Dinner With Mark, Chapter 2
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? Why it's Mark Watney and a cast of guests—living, dead, and fictional. This is planned as a series of loosely connected one shots. The Martian is copyright 2011, 2014 by Andy Weir, published by Crown Publishers. Image NASA/JPL/University of Arizona, public domain. I do not own The Martian or its characters.
SOL 31
Arroz con Pollo
Lemonade
As Mark Watney sat at the table with his tray in front of him, he wondered what they were eating for dinner on the Hermes today, if Martinez had yet had the pleasure of enjoying the arroz con pollo, and if so, what he thought of it.
That arroz con pollo's not right. Not the arroz and not the pollo.
"Martinez, who made you the Hispanic Julia Child?" Mark said. "I don't think it's that bad. It's a little taste of home—if home is the West Side of Chicago."
Watney, what do you know? You're a gringo!
Mark leaned back in his chair, balancing on the rear legs, and taunted, "Said the man who thinks Hispanic-American culture peaked with "Jenny From the Block"!
What can I say, man, she has legs right up to her . . ."
"OK, we don't need to go there," Mark warned. He'd just finished reading Johanssen's copy of The Mysterious Affair at Styles and had no interest in more Poirot-therapy to undo Martinez' mental pictures. "Anyway, I've got a confession to make," Mark said. "You know that wood cross you had that you talked Lewis into allowing on board?"
Wait, had?
"You know how they say God helps those that help themselves? Well, I helped myself," Mark said as he slowly backed away from the table as though Martinez was really there and would reach across it to throttle him. "Do you know how hard it is to find something that will burn in the Hab?"
Turning pyro now, are we? Are you that bored already?
Playing with the empty package of arroz con pollo—which really wasn't that bad—Mark drained his lemonade. He said, "I have an idea, and I need to do a controlled burn. I really couldn't find anything flammable in the Hab. I guess NASA likes it that way. I'm going to try liberating hydrogen from the leftover MAV fuel, and I'm going to shred up your cross to start the burn."
Watney, you are really out of your mind, you know that?
Mark sighed, "Yes, that's me, crazy 7 days a week and twice on Sundays." It wasn't bad enough he doubted his own sanity, now imaginary people were doing it, too. He stood and stretched, feeling twinges in his back, and turned to move out of the small kitchen area in the Hab."
If we had found your body, I would have blessed it.
Mark stopped. "You would have done what?" he questioned, feeling suddenly uncertain.
Since I was the only man of faith among all you Nones, NASA had a little talk with me during training. The Armed Forces dropped chaplains in the '20s—separation of church and state and all that. NASA wasn't about to risk its dwindling support by hiring one, but they knew that the Ares missions posed unique risks and challenges to the crew. So, unofficially, they asked me if I would "do the office of a priest" if needed.
"They did?" Mark looked dumbfounded. He stared into the distance, perplexed. "I don't understand. Why would they do that?"
One too many times at the roulette wheel. They knew the odds were that, at some point, something would go seriously sideways on one of the missions—you know, 50 ways to kill an astronaut: You run out of air, Claire; you miss your supply, Guy; your tether comes loose, Bruce.
"I guess you said yes?"
I laughed. I laughed in their faces. And then I said yes.
"Back up, back up," Mark said as reached up into the cabinet for one of the coffee packets. "You need to start at the beginning."
I was born a poor, black child. . .
"What the fuck? Martinez, what the hell are you talking about?"
Not a Steve Martin fan, ok. Not one of his best—couldn't touch the classic SNL skits.
Anyway, it started when I was in 10th grade. You will be shocked, but I didn't date much in school. A fine Latino like myself, unbelievable, I know. This generation's Antonio Banderas.
Everything back then was baseball. It was going to be my ticket out. Then I met Marissa. You know she is hot, man.
"Martinez," Mark growled.
So there went my plan. No more "be the first Latino to throw 2 perfect games in a single season." Now it was "be the first Latino to throw 2 perfect games in a single season with a girlfriend who's a total babe."
"You know," Mark said, "I have better things to do than listen to you build up your self-esteem. I'm pretty sure there are some things I could be burning now." But, he he added hot water to his coffee packet and sat down again at the table. "Damn, too hot again," he said as he burned his mouth with his first sip. "I ought to toss this outside and have coffee-sicles instead."
"So, go on," he deadpanned, "tell me about how horrible your life became after meeting your smokin' hot babe of a girlfriend."
It wasn't horrible, it was wonderful. I just didn't know it until it was almost too late.
Taken aback by Martinez' sincerity—what had happened to the Hermes' most reliable jokester?—Mark found himself at a loss for words.
She was everything I wasn't—quiet where I was loud, serious where I was the school's biggest clown. The one thing we had in common was our Catholic faith. I met her at a parish retreat. But even when it came to religion, we were different.
I went to Mass that weekend hoping to get some divine intervention so I'd pass my precalculus class. When I kept trying to catch her eye during the homily—dude, at 10:30 at night, you cannot tell me any kid in high school is paying attention to the priest—she ignored me. At first, I took it as a challenge. And then, you know, my pride was hurt. But then, one time I looked at her after Communion. And she glowed. She was off somewhere else—hell if I knew where—but it did something to me. It made me think, where was she? what was she seeing?
"Hey, Martinez, it's me you're talking to. I've seen you at 2-for-1 margarita night at Tippy's Taco House. You can't fool me with that holier-than-thou shit."
Well you know what, then? Go to hell, Mark.
"Wait, you're really serious, aren't you?" Mark took a drink of his now-cooled coffee.
I wasn't then. You know, we may have been together since we were 15, but until our junior year at University I wasn't even serious about her. I was too busy being Mr. Macho, trying to get noticed by the scouts. Long story short, in our freshman year, she caught me with another girl and sent me packing. Said if I that's the way I wanted it, well, she wasn't the girl for me.
So, I spent that year playing around. I met some fine women that year. But then I blew out my arm and needed Tommy John surgery. Funny how when the good times disappeared, so did the women. I was looking at least a year of rehab, probably 18 months. The scouts moved onto the next great thing, and I was left without a plan. My mom laid down the law: I was going to finish my degree. She didn't care what I studied, but I was going to finish. She signed me up for a shitload of classes at community college that summer: Marketing 101, Post-Millenial American History, and Physics for Poets. I wasn't a poet, but physics opened my eyes. The beauty of the world's natural forces, its complexities, rocked my world. I'd always been good at math, so maybe science would be my plan B.
Mom took a second job on the weekends to help pay for tuition—I was going to need an extra year to finish a bachelors in physics. Not that many classes from my sports management program transferred into the physics program. I took 21 credits sophomore year and pulled a 3.5. One of the people she cleaned for was a VP at JPL, and she got me an interview for a summer internship. I guess they were impressed by my personality, because the next thing I knew, I was spending 12 weeks in Pasadena. Man, those guys were freaking geniuses. But I learned so much, including what I wanted to do—I wanted to go to space.
I took another 21 credits junior year and I lived in the library that year. Little did I know that while I was calculating differential equations, it was Marissa's turn to be watching me. Said she'd give me a second chance, and I took it. You know, she is hot, right?
Mark snorted, "Yeah, I think I've heard that before. But what's all this got to do with you being our "priest"?
Fast forward through the rest of University and graduate school. Marissa and I married, and, man, I was so happy. I kept getting closer to making the cut for the Ares missions, I really loved being married, and I grew in my faith. Marissa brought me along, of course, but she wasn't even the biggest influence. You know, I think it's crazy how many people think that being religious means you're automatically anti-science. The more I learned about the incredible complexity of the molecular structures and forces all around us, the more I realized there was no way this could have happened by chance. Yeah, maybe 1,000 monkeys could write Shakespeare given enough computers and enough time, but all this happen by chance? Just no way.
So, when Marissa and I talked about the future, we knew we wanted kids, but we looked for other ways to live our faith, too. She taught CCD and took the Eucharist to the home-bound. And I prayed: What did you want of me, God? Over time, the answer came to me: the permanent diaconate.
"I have no idea what that is," Mark admitted. He tossed his dinner "dishes" into the composter and dimmed the lights in the kitchen area. Moving into the common area, he said, "Growing up Lutheran in Chicago, it doesn't sound like anything a good Protestant would have had anything to do with."
You'd be surprised. It's mostly about service. Proclaiming the Word, sure, but deacons are definitely out in the world. Some run pro-life ministries, some direct the refugee resettlement programs, some are chaplains in hospitals, some teach theology at the parish schools. The archdiocese had a class start every 2 years, and I'd just missed the application deadline. So, I waited and kept asking God and Marissa—not necessarily in that order—is this right for me, for us?
I applied and was accepted into the aspirant year—they check us out, and we figure out whether this is what we want to do. At the end of the year, they invited me to attend the 4-year formation program. I could have it all—my career, my wife, a way to serve.
And then, NASA called. We've selected you as the MDV/MAV specialist for Ares 3. Pack your stuff, and we'll see you here next month. Shit, be careful of what you wish for. There I was, admitted to the diaconate, Marissa was pregnant with David, and NASA was offering me what I'd dreamed of since I was 16. I could do the diaconate later—there are plenty of old dudes who are deacons—but you don't say "no" to NASA and get a second chance.
So that's why I laughed, when they asked me about providing spiritual guidance, comfort, and sustenance to all you heathens. I really was going to get to have it all, just not in the way I thought.
Mark, we couldn't bring you back, but if we'd found your body, I sure as hell would have blessed it. Would have done the crew good, too. Funerals are for the living, not the dead, right?
"Yeah," Mark said as he turned towards his bunk, one of the few not full of Martian soil. "But I'm working really hard not to be dead anytime soon. I'll take a rain check on that offer, alright?" But then, thinking of the hazards ahead of him, not least of which was playing with hydrazine, he added, "But if you can put in a few good words for me, I'll take all the help I can get."
You got it, dude.
Mark lay down in his bunk and shared one final thought with Martinez. "Hey, man, did you ever play Dungeons and Dragons when you were a kid?"
Not a chance. That was for geeks. I was a jock, all the way. Why do you ask?
"No reason," Mark said. As he turned off the light in his bunk, Mark resolved not to spend all night thinking of how many ways his plan to create water could kill him over the next couple of days. That was on tomorrow's agenda, and he was a disciplined man.
Had some problems with this one, but hope you enjoy. Next up, something a little less serious.