A prayer for Owen Meany (67 page)

"The Cenozoic is an era, right?" I asked him.

"WHO CARES?" said Owen Meany. "YOU CAN FORGET
THAT PART. AND YOU CAN FORGET ABOUT ANYTHING AS BROAD AS THE TERTIARY OR THE
QUATERNARY-THAT'S TOO BROAD, TOO. WHAT YOU'VE GOT TO KNOW IS MORE SPECIFIC,
YOU'VE GOT TO KNOW WHAT CHARACTERIZED AN EPOCH- FOR EXAMPLE, WHICH EPOCH IS
CHARACTERIZED BY THE TRIUMPH OF BIRDS AND PLACENTAL MAMMALS?"

"Jesus, how'd I ever let you talk me into this?" I
said.

"PAY ATTENTION," said Owen Meany. "THERE ARE WAYS
TO REMEMBER EVERYTHING. THE WAY TO REMEMBER PLEISTOCENE IS TO REMEMBER THAT
THIS EPOCH WAS CHARACTERIZED BY THE APPEARANCE OF MAN AND WIDESPREAD GLACIAL
ICE-REMEMBER THE ICE, IT RHYMES WITH PLEIS IN PLEISTOCENE."

"Jesus Christ!" I said.

"I'M JUST TRYING TO HELP YOU REMEMBER," Owen said.
"IF YOU'RE CONFUSING THE BLOSSOMING OF BIRDS AND PLACENTAL MAMMALS WITH
THE FIRST APPEARANCE OF MAN, YOU'RE ABOUT SIXTY MILLION YEARS OFF-YOU'RE MAKING
A PRETTY BIG MISTAKE!"

"The biggest mistake I made was to take Geology!" I
said. Suddenly, Ethel was in my room; we hadn't heard her knock or open the
door-I don't remember ever seeing Ethel in my room before (or since).

"Your grandmother wishes to see you in the TV room,"
Ethel said.

"IS SOMETHING WRONG WITH THE TV?" Owen asked her.

"Something is wrong with the president," Ethel said.
When we found out what was wrong with Kennedy-when we saw him shot, and, later,
when we learned he was dead-

        
 
Owen Meany said, "IF WE FIRST APPEAR IN
THE PLEISTOCENE, I THINK THIS IS WHEN WE DISAPPEAR-I GUESS A MILLION YEARS OF
MAN IS ENOUGH."

What we witnessed with the death of Kennedy was the triumph of
television; what we saw with his assassination, and with his funeral, was the
beginning of television's dominance of our culture-for television is at its
most solemnly self-serving and at its mesmerizing best when it is depicting the
untimely deaths of the chosen and the golden. It is as witness to the butchery
of heroes in their prime-and of all holy-seeming innocents-that television
achieves its deplorable greatness. The blood on Mrs. Kennedy's clothes and her
wrecked face under her veil; the fatherless children; LBJ taking the oath of
office; and brother Bobby-looking so very much the next in line.

"IF BOBBY WAS NEXT IN LINE FOR MARILYN MONROE, WHAT ELSE IS
HE NEXT IN LINE FOR?" said Owen Meany. Not even five years later, when
Bobby Kennedy was assassinated, Hester would say, "Television gives good
disaster." I suppose this was nothing but a more vernacular version of my
grandmother's observation of the effect of TV on old people: that watching it
would hasten their deaths. If watching television doesn't hasten death, it
surely manages to make death very inviting; for television so shamelessly
sentimentalizes and romanticizes death that it makes the living feel they have
missed something-just by staying alive. At  Front Street, that November of
', my grandmother and Owen Meany and I watched the president be killed for
hours; for days we watched him be killed and re-killed, again and again.

"I GET THE POINT," said Owen Meany. "IF SOME
MANIAC MURDERS YOU, YOU'RE AN INSTANT HERO-EVEN IF ALL YOU WERE DOING IS RIDING
IN A MOTORCADE!"

"I wish some maniac would murder me," my grandmother
said.

"MISSUS WHEELWRIGHT! WHAT DO YOU MEAN?" Owen said.

"I mean, why can't some maniac murder someone old-like
me?" Grandmother said. "I'd rather be murdered by a maniac than have
to leave my home-and that's what will happen to me," she said. "Maybe
Dan, maybe Martha-maybe you,"

she said accusingly to me. "One of you, or all of
you-either way, you're going to force me to leave this house. You're going to
put me in a place with a bunch of old people who are crazy," Grandmother
said. "And I'd rather be murdered by a maniac instead-that's all I mean.
One day, Ethel won't be able to manage-one day, it will take a hundred Ethels
just to clean up the mess I make!" my grandmother said. "One day, not
even you will want to watch television with me," she said to Owen.
"One day," she said to me, "you'll come to visit me and I won't
even know who you are. Why doesn't someone train the maniacs to murder old people
and leave the young people alone? What a waster" she cried. A lot of
people were saying this about the death of President Kennedy-with a slightly
different meaning, of course. "I'm going to be an incontinent idiot,"
my grandmother said; she looked directly at Owen Meany. "Wouldn't you
rather be murdered by a maniac?" she asked him.

"IF IT WOULD DO ANY GOOD-YES, I WOULD," said Owen
Meany.

"I think we've been watching too much television," I
said.

"There's no remedy for that," my grandmother said. But
after the murder of President Kennedy, it seemed to me that there was "no
remedy" for Owen Meany, either; he succumbed to a state of mind that he
would not discuss with me-he went into a visible decline in communication. I
would often see the tomato-red pickup parked behind the vestry of Kurd's
Church; Owen had kept in touch with the Rev. Lewis Merrill, whose silent and
extended prayer for Owen had gained him much respect among the faculty and
students at Graves-end. Pastor Merrill had always been "liked"; but
before his prayer he had lacked respect. I'm sure that Owen, too, was grateful
for Mr. MerriH's gesture-even if the gesture had been a struggle, and not of
the minister's own initiative. But after JFK's death, Owen appeared to see more
of the Rev. Mr. Merrill; and Owen wouldn't tell me what they talked about.
Maybe they talked about Marilyn Monroe and the Kennedys. They talked about
"the dream," I suppose; but I had not yet been successful in coaxing
that dream out of Owen Meany.

"What's this I hear about a dream you keep having?" I
asked him once.

"I DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'VE HEARD," he said. And shortly
before that New Year's Eve, I asked Hester if she knew anything about any
dream. Hester had had a few

        
 
drinks; she was getting into her throwing-up
mood, but she was rarely caught off-guard. She eyed me suspiciously.

"What do you know about it?" she asked me.

"I just know that he has a dream-and that it bothers
him," I added.

"I know that it bothers me," she said. "It wakes
me up-when he has it. And I don't like to look at him when he's having it, or
after it's over. Don't ask me what it's about!" she said. "I can tell
you one thing: you don't want to know."

And occasionally I saw the tomato-red pickup parked at St.
Michael's-not at the school, but by the curb at the rectory for St. Michael's
Catholic ChurcM I figured he was talking to Father Findley; maybe because
Kennedy had been a Catholic, maybe because some kind of ongoing dialogue with
Father Findley had actually been required of Owen-in lieu of his being obliged
to compensate the Catholic Church for the damage done to Mary Magdalene.

"How's it going with Father Findley?" I asked him
once.

"I BELIEVE HE MEANS WELL," Owen said cautiously.
"BUT THERE'S A FUNDAMENTAL LEAP OF FAITH THAT ALL HIS TRAINING-ALL THAT
CATHOLIC BACKGROUND-SIMPLY CANNOT ALLOW HIM TO MAKE. I DON'T THINK HE'LL EVER
UNDERSTAND THE MAGNITUDE . . . THE UNSPEAKABLE OUTRAGE ..." Then he
stopped talking.

"Yes?" I said. "You were saying . . . 'the
unspeakable outrage' . . . was that to your parents, do you mean?"

"FATHER FINDLEY SIMPLY CANNOT GRASP HOW THEY HAVE BEEN MADE
TO SUFFER," said Owen Meany.

"Oh," I said. "I see." I was joking, of
course! But either my humor eluded him, or else Owen Meany had no intention of
making himself any clearer on this point.

"But you like Father Findley?" I asked. "I mean,
sort of ... 'he means well,' you say. You enjoy talking to him- I guess."

"IT TURNS OUT IT'S IMPOSSIBLE TO RESTORE MARY MAGDALENE
EXACTLY AS SHE WAS-I MEAN, THE STATUE," he said. "MY FATHER KNOWS A
COMPANY THAT MAKES SAINTS, AND OTHER HOLY FIGURES-I MEAN, GRANITE, YOU
KNOW," he said. "BUT THEIR PRICES ARE RIDICULOUS. FATHER FIND-LEY'S
BEEN VERY PATIENT. I'M GETTING HIM GOOD GRANITE-AND SOMEONE WHO SCULPTS THESE
SAINTS A LITTLE CHEAPER, AND MAKES THEM A LITTLE MORE PERSONALLY . . . YOU
KNOW, NOT ALWAYS EXACTLY THE SAME GESTURE OF SUPPLICATION, SO THAT THEY DON'T
ALWAYS LOOK LIKE BEGGARS. I'VE TOLD FATHER FINDLEY THAT I CAN MAKE HIM A MUCH
BETTER PEDESTAL THAN THE ONE HE'S GOT, AND I'VE BEEN TRYING TO CONVINCE HIM TO
GET RID OF THAT STUPID ARCHWAY- BF SHE DOESN'T LOOK LIKE A GOALIE IN A GOAL,
MAYBE KIDS WON'T ALWAYS BE TAKING SHOTS AT HER. YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN."

"It's been almost two years!" I said. "I didn't
know you were still involved in replacing Mary Magdalene-I didn't know you were
ever this involved," I added.

"WELL, SOMEONE'S GOT TO TAKE CHARGE," he said.
"FATHER FINDLEY DID ME A FAVOR-I DON'T LIKE TO SEE THESE GRANITE GUYS
TAKING ADVANTAGE OF HIM. SOMEONE NEEDS A SAINT OR A HOLY FIGURE IN A HURRY, AND
WHAT DO THEY DO? THEY MAKE YOU PAY FOR IT, OR THEY MAKE YOU WAIT FOREVER-THEY
FIGURE THEY'VE GOT YOU BY THE BALLS. AND WHO CAN AFFORD MARBLE! I'M JUST TRYING
TO RETURN A FAVOR."

And was he asking Father Findley about the dream? I wondered. It
bothered me that he was seeing someone I didn't even know-and maybe talking to
this person about things he wouldn't discuss with me. I suppose that bothered
me about Hester, too-and even the Rev. Lewis Merrill began to irritate me. I
didn't run into him very often-although he was a regular in attendance at the
rehearsals and performances of The Gravesend Players-but whenever I did run
into him, he looked at me as if he knew something special about me (as if Owen
had been talking about me to him, as if/ were in Owen's damn dream, or so I
imagined). In my opinion,  was not a very exciting year. General Greene
replaced General Shoup; Owen told me lots of military news-as a good ROTC
student, he prided himself on knowing these things. President Johnson ordered
the withdrawal of American dependents from South Vietnam.

"THIS ISN'T GENERALLY AN OPTIMISTIC SIGN," said Owen
Meany. If the majority of his professors at the University of New Hampshire
found Owen less than brilliant,

 
 
his professors of
Military Science were completely charmed. It was the year when Admiral Sharp
replaced Admiral Felt, when General Westmoreland replaced General Harkins, when
General Wheeler replaced General Taylor, when General Johnson replaced General
Wheeler-when General Taylor replaced Henry Cabot Lodge as U.S. ambassador to
Vietnam.

"LOTS OF STUFF IS IN THE WORKS," said Owen Meany. It
was the year of the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, which prompted Owen to ask:
"DOES THAT MEAN THE PRESIDENT CAN DECLARE A WAR WITHOUT DECLARING
IT?" It was the year when Owen's grade-point average fell below mine; but
in Military Science, his grades were perfect. Even the summer of ' was
uninspired-except for the completion of the replacement Mary Magdalene, which
was firmly set upon Owen Meany's formidable pedestal in the St Michael's
schoolyard, more than two years after the attack upon her predecessor.

"YOU'RE SO UNOBSERVANT," Owen told me. "THE
GOALIE'S BEEN OUT OF THE GOAL FOR TWO YEARS, AND YOU HAVEN'T EVEN
NOTICED!"

What I noticed straightaway was that he'd talked Father Findley
into removing the goal. The whitewashed stone archway was gone; so was the
notion of whitewash. The new Mary Magdalene was granite-gray, gravestone-gray,
a color Owen Meany called NATURAL. Her face, like her color, was slightly
downcast, almost apologetic; and her arms were not outstretched in obvious
supplication-rather, she clasped her hands together at her slight breast, her
hands just barely emerging from the sleeves of her robe, which shapelessly
draped her body to her small, bare, plain-gray feet. She seemed altogether too
demure for a former prostitute-and too withholding of any gesture for a saint.
Yet she radiated a certain compliance; she looked as easy to get along with as
my mother. And the pedestal upon which Owen had stood her-in contrast to Mary's
own rough finish (granite is never as smooth as marble)-was highly polished,
exquisitely beveled; Owen had cut some very fine edges with the diamond wheel,
creating the impression that Mary Magdalene either stood upon or was rising
from her grave.

"WHAT DO YOU THINK?" Owen asked Hester and me.
"FATHER FINDLEY WAS VERY PLEASED."

"It's sick-it's all sick," said Hester. "It's
just death and more death-that's all it is with you, Owen."

"HESTER'S SO SENSITIVE," Owen said.

"I like it better than the other one," I ventured
cautiously.

"THERE'S NO COMPARISON!" said Owen Meany.

"I like the pedestal," I said. "It's almost as if
she's . . . well, you know . . . stepping out of her own grave."

Owen nodded vigorously. "YOU HAVE A GOOD EYE," he
said. "THAT'S EXACTLY THE EFFECT I WANTED. THAT'S WHAT IT MEANS TO BE A
SAINT, ISN'T IT? A SAINT SHOULD BE AN EMBLEM OF IMMORTALITY!"

"What a lot of shitl" said Hester. It was an
uninspired year for Hester, too; here she was, a college graduate, still living
in her squalid apartment in her old college town, still waitressing in the
lobster-house restaurant in Kittery or Portsmouth. I had never eaten there, but
Owen said it was nice enough-on the harbor, a little overquaint with the
seafood theme (lobster pots and buoys and anchors and mooring ropes were
prevalent in the decor). The problem was, Hester hated lobster-she called them
"insects of the sea," and she washed her hair every night with lemon
juice because she thought her hair smelled fishy. I think that her late hours
(she waitressed only at night) were in part responsible for Owen Meany's
decline as a student; he was loyal about picking her up-and it seemed to me
that she worked most nights. Hester had her own driver's license and her own
car-actually, it was Noah's old ' Chevy-but she hated to drive; that Uncle
Alfred and Aunt Martha had given her a hand-me-down might have had something to
do with it. In Owen's view, the ' Chevy was in better shape than his tomato-red
pickup; but Hester knew it had been secondhand when the Eastmans gave it to
Noah, who had passed it to Simon, who'd had a minor accident with it before
he'd handed it down to Hester. But by picking up Hester after work, Owen Meany
rarely got back to Hester's apartment before one o'clock in the morning; Hester
was so keyed up after waitressing that she wasn't ready to go to bed before
two-first, she had to wash her hair, which further woke her up; and then she
needed to complain. Often someone had insulted her; sometimes it had been a
customer who'd tried to pick her up-and failing that, had left her a rotten
tip. And the other waitresses were "woefully unaware," Hester said;
what they were unaware of, she wouldn't say-but they often insulted Hester,
too. And if Owen Meany didn't