That day he had been so surprised that he rushed to a delicatessen, flung wide a case, and ordered a triple-decker beef sandwich.
“Coming up!” he cried, a towel on his arm.
He flourished meats and bread baked the day before, dusted a table, invited himself to sit, and ate until he had to go find a soda fountain, where he ordered a bicarbonate.
The druggist, being one Walter Gripp, was astoundingly polite and fizzed one right up for him!
He stuffed his jeans with money, all he could find.
He loaded a boy’s wagon with ten-dollar bills and ran lickety-split through town.
Reaching the suburbs, he suddenly realized how shamefully silly he was.
He didn’t need money.
He rode the ten-dollar bills back to where he’d found them, counted a dollar from his own wallet to pay for the sandwiches, dropped it in the delicatessen till, and added a quarter tip.
That night he enjoyed a hot Turkish bath, a succulent filet carpeted with delicate mushrooms, imported dry sherry, and strawberries in wine.
He fitted himself for a new blue flannel suit, and a rich gray Homburg which balanced oddly atop his gaunt head.
He slid money into a juke box which played “That Old Gang of Mine.”
He dropped nickels in twenty boxes all over town.
The lonely streets and the night were full of the sad music of “That Old Gang of Mine” as he walked, tall and thin and alone, his new shoes clumping softly, his cold hands in his pockets.
But that was a week past.
He slept in a good house on Mars Avenue, rose mornings at nine, bathed, and idled to town for ham and eggs.
No morning passed that he didn’t freeze a ton of meats, vegetables, and lemon cream pies, enough to last ten years, until the rockets came back from Earth, if they ever came.
Now, tonight, he drifted up and down, seeing the wax women in every colorful shop window, pink and beautiful.
For the first time he knew how dead the town was.
He drew a glass of beer and sobbed gently.
“Why,” he said,
“I’m all alone.”
He entered the Elite Theater to show himself a film, to distract his mind from his isolation.
The theater was hollow, empty, like a tomb with phantoms crawling gray and black on the vast screen.
Shivering, he hurried from the haunted place.
Having decided to return home, he was striking down the middle of a side street, almost running, when he heard the phone.
He listened.
“Phone ringing in someone’s house.”
He proceeded briskly.
“Someone should answer that phone,” he mused.
He sat on a curb to pick a rock from his shoe, idly.
“Someone!” he screamed, leaping.
“Me! Good lord, what’s wrong with me!” he shrieked.
He whirled.
Which house?
That one!
He raced over the lawn, up the steps, into the house, down a dark hall.
He yanked up the receiver.
“Hello!” he cried.
Buzzzzzzzzz.
“Hello, hello!”
They had hung up.
“Hello!” he shouted, and banged the phone.
“You stupid idiot!” he cried to himself.
“Sitting on that curb, you fool!
Oh, you damned and awful fool!”
He squeezed the phone. “Come on, ring again!
Come on!”
He had never thought there might be others left on Mars.
In the entire week he had seen no one.