A prayer for Owen Meany (51 page)

That occasioned the first instance of the headmaster using the
platform of morning meeting to answer The Voice. We were, after all, a captive
audience. "Gentlemen," Mr. White began. "I do not have the
advantage of what amounts to a weekly editorial column in The Grave, but I
should like to use my brief time-between hymns, and before our prayer-to
enlighten you on the subject of our dear old school's charter, and its
constitution. In neither document is the faculty empowered with any authority
over the school's chosen headmaster, who is designated as the principal,
meaning the principal faculty member; in neither the charter nor the
constitution are the decision-making powers of the headmaster or principal
inhibited in any way. Let Us Pray ..."

Mr. White's next decision was to replace our school attorney-a
local lawyer-with an attorney-friend from Lake Forest, the former head of a law
firm that had successfully fought off a food-poisoning suit against one of the
big Chicago meat companies; tainted meat had made a lot of people sick, but the
Lake Forest attorney steered the blame away from the meat company, and the
packager, and rested the fault upon a company of refrigeration trucks. On the
advice of this attorney, Randy White changed the dismissal policy at Gravesend
Academy. In the past, a so-called Executive Committee listened to the case of
any boy who faced dismissal; that committee made its recommendation to the
faculty, and the whole faculty voted for the boy to stay or go. The Lake Forest
attorney suggested that the school was vulnerable to a lawsuit in the case of a
dismissal; that the whole faculty was "acting as a jury without the
in-depth understanding of the case that was afforded to the Executive
Committee." The attorney advised that the Executive Committee make the
entire decision regarding the boy's dismissal and the faculty not be involved.
This was approved by Headmaster White, and the change was announced-in the
manner of dropping the Latin requirement-in morning meeting.

"FOR THE SAKE OF AVOIDING A HYPOTHETICAL LAWSUIT,"
wrote Owen Meany, "THE HEADMASTER HAS CHANGED A DEMOCRACY TO AN
OLIGARCHY-HE HAS TAKEN THE FUTURE OF A BOY IN TROUBLE OUT OF THE HANDS OF MANY
AND PLACED THE FATE OF THAT BOY INTO THE HANDS OF A FEW. AND LET US EXAMINE THESE
FEW. THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE IS COMPOSED OF THE HEADMASTER, THE DEAN OF
STUDENTS, THE DIRECTOR OF SCHOLARSHIPS, AND FOUR MEMBERS OF THE FACULTY-ONLY
TWO OF WHOM ARE ELECTED BY THE WHOLE FACULTY; THE OTHER TWO ARE APPOINTED BY
THE HEADMASTER. I SUGGEST THAT THIS IS A STACKED DECK! WHO KNOWS ANY BOY BEST?
HIS DORM ADVISER, HIS CURRENT TEACHERS AND COACHES. IN THE PAST, IN FACULTY
MEETING, THESE WERE THE PEOPLE WHO SPOKE UP IN A BOY'S DEFENSE-OR THEY WERE THE
PEOPLE WHO KNEW BEST THAT THE BOY DID NOT DESERVE DEFENDING. I SUGGEST THAT ANY
BOY WHO IS DISMISSED BY THIS EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE SHOULD SUE THE SCHOOL. WHAT
BETTER GROUNDS ARE THERE FOR A LAWSUIT IN THE CASE OF A DISMISSAL THAN THESE:
THE PEOPLE IN A POSITION TO KNOW BEST THE VALUE OF YOUR CONTRIBUTION TO THE
SCHOOL ARE NOT IN A POSITION TO EVEN SPEAK IN YOUR DEFENSE-NOT TO MENTION,
VOTE?

"I WARN YOU: ANYONE WHO GETS SENT UP BEFORE THIS EXECUTIVE
COMMITTEE IS ALREADY A GONER! THE HEADMASTER AND HIS TWO APPOINTEES VOTE
AGAINST YOU; THE TWO ELECTED FACULTY MEMBERS OF THE COMMITTEE VOTE FOR YOU. NOW
YOU'RE BEHIND, -. AND WHAT DO THE DEAN OF STUDENTS AND THE DIRECTOR OF
SCHOLARSHIPS DO? THEY DON'T KNOW YOU FROM THE CLASSROOM, OR FROM THE GYM, OR
FROM THE DORM; THEY'RE ADMINISTRATORS-LIKE THE HEADMASTER. MAYBE THE DIRECTOR
OF SCHOLARSHIPS LOOKS KINDLY ON YOU IF YOU'RE A SCHOLARSHIP BOY; THAT WAY, YOU
LOSE - INSTEAD OF -. EITHER WAY, YOU LOSE.

"LOOK UP 'OLIGARCHY' IN THE DICTIONARY IF YOU DON'T KNOW
WHAT I MEAN: 'A FORM OF GOVERNMENT IN WHICH THE POWER IS VESTED IN A FEW
PERSONS OR IN A DOMINANT CLASS OR CLIQUE; GOVERNMENT BY THE FEW.' "

But there were other issues of "government" that
captured everyone's attention at the time; even Owen was distracted from the
decision-making capacities of the new headmaster.

        
 
Everyone was talking about Kennedy or Nixon;
and it was Owen who initiated a mock election among the Gravesend Academy
students-he organized it, he set up the balloting in the school post office, he
seated himself behind a big table and checked off every student's name. He
caught a few kids voting twice, he sent "runners" to bother kids in
the dorm who had not yet voted. For two days, he spent all his time between
classes behind that big table; he wouldn't let anyone else be the checker. The
ballots themselves were secured in a locked box that was kept in the director
of scholarships' office-whenever it was out of Owen's sight. There he sat at
the table, with a campaign button as big as a baseball on the lapel of his
sport jacket:

All the Way with J F K He wanted a Catholic!

"THERE'S NO MONKEY BUSINESS ABOUT THIS ELECTION," he
told the voters. "IF YOU'RE ENOUGH OF AN ASSHOLE TO VOTE FOR NIXON, YOUR
DUMB VOTE WILL BE COUNTED-JUST LIKE ANYBODY ELSE!"

Kennedy won, in a landslide, but predicted that the real vote-in
November-would be much closer; yet Owen believed that Kennedy would, and
should, triumph. "THIS IS AN ELECTION THAT YOUNG PEOPLE CAN FEEL A PART
OF,'' announced The Voice; indeed, although Owen and I were too young to vote,
we felt very much a part of all that youthful "vigor" that Kennedy
represented. "WOULDN'T IT BE NICE TO HAVE A PRESIDENT WHOM PEOPLE UNDER
THIRTY WON'T LAUGH AT? WHY VOTE FOR EISENHOWER'S FIVE O'CLOCK SHADOW WHEN YOU
CAN HAVE JACK KENNEDY?"

Once again, the headmaster saw fit to challenge the
"editorial nature" of in morning meeting. "I'm a
Republican," Randy White told us. "So that you don't think that The
Grave represents Republicans with even marginal objectivity, allow me to take a
minute of your time-while, perhaps, the euphoria of John Kennedy's landslide
election here is still high but (I hope) subsiding. I'm not surprised that so youthful
a candidate has charmed many of you with his 'vigah,' but-fortunately-the fate
of the country is not decided by young men who are not old enough to vote. Mr.
Nixon's experience may not seem so glamorous to you; but a presidential
election is not a sailing race, or a beauty contest between the candidates'
wives.

"I'm an Illinois Republican," the headmaster said.
"Illinois is the Land of Lincoln, as you boys know."

"ILLINOIS IS THE LAND OF ADLAI STEVENSON," Owen Meany
wrote. "AS FAR AS I KNOW, ADLAI STEVENSON IS A MORE RECENT RESIDENT OF
ILLINOIS THAN ABRAHAM LINCOLN-AS FAR AS I KNOW, ADLAI STEVENSON IS A DEMOCRAT
AND HE'S STILL ALIVE."

And this little difference of opinion, as far as / know, was
what prompted Randy White to make another decision. He replaced Mr. Early as
the faculty adviser to The Grave; Mr. White made himself the faculty
adviser-and so was presented with a more adversarial censor than Owen had ever
faced in Mr. Early.

"You'd better be careful, Owen," Dan Needham advised.

"You better watch your ass, man," I told him. It was a
very cold evening after Christmas when he pulled the tomato-red pickup into the
parking lot behind St. Michael's-the parochial school. His headlights shone
across the playground, which had been flooded by an earlier, unseasonable rain
that had now frozen to the black, reflecting sheen of a pond. "TOO BAD WE
DON'T HAVE OUR SKATES," Owen said. At the far end of the smooth sheet of
ice, the truck's headlights caused the statue of Mary Magdalene to glow in her
goal. "TOO BAD WE DON'T HAVE OUR HOCKEY STICKS, AND A PUCK," Owen
said. A light went on-and then another light-in the saltbox where the nuns
lived; then the porch light was turned on, too, and two of the nuns came out on
the porch and stared at our headlights. "EVER SEE PENGUINS ON ICE?"
Owen said.

"Better not do anything," I advised him, and he turned
the truck around in the parking lot and drove to  Front Street. There was
a "creature feature" on The Late Show, Owen and I were now of the
opinion that the only good movies were the really bad ones. He never showed me
what he wrote in his diary-not then. But after that Christmas he often carried
it with him, and I knew it was important to him because he kept it by his bed,
on his night table, right next to his copies of Robert Frost's poems

        
 
and under the guardianship of my mother's
dressmaker's dummy. When he spent the night with me, at Dan's or at  Front
Street, he always wrote in the diary before he allowed me to turn out the
light. The night I remember him writing most furiously was the night following
President Kennedy's inauguration; that was in January of , and I kept begging
him to turn the light out, but he went on, just writing and writing, and I
finally fell asleep with the light on-I don't know when he stopped. We'd
watched the inauguration on television at  Front Street; Dan and my
grandmother watched with us, and although my grandmother complained that Jack
Kennedy was "too young and too handsome"-that he looked "like a
movie star" and that "he should wear a hat"-Kennedy was the
first Democrat that Harriet Wheelwright had ever voted for, and she liked him.
Dan and Owen and I were crazy about him. It was a bright, cold, and windy day
in Washington-and in Gravesend-and Owen was worried about the weather.
"IT'S TOO BAD IT COULDN'T BE A NICER DAY," Owen said.

"He should learn to wear a hat-it won't kill him," my
grandmother complained. "In this weather, he'll catch his death."

When our old friend Robert Frost tried to read his inaugural
poem, Owen became most upset; maybe it was the wind, maybe Frost's eyes were
tearing in the cold, or else it was the glare from the sun, or simply that the
old man's eyesight was failing-whatever, he looked very feeble and he couldn't
read his poem properly.

"The land was ours before we were the land's," Frost
began. It was "The Gift Outright," and Owen knew it by heart.

"SOMEONE HELP HIM!" Owen cried, when Frost began to
struggle. Someone tried to help him-maybe it was the president himself, or Mrs.
Kennedy; I don't remember. It was not much help, in any case, and Frost went on
struggling with the poem. Owen tried to prompt him, but Robert Frost could not
hear The Voice-not all the way from Gravesend. Owen recited from memory; his
memory of the poem was better than Frost's. SOMETHING WE WERE WITHHOLDING MADE
US WEAK UNTIL WE FOUND OUT THAT IT WAS OURSELVES WE WERE WITHHOLDING FROM OUR
LAND OF LIVING, AND FORTHWITH FOUND SALVATION IN SURRENDER. It was the same
voice that had prompted the Announcing Angel, who'd forgotten his lines eight
years ago; it was the Christ Child speaking from the manger again.

"JESUS, WHY CAN'T ANYONE HELP HIM?" Owen cried. It was
the president's speech that really affected us; it left Owen Meany speechless
and had him writing in his diary into the small hours of the night. Some years
later-after everything-I would get to read what he had written; at the time, I
knew only how excited he was-how he felt that Kennedy had changed everything
for him.

"NO MORE SARCASM MASTER," he wrote in the diary.
"NO MORE CYNICAL, NEGATIVE, SMART-ASS, ADOLESCENT BULLSHIT! THERE IS A WAY
TO BE OF SERVICE TO ONE'S COUNTRY WITHOUT BEING A FOOL; THERE IS A WAY TO BE OF
USE WITHOUT BEING USED-WITHOUT BEING A SERVANT OF OLD MEN, AND THEIR OLD
IDEAS." There was more, much more. He thought that Kennedy was religious,
and-incredibly-he didn't mind that Kennedy was a Catholic. "I BELIEVE HE'S
A KIND OF SAVIOR," Owen wrote in his diary. "I DON'T CARE IF HE'S A
MACKEREL-SNAPPER-HE'S GOT SOMETHING WE NEED."

In Scripture class, Owen asked the Rev. Mr. Merrill if he didn't
agree that Jack Kennedy was "THE VERY THING ISAIAH HAD IN MIND-YOU KNOW,
'THE PEOPLE WHO WALKED IN DARKNESS HAVE SEEN A GREAT LIGHT; THOSE WHO DWELT IN
A LAND OF DEEP DARKNESS, ON THEM HAS LIGHT SHINED.' YOU REMEMBER THAT?"

"Well, Owen," Mr. Merrill said cautiously, "I'm
sure Isaiah would have liked John Kennedy; I don't know, however, if Kennedy
was 'the very thing Isaiah had in mind,' as you say."

" 'FOR TO US A CHILD IS BORN,' " Owen recited, "
'TO US A SON IS GIVEN; AND THE GOVERNMENT WELL BE UPON HIS SHOULDER'-REMEMBER
THAT?"

I remember; and I remember how long it was after Ken-

        
 
nedy's inauguration that Owen Meany would
still recite to me from Kennedy's speech: " 'ASK NOT WHAT YOUR COUNTRY CAN
DO FOR YOU-ASK WHAT YOU CAN DO FOR YOUR COUNTRY.' " Remember that?

THE DREAM

 
/"~"\WEN AND I
were nineteen-year-old seniors at Gravesend V_x Academy-at least a year older
than the other members of our class-when Owen told me, point-blank, what he had
expressed to me, symbolically, when he was eleven and had mutilated my
armadillo.

"GOD HAS TAKEN YOUR MOTHER," he said to me, when I was
complaining about practicing the shot; I thought he would never slam-dunk the
ball in under four seconds, and I was bored with all our trying.' 'MY HANDS
WERE THE INSTRUMENT," he said. "GOD HAS TAKEN MY HANDS. I AM GOD'S
INSTRUMENT."

That he might have thought such a thing when he was eleven- when
the astonishing results of that foul ball were such a shock to us both, and
when whatever UNSPEAKABLE OUTRAGE his parents had suffered had plunged his
religious upbringing into confusion and rebellion-I could understand him
thinking anything then. But not when we were nineteen! I was so surprised by
the matter-of-fact way he simply announced his insane belief-"GOD HAS
TAKEN MY HANDS"-that when he jumped into my hands, I dropped him. The
basketball rolled out of bounds. Owen didn't look much like GOD'S INSTRUMENT in
his fallen position-holding his knee, which he'd twisted in his fall, and
writhing around on the gym floor under the basket.

"If you're God's instrument, Owen," I said, "how
come you need my help to stuff a basketball?"