A wayfarer's return from a far country to his wife and family may be a
 shining experience, a kind of second honeymoon. Or it may be so shadowed
 by Time's relentless tyranny that the changes which have occurred in his
 absence can lead only to tragedy and despair. This rarely discerning, warmly
 human story by a brilliant newcomer to the science fantasy field is told
 with no pulling of punches, and its adroit unfolding will astound you.
 


  the hoofer
 

 by ... Walter M. Miller, Jr.
 



  A space rover has no business with a family. But what can a man
 in the full vigor of youth do—if his heart cries out for a home?
 

 They all
 knew he was a spacer
 because of the white goggle marks
 on his sun-scorched face, and so
 they tolerated him and helped him.
 They even made allowances for him
 when he staggered and fell in the
 aisle of the bus while pursuing the
 harassed little housewife from seat
 to seat and cajoling her to sit and
 talk with him.
 
 Having fallen, he decided to
 sleep in the aisle. Two men helped
 him to the back of the bus, dumped
 him on the rear seat, and tucked his
 gin bottle safely out of sight. After
 all, he had not seen Earth for nine
 months, and judging by the crusted
 matter about his eyelids, he couldn't
 have seen it too well now, even if
 he had been sober. Glare-blindness,
 gravity-legs, and agoraphobia were
 excuses for a lot of things, when a
 man was just back from Big Bottomless.
 And who could blame a
 man for acting strangely?
 
 Minutes later, he was back up the
 aisle and swaying giddily over the
 little housewife. "How!" he said.
"Me Chief Broken Wing. You
 wanta Indian wrestle?"
 
 The girl, who sat nervously staring
 at him, smiled wanly, and
 shook her head.
 
 "Quiet li'l pigeon, aren'tcha?" he
 burbled affectionately, crashing into
 the seat beside her.
 
 The two men slid out of their
 seats, and a hand clamped his shoulder.
"Come on, Broken Wing, let's
 go back to bed."
 
 "My name's Hogey," he said.
"Big Hogey Parker. I was just kidding
 about being a Indian."
 
 "Yeah. Come on, let's go have a
 drink." They got him on his feet,
 and led him stumbling back down
 the aisle.
 
 "My ma was half Cherokee, see?
 That's how come I said it. You
 wanta hear a war whoop? Real
 stuff."
 
 "Never mind."
 
 He cupped his hands to his
 mouth and favored them with a
 blood-curdling proof of his ancestry,
 while the female passengers
 stirred restlessly and hunched in
 their seats. The driver stopped the
 bus and went back to warn him
 against any further display. The
 driver flashed a deputy's badge and
 threatened to turn him over to a
 constable.
 
 "I gotta get home," Big Hogey
 told him. "I got me a son now,
 that's why. You know? A little
 baby pigeon of a son. Haven't seen
 him yet."
 
 "Will you just sit still and be
 quiet then, eh?"
 
 Big Hogey nodded emphatically.
"Shorry, officer, I didn't mean to
 make any trouble."
 
 When the bus started again, he
 fell on his side and lay still. He
 made retching sounds for a time,
 then rested, snoring softly. The bus
 driver woke him again at Caine's
 junction, retrieved his gin bottle
 from behind the seat, and helped
 him down the aisle and out of the
 bus.
 
 Big Hogey stumbled about for a
 moment, then sat down hard in the
 gravel at the shoulder of the road.
 The driver paused with one foot on
 the step, looking around. There was
 not even a store at the road junction,
 but only a freight building
 next to the railroad track, a couple
 of farmhouses at the edge of a side-road,
 and, just across the way, a deserted
 filling station with a sagging
 roof. The land was Great Plains
 country, treeless, barren, and rolling.
 
 Big Hogey got up and staggered
 around in front of the bus, clutching
 at it for support, losing his
 duffle bag.
 
 "Hey, watch the traffic!" The
 driver warned. With a surge of unwelcome
 compassion he trotted
 around after his troublesome passenger,
 taking his arm as he sagged
 again. "You crossing?"
 
 "Yah," Hogey muttered. "Lemme
 alone, I'm okay."
 
 The driver started across the
 highway with him. The traffic was
 sparse, but fast and dangerous in
 the central ninety-mile lane.
 
 "I'm okay," Hogey kept protesting.
"I'm a tumbler, ya know?
 Gravity's got me. Damn gravity.
 I'm not used to gravity, ya know? I
 used to be a tumbler— huk! —only
 now I gotta be a hoofer. 'Count
 of li'l Hogey. You know about li'l
 Hogey?"
 
 "Yeah. Your son. Come on."
 
 "Say, you gotta son? I bet you
 gotta son."
 
 "Two kids," said the driver,
 catching Hogey's bag as it slipped
 from his shoulder. "Both girls."
 
 "Say, you oughta be home with
 them kids. Man oughta stick with
 his family. You oughta get another
 job." Hogey eyed him owlishly,
 waggled a moralistic finger, skidded
 on the gravel as they stepped
 onto the opposite shoulder, and
 sprawled again.
 
 The driver blew a weary breath,
 looked down at him, and shook his
 head. Maybe it'd be kinder to find
 a constable after all. This guy could
 get himself killed, wandering
 around loose.
 
 "Somebody supposed to meet
 you?" he asked, squinting around
 at the dusty hills.
 
 " Huk! —who, me?" Hogey giggled,
 belched, and shook his head.
"Nope. Nobody knows I'm coming.
 S'prise. I'm supposed to be here a
 week ago." He looked up at the
 driver with a pained expression.
"Week late, ya know? Marie's
 gonna be sore—woo- hoo !—is she
 gonna be sore!" He waggled his
 head severely at the ground.
 
 "Which way are you going?" the
 driver grunted impatiently.
 
 Hogey pointed down the side-road
 that led back into the hills.
"Marie's pop's place. You know
 where? 'Bout three miles from
 here. Gotta walk, I guess."
 
 "Don't," the driver warned.
"You sit there by the culvert till
 you get a ride. Okay?"
 
 Hogey nodded forlornly.
 
 "Now stay out of the road," the
 driver warned, then hurried back
 across the highway. Moments later,
 the atomic battery-driven motors
 droned mournfully, and the bus
 pulled away.
 
 Big Hogey blinked after it, rubbing
 the back of his neck. "Nice
 people," he said. "Nice buncha people.
 All hoofers."
 
 With a grunt and a lurch, he got
 to his feet, but his legs wouldn't
 work right. With his tumbler's reflexes,
 he fought to right himself
 with frantic arm motions, but gravity
 claimed him, and he went stumbling
 into the ditch.
 
 "Damn legs, damn crazy legs!"
 he cried.
 
 The bottom of the ditch was wet,
 and he crawled up the embankment
 with mud-soaked knees, and sat on
 the shoulder again. The gin bottle
 was still intact. He had himself a
 long fiery drink, and it warmed him
 deep down. He blinked around at
 the gaunt and treeless land.
 
 The sun was almost down, forge-red
 on a dusty horizon. The blood-streaked
 sky faded into sulphurous
 yellow toward the zenith, and the
 very air that hung over the land
 seemed full of yellow smoke, the
 omnipresent dust of the plains.
 
 A farm truck turned onto the
 side-road and moaned away, its
 driver hardly glancing at the dark
 young man who sat swaying on his
 duffle bag near the culvert. Hogey
 scarcely noticed the vehicle. He just
 kept staring at the crazy sun.
 
 He shook his head. It wasn't really
 the sun. The sun, the real sun,
 was a hateful eye-sizzling horror in
 the dead black pit. It painted everything
 with pure white pain, and you
 saw things by the reflected pain-light.
 The fat red sun was strictly a
 phoney, and it didn't fool him any.
 He hated it for what he knew it was
 behind the gory mask, and for what
 it had done to his eyes.
 
 
 
 With a grunt, he got to his feet,
 managed to shoulder the duffle bag,
 and started off down the middle of
 the farm road, lurching from side
 to side, and keeping his eyes on the
 rolling distances. Another car turned
 onto the side-road, honking angrily.
 
 Hogey tried to turn around to
 look at it, but he forgot to shift his
 footing. He staggered and went
 down on the pavement. The car's
 tires screeched on the hot asphalt.
 Hogey lay there for a moment,
 groaning. That one had hurt his
 hip. A car door slammed and a big
 man with a florid face got out and
 stalked toward him, looking angry.
 
 "What the hell's the matter with
 you, fella?" he drawled. "You
 soused? Man, you've really got a
 load."
 
 Hogey got up doggedly, shaking
 his head to clear it. "Space legs," he
 prevaricated. "Got space legs. Can't
 stand the gravity."
 
 The burly farmer retrieved his
 gin bottle for him, still miraculously
 unbroken. "Here's your gravity,"
 he grunted. "Listen, fella, you better
 get home pronto."
 
 "Pronto? Hey, I'm no Mex. Honest,
 I'm just space burned. You
 know?"
 
 "Yeah. Say, who are you, anyway?
 Do you live around here?"
 
 It was obvious that the big man
 had taken him for a hobo or a
 tramp. Hogey pulled himself together.
"Goin' to the Hauptman's
 place. Marie. You know Marie?"
 
 The farmer's eyebrows went up.
"Marie Hauptman? Sure I know
 her. Only she's Marie Parker now.
 Has been, nigh on six years. Say—"
 He paused, then gaped. "You ain't
 her husband by any chance?"
 
 "Hogey, that's me. Big Hogey
 Parker."
 
 "Well, I'll be—! Get in the car.
 I'm going right past John Hauptman's
 place. Boy, you're in no
 shape to walk it."
 
 He grinned wryly, waggled his
 head, and helped Hogey and his
 bag into the back seat. A woman
 with a sun-wrinkled neck sat rigidly
 beside the farmer in the front,
 and she neither greeted the passenger
 nor looked around.
 
 "They don't make cars like this
 anymore," the farmer called over
 the growl of the ancient gasoline
 engine and the grind of gears.
"You can have them new atomics
 with their loads of hot isotopes
 under the seat. Ain't safe, I say—eh,
 Martha?"
 
 The woman with the sun-baked
 neck quivered her head slightly.
"A car like this was good enough
 for Pa, an' I reckon it's good
 enough for us," she drawled mournfully.
 
 Five minutes later the car drew
 in to the side of the road. "Reckon
 you can walk it from here," the
 farmer said. "That's Hauptman's
 road just up ahead."
 
 He helped Hogey out of the car
 and drove away without looking
 back to see if Hogey stayed on his
 feet. The woman with the sun-baked
 neck was suddenly talking
 garrulously in his direction.
 
 It was twilight. The sun had set,
 and the yellow sky was turning
 gray. Hogey was too tired to go on,
 and his legs would no longer hold
 him. He blinked around at the land,
 got his eyes focused, and found
 what looked like Hauptman's place
 on a distant hillside. It was a big
 frame house surrounded by a wheatfield,
 and a few scrawny trees. Having
 located it, he stretched out in
 the tall grass beyond the ditch to
 take a little rest.
 
 Somewhere dogs were barking,
 and a cricket sang creaking monotony
 in the grass. Once there was the
 distant thunder of a rocket blast
 from the launching station six miles
 to the west, but it faded quickly. An
 A-motored convertible whined past
 on the road, but Hogey went unseen.
 
 When he awoke, it was night,
 and he was shivering. His stomach
 was screeching, and his nerves dancing
 with high voltages. He sat up
 and groped for his watch, then remembered
 he had pawned it after
 the poker game. Remembering the
 game and the results of the game
 made him wince and bite his lip
 and grope for the bottle again.
 
 He sat breathing heavily for a
 moment after the stiff drink. Equating
 time to position had become
 second nature with him, but he had
 to think for a moment because his
 defective vision prevented him from
 seeing the Earth-crescent.
 
 Vega was almost straight above
 him in the late August sky, so he
 knew it wasn't much after sundown—probably
 about eight o'clock. He
 braced himself with another swallow
 of gin, picked himself up and
 got back to the road, feeling a little
 sobered after the nap.
 
 He limped on up the pavement
 and turned left at the narrow drive
 that led between barbed-wire fences
 toward the Hauptman farmhouse,
 five hundred yards or so from the
 farm road. The fields on his left
 belonged to Marie's father, he
 knew. He was getting close—close
 to home and woman and child.
 
 He dropped the bag suddenly
 and leaned against a fence post,
 rolling his head on his forearms
 and choking in spasms of air. He
 was shaking all over, and his belly
 writhed. He wanted to turn and
 run. He wanted to crawl out in the
 grass and hide.
 
 What were they going to say?
 And Marie, Marie most of all.
 How was he going to tell her about
 the money?
 
 Six hitches in space, and every
 time the promise had been the
 same: One more tour, baby, and
 we'll have enough dough, and then
 I'll quit for good. One more time,
 and we'll have our stake—enough
 to open a little business, or buy a
 house with a mortgage and get a
 job.
 
 
 And she had waited, but the
 money had never been quite enough
 until this time. This time the tour
 had lasted nine months, and he had
 signed on for every run from station
 to moon-base to pick up the
 bonuses. And this time he'd made
 it. Two weeks ago, there had been
 forty-eight hundred in the bank.
 And now ...
 
 " Why? " he groaned, striking his
 forehead against his forearms. His
 arm slipped, and his head hit the
 top of the fencepost, and the pain
 blinded him for a moment. He staggered
 back into the road with a
 low roar, wiped blood from his
 forehead, and savagely kicked his
 bag.
 
 It rolled a couple of yards up the
 road. He leaped after it and kicked
 it again. When he had finished
 with it, he stood panting and angry,
 but feeling better. He shouldered
 the bag and hiked on toward the
 farmhouse.
 
 They're hoofers, that's all—just
 an Earth-chained bunch of hoofers,
 even Marie. And I'm a tumbler. A
 born tumbler. Know what that
 means? It means—God, what does
 it mean? It means out in Big Bottomless,
 where Earth's like a fat
 moon with fuzzy mold growing on
 it. Mold, that's all you are, just
 mold.
 
 A dog barked, and he wondered
 if he had been muttering aloud. He
 came to a fence-gap and paused in
 the darkness. The road wound
 around and came up the hill in
 front of the house. Maybe they were
 sitting on the porch. Maybe they'd
 already heard him coming. Maybe ...
 
 He was trembling again. He
 fished the fifth of gin out of his
 coat pocket and sloshed it. Still over
 half a pint. He decided to kill it. It
 wouldn't do to go home with a
 bottle sticking out of his pocket.
 He stood there in the night wind,
 sipping at it, and watching the reddish
 moon come up in the east. The
 moon looked as phoney as the
 setting sun.
 
 He straightened in sudden determination.
 It had to be sometime.
 Get it over with, get it over with
 now. He opened the fence-gap, slipped
 through, and closed it firmly
 behind him. He retrieved his bag,
 and waded quietly through the tall
 grass until he reached the hedge
 which divided an area of sickly
 peach trees from the field. He got
 over the hedge somehow, and started
 through the trees toward the
 house. He stumbled over some old
 boards, and they clattered.
 
 " Shhh! " he hissed, and moved
 on.
 
 The dogs were barking angrily,
 and he heard a screen door slam.
 He stopped.
 
 "Ho there!" a male voice called
 experimentally from the house.
 
 One of Marie's brothers. Hogey
 stood frozen in the shadow of a
 peach tree, waiting.
 
 "Anybody out there?" the man
 called again.
 
 Hogey waited, then heard the
 man muttering, "Sic 'im, boy, sic
'im."
 
 The hound's bark became eager.
 The animal came chasing down the
 slope, and stopped ten feet away to
 crouch and bark frantically at the
 shadow in the gloom. He knew the
 dog.
 
 "Hooky!" he whispered. "Hooky
 boy—here!"
 
 The dog stopped barking, sniffed,
 trotted closer, and went
" Rrrooff! " Then he started sniffing
 suspiciously again.
 
 "Easy, Hooky, here boy!" he
 whispered.
 
 The dog came forward silently,
 sniffed his hand, and whined in
 recognition. Then he trotted around
 Hogey, panting doggy affection and
 dancing an invitation to romp. The
 man whistled from the porch. The
 dog froze, then trotted quickly back
 up the slope.
 
 "Nothing, eh, Hooky?" the
 man on the porch said. "Chasin'
 armadillos again, eh?"
 
 The screen door slammed again,
 and the porch light went out.
 Hogey stood there staring, unable
 to think. Somewhere beyond the
 window lights were—his woman,
 his son.
 
 What the hell was a tumbler doing
 with a woman and a son?
 
 After perhaps a minute, he stepped
 forward again. He tripped over
 a shovel, and his foot plunged into
 something that went squelch and
 swallowed the foot past the ankle.
 He fell forward into a heap of
 sand, and his foot went deeper into
 the sloppy wetness.
 
 He lay there with his stinging
 forehead on his arms, cursing softly
 and crying. Finally he rolled
 over, pulled his foot out of the
 mess, and took off his shoes. They
 were full of mud—sticky sandy
 mud.
 
 The dark world was reeling
 about him, and the wind was dragging
 at his breath. He fell back
 against the sand pile and let his
 feet sink in the mud hole and wriggled
 his toes. He was laughing
 soundlessly, and his face was wet
 in the wind. He couldn't think. He
 couldn't remember where he was
 and why, and he stopped caring,
 and after a while he felt better.
 
 The stars were swimming over
 him, dancing crazily, and the mud
 cooled his feet, and the sand was
 soft behind him. He saw a rocket
 go up on a tail of flame from the
 station, and waited for the sound of
 its blast, but he was already asleep
 when it came.
 
 It was far past midnight when he
 became conscious of the dog licking
 wetly at his ear and cheek. He
 pushed the animal away with a low
 curse and mopped at the side of his
 face. He stirred, and groaned. His
 feet were burning up! He tried to
 pull them toward him, but they
 wouldn't budge. There was something
 wrong with his legs.
 
 For an instant he stared wildly
 around in the night. Then he remembered
 where he was, closed his
 eyes and shuddered. When he
 opened them again, the moon had
 emerged from behind a cloud, and
 he could see clearly the cruel trap
 into which he had accidentally
 stumbled. A pile of old boards, a
 careful stack of new lumber, a
 pick and shovel, a sand-pile, heaps
 of fresh-turned earth, and a concrete
 mixer—well, it added up.
 
 He gripped his ankles and pulled,
 but his feet wouldn't budge. In
 sudden terror, he tried to stand up,
 but his ankles were clutched by the
 concrete too, and he fell back in
 the sand with a low moan. He lay
 still for several minutes, considering
 carefully.
 
 He pulled at his left foot. It was
 locked in a vise. He tugged even
 more desperately at his right foot.
 It was equally immovable.
 
 He sat up with a whimper and
 clawed at the rough concrete until
 his nails tore and his fingertips
 bled. The surface still felt damp,
 but it had hardened while he slept.
 
 He sat there stunned until Hooky
 began licking at his scuffed fingers.
 He shouldered the dog away, and
 dug his hands into the sand-pile to
 stop the bleeding. Hooky licked at
 his face, panting love.
 
 "Get away!" he croaked savagely.
 
 The dog whined softly, trotted
 a short distance away, circled, and
 came back to crouch down in the
 sand directly before Hogey, inching
 forward experimentally.
 
 Hogey gripped fistfuls of the dry
 sand and cursed between his teeth,
 while his eyes wandered over the
 sky. They came to rest on the sliver
 of light—the space station—rising
 in the west, floating out in Big Bottomless
 where the gang was—Nichols
 and Guerrera and Lavrenti
 and Fats. And he wasn't forgetting
 Keesey, the rookie who'd replaced
 him.
 
 Keesey would have a rough time
 for a while—rough as a cob. The pit
 was no playground. The first time
 you went out of the station in a
 suit, the pit got you. Everything
 was falling, and you fell, with it.
 Everything. The skeletons of steel,
 the tire-shaped station, the spheres
 and docks and nightmare shapes—all
 tied together by umbilical cables
 and flexible tubes. Like some crazy
 sea-thing they seemed, floating in a
 black ocean with its tentacles bound
 together by drifting strands in the
 dark tide that bore it.
 
 
 
 Everything was pain-bright or
 dead black, and it wheeled around
 you, and you went nuts trying to
 figure which way was down. In fact,
 it took you months to teach your
 body that all ways were down and
 that the pit was bottomless.
 
 He became conscious of a plaintive
 sound in the wind, and froze to
 listen.
 
 It was a baby crying.
 
 It was nearly a minute before he
 got the significance of it. It hit him
 where he lived, and he began jerking
 frantically at his encased feet
 and sobbing low in his throat.
 They'd hear him if he kept that up.
 He stopped and covered his ears to
 close out the cry of his firstborn. A
 light went on in the house, and
 when it went off again, the infant's
 cry had ceased.
 
 Another rocket went up from the
 station, and he cursed it. Space was
 a disease, and he had it.
 
 "Help!" he cried out suddenly.
"I'm stuck! Help me, help me!"
 
 He knew he was yelling hysterically
 at the sky and fighting the relentless
 concrete that clutched his
 feet, and after a moment he stopped.
 
 The light was on in the house
 again, and he heard faint sounds.
 The stirring-about woke the baby
 again, and once more the infant's
 wail came on the breeze.
  Make the kid shut up, make the
 kid shut up ...
 
 
 But that was no good. It wasn't
 the kid's fault. It wasn't Marie's
 fault. No fathers allowed in space,
 they said, but it wasn't their fault
 either. They were right, and he had
 only himself to blame. The kid was
 an accident, but that didn't change
 anything. Not a thing in the world.
 It remained a tragedy.
 
 A tumbler had no business with a
 family, but what was a man going
 to do? Take a skinning knife, boy,
 and make yourself a eunuch. But
 that was no good either. They needed
 bulls out there in the pit, not
 steers. And when a man came down
 from a year's hitch, what was he
 going to do? Live in a lonely shack
 and read books for kicks? Because
 you were a man, you sought out a
 woman. And because she was a
 woman, she got a kid, and that was
 the end of it. It was nobody's fault,
 nobody's at all.
 
 He stared at the red eye of Mars
 low in the southwest. They were
 running out there now, and next
 year he would have been on the
 long long run ...
 
 But there was no use thinking
 about it. Next year and the years
 after belonged to little Hogey.
 
 He sat there with his feet locked
 in the solid concrete of the footing,
 staring out into Big Bottomless
 while his son's cry came from the
 house and the Hauptman menfolk
 came wading through the tall grass
 in search of someone who had cried
 out. His feet were stuck tight, and
 he wouldn't ever get them out. He
 was sobbing softly when they found
 him.
What is the plot of the story?
109
03fb5c08d15043bea2e082d4310c1556
This story follows the protagonist, Hogey Parker’s, journey in heading back home after a long stint in space. His identity leans heavily on being a spacer - or a tumbler - with distinguishing sunburned marks and glare-blinded eyes. Parker is accompanied by a bottle of gin, and with it, stumbles onto a bus. In his drunken ramblings and stumblings - attributed by himself to him being a spaceman - Hogey creates a ruckus on the bus and disturbs its passengers. Fellow passengers give him allowances as he’s a spaceman and help him out. 

Throughout his journey, he is helped by various characters who further progress his journey back home. After being dropped off, the bus driver helps him across the road, where he is later then picked up by a farmer who drops Hogey off even closer to his farmhouse. In between, Hogey constantly looks up at the Big Bottomless space and thinks about his time in space with particular feelings of resentment and anger - one towards the sun for blinding him and another towards the rookie that replaced him. After finally making it close to his farmhouse, he sneaks through the grass past the fence and encounters the dog, who he quickly shushes when one of his wife’s brothers comes out to investigate the noise. Staring at his wife and son through the house, he stumbles into wet concrete and quickly becomes stuck in the sand as it dries. Despite his best efforts he is unable to claw himself out. At the end of the story, his cries at being stuck in the concrete echo at the same time the cries of his son as the Hauptmann men find him, stuck. 

112
1fb8519228cd420c9a75934505b9d7b1
Big Hogey Parker, a tumbler who comes back to Earth from his nine-month stay in the space, can hardly behave appropriately on the bus because of his unaccustomedness to the gravity and the drunkenness. He harasses and annoys the passengers on the bus, gets warned by the driver, and sleeps on the rear seat of the bus. After the bus stop at Caine’s junction, the bus driver helps him get out of the bus and safely cross the road. While crossing the road, Hogey talks about the importance of family and learns that the driver has two daughters. After crossing the road, the driver asks whether someone will come and pick Hogey up, but Hogey tells him that he is a week late and nobody will come. The driver tells him to wait for a car and leaves. Hogey stares at the sun while waiting, feeling unfamiliar with the gravity.

Hogey starts to lurch in the middle of the road. A car almost hits him when he fails to control his balance. A man comes out of the car and shouts at him. The man realizes that Hogey is Marie’s husband through the conversation, so he drives Hogey to a place near Marie’s house. Hogey takes a nap in the grass near the ditch until the night. He swallows a few gins, checks the time with the star's position in the sky as he pawns his watch in the poker game that he lost all of the money, and walks toward the house. He is afraid of facing his wife and son as he lost all the money in a poker game two weeks ago after his wife had waited for him for so long to do all the space travel to earn money. He wants to run away. He walks through the fence, trampling through some boards when the dog barks. He hides in the shadow of the peach tree when Marie’s brother comes out to check. The dog comes at him, and Hogey calms the dog, waiting until the man goes inside the house. When Hogey keeps walking, he steps into a concrete mixer with sand and falls. He takes off his shoes and puts his bare feet back in the muddy sand. Laying on the sand, Hogey falls asleep. Past midnight, he gets awakened by the dog's licking, finding his feet stuck in the concrete. Reflecting on his time in the space and the people there, Hogey feels desperate. Suddenly, he hears his son cry. The cry brings Hogey’s consciousness back from the space to where he is, and the significance of his family strikes him. He calls out loud for help and sobs with his feet stuck tight. He will live on Earth with gravity from now on.

111
6d5522a043bc4948b430598db3ff0faa
The story focuses on a man named Hogey. Hogey is trying to return to his wife and child, but seems to find it very difficult because he has been drinking, and because his body needs to adapt to being back on Earth. The story begins in a bus, where Hogey is very drunk and is trying to talk to other passengers. The other passengers help Hogey sleep, but he wakes up again and continues speaking with others. When the bus reaches his stop, Hogey clumsily gets off the bus. When the driver sees that Hogey needs help, he helps Hogey sit down in the street and tells him to wait for a ride instead of walking to his wife’s house. Hogey waits for a while, then decides to walk. He falls in a ditch, but he is helped by a couple who passes in a car. The man tells him that his wife remarried and that he is going to the new husband’s house. After the man drops him off, Hogey falls asleep close to the house. He sleeps for a while and afterwards he tries to go into the house, but he struggles mentally to accept what he is doing. He ends up falling in cement, and his feet get stuck. We learn that Hogey worked in space a lot, and that he was afraid to go back to earth because of the amount of time that he had been away. 


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Everybody immediately knows that Big Hogey Parker is a spacer and goes out of their way to help him even if he is harassing a housewife. He reveals that he was kidding about being an Indian, and there are two men who lead him back to his seat. When the driver threatens to turn him over, Big Hogey apologizes and sits in his seat until it is time to leave, and the driver asks if he is okay once he staggers to cross the highway. The man asks if somebody is supposed to meet Big Hogey, but he says that it is a surprise for everybody. He is redirected to sit at the culvert, but gravity makes it difficult for him to walk. As the sun sets, Hogey stares at it because he hates it for what it truly is and what it did to his eyes. A burly farmer angrily confronts him when he stumbles down the road again, but he reveals that he is married to Marie Hauptman. They offer to drop him off at the area near Hauptman's road, and Hogey finds himself too tired to go on because it is twilight. When he awakes again, it is night time. He takes another sip of his gin and decides how the meeting will go. Hogey is worried about the money, especially since he has gone on six hitches in space with the promise that each one would be his last one. As he goes near the house, a dog suddenly comes out and barks. One of Marie’s brothers comes out to investigate the situation too, but he finds nothing and returns home with the dog. He tries to think about why a tumbler like him would be married with a son, and he finds both his feet losing the strength to move. The dog, Hooky, comes up to greet him again, but he angrily sends it away. Hogey thinks back to his crew, and a baby begins to cry suddenly. He yells for help, and the lights come on again because the baby begins to cry more. The kid had been an accident, and he knows that a tumblr has no business with a family. However, there is nobody to blame for this. Big Hogey sits with his foot locked in the solid concrete and sobs when the rest of the men find him. 
What is the significance of Hogey’s feet being stuck in concrete?
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There is an ironic significance in Hogey’s feet being stuck in concrete. Throughout the story, Hogey’s identity is tied to being a tumbler - a spaceman. Not only does he physically look like a spacer with his sun-burned marks from his goggles, he has also been blinded by the sun’s glare. It is only due to these characteristics that other people give him allowances while Hogey is in a drunken stupor. 

Hogey constantly speaks to separate himself from everyone else - even his wife - by identifying as a tumbler and them as hoofers. He insists that he was born as a tumbler and belongs in space, and hence blames his drunken inability to walk as due to a difficulty in adjusting to the gravity on Earth. He insists that he has to become a hoofer, but refuses to, and at the end of the story even denounces his wife and child. It is ironic then, that by Hogey’s feet being stuck in the concrete, he has reluctantly become a hoofer as his feet are literally encased in the Earth. 

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Before Hogey’s feet are stuck in concrete, he keeps thinking about his time in space, despising people who live on Earth as he believes the spacers know what truly lies behind the fake phenomenon of the sun and moon seen from the Earth. He doesn’t realize the reality of living on Earth and the significance of his family. After Hogey’s feet are stuck in concrete, he hears his son crying when he is lying on the ground and trying to get his feet out of the concrete. The crying of the firstborn reminds him of the reality that he will live on Earth, with gravity, in the future. There will be no more space travel for him but maybe his son. He used to blame his return on his son and the overall situation, but after being stuck in the concrete and hearing his son crying, he realizes that it is not anyone’s fault that he is strongly influenced by the space life and fails to fulfill his responsibilities as a father and a husband. It is nobody’s but his fault for all the things that happened. He feels belonging to Earth after his feet are physically stuck tight to the earth.
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After struggling with going to the house, Hogey finally decides to approach. As soon as his ex-wife’s brother appears outside, Hogey freezes and backs out of his plan of approaching the house. He seems to struggle a lot with the decision of either entering the house or not. After reconnecting with his dog, Hogey falls down, and his feet go into what seems to be muddy sand. Hogey doesn’t seem to care and falls asleep with his feet still inside. He wakes up a few hours later with the dog licking him, and he realizes that he was actually stuck in concrete. This gives him no choice but to call for help from the house, and he ends up being found by the men of the house. 

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Hogey’s feet being stuck in concrete shows that he has no chance to escape even if he wants to desperately. Throughout the entire story, he refers to himself as a tumbler with no place in a family. He battles with feelings of conflict for visiting his wife and child, believing that a tumbler has no right to a family. The concrete also forces him to confront his fears, even if he is not sure what he will say to Marie about money when he sees her. He contemplates leaving Hauptman's house a lot, but the concrete forces him to stay until he is found and brought back into the family. In a way, the concrete also makes him become a hoofer despite him constantly referring to himself as being different from everybody else. With his feet grounded to the earth, he has no choice but to also become a hoofer like everybody else. 
How do the other humans (hoofers) help Hogey get home?
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Hogey gets home through the kindness of the hoofers, who all know him to be a spacer due to the white marks on his face. As such, when Hogey becomes rowdy and drunk on the bus, they gracefully pick him up and seat him down at the back of the bus. After getting off the bus, Hogey has trouble crossing the highway with all the passing cars and the bus driver compassionately helps him across the road. The driver even inquired about someone picking him up, before warning Hogey not to traipse through the hills alone and instead, wait for someone to come along. 

As Hogey staggers down the pavement, he stumbles in front of a farmer’s truck. Since the farmer recognizes Hogey’s residence and identity, he helps Hogey get closer to his destination and drops him off right on the road in front of Hauptman’s place. 

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The bus driver helps Hogey get out of the bus and cross the road safely when Hogey staggers around the bus. He also asks Hogey’s about his plan of getting home, warning him not to walk home but wait until a car comes for the safety reason. A farmer, who picks Hogey up in the middle of the road, drives Hogey to a place near Marie’s house. The farmer helps Hogey get in and out of the car when Hogey can hardly hold himself straight. The farmer does not check if Hogey can stand upright after leaving him alone by the road.
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Throughout his journey, Hogey needs help from others in order to get back to his house. First, he is helped while he is on a bus. Here Hogey was very drunk and annoying the bus passengers, so some men put him in the back rows so that Hogey could sleep through the journey. After Hogey arrives at his stop, the bus driver helps him get off the bus and helps him cross the street. He also makes sure that Hogey waits for someone at the entrance of his side road instead of walking the 3 miles that divide the highway and Hogey's house. Lastly, Hogey gets help from a couple who give him a ride to the house. They seemed to be very familiar with his wife and her new husband. 
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On the bus, the other humans help him by tolerating his presence and helping him get back to his seat. They make allowances when he staggers around the bus, and the other people even try to get the housewife that he was harassing to sit and talk to him. Two men help him to the back of the bus, and they dump him in the rear seat to tuck his gin bottle safely out of sight. When Big Hogey falls asleep, the driver wakes him up at Caine’s junction and retrieves his gin bottle to give to him. Even though the driver is annoyed, he does help Big Hogey to go sit at the culvert until he gets a ride. Later, one of the farmers drives by and is initially angry at him. However, once he realizes that Hogey is married to Marie, he offers to give him a ride. They drop him off near Hauptman’s road so that he can return home safely. 
Describe the difference between a tumbler and a hoofer.
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A tumbler and a hoofer are considered to be two types of people, as described by Hogey’s drunken ramblings. A tumbler is someone who lives in space and never interacts with gravity. As such, a tumbler is often clumsy and has limbs that flail about. In addition, a tumbler is not meant to be a family man, and should neither have a wife nor children. 

Therefore, a hoofer is a person who lives on Earth and is rooted to the ground by gravity, as they have never traveled to space. By contrast, they would have a family, like Marie Parker does with her son. In addition, the hoofers in this story are stable and kind, like the farmer and the bus driver, who all help Hogey when his limbs and center of gravity fail him. 

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A tumbler is a person who lives in space, where there is no gravity. They may fear to be in an open space as a result of staying in the outer space too long. Their legs are not used to the gravity, which makes them hard to walk properly on Earth. They can naturally equate time to position. They have bad visions because their eyes are harmed by the direct contact to the sun. Their faces are harmed by the direct exposure to the sun in the space. Sun looks brightly pain and white to them as they see it in the bottomless dark space where sun is the largest source of light. A hoofer is a person who lives on Earth where there is gravity. They are used to walk with gravity, unlike a tumbler. Sun looks red to them when it sets. Their visions are not harmed by the direct exposure to the sun, neither are their faces.
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Hoofers are humans that have stayed on Earth all their life. They are everyday humans that live their lives without ever going to space. The bus driver, and Hogey’s wife are examples of Hoofers. Tumblers on the other hand are people that have traveled to space, and worked there. Hogey is an example of a tumbler, and is an example of all the problems that tumblers face when they go back to Earth. Tumbler’s aren’t allowed to have children, a rule that Hogey broke. Hogey also struggles a lot with Earth’s gravity, because tumblers spend a lot of time in space in which there is no gravity. 
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A hoofer is an ordinary human who lives on Earth. They do not go to space at all, and they spend their lives on the planet. Everybody who Big Hogey meets on his way home is considered to be a hoofer because they have never been to space before. Compared to being a hoofer, a tumbler is somebody who has spent most of their time in space. People, like Big Hogey, find it difficult to adjust to gravity after having spent so much time away from Earth. The tumblers are also not meant to have a family, as fathers are not supposed to be allowed into space. The hoofers, on the other hand, can have regular families and go about their daily lives because they do not have to abide by the same requirements as the tumblers have to for their line of work. The tumblers also go on multiple space hitches, despite the promise of money. 
Describe the setting of this story.
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This story takes place on Earth. As we are following the protagonist’s journey home, the setting constantly changes in terms of transportation mode and the landscape. First, we can identify the setting as a public bus, where Hogey occupies the back seats of the bus as he falls asleep clutching his gin. Hogey gets off at his stop - Caine’s junction - which is a road junction with just a few farmhouses at the side and a derelict filling station. There is also a ditch, which he promptly stumbles into. The landscape reveals the Great Plains country, with descriptions of the setting being treeless and barren, and instead being full of rolling hills and fields of grass.

Towards the end of the story, the setting changes to the Hauptman’s place where the farmhouse sits off the side of the road with a barbed-wire fence. Within the tall grass of the farmhouse also lies a sloppy heap of sand - concrete. 

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It is in late August. The first scene is on a bus. After the protagonist gets out of the bus, he sits at a road junction. Along the side of the road, there is gravel. Next to the railroad tracks, a freight building, several farmhouses, and a filling station stand across the road. The land is barren, unwooded, and rolling. The hills around are dusty. There is a ditch along the road, the bottom of which is wet and muddy. The protagonist’s house is about three miles from there. A wheat field and a few trees surround the house. Beyond the ditch next to the road, a tall grass lies. Six miles away to the west, there is a rocket launching station. A narrow path along with the barbed-wire fence leads toward the house. The hedge divides the peach trees from the field inside the fence gap. Some old boards, a shovel and pick, a sand pile, a stack of new lumbers, and a concrete mixer lie on the ground. There is a porch light next to the screen door of the house. 
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The story takes place on Earth. It starts off in a bus, and then it continues to be set in what seems to be a side road off a highway. Hogey is on his way to his house, which is described to be isolated, like a farmhouse. The house is big and has dogs, which make it more similar to a farmhouse. Hogey also remembers his time in space, which was described as a floating station full of tubes and metal machines that continued falling, and the people inside fell with it. The story seems to be set in the future, but it could very well be set only a few from now. 
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The story is set on Earth and on a bus. Hogey initially sits next to a housewife on the bus, but he is moved to the back after. There is a highway near the area where Hogey is dropped off, and he falls into a ditch when the sun goes down. There is a farm road to go into, and a side-road for cars to turn onto. At Hauptman's road, there is a narrow drive that leads to the barbed wire of the farmhouse. There is also a peach tree next to the house, and a porch. Eventually, Hogey gets himself stuck in concrete. There is a pile of wood boards, a careful stack of new lumber, a pick and a shovel, a sand-pile, heaps of freshly-turned earth, and a concrete mixer near the area that his feet are stuck inside of. 