A prayer for Owen Meany (54 page)

        
 
Begin With The Breastbone! Keep Upper Chest
Filled With Air All The Time\ The Diaphragm Is A One-Way Muscle-It Can Only
Inhale! Practice Your Breathing Separately From Your Singing! Never Lift Your
Shoulders! Never Hold Your Breath! One whole wall was devoted to instructive
commands regarding vowels; over the doorway of the bathroom was the single
exclamation: Gently! Dominating the apartment, from the center stage of the
living room-big and black and perfectly polished, and conceivably worth twice
the annual rent on Mr. McSwiney's place of business-was the piano. Mr. McSwiney
was completely bald. Wild, white tufts of hair sprang from his ears-as if to
protect him from the volume of his own huge voice. He was hearty-looking, in
his sixties (or even in his seventies), a short, muscular man whose chest
descended to his belt-or whose round, hard belly consumed his chest and rested
under his chin, like a beer-drinker's boulder.

"So! Which one of you's got the voice!" Mr. McSwiney
asked us.

"/ HAVE!" said Owen Meany.

"You certainly have!" cried Mr. McSwiney, who paid
little attention to me, even when Owen took special pains to introduce me by
putting unmistakable emphasis on my last name, which we thought might be
familiar to the singing and voice teacher.

"THIS IS MY FRIEND, JOHN WHEELWRIGHT," Owen said, but
Mr. McSwiney couldn't wait to have a look at Owen's Adam's apple; the name
"Wheelwright" appeared to ring no bells for him.

"It's all the same thing, whatever you call it," Mr.
McSwiney said. "An Adam's apple, a larynx, a voice box- it's the most
important part of the vocal apparatus," he explained, sitting Owen in what
he called "the singer's seat," which was a plain, straight-backed
chair directly in front of the piano. Mr. McSwiney put his thumb and index
finger on either side of Owen's Adam's apple. "Swallow!" he
instructed. Owen swallowed. When I held my own Adam's apple and swallowed, I
could feel my Adam's apple jump higher up my neck; but Owen's Adam's apple
hardly moved.

"Yawn!" said Mr. McSwiney. When I yawned, my Adam's
apple moved down my neck, but Owen Meany's Adam's apple stayed almost exactly
where it was.

"Scream!" said Mr. McSwiney.

"AAAAAHHHHHH!" said Owen Meany; again, his Adam's
apple hardly moved.

"Amazing!" said Mr. McSwiney. "You've got a
permanently fixed larynx," he told Owen. "I've rarely seen such a
thing," he said. "Your voice box is never in repose-your Adam's apple
sits up there in the position of a permanent scream. I could try giving you
some exercises, but you might want to see a throat doctor; you might have to
have surgery."

"I DON'T WANT TO HAVE SURGERY, I DON'T NEED ANY
EXERCISES," said Owen Meany. "IF GOD GAVE ME THIS VOICE, HE HAD A
REASON," Owen said.

"How come his voice doesn't change!" I asked Mr.
McSwiney, who seemed on the verge of a satirical remark- regarding God's role
in the position of Owen's voice box. "I thought every boy's voice
changed-at puberty," I said.

"If his voice hasn't changed already, it's probably never
going to change," Mr. McSwiney said. "Vocal cords don't make
words-they just vibrate. Vocal cords aren't really 'cords'-they're just lips.
It's the opening between those lips that's called the 'glottis.' It's nothing
but the act of breathing on the closed lips that makes a sound. When a male
voice changes, it's just a part of puberty-it's called a 'secondary sexual
development.' But I don't think your voice is going to change," Mr.
McSwiney told Owen. "If it was going to change, it would have."

"THAT DOESN'T EXPLAIN WHY IT ALREADY HASN'T," said
Owen Meany.

"I can't explain that," Mr. McSwiney admitted. "I
can give you some exercises," he repeated, "or I can recommend a
doctor.''

"I DON'T EXPECT MY VOICE TO CHANGE," said Owen Meany.
I could see that Mr. McSwiney was learning how exasperating Owen's belief in
God's plans could be.

"Why'd you come to see me, kid?" Mr. McSwiney asked
him.

"BECAUSE YOU KNOW HIS MOTHER," Owen said, pointing to
me. Graham McSwiney assessed me, as if he feared I might represent an elderly
paternity suit.

"Tabitha Wheelwright," I said. "She was called
Tabby. She was from New Hampshire, and she studied with you in the forties and
the fifties-from before I was born until I was eight or nine."

"OR TEN," said Owen Meany; into his pocket went his
hand, again-he handed Mr. McSwiney the photograph.

" 'The Lady in Red'!" Mr. McSwiney said. "I'm
sorry, I forgot her name," he told me.

"But you remember her?" I asked.

"Oh sure, I remember her," he said. "She was
pretty, and Very pleasant-and I got her that silly job. It wasn't much of a
gig, but she had fun doing it; she had this idea that someone might 'discover'
her if she kept singing there-but I told her no one ever got discovered in
Boston. And certainly not in that supper clubV Mr. McSwiney explained that the
club often called him and raided his students for local talent; as the
Giordanos had told us, the club hired more established female vocalists for
gigs that lasted for a month or more-but on Wednesdays, the club rested their
stars; that's when they called upon "local talent." In my mother's
case, she had gained a small, neighborhood reputation and the club had made a
habit of her. She'd not wanted to use her name-a form of shyness, or provincialism,
that Mr. McSwiney found as silly as her idea that anyone might
"discover" her.

"But she was charming," he said. "As a singer,
she was all 'head'-she had no 'chest'-and she was lazy. She liked to perform
simple, popular songs; she wasn't very ambitious. And she wouldn't
practice."

He explained the two sets of muscles involved in a "head
voice" and in a "chest voice"; although this was not what
interested Owen and me about my mother, we were polite and allowed Mr. McSwiney
to elaborate on his teacher's opinion of her. Most women sing with the larynx
in a high position, or with only what Mr. McSwiney called a "head
voice"; they experience a lack of power from the E above middle C,
downward-and when they try to hit their high notes loudly, they hit them
shrilly. The development of a "chest voice" in women is very
important. For men, it is the "head voice" that needs the
development. For both, they must be willing to devote hours. My mother, a
once-a-week singer, was what Mr. McSwiney called "the vocal equivalent of
a weekend tennis player." She had ^pretty voice-as I've described it-but
Mr. McSwiney's assessment of her voice was consistent with my memory of her;
she did not have a strong voice, she was not ever as powerful as Mr. McSwiney's
previous pupil had sounded to Owen and me through a closed door.

' 'Who thought of the name 'The Lady in Red' ?'' I asked the old
teacher-in an effort to steer him back to what interested us.

"She found a red dress in a store," Mr. McSwiney said.
"She told me she wanted to be 'wholly out of character-but only once a
week'!" He laughed. "I never went to hear her perform," he said.
"It was just a supper club," he explained. "Really, no one who
sang there was very good. Some of the better ones would work with me, so I
heard them here-but I never set foot in the place. I knew Meyerson on the
telephone; I don't remember that I actually met him. I think Meyerson called
her 'The Lady in Red.' "

"Meyerson?" I asked.

"He owned the club, he was a nice old guy-from Miami, I
think. He was honest, and unpretentious. The singers I sent to him all liked
him-they said he treated them respectfully," Mr. McSwiney said.

"DO YOU REMEMBER THE NAME OF THE CLUB?" Owen asked
him. It had been called The Orange Grove; my mother had joked to Mr. McSwiney
about the decor, which she said was dotted everywhere with potted orange trees
and tanks full of tropical fish-and husr>ands and wives celebrating their
anniversaries. Yet she had imagined she might be "discovered" there!

"DID SHE HAVE A BOYFRIEND?" Owen asked Mr. McSwiney,
who shrugged.

"She wasn't interested in me-that's all I know!" he
said. He smiled at me fondly. "I know, because I made a pass at her,"
he explained. "She handled it very nicely and I never tried it
again," he said.

"There was a pianist, a black pianist-at The Orange
Grove," I said.

"You bet there was, but he was all over-he played all over
town, for years, before he ended up there. And after he left there, he played
all over town again," Mr. McSwiney said. "Big Black Buster Freebody!"
he said, and laughed..

"Freebody," I said.

"It was as made-up a name as 'The Lady in Red,' " said
Mr. McSwiney. "And he wouldn't have been your mother's boyfriend,
either-Buster was as queer as a cat fart."

Graham McSwiney also told us that Meyerson had gone back to
Miami; but Mr. McSwiney added that Meyerson was old-even in the forties and
fifties, he'd been old; he was so old that he'd have to be dead now, "or
at least lying down on a shuffleboard court." As for Buster Freebody, Mr.
McSwiney couldn't remember where the big black man had played after The Orange
Grove had seen its days. "I used to run into him in so many places,"
Mr. McSwiney said. "I was as used to seeing Buster as a light
fixture." Buster Freebody had played what Mr. McSwiney called a "real
soft" piano; singers liked him because they could be heard over him.

"She had some trouble-your mother," Mr. McSwiney
remembered. "She went away-for a while-and then she came back again. And
then she went away for good."

"HE WAS THE TROUBLE," said Owen Meany, pointing to me.

"Are you looking for your father?" the singing teacher
asked me. "Is that it?"

"Yes," I said.

"Don't bother, kid," said Mr. McSwiney. "If he
was looking for you, he would have found you."

"GOD WILL TELL HIM WHO HIS FATHER IS," Owen said;
Graham McSwiney shrugged.

"I'm not God," Mr. McSwiney said. "This God you
know," he told Owen-"this God must be pretty busy."

I gave him my phone number in Gravesend-in case he ever
remembered the last place he'd heard Buster Freebody play the piano. Buster
Freebody, Mr. McSwiney warned me, was old enough to be "lying down on a
shuffleboard court," too. Mr. McSwiney asked Owen Meany for his phone
number-in case he ever heard a theory regarding why Owen's voice hadn't already
changed.

"IT DOESN'T MATTER," Owen said, but he gave Mr.
McSwiney his number.

"Your mother was a nice woman, a good person-a respectable
woman," Mr. McSwiney told me.

"Thank you," I said.

"The Orange Grove was a stupid place," he told me,
"but it wasn't a dive-nothing cheap would have happened to her
there," he said.

"Thank you," I said again.

"All she ever sang was Sinatra stuff-it used to bore me to
tears," Mr. McSwiney admitted.

"I THINK WE CAN ASSUME THAT SOMEBODY LIKED TO LISTEN TO
IT," said Owen Meany. Toronto: May , -I should know better than to read
even as much as a headline in The New York Times; although, as I've often
pointed out to my students at Bishop Strachan, this newspaper's use of the
semicolon is exemplary. Reagan Declares Firmness on Gulf; Plans Are Unclear
Isn't that a classic? I don't mean the semicolon; I mean, isn't that just what
the world needs? Unclear firmness! That is typical American policy: don't be
clear, but be firm! In November, -after Owen Meany and I learned that his voice
box was never in repose, and that my mother had enjoyed (or suffered) a more
secret life than we knew-Gen. Maxwell Taylor reported to President Kennedy that
U.S. military, economic, and political support could secure a victory for the
South Vietnamese without the United States taking over the war. (Privately, the
general recommended sending eight thousand U.S. combat troops to Vietnam.) That
New Year's Eve, which Owen and Hester and I celebrated at  Front Street-in
the desultory manner that describes the partying habits of the late teen years
(Hester was twenty), and in a relatively quiet manner (because Grandmother had
gone to bed)-there were only , U.S. military personnel in Vietnam. Hester would
usher in the New Year more emphatically than Owen or I could manage; she
greeted the New Year on her knees-in the snow, in the rose garden, where
Grandmother would not hear her retching up her rum and Coke (a concoction she
had learned to fancy in the budding days of her romance in Tortola). I was less
enthusiastic about the watershed changing

        
 
of the year; I fell asleep watching Charlton
Heston's agonies in Ben-Hur-somewhere between the chariot race and the leper
colony, I nodded off. Owen watched the whole movie; during the commercials, he
turned his detached attention to the window that overlooked the rose garden,
where Hester's pale figure could be discerned in the ghostly glow of the
moonlight against the snow. It is a wonder to me that the changing of the year
had so little effect on Owen Meany-when I consider that he thought he'
'knew," at the time, exactly how many years he had left. Yet he appeared
content to watch Ben-Hur, and Hester throwing up; maybe that's what faith
is-exactly that contentment, even facing the future. By our next New Year's Eve
together, in , there would be , U.S. military personnel in Vietnam. And once
again, on the morning of New Year's Day, my grandmother would notice the frozen
splatter of Hester's vomit in the snow-defacing that usually pristine area
surrounding the birdbath in the center of the rose garden.

"Merciful Heavens!" Grandmother would say.
"What's all that mess around the birdbath?"

And just as he'd said the year before, Owen Meany said,
"DIDN'T YOU HEAR THE BIRDS LAST NIGHT, MISSUS WHEELWRIGHT? I'D BETTER HAVE
A LOOK AT WHAT ETHEL'S PUTTING IN YOUR BIRD FEEDERS."

Owen would have respected a book I read only two years ago:
Vietnam War Almanac, by Col. Harry G. Summers, Jr. Colonel Summers is a combat
infantry veteran of Korea and Vietnam; he doesn't beat around the bush, as we
used to say in Gravesend. Here is the first sentence of his very fine book: '
'One of the great tragedies of the Vietnam war is that although American armed
forces defeated the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong in every major battle, the
United States still suffered the greatest defeat in its history." Imagine
that! On the first page of his book, Colonel Summers tells a story about
President Franklin D. Roosevelt at the Yalta Conference in , when the Allied
powers were trying to decide the composition of the postwar world. President
Roosevelt wanted to give Indo-China to China's leader, General Chiang Kai-shek,
but the general knew a little Vietnamese history and tradition; Chiang Kai-shek
understood that the Vietnamese were not Chinese, and that they would never
allow themselves to be comfortably absorbed by the Chinese people. To
Roosevelt's generous offer-to give him Indo-China-Chiang replied: "We
don't want it." Colonel Summers points out that it took the United States
thirty years-and a war that cost them nearly fifty thousand American lives-to
find out what Chiang Kai-shek explained to President Roosevelt in . Imagine
that\ Is it any surprise that President Reagan is promising
"firmness" in the Persian Gulf, and that his "plans are
unclear"? Soon the school year will be over; soon the BSS girls will be
gone. It is hot and humid in the summer in Toronto, but I like to watch the
sprinklers wetting down the grass on the St. Clair Reservoir; they keep Winston
Churchill Park as green as a jungle-all summer long. And the Rev. Katherine
Reeling's family owns an island in Georgian Bay; Katherine always invites me to
visit her-I usually go there at least once every summer-and so I get my annual
fix of swimming in fresh water and fooling around with someone else's kids.
Lots of wet life vests, lots of leaky canoes, and the smell of pine needles and
wood preservative-a little of that lasts a long time for a fussy old bachelor
like me. And in the summers I go to Gravesend and visit with Dan, too. It would
hurt Dan's feelings if I didn't come to see a theatrical performance of his
Gravesend summer-school students; he understands why I decline to see the
performances of The Gravesend Players. Mr. Fish is quite old, but still acting;
many of the town's older amateurs are still acting for Dan, but I'd just as
soon not see them anymore. And I don't care for the view of the audience that,
for a period of time, more than twenty years ago, intrigued Owen Meany and me.