A prayer for Owen Meany (91 page)

 
 
when you give her
the flag. She said she's gonna spit on you," the pregnant sister told
Owen. "And I know her-she will!" the girl said. "She'll spit in
your face!"

"IT HAPPENS, SOMETIMES," Owen said. "WHERE'S THE
TALL BOY-YOUR HALF BROTHER? WHAT'S HIS NAME?"

"If Vietnam hadn't killed that bastard, somethin' else
would have-that's what/ say!" said the pregnant sister, who quickly looked
around, fearful that someone in the family might have overheard her.

"DON'T WORRY ABOUT THE FUNERAL," Owen told her.
"WHERE'S THE TALL BOY? WHAT'S HIS NAME?" There was a closed door off
a narrow hall, and the girl cautiously pointed to it.

"Don't tell him I told you," she whispered.

"WHAT'S HIS NAME?" Owen asked her. She looked around,
to make sure no one was watching her; there was a gob of mustard on the swollen
belly of her wrinkled dress. "Dick!" she said; then she moved away.
Owen knocked on the door.

"Watch yourself, Meany," Major Rawls said. "I
know the police, at die airport-they never take their eyes off this guy.'' Owen
knocked on the door a little more insistently.

"Fuck you!" Dick shouted through the closed door.

"YOU'RE TALKING TO AN OFFICER*." said Owen Meany.

"Fuck you, sir!" Dick said.

"THAT'S BETTER," Owen said. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING
IN THERE-BEATING OFF?"

Major Rawls pushed Owen and me out of the path of the door; we
were all standing clear of the door when Dick opened it. He was wearing a
different pair of fatigue pants, he was barefoot and bare-chested, and he'd
blackened his face with something like shoe polish-as if, after the merrymakers
all settled down, he planned to engage in undercover activities in the
dangerous neighborhood. With the same black marker, he had drawn circles around
his nipples-like twin bull's-eyes on his chest.

"Come on in," he said, stepping back into his room,
where-no doubt-he dreamed without cease of butchering the Viet Cong. The room
reeked of marijuana; Dick finished the small nub of a roach he held with a pair
of tweezers-not offering us the last toke. The dead helicopter pilot, the
warrant officer, was named Frank Jarvits-but Dick preferred to call him by his
"Cong killer name," the name his buddies in 'Nam had given him, which
was "Hubcap." Dick showed us, proudly, all the souvenirs that Hubcap
had managed to smuggle home from Vietnam. There were several bayonets, several
machetes, a collection of plastic-encased "water beetles," and one
helmet with an overripe sweatband-with the possessive "Hubcap's Hat"
written on the band in what appeared to be blood. There was an AK- assault
rifle that Dick broke down into the stock group, the barrel, the receiver, the
bolt-and so forth. Then he quickly reassembled the Soviet-made weapon. His
stoned eyes flickered with a passing, brief excitement in gaining our approval;
he'd wanted to show us how Hubcap had broken down the rifle in order to smuggle
it home. There were two Chicom grenades, too-those bottle-shaped grenades, with
the fat part serrated and the fuse cord at the pipelike end of the bottleneck.

"They don't blow as good as ours, but you can get sent to
Leavenworth for sneakin' home an M-sixty-seven-Hubcap told me," Dick said.
He stared sadly at the two Chinese-made grenades; then he picked up one.
"Fuckin* Chink Commie shit," he said, "but it'll still do a job
on ya." He showed us how the warrant officer had taped up the end of the
grenade, where the firing-pin cord is; then Hubcap had taped up the whole
grenades in cardboard, placing one of them in a shaving kit and the other in a
combat boot. "They just come home like carry-on luggage," Dick told
us. Apparently, various "buddies" had been involved in bringing home
the AK- assault rifle; different guys brought home different parts.
"That's how it's done," Dick said wisely-his head still nodding to
whatever tune the pot was playing to nun. "It got tough after sixty-six,
'cause of the drug traffickin'- everyone's gear got inspected more, you
know," he said. The walls of the room were festooned with hanging
cartridge belts and an assortment of fatigues and unmatching parts of uniforms.
The ungainly boy lived for reaching the legal age for legal slaughter.

"How come you ain't in 'Nam?" Dick asked Owen.
"You too small-or what?"

Owen chose to ignore him, but Major Rawls said: "Lieutenant
Meany has requested transfer to Vietnam-he's scheduled to go there."

"How come you ain't over there?" Dick asked the major.

" 'HOW COME YOU AIN'T OVER THERE,' SIRl" said Owen
Meany. Dick shut his eyes and smiled; he dozed off, or dreamed away, for a
second or two. Then he said to Major Rawls: "How come you ain't over there,
sir!"

"I've already been there," Rawls said.

"How come you ain't back there?" Dick asked him.
"Sir . . ."he added nastily.

"I've got a better job here," Major Rawls told the
boy.

"Well, someone's got to have the dirty jobs-ain't that how
it is?" Dick said.

"WHEN YOU GET IN THE ARMY, WHAT KIND OF JOB DO YOU THINK
WU'LL HAVE?" Owen asked the boy. "WITH YOUR ATTITUDE, YOU WON'T GET
TO VIETNAM-YOU WON'T GO TO WAR, YOU'LL GO TO JAIL. YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE SMART
TO GO TO WAR," said Owen Meany. "BUT YOU HAVE TO BE SMARTER THAN
YOU"

The boy closed his eyes and smiled again; his head nodded a
little. Major Rawls picked up a pencil and tapped it on the barrel of the
assault rifle. That brought Dick, momentarily, back to life.

"You better not bring this baby to the airport, pal,"
Major Rawls said. "You better never show up there with the rifle, or with
the grenades," the major said. When the boy shut his eyes again, Rawls
tapped him on his forehead with the pencil. The boy's eyes blinked open; hatred
came and went in them-a drifting, passing hatred, like clouds or smoke.
"I'm not even sure those bayonets or machetes are legal-you understand
me?" Major Rawls said. "You better be sure you keep them in their
sheaths," he said.

"Sometimes the cops take "em from me-sometimes they
give 'em back the same day," Dick said. I could count each of his ribs,
and his stomach muscles. He saw me staring at him and he said: "Who's the
guy outta uniform?"

"HE'S IN INTELLIGENCE," Owen said. Dick appeared
impressed, but-like his hatred-the feeling drifted and passed.

"You carry a gun?" Dick asked me.

"NOT THAT KIND OF INTELLIGENCE," said Owen Meany, and
Dick closed his eyes again-there being, in his view, clearly no intelligence
that didn't carry a gun.

"I'M SORRY ABOUT YOUR BROTHER," Owen said- as we were
leaving.

"See you at the funeral," Major Rawls said to the boy.

"I don't go to fuckin' funeralsl" Dick snapped.
"Close the door, Mister Intelligence Man," he said to me, and I
closed it behind me.

"That was a nice try, Meany," Major Rawls said,
putting his hand on Owen's shoulder. "But that fucking kid is beyond
saving."

Owen said, "IT'S NOT UP TO YOU OR ME, SIR-IT'S NOT UP TO
US: WHO'S 'BEYOND SAVING.' "

Major Rawls put his hand on my shoulder. "I tell you,"
the major said, "Owen's too good for this world."

As we left the turquoise house, the pregnant daughter was trying
to revive her mother, who was lying on the kitchen floor. Major Rawls looked at
his watch. "She's right on schedule," he said. "Same as last night,
same as the night before. I tell you, picnics aren't what they used to be-not
to mention, 'picnic wakes,' " the major said.

"WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS COUNTRY?" Owen Meany asked.
"WE SHOULD ALL BE AT HOME, LOOKING AFTER PEOPLE LIKE THIS. INSTEAD, WE'RE
SENDING PEOPLE LIKE THIS TO VIETNAM!"

Major Rawls drove us to our motel-a modestly pretty place of the
hacienda-type-where a swimming pool with underwater lights had the disturbing
effect of substantially enlarging and misshaping the swimmers. But there weren't
many swimmers, and after Rawls had invited himself to a painfully late
dinner-and he'd finally gone home-Owen Meany and I were alone. We sat
underwater, in the shallow end of the swimming pool, drinking more and more
beer and looking up at the vast, southwestern sky.

"SOMETIMES I WISH I WAS A STAR," Owen said. "YOU
KNOW THAT STUPID SONG-'WHEN YOU WISH UPON A STAR, MAKES NO DIFFERENCE WHO YOU
ARE'-I HATE THAT SONG!" he said. "I DON'T WANT TO 'WISH UPON A STAR,'
I WISH I WAS A STAR-THERE OUGHT TO BE A SONG ABOUT THAT," said Owen Meany,
who was drinking what I estimated to be his sixth or seventh beer. Major Rawls
woke us up with an early-morning telephone call.

"Don't come to the fucking funeral-the family is raising

        
 
hell about the service. They want no military
to be there, they're telling us we can keep the American flag-they don't want
it," the major said.

"THAT'S OKAY WITH ME," said Owen Meany.

"So you guys can just go back to sleep," the major
said.

"THAT'S OKAY WITH ME, TOO," Owen told him. So I never
got to meet the famous "asshole minister," the so-called ' 'traveling
Baptist.'' Major Rawls told me, later, that the mother had spit on the minister
and on the mortician- perhaps regretting that she'd given up her opportunity to
spit on Owen when he handed her the American flag. It was Sunday, July , .
After the major called, I went back to sleep; but Owen wrote in his diary.

"WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS COUNTRY?" he wrote. ' 'THERE
IS SUCH A STUPID 'GET EVEN' MENTALITY- THERE IS SUCH A SADISTIC ANGER." He
turned on the TV, keeping the volume off; when I woke up, much later, he was
still writing in the diary and watching one of those television
evangelists-without the sound.

"IT'S BETTER WHEN YOU DON'T HAVE TO LISTEN TO WHAT THEY'RE
SAYING," he said. In the diary, he wrote: "IS THIS COUNTRY JUST SO
HUGE THAT IT NEEDS TO OVERSIMPLIFY EVERYTHING? LOOK AT THE WAR: EITHER WE HAVE
A STRATEGY TO 'WIN' IT, WHICH MAKES US-IN THE WORLD'S VIEW-MURDERERS; OR ELSE
WE ARE DYING, WITHOUT FIGHTING TO WIN. LOOK AT WHAT WE CALL 'FOREIGN POLICY':
OUR 'FOREIGN POLICY' IS A EUPHEMISM FOR PUBLIC RELATIONS, AND OUR PUBLIC
RELATIONS GET WORSE AND WORSE. WE'RE BEING DEFEATED AND WE'RE NOT GOOD LOSERS.

"AND LOOK AT WHAT WE CALL 'RELIGION': TURN ON ANY
TELEVISION ON ANY SUNDAY MORNING! SEE THE CHOIRS OF THE POOR AND UNEDUCATED-
AND THESE TERRIBLE PREACHERS, SELLING OLD JESUS-STORIES LIKE JUNK FOOD. SOON
THERE'LL BE AN EVANGELIST IN THE WHITE HOUSE; SOON THERE'LL BE A CARDINAL ON
THE SUPREME COURT. ONE DAY THERE WILL COME AN EPIDEMIC-I'LL BET ON SOME
HUMDINGER OF A SEXUAL DISEASE. AND WHAT WILL OUR PEERLESS LEADERS, OUR HEADS OF
CHURCH AND STATE . . . WHAT WILL THEY SAY TO US? HOW WILL THEY HELP US? YOU CAN
BE SURE THEY WON'T CURE US-BUT HOW WILL THEY COMFORT US? JUST TURN ON THE TV-
AND HERE'S WHAT OUR PEERLESS LEADERS, OUR HEADS OF CHURCH AND STATE WILL SAY:
THEY'LL SAY, 'I TOLD YOU SO!' THEY'LL SAY, 'THAT'S WHAT YOU GET FOR FUCKING
AROUND-I TOLD YOU NOT TO DO FT UNTIL YOU GOT MARRIED.' DOESN'T ANYONE SEE WHAT
THESE SIMPLETONS ARE UP TO? THESE SELF-RIGHTEOUS FANATICS ARE NOT
'RELIGIOUS'-THEIR HOMEY WISDOM IS NOT 'MORALITY.'

"THAT IS WHERE THIS COUNTRY IS HEADED-IT IS HEADED TOWARD
OVERSIMPLIFICATION. YOU WANT TO SEE A PRESIDENT OF THE FUTURE? TURN ON ANY
TELEVISION ON ANY SUNDAY MORNING-FIND ONE OF THOSE HOLY ROLLERS: THAT'S HIM,
THAT'S THE NEW MISTER PRESIDENT! AND DO YOU WANT TO SEE THE FUTURE OF ALL THOSE
KIDS WHO ARE GOING TO FALL IN THE CRACKS OF THIS GREAT, BIG, SLOPPY SOCIETY OF
OURS? I JUST MET HIM; HE'S A TALL, SKINNY, FIFTEEN-YEAR-OLD BOY NAMED 'DICK.'
HE'S PRETTY SCARY. WHAT'S WRONG WITH HIM IS NOT UNLIKE WHAT'S WRONG WITH THE TV
EVANGELIST-OUR FUTURE PRESIDENT. WHAT'S WRONG WITH BOTH OF THEM IS THAT THEY'RE
SO SURE THEY'RE RIGHTl THAT'S PRETTY SCARY-THE FUTURE, I THINK, IS PRETTY
SCARY."

That was when I woke up and saw him pause in his writing. He was
staring at the TV preacher, whom he couldn't hear-the preacher was talking on
and on, waving his arms, while behind him stood a choir of men and women in
silly robes . . . they weren't singing, but they were swaying back and forth,
and smiling; all their lips were so firmly and uniformly closed that they
appeared to be humming; or else they'd eaten something that had entranced them;
or else what the preacher was saying had entranced them.

"Owen, what are you doing?" I asked him. That was when
he said: "IT'S BETTER WHEN YOU DON'T HAVE TO LISTEN TO WHAT THEY'RE
SAYING."

I ordered a big breakfast for us-we had never had room

        
 
service before! While I took a shower,-he
wrote a little more in the diary.

"HE DOESN'T KNOW WHY HE'S HERE, AND I DON'T DARE TELL
HIM," Owen wrote. "/ DON'T KNOW WHY HE'S HERE-I JUST KNOW HE HAS TO
BE HERE! BUT I DON'T EVEN 'KNOW' THAT-NOT ANYMORE. IT DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE!
WHERE IS VIETNAM-IN ALL OF THIS? WHERE ARE THOSE POOR CHILDREN? WAS IT JUST A
TERRIBLE DREAM? AM I SIMPLY CRAZY? IS TOMORROW JUST ANOTHER DAY?"

"So," I said-while we were eating breakfast.
"What do you want to do today?"

He smiled at me. "IT DOESN'T MATTER WHAT WE DO-LET'S JUST
HAVE A GOOD TIME," said Owen Meany. We inquired at the front desk about
where we could play basketball; Owen wanted to practice the shot, of course,
and-especially in the staggering midday heat-I thought that a gym would be a
nice, cool place to spend a couple of hours. We were sure that Major Rawls
could gain us access to the athletic facilities at Arizona State; but we didn't
want to spend the day with Rawls, and we didn't want to rent our own car and
look for a place to play basketball on our own. The guy at the front desk said:
"This is a golf and tennis town."

"FT DOESN'T MATTER," Owen said. "I'M PRETTY SURE
WE'VE PRACTICED THAT DUMB SHOT ENOUGH."

We tried to take a walk, but I declared that the heat would kill
us. We ate a huge lunch on the patio by the swimming pool; we went in and out
of the pool between courses, and when we finished the lunch, we kept drinking
beer and cooling off in the pool. We had the place practically to ourselves;
the waiters and the bartender kept looking at us-they must have thought we were
crazy, or from another planet.