by John Irving
So what if Owen has the ball? I was thinking. But at the time I was mainly thinking about my mother; I was already
beginning to get angry with her for never telling me who my father was. At the time, I was only eleven; I had no idea who else had attended that Little League game, and that death-and who had his own reason for wanting to possess the ball that Owen Meany hit.
THE ARMADILLO
MY MOTHER'S NAME was Tabitha, although no one but my grandmother actually called her that. Grandmother hated nicknames-with the exception that she never called me John; I was always Johnny to her, even long after I'd become just plain John to everyone else. To everyone else, my mother was Tabby. I recall one occasion when the Rev. Lewis Merrill said "Tabitha," but that was spoken in front of my mother and grandmother-and the occasion was an argument, or at least a plea. The issue was my mother's decision to leave the Congregational Church for the Episcopal, and the Rev. Mr. Merrill-speaking to my grandmother, as if my mother weren't in the room-said, "Tabitha Wheelwright is the one truly angelic voice in our choir, and we shall be a choir without a soul if she leaves us." I must add, in Pastor MerrilFs defense, that he didn't always speak with such Byzantine muddiness, but he was sufficiently worked up about my mother's and my own departure from his church to offer his opinions as if he were speaking from the pulpit. In New Hampshire, when I was a boy, Tabby was a common name for house cats, and there was undeniably a feline quality to my mother-never in the sly or stealthy sense of that word, but in the word's other catlike qualities: a clean, sleek, self-possessed, strokable quality. In quite a different way from
Owen Meany, my mother looked touchable; I was always aware of how much people wanted, or needed, to touch her. I'm not talking only about men, although-even at my age-I was aware of how restlessly men moved their hands in her company. I mean that everyone liked to touch her-and depending on her attitude toward her toucher, my mother's responses to being touched were feline, too. She could be so chillingly indifferent that the touching would instantly stop; she was well coordinated and surprisingly quick and, like a cat, she could retreat from being touched-she could duck under or dart away from someone's hand as instinctively as the rest of us can shiver. And she could respond in that other way that cats can respond, too; she could luxuriate in being touched-she could contort her body quite shamelessly, putting more and more pressure against the toucher's hand, until (I used to imagine) anyone near enough to her could hear her purr. Owen Meany, who rarely wasted words and who had the conversation-stopping habit of dropping remarks like coins into a deep pool of water . . . remarks that sank, like truth, to the bottom of the pool where they would remain, untouchable . . . Owen said to me once, "YOUR MOTHER IS SO SEXY, I KEEP FORGETTING SHE'S ANYBODY'S MOTHER."
As for my Aunt Martha's insinuations, leaked to my cousins, who dribbled the suggestion, more than ten years late, to me-that my mother was "a little simple''-I believe this is the result of a jealous elder sister's misunderstanding. My Aunt Martha failed to understand the most basic thing about my mother: that she was born into the entirely wrong body. Tabby Wheelwright looked like a starlet-lush, whimsical, easy to talk into anything; she looked eager to please, or "a little simple," as my Aunt Martha observed; she looked touchable. But I firmly believe that my mother was of an entirely different character man her appearance would suggest; as her son, I know, she was almost perfect as a mother-her sole imperfection being that she died before she could tell me who my father was. And in addition to being an almost perfect mother, I also know that she was a happy woman-and a truly happy woman drives some men and almost every other woman absolutely crazy. If her body looked restless, she wasn't. She was content-she was feline in that respect, too. She appeared to want nothing from life but a child and a loving husband; it is important to note these singulars-she did not want children, she wanted me, just me, and she got me; she did not want men in her life, she wanted a man, the right man, and shortly before she died, she found him. I have said that my Aunt Martha is a "lovely woman," and I mean it: she is warm, she is attractive, she is decent and kind and honorably intentioned-and she has always been loving to me. She loved my mother, too; she just never understood her-and when however small a measure of jealousy is mixed with misunderstanding, there is going to be trouble. I have said that my mother was a sweater girl, and that is a contradiction to the general modesty with which she dressed; she did show off her bosom-but never her flesh, except for her athletic, almost-innocent shoulders. She did like to bare her shoulders. And her dress was never slatternly, never wanton, never garish; she was so conservative in her choice of colors that I remember little in her wardrobe that wasn't black or white, except for some accessories-she had a fondness for red (in scarves, in hats, in shoes, in mittens and gloves). She wore nothing that was tight around her hips, but she did like her small waist and her good bosom to show-she did have THE BEST BREASTS OF ALL THE MOTHERS, as Owen observed. I do not think that she flirted; she did not "come on" to men-but how much of that would I have seen, up to the age of eleven? So maybe she did flirt-a little. I used to imagine that her flirting was reserved for the Boston & Maine, that she was absolutely and properly my mother in every location upon this earth-even in Boston, the dreaded city-but that on the train she might have looked for men. What else could explain her having met the man who fathered me there? And some six years later-on the same train-she met the man who would marry her! Did the rhythm of the train on the tracks somehow unravel her and make^her behave out of character? Was she altered in transit, when her feet were^not upon the ground? I expressed this absurd fear only once, and only to Owen. He was shocked.
"HOW COULD YOU THINK SUCH A THING ABOUT YOUR OWN MOTHER?" he asked me.
"But yew say she's sexy, you're the one who raves about her breasts," I told him.
"I DON'T RAVE," Owen told me.
"Well, okay-I mean, you like her," I said. "Men, and boys-they like her."
"FORGET THAT ABOUT THE TRAIN," Owen said
"YOUR MOTHER IS A PERFECT WOMAN. NOTHING HAPPENS TO HER ON THE TRAIN."
Well, although she said she "met" my father on the Boston & Maine, I never imagined that my conception occurred there; it is a fact, however, that she met the man she would marry on that train. That story was neither a lie nor a secret. How many times I asked her to tell me that story! And she never hesitated, she never lacked enthusiasm for telling that story-which she told the same way, every time. And after she was dead, how many times I asked him to tell me the story-and he would tell it, with enthusiasm, and the same way, every time. His name was Dan Needham. How many times I have prayed to God that he was my real father! My mother and my grandmother and I-and Lydia, minus one of her legs-were eating dinner on a Thursday evening in the spring of . Thursdays were the days my mother returned from Boston, and we always had a better-than-average dinner those nights. I remember that it was shortly after Lydia's leg had been amputated, because it was still a little strange to have her eating with us at the table (in her wheelchair), and to have the two new maids doing the serving and the clearing that only recently Lydia had done. And the wheelchair was still new enough to Lydia so that she wouldn't allow me to push her around in it; only my grandmother and my mother-and one of the two new maids-were allowed to. I don't remember all the trivial intricacies of Lydia's wheel-chair rules-just that the four of us were finishing our dinner, and Lydia's presence at the dinner table was as new and noticeable as fresh paint. And my mother said, "I've met another man on the good old Boston and Maine."
It was not intended, I think, as an entirely mischievous remark, but the remark took instant and astonishing hold of Lydia and my grandmother and me. Lydia's wheelchair surged in reverse away from the table, dragging the tablecloth after her, so that all the dishes and glasses and silverware jumped-and the candlesticks wobbled. My grandmother seized the large brooch at the throat of her dress-she appeared to have suddenly choked on it-and I snapped so substantial a piece of my lower lip between my teeth that I cou
ld taste my blood. We all thought that my mother was speaking euphemisti- cally. I wasn't present when she'd announced the particulars of the case of the first man she claimed she'd met on the train. Maybe she'd said, "I met a man on the good old Boston and Maine-and now I'm pregnant!" Maybe she said, "I'm going to have a baby as a result of a fling I had with a total stranger I met on the good old Boston and Maine-someone I never expect to see again!"
Well, anyway, if I can't re-create the first announcement, the second announcement was spectacular enough. We all thought that she was telling us that she was pregnant again-by a different man! And as an example of how wrong my Aunt Martha was, concerning her point of view that my mother was "a little simple," my mother instantly saw what we were thinking, and laughed at us, very quickly, and said, "No, no! I'm not going to have a baby. I'm never going to have another baby-I have my baby. I'm just telling you that I've met a man. Someone I like."
"A different man, Tabitha?" my grandmother asked, still holding her brooch.
"Oh, not that man! Don't be silly," my mother said, and she laughed again-her laughter drawing Lydia's wheelchair, ever so cautiously, back toward the table.
"A man you like, you mean, Tabitha?" my grandmother asked.
"I wouldn't mention him if I didn't like him," my mother said. "I want you to meet him," she said to us all.
"You've dated him?" my grandmother asked.
"No! I just met him-just today, on today's train!" my mother said.
"And already you like him?" Lydia asked, in a tone of voice so perfectly copied from my grandmother that I had to look to see which one of them was speaking.
"Well, yes," my mother said seriously. "You know such things. You don't need that much time."
"How many times have you known such things-before?" my grandmother asked.
"This is the first time, really," my mother said. "That's why I know."
Lydia and my grandmother instinctively looked at me, perhaps to ascertain if I'd understood my mother correctly: that the time "before," when she'd had her "fling," which had led to me, was not a time when my mother had enjoyed any special
feelings toward whoever my father was. But I had another idea. I was thinking that maybe this was my father, that maybe this was the first man she'd met on the train, and he'd heard about me, and he was curious about me and wanted to see me-and something very important had kept him away for the last six years. There had, after all, been a war back when I'd been born, in . But as another example of how wrong my Aunt Martha was, my mother seemed to see what I was imagining, immediately, because she said, "Please understand, Johnny, that this man has no relationship whatsoever to the man who is your father-this is a man I saw for the first time today, and I like him. That's all: I just like him, and I think you'll like him, too."
"Okay," I said, but I couldn't look at her. I remember keeping my eyes on Lydia's hands, gripping her wheel-chair-and on my grandmother's hands, toying with her brooch.
"What does he do, Tabitha?" my grandmother asked. That was a Wheelwright thing to ask. In my grandmother's opinion, what one "did" was related to where one's family "came from"-she always hoped it was from England, and in the seventeenth century. And the short list of things that my grandmother approved of "doing" was no less specific than seventeenth-century England.
"Dramatics," my mother said. "He's a sort of actor-but not really."
"An unemployed actor?" my grandmother asked. (I think now that an employed actor would have been unsuitable enough.)
"No, he's not looking for employment as an actor-he's strictly an amateur actor," my mother said. And I thought of those people in the train stations who handled puppets-I meant street performers, although at six years old I hadn't the vocabulary to suggest this. "He teaches acting, and putting on plays," my mother said.
"A director?" my grandmother asked, more hopefully.
"Not exactly," my mother said, and she frowned. "He was on his way to Gravesend for an interview."
"I can't imagine there's much opportunity for theater here!" my grandmother said.
"He had an interview at the academy," my mother said. "It's a teaching job-the history of drama, or something. And the boys have their own theatrical productions-you know, Martha and I used to go to them. It was so funny how they had to dress up as girls!"
That was the funniest part of those productions, in my memory; I'd had no idea that directing such performances was anyone's job.
"So he's a teacher?" my grandmother asked. This was borderline acceptable to Harriet Wheelwright-although my grandmother was a shrewd enough businesswoman to know that the dollars and cents of teaching (even at as prestigious a prep school as Gravesend Academy) were not exactly in her league.
"Yes!" my mother said in an exhausted voice. "He's a teacher. He's been teaching dramatics in a private school in Boston. Before that, he went to Harvard-Class of Forty-five."
"Goodness gracious!" my grandmother said. "Why didn't you begin with Harvard?"
"It's not important to him," my mother said. But Harvard ' was important enough to my grandmother to calm her troubled hands; they left her brooch alone, and returned to rest in her lap. After a polite pause, Lydia inched her wheelchair forward and picked up the little silver bell and shook it for the maids to come clear-the very bell that had summoned Lydia so often (only yesterday, it seemed). And the bell had the effect of releasing us all from the paralyzing tension we had just survived-but for only an instant. My grandmother had forgotten to ask: What is the man's name? For in her view, we Wheelwrights were not out of the woods without knowing the name of the potential new member of the family. God forbid, he was a Cohen, or a Calamari, or a Meany! Up went my grandmother's hands to her brooch again.
"His name is Daniel Needham," my mother said. Whew! With what relief-down came my grandmother's hands! Need-ham was a fine old name, a founding fathers sort of name, a name you could trace back to the Massachusetts Bay Colony-if not exactly to Gravesend itself. And Daniel was as Daniel as Daniel Webster, which was as good a name as a Wheelwright could wish for.
"But he's called Dan," my mother added, bringing a slight frown to my grandmother's countenance. She had never gone along with making Tabitha a Tabby, and if she'd had a Daniel she wouldn't have made him a Dan. But Harriet Wheelwright
was fair-minded enough, and smart enough, to yield in the case of a small difference of opinion.
"So, have you made a date?" my grandmother asked.
"Not exactly," my mother said. "But I know I'll see him again.''
"But you haven't made any plans?" my grandmother asked. Vagueness annoyed her. "If he doesn't get the job at the academy," my grandmother said, "you may never see him again!"
"But I know I'll see him again!" my mother repeated.
"You can be such a know-it-all, Tabitha Wheelwright," my grandmother said crossly. "I don't know why young people find it such a burden to plan ahead." And to this notion, as to almost everything my grandmother said, Lydia wisely nodded her head-the explanation for her silence was that my grandmother was expressing exactly what Lydia would have expressed, only seconds before Lydia could have done so. Then the doorbell rang. Both Lydia and my grandmother stared at me, as if only my Mends would be uncouth enough to make a call after dinner, uninvited.
"Heavens, who is that?" Grandmother asked, and she and Lydia both took a pointed and overly long look at their wristwatches-although it was not even eight o'clock on a balmy spring evening; there was still some light in the sky.
"I'll bet that's ton!" my mother said, getting up from the table to go to the door. She gave herself a quick and approving look in the mirror over the sideboard where the roast sat, growing cold, and she hurried into the hall.
"Then you did make a date?" my grandmother asked. "Did you invite him?"
"Not exactly!" my mother called. "But I told him where I lived!"
"Nothing is exactly with young people, I've noticed," my grandmother said, more to Lydia than to me.
"It
certainly isn't," said Lydia. But I'd heard enough of them; I had heard them for years. I followed my mother to the door; my grandmother, pushing Lydia in her wheelchair in front of her, followed me. Curiosity, which-in New Hampshire, in those days-was often said to be responsible for the death of cats, had got the better of us all. We knew that my mother had no immediate plans to reveal to us a single clue regarding the first man she'd supposedly met on the Boston & Maine; but the second man-we could see him for ourselves. Dan Needham was on the doorstep of Front Street, Gravesend. Of course, my mother had had "dates" before, but she'd never said of one of them that she wanted us to meet him, or that she even liked him, or that she knew she'd see him again. And so we were aware that Dan Needham was special, from the start. I suppose Aunt Martha would have said that one aspect of my mother being "a little simple" was her attraction to younger men; but in this habit my mother was simply ahead of her time-because it's true, the men she dated were often a little younger than she was. She even went out with a few seniors from Gravesend Academy when-if she'd gone to college-she would have been a college senior herself; but she just "went out" with them. While they were only prep-school boys and she was in her twenties-with an illegitimate child-all she did with those boys was dance with them, or go to movies or plays with them, or to the sporting events. I was used to seeing a few goons come calling, I will admit; and they never knew how to respond to me. They had no idea, for example, what a six-year-old was. They either brought me rubber ducks for the bath, or other toys for virtual infants-or else they brought me Fowler's Modern English Usage: something every six-year-old should plunge into. And when they saw me-when they were confronted with my short, sturdy presence, and the fact that I was too old for bathtub toys and too young far Modern English Usage-they would become insanely restless to impress me with their sensitivity to a waist-high person like myself. They would suggest a game of catch in the backyard, and then rifle an uncatchable football into my small face, or they would palaver to me in baby talk about showing them my favorite toy-so that they might know what kind of thing was more appropriate to bring me, next time. There was rarely a next time. Once one of them asked my mother if I was toilet-trained-I guess he found this a suitable question, prior to his inviting me to sit on his knees and play bucking bronco.