 Why does Hank want to eat alone?
The first man to return from beyond the Great Frontier may be welcomed ... but will it be as a curiosity, rather than as a hero...? There was the usual welcoming crowd for a celebrity, and the usual speeches by the usual politicians who met him at the airport which had once been twenty miles outside of Croton, but which the growing city had since engulfed and placed well within its boundaries. There he sat between the mayor and a nervous young coed chosen as homecoming queen, and looked out at the police and fire department bands, the National Guard, the boy scouts and girl scouts, the Elks and Masons. Several of the churches in town had shown indecision as to how to instruct their parishioners to treat him. He wanted a meal at his own table, a kiss from his wife, a word from his son, and later to see some old friends and a relative or two. The head of the American Legion and the chief of police, who had escorted him on this trip from the square, didn't ask to go in with him. They held onto each other as if seeking mutual support, the thirty-three-year old woman and ten-year-old boy. So he put him down and told himself that it would all change, that everything would loosen up just as his commanding officer, General Carlisle, had said it would early this morning before he left Washington. Carlisle had said his position was analogous to Columbus', to Vasco De Gama's, to Preshoff's when the Russian returned from the Moon—but more so. He saw twin beds separated by an ornate little table with an ornate little lamp, and this looked more ominous a barrier to him than the twelve-foot concrete-and-barbed-wire fence around the experimental station. The body scars were faint, the scars running in long lines, one dissecting his chest, the other slicing diagonally across his upper abdomen to disappear under his trousers. Which was not what he'd considered at all important on leaving Walter Reed Hospital early this morning; which was something he found distasteful, something he felt beneath them both. After all, he was still Henry Devers, the same man who had left home eleven months ago, with a love for family and friends which was, if anything, stronger than before. Once he could communicate this, the strangeness would disappear and the First One would again become good old Hank. Together with Edith, Ralphie and himself, they made six, and ate in the dining room at the big table.
 His family is not treating him like a normal person. Hank just wants to feel normal.
 Aunt Lucille won't shut up about the Ladies' Garden Club.  His family is not treating him like a normal person. Hank just wants to feel normal.  His family is talking too loudly at dinner, and there are too many people in the room. Hank is experiencing sensory overload.  His family was watching him eat like an animal in a zoo. Hank just wants to feel normal.