A prayer for Owen Meany (77 page)

"DON'T LOOK AT THE BLADE, AND DON'T LOOK AT YOUR
FINGER," he told me. "LOOK RIGHT AT ME." I shut my eyes when he
put the safety goggles in place. "DON'T SHUT YOUR EYES-THAT MIGHT MAKE YOU
DIZZY," he said. "KEEP LOOKING AT ME. THE ONLY THING YOU SHOULD BE
AFRAID OF IS MOVING-JUST DON'T MOVE," he said. "BY THE TIME YOU FEEL
ANYTHING, IT WILL BE OVER."

"I can't do it," I said.

"DON'T BE AFRAID," Owen told me. "YOU CAN DO
ANYTHING YOU WANT TO DO-IF YOU BELIEVE YOU CAN DO IT."

The lenses of the safety goggles were very clean; his eyes were
very clear.

"I LOVE YOU," Owen told me. "NOTHING BAD IS GOING
TO HAPPEN TO YOU-TRUST ME," he said. As he lowered the diamond wheel in
the gantry, I tried to put the sound of it out of my mind. Before I felt
anything, I saw the blood spatter the lenses of the safety goggles, through
which his eyes never blinked-he was such an expert with that thing. "JUST
THINK OF THIS AS MY LITTLE GIFT TO YOU," said Owen Meany.

THE SHOT

WHENEVER I HEAR someone generalizing favorably about "the
sixties," I feel like Hester, I feel like throwing up. I remember those
ardent simpletons who said-and this was after the massacre of those , civilians
in Hue, in '-that the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese were our moral
superiors. I remember a contemporary of mine asking me- with a killing lack of
humor-if  didn't sometimes think that our whole generation took itself too
seriously; and didn't  sometimes wonder if it was only the marijuana that
made us more aware?

"MORE AWARE OF WHAT?" Owen Meany would have asked. I
remember the aggressiveness of the so-called flower children-yes, righteousness
in the cause of peace, or in any other cause, is aggressive. And the mystical
muddiness of so much of the thinking-I remember that, too; and talking to
plants. And, with the exception of Owen Meany and the Beatles, I remember that
there was precious little irony. That's why Hester failed as a singer and as a
songwriter-a deadly absence of irony. Perhaps this is also why she's so
successful now: with the direction her music traveled, from folk to rock, and
with the visual aid of those appalling rock videos-those lazy-minded, sleazy
associations of "images"

that pass for narrative on all the rock-video television
channels around the world-irony is no longer necessary. Only the name that
Hester took for herself reflects the irony with which she was once so
familiar-in her relationship with Owen Meany. As a folksinger, she was Hester
Eastman-an earnest nobody, a flop. But as an aging hard-rock star, a fading
queen of the grittiest and randiest sort of rock 'n' roll, she is Hester the
Molesterl

"Who would have believed it?" Simon says. "
'Hester the Molester' is a fucking household word. The bitch should pay me a
commission-it was my name for her!'' That I am the first cousin of Hester the
Molester distinguishes me among my Bishop Strachan students, who are otherwise
inclined to view me as fussy and curmudgeonly-a cranky, short-haired type in
his corduroys and tweeds, eccentric only in his political tempers and in his
nasty habit of tamping the bowl of his pipe with the stump of his amputated
index finger. And why not? My finger is a perfect fit; we handicapped people
must learn to make the best of our mutilations and disfigurements. When Hester
has a concert in Toronto, my students who number themselves among her adoring
fans always approach me for tickets; they know I'm good for a dozen or so. And
that I attend Hester's occasional concerts here in the company of such
attractive young girls allows me to infiltrate the crowd of raving-maniac
rowdies unnoticed; that I come to her concerts as the escort of these young
girls also makes me almost' 'cool'' in Hester's eyes.

"There's hope for you yet," my cousin invariably says
to me, while my students are crowding into her messy, backstage dressing
room-naturally, speechless with awe at the sight of Hester in her typically
lewd dishevelment.

"They're my students," I remind Hester.

"Don't let that stop you," Hester tells me. And to one
or more of my students, Hester always says: "If you're worried about 'safe
sex,' you ought to try it with him-" and she then lays her heavy paw upon
my shoulder. "He's a virgin, you know," she tells my students.
"There's no one safer!"

And they titter and giggle at her joke-they think it is a joke.
It's precisely the outrageous sort of joke that they would expect from Hester
the Molester. I can tell: they don't even consider that Hester's claim-that I'm
a virgin-might be true]

Hester knows it's true. I don't know why she finds my

        
 
position offensive. After so many humiliating
years of trying to lose my virginity, which no one but myself appeared even
slightly interested in-hardly anyone has wanted to take it from me-I decided
that, in the long run, my virginity was valuable only if I kept it. I don't
think I'm a "nonpracticing homosexual," whatever that means. What has
happened to me has simply neutered me. I just don't feel like "practicing."

Hester, in her own fashion, has remained a kind of virgin, too.
Owen Meany was the love of her life; after him, she never allowed herself to
become so seriously involved. She says: "I like a young boy, every so
often. In keeping with the times, you know, I'm in favor of 'safe sex';
therefore, I prefer a virgin. And those young boys don't dare lie to me! And
they're easy to say good-bye to-in fact, they're even kinda grateful. What
could be better?" my cousin asks me. I have to smile back at her wicked
smile. Hester the Molested I have all her albums, but I don't have a record
player; I have all her tapes, too, but I don't own a tape deck-not even the
kind that fits in a car. I don't even own a car. My students can be relied upon
to keep me informed about Hester's new rock videos.

"Mister Wheelwright! Have you seen 'Drivin' with No
Hands'?" I shudder at the idea. Eventually, I see them all-you can't
escape the damn things; Hester's rock videos are notorious. The Rev. Katherine
Keeling herself is addicted! She claims it's because her children watch them,
and Katherine wants to keep up with whatever new atrocity is on her children's
minds. Hester's videos are truly ugly. Her voice has gotten louder, if not
better; her accompanying music is full of electric bass and other vibrations
that lower her nasal tones to the vocal equivalent of an abused woman crying
for help from the bottom of an iron barrel. And the visual accompaniment is a
mystifying blend of contemporary, carnal encounters with unidentified young
boys intercut with black-and-white, documentary footage from the Vietnam War.
Napalm victims, mothers cradling their murdered children, helicopters landing
and taking off and crashing in the midst of perilous ground fire, emergency
surgeries in the field, countless GI's with their heads in their hands-and
Hester herself, entering and leaving different but similar hotel rooms, wherein
a sheepish young boy is always just putting on or just taking off his clothes.
The age group of that young boy-especially, young girlsl- thinks that Hester
the Molester is both profound and humane.

"It's not like it's just her music, or her voice, you
know-it's her whole statement," one of my students told me; I felt so sick
to my stomach that I couldn't speak.

"It's not even her lyrics-it's her whole, you know, like
commentary," said another student. And these are smart girls-these are
educated young women from sophisticated families! I don't deny that Hester was
damaged by what happened to Owen Meany; I'm sure she thinks she was damaged
even more than I was damaged-and I wouldn't argue the point with her. We were
both damaged by what happened to Owen; who cares about morel But what an irony
it is that Hester the Molester has converted her damage into millions of
dollars and fame-that out of Owen's suffering, and her own, Hester has made a
mindless muddle of sex and protest, which young girls who have never suffered
feel they can "relate to."

What would Owen Meany have said about that? I can only imagine
how Owen would have critiqued one of Hester the Molester's rock videos:

"HESTER, ONE WOULD NEVER SUSPECT-FROM THIS MINDLESS
MESS-THAT YOU WERE A MUSIC MAJOR, AND A SOCIALIST. ONE WOULD TEND TO
CONCLUDE-UPON THE EVIDENCE OF THIS DISJOINTED WALLOWING-THAT YOU WERE BORN
TONE-DEAF, AND THAT YOU ARE DRAWING, ALMOST EXCLUSIVELY, UPON YOUR EXPERIENCES
AS A WAITRESS*"

And what would Owen Meany have made of the crucifixes? Hester
the Molester likes crucifixes, or else she likes to mock them-all kinds, all
sizes; around her neck and in her ears. Occasionally, she even wears one in her
nose; her right nostril is pierced.

"Are you Catholic?" an interviewer asked her once.

"Are you kidding?" Hester said. The English major in
me must point out that Hester has an ear for titles, if not for music.

"Drivin' with No Hands" Church, No Country, No More
"I Don't Believe in No Soul"

"Gone to Arizona"; "No ; "Just Another Dead
Hero"; "You Won't See Me at His Funeral"; "Life After
You"; "Why the Boys Want Me"; "Your Voice Convinces
Me"; "There's No Forgettin' Nineteen Sixty-eight."

        
 
I've got to admit, Hester's titles are
catchy; and she has as much of a right as I have to interpret the silence that
Owen Meany left behind. I should be careful not to generalize "the
silence"; in my case, Owen didn't leave me in absolute peace and quiet.
Twice, in fact, Owen has let me hear from him-I mean, in both cases, that he
let me hear from him after he was gone. Most recently-only this August-I heard
from him in a manner typical of Owen; which is to say, in a manner open to
interpretation and dispute. I was staying up late at  Front Street, and I
confess that my senses were impaired; Dan Needham and I were enjoying our usual
vacation-we were drinking too much. We were recalling the measures we took,
years ago, to allow Grandmother to go on living at  Front Street as long
as possible; we were remembering the incidents that finally led us to commit
Grandmother to the Gravesend Retreat for the Elderly. We hated to do it, but
she left us no choice; she drove Ethel crazy-we couldn't find a maid, or a
nurse, whom Grandmother couldn't drive crazy. After Owen Meany was gone,
everyone was too dull-witted to keep Harriet Wheelwright company. For years,
her groceries had been delivered by the Poggio brothers-Dominic Poggio, and the
dead one, whose name I no longer remember. Then the Poggios stopped making all
home deliveries. Out of fondness for my grandmother-who was his oldest-living
customer, and his only customer who always paid her bills on time-Dominic Poggio
generously offered to continue to make deliveries to  Front Street. Was
Grandmother appreciative of Dominic's generosity? She was not only
wnappreciative; she could not remember that the Poggios didn't deliver to
anyone else-that they were doing her a special favor. People had always done
special favors for Harriet Wheelwright; Grandmother took such treatment for
granted. And she was not only unappreciative; she was complaining. She
telephoned Dominic Poggio almost daily, and she upbraided him that his delivery
service was going to the dogs. In the first place, she reproached him, the
delivery boys were "total strangers." They were nothing of the kind;
they were Dominic Poggio's grandchildren-my grandmother simply forgot who they
were, and that she had seen them delivering her groceries for years.
Furthermore, my grandmother complained, these "total strangers" were
guilty of startling her-she had no fondness for surprises, she reminded poor
Dominic. Couldn't the Poggios telephone her before they made their frightening
deliveries? Grandmother asked. That way she would at least be forewarned that
the total strangers were coming. Dominic agreed. He was a sweet man who
cherished my grandmother; also, probably, he had wrongly predicted that she
would die any day now-and he would, he'd imagined, be rid of this nuisance. But
Grandmother lived on and on. When the Poggios called her and told her that the
delivery boys were on their way, my grandmother thanked them politely, hung up
the telephone, and promptly forgot that anyone was coming-or that she'd been
forewarned. When the boys would "startle" her, she would telephone
Dominic in a rage and say: "If you're going to send total strangers to
this house, you might at least have the courtesy to warn me when they're coming!"

"Yes, Missus Wheelwright!" Dominic always said. Then
he would call Dan to complain; he even called me a few times-in Toronto!

"I'm getting worried about your grandmother, John,"
Dominic would say. By this time, Grandmother had lost all her hair. She owned a
chest of drawers that was full of wigs, and she abused Ethel-and several of
Ethel's replacements-by complaining that her wigs were badly treated by the
chest of drawers, in addition to being inexpertly attached to her old bald head
by Ethel and the others. Grandmother developed such contempt for Ethel-and for
Ethel's inept replacements-that she plotted with considerable cunning to
undermine what she regarded as the already woefully inadequate abilities of her
serving women. They were no match for her. Grandmother hid her wigs so that
these luckless ladies could not find them; then she would abuse these fools for
misplacing her vital headpieces.

' 'Do you actually expect me to wander the world as if I were an
addlepated bald woman escaped from the circus?" she would say.

"Missus Wheelwright-where did you put your wigs?" the
women would ask her.

"Are you actually accusing me of intentionally desiring to
look like the lunatic victim of a nuclear disaster?" my

 
 
grandmother would
ask them. "I would rather be murdered by a maniac than be bald\"

More wigs were bought; most-but by no means all-of her old wigs
were found. When Grandmother especially disliked a wig, she would retire it in
the rose garden by submerging it in the birdbath. And when the Poggios continued
to send total strangers to her door-intent on startling her-Harriet Wheelwright
responded by startling them in return. She would dart to open the door for
them-sprinting ahead of Ethel or Ethel's replacements-and she would greet the
terrified delivery boys by snatching her wig off her head and shrieking at them
while she was bald. Poor Dominic Poggio's grandchildren! How they fought among
themselves not to be the boy who delivered the groceries to  Front Street.
It was shortly after the fourth or fifth such incident when Dan telephoned
me-in Toronto-and said: "It's about your grandmother. You know how much I
love her. But I think it's time."