A prayer for Owen Meany (60 page)

        
 
her upside-down husband what comfort she
could. Professionals were summoned to extricate him from the destroyed
Volkswagen; later-long after morning meeting was over-they finally rescued the
headmaster by removing the driver's-side door of Dr. Dolder's poor car with a
torch. The headmaster was confined to the Hubbard Infirmary for the remainder
of the day; the nurses, and the school doctor, wanted to keep him-for
observation-overnight, but the headmaster threatened to fire all of them if he
was not released. Over and over again, Randy White was heard to shout or cry
out or mutter to his wife: "This has Owen Meany's name written all over
it!"

It was an interesting morning meeting, that morning. We were
more than twice as long being seated, because only one staircase ascending to
The Great Hall was available for our passage-and then there was the problem of
the front-row bench being smashed; the boys who regularly sat there had to'
find places for themselves on the floor, or onstage. There were crushed beads
of glass, and chipped paint, and puddles of engine and transmission oil
everywhere-and except for the opening and closing hymn, which drowned out the
cries of the trapped headmaster, we were forced to listen to the ongoing drama
on the stairway. I'm afraid this distracted us from the Rev. Mr. MerriU's
prayer, and from Mr. Early's annual pep talk to the seniors. We should not
allow our anxieties about our pending college admission (or our rejection) to
keep us from having a good spring holiday, Mr. Early advised us.

"Goddamn Jesus Fucking Christ-keep that blowtorch away from
my/ace!" we all heard the headmaster cry. And at the end of morning
meeting, the headmaster's wife, Sam, shouted at those students who attempted to
descend the blocked staircase by climbing over the ruined Volkswagen-in which
the headmaster was still imprisoned.

"Where are your manners!" Mrs. White shouted. It was
after morning meeting before I had a chance to speak to Owen Meany.

"I don't suppose you had anything to do with all of
that?" I asked him.

"FAITH AND PRAYER," he said. "FAITH AND
PRAYER-THEY WORK, THEY REALLY DO."

Toronto: July , -Katherine invited me to her island; no more
stupid newspapers; I'm going to Georgian Bay! Another stinking-hot day.
Meanwhile-on the front page of The Globe and Mail (it must be a slow
day)-there's a story about Sweden's Supreme Court making "legal history";
the Supreme Court is hearing an appeal in a custody case involving a dead cat.
What a world! MADE FOR TELEVISION! I haven't been to church in more than a
month; too many newspapers. Newspapers are a bad habit, the reading equivalent
of junk food. What happens to me is that I seize upon an issue in the news-the
issue is the moral/philosophical, political/intellectual equivalent of a
cheeseburger with everything on it; but for the duration of my interest in it,
all my other interests are consumed by it, and whatever appetites and
capacities I may have had for detachment and reflection are suddenly
subordinate to this cheeseburger in my life! I offer this as self-criticism;
but what it means to be "political" is that you welcome these
obsessions with cheeseburgers-at great cost to the rest of your life. I
remember the independent study that Owen Meany was conducting with the Rev.
Lewis Merrill in the winter term of . I wonder if those cheeseburgers in the
Reagan administration are familiar with Isaiah :. As would say: "WOE UNTO
THEM THAT CALL EVIL GOOD AND GOOD EVIL."

After me, Pastor Merrill was the first to ask Owen if he'd had
anything to do with the "accident" to Dr. Dolder's Volkswagen; the
unfortunate little car would spend our entire spring vacation in the body shop.

"DO I UNDERSTAND CORRECTLY THAT THE SUBJECT OF OUR
CONVERSATION IS CONFIDENTIAL?" Owen asked Pastor Merrill.' 'YOU KNOW WHAT
I MEAN-LIKE YOU'RE THE PRIEST AND I'M THE CONFESSOR; AND, SHORT OF MURDER, YOU
WON'T REPEAT WHAT I TELL YOU?" Owen Meany asked him.

"You understand correctly, Owen," the Rev. Mr. Merrill
said.

"IT WAS MY IDEA!" Owen said. "BUT I DIDN'T LIFT A
FINGER, I DIDN'T EVEN SET FOOT IN THE BUILDING-NOT EVEN TO WATCH THEM DO
IT!"

"Who did it?" Mr. Merrill asked.

"MOST OF THE BASKETBALL TEAM," said Owen Meany.
"THEY JUST HAPPENED ALONG."

"It was completely spur-of-the-moment?" asked Mr.
Merrill.

"OUT OF THE BLUE-IT HAPPENED IN A FLASH. YOU KNOW, LIKE THE
BURNING BUSH," Owen said.

"Well, not quite like that, I think," said the Rev.
Mr. Merrill, who assured Owen that he only wanted to know the particulars so
that he could make every effort to steer the headmaster away from Owen, who was
Randy White's prime suspect. "It helps," said Pastor Merrill,
"if I can tell the headmaster that I know, for a fact, that you didn't
touch Doctor Dolder's car, or set foot in the building-as you say."

"DON'T RAT ON THE BASKETBALL TEAM, EITHER," Owen said.

"Of course not!'' said Mr. Merrill, who added that he
didn't think Owen should be as candid with Dr. Dolder-should the doctor inquire
if Owen knew anything about the "accident." As much as it was
understood that the subject of conversation between a psychiatrist and his
patient was also "confidential," Owen should understand the degree to
which the fastidious Swiss gentleman had cared for his car.

"I KNOW WHAT YOU MEAN," said Owen Meany. Dan Needham,
who said to Owen that he didn't want to hear a word about what Owen did or
didn't know about Dr. Dolder's car, told us that the headmaster was screaming
to the faculty about "disrespect for personal property" and
"vandalism"; both categories of crimes fell under the rubric of
"punishable by dismissal."

"IT WAS THE HEADMASTER AND THE FACULTY WHO TRASHED THE
VOLKSWAGEN," Owen pointed out. "THERE WASN'T ANYTHING THE MATTER WITH
THAT CAR UNTIL THE HEADMASTER AND THOSE OAFS GOT THEIR HANDS ON IT."

"As one of 'those oafs,' I don't want to know how you know
that, Owen," Dan told him. "I want you to be very careful what you
say-to anybody!"

There were only a few days left before the end of the winter
term, which would also mark the end of Owen Meany's "disciplinary
probation." Once the spring term started, Owen could afford a few, small
lapses in his adherence to school rules; he wasn't much of a rule-breaker,
anyway. Dr. Dolder, naturally, saw what had happened to his car as a crowning
example of the "hostility" he often felt from the students. Dr.
Dolder was extremely sensitive to both real and imagined hostility because not
a single student at Gravesend Academy was known to seek the psychiatrist's
advice willingly; Dr. Dolder's only patients were either required (by the
school) or forced (by their parents) to see him. In their first session
together following the destruction of his VW, Dr. Dolder began with Owen by
saying to him, "I know you hate me-yes? But why do you hate me?"

"I HATE HAVING TO TALK WITH YOU," Owen admitted,
"BUT I DON'T HATE YOU-NOBODY HATES YOU, DOCTOR DOLDER!"

"And what did he say when you said that!" I asked Owen
Meany.

"HE WAS QUIET FOR A LONG TIME-I THINK HE WAS CRYING,"
Owen said.

"Jesus!" I said.

"I THINK THAT THE ACADEMY IS AT A LOW POINT IN ITS
HISTORY," Owen observed. That was so typical of him; that in the midst of
a precarious situation, he would suggest-as a subject for criticism-something
far removed from himself! But there was no hard evidence against him; not even
the zeal of the headmaster could put the blame for the demolished Beetle on
Owen Meany. Then, as soon as that scare was behind him, there was a worse
problem. Larry Lish was "busted" while trying to buy beer at a local
grocery store; the manager of the store had confiscated Lish's fake
identification-the phony draft card that falsified his age-and called the
police. Lish admitted that the draft card had been created from a blank card in
the editorial offices of The Grave-his illegal identification had been invented
on the photocopier. According to Lish, "countless" Gravesend Academy
students had acquired fake draft cards in this fashion.

"And whose idea was that?" the headmaster asked him.

"Not mine," said Larry Lish. "I bought my
card-like everyone else."

I can only imagine that the headmaster was trembling with
excitement; this interrogation took place in the Police Depart-

        
 
ment offices of Gravesend's own chief of
police-our old "murder weapon" and "instrument of death"
man, Chief Ben Pike! Chief Pike had already informed Larry Lish that falsifying
a draft card carried "criminal charges."

"Who was selling and making these fake draft cards,
Larry?" Randy White asked. Larry Lish would make his mother proud of him-I
have no doubt about that.

"Owen Meany," said Larry Lish. And so the spring
vacation of  did not come quite soon enough. The headmaster made a deal
with Police Chief Pike: no "criminal charges" would be brought
against anyone at the academy if the headmaster could turn over to Chief Pike
all the fake draft cards at the school. That was pretty easy. The headmaster
told every boy at morning meeting to leave his wallet on the stage before he
left The Great Hall; boys without their wallets would return immediately to
their dormitory rooms and hand them over to an attendant faculty member. Every
boy's wallet would be returned to him in his post-office box. There were no
morning classes; the faculty was too busy looking through each boy's wallet and
removing his fake draft card. In the emergency faculty meeting that Randy White
called, Dan Needham said: "What you're doing isn't even legall Every
parent of every boy at this school should sue you!"

But the headmaster argued that he was sparing the school the
disgrace of having "criminal charges" brought against Graves-end
students. The academy's reputation as a good school would not suffer by this
action of confiscation as much as that reputation would suffer from
"criminal charges." And as for the criminal who had actually
manufactured and sold these false identification cards-' 'for a
profit!''-naturally, the headmaster said, that student's fate would be decided
by the Executive Committee. And so they crucified him-it happened that quickly.
It didn't matter that he told them he had given up his illegal enterprise; it
didn't matter to them that he said he had been inspired to correct his behavior
by JFK's inaugural speech-or that he knew the fake draft cards were being used
to illegally purchase alcohol, and that he didn't approve of drinking; it
didn't matter to them that he didn't even drink! Larry Lish, and everyone in
possession of a fake draft card, was put on disciplinary probation-for the
duration of the spring term. But the Executive Committee crucified Owen
Meany-they axed him; they gave him the boot; they threw him out. Dan tried to
block Owen's dismissal by calling for a special vote among the faculty; but the
headmaster said that the Executive Committee decision was final-"vote or
no vote." Mr. Early telephoned each member of the Board of Trustees; but
there were only two days remaining in the winter term-the trustees could not
possibly be assembled before the spring vacation, and they would not overrule
an Executive Committee decision without a proper meeting. The decision to throw
Owen Meany out of school was so unpopular that the former headmaster, old
Archibald Thorndike, emerged from his retirement to express his disapproval;
old Archie told one of the students who wrote for The Grave-and a reporter from
the town paper, The Gravesend News-Letter-that "Owen Meany is one of the
best citizens the academy has ever produced; I expect great things from that
little fella," the former headmaster said. Old Thorny also disapproved of
what he called' 'the Gestapo methods of seizing the students' billfolds,"
and he questioned Randy White's tactics on the grounds that they "did
little to teach respect for personal property."

"That old fart," Dan Needham said. "I know he
means well, but no one listened to him when he was headmaster; no one's going
to listen to him now." In Dan's opinion, it was self-serving to credit the
academy with "producing" students; least of all, Dan said, could the
academy claim to have "produced" Owen Meany. And regarding the merits
of teaching "respect for personal property," that was an
old-fashioned idea; and the word "billfolds," in Dan's opinion, was
outdated-although Dan agreed with old Archibald Thorndike that Randy White's
tactics were pure "Gestapo."

All this talk did nothing for Owen. The Rev. Lewis Merrill
called Dan and me and asked us if we knew where Owen was-Pastor Merrill had
been trying to reach him. But whenever anyone called the Meanys' house, either the
line was busy-probably the receiver was off the hook- or else Mr. Meany
answered the phone and said that he thought Owen was "in Durham."
That meant he was with Hester; but when I called her, she wouldn't admit he was
there.

"Have you got some good news for him?" she asked me.
"Is that rucking creep school going to let him graduate?"

"No," I said. "I don't have any good news."

"Then just leave him alone," she suggested. Later, I
heard Dan on the telephone, talking to the headmaster.

"You're the worst thing that ever happened to this
school," Dan told Randy White.' 'If you survive this disaster, / won't be
staying here-and I won't leave alone. You've permitted yourself a fatal and
childish indulgence, you've done something one of the boys might do, you've
engaged-in a kind of combat with a student-you've been competing with one of
the kids. You're such a kid yourself, you let Owen Meany get to you. Because a
kid took a dislike to you, you decided to pay him back-that's just the way a
kid thinks! You're not grown-up enough to run a school.

"And this was a scholarship boy!" Dan Needham yelled
in the telephone. "This is a boy who's going to go to college on a
scholarship, too-or else he won't go. If Owen Meany doesn't get the best deal
possible, from the best college around-you're responsible for that, too!"