Blind Sight (13 page)

Luke is clutching the fence of the tar pits now, in an effort to find the right words.

“But you meditate,” Mark says. “And you do yoga. You seem like a spiritual guy.”

“I meditate for mental and physical discipline,” Luke says. “I contemplate my thoughts. I don’t pray. I don’t ask anything of anything. I don’t believe there’s anything out there to ask. I don’t think there is a special point to existence, or that there is any plan or purpose beyond what we invent for ourselves. I know … I know I’m supposed to respect other people’s beliefs, but some people believe we are descendants of alien lizards. All of these things that Nana believes, and Sara believes? I think it’s all made up. So why should I respect that more than alien lizards? And, and, even if you just think of religion as a metaphor it doesn’t mean anything to me. Because for spirituality to mean something you have to believe you have a spirit. And I don’t. I don’t think I have a soul.”

Mark and Luke stand side by side. The fiberglass mammoths look at each other, with fiberglass dismay.

“I haven’t ever told anybody that,” Luke says. “Maybe it doesn’t seem like such a big secret, or anything, but I haven’t even told my sisters.”

Mark does not say anything to this, but he puts his hand on Luke’s back, in between his scapula. Luke releases the railing.

“The joke part is,” Luke continues, “that passage I read? It was from the Book of Luke.”

“Holy shit,” Mark says. Luke and Mark laugh. Then they leave the tar pits, the hidden remains of animals, the helpless fake mammoths, the painted floating rectangles and squares. On their way home, they pick up Mexican takeout.

A
car from the studio arrived at five in the morning today to take us to the Mojave Desert, where
The Last
shoots most of its exteriors. This is the final day for the show before they go on hiatus. On Sunday, Mark is taking me to the “wrap” party.

The location we were going to, Mark told me, is popular with film and television companies because of the dry and cracked lake bed, which is very unusual looking. Parts of the area, Mark explained, are designated for off-highway recreational sports like motorcycling or light aircraft flying. He asked if I was interested in trying any of those things. He had warned me that there would be a fair amount of sitting around, waiting, and I should bring things to do. I brought my laptop.

“Maybe not today,” Mark added. “But sometime this summer. Whenever. I’ve been making a list of stuff we could do. You know, suggestions.” Mark pulled out his BlackBerry, flipped through it, and handed it over to me. I read:

“I realize it’s kind of a physically oriented list,” Mark said. “I wanted to put down some more intellectual-type activities. And we could go to concerts, too. We could go to the Hollywood Bowl. The opera. Theater. Anything you want.”

“This,” I said to him, “is a really great list.”

“Maybe you could rank the ideas,” he suggested. “In order of interest. Oh, and I wanted to ask you, because I was thinking … well, I thought maybe we could go visit my mom. Just a quick trip. A few days.”

“Your mom?” I asked, totally surprised.

“My mom,” he said. “Your grandmother. She lives in Grover, Illinois. That’s where I grew up. It’s a completely boring place but I haven’t been to see her in awhile, and I thought that maybe you’d want to meet your grandmother. Your other grandmother, I mean. She wants to meet you. What do you think?”

“I’m putting ‘Visiting Mom/Grandmother’ in the number-one slot,” I said, and Mark smiled.

“It should be fun today,” he told me. “It’s like the last day of school for us.”

Arriving at the set, Mark was quickly herded off to hair and makeup, and I was shown to my father’s trailer, where I found Kati blending Mark’s special protein-powder drink.

“Oh, hey,” I said. “Why didn’t you ride with us?”

“I came early with the crew,” Kati shouted, over the noise of
the blender. “So I could hand out gifts he got people. Plus your dad enjoys having alone time with you.”

I checked out the books Mark had on the small coffee table. I didn’t know that Mark likes to do crosswords.

Kati explained that normally the show had all its exteriors wrapped before June, when the temperature can get up to 120 degrees and the winds set in, but a last-minute script change had brought them all here for the day. Also, she told me, there has been a lot of talk lately about a possible writers’ strike, and they wanted to make sure they had everything done.

“Well, it works out for me,” I said. “I’m glad I get to see what our planet looks like after a nuclear holocaust.” I stepped outside the trailer to take a look around.

Before, I visited Mark on a soundstage at the studio lot. They use that for “interiors,” the various semi-destroyed shelters that James and the other survivors of
The Last
take refuge in. I had been surprised that day to see how what looked like really fake sets in real life suddenly appeared totally real on the monitors, from the camera’s point of view. Like, artifice was constructed out of real things, but only achieved the appearance of reality by artificial means.

I took a deep breath. It was so arid I could practically feel my gums drying. A short distance from the trailers, crew members were setting up equipment under tarps, running cables, shouting directions. The lake bed was incredible. I shut my eyes, tried to imagine it covered with water, but instead I got this image of a giant prehistoric snake, struck by lightning, left to petrify and decompose, flattening under the sun and trampling feet of people shooting car commercials and television shows. I took a few pictures with my phone of the Joshua trees to send to my sisters. Kati came out of the trailer wearing a headset.

“I’m taking Luke to craft services,” she said into it.

I thought that maybe today I should work on forging some kind of relationship with Kati. She might be more of a permanent fixture
in my father’s life than Aimee. Kati always carries a very large and heavy-looking purse.

“Cool, right?” she asked, waving around at the landscape.

“Very cool,” I agreed. “Like nothing I’ve ever seen.”

We started walking and Kati pointed out people and told me who they were, and what their function was on the set. Whenever we passed someone who was not talking into their own headset, Kati either introduced them to me (“This is Mark’s son, Luke”) or reminded them who I am (“You remember Mark’s son, Luke”). When we had moved on, Kati said things like, “That was one of the producers,” or “He’s the second AD.” I’m learning film jargon, who does what and what they are called.

“The wrap party is going to be great,” Kati told me. “They’re doing this whole carnival thing on the beach.”

After assembling a plate of food, we threaded our way back to Mark’s trailer.

“You can watch TV if you want.” Kati handed me a remote control. She sat down at a small table and opened up her laptop. Kati treats me like a kid, but I don’t think she’s much older than I am. I put the remote down and opened up my own laptop.

“So, what are you going to do this summer?” I asked her. “Are you going on vacation?”

“Well, there are still things to do. We’re hoping for another Emmy nomination for Mark in July. I’ve been sort of acting as your dad’s publicist, you know. I wear a lot of hats.”

“Oh. So will he have to do more interviews and stuff?”

“Don’t worry,” Kati said. “You’re his number-one priority. I won’t interrupt your plans unless it’s totally necessary.”

“Well,” I said, “you should get some time off. You work really hard.”

“I’ve got the best job in LA. I am the envy of personal assistants everywhere. No two a.m. phone calls. No bizarre requests for things nobody has ever heard of. No screaming tantrums. No drugs. No hookers. No messed-up chil—”

Kati stopped.

“That’s good,” I said. “I’m glad he’s not a tyrant. And that he doesn’t have any ‘messed-up chil.’ Let me know if he steps out of line. I’ve got your back.”

That’s pretty much as close to flirting with Kati as I’ve actually gotten. I tried to think of a way to ask her if she has a boyfriend.

Mark came into the trailer then, wearing a dirty T-shirt and dark military-style pants, the remnants of the uniform James Knox was wearing when he was sent on the mission to Earth that failed so spectacularly and set the whole ball rolling on
The Last
. Mark’s hair was scraped back at the sides, there was a faint bruise underneath one eye, and a realistic-looking cut above one ear. I think I’ve been around actual real-life Mark long enough now that I see the clothes as a costume, and him as an actor dressed up to play a part. When I visited him before, on the studio set, I hadn’t really known the difference between what James Knox looked like and what my father actually did.

“Do you need to practice your lines or something like that now?” I asked, since Mark was carrying a script.

“Here are my lines.” Mark handed the pages over to me. I looked down and saw three chunks of writing highlighted in yellow in between descriptions of action and another character’s dialogue. Sort of like this:

“I think I’ve got ’em covered,” Mark laughed. “Want to play some Scrabble?”

We set up the board.

“ ‘You can’t change human nature,’ ” Mark said. “What do you think, Luke? Is that true?”

“I think so.” I selected tiles. “The brain has a lot of plasticity, otherwise we wouldn’t be able to learn anything. But we can’t change who we are as a species, only how we behave, maybe. And we can’t change our genes, although our genes can change themselves. They can mutate.”

“We’ve got some mutating genes this season.” Mark pointed at the script. “Although I’m not sure the science on the show is one hundred percent accurate.”

“Hey Kati,” I said. “Want to play with us?”

“I’ll be the judge,” Kati said. “In case there’s any dispute, I’ve got wordfinder.com right here.”

So we played Scrabble and started up a running joke for Kati’s benefit about what we are going to do when
The Last
goes on hiatus.

“Hey Kati, Luke and I are going to take a class in mime,” Mark said, very deadpan.

“You are going to do what?”

“Oh cool,” I said. “Will that give us enough time to make our own hand puppets?”

“A consideration, for sure,” said Mark, peering at the board.

“Very funny,” Kati said.

“I was thinking, though,” I joked, laying down my word, PRAY, earning myself a triple word score. “We should go to one of those medieval-themed restaurants. You know, where they have jousts and quaff mead and stuff? That could be good research for you, Dad, in case you ever play King Arthur.”

“Oh shit, we have to go. Seriously,” Mark said, laughing. “Medieval Times, it’s called. I think there’s one out by Disney Land. No, seriously. I used to know a guy that worked at one of those places. That would be hilarious. Kati, wouldn’t that be hilarious?”

Kati agreed, tolerantly, that it would be hilarious.

“Check it out.” Mark added a CLEPT after the “Y” in my PRAY.

“Yclept?” I asked. “That’s a word? An English word?”

“Are you challenging me?”

“Hold up,” Kati said, touching a button on her headset and listening.

“Okay, copy that. Mark, Pete is on his way over. Anton wants to take another look at the fight.”

“Yup.” Mark stood up and stretched his shoulders, swinging his arms in arcs.

“Can I come too?” I asked. I think if I drink protein shakes until the end of time I still won’t have arms like my father.

“Yeah, sure, come. It’s hot, though. You’re gonna sweat your balls off.”

“Mark!” Kati said. “You shouldn’t talk like that in front of Luke.”

“I think Luke knows he has balls. Do we have a hat for him to wear?”

There was a tap on the trailer door.

“Ready?”

“Let’s do it,” Mark said. He opened the door. “Oh, Pete, this is my son, Luke.”

A young guy, wearing a headset and a sweat-soaked T-shirt, looked at me blankly.

“Oh!” he said. “Oh, hey man.” We shook hands. Pete laughed.

“They said your son was here,” Pete said to Mark. “But I was thinking he … I thought he’d be in a stroller or something.”

“Luke was born fully formed.” Mark took a baseball cap from Kati with “The Last” printed on it, and handed it to me. “You know, like that God that sprung from the eye of whoever. You know the one I mean. Luke, who am I talking about?”

“Well, there were a couple,” I said. “It’s kind of a popular form of childbirth in mythology. Saves a lot of time.”

“Yeah. And that’s why we don’t hear about the early years of many gods. Like, ‘Zeus: The Teenage Years.’ ”

“Before he got handy with the thunderbolts,” I added. “And just keyed chariots and was really awkward around mortals.”

“They’re like this,” Kati told Pete. “You get used to it.”

Mark and I made the upside-down smile at each other, proudly.

Outside the trailer there was a golf cart, which we all climbed into.

“We’re moving,” Pete said into his headset, as if he were driving a SWAT team–style van. I started to laugh at this, but nobody else did, so I turned it into a cough. Pete drove us about two hundred feet to a canopied area where a cluster of people were waiting. I got introduced to Neal, the actor who plays “Doctor Grant” and to Anton, the stunt coordinator. “This is my son,” Mark said again. “My son, Luke.”

“Are you ready to watch your father kick the stuffing out of me?” asked Neal, who has a British accent in real life although he doesn’t on the show.

“We can stand over here,” Pete told me, moving us off a few feet. Neal put on knee and elbow pads.