A prayer for Owen Meany (46 page)

        
 
didn't talk about Hester. The summer of ' was
the first summer that we met with any success in picking up girls; or, rather,
Owen met with this success, and he introduced the girls he met to me. We
didn't' 'do it'' that summer; at least, / didn't, and-to my knowledge-Owen
never had a date alone.

"IT'S A DOUBLE DATE OR IT'S NOTHING," he'd tell one
surprised girl after another. "ASK YOUR FRIEND OR FORGET IT."

And we were BO longer afraid to cruise the pinball arcades
around the casino on foot; delinquent thugs would still pick on Owen, but he
quickly established a reputation as an untouchable.

"YOU WANT TO BEAT ME UP?" he'd say to some punk. '
'YOU WANT TO GO TO JAIL? YOU'RE SO UGLY-YOU THINK I'LL HAVE TROUBLE REMEMBERING
YOUR FACE?'' Then he'd point to me. "YOU SEE HIM? ARE YOU SUCH AN ASSHOLE
YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT A WITNESS IS? GO AHEAD-BEAT ME UP!" Only one guy
did-or tried. It was like watching a dog go after a raccoon; the dog does all
the work, but the raccoon gets the better of it. Owen just covered up; he
grabbed for hands and feet, he went for the fingers first, but he was content
to tear off a sho&and go for the toes. He took a pounding but he wrapped
himself into a ball; he left no extremities showing. He broke the guy's
pinky-he bent it so sharply that after the fight the guy's little finger
pointed straight up off the back of his hand. He tore one of the guy's shoes
off and bit his toes; there was a lot of blood, but the guy was wearing a
sock-I couldn't see the actual damage, only that he had trouble walking. The
guy was pulled off Owen by a cotton-candy vendor-he was arrested shortly
thereafter for screaming obscenities, and we heard he was sent to reform school
because he turned out to be driving a stolen car. We never saw him on the
beachfront again, and the word about Owen-on the strip, around the casino, and
along the boardwalk-was that he was dangerous to pick a fight with; the rumor
was that he'd bitten off someone's ear. Another summer, I heard that he'd
blinded a guy with a Popsicle stick. That these reports weren't exactly true
did not matter at Hampton Beach. He was "that little dude in the red
pickup," he was "the quarry-worker-he carries some kind of tool on
him.'' He was "a mean little fucker-watch out for him."

We were seventeen; we had a sullen summer. In the fall, Noah and
Simon started college out on the West Coast; they went to one of those
California universities that no one on the East Coast can ever remember the
name of. And the Eastmans continued their folly of considering Hester as less
of an investment; they sent her to the University of New Hampshire, where-as a
resident-she merited in-state tuition. "They want to keep me in their own
backyard," was how Hester put it.

"THEY PUT HER IN OUR BACKYARD," was how Owen put it;
the state university was only a twenty-minute drive from Gravesend. That it was
a better university than the tanning club that Noah and Simon attended in
California was not an argument that impressed Hester; the boys got to travel,
the boys got the more agreeable climate-she got to stay home. To New Hampshire
natives, the state university-notwithstanding how basically solid an education
it offered-was not exotic; to Gravesend Academy students, with their elitist
eyes on the Ivy League schools, it was "a cow college," wholly beyond
redemption. But in the fall of ', when Owen and I began our tenth-grade year at
the academy, Owen was regarded as especially gifted-by our peers-because he was
dating a college girl; that Hester was a cow-college girl did not tarnish
Owen's reputation. He was Ladies' Man Meany, he was Older-Woman Master; and he
was still and would always be The Voice. He demanded attention; and he got it.
Toronto: May , -Gary Hart, a former U.S. senator from Colorado, quit his
campaign for the presidency after some Washington reporters caught him shacked
up for the weekend with a Miami model; although both the model and the
candidate claimed that nothing "immoral" occurred-and Mrs. Hart said
that she supported her husband, or maybe it was that she "understood"
him-Mr. Hart decided that such intense scrutiny of his personal life created an
"intolerable situation" for him and his family. He'll be back; want
to bet? In the United States, no one like him disappears for long; remember
Nixon? What do Americans know about morality? They don't want their presidents
to have penises but they don't mind if their presidents covertly arrange to
support the Nicaraguan rebel forces after Congress has restricted such aid;
they don't want their presidents to deceive their wives but they don't mind if
their presidents deceive Congress-lie to the people and violate the people's
constitution! What Mr. Hart should have said was

        
 
that nothing unusually immoral had occurred,
or that what happened was only typically immoral; or that he was testing his
abilities to deceive the American people by deceiving his wife first-and that
he hoped the people would see by this example that he was immoral enough to be
good presidential material! I can just hear what The Voice would have said
about all this. A sunny day; my fellow Canadians in Winston Churchill Park have
their bellies turned toward the sun. All the girls at Bishop Strachan are
tugging up their middies and hiking up their pleated skirts; they are pushing
their knee socks down around their ankles; the whole world wants a tan. But
Owen hated the spring; the warm weather made him think that school was almost over,
and Owen loved school. When school was over, Owen Meany went back to the
quarries. When school began again-when we started the fall term of -I realized
that The Voice had not been idle for the summer; Owen came back to school with
a stack of columns ready for The Grave. He charged the Search Committee to find
a new headmaster who was dedicated to serving the faculty and the
students-"NOT A SERVANT OF THE ALUMNI AND THE TRUSTEES." Although he
made fun of Thorny- particularly, of old Archie Thorndike's notion of "the
wtiole boy''-Owen praised our departing headmaster for being "AN EDUCATOR
FIRST, A FUND-RAISER SECOND." Owen cautioned the Search Committee to
"BEWARE OF THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES-THEY'LL PICK A HEADMASTER WHO CARES MORE
ABOUT FUND DRIVES THAN THE CURRICULUM OR THE FACULTY WHO TEACH IT. AND DON'T
LISTEN TO THE ALUMNI!" warned The Voice; Owen had a low opinion of the
alumni.' 'THEY CAN'T EVEN BE TRUSTED TO REMEMBER WHAT IT WAS REALLY LIKE TO BE
HERE; THEY'RE ALWAYS TALKING ABOUT WHAT THE SCHOOL DID FOR THEM-OR HOW THE
SCHOOL MADE SOMETHING OUT OF THEM, AS IF THEY WERE UNFORMED CLAY WHEN THEY CAME
HERE. AS FOR HOW HARSH THE SCHOOL COULD BE, AS FOR HOW MISERABLE THEY WERE WHEN
THEY WERE STUDENTS-THE ALUMNI HAVE CONVENIENTLY FORGOTTEN."

Someone in faculty meeting called Owen "that little
turd"; Dan Needham argued that Owen truly adored the school, but that a
Gravesend education did not and should not teach respect for uncritical love,
for blind devotion. It became harder to defend Owen when he started the
petition against fish on Fridays.

"WE HAVE A NONDENOMINATIONAL CHURCH," he stated.
"WHY DO WE HAVE A CATHOLIC DINING HALL? IF CATHOLICS WANT TO EAT FISH ON
FRIDAY, WHY MUST THE REST OF US JOIN THEM? MOST KIDS HATE FISH! SERVE FISH BUT
SERVE SOMETHING ELSE, TOO-COLD CUTS, OR EVEN PEANUT-BUTTER-AND-JELLY
SANDWICHES. WE ARE FREE TO LISTEN TO THE GUEST PREACHER AT KURD'S CHURCH, OR WE
CAN ATTEND ANY OF THE TOWN CHURCHES OF OUR CHOICE; JEWS AREN'T FORCED TO TAKE
COMMUNION, UNITARIANS AREN'T DRAGGED TO MASS- OR TO CONFESSION-BAPTISTS AREN'T
ROUNDED UP ON SATURDAYS AND HERDED OFF TO SYNAGOGUE (OR TO THEIR OWN, UNWILLING
CIRCUMCISIONS). YET NON-CATHOLICS MUST EAT FISH; ON FRIDAYS, IT'S EAT FISH OR
GO HUNGRY. I THOUGHT THIS WAS A DEMOCRACY. ARE WE ALL FORCED TO SUBSCRIBE TO
THE CATHOLIC VIEW OF BIRTH CONTROL? WHY ARE WE FORCED TO EAT CATHOLIC
FOOD?"

He set up a chair and desk in the school post office to collect
signatures for his petition-naturally, everyone signed it. "EVEN THE
CATHOLICS SIGNED IT!" announced The Voice. Dan Needham said that the food
service manager put on quite a show in faculty meeting.

"Next thing you know, that little turd will want a salad
bar! He'll want an alternative to every menu-not just fish on Fridays!"

In his first column, The Voice had attacked MYSTERY MEAT; now it
was fish. "THIS UNJUST IMPOSITION ENCOURAGES RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION,"
said The Voice; Owen saw signs of anti-Catholicism springing up everywhere.
"THERE'S SOME BAD TALK GOING AROUND," he reported. "THE CLIMATE
OF THE SCHOOL IS BECOMING DISCRIMINATORY. I HEAR THE OFFENSIVE SLUR,
'MACKEREL-SNAPPER'-AND YOU NEVER USED TO HEAR THAT KIND OF TALK AROUND HERE.''
Frankly, / never heard anyone use the term "mackerel-snapper"-except
Owen! And we couldn't pass St. Michael's-not to mention the

        
 
sainted statue of Mary Magdalene-without his
saying, "I WONDER WHAT THE PENGUINS ARE UP TO? DO YOU THINK THEY'RE ALL
LESBIANS?"

It was the first Friday following Thanksgiving vacation when
they served cold cuts and peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches with the standard
fish dish; you could also get a bowl of tomato soup, and potato salad. He had
won. He got a standing ovation in the dining hall. As a scholarship boy, he had
a job-he was a waiter at a faculty table; the serving tray was half Ms size and
he stood at attention beside it, as if it were a shield, while the students
applauded him and the faculty smiled a trifle stiffly. Old Thorny called him
into his office. "You know, I like you, little fella," he told Owen.
"You're a go-getter! But let me give you some advice. Your friends don't
watch you as closely as your enemies-and you've got enemies. You've made more
enemies in less than two years than I've made in more than twenty! Be careful
you don't give your enemies a way to get you."

Thorny wanted Owen to cox the varsity crew; Owen was the perfect
size for a coxswain, and-after all-he'd grown up on the Squamscott. But Owen
said that the racing shells had always offended his father-"IT'S A MATTER
OF BLOOD BEING THICKER THAN SCHOOL," he told the headmaster; furthermore,
the river was polluted. In those days, the town didn't have a proper sewage
system; the textile mill, my late grandfather's former shoe factory, and many
private homes simply dumped their waste into the Squamscott. Owen said he had
often seen "beetleskins" floating in the river; beetleskins still
gave him the shivers. Besides, in the fall he liked soccer; of course, he
wasn't on the varsity or the junior varsity-but he had fun playing soccer, even
on the lowest club-level. He was fast and scrappy--although, from all his
smoking, he was easily winded. And in the spring-the other season for crew-Owen
liked to play tennis; he wasn't very good, he was just a beginner, but my
grandmother bought him a good racquet and Owen appreciated the orderliness of
the game. The straight white lines, the proper tension in the net at its
exactly correct height, the precise scoring. In the winter-God knows why!-he
liked basketball; perversely, perhaps, because it was a tall boy's game. He
played only in pickup games, to be sure-he could never have played on any of
the teams-but he played with enthusiasm; he was quite a leaper, he had a jump
shot that elevated him almost to eye level with the other players, and he
became obsessed with an impossible frill of the game ("impossible"
for him): the slam-dunk. We didn't call it a "slam-dunk" then; we
called it "stuffing" the ball, and there wasn't very much of it-most
kids weren't tall enough. Of course, Owen could never leap high enough to be
above the basket; to stuff the ball down into the basket was a nonsense idea he
had-it was his absurd goal. He would devise an approach to the basket;
dribbling at good speed, he would time his leap to coincide with a teammate's
readiness to lift him higher-he would jump into a teammate's waiting arms, and
the teammate would (occasionally) boost Owen above the basket's rim. I was the
only one who was willing to practice the timing with him; it was such a
ridiculous thing for him to want to do-for someone his size to set himself the
challenge of soaring and reaching so high ... it was just silliness, and I
tired of the mindless, repetitive choreography.

"Why are we doing this?" I'd ask him. "It would
never work in a game. It's probably not even legal. I can't lift you up to the
basket, I'm sure that's not allowed."

But Owen reminded me that I had once enjoyed lifting him up-at
Sunday school. Now that it mattered to him, to get the timing of his leap
adjusted to my lifting him even higher, why couldn't I simply indulge him without
criticizing him?

"I TOLERATED YOU LIFTING ME UP-ALL THOSE YEARS WHEN I ASKED
YOU NOT TO!" he said.

" 'All those years,' " I repeated. "It was only a
few Sunday school classes, it was only for a couple of years-and we didn't do
it every time."

But it was important to him now-this crazy lifting him up-and so
we did it. It became a very well-rehearsed stunt with us; "Slam-Dunk
Meany," some of the boys on the basketball team began to call
him-Slam-Dunk Master, after he'd perfected the move. Even the basketball coach
was appreciative. "I may use you in a game, Owen," the coach said,
joking with him.

"IT'S NOT FOR A GAME," said Owen Meany, who had his
own reasons for everything. That Christmas vacation of ', we were in the
Gravesend gym for hours every day; we were alone, and undisturbed-all the
boarders had gone home-and we were full of contempt for the Eastmans, who
appeared to be making a point of not

        
 
inviting us to Sawyer Depot. Noah and Simon
had brought a friend home from California; Hester was "in and out";
and some old friend of my Aunt Martha, from her university days,
"might" be visiting. The real reason we were not invited, Owen and I
were sure, was that Aunt Martha wanted to discourage the relationship between
Owen and Hester. Hester had told Owen that her mother referred to him as
"the boy who hit that ball," and as "that strange little friend
of John's"- and "that boy my mother is dressing up like a little
doll." But Hester thought so ill of her mother, and she was such a
troublemaker, she might have made up all that and told Owen-chiefly so that
Owen would dislike Aunt Martha, too. Owen didn't seem to care. I had been
granted an extension to make up two late term papers over the vacation-so it
wasn't much of a vacation, anyway; Owen helped me with the history paper and he
wrote the English paper for me. "I PURPOSELY DIDN'T SPELL EVERYTHING
CORRECTLY. I MADE A FEW GRAMMATICAL ERRORS-OF THE KIND YOU USUALLY MAKE,"
he told me. "I REPEATED MYSELF OCCASIONALLY, AND THERE'S NO MENTION OF THE
MIDDLE OF THE BOOK-AS IF YOU SKIPPED THAT PART. THAT'S THE PART YOU SKIPPED,
RIGHT?"