A prayer for Owen Meany (75 page)

"FORT HUACHUCA HAS THE LARGEST HORSE POPULATION OF ANY ARMY
POST. THE HORSES AND THE TURN-OF-THE-CENTURY ARCHITECTURE OF THE OLD HOUSES,
AND THE WOODEN BARRACKS, AND THE PARADE GROUNDS-WHICH ARE LEFT OVER FROM THE
INDIAN WARS-MAKE EVERYTHING FEEL LIKE THE PAST. AND ALTHOUGH EVERYTHING IS
HUGE, IT IS ALSO ISOLATED; THAT FEELS LIKE THE PAST, TOO.

"WHEN IT RAINS, YOU CAN SMELL THE CREOSOTE BUSHES. MOSTLY,
IT'S SUNNY AND WARM-NOT TERRIBLY HOT; THE AIR IS DRIER THAN ANY PLACE I'VE EVER
BEEN. BUT-DON'T WORRY-THERE ARE NO PALM TREES!"

And so I moved in with Hester. I quickly realized that I had
done her a disservice-to think of her as slovenly. It was only herself she
treated carelessly; she kept the shared rooms of the apartment fairly neat, and
she even picked up my clothes and books-when I left them in the kitchen or in
the living room. Even the roaches in the kitchen were not there out of any
dirtiness that could t"e ascribed to Hester; and although she appeared to
know a lot of guys, not one of them ever returned to the apartment and spent
the night with her. She often came home quite late, but she always came home. I
did not ask her if she was being "faithful" to Owen Meany; I wanted
to give her the benefit of the doubt-and besides: who could even guess what
Owen was doing? From his letters, we gathered he was doing a lot of typing; he
was playing tennis, which Hester and I found unlikely-and he had actually taken
a couple of flying lessons, which we found unbelievable. He complained that his
room in the Bachelor Officers' Quarters-a dormitory-type room, with a private
bath-was stifling. But he complained, for a while, of almost nothing else. He
confessed he was "BUTTERING UP THE COMMANDER"-& certain Major
General LaHoad. "WE CALL HIM LATOAD," Owen wrote, "BUT HE'S A
GOOD GUY. I COULD DO A LOT WORSE THAN END UP AS HIS AIDE-DE-CAMP-THAT'S THE
ANGLE I'M SHOOTING. FORGIVE THE EXPRESSION-I'VE BEEN SHOOTING SOME POOL IN THE
COMPANY DAY ROOM.

"TYPICAL ARMY: WHEN I ARRIVE AND REPORT TO THE STRATEGIC
COMMUNICATIONS COMMAND, THEY TELL ME THERE'S BEEN A MISTAKE-THEY WANT ME IN THE
PERSONNEL SECTION, INSTEAD. THEY CALL IT 'PERSONNEL AND COMMUNITY ACTION' AT
THE POST. I SIGN DISCHARGE PAPERS, I ATTEND THE OCS AND WARRANT OFFICER
BOARDS-HAVE BEEN 'RECORDER' FOR THE LATTER. SCARIEST THING I DO IS PLAY NIGHT
WATCHMAN: I CARRY A FLASHLIGHT AND A MILITARY-POLICE RADIO. IT TAKES TWO HOURS
TO CHECK ALL THE LOCKS YOU THINK MIGHT BE JIMMIED AROUND THE FORT: THE SHOPS
AND THE CLUBS AND THE STORAGE SHEDS, THE MOTOR POOL AND THE COMMISSARY AND THE
AMMO DUMP. MEANWHILE, I KNOW THE EMERGENCY PROCEDURES IN THE STAFF DUTY
OFFICER'S NOTEBOOK BY HEART-'UPON WARNING OF A NUCLEAR ATTACK YOU SHOULD NOTIFY
. . . ' AND SO FORTH.

"IDEALLY, MAJOR GENERAL LAHOAD WILL CHOOSE ME TO BE THE
BARTENDER AT HIS PARTIES-AT THE LAST PARTY, I BROUGHT DRINKS TO HIS FLUFF OF A
WIFE ALL NIGHT; STILL COULDN'T FILL HER UP, BUT SHE LIKED THE ATTENTION. SHE
THINKS I'M 'CUTE'-YOU KNOW THE TYPE. I FIGURE IF I COULD BE LATOAD'S
AIDE-DE-CAMP-IF I COULD SWING IT-THE MAJOR GENERAL WOULD LOOK KINDLY UPON MY
REQUEST FOR TRANSFER. THINK WHAT A BLOW IT WOULD BE TO THE PERSONNEL SECTION-HOW
THEY WOULD MISS ME! TODAY I SIGNED A CHAPLAIN OUT ON LEAVE, AND I HELPED A
HYSTERICAL MOTHER LOCATE HER SON IN

         
 
THE SIGNAL GROUP-APPARENTLY, THE BAD BOY
HADN'T WRITTEN HOME.

"SPEAKING OF HOME, I'M TAKING TEN DAYS' LEAVE FOR
CHRISTMAS!"

And so Hester and I waited to see him. That October, President
Johnson visited the U.S. troops in Vietnam; but we heard no further word from
Owen Meany-concerning what progress or success he had encountered with his
efforts to be reassigned. All Owen said was: "MAJOR GENERAL LA-HOAD IS THE
KEY. I SCRATCH HIS BACK . . . YOU KNOW THE REST."

It was December before he mentioned that he'd sent another
Personnel Action Form to Washington, asking for transfer to Vietnam; those
forms, as many times as he would submit them, were routed through his chain of
command-including Major General LaHoad. By December, the major general had Owen
working as a casualty assistance officer in the Personnel Section. Apparently,
Owen had made a favorable impression upon some grieving Arizona family who had
connections at the Pentagon; through the chain of command, the major general
had received a special letter of commendation-the Casualty Branch at the post
had reason to be proud: a Second Lieutenant Paul O. Meany, Jr., had been of
great comfort to the parents of a LT infantry type who'd been killed in
Vietnam. Owen had been especially moving when he'd read the award citation for
the Silver Star medal to the next of kin. Major General LaHoad had
congratulated Owen personally. At Fort Huachuca, the Casualty Branch was
composed of Second Lieutenant Paul O. Meany, Jr., and a staff sergeant in his
thirties-"A DISGRUNTLED CAREER MAN," according to Owen; but the staff
sergeant had an Italian wife whose homemade pasta was "SUCH AN IMPROVEMENT
ON HESTER'S THAT IT MAKES THE STAFF SERGEANT OCCASIONALLY WORTH LISTENING
TO." In the Casualty Branch, the second lieutenant and the staff sergeant
were assisted by "A TWENTY-THREE-YEAR-OLD SPECS AND A TWENTY-TWO-YEAR-OLD
SPEC."

"He might as well be talking about insects-for all I
know!" Hester said. "What the fuck is a 'Spec Four' and a 'Spec
Five'-and how does he expect us to know what he's talking about?"

I wrote back to him. "What exactly does a casualty assistance
officer do!" I asked. On the walls of the Casualty Branch Office at Fort
Hua-huca, Owen said there were maps of Arizona and Vietnam- and a roster of
Arizona men who were prisoners of war or missing in action, along with the
names of their next of kin. When the body of an Arizona man arrived from
Vietnam, you went to California to escort the body home-the body, Owen
explained, had to be escorted by a man of the same rank or higher; thus a
private's body might be brought home by a sergeant, and a second lieutenant
would escort the body of another second lieutenant or (let's say) of a warrant
officer.

"Hester!" I said. "He's delivering bodies*. He's
the one who brings the casualties home!"

"That's his line of work, all right," Hester said.
"At least he's familiar with the territory."

My "line of work," it seemed to me, was reading; my
ambitions extended no further than to my choice of reading material. I loved
being a graduate student; I loved my first teaching job, too-yet I felt I was
so undaring. The very thought of bringing bodies home to their next of kin gave
me the shivers. In his diary, he wrote: "THE OFFICE FOR THE CASUALTY
BRANCH IS IN THE PART OF THE POST THAT WAS BUILT JUST AFTER BLACK JACK
PERSHING'S EXPEDITION AGAINST PANCHO VILLA-OUR BUILDING IS OLD AND STUCCOED AND
THE MINT-GREEN PAINT ON THE CEILING IS PEELING. WE HAVE A WALL POSTER DEPICTING
ALL THE MEDALS THE ARMY OFFERS. WITH A GREASE PENCIL, ON TWO PLASTIC-COVERED
CHARTS, WE WRITE THE NAMES OF THE WEEK'S CASUALTIES, ALONGSIDE THE ARIZONA PRISONERS
OF WAR. WHAT THE ARMY CALLS ME IS A 'CASUALTY ASSISTANCE OFFICER'; WHAT I AM IS
A BODY ESCORT."

"Jesus! Tell me all about it!" I said-when he was home
on leave for Christmas.

"SO HOW DO YOU LIKE BEING A GRADUATE STUDENT?" he
asked me. "SO WHAT'S HE LIKE FOR A ROOMMATE?" he asked Hester. He was
tan and fit-looking; maybe it was all the tennis. His uniform had only one
medal on it.

"THEY GIVE IT TO EVERYONE!" said Owen Meany. On his
left sleeve was a patch indicating his post, and on each shoulder epaulet was a
brass bar signifying that he was a

        
 
second lieutenant; on each collar was the
brass U.S. insignia and the red-and-blue-striped silver shield of his branch:
the Adjutant General's Corps. The MEANY name tag was the only other hardware on
his uniform-there were no marksmanship badges, or anything else.

"NO OVERSEAS PATCH-I'M NOT MUCH TO LOOK AT," he said
shyly; Hester and I couldn't take our eyes off him.

"Are they really in plastic bags-the bodies?" Hester
asked him.

"Do you have to check the contents of the bags?" I
asked him.

"Are there sometimes just parts of a head and loose fingers
and toes?" Hester asked him.

"I suppose this might change how you feel-about going over
there?" I said to him.

"Do the parents freak!" Hester asked. "And the
wives-do you have to talk to the wives?"

He looked so awfully composed-he made us feel as if we'd never
left school; of course, we hadn't.

"IT'S A WAY TO GO TO CALIFORNIA," Owen said evenly.
"I FLY TO TUCSON. I FLY TO OAKLAND-IT'S THE ARMY BASE IN OAKLAND WHERE YOU
GET YOUR BODY INSTRUCTIONS."

"What are 'body instructions,' for Christ's sake?"
Hester said; but Owen ignored her.

"SOMETIMES I FLY BACK FROM SAN FRANCISCO," he said.
"EITHER WAY, I GO CHECK THE CONTAINER IN THE BAGGAGE AREA-ABOUT TWO HOURS
BEFORE WE TAKE OFF."

"You check the plastic bag?" I asked him.

"IT'S A PLYWOOD CONTAINER," he said. "THERE'S NO
BAG. THE BODY IS EMBALMED. IT'S IN A CASKET. IN CALIFORNIA, I JUST CHECK THE
PLYWOOD CONTAINER."

"For what?" I said.

"FOR LEAKS," he said. Hester looked as if she might
throw up. "AND THERE'S INFORMATION STAPLED TO THE CONTAINER-I JUST MATCH
THAT UP WITH THE K.I.A. SHEET."

" 'K.I.A.'-what's that?" I said.

"KILLED IN ACTION," he said.

"Yes, of course," I said.

"BACK IN ARIZONA, IN THE FUNERAL HOME- THAT'S WHEN I CHECK
THE BODY," he said.

"I don't want to hear any more," Hester said.

"OKAY," he said; he shrugged. When we got away from
Hester-we went to the Gravesend Academy gym to practice the shot, of course-I
kept asking him about the bodies.

"USUALLY, YOU DISCUSS WITH THE MORTICIAN WHETHER OR NOT THE
BODY IS SUITABLE FOR VIEWING-WHETHER OR NOT THE FAMILY SHOULD SEE IT," he
said. "SOMETIMES THE FAMILY WANTS TO BE CLOSE TO YOU-THEY FEEL YOU'RE ONE
OF THEM. OTHER TIMES, YOU GET THE FEELING YOU SHOULD KEEP OUT OF THEIR WAY-YOU
HAVE TO PLAY THIS PART BY EAR. AND THEN THERE'S THE FOLDING OF THE FLAG-YOU
GIVE THE FLAG TO THE MOTHER, USUALLY; OR TO THE WIFE, IF THERE'S A WIFE. THAT'S
WHEN YOU GIVE YOUR LITTLE SPEECH."

"What do you say?" I asked him. He was dribbling the
basketball, his head nodding almost imperceptibly to the rhythm of the ball
bouncing on the floor, his eyes always on the rim of the basket. " 'IT IS
MY PRIVILEGE TO PRESENT TO YOU OUR COUNTRY'S FLAG IN GRATEFUL APPRECIATION FOR
THE SERVICE RENDERED TO THIS NATION BY YOUR SON'- NATURALLY, YOU SAY 'BY YOUR
HUSBAND,' IF YOU'RE GIVING THE FLAG TO A WIFE," he added.

"Naturally," I said; he passed me the ball.

"READY?" he said. He was already moving toward
me-already timing his leap and, in his mind's eye, seeing the shot fall-when I
passed the ball back to him. Those were brief days and nights; we tried to
remember which government spokesman had said that Operation Rolling Thunder was
"closing in on Hanoi." That was what had prompted Owen to say:
"I THINK HANOI CAN HANDLE IT."

According to the State Department-according to Dean Rusk-we were
"winning a war of attrition." That was what prompted Owen to say:
"THAT'S NOT THE KIND OF WAR WE WIN."

He had revised a few of his earlier views of our Vietnam policy.
Some veterans of the war, whom he'd met at Fort

 
 
Huachuca, had
convinced him that Marshal Ky had once been popular, but now the Viet Cong was
gaining the support of South Vietnamese peasants-because our troops had pulled
out of the populated areas and were wasting their time chasing the North
Vietnamese through the jungles and the mountains. Owen wanted to learn why our
troops didn't pull back into the populated areas and wait for the North
Vietnamese and the Viet Cong to come to them. If we were "protecting"
South Vietnam, why didn't we stay with the people and protect them? On the
other hand, it was confusing because many of the Vietnam veterans Owen had met
were of the opinion that we should be fighting more "all-out," that
we should bomb North Vietnam even more, mine the harbors, and make an
amphibious landing north of the DMZ to cut the supply lines for the North
Vietnamese Army-in short, fight to win. There was no way to really know what we
should do if one didn't go over there and see it, Owen said, but he believed
that trying to win a conventional war against North Vietnam was stupid. We
should stay in South Vietnam and protect the South Vietnamese from North
Vietnamese aggression, and from the Viet Cong- until such time as the South Vietnamese
developed an army and, more important, a government that was strong and popular
enough to make South Vietnam capable of protecting itself.

"Then the South Vietnamese will be able to attack North
Vietnam all by themselves-is that what you mean?" Hester asked him.
"You make about as much sense as LBJ," she said. Hester wouldn't say
"President Johnson."

As for President Johnson, Owen said: "THERE HAS NEVER BEEN
A WORSE PRESIDENT-THERE COULDN'T BE A WORSE ONE, UNLESS THEY ELECT
MCNAMARA."

Hester talked about the "Peace Movement."

"WHAT 'PEACE MOVEMENT'?-OR DO YOU MEAN THE
DON'T-GET-DRAFTED MOVEMENT? THAT'S THE ONLY 'MOVEMENT' I SEE," said Owen
Meany. We talked like the war itself, going nowhere. I moved out of the
apartment, so that he could have some nights alone with Hester-I don't know if
either of them appreciated it. I spent a few pleasant evenings with Dan and
Grandmother. I had convinced Grandmother to take the train, with me, to Sawyer
Depot for Christmas; Grandmother had decided, previously, that she no longer
took trains. It was arranged that Dan would take the Christmas Eve train from
Gravesend, following the closing performance of A Christmas Carol. And Aunt
Martha and Uncle Alfred had prevailed upon Hester to bring Owen to Sawyer Depot
for Christmas-that was how significantly Owen had managed to impress them.
Hester kept threatening to back out of these lavish reunion plans; I believe it
was only for Owen's sake that she was agreeing to go home at all-especially for
Christmas. Then all these plans fell through. No one had noticed how severely
the train service had been deteriorating; it turned out that it wasn't possible
to take a train from Gravesend to Sawyer Depot-and on Christmas Eve, the
stationmaster told Dan, it was impossible to take a train anywhere] And so we
once more reverted to our isolated Christmases. On the day of Christmas Eve,
Owen and I were practicing the shot in the Gravesend Academy gym and he told me
he was simply spending a quiet Christmas with his parents; I was spending the
day with Grandmother and Dan. Hester, according to Owen, had-on the spur of the
moment-accepted an invitation to SOMEWHERE SUNNY.