A prayer for Owen Meany (85 page)

"Yes, sir," I said.

"He proved he was quite suitable for combat," Colonel
Eiger said.

"Yes, sir," I said. The colonel put his liver-spotted
hand on my shoulder; then he stepped to one side of the heavy double doors and
stood at attention, as if he meant to challenge Chief Ben Pike's position of
authority. The honor guard, in white spats and white gloves, strode down the
aisle in bridal cadence and smartly split to each side of the flag-draped
casket, where Owen's medal-pinned to the flag-brightly reflected the beam of
sunlight that shone through the hole the baseball had made in the stained-glass
window of the chancel. In the routine gloom of the old stone church, this
unfamiliar beam of light appeared to be drawn to the bright gold of Owen's
medal-as if the light itself had burned a hole in the dark stained glass; as if
the light had been searching for Owen Meany. A stern, sawed-off soldier, whom
Colonel Eiger had referred to as a master sergeant, whispered something to the
honor guard, who stood at parade rest and glanced anxiously at Colonel Eiger
and the first lieutenant who was serving his first duty as a body escort.
Colonel Eiger whispered something to the first lieutenant. The congregation
coughed; they creaked in the old, worn

        
 
pews. The organ cranked out one dirge after
another while the stragglers found their seats. Although Mr. Early was one of
the ushers, and Dan Needham was another, most of the ushers were quarrymen-I
recognized the derrickman and the dynamiters; I nodded to the signalman and the
sawyers, and the channel bar drillers. These men looked like granite itself-its
great strength can withstand a pressure of twenty thousand pounds per square
inch. Granite, like lava, was once melted rock; but it did not rise to the
earth's surface-it hardened deep underground; and because it hardened slowly,
it formed fairly large crystals. Mr. and Mrs. Meany occupied the front
right-center pew of Kurd's Church all by themselves. They sat like upheaved
slabs of granite, not moving, their eyes fixed upon the dazzling medal that
winked in the beam of sunlight on top of Owen's casket. The Meanys stared
intently; they viewed their son's casket with much the same strangled awe that
had shone in their eyes when the little Lord Jesus had spotted them in the
congregation at the Christ Church Christmas Pageant of -when Owen had basked in
the "pillar of light." The alertness and anxiety in the Meanys'
expressions suggested to me that they remembered how Owen had reproached them
for their uninvited attendance at that Nativity.

"WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING HERE?" the angry Lord
Jesus had screamed at them. "YOU SHOULDN'T BE HERE!" Owen had
shouted. "IT IS A SACRILEGE FOR YOU TO BE HERE!"

That is what / thought about Owen's funeral: that it was a
SACRILEGE for the Meanys to be there. And their nervous fixation upon Owen's
medal, pinned to the American flag, suggested that the Meanys quite possibly
feared that Owen might rise up from his casket as he had risen up from the
mountain of hay in the manger-and once again reproach his parents. They had
actually told a ten- or eleven-year-old boy that he'd had a "virgin birth"-that
he was "like the Christ Child"! At Owen's funeral in Kurd's Church, I
found myself praying that Owen would rise up from his closed casket and shout
at his poor parents: "YOU SHOULDN'T BE HERE!" But Owen Meany didn't
move, or speak. Mr. Fish looked very frail; yet he sat beside my grandmother in
the second row of right-center pews and fixed his gaze upon the shining medal
on Owen Meany's casket-as if Mr. Fish also hoped that Owen would give us one
more performance; as if Mr. Fish could not believe that, in this production,
Owen Meany had not been given a speaking part. My Uncle Alfred and Aunt Martha
also sat in Grandmother's pew; none of us had mentioned Hester's absence; even
Simon-who was also seated in Grandmother's pew-had restrained himself from
speaking about Hester. The Eastmans more comfortably discussed how sorry they
were that Noah couldn't be there-Noah was still in Africa, teaching proper
forestry to the Nigerians. I'll never forget what Simon said to me when I told
him I was going to Canada.

"Canada! That's gonna be one of the biggest problems facing
northeastern lumber mills-you wait and see!" Simon said. "Those
Canadians are gonna export their lumber at a much lower cost than we're gonna
produce it here!"

Good old Simon: not a political bone in his body; I doubt it
occurred to him that I wasn't going to Canada for the lumber. I recognized the
Prelude, from Handel's Messiah-" know that my Redeemer liveth." I
also recognized the pudgy man across the aisle from me; he was about my age, and
he'd been staring at me. But it wasn't until he began to search the high,
vaulted ceiling of Kurd's Church-perhaps seeking angels in the shadowy
buttresses-that I realized I was in the presence of Fat Harold Crosby, the
former Announcing Angel who'd flubbed his lines and needed prompting, and who'd
been abandoned in the heavens of Christ Church in the Nativity of '. I nodded
to Harold, who smiled tearfully at me; I'd heard that Mrs. Hoyt had
successfully coached him into acquiring a -F deferment from the draft-for
psychological reasons. I did not, at first, recognize our old Sunday school
teacher, Mrs. Walker. She looked especially severe in black, and without her
sharp criticisms of Owen Meany-to get back to his seat, to get down from up
there!-I did not instantly remember her as the Sunday school tyrant who was
stupid enough to think that Owen Meany had put himself up in the air. The
Dowlings were there, not seizing the opportunity to use this occasion to flaunt
their much-embattled, sexual role reversals; they had-and probably this was for
the best- never had a child. Larry O'Day, the Chevy dealer, was also

        
 
there; he'd played Bob Cratchit in A
Christmas Carol-in that notable year when Owen Meany had played the Ghost of
Christmas Yet to Come. He was with his racy daughter, Caroline O'Day, who sat
with her lifelong friend Maureen Early, who'd twice wet her pants while
watching Owen Meany show Scrooge his future-it was Caroline who had many times
rejected my advances, both while wearing and not wearing her St. Michael's
uniform. Even Mr. Kenmore, the A&P butcher, was there-with Mrs. Kenmore and
their son Donny, such faithful fans that they had never missed a Little League
game. Yes, they were all there-even Mr. Morrison, the cowardly mailman; even he
was there! And the new headmaster of Gravesend Academy; he'd never met Owen
Meany-yet he was there, perhaps acknowledging that he wouldn't have been made
the new headmaster if Owen Meany hadn't lost the battle but won the war with
Randy White. And if old Archie Thorndike had been alive, I know that he would
have been there, too. The Brinker-Smiths were not in attendance; I'm sure they
would have come, had they not moved back to England-so firm was their
opposition to the war in Vietnam that they hadn't wanted their twins to be
Americans. Wherever the Brinker-Smiths were, I hoped that they still loved each
other as passionately as they once loved each other-on all the floors, in all
the beds-in Waterhouse Hall. And our old friend the retarded janitor from the
Gravesend gym-the man who'd so faithfully timed the shot, who'd been our
witness the first time we sank the shot in under three seconds!-had also come
to pay his respects to the little Slam-Dunk Master! Then a cloud passed over
the hole the baseball had made in the stained-glass window of the chancel;
Owen's gold medal glowed a little less insistently. My grandmother, who was
trembling, held my hand as we rose to join in the processional hymn-not meaning
to, Grandmother squeezed the stump of my amputated finger. As Colonel Eiger and
the young first lieutenant approached the casket from the center aisle, the
honor guard came stiffly to attention. We sang the hymn we'd sung at morning
meeting, the morning Owen had bolted the headless and armless Mary Magdalene to
the podium on the stage of The Great Hall. The Son of God goes forth to war, A
king-ly crown to gain; His blood-red ban-ner streams a-far; Who fol-lows in his
train? Who best can drink his cup of woe, Tri-um-phant o-ver pain, Who pa-tient
bears his cross be-low, He fol-lows in his train.

There is a note following "An Order for Burial" in The
Book of Common Prayer-according to the use of the Episcopal Church. This note
is very sensible. "The liturgy for the dead is an Easter liturgy,"
the note says. "It finds all its meaning in the resurrection. Because
Jesus was raised from the dead, we, too, shall be raised. The liturgy,
therefore, is characterized by joy . . ." the note goes on. "This
joy, however, does not make human grief unchristian . . ." the note
concludes. And so we sang our hearts out for Owen Meany-aware that while the
liturgy for the dead might be characterized by joy, our so-called "human
grief did not make us "unchristian." When we managed to get through
the hymn, we sat down and looked up-and there was the Rev. Lewis Merrill,
already standing in the pulpit.

" 'I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord . .
.' " my father began. There was something newly powerful and confident in
his voice, and the mourners heard it; the congregation gave him their complete
attention. Of course, I knew what it was that had changed in him; he had found
his lost faith-he spoke with absolute belief in every word he uttered;
therefore, he never stuttered. When he would look up from The Book of Common Prayer,
he would gesture with his arms, like a swimmer exercising for the breaststroke,
and the fingers of his right hand extended into the shaft of sunlight that
plunged through the hole the baseball had made in the stained-glass window; Mr.
MerriU's fingers moving in and out of the beam of light caused Owen Meany's
medal to twinkle.

" "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the
Lord has anointed me to bring good tidings to the afflicted Pastor Merrill read
to us. "'... he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,' " cried
Mr. Merrill, who had no doubt-his doubt was gone; it had vanished, forever! He
scarely paused

        
 
for breath. " '. . . to comfort all who
mourn,' " he proclaimed. But Mr. Merrill was not satisfied; he must have
felt that we could not be comforted enough by only Isaiah. My father thought we
should also be comforted by Lamentations, from which he read:'' 'The Lord is
good to those who wait for him, to the soul that seeks him.' " And if that
morsel could not satisfy our hunger to be comforted, Pastor Merrill led us
further into Lamentations: " 'For the Lord will not cast off for ever,
but, though he cause grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance
of his steadfast love; for he does not willingly afflict or grieve the sons of
men.' '' The fingers of my father's pale hand moved in and out of the shaft of
sunlight, like minnows, and Owen's medal blinked at us as rhythmically as a beacon
from a lighthouse. Then Pastor Merrill exhorted us through that familiar psalm:
" "The Lord shall preserve thy going out, and thy coming in, from
this time forth for evermore.' "

Thus he led us into the New Testament Lesson, beginning with
that little bit of bravery from Romans: " 'I consider that the sufferings
of this present time are not worth comparing to the glory that is to be
revealed to us.' " But Lewis Merrill would not rest; for we missed Owen
Meany so much that we ached for him, and Pastor Merrill would not rest until
he'd assured us that Owen had left us for a better world. My father flung
himself full-tilt into First Corinthians.

" 'But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead . . .'
" Pastor Merrill assured us. " 'For as by a man came death, by a man
has come also the resurrection of the dead,' '' my father said. My grandmother
would not let go of my amputated finger, and even Simon's face was wet with
tears; and still Mr. Merrill would not rest-he sent us swiftly to Second
Corinthians.

" 'So we do not lose heart,' " he told us. "
"Though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being
renewed every day. For this slight momentary affliction is preparing us for an
eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, because we look not to the
things that are seen but to the things that are unseen; for the things that are
seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal,' " Pastor
Merrill said. " 'So we are always of good courage'!" my father
exhorted us. " 'We know that while we are at home in the body we are away
from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight,' " he said. " 'We
are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with
the Lord. So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him.'
"

Then he swept us into another psalm, and then he commanded the
congregation to stand, which we did, while he read us the Gospel according to
John: " 'I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for
the sheep,' " Pastor Merrill said, and we mourners lowered our heads like
sheep. And when we were seated, Mr. Merrill said: " God-how we miss Owen
Meany!" Then he read to us-that passage about the miracle in the Gospel
according to Mark:

And when they came to the disciples, they saw a great crowd
about them, and scribes arguing with them. And immediately all the crowd, when
they saw him, were greatly amazed, and ran up to him and greeted him. And he
asked them, "What are you discussing with them?" And one of the crowd
answered him, "Teacher, I brought my son to you, for he has a dumb spirit;
and wherever it seizes him it dashes him down; and he foams and grinds his
teeth and becomes rigid; and I asked your disciples to cast it out, and they
were not able." And he answered them, "O faithless generation, how
long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him to
me." And they brought the boy to him; and when the spirit saw him,
immediately it convulsed the boy, and he fell on the ground and rolled about,
foaming at the mouth. And Jesus asked his father, "How long has he had
this?" And he said, "From childhood. And it has often cast him into
the fire and into the water, to destroy him; but if you can do anything, have
pity on us and help us." And Jesus said to him, "If you can! All
things are possible to him who believes." Immediately the father of the
child cried out and said, "I believe; help my unbelief!" And when
Jesus saw that a crowd came running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit,
saying to it, "You dumb and deaf spirit, I command you, come out of him,
and never enter him again." And after crying out and convulsing him
terribly, it came out, and the boy was like a corpse; so that most of them
said, "He is dead." But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up,
and he arose. And when he had entered the house, his disciples asked him
privately, "Why could