A prayer for Owen Meany: a novel

by John Irving

  We were seventeen; we had a sullen summer. In the fall, Noah and Simon started college out on the West Coast; they went to one of those California universities that no one on the East Coast can ever remember the name of. And the Eastmans continued their folly of considering Hester as less of an investment; they sent her to the University of New Hampshire, where-as a resident-she merited in-state tuition. "They want to keep me in their own backyard," was how Hester put it.

  "THEY PUT HER IN OUR BACKYARD," was how Owen put it; the state university was only a twenty-minute drive from Gravesend. That it was a better university than the tanning club that Noah and Simon attended in California was not an argument that impressed Hester; the boys got to travel, the boys got the more agreeable climate-she got to stay home. To New Hampshire natives, the state university-notwithstanding how basically solid an education it offered-was not exotic; to Gravesend Academy students, with their elitist eyes on the Ivy League schools, it was "a cow college," wholly beyond redemption. But in the fall of ', when Owen and I began our tenth-grade year at the academy, Owen was regarded as especially gifted-by our peers-because he was dating a college girl; that Hester was a cow-college girl did not tarnish Owen's reputation. He was Ladies' Man Meany, he was Older-Woman Master; and he was still and would always be The Voice. He demanded attention; and he got it. Toronto: May , -Gary Hart, a former U.S. senator from Colorado, quit his campaign for the presidency after some Washington reporters caught him shacked up for the weekend with a Miami model; although both the model and the candidate claimed that nothing "immoral" occurred-and Mrs. Hart said that she supported her husband, or maybe it was that she "understood" him-Mr. Hart decided that such intense scrutiny of his personal life created an "intolerable situation" for him and his family. He'll be back; want to bet? In the United States, no one like him disappears for long; remember Nixon? What do Americans know about morality? They don't want their presidents to have penises but they don't mind if their presidents covertly arrange to support the Nicaraguan rebel forces after Congress has restricted such aid; they don't want their presidents to deceive their wives but they don't mind if their presidents deceive Congress-lie to the people and violate the people's constitution! What Mr. Hart should have said was

  that nothing unusually immoral had occurred, or that what happened was only typically immoral; or that he was testing his abilities to deceive the American people by deceiving his wife first-and that he hoped the people would see by this example that he was immoral enough to be good presidential material! I can just hear what The Voice would have said about all this. A sunny day; my fellow Canadians in Winston Churchill Park have their bellies turned toward the sun. All the girls at Bishop Strachan are tugging up their middies and hiking up their pleated skirts; they are pushing their knee socks down around their ankles; the whole world wants a tan. But Owen hated the spring; the warm weather made him think that school was almost over, and Owen loved school. When school was over, Owen Meany went back to the quarries. When school began again-when we started the fall term of -I realized that The Voice had not been idle for the summer; Owen came back to school with a stack of columns ready for The Grave. He charged the Search Committee to find a new headmaster who was dedicated to serving the faculty and the students-"NOT A SERVANT OF THE ALUMNI AND THE TRUSTEES." Although he made fun of Thorny- particularly, of old Archie Thorndike's notion of "the wtiole boy''-Owen praised our departing headmaster for being "AN EDUCATOR FIRST, A FUND-RAISER SECOND." Owen cautioned the Search Committee to "BEWARE OF THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES-THEY'LL PICK A HEADMASTER WHO CARES MORE ABOUT FUND DRIVES THAN THE CURRICULUM OR THE FACULTY WHO TEACH IT. AND DON'T LISTEN TO THE ALUMNI!" warned The Voice; Owen had a low opinion of the alumni.' 'THEY CAN'T EVEN BE TRUSTED TO REMEMBER WHAT IT WAS REALLY LIKE TO BE HERE; THEY'RE ALWAYS TALKING ABOUT WHAT THE SCHOOL DID FOR THEM-OR HOW THE SCHOOL MADE SOMETHING OUT OF THEM, AS IF THEY WERE UNFORMED CLAY WHEN THEY CAME HERE. AS FOR HOW HARSH THE SCHOOL COULD BE, AS FOR HOW MISERABLE THEY WERE WHEN THEY WERE STUDENTS-THE ALUMNI HAVE CONVENIENTLY FORGOTTEN."

  Someone in faculty meeting called Owen "that little turd"; Dan Needham argued that Owen truly adored the school, but that a Gravesend education did not and should not teach respect for uncritical love, for blind devotion. It became harder to defend Owen when he started the petition against fish on Fridays.

  "WE HAVE A NONDENOMINATIONAL CHURCH," he stated. "WHY DO WE HAVE A CATHOLIC DINING HALL? IF CATHOLICS WANT TO EAT FISH ON FRIDAY, WHY MUST THE REST OF US JOIN THEM? MOST KIDS HATE FISH! SERVE FISH BUT SERVE SOMETHING ELSE, TOO-COLD CUTS, OR EVEN PEANUT-BUTTER-AND-JELLY SANDWICHES. WE ARE FREE TO LISTEN TO THE GUEST PREACHER AT KURD'S CHURCH, OR WE CAN ATTEND ANY OF THE TOWN CHURCHES OF OUR CHOICE; JEWS AREN'T FORCED TO TAKE COMMUNION, UNITARIANS AREN'T DRAGGED TO MASS- OR TO CONFESSION-BAPTISTS AREN'T ROUNDED UP ON SATURDAYS AND HERDED OFF TO SYNAGOGUE (OR TO THEIR OWN, UNWILLING CIRCUMCISIONS). YET NON-CATHOLICS MUST EAT FISH; ON FRIDAYS, IT'S EAT FISH OR GO HUNGRY. I THOUGHT THIS WAS A DEMOCRACY. ARE WE ALL FORCED TO SUBSCRIBE TO THE CATHOLIC VIEW OF BIRTH CONTROL? WHY ARE WE FORCED TO EAT CATHOLIC FOOD?"

  He set up a chair and desk in the school post office to collect signatures for his petition-naturally, everyone signed it. "EVEN THE CATHOLICS SIGNED IT!" announced The Voice. Dan Needham said that the food service manager put on quite a show in faculty meeting.

  "Next thing you know, that little turd will want a salad bar! He'll want an alternative to every menu-not just fish on Fridays!"

  In his first column, The Voice had attacked MYSTERY MEAT; now it was fish. "THIS UNJUST IMPOSITION ENCOURAGES RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION," said The Voice; Owen saw signs of anti-Catholicism springing up everywhere. "THERE'S SOME BAD TALK GOING AROUND," he reported. "THE CLIMATE OF THE SCHOOL IS BECOMING DISCRIMINATORY. I HEAR THE OFFENSIVE SLUR, 'MACKEREL-SNAPPER'-AND YOU NEVER USED TO HEAR THAT KIND OF TALK AROUND HERE.'' Frankly, / never heard anyone use the term "mackerel-snapper"-except Owen! And we couldn't pass St. Michael's-not to mention the

  sainted statue of Mary Magdalene-without his saying, "I WONDER WHAT THE PENGUINS ARE UP TO? DO YOU THINK THEY'RE ALL LESBIANS?"

  It was the first Friday following Thanksgiving vacation when they served cold cuts and peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches with the standard fish dish; you could also get a bowl of tomato soup, and potato salad. He had won. He got a standing ovation in the dining hall. As a scholarship boy, he had a job-he was a waiter at a faculty table; the serving tray was half Ms size and he stood at attention beside it, as if it were a shield, while the students applauded him and the faculty smiled a trifle stiffly. Old Thorny called him into his office. "You know, I like you, little fella," he told Owen. "You're a go-getter! But let me give you some advice. Your friends don't watch you as closely as your enemies-and you've got enemies. You've made more enemies in less than two years than I've made in more than twenty! Be careful you don't give your enemies a way to get you."

  Thorny wanted Owen to cox the varsity crew; Owen was the perfect size for a coxswain, and-after all-he'd grown up on the Squamscott. But Owen said that the racing shells had always offended his father-"IT'S A MATTER OF BLOOD BEING THICKER THAN SCHOOL," he told the headmaster; furthermore, the river was polluted. In those days, the town didn't have a proper sewage system; the textile mill, my late grandfather's former shoe factory, and many private homes simply dumped their waste into the Squamscott. Owen said he had often seen "beetleskins" floating in the river; beetleskins still gave him the shivers. Besides, in the fall he liked soccer; of course, he wasn't on the varsity or the junior varsity-but he had fun playing soccer, even on the lowest club-level. He was fast and scrappy--although, from all his smoking, he was easily winded. And in the spring-the other season for crew-Owen liked to play tennis; he wasn't very good, he was just a beginner, but my grandmother bought him a good racquet and Owen appreciated the orderliness of the game. The straight white lines, the proper tension in the net at its exactly correct height, the precise scoring. In the winter-God knows why!-he liked basketball; perversely, p
erhaps, because it was a tall boy's game. He played only in pickup games, to be sure-he could never have played on any of the teams-but he played with enthusiasm; he was quite a leaper, he had a jump shot that elevated him almost to eye level with the other players, and he became obsessed with an impossible frill of the game ("impossible" for him): the slam-dunk. We didn't call it a "slam-dunk" then; we called it "stuffing" the ball, and there wasn't very much of it-most kids weren't tall enough. Of course, Owen could never leap high enough to be above the basket; to stuff the ball down into the basket was a nonsense idea he had-it was his absurd goal. He would devise an approach to the basket; dribbling at good speed, he would time his leap to coincide with a teammate's readiness to lift him higher-he would jump into a teammate's waiting arms, and the teammate would (occasionally) boost Owen above the basket's rim. I was the only one who was willing to practice the timing with him; it was such a ridiculous thing for him to want to do-for someone his size to set himself the challenge of soaring and reaching so high ... it was just silliness, and I tired of the mindless, repetitive choreography.

  "Why are we doing this?" I'd ask him. "It would never work in a game. It's probably not even legal. I can't lift you up to the basket, I'm sure that's not allowed."

  But Owen reminded me that I had once enjoyed lifting him up-at Sunday school. Now that it mattered to him, to get the timing of his leap adjusted to my lifting him even higher, why couldn't I simply indulge him without criticizing him?

  "I TOLERATED YOU LIFTING ME UP-ALL THOSE YEARS WHEN I ASKED YOU NOT TO!" he said.

  " 'All those years,' " I repeated. "It was only a few Sunday school classes, it was only for a couple of years-and we didn't do it every time."

  But it was important to him now-this crazy lifting him up-and so we did it. It became a very well-rehearsed stunt with us; "Slam-Dunk Meany," some of the boys on the basketball team began to call him-Slam-Dunk Master, after he'd perfected the move. Even the basketball coach was appreciative. "I may use you in a game, Owen," the coach said, joking with him.

  "IT'S NOT FOR A GAME," said Owen Meany, who had his own reasons for everything. That Christmas vacation of ', we were in the Gravesend gym for hours every day; we were alone, and undisturbed-all the boarders had gone home-and we were full of contempt for the Eastmans, who appeared to be making a point of not

  inviting us to Sawyer Depot. Noah and Simon had brought a friend home from California; Hester was "in and out"; and some old friend of my Aunt Martha, from her university days, "might" be visiting. The real reason we were not invited, Owen and I were sure, was that Aunt Martha wanted to discourage the relationship between Owen and Hester. Hester had told Owen that her mother referred to him as "the boy who hit that ball," and as "that strange little friend of John's"- and "that boy my mother is dressing up like a little doll." But Hester thought so ill of her mother, and she was such a troublemaker, she might have made up all that and told Owen-chiefly so that Owen would dislike Aunt Martha, too. Owen didn't seem to care. I had been granted an extension to make up two late term papers over the vacation-so it wasn't much of a vacation, anyway; Owen helped me with the history paper and he wrote the English paper for me. "I PURPOSELY DIDN'T SPELL EVERYTHING CORRECTLY. I MADE A FEW GRAMMATICAL ERRORS-OF THE KIND YOU USUALLY MAKE," he told me. "I REPEATED MYSELF OCCASIONALLY, AND THERE'S NO MENTION OF THE MIDDLE OF THE BOOK-AS IF YOU SKIPPED THAT PART. THAT'S THE PART YOU SKIPPED, RIGHT?"

  It was a problem: how my in-class writing, my quizzes and examinations, were not at all as good as the work Owen helped me with. But we studied for all announced tests together, and I was-gradually-improving as a student. Because of my weak spelling I was enrolled in an extra, remedial course, which was marginally insulting, and-also because of my spelling, and my often erratic performance when I was called upon in the classroom-I was asked to see the school psychiatrist once a week. Gravesend Academy was used to good students; when someone struggled, academically-even when one simply couldn't spell properly!-it was assumed to be a matter for a shrink. The Voice had something to say about that, too. "IT SEEMS TO ME THAT PEOPLE WHO DON'T LEARN AS EASILY AS OTHERS SUFFER FROM A KIND OF LEARNING DISABILITY-THERE IS SOMETHING THAT INTERFERES WITH THE WAY THEY PERCEIVE NUMBERS AND LETTERS, THERE IS SOMETHING DIFFERENT ABOUT THE WAY THEY COMPREHEND UNFAMILIAR MATERIAL-BUT I FAIL TO SEE HOW THIS DISABILITY IS IMPROVED BY PSYCHIATRIC CONSULTATION. WHAT SEEMS TO BE LACKING IS A TECHNICAL ABILITY THAT THOSE OF US CALLED 'GOOD STUDENTS' ARE BORN WITH. SOMEONE SHOULD CONCRETELY STUDY THESE SKILLS AND TEACH THEM. WHAT DOES A SHRINK HAVE TO DO WITH THE PROCESS?"

  These were the days before we'd heard about dyslexia and other "learning disabilities"; students like me were simply thought to be stupid, or slow. It was Owen who isolated my problem. "YOU'RE MAINLY SLOW," he said. "YOU'RE ALMOST AS SMART AS I AM, BUT YOU NEED TWICE THE TIME." The school psychiatrist-a retired Swiss gentleman who returned, every summer, to Zurich-was convinced that my difficulties as a student were the result of my best friend's "murder" of my mother, and the "tensions and conflicts" that he saw as the "inevitable result" of my dividing my life between my grandmother and my stepfather.

  "At times, you must hate him-yes?" Dr. Dolder mused.

  "Hate who?" I asked. "My stepfather? No-I love Dan!"

  "Your best friend-at times, you hate him. Yes?" Dr. Dolder asked.

  "No!" I said. "I love Owen-it was an accident."

  "Yes, I know," Dr. Dolder said. "But nonetheless . . . your grandmother, perhaps, she is a most difficult reminder- yes?"

  "A 'reminder'?" I said. "I love my grandmother!"

  "Yes, I know," Dr. Dolder said. "But this baseball business-it's most difficult, I imagine ..."

  "Yes!" I said. "I hate baseball."

  "Yes, for sure," Dr. Dolder said. "I've never seen a game, so it's hard for me to imagine exactly . . . perhaps we should take in a game together?"

  "No," I said. "I don't play baseball, I don't even watch it!"

  "Yes, I see," Dr. Dolder said. "You hate it that much-I see!"

  "I can't spell," I said. "I'm a slow reader, I get tired-I have to keep my finger on the particular sentence, or I'll lose my place . . ."

  "It must be rather hard-a baseball," Dr. Dolder said "Yes?"

  "Yes, it's very hard," I said; I sighed.

  "Yes, I see," Dr. Dolder said. "Are you tired now? Are you getting tired?"

  "It's the spelling," I told him. "The spelling and the reading."

  There were photographs on the wall of his office in the Hubbard Infirmary-they were old black-and-white photographs of the clockfaces on the church spires in Zurich; and photographs of the water birds in the Limmat, and of the people feeding the birds from those funny, arched footbridges. Many of the people wore hats; you could almost hear those cathedral clocks sounding the hour. Dr. Dolder had a quizzical expression on his long, goat-shaped face; his silver-white Vandyke beard was neatly trimmed, but the doctor often tugged its point.

  "A baseball," he said thoughtfully. "Next time, you will bring a baseball-yes?"

  "Yes, of course," I said.

  "And this little baseball-hitter-The Voice, yes?-I would very much like to talk to him, too," said Dr. Dolder.

  "I'll ask Owen if he's free," I said.

  "NOT A CHANCE," said Owen Meany, when I asked him. "THERE'S NOTHING THE MATTER WITH MY SPELLING!"

  Toronto: May , -I regret that I had the right change to get The Globe and Mail out of the street-corner box; I had three dimes in my pocket, and a sentence in a front-page article proved irresistible. "It was unclear how Mr. Reagan intended to have his Administration maintain support for the contras while remaining within the law."

  Since when did Mr. Reagan care about "remaining within the law"? I wish the president would spend a weekend with a Miami model; he could do a lot less harm that way. Think how relieved the Nicaraguans would be, if only for a weekend! We ought to find a model for the president to spend every weekend with! If we could tire the old geezer out, he wouldn't be capable of more dam
aging mischief. Oh, what a nation of moralists the Americans are! With what fervor do they relish bringing their sexual misconduct to light! A pity that they do not bring their moral outrage to bear on their president's arrogance above the law; a pity that they do not unleash their moral zest on an administration that runs guns to terrorists. But, of course, boudoir morality takes less imagination, and can be indulged in without the effort of keeping up with world affairs-or even bothering to know "the whole story" behind the sexual adventure. It's sunny again in Toronto today; the fruit trees are blossoming-especially the pears and apples and crab apples. There's a chance of showers. Owen liked the rain. In the summer, in the bottom of a quarry, it could be brutally hot, and the dust was always a factor; the rain cooled the rock slabs, the rain held the dust down. "ALL QUARRYMEN LIKE RAIN," said Owen Meany. I told my Grade English class that they should reread what Hardy called the first ' 'phase'' of Tess of the d' Urber-villes, the part called "The Maiden"; although I had drawn their attention to Hardy's fondness for foreshadowing, the class was especially sleepyheaded at spotting these devices. How could they have read over the death of the horse so carelessly? "Nobody blamed Tess as she blamed herself," Hardy writes; he even says, "Her face was dry and pale, as though she regarded herself in the light of a murderess.'' And what did the class make of Tess's physical appearance? ' 'It was a luxuriance of aspect, a fullness of growth, which made her appear more of a woman than she really was." They made nothing of it.