A prayer for Owen Meany (59 page)

"What's up?" I would ask him.

"THAT TIGHT-ASS TIPSY SWISS DINK!'' Owen Meany would say.

"I see," I would say. And this particular February
morning, I can imagine how the Swiss psychiatrist's Beetle would have affected
him. I guess Owen must have been sitting in the frigid cab of the truck-you
could drive that big hauler for an hour before you'd even notice that the
heater was on-and I'll bet he was smoking, and probably talking to himself,
too, when he looked into the path of his headlights and saw about three
quarters of the basketball team walking his way. In the cold air, their
breathing must have made him think that they were smoking, too-although he knew
all of them, and knew they didn't smoke; he entertained them at least two or
three times a week by his devotion to practicing the shot. He told me later
that there were about eight or ten basketball players-not quite the whole team.
All of them lived in the same dorm-it was one of the traditional jock dorms on
the campus; and because the basketball team was playing at some faraway school,
they were on their way to the dining hall for an early breakfast with the
waiters who had dining-hall duty. They

         
 
were big, happy guys with goofy strides, and
they didn't mind being out of bed before it was light-they were going to miss
their Saturday morning classes, and they saw the whole day as an adventure.
Owen Meany was not quite in such a cheerful mood; he rolled down the window of
the big truck's frosty cab and called them over. They were friendly, and-as
always-extremely glad to see him, and they jumped onto the flatbed of the
trailer and roughhoused with each other, pushing each other off the flatbed,
and so forth.

"YOU GUYS LOOK VERY STRONG TODAY," said Owen Meany,
and they hooted in agreement. In the path of the truck's headlights, the
innocent shape of Dr. Dolder's Volkswagen Beetle stood encased in ice and
dusted very lightly with last night's snow. "I'LL BET YOU GUYS AREN'T
STRONG ENOUGH TO PICK UP THAT VOLKSWAGEN," said Owen Meany. But, of
course, they were strong enough; they were not only strong enough to lift Dr.
Dolder's Beetle-they were strong enough to carry it out of town. The captain of
the basketball team was an agreeable giant; when Owen practiced the shot with
this guy, the captain lifted Owen with one hand.

"No problem," the captain said to Owen. "Where do
you want it?"

Owen swore to me that it wasn't until that moment that he got
THE IDEA. It's clear to me that Owen never overcame his irritation with Randy
White for moving morning chapel from Kurd's Church to the Main Academy Building
and calling it morning meeting, that he still thought of that as the headmaster's
GRANDSTANDING. The sets for Dan's winter-term play had already been dismantled;
the stage of The Great Hall, as it was called, was bare. And that broad,
sweeping, marble stairway that led up to The Great Hall's triumphant double
doors ... all of that, Owen was sure, was big enough to permit the easy
entrance of Dr. Dolder's Volkswagen. And wouldn't that be something: to have
that perky little automobile parked on center stage-a kind of cheerful,
harmless message to greet the headmaster and the entire student body; a little
something to make them smile, as the dog days of March bore down upon us and
the long-awaited break for spring vacation could not come soon enough to save
us all.

"CARRY IT INTO THE MAIN ACADEMY BUILDING," Owen Meany
told the captain of the basketball team. "TAKE IT UPSTAIRS TO THE GREAT
HALL AND CARRY IT UP ON THE STAGE," said The Voice. "PUT IT RIGHT IN
THE MIDDLE OF THE STAGE, FACING FORWARD-RIGHT NEXT TO THE HEADMASTER'S PODIUM.
BUT BE CAREFUL YOU DON'T SCRATCH IT-AND FOR GOD'S SAKE DON'T DROP IT! DON'T PUT
A MARK ON ANYTHING," he cautioned the basketball players. "DON'T DO
THE SLIGHTEST DAMAGE-NOT TO THE CAR AND NOT TO THE STAIRS, NOT TO THE DOORS OF
THE GREAT HALL, NOT TO THE STAGE," he said. "MAKE IT LOOK LIKE IT
FLEW UP THERE," he told them. "MAKE FT LOOK LIKE AN ANGEL DROVE IT
ONSTAGE!" said Owen Meany. When the basketball players carried off Dr.
Dolder's Volkswagen, Owen thought very carefully about using the available
parking space; he decided it was wiser to drive all the way over to Waterhouse
Hall and park next to Dan's car, instead. Not even Dan saw him park the truck
there; and if anyone had seen him running across the campus, as it was growing
light, that would not have seemed strange-he was just a faculty waiter with dining-hall
duty, hurrying so he wouldn't be late. He ate his breakfast in the dining-hall
kitchen with the other waiters and with an extraordinarily hungry and jolly
bunch of basketball players. Owen was setting the head faculty table when the
captain of the basketball team said good-bye to him.

"There wasn't the slightest damage-not to anything,"
the captain assured him.

"HAVE A GOOD GAME!" said Owen Meany. It was one of the
janitors in the Main Academy Building who discovered the Beetle onstage-when he
was raising the blinds on the high windows that welcomed so much morning light
into The Great Hall. Naturally, the janitor called the headmaster. From the
kitchen window of his obtrusive house, directly across from the Main Academy
Building, Headmaster White could see the small rectangle of bare ground where
Dr. Dolder's Volkswagen had spent the night. According to Dan Needham, the
headmaster called him while he was getting out of the shower; most of the
faculty made breakfast for themselves at home, or they skipped breakfast rather
than eat in the school dining hall. The

        
 
headmaster told Dan that he was rounding up
all able-bodied faculty for the purpose of removing Dr. Dolder's Volkswagen
from the stage of The Great Hall-before morning meeting. The students, the
headmaster told Dan, were not going to have "the last laugh." Dan
said he didn't feel particularly able-bodied himself, but he'd certainly try to
help out. When he hung up the phone, he was laughing to himself-until he looked
out the window of Waterhouse Hall and saw the Meany Granite Company
trailer-truck parked next to his own car. Dan suddenly thought that THE IDEA of
putting Dr. Dolder's Volkswagen on the stage of The Great Hall had Owen Meany's
name written all over it. That was exactly what the headmaster said, when he
and about a dozen, not-very-able-bodied faculty members, along with a few hefty
faculty wives, were struggling with Dr. Dolder's Beetle.

"This has Owen Meany's name written all over it!" the
headmaster said.

"I don't think Owen could lift a Volkswagen," Dan
Needham ventured cautiously.

"I mean, the ideal" the headmaster said. As Dan
describes it, the faculty were ill-trained for lifting anything; even the
athletic types were neither as strong nor as flexible as young basketball
players-and they should have considered something basic to their task: it is
much easier to carry something heavy and awkward upstairs than it is to lug it
down. Mr. Tubulari, the track-and-field coach, was overzealous in his descent
of the stairs from the stage; he fell off and landed on the hard, wooden bench
in the front row of assembled seats-a hymnal fortunately cushioned the blow to
his head, or he might have been knocked senseless. Dan Needham described Mr.
Tubulari as "already senseless, before his fall," but the
track-and-field coach severely sprained his ankle in the mishap and had to be
carried to the Hubbard Infirmary. That left even fewer less-than-able-bodied
faculty-and some beefy wives-to deal with the unfortunate wreck of Dr. Dolder's
Volkswagen, which now stood on its rear end, which is a Beetle's heavy end,
where its engine is. The little car, standing so oddly upright, appeared to be
saluting or applauding the weary faculty who had so ungracefully dropped it
offstage.

"It's a good thing Dr. Dolder isn't here," Dan
observed. Because the headmaster was so riled up, no one wished to point out
the obvious: that they would have been better off to let the students have
"the last laugh"-then the faculty could have ordered a strong,
healthy bunch of students to carry the car safely offstage. If the students
wrecked the car in the course of its removal from the Main Academy Building,
then the students would have been responsible. As it was, things went from bad
to worse, as they often will when amateurs are involved in an activity that
they perform in bad temper-and in a hurry. The students would be arriving for
morning meeting in another ten or fifteen minutes; a smashed Volkswagen sitting
on its rear end in the front of The Great Hall might very well produce a louder
and longer laugh than a natty, well-cared-for car facing them, undamaged,
onstage. But there was brief discussion, if any, of this; the headmaster,
bright-red in the face with the strain of lifting the solid little German
marvel of the highways, urged the faculty to put their muscles into the chore
and spare him their comments. But there had been ice, and a little snow, on the
VW; this was melted now. The car was wet and slippery; puddles of water were
underfoot. One of the faculty wives-one especially prolific with progeny, and
one whose maternal girth was more substantial than well coordinated-slipped
under the Volkswagen as it was being returned to its wheels; although she was
not hurt, she was wedged quite securely under the stubborn automobile.
Volkswagens were pioneers in sealing the bottoms of their cars, and the poor
faculty wife discovered that there was no gap beneath die car that would allow
her to wriggle free. This presented-with less than ten minutes before morning
meeting-a new humiliation for the headmaster: Dr. Dolder's damaged Volkswagen,
leaking its engine and transmission oil upon the prostrate body of a trapped
faculty wife; she was not an especially popular faculty wife among the
students, either.

"Jesus Fucking Christ!" said Randy White. Some of the
"early nerds" were already arriving. "Early nerds" were
students who were so eager for the school day to begin that they got to morning
meeting long before the time they were required to be there. I don't know what
they are called today; but I'm sure that such students are never called
anything nice.

        
 
Some of these "early nerds" were
quite startled to be shouted at by the headmaster, telling them to "come
back at the proper time!" Meanwhile, in tilting the VW to its side- enough
to allow the safe deliverance of the rotund faculty wife-the inexperienced car
handlers tilted the Beetle too far; it fell flat on the driver's side (there
went that window and that sideview mirror; the debris, together with the
taillight glass from the VW's inexpert fall from the stage, was hastily swept
under the front-row wooden bench where the injured Mr. Tubulari had fallen).
Someone suggested getting Dr. Dolder; if the doctor unlocked the car, the
stalwart vehicle could be rolled, if not driven, to the head of the broad and
sweeping marble stairway. Perhaps it would be easier to navigate the staircase
with someone inside, behind the wheel?

"Nobody's calling Dolder!" the headmaster cried.
Someone pointed out that-since the window was broken-it was, in any case, an
unnecessary step. Also, someone else pointed out, the Volkswagen could not be
driven, or rolled, on its side; better to solve that problem. But according to
Dan, the untrained faculty were unaware of their own strength; in attempting to
right the car upon its wheels, they heaved too hard and tossed it from the
driver's side to the passenger side-flattening the front-row wooden bench (and
there went the passenger-side window, and the other sideview mirror).

"Perhaps we should cancel morning meeting?" Dan
Need-ham cautiously suggested. But the headmaster-to everyone's
astonishment-actually righted the Volkswagen, upon its wheels, by himselfl I
guess his adrenal glands were pumping! Randy White then seized his lower back
with both hands and dropped, cursing, to his knees.

"Don't touch me!" the headmaster cried. "I'm
fine!" he said, grimacing-and coming unsteadily to his feet. He sharply
kicked the rear fender of Dr. Dolder's car. Then he reached through the hole
where the driver's-side window had been and unlocked the door. He sat behind
the wheel-with apparent jolts of extreme discomfort assailing him from the
region of his lower back-and commanded the faculty to push him.

"Where?" Dan Needham asked the headmaster.

"Down the Jesus Fucking Christly stairs!" Headmaster
White cried. And so they pushed him; there was little point in trying to reason
with him,~Dan Needham later explained. The bell for morning meeting was already
ringing when Randy White began his bumpy descent of the broad and sweeping
marble stairway; several students-normal students, in addition to the
"early nerds"-were milling around in the foyer of the Main Academy
Building, at the foot of the staircase. Who can really piece together all the
details of such a case-I mean, who can ever get straight what happened exactly!
It was an emotional moment for the headmaster. And there is no overestimating
the pain in his lower back; he had lifted the car all by himself-whether his
back muscles went into spasms while he was attempting to steer the VW
downstairs, or whether he suffered the spasms after his spectacular accident .
. . well, this is academic, isn't it? Suffice it to say that the students in
the foyer fled from the wildly approaching little vehicle. No doubt, the melted
snow and ice were on the Beetle's tires, too-and marble, as everyone knows, is
slippery. This way and that way, the dynamic little car hopped down the
staircase; great slabs of marble appeared to leap off the polished handrails of
the stairway-the result of the Volkswagen's gouging out hunks of marble as it
skidded from side to side. There's an old New Hampshire phrase that is meant to
express extreme fragility-and damage: "Like a robin's egg rollin' down the
spout of a rain gutter!"

Thus did the headmaster descend the marble staircase from The
Great Hall to the foyer of the Main Academy Building- except that he didn't
quite arrive at his destination. The car nipped and landed on its roof, and
jammed itself sideways- and upside down-in the middle of the stairway. The
doors could not be opened-nor could the headmaster be removed from the
wreckage; such spasms assailed his lower back that he could not contort himself
into the necessary posture to make an exit from the car through the space where
the windshield had been. Randy White, sitting upside down and holding fast to
the steering wheel, cried out that there was a "conspiracy of students and
faculty" who were-clearly- "against" him. He said numerous,
unprintable things about Dr. Dolder's "fussy-fucking drinking
habits," about all German-manufactured cars, about what "wimps and
pussys" were masquerading as "able-bodied" among the faculty-and
their wives!-and he shouted and screamed that his back was "killing"
him, until his wife, Sam, could be brought to the scene, where she knelt on the
chipped marble stairs and gave