A prayer for Owen Meany (11 page)

"Maybe your friend would like to kiss Hester," Simon
said.

"/ decide who kisses me," Hester said.

"Whoa!" Noah said.

"I think Owen will be a little timid around all of
you," I ventured.

"You're saying he wouldn't like to kiss me?" Hester
asked.

"I'm just saying he might be a little shy-around all of
you," I said.

"You like kissing me," Hester said.

"I don't," I lied.

"You do," she said.

"Whoa!" said Noah.

"There's no stopping Hester the Molester!" Simon said.

"Shut up!" Hester said. And so the stage was set for
Owen Meany. That day after Thanksgiving, my cousins and I were making so much
noise up in the attic that we didn't hear Owen Meany creep up the attic stairs
and open the trapdoor. I can imagine what Owen was thinking; he was probably
waiting to be noticed so that he wouldn't have to announce himself-so that the
very first thing my cousins would know about him wouldn't be that voice. On the
other hand, the sight of how small and peculiar he was might have been an equal
shock to my cousins. Owen must have been weighing these two ways of introducing
himself: whether to speak up, which was always startling, or whether to wait
until one of them saw him, which might be more than startling. Owen told me
later that he just stood by the trapdoor-which he had closed loudly, on
purpose, hoping that the door would get our attention. But we didn't notice the
trapdoor. Simon had been pumping the foot pedals of the sewing machine so
vigorously that the needle and bobbin were a blur

 
 
of activity, and
Noah had managed to shove Hester's arm too close to the plunging needle and
thread, so that the sleeve of Hester's blouse had been stitched to the piece of
sample cloth she'd been sewing, and it was necessary for her to take her blouse
off-in order to free herself from the machine, which Simon, insanely, refused
to stop pedaling. While Owen was watching us, Noah was whacking Simon about his
ears, to make him stop with the foot pedals, and Hester was standing in her
T-shirt, tensed and flushed, wailing about her only white blouse, from which
she was trying to extract a very random pattern of purple thread. And I was
saying that if we didn't stop making such a racket, we could expect a ferocious
lecture from Grandmother-regarding the resale value of her antique sewing
machine. All this time, Owen Meany was standing by the trapdoor, observing
us-alternately getting up the nerve to introduce himself, and deciding to bolt
for home before any of us noticed that he was there. At that moment, my cousins
must have seemed even worse than his worst dreams about them. It was shocking
how Simon loved to be beaten; I never saw a boy whose best defense against the
beating routinely administered by an older brother was to adore being beaten.
Just as much as he loved to roll down mountains and to be flung off sawdust piles
and to ski so wildly that he struck glancing blows to trees, Simon thrived
under a hail of Noah's punches. It was almost always necessary for Noah to draw
blood before Simon would beg for mercy-and if blood was drawn, somehow Simon
had won; the shame was Noah's then. Now Simon appeared committed to pedaling
the sewing machine into destruction-both hands gripping the taWetop, his eyes
squinted shut against Noah's pounding fists, his knees pumping as furiously as
if he were pedaling a bicycle in too-low a gear down a steep hill. The savagery
with which Noah hit his brother could easily have misled any visitor regarding
Noah's truly relaxed disposition and steadily noble character; Noah had learned
that striking his brother was a workout requiring patience, deliberation, and
strategy-it was no good giving Simon a bloody nose in a hurry; better to hit
him where it hurt, but where he didn't bleed easily; better to wear him down.
But I suspect that Hester must have impressed Owen Meany most of all. In her
T-shirt, there was little doubt that she would one day have an impressive
bosom; its early blossoming was as apparent as her manly biceps. And the way
she tore the thread out of her damaged blouse with her teeth-snarling and
cursing in the process, as if she were eating her blouse-must have demonstrated
to Owen the full potential of Hester's dangerous mouth; at that moment, her
basic rapaciousness was quite generously displayed. Naturally, my pleas
regarding the inevitable, grandmotherly reprimand were not only unheeded; they
went as unnoticed as Owen Meany, who stood with his hands clasped behind his
back, the sun from the attic skylight shining through his protrusive ears,
which were a glowing pink-the sunlight so bright that the tiny veins and blood
vessels in his ears appeared to be illuminated from within. The powerful
morning sun struck Owen's head from above, and from a little behind him, so
that the light itself seemed to be presenting him. In exasperation with my
unresponsive cousins, I looked up from the sewing machine and saw Owen standing
there. With his hands clasped behind his back, he looked as armless as
Watahantowet, and in that blaze of sunlight he looked like a gnome plucked
fresh from a fire, with his ears still aflame. I drew in my breath, and Hester-with
her raging mouth full of purple thread-looked up at that instant and saw Owen,
too. She screamed.

"I didn't think he was human," she told me later. And
from that moment of his introduction to my cousins, I would frequently consider
the issue of exactly how human Owen Meany was; there is no doubt that, in the
dazzling configurations of the sun that poured through the attic skylight, he
looked like a descending angel-a tiny but fiery god, sent to adjudicate the
errors of our ways. When Hester screamed, she frightened Owen so much that he
screamed back at her-and when Owen screamed, my cousins were not only
introduced to his rare voice; their movements were suddenly arrested. Except
for the hairs on the backs of their necks, they froze-as they would if they'd
heard a cat being slowly run over by a car. And from deep in a distant part of
the great house, my grandmother spoke out: "Merciful Heavens, it's that
boy again!"

I was trying to catch my breath, to say, "This is my best
friend, the one I told you about," because I had never seen my cousins
gape at anyone with such open mouths-and, in Hester's case, a mouth from which
spilled much purple thread-but Owen was quicker.

"WELL, IT SEEMS I HAVE INTERRUPTED WHAT-

 
 
EVER GAME THAT WAS
YOU WERE PLAYING," Owen said. "MY NAME IS OWEN MEANY AND I'M YOUR
COUSIN'S BEST FRIEND. PERHAPS HE'S TOLD YOU ALL ABOUT ME. I'VE CERTAINLY HEARD
ALL ABOUT YOU. YOU MUST BE NOAH, THE OLDEST," Owen said; he held out his
hand to Noah, who shook it mutely. "AND OF COURSE YOU'RE SIMON, THE NEXT
OLDEST-BUT YOU'RE JUST AS BIG AND EVEN A LITTLE WILDER THAN YOUR BROTHER.
HELLO, SIMON," Owen said, holding out his hand to Simon, who was panting
and sweating from his furious journey on the sewing machine, but who quickly
took Owen's hand and shook it. "AND OF COURSE YOU'RE HESTER," Owen
said, his eyes averted. "I'VE HEARD A LOT ABOUT YOU, AND YOU'RE JUST AS
PRETTY AS I EXPECTED."

"Thank you," Hester mumbled, pulling thread out of her
mouth, tucking her T-shirt into her blue jeans. My cousins stared at him, and I
feared the worst; but I suddenly realized what small towns are. They are places
where you grow up with the peculiar-you live next to the strange and the
unlikely for so long that everything and everyone become commonplace. My
cousins were both small-towners and outsiders; they had not grown up with Owen
Meany, who was so strange to them that he inspired awe-yet they were no more
likely to fall upon him, or to devise ways to torture him, than it was likely for
a herd of cattle to attack a cat. And in addition to the brightness of the sun
that shone upon him, Owen's face was blood-red-throbbing, I presumed, from his
riding his bike into town; for a late November bike ride down Maiden Hill,
given the prevailing wind off the Squamscott, was bitter cold. And even before
Thanksgiving, the weather had been cold enough to freeze the freshwater part of
the river; there was black ice all the way from Gravesend to Kensington
Corners.

"WELL, I'VE BEEN THINKING ABOUT WHAT WE COULD DO,"
Owen announced, and my unruly cousins gave him their complete attention.
"THE RIVER IS FROZEN, SO THE SKATING IS VERY GOOD, AND I KNOW YOU ENJOY
VERY ACTIVE THINGS LIKE THAT-THAT YOU ENJOY THINGS LIKE SPEED AND DANGER AND
COLD WEATHER. SO SKATING IS ONE IDEA," he said, "AND EVEN THOUGH THE
RIVER IS FROZEN, I'M SURE THERE ARE CRACKS SOMEWHERE, AND EVEN The
Armodiifo
 
PLACES WHERE THERE ARE HOLES
OF OPEN WATER-I FELL IN ONE LAST YEAR. I'M NOT SUCH A GOOD SKATER, BUT I'D BE
HAPPY TO GO WITH YOU, EVEN THOUGH I'M GETTING OVER A COLD, SO I SUPPOSE I
SHOULDN'T BE OUTSIDE FOR LONG PERIODS OF TIME IN THIS WEATHER."

"No!" Hester said. "If you're getting over a
cold, you should stay inside. We should play indoors. We don't have to go
skating. We go skating all the time."

"Yes!" Noah agreed. "We should do something
indoors, if Owen's got a cold."

"Indoors is best!" Simon said. "Owen should get
over his cold." Perhaps my cousins were all relieved to hear that Owen was
"getting over a cold" because they thought this might partially
explain the hypnotic awfulness of Owen's voice; I could have told them that
Owen's voice was uninfluenced by his having a cold-and his "getting over a
cold" was news to me-but I was so relieved to see my cousins behaving
respectfully that I had no desire to undermine Owen's effect on them.

"WELL, I'VE BEEN THINKING THAT INDOORS WOULD BE BEST,
TOO," Owen said, "AND UNFORTUNATELY I REALLY CAN'T INVITE YOU TO MY
HOUSE, BECAUSE THERE'S REALLY NOTHING TO DO IN THE HOUSE, AND BECAUSE MY FATHER
RUNS A GRANITE QUARRY, HE'S RATHER STRICT ABOUT THE EQUIPMENT AND THE QUARRIES
THEMSELVES, WHICH ARE OUTDOORS, ANYWAY. INDOORS, AT MY HOUSE, WOULD NOT BE A
LOT OF FUN BECAUSE MY PARENTS ARE RATHER STRANGE ABOUT CHILDREN."

"That's no problem!" Noah blurted.

"Don't worry!" Simon said. "There's lots to do
here, in this house."

"Everyone's parents are strange!" Hester told Owen
reassuringly, but I couldn't think of anything to say. In the years I'd known
Owen, the issue of how strange his parents were-not only "about
children"-had never been discussed between us. It seemed, rather, the
accepted knowledge of the town, not to be mentioned-except in passing, or in
parentheses, or as an aside among intimates.

"WELL, I'VE BEEN THINKING THAT WE COULD PUT ON YOUR
GRANDFATHER'S CLOTHES-YOU'VE TOLD YOUR COUSINS ABOUT THE CLOTHES?" Owen

 
 
asked me; but I
hadn't. I thought they would think that dressing up in Grandfather's clothes
was either baby play, or morbid, or both; or that they would surely destroy the
clothes, discovering that merely dressing up in them was insufficiently violent
-therefore leading them to a game, the object of which was to rip the clothes
off each other; whoever was naked last won.

"Grandfather's clothes?" Noah said with unaccustomed
reverence. Simon shivered; Hester nervously plucked purple thread from here and
there. And Owen Meany-at the moment, our leader-said, "WELL, THERE'S ALSO
THE CLOSET WHERE THE CLOTHES ARE KEPT. IT CAN BE SCARY IN THERE, IN THE DARK,
AND WE COULD PLAY SOME KIND OF GAME WHERE ONE OF US HIDES AND ONE OF US HAS TO
FIND WHOEVER IT IS-IN THE DARK. WELL," Owen said, "THAT COULD BE
INTERESTING."

"Yes! Hiding in the dark!" Simon said.

"I didn't know those were Grandfather's clothes in
there," Hester said.

"Do you think the clothes are haunted, Hester?" Noah
asked.

"Shut up," Hester said.

"Let Hester hide in there, in the dark," Simon said,
"and we'll take turns trying to find her."

"I don't want you pawing around in the dark for me,"
Hester said.

"Hester, we just have to find you before you find us,"
Noah said.

"No, it's who touches who first!" Simon said.

"You touch me, I'll pull your doink, Simon," Hester
said.

"Whoa!" Noah said. "That's it! That's the game!
We got to find Hester before she pulls our doinks.''

"Hester the Molester!" Simon said predictably.

"Only if I'm allowed to get used to the dark!" Hester
said. "I get to have an advantage! I'm allowed to get used to the dark-and
whoever's looking for me comes into the closet with no chance to get used to
how dark it is."

"THERE'S A FLASHLIGHT," Owen Meany said nervously.
"MAYBE WE COULD USE A FLASHLIGHT, BECAUSE IT WOULD STILL BE PRETTY
DARK."

"No flashlight!" Hester said.

"No!" Simon said. "Whoever goes into the closet
after Hester gets the flashlight shined in his face before he goes in-so he's
blind, so he's the opposite of being used to the dark!"

"Good idea!" Noah said.

"I get as long as I need to get myself hidden," Hester
said. "And to get used to the dark."

"No!" Simon said. "We'll count to twenty."

"A hundred!" Hester said.

"Fifty," Noah said; so it was fifty. Simon started
counting, but Hester hit him.

"You've got to wait till I'm completely inside the
closet," she said. As she moved toward the closet, she had to brush past
Owen Meany, and a curious thing happened to her when she was next to him.
Hester stood still and put her hand out to Owen-her big paw,
uncharacteristically tentative and gentle, reached out and touched his face, as
if there were a force in Owen's immediate vicinity that compelled the passerby
to touch him. Hester touched him, and she smiled-Owen's little face was level
with those nubbins of Hester's early bosom, which appeared to be implanted
under her T-shirt. Owen was quite accustomed to people feeling compelled to touch
him, but in Hester's case he retreated a trifle anxiously from her touch-though
not so much that she was offended. Then Hester went clomping into the closet,
stumbling over the shoes, and we heard her rustling among the clothes, and the
hangers squeaking on the metal rods, and what sounded like the hatboxes sliding
over the overhead shelves-once she said, "Shit!" And another time,
"What's that?" By the time the noises quieted down, we had Simon
completely dazed under the flashlight's close-up glare; Simon was eager to be
first, and by the time we shoved him into the closet, he was certifiably
blind-even if he'd been trying to walk around in the daylight. No sooner was
Simon inside the closet, and we'd closed the door behind him, than we heard
Hester attack him; she must have grabbed his "doink" harder than
she'd meant to, because he howled with more pain than surprise, and there were
tears in his eyes, and he was still doubled over and holding fast to his
private parts when he tumbled out of the closet and rolled upon the attic
floor.