A prayer for Owen Meany (58 page)

"What's happened to The Voice, Owen?" Mr. Early asked
him.

"THE VOICE HAS LEARNED TO KEEP HIS MOUTH SHUT," Owen
said.

"Owen," Dan Needham said, "don't piss off your
friends."

"THE VOICE HAS BEEN CENSORED," said Owen Meany.
"JUST TELL THE FACULTY AND THE HEADMASTER THAT THE VOICE IS BUSY-REVISING
HIS VALEDICTORY! I GUESS NO ONE CAN THROW ME OUT OF SCHOOL FOR WHAT I SAY AT
COMMENCEMENT*"

Thus did Owen Meany respond to his punishment, by threatening
the headmaster and the faculty with The Voice- only momentarily silenced, we
all knew; but full of rage, we all were sure. It was that numbskull from
Zurich, Dr. Dolder, who proposed to the faculty that Owen Meany should be
required to talk with him.

"Such hostility!" Dr. Dolder said. "He has a
talent for speaking out-yes? And now he is withholding his talent from us, he
is denying himself the pleasure of speaking his mind- why? Without expression,
his hostility will only increase- no?'' Dr. Dolder said.' 'Better I should give
him the opportunity to vent his hostility-on me!" the doctor said.
"After all, we would not want a repeated incident with another older
woman. Maybe this time, it's a faculty wife-yes?" he said. And so they told
Owen Meany that he had to see the school psychiatrist.

" 'FATHER, FORGIVE THEM; FOR THEY KNOW NOT WHAT THEY DO,'
" he said. Toronto: July , - still waiting for my invitation to Georgian
Bay; it can't come soon enough. The New York Times appears to have reduced the
Iran-contra affair to the single issue of whether or not President Reagan
"knew" that profits from the secret arms sales to Iran were being
diverted to support the Nicaraguan contras. Jesus Christ! Isn't it enough to
"know" that the president wanted and intended to continue his support
of the contras after Congress told him what was enough! It makes me sick to
hear the lectures delivered to Lt. Col. Oliver North. What are they lecturing
him for? The colonel wants to support the contras- "for the love of God
and for the love of country"; he's already testified that he'd do anything
his commander-in-chief wanted him to do. And now we get to listen to the
senators and the representatives who are running for office again; they tell the
colonel all he doesn't know about the U.S. Constitution; they point out to him
that patriotism is not necessarily defined as blind devotion to a president's
particular agenda-and that to dispute a

        
 
presidential policy is not necessarily
anti-American. They might add that God is not a proven right-winger! Why are
they pontificating the obvious to Colonel North? Why don't they have the balls
to say this to their blessed commander-in-chief? If Hester has been paying
attention to any of this, I'll bet she's throwing up; I'll bet she's barring
her brains out. She would remember, of course, those charmless bumper stickers
from the Vietnam era-those cunning American flags and the red, white, and blue
lettering of the name of our beloved nation. I'll bet Colonel North remembers
them. America! said the bumper stickers. Love It or Leave It! That made a lot
of sense, didn't it? Remember that? And now we have to hear a civics
lecture-the country's elected officials are instructing a lieutenant colonel in
the Marine Corps on the subject that love of country and love of God (and
hatred of communism) can conceivably be represented, in a democracy, by
differing points of view. The colonel shows no signs of being converted; why
are these pillars of self-righteousness wasting their breath on him! I doubt
that President Reagan could be converted to democracy, either. I know what my
grandmother used to say, whenever she saw or read anything that was just a lot
of bullshit. Owen picked up the phrase from her; he was quite lethal in its
application, our senior year at Gravesend. Whenever anyone said anything that
was a lot of bullshit to him, Owen Meany used to say,"YOU KNOW WHAT THAT
IS? THAT'S MADE FOR TELEVISION-THAT'S WHAT THAT IS." And that's what Owen
would have said about the Iran-contra hearings-concerning what President Reagan
did or didn't "know."

"MADE FOR TELEVISION," he would have said. That's how
he referred to his sessions with Dr. Dolder; the school made him see Dr. Dolder
twice a week, and when I asked him to describe his dialogue with the Swiss
idiot, Owen said, "MADE FOR TELEVISION." He wouldn't tell me much
else about the sessions, but he liked to mock some of the questions Dr. Dolder
had asked him by exaggerating the doctor's accent.

"ZO! YOU ARE ATTRACTED TO ZE OLDER VIMMEN-VY IS DAT?"

I wondered if he answered by saying he'd always been fond of my
mother-maybe, he'd even been in love with her. That would have caused Dr.
Dolder great excitement, I'm sure.

"ZO! ZE VOOMIN YOU KILT MIT ZE BASEBALL-SHE MADE YOU VANT
TO PROP-O-SI-TION PEOPLE'S MUDDERS, YES?"

"Come on," I said to Owen. "He's not that
stupid!"

"ZO! vrrcH FACULTY VIFE HAF YOU GOT YOUR EYES ON?"

"Come on!" I said. "What kind of stuff does he
ask you, really!"

"ZO! YOU BELIEF IN GOT-DATS FERRY IN-TER-EST-INK!"

Owen would never tell me what really went on in those sessions.
I knew Dr. Dolder was a moron; but I also knew that even a moron would have
discovered some disturbing things about Owen Meany. For example, Dr.
Dolder-dolt though he was-would have heard at least a little of the GOD'S
INSTRUMENT theme; even Dr. Dolder would have uncovered Owen's perplexing and
troubling anti-Catholicism. And Owen's particular brand of fatalism would have
been challenging for a good psychiatrist; I'm sure Dr. Dolder was scared to
death about it. And would Owen have gone so far as to tell Dr. Dolder about
Scrooge's grave? Would Owen have suggested that he KNEW how much time he had
left on our earth?

"What do you tell him?" I asked Owen.

"THETRUTH," said Owen Meany. "I ANSWER EVERY
QUESTION HE ASKS TRUTHFULLY, AND WITHOUT HUMOR," he added.

"My God!" I said. "You could really get yourself
in trouble!"

"VERY FUNNY," he said.

"But, Owen," I said. "You tell him everything you
think about, and everything you believe! Not everything you believe,
right?" I said.

"EVERYTHING," said Owen Meany. "EVERYTHING HE
ASKS."

"Jesus Christ!" I said. "And what has he got to
say? What's he told you?"

"HE TOLD ME TO TALK WITH PASTOR MERRILL- SO I HAVE TO SEE
HIM TWICE A WEEK, TOO," Owen said. "AND WITH EACH OF THEM, I SIT
THERE AND TALK ABOUT WHAT I TALKED ABOUT TO THE OTHER ONE. I GUESS THEY'RE
FINDING OUT A LOT ABOUT EACH OTHER."

"I see," I said; but I didn't. Owen had taken all the
Rev. Lewis Merrill's courses at the academy; he had consumed all the Religion
and Scripture courses so voraciously that there weren't any left for him in his
senior year, and Mr. Merrill had permitted him to pursue some independent study
in the field. Owen was particularly interested in the miracle of the
resurrection; he was interested in miracles in general, and life after death in
particular, and he was writing an interminable term paper that related these
subjects to that old theme from Isaiah :, which he loved. "Woe unto them
that call evil good and good evil." Owen's opinion of Pastor Merrill had
improved considerably from those earlier years when the issue of the minister's
doubt had bothered Owen's dogmatic side; Mr. Merrill had to be aware- awkwardly
so-of the role had played in securing his appointment as school minister. When
they sat together in Pastor Merrill's vestry office, I couldn't imagine
them-not either of them-as being quite at ease; yet there appeared to be much
respect between them. Owen did not have a relaxing effect on anyone, and no one
I knew was ever less relaxed than the Rev. Lewis Merrill; and so I imagined
that Kurd's Church would be creaking excessively during their interviews-or
whatever they called them. They would both be fidgeting away in the vestry
office, Mr. Merrill opening and closing the old desk drawers, and sliding that
old chair on the casters from one end of the desk to the other-while Owen Meany
cracked his knuckles, crossed and uncrossed his little legs, and shrugged and
sighed and reached out his hands to the Rev. Mr. Merrill's desk, if only to
pick up a paperweight or a prayer book and put it down again.

"What do you talk about with Mister Merrill?" I asked
him.

"I TALK ABOUT DOCTOR DOLDER WITH PASTOR MERRILL, AND I TALK
ABOUT PASTOR MERRILL WITH DOCTOR DOLDER," Owen said.

"No, but I know you like Pastor Merrill-I mean, sort of.
Don't you?" I asked him.

"WE TALK ABOUT LIFE AFTER DEATH," said Owen Meany.

"I see," I said; but I didn't. I didn't realize the
degree to which Owen Meany never got tired of talking about that. Toronto: July
,-it is a scorcher in town today. I was getting my hair cut in my usual place,
near the corner of Bathurst and St. Clair, and the girl-barber (something I'll
never get used to!) asked me the usual: "How short?"

"As short as Oliver North's," I said.

"Who?" she said. O Canada! But I'm sure there are
young girls cutting hair in the United States who don't know who Colonel North
is, either; and in a few years, almost no one will remember him. How many
people remember Melvin Laird? How many people remember Gen. Creighton Abrams or
Gen. William Westmoreland-not to mention, which one replaced the other? And who
replaced Gen. Maxwell Taylor? Who replaced Gen. Curtis LeMay? And whom did
Ellsworth Bunker replace? Remember that? Of course you don't! There was a
terrible din of construction going on outside the barbershop at the corner of
Bathurst and St. Clair, but I was sure that my girl-barber had heard me.

"Oliver North," I repeated. "Lieutenant Colonel
Oliver North, United States Marine Corps," I said.

"I guess you want it really short," she said.

"Yes, please," I said; I've simply got to stop reading
The New York Times] There's nothing in the news that's worth remembering. Why,
then, do I have such a hard time forgetting it? No one had a memory like Owen
Meany. By the end of the winter term of ', I'll bet he never once confused what
he'd said to Dr. Dolder with what he'd said to the Rev. Lewis Merrill-but I'll
bet they were confused! By the end of the winter term, I'll bet they thought
that either he should have been thrown out of school or he should have been
made the new headmaster. By the end of every winter term at Gravesend Academy,
the New Hampshire weather had driven everyone half crazy. Who doesn't get tired
of getting up in the dark? And in Owen's case, he had to get up earlier than
most; because of his

        
 
scholarship job, as a faculty waiter, he had
to arrive in the dining-hall kitchen at least one hour before breakfast-on
those mornings he waited on tables. The waiters had to set the tables-and eat
their own breakfasts, in the kitchen-before the other students and the faculty
arrived; then they had to clear the tables between the official end of
breakfast and the beginning of morning meeting-as the new headmaster had so
successfully called what used to be our morning chapel. That Saturday morning
in February, the tomato-red pickup was dead and he'd had to jump-start the
Meany Granite Company trailer-truck and get it rolling down Maiden Hill before
it would start-it was so cold. He did not like to have dining-hall duty, as it
was called, on the weekend; and there was the added problem of him being a day
boy and having to drive himself that extra distance to school. I guess he was
cross when he got there; and there was another car parked in the circular
driveway by the Main Academy Building, where he always parked. The
trailer-truck was so big that the presence of only one other car in the
circular driveway would force him to park the truck out on Front Street-and in
the winter months, there was a ban regarding parking on Front Street, a
snow-removal restriction that the town imposed, and Owen was hopping mad about
that, too. The car that kept Owen from parking his truck in the circular
driveway adjacent to the Main Academy Building was Dr. Dolder's Volkswagen
Beetle. In keeping with the lovable and exasperating tidiness of his
countrymen, Dr. Dolder was exact and predictable about his little VW. His
bachelor apartment was in Quincy Hall-a dormitory on the far side of the
Gravesend campus; it seemed to be ' 'the far side'' from everywhere, but it was
as far from the Main Academy Building as you could get and still be on the
Gravesend campus. Dr. Dolder parked his VW by the Main Academy Building only
when he'd been drinking. He was a frequent dinner guest of Randy and Sam
White's; he parked by the Main Academy Building when he ate with the Whites-and
when he drank too much, he left his car there and walked home. The campus was
not so large that he couldn't (or shouldn't) have walked both ways-to dinner
and back-but Dr. Dolder was one of those Europeans who had fallen in love with
a most American peculiarity: how Americans will walk nowhere if they can drive
there. In Zurich, I'm sure, Dr. Dolder walked everywhere; but he drove his
little VW across the Gravesend campus, as if he were touring the New England
states. Whenever Dr. Bolder's VW was parked in the circular driveway by the
Main Academy Building, everyone knew that the doctor was simply exercising his
especially Swiss prudence; he was not a drunk, and the few small roads he might
have traveled on to drive himself from dinner at the Whites' to Quincy Hall
would not have given him much opportunity to maim many of the sober and
innocent residents of Gravesend. There's a good chance he would never have
encountered anyone; but Dr. Dolder loved his Beetle, and he was a cautious man.
Once-in the fresh snow upon his Volkswagen's windshield-a first-year German
student had written with his ringer: Herr Doktor Dolder hat zu viel betrunken!
I could usually tell-when I saw Owen, either at breakfast or at morning
meeting-if Dr. Dolder had had too much to drink the night before; if it was
winter, and if Owen was surly-looking, I knew he'd faced an early-morning
parking problem. I knew when the pickup had failed to start-and there was no
room for him to park the trailer-truck-just by looking at him.