A prayer for Owen Meany (35 page)

"I merely said that I found Christmas depressing," I
said.

" 'Merely'!" said Canon Mackie. "The church
counts very heavily on Christmas-for its missions, for its livelihood in this
city. And Christmas is the focal point for the children in our church."

And what would the canon have said if I'd told him that the
Christmas of ' put the finishing touches on Christmas for me? He would have
told me, again, that I was living in the past. So I said nothing. I hadn't
wanted to talk about Christmas in the first place. Is it any wonder how
Christmas-ever since that Christmas-depresses me? The Nativity I witnessed in '
has replaced the old story. The Christ is born-"miraculously," to be
sure; but even more miraculous are the demands he succeeds in making, even
before he can walk! Not only does he demand to be worshiped and adored-by
peasants and royalty, by animals and his own parents!-but he also banishes his
mother and father from the house of prayer and song itself. I will never forget
the inflamed color of his bare skin in the winter cold, and the hospital
white-on-white of his swaddling clothes against the new snow-a vision of the
little Lord Jesus as a bom victim, born raw, bom bandaged, born angry and
accusing; and wrapped so tightly that he could not bend at the knees at all and
had to lie on his parents' laps as stiffly as someone who, mortally wounded, lies
upon a stretcher. How can you like Christmas after that? Before I became a
believer, I could at least enjoy the fantasy. That Sunday, feeling the wind cut
through my Joseph-robe out on Elliot Street, contributed to my belief in-and my
dislike of-the miracle. How the congregation straggled out of the nave; how
they hated to have their rituals revised without warning. The rector was not on
the steps to shake their hands because so many of the congregation had followed
our triumphant exit, leaving the Rev. Mr. Wiggin stranded at the altar with his
benediction unsaid-he was supposed to have delivered his benediction from the
nave, where the recessional should have led him (and not us). And what was Barb
Wiggin supposed to do with the "pillar of light," now that she had
craned the light to follow the Lord Jesus and his tribe to the door? Dan
Needham told me later that the Rev. Dudley Wiggin made a most unusual gesture
for the rector of Christ Church to make from the pulpit; he drew his forefinger
across his throat-a signal to his wife to kill the light, which (only after
we'd departed) she finally did. But to many of the bewildered congregation, who
took their cues from the rector-for how else should they know what their next
move should be, in this unique celebration?-the gesture of the Rev. Dudley
Wiggin slashing his own throat was particularly gripping. Mr. Fish, in his
inexperience, imitated the gesture as if it were a command-and then looked to
Dan for approval. Dan observed that Mr. Fish was not alone. And what were we
supposed to do? Our gang from the manger, ill-dressed for the weather, huddled
uncertainly together after the granite truck turned onto Front Street and out
of sight. The revived hind part of one donkey ran to the door of the
parish-house vestibule, which he found locked; the cows slipped in the snow.
Where could we go but back in the main door? Had someone locked the parish
house out of fear that thieves would steal our real clothes? To our knowledge,
there was no shortage of clothes like ours in Gravesend, and no robbers. And so
we bucked against the grain; we fought against the congregation-they were
coming out-in order that we might get back in. For Barb Wiggin, who wished that
every worship service was as smooth as a flight free of bumpy air-and one that
departs and arrives on time-the sight of the traffic jam in the nave of the
church must have caused further upset. Smaller angels and shepherds darted
between the grown-ups' legs; the more stately kings, clutching their toppled
crowns-and the clumsier cows, and the donkeys now in halves-made awkward
progress against the flow of bulky overcoats. The countenances of many a
parishioner reflected shock and insult, as if the Lord Jesus had just spat in
their faces-to deem them sacrilegious. Among the older members

        
 
of the congregation-with whom the jocular
Captain Wiggin and his brash wife were not an overnight success-there was a
stewing anger, apparent in their frowns and scowls, as if the shameful pageant
they had just witnessed were the rector's idea of something "modern."
Whatever it was, they hadn't liked it, and their reluctant acceptance of the
ex-pilot would be delayed for a few more years. I found myself chin-to-chest
with the Rev. Lewis Merrill, who was as baffled as the Episcopalian
congregation- regarding what he and his wife were supposed to do next. They
were nearer the nave of the church than was the rector, who was nowhere to be
found, and if the Rev. Mr. Merrill continued to press, with the throng, toward
the door, he might find himself out on the steps-in a position to shake hands
with the departing souls-in advance of the Rev. Mr. Wiggin's appearance there.
It was surely not Pastor Merrill's responsibility to shake hands with
Episcopalians, following their botched pageant. God forbid that any of them
might think that he was the reason for the pageant being so peculiarly wrecked,
or that this was how the Congregationalists interpreted the Nativity.

"Your little friend?" Mr. Merrill asked in a whisper.
"Is he always so ... like that?"

Is he always like what? I thought. But in the crush of the
crowd, it would have been hard to stand my ground while Mr. Merrill stuttered
out what he meant.

"Yes," I said. "That's Owen, this was pure Owen
today. He's unpredictable, but he's always in charge."

"He's quite . . . miraculous," the Rev. Mr. Merrill
said, smiling faintly-clearly glad that the Congregationalists preferred
caroling to pageants, and clearly relieved that Owen Meany had moved no farther
down the Protestant rungs than the Episcopalians. The pastor was probably
imagining what sort of damage Owen might accomplish at a Vesper service. Dan
grabbed me in the connecting passage to the parish house; he said he'd wait for
me to get my clothes, and Owen's-we could go back to the dorm together, then,
or to  Front Street. Mr. Fish was happy and agitated; if he thought that
the Rev. Dudley Wiggin's "slashing his throat" was a part of the
rector's annual performance, he also imagined that everything Owen had done was
in the script-and Mr. Fish had been quite impressed by the dramatic qualities
of the story. "I love the part when he tells what to say-that's
brilliant," Mr. Fish said. "And how he throws his mother aside-how he
starts right in with the criticism ... I mean, you get the idea, right away,
that this is no ordinary baby. You know, he's the Lord! Jesus-from Day One. I
mean, he's born giving orders, telling everyone what to do. I thought you told
me he didn't have a speaking part! I had no idea it was so ... primitive a
ritual, so violent, so barbaric. But it's very moving," Mr. Fish added
hastily, lest Dan and I be offended to hear our religion described as
"primitive" and "barbaric."

"It's not quite what the ... author . . . intended,"
Dan told Mr. Fish. I left Dan explaining the deviations from the expected to
the excited amateur actor-I wanted to get dressed, and find Owen's clothes, in
a hurry, without encountering either of the Wiggins. But I was a while getting
my hands on Owen's clothes. Mary Beth Baird had balled them up with her own in
a corner of the vestibule, where she then lay down to weep-on top of them. It
was complicated, getting her to relinquish Owen's clothes without striking her;
and impossible to interrupt her sobbing. Everything that had upset the little
Lord Jesus had been her fault, in her opinion; she had not only failed to
soothe him-she'd been a bad mother in general. Owen hated her, she claimed. How
she wished she understood him better! Yet, somehow-as she explained to me,
through her tears-she was sure she "understood" him better than
anyone else did. At age eleven, I was too young to glimpse a vision of what
sort of overwrought wife and mother Mary Beth Baird would make; there in the
vestibule, I wanted only to hit her-to forcibly take Owen's clothes and leave
her in a puddle of tears. The very idea of her understanding Owen Meany made me
sick! What she really meant was that she wanted to take him home and lie on top
of him; her idea of understanding him began and ended with her desire to cover
his body, to never let him get up. Because I was slow in leaving the vestibule,
Barb Wiggin caught me.

"You can give him this message when you give him his
clothes," she hissed to me, her fingers digging into my shoulder and shaking
me. "Tell him he's to come see me before he's allowed back in this
church-before the next Sunday school class, before he comes to another service.
He comes to see me first. He's not allowed here until he sees me!" she
repeated, giving me one last shake for good measure.

        
 
I was so upset that I blurted it all out to
Dan, who was hanging around the altar area with Mr. Fish, who, in turn, was
staring at the scattered hay in the manger and at the few gifts abandoned by
the Christ Child there, as if some meaning could be discerned from the
arrangement of the debris. I told Dan what Barb Wiggin had said, and how she'd
given Owen a hard-on, and how there had been virtual warfare between them-and
now, I was sure, Owen would never be "allowed" to be an Episcopalian
again. If seeing her was a prerequisite for Owen to return to Christ Church,
then Owen, I knew, would be as shunning of us Episcopalians as he was presently
shunning of Catholics. I became quite exercised in relating this scenario to
Dan, who sat beside me in a front-row pew and listened sympathetically. Mr.
Fish came and told us that was still "on-high." He wondered if this
was a part of the script-to leave Harold Crosby hanging in the rafters long
after the manger and the pews had emptied? Harold Crosby, who thought both his
God and Barb Wiggin had abandoned him forever, swung like the victim of a
vigilante killing among the mock flying buttresses; Dan, an accomplished
mechanic of all theatrical equipment, eventually mastered the angel-lowering
apparatus and returned the banished angel to terra firma, where Harold
collapsed in relief and gratitude. He had thrown up all over himself, and-in
attempting to wipe himself with one of his wings-he'd made quite an
unsalvageable mess of his costume. That was when Dan carried out his
responsibilities as a stepfather in most concrete, even heroic terms. He
carried the sodden Harold Crosby to the parish-house vestibule, where he asked
Barb Wiggin if he might have a word with her.

"Can't you see . . ." she asked him, "that this
isn't the best of times?"

"I should not want to bring up the matter-of how you left
this boy hanging-with the Vestry members," Dan said to her. He held Harold
Crosby with some difficulty-not only because Harold was heavy and wet, but because
the stench of vomit, especially in the close air of the vestibule, was
overpowering.

' 'This isn 't the best of times to bring up anything with me,''
Barb Wiggin cautioned, but Dan Needham was not a man to be bullied by a
stewardess.

"Nobody cares what sort of mess-up happens at a children's
pageant," Dan said, "but this boy was left hanging-twenty feet above
a concrete floor! A serious accident might have occurred-due to your
negligence." Harold Crosby shut his eyes, as if he feared Barb Wiggin was going
to hit him-or strap him back in the angel-raising apparatus.

"I regret-" Barb Wiggin began, but Dan cut her off.

"You will not lay down any laws for Owen Meany," Dan
Needham told her.' 'You are not the rector, you are the rector's wife. You had
a job-to return this boy, safely, to the floor-and you forgot all about it. /
will forget all about it, too-and you will forget about seeing Owen. Owen is
allowed in this church at any time; he doesn't require your permission to be
here. If the rector would like to speak with Owen, have the rector call
me." And here Dan Needham released the slippery Harold Crosby, whose
manner of groping for his clothes suggested that apparatus had cut off all
circulation to his legs; he wobbled unsteadily about the vestibule-the other
children getting out of his way because of his smell. Dan Needham put his hand
on the back of my neck; he pushed me gently forward until I was standing
directly between Barb Wiggin and him. "This boy is not your messenger,
Missus Wiggin," Dan said. "I should not want to bring up any of this
with the Vestry members," he repeated. Stewardesses have, at best,
marginal authority; Barb Wiggin knew when her authority had slipped. She looked
awfully ready-to-please, so ready-to-please that I was embarrassed for her. She
turned her attention, eagerly, to the task of getting Harold Crosby into
fresher clothes. She was just in time; Harold's mother entered the vestibule as
Dan and I were leaving the parish house. "My, that looked like fun!"
Mrs. Crosby said. "Did you have fun, dear?" she asked him. When
Harold nodded, Barb Wiggin spontaneously hugged him against her hip. Mr. Fish
had found the rector. The Rev. Dudley Wiggin was occupying himself with the
Christmas candles, measuring them to ascertain which were still long enough to
be used again next year. The Rev. Dudley Wiggin had a pilot's healthy instinct
for looking ahead; he did not dwell on the present-especially not on the
disasters. He would never call Dan and ask to speak to Owen; Owen would be "allowed"
at Christ Church without any consultation with the rector.

"I like the way Joseph and Mary carry the Baby Jesus out of
the manger," Mr. Fish was saying.

"Ah, do you? Ah, yes," the rector said.

"It's a great ending-very dramatic," Mr. Fish pointed
out.

"Yes, it is, isn't it?" the rector said. "Perhaps
we'll work out a similar ending-next year.''

"Of course, the part requires someone with Owen's
presence," Mr. Fish said. "I'll bet you don't get a Christ Child like
him every year."