Shepard's Prayer

by Jessie Atkin

Mark hadn’t watched a game of baseball in over three years. He said it was because the Dodgers had left New York. Willie Mays, Roger Maris, he knew the names, but they meant nothing to him. They weren’t heroes. He’d concentrated all his magazine photos and his single Dodgers’ pennant in one corner of his bedroom, more as a memorial than as decoration. At the center of his shrine was a newspaper clipping from February 23 of the previous year. “Dodger’s House Demolished” the headline read. “I’ll kill Walter O’Malley if I ever meet him,” his father had said. “Kill him right there.” Mark felt the same way. 

It was a bit convenient, though Mark would never admit it, that he had no desire to fight for the television anymore. His mother was much more involved with the TV these days. She loved to watch the new President. Mark, on the other hand, had no desire to turn on Lassie, or Bonanza, or The Twilight Zone. He’d outgrown shows long ago it felt like, when he was still young enough to find programs like Bozo and Romper Room amusing. Sometimes his mother still sang the Bozo theme song to torment him when he was being especially surly, which was quite a bit lately. Mark would scrunch up his face in mock disgust as she bent to tickle him at the back of his neck. No, he’d taken to baseball and then baseball had taken off. Entertainment had abandoned him, and he was not one to easily forgive. 

Today, though, his mother had insisted. Rousing him especially early, particularly on a sick day—it was barely past eight o’clock—she’d sat him down directly in front of the set, so he could reach the knobs if the picture went funny. “You’re going to want to see this,” she’d insisted. With sleep still present in the corners of his eyes, there was no way to protest and so Mark had sat obediently, his legs crossed in front of him, his white bleached socks resting on the inseams of his pajamas. His wrists rested behind him on the apartment’s linoleum floor as he stared into the flicker of black and white images before him. 

“Fifty-five to sixty hours a week were spent by astronauts in simulators at Cape Canaveral,” the TV said. An image of two men hunched over binders at a gray workstation spilled across the screen. They each wore an earpiece, a microphone, and a tie. That didn’t look like a simulator to Mark. The kitchen fan blew persistently on the back of his neck. Mark wanted to turn it off; the window was already open. It wasn’t that hot. It was too early in the spring for that. It was too early in the day for that.

Staring out the window, Mark thought of the empty stoop one floor below. He wondered if Jason had obtained any more cherry bombs and whether or not he, Mark, would have to contribute another handful of green army men to their destructive pursuits. He only had so many, after all, and besides the men, his personal recreation stash only consisted of a baseball, a Spaldeen, and a new etch-a-sketch he refused to take out of the box. The green army men were a very important part of the collection. The baseball and Spaldeen were of no use to him now; Mark could barely stand to watch a game of stickball not to mention the agonizing prospect of participating in one. The pain was up there with the embarrassment of being caught bouncing the Spaldeen in a girls’ game of hopscotch. 

His mother had never approved of Jason; she would have been much more comfortable if her only son had taken up hopscotch as a pastime. But owing to the fact that Jason’s mother was now the only one on speaking terms with Mark’s own mother, she let her distaste go unstated. She wasn’t one to further isolate her son. Besides, she’d always disliked baseball, and now, even in the company of Jason and a handful of cherry bombs, she seemed to be pleased that Mark had given up his obsession with it.

“Have you eaten?” his mother asked, heading to the sink.

Mark shook his head. 

He heard his mother move to the cabinet for the cereal. “You’ll need to eat if you want to get better.”

Mark didn’t feel that bad, his mother knew. But she was letting him say so. She had been good about that as a part of their new arrangement. Letting him skip school when the need arose. At least he was being honest with her; honesty was important to both of them. 

 His mother shook the box of cereal. They were almost out. She got the milk and slammed the fridge door behind her, pounding it a second time to make sure the door actually stuck. They had planned to get a new fridge three years ago, about when the Dodgers had left New York. She brought the bowl to Mark’s spot on the floor.

Taking his breakfast with a nod of thanks Mark asked, “How long is this going to take?” He motioned towards the set.

“I wouldn’t complain if I were you. He’s been in there for over three hours.”

Mark turned back to the screen, a spoonful of cereal already between his lips. “Who?”

“Shepard,” she replied, crouching to put the back of her hand up against his forehead.

Her face was framed by the light from the kitchen window and the circles beneath her eyes appeared especially dark. No amount of makeup caked around her lashes could hide what nature had already provided. The mascara balled up at the very tips.  Mark’s mother had always worn makeup but the amount she had taken to wearing since starting at the luncheonette was like playing a losing game of hide and seek—it was not hard to see the circles or the lines beneath her eyes.  

 “Golly,” Mark said to himself. He could barely imagine getting up a half hour earlier than he already had; three hours sounded torturous. 

“No temperature,” she told him, standing up. She smiled. Her crow’s feet crinkled in what was genuine pleasure as she moved, revealing the television picture once more. 

“Promise me you’ll watch,” she said, taking her keys in hand.

“Yes, Mom,” he agreed, spooning another bite of cereal into his mouth. If it was this important to her, he’d watch. She would ask for the details later, he knew. It would give them something to discuss over dinner.

Grabbing her pocketbook from the counter, she crouched and kissed Mark on the forehead. “Be careful outside today,” she said. “Especially since you’re not feeling well.” She knew there was no way to stop him. “Promise?”

“I promise,” he told her.

“I’ll be home around five. And I left your lunch on a plate in the fridge. If you have any problems—”

“—Mrs. Pryor’s upstairs,” Mark finished.

She smiled and kissed him again. Then she straightened and headed quickly out the door. 

Mark was once again left alone with the TV and, for the first time in a long time, he kept it on. He still wasn’t used to watching the screen by himself. He remembered when he’d been able to watch The Million Dollar Movie with his mother on free afternoons. It was the only thing besides baseball he’d been willing to sit through, in part because his mother had insisted. She didn’t insist anymore, she was never home in time.

She used to protest about exercise and fresh air when he and his father used to sit all the way through three hour, extra innings Brooklyn contests, but never during her movies. “She just doesn’t understand,” his father used to say with a grin. Mark wondered now if it had really been baseball to which his father had been referring. Mark avoided being in the apartment now, so that line of lazy disapproval from his mother no longer applied. 

Men on the screen strained their necks’ backwards, eyes pressed firmly up against the tail ends of a seemingly infinite number of binoculars. It looked as if their heads might snap off at the neck before too long. They had their free hands raised over the lenses to help block the sun. Mark wondered if the view through their lenses was as good in person as the one the TV cameras were projecting for his own benefit. A kid and his father flashed by, sitting on a set of bleachers. 

“Filled with liquid oxygen and alcohol,” the newsman said. 

Alcohol, Mark thought, taking another spoonful of cereal. A wind blew in from the open window and Mark could smell the familiar mixture of sewage, car exhaust, and energy wafting from a street below. He wondered if that’s how it smelled out by the rocket too. It was a New York smell, though, and Mark doubted they’d be able to reproduce it down in Florida. Things could be similar, but that didn’t change the fact that they were still different.

“The Redstone holds over 36,000 pounds of fuel,” the newsman continued. 

Mark thought of the cherry bombs and his army men. He wondered what would happen to Alan Shepard if that rocket did what rockets usually did and blew up. He hoped they would cut away from the Redstone if that happened. Mark’s army men always returned to him in pieces after their explosions. He didn’t think he needed to see the Redstone, or Alan Shepard, in pieces. He didn’t like pieces you couldn’t put back together.

The camera cut to another shot of the rocket on its pad in Florida. It looked higher than the Empire State building. Mark knew the Empire State building was tall; his father had taken him to see it once. It was the only other trip Mark could remember besides the time they’d gone to Ebbets Field. That day the Dodgers had lost. His mother had taken him to see The Absent-Minded Professor at the movies a few months ago. That was about as far as they ever went together now.

“Astronaut Alan Shepard still sits in his spacecraft at the top of the Redstone, prepared for liftoff. He arrived before the sun early this morning and was escorted aboard by NASA’s leading physician and greeted by fellow astronaut John Glenn.”

Hour-old footage of Alan Shepard stepping out of his transport to stare up at his space-bound vehicle played again across the screen. His helmet glowed white, especially in the darkness of the early morning. His suit flared like tin foil in the light from the cameras. He carried in his hand what looked very much like a large lunch box but was in fact a cooling unit for use until boarding. Florida was always warmer than New York. Mark thought of his mother’s pocketbook and her heading out the door for her own day at work. Her job was not being televised.

“NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, a civilian run agency, has maintained a policy of full disclosure with the media from its inception. For in a democratic society failures are known as well as successes.”

That was true. Mark remembered hearing about the explosions of the administration’s earliest rockets from his mother. He hadn’t watched them on television, but his mother had read to him from the paper. His father had always snatched up the business section. He liked the stocks. He liked to complain about “the men in suits”. Mark wondered if Alan Shepard had seen the explosions in person. He’d heard about them anyway, Mark was sure, so he was especially brave sitting up there on the television screen.

Mark tipped his bowl to his lips and drank the milk out of the bottom. He could hear traffic on the street below and the shouting of the grocer across the way. He wondered if he should get his shoes and go over for more cereal. He wondered if the radio was on in the store. He wondered if the grocer would listen to rocket launches the same way he usually listened to ball games. He wondered if his mom had left any money for him.

“Shepard will reach a peak height of 115 miles high and experience over five minutes of weightlessness during his flight this morning, according to NASA experts.”

Mark stood with his bowl and spoon and moved to put them in the sink. His mother’s bowl was in the sink as well. She’d been in a rush waking him up this morning it seemed. She tried to hide it, but she always seemed to be in a rush now. He washed both bowls out and left them to dry before returning to his spot on the floor in front of the set. His mother would have to make dinner when she got home, not clean up from breakfast.

“All seven of the Mercury astronauts participated in naming this, the first American manned spacecraft. All military, all men, all are heroes. Freedom 7 will go down in history, as will its occupant, Alan Shepard, if all is successful here this morning.”

Heroes, Mark thought. A few shots of the Mercury Seven all smiling and waving paraded across the screen. Mark liked their matching flight gear, like team jerseys almost. Leaning back, Mark could feel his hand stick to the linoleum; the traction was helpful to his sitting position. If he leaned his head back like the binocular men on TV, he could avoid the air current from the fan and just get the breeze from the window.

“A Navy aviator before reporting for duty with the American space program, Shepard is one of three naval representatives currently with the program. Astronauts Scott Carpenter and Walter Schirra also served in the United States Navy.”

Mark wondered if he should join the Navy, since it no longer looked like baseball was going to work out. If three astronauts were from the Navy it couldn’t be a terrible job to start with. It had prominence. Prominence had always sounded a bit funny to Mark. But that’s what his father had always liked to say about men who wore suits, and big name ball players, “they have prominence.” Mark was sure it meant something beyond a broken fridge and empty cereal boxes. Not like his mother’s job at the luncheonette. Mark was sure no one would stop speaking to him if he joined the Navy. He was sure his mother would have a lot more callers at the house if she had a son who might go into space.

The camera cut back to a shot of the Redstone, standing alone before the morning sky, which Mark could only guess was blue. He wondered if Mr. Alan Shepard was lonely and bored yet, sitting all by himself in his tiny capsule. He wondered how you had to sit atop a rocket. If you had to fold your legs as Mark did on the floor. He’d heard the spacecraft didn’t even have a window. Mark turned to the cool breeze coming from his own. He thought of the wind that must be present on the deck of an aircraft carrier. He wondered if Mr. Alan Shepard ever regretted his new life. He wondered if the transition had been difficult for him.

Mark remembered when the seven had been announced on television about two years before. With Ebbets still standing, Mark had not yet written off the TV set completely. All had genius level IQs, they’d reported. Mark had thought himself very lucky in that IQ was not a requirement for baseball players, though now he began to seriously question how lucky that had actually been. He wondered what a genius IQ consisted of. He couldn’t tear his eyes from the screen. The seven looked just as fit as Don Drysdale, Sandy Koufax, and Roy Campanella used to.

“We’ve just received confirmation that launch is a go,” the newsman said, his voice rising in a way it had not during the entirety of the rest of the broadcast. Mark leaned forward as the image of the newsman was replaced by a current shot of the Redstone. He wondered if the rocket was red at all, being called a Redstone. He wished he had someone to ask. His dad used to know every team color in the major leagues.

The phone rang. Mark shot it a loathing glare and turned quickly back to the television. He waited for a plume of flame, an explosion and a cut away, a genuine liftoff.

The phone rang again. Mark did not look at it. No one called this early. Not anymore. They knew his mother would not be home now. She had to work. 

The phone rang again. Mark bit his lip. Whoever it was knew his mother wouldn’t be home, they had to. 

 “Countdown,” the newsman called.

The phone continued to ring. Mark looked at it this time, the green receiver attached to the wall. “Ten, nine, eight …” 

 Mark stood slowly and moved cautiously to the wall to answer. He walked backwards so as not to lose sight of the screen. “Five, four, three …” The engines ignited. Mark’s heart began to beat very fast.

“All right, that’s lift off, the clock has started,” the television announced.

Mark lifted the receiver. He didn’t blink.

“Yes sir, reading you loud and clear. All systems are go.”

“Hello?” Mark said.

The cameras followed the Redstone as it rose, almost in slow motion, from the ground. They continued to track the rocket’s climb and its white pluming tail as it ascended skyward.

Mark closed his eyes with the rest of the country and prayed.

About the author

Jessie Atkin writes fiction, essays, and plays. Her work has appeared in The Rumpus, The Writing Disorder, Daily Science Fiction, Space and Time Magazine, and elsewhere. Her full-length play, Generation Pan, was published by Pioneer Drama. She can be found online at jessieatkin.com.

About the illustration

The illustration is Alan Shepard preparing to climb aboard the Freedom 7 prior to his launch on the first U.S. human spaceflight. Photograph taken by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration on May 5, 1961. In the public domain.