For that richer, creamier, safer lather.” “Try Miss Phoebe for that better, more powerful power.”

  He wondered, and wondered …

  Summer dusk, all the offices closed, the traffic gone, no one and nothing in a hurry for a little while. Don put his back against a board fence where he could see the entrance, and took out a toothpick. She might be going out, she might be coming home, she might be home and not go out, she might be out and not come home. He’d stick around.

  He never even got the toothpick wet.

  She stood at the top of the steps, looking across at him. He simply looked back. There were many things he might have done. Rushed across. Waved. Done a time-step. Looked away. Run. Fallen down.

  But he did nothing, and the single fact that filled his perceptions at that moment was that as long as she stood there with russet gleaming in her black hair, with her sad, sad cups-for-laughter eyes turned to him, with the thin summer cloak whipping up and falling to her clean straight body, why there was nothing he could do.

  She came straight across to him. He broke the toothpick and dropped it, and waited. She crossed the sidewalk and stopped in front of him, looking at his eyes, his mouth, his eyes. “You don’t even remember me.”

  “I remember you all right.”

  She leaned closer. The whites of her eyes showed under her pupils when she did that, like the high crescent moon in the tropics that floats startlingly on its back. These two crescents were twice as startling. “I don’t think you do.”

  “Over there.” With his chin he indicated her steps. “The other night.”

  It was then, at last, that she smiled, and the eyes held what they were made for. “I saw him again.”

  “He try anything?”

  She laughed. “He ran! He was afraid of me. I don’t think anybody was ever afraid of me.”

  “I am.”

  “Oh, that’s the silliest—” She stopped, and again leaned toward him. “You mean it, don’t you?”

  He nodded. “Don’t ever be afraid of me,” she said gravely, “not ever. What did you do to that man?”

  “Nothin’. Talked to him.”

  “You didn’t hurt him?”

  He shook his head.

  “I’m glad,” she said. “He’s sick and he’s ugly and he’s bad, too, I guess, but I think he’s been hurt enough. What’s your name?”

  “Don.”

  She counted on her fingers. “Don is a Spanish grandee. Don is putting on clothes. Don is the sun coming up in the morning. Don is … is the opposite of up. You’re a whole lot of things, Don.” Her eyes widened. “You laughed!”

  “Was that wrong?”

  “Oh, no! But I didn’t know you ever laughed.”

  “I watched you for three hours the other night and you didn’t laugh. You didn’t even talk.”

  “I would’ve talked if I’d known you were there. Where were you?”

  “That all-night joint. I followed you.”

  “Why?”

  He looked at his shoeshine. With his other foot, he carefully stepped on it. “Why did you follow me? Were you going to talk to me?”

  “No!” he said. “No, by God, I wasn’t. I wouldn’ta.”

  “Then why did you follow me?”

  “I liked looking at you. I liked seeing you walk.” He glanced across at the brownstone steps. “I didn’t want anything to happen to you, all alone like that.”

  “Oh, I didn’t care.”

  “That’s what you said that night.”

  The shadow that crossed her face crossed swiftly, and she laughed. “It’s all right now.”

  “Yeah, but what was it?”

  “Oh,” she said. Her head moved in an impatient gesture, but she smiled at the sky. “There was nothing and nobody. I left school. Daddy was mad at me. Kids from school acted sorry for me. Other kids, the ones you saw, they made me tired. I was tired because they were the same way all the time about the same things all the time, and I was tired because they kept me up so late.”

  “What did you leave school for?”

  “I found out what it was for.”

  “It’s for learning stuff.”

  “It isn’t,” she said positively. “It’s for learning how to learn. And I know that already. I can learn anything. Why did you come here today?”

  “I wanted to see you. Where were you going when you came out?”

  “Here,” she said, tapping her foot. “I saw you from the window. I was waiting for you. I was waiting for you yesterday too. What’s the matter?”

  He grunted.

  “Tell me, tell me!”

  “I never had a girl talk to me like you do.”

  “Don’t you like the way I talk?” she asked anxiously.

  “Oh for Pete’s sake it ain’t that!” he exploded. Then he half-smiled at her. “It’s just I had a crazy idea. I had the idea you always talk like this. I mean, to anybody.”

  “I don’t, I don’t!” she breathed. “Honestly, you’ve got to believe that. Only you. I’ve always talked to you like this.”

  “What do you mean always?”

  “Well, everybody’s got somebody to talk to, all their life. You know what they like to talk about and when they like to be quiet, and when you can be just silly and when they’d rather be serious and important. The only thing you don’t know is their face. For that you wait. And then one day you see the face, and then you have it all.”

  “You ain’t talkin’ about me!”

  “Yes I am.”

  “Look,” he said. He had to speak between heartbeats. He had never felt like this in his whole life before. “You could be—takin’ a—awful chance.”

  She shook her head happily.

  “Did you ever think maybe everybody ain’t like that?”

  “It doesn’t matter. I am.”

  His face pinched up. “Suppose I just walked away now and never saw you again.”

  “You wouldn’t.”

  “But suppose.”

  “Why then I—I’d’ve had this. Talking to you.”

  “Hey, you’re crying!”

  “Well,” she said, “there you were, walking away.”

  “You’d’ve called me back though.”

  She turned on him so quickly a tear flew clear of her face and fell sparkling to the back of his hand. Her eyes blazed. “Never that!” she said between her teeth. “I want you to stay, but if you want to go, you go, that’s all. All I want to do is make you want to stay. I’ve managed so far …”

  “How many minutes?” he teased.

  “Minutes? Years,” she said seriously.

  “The—s
omebody you talked to, you kind of made him up, huh?”

  “I suppose.”

  “How could he ever walk away?”

  “Easiest thing in the world,” she said. “Somebody like that, they’re somebody to live up to. It isn’t always easy. You’ve been very patient,” she said. She reached out and touched his cheek.

  He snatched her wrist and held it, hard. “You know what I think,” he said in a rough whisper, because it was all he had. “I think you’re out of your goddam head.”

  She stood very straight with her eyes closed. She was trembling.

  “What’s your name, anyway?”

  “Joyce.”

  “I love you too, Joyce. Come on, I want you to meet a friend of mine. It’s a long ride on the subway and I’ll tell you all about it.”

  He tried hard but he couldn’t tell her all of it. For some of it there were no words at all. For some of it there were no words he could use. She was attentive and puzzled. He bought flowers from a cart, just a few—red and yellow rosebuds.

  “Why flowers?”

  He remembered the mirror. That was one of the things he hadn’t been able to talk about. “It’s just what you do,” he said, “bring flowers.”

  “I bet she loves you.”

  “Whaddaya mean, she’s pushin’ sixty!”

  “All the same,” said Joyce, “if she does she’s not going to like me.”

  They went up in the elevator. In the elevator he kissed her.

  “What’s the matter, Don?”

  “If you want to crawl around an’ whimper like a puppy-dog,” he whispered, “if you feel useful as a busted broom-handle and worth about two wet sneezes in a hailstorm—this is a sense of power?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Never mind.”

  In the corridor he stopped. He rubbed a smudge off her nose with his thumb. “She’s sorta funny,” he said. “Just give her a little time. She’s quite a gal. She looks like Sunday school and talks the same way but she knows the score. Joyce, she’s the best friend I ever had.”

  “All right all right all right! I’ll be good.”

  He kissed where the smudge had been. “Come on.”

  One of Miss Phoebe’s envelopes was stuck to the door by its flap. On it was his name.

  They looked at one another and then he took the envelope down and got the note from it.

  Don:

  I am not at home. Please phone me this evening.

  P. W.

  “Don, I’m sorry!”

  “I shoulda phoned. I wanted to surprise her.”

  “Surprise her? She knew you were coming.”

  “She didn’t know you were coming. Damn it anyway.”

  “Oh it’s all right,” she said. She took his hand. “There’ll be other times. Come on. What’ll you do with those?”

  “The flowers? I dunno. Want ’em?”

  “They’re hers,” said Joyce.

  He gave her a puzzled look. “I got a lot of things to get used to. What do you mean when you say somethin’ that way?”

  “Almost exactly what I say.”

  He put the flowers against the door and they went away.

  The phone rang four times before Miss Phoebe picked it up.

  “It is far too late,” she said frigidly, “for telephone calls. You should have called earlier, Don. However, it’s just as well. I want you to know that I am very displeased with you. I have given you certain privileges, young man, but among them is not that of calling on me unexpectedly.”

  “Miss—”

  “Don’t interrupt. In addition, I have never indicated to you that you were free to—”

  “But Miss Ph—”

  “—to bring to my home any casual acquaintance you happen to have scraped up in heaven knows where—”

  “Miss Phoebe! Please! I’m in jail.”

  “—and invade my—you are what?”

  “Jail, Miss Phoebe, I got arrested.”

  “Where are you now?”

  “County. But you don’t need—”

  “I’m coming right down,” said Miss Phoebe.

  “No, Miss Phoebe, I didn’t call you for that. You go back to b—”

  Miss Phoebe hung up.

  Miss Phoebe strode into the County Jail with grim familiarity, and before her red tape disappeared like confetti in a blast-furnace. Twelve minutes after she arrived she had Don out of his cell and into a private room, his crisp new jail-record card before her, and was regarding him with a strange expression of wooden ferocity.

  “Sit there,” she said, as the door clicked shut behind an awed and reverberating policeman.

  Don sat. He was rumpled and sleepy, angry and hurt. But he smiled when he said, “I never thought you’d come. I never expected that, Miss Phoebe.”

  She did not respond. Instead she said coldly, “Indeed? Well, young man, the matters I have to discuss will not wait.” She sat down opposite him and picked up the card.

  “Miss Phoebe,” he said, “could you be wrong about what you said about me and girls … that original sin business, and all? I’m all mixed up, Miss Phoebe. I’m all mixed up!” In his face was a desperate appeal.

  “Be quiet,” she said sternly. She was studying the card. “This,” she said, putting the card down on the table with a dry snap, “tells a great deal but says nothing. Public nuisance, indecent exposure, suspicion of rape, impairing the morals of a minor, resisting an officer, and destruction of city property. Would you care to explain this—this catalogue to me?”

  “What you mean, tell you what happened?”

  “That is what I mean.”

  “Miss Phoebe, where is she? What they done with her?”

  “With whom? You mean the girl? I do not know; moreover, it doesn’t concern me and it should no longer concern you. Didn’t she get you into this?”

  “I got her into it. Look, could you find out, Miss Phoebe?”

  “I do not know what I will do. You’d better explain to me what happened.”

  Again the look of appeal, while she coldly waited. He scratched his head hard with both hands at once. “Well, we went to your house.”

  “I am aware of that.”

  “Well, you wasn’t home so we went out. She said take her father’s car. I got a license; it was all right. So we went an’ got the car and rode around. Well, we went to a place an’ she showed me how to dance some. We went somewheres else an’ ate. Then we parked over by the lake. Then, well, a cop come over and poked around an’ made some trouble an’ I got mad an’ next thing you know here we are.”

  “I asked you,” said Miss Phoebe evenly, “what happened?”

  “Aw-w …” It was a long-drawn sound, an admixture of shame and irritation. “We were in the car an’ this cop came pussy-footin’ up. He had a big flashlight this long. I seen him comin’. When he got to the car we was all right. I mean, I had my arm around Joyce, but that’s all.”

  “What had you been doing?”

  “Talkin’, that’s all, just talkin’, and …”

  “And what?”

  “Miss Phoebe,” he blurted, “I always been able to say anything to you I wanted, about anything. Listen, I got to tell you about this. That thing that happened, the way it is with me and girls because of the rat, well, it just wasn’t there with Joyce, it was nothin’, it was like it never happened. Look, you and me, we had that thing with the hands; it was … I can’t say it, you know how good it was. Well, with Joyce it was somepin’ different. It was like I could fly. I never felt like that before. Miss Phoebe, I had too much these last few days, I don’t know what goes on … you was right, you was always right, but this I had with Joyce, that was right too, and they can’t both be right.” He reached across the table, not quite far enough to touch her. The reaching was in his eyes and his voice.

  Miss Phoebe stiffened a spine already straight as a bowstring. “I have asked you a simple question and all you can do is gibber at me. What happened in that car?”
/>   Slowly he came back to the room, the hard chair, the bright light, Miss Phoebe’s implacable face. “That cop,” he said. “He claimed he seen us. Said he was goin’ to run us in, I said what for, he said carryin’ on like that in a public place. There was a lot of argument. Next thing you know he told Joyce to open her dress, he said when it was the way he seen it before he’d let me know. Joyce she begun to cry an’ I tol’ her not to do it, an’ the cop said if I was goin’ to act like that he would run us in for sure. You know, I got the idea if she’d done it he’da left us alone after?

  “So I got real mad, I climbed out of the car, I tol’ him we ain’t done nothin’, he pushes me one side, he shines the light in on Joyce. She squinchin’ down in the seat, cryin’, he says, ‘Come on, you, you know what to do.’ I hit the flashlight. I on’y meant to get the light off her, but I guess I hit it kind of hard. It come up and clonked him in the teeth. Busted the flashlight too. That’s the city property I destroyed. He started to cuss and I tol’ him not to. He hit me and opened the car door an’ shoved me in. He got in the back an’ took out his gun and tol’ me to drive to the station house.” He shrugged. “So I had to. That’s all.”

  “It is not all. You have not told me what you did before the policeman came.”

  He looked at her, startled. “Why, I—we …” His face flamed, “I love her,” he said, with difficulty, as if he spoke words in a new and troublesome tongue. “I mean I … do, that’s all.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I kissed her.”

  “What else did you do?”

  “I—” He brought up one hand, made a vague circular gesture, dropped the hand. He met her gaze. “Like when you love somebody, that’s all.”

  “Are you going to tell me exactly what you did, or are you not?”

  “Miss Phoebe …” he whispered, “I ain’t never seen you look like that.”

  “I want the whole filthy story,” she said. She leaned forward so far that her chin was only a couple of inches from the table top. Her protruding, milky eyes seemed to whirl, then it was as if a curtain over them had been twitched aside, and they blazed.

  Don stood up. “Miss Phoebe,” he said. “Miss Phoebe …” It was the voice of terror itself.

  Then a strange thing happened.

  It may have been the mere fact of his rising, of being able, for a moment, to stand over her, look down on her. “Miss Phoebe,” he said “there—ain’t—no—filthy—story.”