A prayer for Owen Meany (73 page)

"I'd hate to see your phone bill," I told him.

"I USED HESTER'S PHONE," he said.

"I'm surprised she didn't beat the shit out of you for
that," I said.

"SHE DID," Owen said; he turned his face away from the
glowing light of the TV. "I WOULDN'T TELL HER WHAT THE PHONE CALLS WERE
ABOUT, AND SHE THOUGHT I HAD ANOTHER GIRLFRIEND."

"Why don't you have another girlfriend?" I asked him;
he shrugged again.

"SHE DOESN'T BEAT ME UP ALL THE TIME," Owen said. What
could I say? I didn't even have a girlfriend.

"We ought to think about our trip," I said to him.
"We've got thirty days coming up-where do you want to go?"

"SOMEWHERE WARM," said Owen Meany.

"It's warm everywhere-in June," I reminded him.

"I'D LIKE TO GO WHERE THERE ARE PALM TREES," Owen
said. We watched Moon over Miami for a while, in silence.

"We could drive to Florida," I said.

"NOT IN THE PICKUP," he said. "THE PICKUP
WOULDN'T MAKE IT TO FLORIDA."

"We could take my Volkswagen," I said. "We could
drive to California in the Beetle-no problem."

"BUT WHERE WOULD WE SLEEP?" Owen asked me. "I
CAN'T AFFORD MOTELS."

"Grandmother would lend us the money," I said.

"I'VE TAKEN ENOUGH MONEY FROM YOUR GRANDMOTHER," he
said.

"Well, / could lend you the money," I said.

"IT'S THE SAME MONEY," said Owen Meany.

"We could take a tent-and sleeping bags," I said.
"We could camp out."

"I'VE THOUGHT OF THAT," he said. "IF WE CARRY A
LOT OF CAMPING STUFF, WE'D BE BETTER OFF IN THE PICKUP-BUT THE PICKUP WOULD DIE
ON US, ON A TRIP OF THAT DISTANCE."

Was there anything Owen Meany hadn't thought of before I'd
thought of it? I wondered.

"WE DON'T HAVE TO GO WHERE THERE ARE PALM TREES-IT WAS JUST
AN IDEA," Owen said. We weren't in the mood for Moon over Miami; a story
about husband-hunting requires a special mood. Owen went out to the pickup and
got his flashlight; then we walked up Front Street to Linden Street-past the
Gravesend High School to the cemetery. The night was still warm, and not
especially dark. As graves go, my mother's grave looked pretty nice.
Grandmother had planted a border of crocuses and daffodils and tulips, so that
even in the spring there was color; and Grandmother's touch with-roses was
evident by the well-pruned rose bush that took very firm grasp of the trellis
that stood like a comfortable headboard directly behind my mother's grave. Owen
played the flashlight over the beveled edges of the gravestone; I'd seen better
work with the diamond wheel-Owen's work was much, much better. But I never
supposed that Owen had been old enough to fashion my mother's stone.

"MY FATHER WAS NEVER AN EXPERT WITH THE DIAMOND
WHEEL," Owen observed.

 
 
Dan Needham had
recently placed a fresh bouquet of spring flowers in front of the gravestone,
but Owen and I could still manage to see the lettering of my mother's name-and
the appropriate dates.

"If she were alive, she'd be forty-three!'' I said.
"Imagine that."

"SHE'D STILL BE BEAUTIFUL!" said Owen Meany. When we
were walking back along Linden Street, I was thinking that we could take a trip
"Down East," as people in New Hampshire say-by which they mean, along
the coast of Maine, all the way to Nova Scotia.

"Could the pickup make it to Nova Scotia?" I asked
Owen. "Suppose we just took it easy, and drove along the coast of
Maine-not in any hurry, not caring about when we arrived in Nova Scotia, not
even caring if we ever arrived there-do you think the pickup could handle
that?"

"I'VE BEEN THINKING ABOUT THAT," he said. "YES, I
THINK WE COULD DO THAT-IF WE DIDN'T TRY TO DRIVE TOO MANY MILES IN ONE DAY.
WITH THE PICKUP WE COULD CERTAINLY CARRY ALL THE CAMPING GEAR WE'D EVER NEED-WE
COULD EVEN PITCH THE TENT IN THE BACK OF THE PICKUP, IF WE EVER HAD A PROBLEM
FINDING DRY OR LEVEL GROUND. ..."

"That would be fun!" I said. "I've never been to
Nova Scotia-I've never been very far into Maine."

On Front Street, we stopped to pet someone's cat.

"I'VE ALSO BEEN THINKING ABOUT SAWYER DEPOT," said
Owen Meany.

"What about it?" I asked him.

"I'VE NEVER BEEN THERE, YOU KNOW," he said.

"It's not really very interesting in Sawyer Depot," I
said cautiously. I didn't think my Aunt Martha and Uncle Alfred would welcome
Owen Meany into their home with open arms; and considering what had just
happened with Hester, I wondered what attraction Sawyer Depot still had for
Owen.

"I'D JUST LIKE TO SEE IT," he said. "I'VE HEARD
SO MUCH ABOUT IT. EVEN IF THE EASTMANS WOULDN'T WANT ME IN THE HOUSE, PERHAPS
YOU COULD SHOW ME LOVELESS LAKE-AND THE BOAT-HOUSE, AND MAYBE THE MOUNTAIN
WHERE ALL OF YOU WENT SKIING. AND FIREWATER!" he said.

"Firewater's been dead for years!" I told him.

"OH," he said. My grandmother's driveway looked like a
parking lot. There was Grandmother's old Cadillac, and my Volkswagen Beetle,
and the dusty tomato-red pickup; and parked at the rear of the line was
Hester's hand-me-down ' Chevy. She must have been out looking for Owen; and
when she'd seen the pickup in Grandmother's driveway, she must have gone
into  Front Street to find him. We found her asleep on the couch; the only
light that flashed over her was the ghastly, bone-colored glow from the TV,
which she had turned to another channel-apparently, Hester hadn't been in the
mood for Moon over Miami, either. She had fallen asleep watching Duchess of
Idaho.

"HESTER HATES ESTHER WILLIAMS, UNLESS ESTHER IS
UNDERWATER," said Owen Meany. He went and sat beside Hester on the couch;
he touched her hair, then her cheek. I switched the channel; there was never
just one Late Show-not anymore. Moon over Miami was over; something called The
Late, Late Show had begun in its place-John Wayne, in Operation Pacific.

"HESTER HATES JOHN WAYNE," Owen said, and Hester woke
up. John Wayne was in a submarine in World War Two; he was battling the
Japanese.

"I'm not watching a war movie," Hester said; she
turned on the lamp on the end table next to the couch-she examined the stitches
in Owen's lip closely. "How many?" she asked him.

"FOUR," he told her. She kissed him very softly on his
upper lip and on the tip of his nose, and on the corners of his mouth-being
very careful not to kiss the stitches. "I'm sorry! I love you!" she
whispered to him.

"I'M OKAY," said Owen Meany. I flicked through the
channels until I found something interesting- Sherlock Holmes in Terror by
Night, with Basil Rathbone.

"I can't remember if I've seen this one," Hester said.

"I know I've seen it, but I can't remember it," I
said.

"IT'S THE ONE WITH THE JEWEL ON THE TRAIN-IT'S A PRETTY
GOOD ONE," said Owen Meany. He curled up next to Hester on the couch; he
laid his head against her bosom, and she cradled him in her arms. In a few
minutes, he was fast asleep.

"Better turn the volume down," Hester whispered to me.
When I looked at her-to see if I'd lowered the volume enough-she was crying.

"I think I'll go to bed," I told her quietly.
"I've seen Sherlock Holmes a hundred times."

"We'll stay a while," Hester said. "Good
night."

"He wants to go to Sawyer Depot," I told her.

"I know," she said. I lay in bed awake a long time.
When I heard their voices in the driveway, I got up and went into my mother's
empty bedroom; from the window there, I could see them. The curtains were never
drawn in my mother's bedroom, in memory of how she had hated the darkness. It
was almost dawn, and Hester and Owen were discussing how they would drive back
to Durham.

"I'll follow you," Hester said.

"NO, I'LL FOLLOW YOU," he told her. Then I graduated
from the University of New Hampshire-a B.A. in English, cum laude. Owen just
plain graduated- Second Lieutenant Paul O. Meany, Jr., with a B.S. in Geology.
He was not reassigned to a combat branch; he was ordered to report to Fort
Benjamin Harrison in Indiana, where he would undertake an eight- to ten-week
course in Basic Administration for the Adjutant General's Corps. After that,
the Army wanted him to report to a communications command in Arizona. Although
the Army might later send him anywhere in the country-or even to Saigon-they
were assigning him to a desk job.

"SECOND LIEUTENANTS ARE SUPPOSED TO BE PLATOON
LEADERS'!" said Owen Meany. Naturally, Hester and I had to conceal how
pleased we were. Even in Vietnam, the Adjutant General's Corps was not a branch
with a high rate of casualties. We knew he wouldn't give up; every few months
he would fill out another Personnel Action Form, requesting a new
assignment-and he claimed that Colonel Eiger had provided him with the name and
telephone number of someone in the Pentagon, a certain major who allegedly
supervised the personnel files and assignments of the junior officers. Hester
and I knew better than to ever underestimate Owen's powers of manipulation.
But, for the moment, we thought he was safe; and the U.S. Army, I believed, was
not as easy to manipulate as a children's Christmas pageant.

"What exactly does the Adjutant General's Corps doT' I
asked him cautiously. But he wouldn't discuss it.

"THIS IS JUST AN INTERIM ASSIGNMENT," said Owen Meany.
Dan and I had to laugh; it was funny to think of him suffering through a Basic
Administration course in Indiana when what he had imagined for himself was
jumping out of a helicopter and hacking his way through a jungle with his
machete and his M-. Owen was angry, but he wasn't depressed; he was irritable,
but he was determined. Then one evening I was walking through the Gravesend
Academy campus and I saw the tomato-red pickup parked in the circular driveway
from which poor Dr. Dolder's Volkswagen Beetle had been elevated to its moment
in history. The headlights of the pickup were shining across the vast lawn in
front of the Main Academy Building; the lawn was full of chairs. Rows upon rows
of chairs, and the benches from The Great Hall, were spread out across the
lawn-I would estimate that there was seating for five hundred people. It was
that time of the year when Gravesend Academy hoped it wouldn't rain; the chairs
and benches were assembled for the annual commencement. If it rained-to
everyone's sorrow-there was no place large enough to hold the commencement,
except the gym; not even The Great Hall would hold the crowd. Commencement had
been outdoors the year I graduated- the year Owen should have graduated, the
year he should have been our class valedictorian. Hester was sitting by herself
in the cab of the pickup; she motioned to me to get in and sit beside her.

' 'Where is he?'' I asked her. She pointed into the path of the
pickup truck's headlights. Beyond the rows upon rows of chairs and benches was
a makeshift stage, draped with the Gravesend Academy banner and dotted with
chairs for the dignitaries and the speakers; at the center of this stage was
the podium, and at the podium was Owen Meany. He was looking out over the
hundreds of empty seats-he appeared to be a little blinded by the pickup
truck's headlights, but he needed the light in order to see his valedictory
speech, which he was reading.

"He doesn't want anyone to hear it-he just wants to say
it," Hester said. When he joined Hester and me in the cab of the pickup, I

        
 
said to him: "I would have liked to hear
that. Won't you read it to us?"

"IT'S OVER," said Owen Meany. "IT'S JUST SOME OLD
HISTORY."

And so we departed for the north country-for Sawyer Depot, and
Loveless Lake. We took the pickup; we did not take Hester. I'm not sure if she
wanted to come. She had made the effort to speak to her parents; Uncle Alfred
and Aunt Martha were always happy to see me, and they were polite-if not
exactly warm-to Owen Meany. We spent the first night of our trip in the
Eastmans' house in Sawyer Depot. I slept in Noah's bed; Noah was in the Peace
Corps-I believe he was teaching Forestry, or "Forest Management," to
Nigerians. Uncle Alfred referred to what Noah was doing as a' 'ticket''-
Africa, or the Peace Corps, was Noah's "ticket out of Vietnam," Uncle
Alfred said. That summer, Simon was running the sawmill; over the years, Simon
had injured his knees so often-skiing-that Simon's knees were his ticket out of
Vietnam.- Simon had a -F deferment; he was judged physically unfit for service.
"Unless the country is invaded by aliens," Simon said, "good old
Uncle Sam won't take me!"

Owen referred to his course in Basic Administration for the
Adjutant General's Corps as TEMPORARY. Arizona would also be TEMPORARY, Owen
said. Uncle Alfred was very respectful of Owen's desire to go to Vietnam, but
Aunt Martha-over our elegant dinner-questioned the war's "morality."

"YES, I QUESTION THAT, TOO," said Owen Meany.
"BUT I FEEL ONE HAS TO SEE SOMETHING FIRSTHAND TO BE SURE. I'M CERTAINLY
INCLINED TO AGREE WITH KENNEDY'S ASSESSMENT OF THE VIETNAMESE PROBLEM-WAY BACK
IN NINETEEN SIXTY-THREE. YOU MAY RECALL THAT THE PRESIDENT SAID: 'WE CAN HELP
THEM, WE CAN GIVE THEM EQUIPMENT, WE CAN SEND OUR MEN OUT THERE AS ADVISERS,
BUT THEY HAVE TO WIN IT, THE PEOPLE OF VIETNAM.' I THINK THAT POINT IS STILL
VALID-AND IT'S CLEAR TO ALL OF US THAT THE 'PEOPLE OF VIETNAM' ARE NOT WINNING
THE WAR. WE APPEAR TO BE TRYING TO WIN IT FOR THEM.

"BUT LET'S SUPPOSE, FOR A MOMENT, THAT WE BELIEVE IN THE
STATED OBJECTIVES OF THE JOHNSON ADMINISTRATION'S VIETNAM POLICY- AND THAT WE
SUPPORT THIS POLICY. WE AGREE TO RESIST COMMUNIST AGGRESSION IN SOUTH
VIETNAM-WHETHER IT COMES FROM THE NORTH VIETNAMESE OR THE VIET CONG. WE SUPPORT
THE IDEA OF SELF-DETERMINATION FOR SOUTH VIETNAM- AND WE WANT PEACE IN
SOUTHEAST ASIA. IF THESE ARE OUR OBJECTIVES-IF WE AGREE THAT THIS IS WHAT WE
WANT-WHY ARE WE ESCALATING THE WAR?

"THERE DOESN'T APPEAR TO BE A GOVERNMENT IN SAIGON THAT CAN
DO VERY WELL WITHOUT US. DO THE SOUTH VIETNAMESE PEOPLE EVEN LIKE THE MILITARY
JUNTA OF MARSHAL KY? NATURALLY, HANOI AND THE VIET CONG WILL NOT NEGOTIATE FOR
A PEACEFUL SETTLEMENT IF THEY THINK THEY CAN WIN THE WAR! THERE'S EVERY REASON
FOR THE UNITED STATES TO KEEP ENOUGH OF OUR GROUND FORCES IN SOUTH VIETNAM TO
PERSUADE HANOI AND THE VIET CONG THAT THEY COULD NEVER ACHIEVE A MILITARY
VICTORY. BUT WHAT DOES IT ACCOMPLISH FOR US TO BOMB THE NORTH?