But Mark reconciled himself to it because Channel 56 was showing reruns of Lost in Space. They cut off the credits and music at the end, which was extremely annoying.
When he had watched the show at age six, in the living room, Susan would stand behind him sometimes and sneer. “That just wouldn’t happen.” Or, “For chrissake, they don’t even know the difference between a galaxy and a solar system.” Or a final verdict, when the pretty melody came on during the warm family moments: “Vomitous.” But now, passing through the kitchen, age fifteen, she was no longer mean. She’d say, “That’s Zachary Smith, right? He’s an amazing asshole, right?” Or, “Have you noticed the guy playing the dad has this one little spot of gray hair on one side? I wonder why they don’t dye that?”
When she lingered like this, Mark felt proud that the show was holding her attention. He hoped she would sit down after a minute and get absorbed, and then they could watch it together and he could fill her in. If a stupid bit happened to come along—he had begun to notice these—he mentally winced, even though she didn’t pounce. But she always walked out after a little while, and it pained him to think that the show had failed her, and at the same time he wanted to protect the show from her indifference. He wished there were a version of the show with all the great parts and none of the stupid bits.
Now it was his mother who sneered. “That family deserves everything they get,” she’d say, passing through the room. “Smith betrays them over and over, and they still save him.” The boy in the show, Will Robinson, was Mark’s favorite character. He had dreamed many times that Will and he were friends. He’d even had a couple of dreams about Will that were kind of weird and intimate. Will was Zachary Smith’s friend, and always championed the idea of forgiving him after one of his betrayals. “That kid is as soft as a peeled grape,” his mother said. Regarding Zachary Smith, she always proposed the same solution: “I’d kick him in the balls and shove him out the airlock.” Mark didn’t mind these comments, the way he would if Susan or Dad said them. Mom hated all TV.
Around this time, he got a Frisbee for his birthday. He loved it because it looked sort of like the Jupiter 2. Mark couldn’t think of a more evocative name for a spaceship than “Jupiter 2.” Sometimes he said the words under his breath and was filled with an unnameable emotion, like a key fitting a keyhole in his mind. He liked drawing the Jupiter 2. If you drew it right, it was wonderfully plump and yet pointy at the rim, sleekly curved yet also paneled in an indescribably pleasing way.
On the show, the ship always crash-landed at an angle behind a rocky ridge, so you never saw the impact itself. Mark practiced in the side yard and got pretty good at throwing the Frisbee in a tilted arc. If he got the range right, the Frisbee flew high, then hesitated, slid off the curve and came angling down behind the bushes near the house. When that happened, it looked almost exactly like the crashing ship in the show. Mark would investigate the site: suspended in twigs (the Robinsons clambering down, John helping Maureen, Don helping Judy), or cushioned in moss, or resting half on a little stone that looked exactly like the huge boulder it was supposed be. He would evaluate the site for its potential as a makeshift settlement. Then he’d throw the Frisbee again.
• • •
His father was a physicist. When Mark asked him what that meant, he said, “A physicist is someone who figures out why some things stand up and other things fall down.”
Mark was bothered by what he suspected was condescension in that answer.
• • •
For Christmas Mark got a book called The World of Tomorrow. He recognized the cover—it was a photograph of the City of Tomorrow that he’d seen at the World’s Fair five years ago. Most of the book was about other things; he never read those parts. Instead, he looked at the photos of the City, reading and rereading the accompanying text. “Vacations are very popular in our World of Tomorrow, for every worker has almost five months off each year. Some people do not work, but prefer to get along on the government’s guaranteed annual income of more than $10,000 a year.”
Scrutinized at length and up close, the City was as clean and inviting as he remembered. Little trees and clipped grass and little people and futuristic bubble cars sitting in circular white parking garages. Rosy evening light. People promenading on plazas. Circular buildings, circular fountains. Mark kept gazing at the skyscrapers with their sides that curved out toward the bottom, their random pattern of lit and unlit windows. He gazed at the windows, those translucent squares of uniform yellow light, and became filled with that same unnameable emotion.
• • •
That summer camp two years ago, his mother told him, had just been the wrong one. This new camp was recommended by the parents of one of Mark’s friends at school. Doug had gone there last year and loved it, and he would be going again. Mark was going for a month this time and it would be great. Mom’s favorite memories of childhood were all from her times at summer camp.
When he arrived, Mark learned that
