A prayer for Owen Meany (37 page)

" 'Mankind was my business,' " Marley told Scrooge.
" 'The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and
benevolence were all my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of
water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!' "

With a shudder, I imagined that it had been my father in the
bleachers-it had been my father she'd waved to the instant she was killed! With
no idea how I might hope to recognize him, I began with the front row,
left-center; I went through the audience, face by face. From my perspective,
backstage, the faces in the audience were almost uniformly still, and the
attention upon them was not directed toward me; the faces were, at least in
part, strangers to me, and-especially in the back rows-smaller than the faces
on baseball cards. It was a futile search; but it was then and there that I
started to remember. From backstage, watching the Christmas Eve faces of my
fellow townspeople, I could begin to populate those bleacher seats on that
summer day-row by row, I could remember a few of the baseball fans who had been
there. Mrs. Kenmore, the butcher's wife, and their son Donny, a rheumatic-fever
baby who was not allowed to play baseball; they attended every game. They were
in attendance at A Christmas Carol to watch Mr. Kenmore slaughter the part of
the Ghost of Christmas Present; but I could see them in their short-sleeved
summer garb, with their identically sunburned noses-they always sat down low in
the bleachers, because Donny was not agile and Mrs. Kenmore feared he would
fall through the slats. And there was Mr. Early's daughter, Maureen-reputed to
have wet her pants when Owen Meany tried out for the part of the Ghost of
Christmas Yet to Come. She was here tonight, and had been present every night,
to watch her father's vain attempts to make Marley's Ghost resemble King Lear.
She simultaneously worshiped and despised her father, who was a terrible snob
and regaled Maureen with both undeserved praise and a staggering list of his
expectations for her; at the very least, she would one day have her
doctorate-and if she were to indulge her fantasy, and become a movie star, she
would make her reputation on the silver screen only after numerous triumphs in
"legitimate" theater. Maureen Early was a dreamer who squirmed in her
seat-whether she was watching her father overact or watching Owen Meany
approach home plate. I rememt>ered that she had been sitting in the top row,
squirming beside Caroline O'Day, whose father ran the Chevy dealership.
Caroline O'Day was one of those rare parochial-school girls who managed to wear
her St. Michael's uniform-her pleated flannel skirt and matching burgundy knee
socks-as if she were a cocktail waitress in a lounge of questionable repute.
With boys, Caroline O'Day was as aggressive as a Corvette, and Maureen Early
enjoyed her company because Mr. Early thought the O'Days were vulgar. It had
not set well with Mr. Early that Caroline's father, Larry O'Day, had secured
the part of Bob Crachit; but Mr. O'Day was younger and handsomer than Mr.
Early, and Dan Needham knew that a Chevy salesman's derring-do was far preferable
to Mr. Early's attempting to turn Bob Crachit into King Lear. How I remembered
them on that summer day-Maureen Early and Caroline O'Day-how they had laughed
and squirmed in their seats together when Owen Meany came to bat. What a power
I had discovered! I felt certain I could refill those bleacher seats-one day, I
was sure, I could "see" everyone who'd been there; I could find that
special someone my mother had waved to, at the end. Mr. Arthur Dowling had been
there; I could see him shade his eyes with one hand, his other hand shading his
wife's eyes-he was that sort of servant to her. Arthur Dowling was watching A
Christmas Carol because his wife, the most officious member of the Town Library
Board, was steering her humorless self through the chore of being the Ghost of
Christmas Past. Amanda Dowling was a pioneer in challenging sexual stereotypes;
she wore men's domes-fancy dress, for her, meant a coat and tie-and when she
smoked, she blew smoke in men's faces, this being at the heart of her opinions
regarding how men behaved toward women. Both her husband and Amanda were in
favor of creating mayhem with sexual stereotypes, or reversing sexual roles as
arduously and as self-consciously as possible-hence, he often wore an apron
while shopping; hence, her hair was shorter than his, except on her legs and in
her armpits, where she grew it long. There were certain positive words in their
vocabulary-"European,"

        
 
among them; women who didn't shave their
armpits or their legs were more "European" than American women, to
their undoubted advantage. They were childless-Dan Needham suggested that their
sexual roles might be so "reversed" as to make childbearing
difficult-and their attendance at Little League games was marked by a constant
disapproval of the sport: that little girls were not allowed to play in the
Little League was an example of sexual stereotyping that exercised the
Dowlings' humorless-ness and fury. Should they have a daughter, they warned,
she would play in the Little League. They were a couple with a theme-sadly, it
was their only theme, and a small theme, and they overplayed it, but a young
couple with such a burning mission was quite interesting to the generally slow,
accepting types who were more typical in Gravesend. Mr. Chickering, our fat
coach and manager, lived in dread of the day the Dowlings might produce a
daughter. Mr. Chickering was of the old school-he believed that only boys
should play baseball, and that girls should watch them play, or else play
softball. Like many small-town world-changers, the Dowlings were independently
wealthy; he, in fact, did nothing-except he was a ceaseless interior decorator
of his own well-appointed house and a manicure artist when the subject was his
lawn. In his early thirties, Arthur Dowling had developed the habit of
puttering to a level of frenzy quite beyond the capacities of the retired, who
are conventionally supposed to be the putterers. Amanda Dowling didn't work,
either, but she was tireless in her pursuit of the board-member life. She was a
trustee of everything, and the Town Library was not the only board she served;
it was simply the board she was most often associated with, because it was a
board she served with special vengeance. Among the methods she preferred for
changing the world, banning books was high on her list. Sexual stereotypes did
not fall, she liked to say, from the clear blue sky; books were the major
influences upon children-and books that had boys being boys, and girls being
girls, were among the worst offenders! Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, for
example; they were an education in condescension to women-all by themselves,
they created sexual stereotypes! Withering Heights, for example: how that book
taught a woman to submit to a man made Amanda Dowling "see red," as
she would say. As for the Dowlings' participation in The Gravesend Players:
they took turns. Their campaign was relentless, but minor; she tried out for
parts conventionally bestowed upon men; he went after the lesser women's
roles-preferably nonspeaking. She was more ambitious than he was, befitting a
woman determined to reverse sexual stereotypes; she thought that speaking parts
for males were perfect for her. Dan Needham gave them what he could; to deny
them outright would risk the charge they relished to make, and made often-that
so-and-so was "discriminatory." A patterned absurdity marked each
Dowling's role onstage; Amanda was terrible as a man-but she would have been
just as terrible as a woman, Dan was quick to point out-and Arthur was simply
terrible. The townspeople enjoyed them in the manner that only people from
small towns-who know how everyone's apron is tied, and by whom-can enjoy
tedious eccentrics. The Dowlings were tedious, their eccentricity was flawed
and made small by the utter predictability of their highly selective passions;
yet they were a fixture of The Gravesend Players that provided constant, if
familiar, entertainment. Dan Needham knew better than to tamper with them. How
I astonished myself that Christmas Eve! With diligence, with months-even
years-backstage in the Gravesend Town Hall, I knew I could find the face my
mother had waved to in the stands. Why not at the baseball games themselves?
you might wonder. Why not observe the actual fans in the actual bleachers?
People tend to take the same seats. But at Dan's theater I had an advantage; I
could watch the audience unseen-and I would not be drawing attention to myself
by putting myself between the field of play and them. Backstage, and all that
this implies, is invisible. You can see more in faces that can't see you. If I
was looking for my father, shouldn't I look for him unobserved?

" 'Spirit!' " said Scrooge to the Ghost of Christinas
Past. " 'Remove me from this place.' "

And I watched Mr. Arthur Dowling watching his wife, who said:
" 'I told you these were shadows of the things that had been. That they
are what they are,' " Amanda Dowling said, " 'do not blame me!'
" I watched my fellow townspeople snicker-all but Mr. Arthur Dowling, who
remained seriously impressed by the reversed sexual role he saw before him.
That the Dowlings' 'took turns" at The Gravesend Players-

        
 
that they never took roles in the same
play-was a great source of mirth to Dan, who enjoyed joking with Mr. Fish.

"I wonder if the Dowlings 'take turns' sexually \" Dan
would say.

"It's most unpleasant to imagine," Mr. Fish would say.
What daydreams I accomplished backstage on Christmas Eve! How I fed myself
memories from the faces of my fellow townspeople! When Mr. Fish asked the Ghost
of Christmas Present if the poor, wretched children were his, the Spirit told
him, " 'They are Man's.' " How proud Mrs. Kenmore was of Mr. Kenmore,
the butcher; how the rheumatic heart of their son Donny jumped for joy to see
his father with words instead of meat at his fingertips! " 'This boy is
Ignorance,' " the butcher said. " 'This girl is Want. Beware of them
both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow
I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be encased.' " He
meant " 'erased' "; but Mr. Kenmore was probably thinking of
sausages. On the trusting faces of my fellow townspeople there was no more
awareness of Mr. Kenmore's error than Mr. Kenmore himself possessed; of the
faces I surveyed, only Harriet Wheelwright-who had seen almost as many versions
of A Christmas Carol as Dan Needham had directed-winced to hear the butcher
butcher his line. My grandmother, a born critic, briefly closed her eyes and
sighed. Such was my interest in the audience, I did not turn to face the stage
until Owen Meany made his appearance. I did not need to see him to know he was
there. A hush fell over the audience. The faces of my fellow townspeople-so
amused, so curious, so various-were rendered shockingly similar; each face
became the model of each other's fear. Even my grandmother-so detached, so
superior-drew her fur closer around her shoulders and shivered: an apparent
draft had touched the necks of my fellow townspeople; the shiver that passed
through my grandmother appeared to pass through them all. Donny Kenmore
clutched his rheumatic heart; Maureen Early, determined not to pee in her pants
again, shut her eyes. The look of dread upon the face of Mr. Arthur Dowling
surpassed even his interest in sexual role-reversal-for neither the sex nor the
identity of Owen Meany was clear; what was clear was that he was a ghost.

" 'Ghost of the Future!' " Mr. Fish exclaimed. "
'I fear you more than any specter I have seen.' " To observe the terror
upon my fellow towns-people's faces was entirely convincing; it was obvious
that they agreed with Mr. Fish's assessment of this ghost's fearful qualities.
" 'Will you not speak to me?' " Scrooge pleaded. Owen coughed. It was
not, as Dan had hoped, a "humanizing" sound; it was a rattle so deep,
and so deeply associated with death, that the audience was startled-people
twitched in their seats; Maureen Early, abandoning all hope of containing her
urine, opened her eyes wide and stared at the source of such an unearthly bark.
That was when I turned to look at him, too-at the instant his baby-powdered
hand shot out of the black folds of his cowl, and he pointed. A fever chill
sent a spasm down his trembling arm, and his hand responded to the jolt as to
electricity. Mr. Fish flinched.

" 'Lead on!' " cried Scrooge. " 'Lead on!' "
Gliding across the stage, Owen Meany led him. But the future was never quite
clear enough for Scrooge to see it-until, at last, they came to the churchyard.
"A worthy place!" Dickens called it ... "overrun by grass and
weeds, the growth of vegetation's death, not life; choked up with too much
burying, fat with repleted appetite."

" 'Before I draw nearer to that stone to which you point,'
" Scrooge began to say. Among the papier-mache gravestones, where Mr. Fish
was standing, one stone loomed larger than the others; it was this stone that
Owen pointed to-again and again, he pointed and pointed. So that Mr. Fish would
stop stalling-and get to the part where he reads his own name on that
grave-Owen stepped closer to the gravestone himself. Scrooge began to babble.

" 'Men's courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if
persevered in, they must lead. But,' " Mr. Fish said to Owen, " 'if
the courses be departed from, the ends will change. Say it is thus with what
you show me!' "

Owen Meany, not moved to speak, bent over the gravestone;
appearing to read the name he saw there to himself, he directly fainted.

'' Owen!'' Mr .Fish said crossly, but Owen was as committed to
not answering as the Ghost of the Future. "Owen?" Mr. Fish asked,
more sympathetically; the audience appeared to sympathize with Mr. Fish's
reluctance to touch the slumped, hooded figure. It would be just like Owen, I
thought, to regain consciousness by jumping to his feet and screaming; this was
exactly