A Prayer for Owen Meany

by John Irving

  “Well, everyone’s so busy at Christmas, you know,” said Barb Wiggin, who was impatient to begin the casting of the pageant—not wanting to keep us potential donkeys and turtledoves waiting. I could sense Owen’s irritation with Barb Wiggin, in advance.

  Quite blind to his animosity, Barb Wiggin began—as, indeed, the holy event itself had begun—with the Announcing Angel. “Well, we all know who our Descending Angel is,” she told us.

  “NOT ME,” Owen said.

  “Why, Owen!” Barb Wiggin said.

  “PUT SOMEONE ELSE UP IN THE AIR,” Owen said. “MAYBE THE SHEPHERDS CAN JUST STARE AT THE ‘PILLAR OF LIGHT.’ THE BIBLE SAYS THE ANGEL OF THE LORD APPEARED TO THE SHEPHERDS—NOT TO THE WHOLE CONGREGATION. AND USE SOMEONE WITH A VOICE EVERYONE DOESN’T LAUGH AT,” he said, pausing while everyone laughed.

  “But Owen—” Barb Wiggin said.

  “No, no, Barbara,” Mr. Wiggin said. “If Owen’s tired of being the angel, we should respect his wishes—this is a democracy,” he added un-convincingly. The former stewardess glared at her ex-pilot husband as if he had been speaking, and thinking, in the absence of sufficient oxygen.

  “AND ANOTHER THING,” Owen said. “JOSEPH SHOULD NOT SMIRK.”

  “Indeed not!” the rector said heartily. “I had no idea we’d suffered a smirking Joseph all these years.”

  “And who do you think would be a good Joseph, Owen?” Barb Wiggin asked, without the conventional friendliness of the stewardess.

  Owen pointed to me; to be singled out so silently, with Owen’s customary authority, made the hairs stand up on the back of my neck—in later years, I would think I had been chosen by the Chosen One. But that Second Sunday of Advent, in the nave of Christ Church, I felt angry with Owen—once the hairs on the back of my neck relaxed. For what an uninspiring role it is; to be Joseph—that hapless follower, that stand-in, that guy along for the ride.

  “We usually pick Mary first,” Barb Wiggin said. “Then we let Mary pick her Joseph.”

  “Oh,” the Rev. Dudley Wiggin said. “Well, this year we can let Joseph pick his Mary! We mustn’t be afraid to change!” he added cordially, but his wife ignored him.

  “We usually begin with the angel,” Barb Wiggin said. “We still don’t have an angel. Here we are with a Joseph before a Mary, and no angel,” she said. (Stewardesses are orderly people, much comforted by following a familiar routine.)

  “Well, who would like to hang in the air this year?” the rector asked. “Tell them about the view from up there, Owen.”

  “SOMETIMES THE CONTRAPTION THAT HOLDS YOU IN THE AIR HAS YOU FACING THE WRONG WAY,” he warned the would-be angels. “SOMETIMES THE HARNESS CUTS INTO YOUR SKIN.”

  “I’m sure we can remedy that, Owen,” the rector said.

  “WHEN YOU GO UP OUT OF THE ‘PILLAR OF LIGHT,’ IT’S VERY DARK UP THERE,” Owen said.

  No would-be angel raised his or her hand.

  “AND IT’S QUITE A LONG SPEECH THAT YOU HAVE TO MEMORIZE,” Owen added. “YOU KNOW, ‘BE NOT AFRAID; FOR BEHOLD, I BRING YOU GOOD NEWS OF A GREAT JOY … FOR TO YOU IS BORN … IN THE CITY OF DAVID A SAVIOR, WHO IS CHRIST THE LORD’…”

  “We know, Owen, we know,” Barb Wiggin said.

  “IT’S NOT EASY,” Owen said.

  “Perhaps we should pick our Mary, and come back to the angel?” the Rev. Mr. Wiggin asked.

  Barb Wiggin wrung her hands.

  But if they thought I was enough of a fool to choose my Mary, they had another think coming; what a no-win situation that was—choosing Mary. For what would everyone say about me and the girl I chose? And what would the girls I didn’t choose think of me?

  “MARY BETH BAIRD HAS NEVER BEEN MARY,” Owen said. “THAT WAY, MARY WOULD BE MARY.”

  “Joseph chooses Mary!” Barb Wiggin said.

  “IT WAS JUST A SUGGESTION,” Owen said.

  But how could the role be denied Mary Beth Baird now that it had been offered? Mary Beth Baird was a wholesome lump of a girl, shy and clumsy and plain.

  “I’ve been a turtledove three times,” she mumbled.

  “THAT’S ANOTHER THING,” Owen said, “NOBODY KNOWS WHAT THE TURTLEDOVES ARE.”

  “Now, now—one thing at a time,” Dudley Wiggin said.

  “First, Joseph—choose Mary!” Barb Wiggin said.

  “Mary Beth Baird would be fine,” I said.

  “Well, so Mary is Mary!” Mr. Wiggin said. Mary Beth Baird covered her face in her hands. Barb Wiggin also covered her face.

  “Now, what’s this about the turtledoves, Owen?” the rector asked.

  “Hold the turtledoves!” Barb Wiggin snapped. “I want an angel.”

  Former kings and shepherds sat in silence; former donkeys did not come forth—and donkeys came in two parts; the hind part of the donkey never got to see the pageant. Even the former hind parts of donkeys did not volunteer to be the angel. Even former turtledoves were not stirred to grab the part.

  “The angel is so important,” the rector said. “There’s a special apparatus just to raise and lower you, and—for a while—you occupy the ‘pillar of light’ all by yourself. All eyes are on you!”

  The children of Christ Church did not appear enticed to play the angel by the thought of all eyes being on them. In the rear of the nave, rendered even more insignificant than usual by his proximity to the giant painting of “The Call of the Twelve,” pudgy Harold Crosby sat diminished by the depiction of Jesus appointing his disciples; all eyes rarely feasted on fat Harold Crosby, who was not grotesque enough to be teased—or even noticed—but who was enough of a slob to be rejected whenever he caused the slightest attention to be drawn to himself. Therefore, Harold Crosby abstained. He sat in the back; he stood at the rear of the line; he spoke only when spoken to; he desired to be left alone, and—for the most part—he was. For several years, he had played a perfect hind part of a donkey; I’m sure it was the only role he wanted. I could see he was nervous about the silence that greeted the Rev. Mr. Wiggin’s request for an angel; possibly the towering portraits of the disciples in his immediate vicinity made Harold Crosby feel inadequate, or else he feared that—in the absence of volunteers—the rector would select an angel from among the cowardly children, and (God forbid) what if Mr. Wiggin chose him?

  Harold Crosby tipped back in his chair and shut his eyes; it was either a method of concealment borrowed from the ostrich, or else Harold imagined that if he appeared to be asleep, no one would ask him to be more than the hind part of a donkey.

  “Someone has to be the angel,” Barb Wiggin said menacingly. Then Harold Crosby fell over backward in his chair; he made it worse by attempting to catch his balance—by grabbing the frame of the huge painting of “The Call of the Twelve”; then he thought better of crushing himself under Christ’s disciples and he allowed himself to fall freely. Like most things that happened to Harold Crosby, his fall was more astonishing for its awkwardness than for anything intrinsically spectacular. Regardless, only the rector was insensitive enough to mistake Harold Crosby’s clumsiness for volunteering.

  “Good for you, Harold!” the rector said. “There’s a brave boy!”

  “What?” Harold Crosby said.

  “Now we have our angel,” Mr. Wiggin said cheerfully. “What’s next?”

  “I’m afraid of heights,” said Harold Crosby.

  “All the braver of you!” the rector replied. “There’s no time like the present for facing our fears.”

  “But the crane,” Barb Wiggin said to her husband. “The apparatus—” she started to say, but the rector silenced her with an admonishing wave of his hand. Surely you’re not going to make the poor boy feel self-conscious about his weight, the rector’s glance toward his wife implied; surely the wires and the harness are strong enough. Barb Wiggin glowered back at her husband.

  “ABOUT THE TURTLEDOVES,” Owen said, and Barb Wiggin shut her eyes; she did not lean back in her chair, but she gripped the seat with both hands.

  “Ah, yes, Owen, what was i
t about the turtledoves?” the Rev. Mr. Wiggin asked.

  “THEY LOOK LIKE THEY’RE FROM OUTER SPACE,” Owen said. “NO ONE KNOWS WHAT THEY’RE SUPPOSED TO BE.”

  “They’re doves!” Barb Wiggin said. “Everyone knows what doves are!”

  “THEY’RE GIANT DOVES,” Owen said. “THEY’RE AS BIG AS HALF A DONKEY. WHAT KIND OF BIRD IS THAT? A BIRD FROM MARS? THEY’RE ACTUALLY KIND OF FRIGHTENING.”

  “Not everyone can be a king or a shepherd or a donkey, Owen,” the rector said.

  “BUT NOBODY’S SMALL ENOUGH TO BE A DOVE,” Owen said. “AND NOBODY KNOWS WHAT ALL THOSE PAPER STREAMERS ARE SUPPOSED TO BE.”

  “They’re feathers!” Barb Wiggin shouted.

  “THE TURTLEDOVES LOOK LIKE CREATURES,” Owen said. “LIKE THEY’VE BEEN ELECTROCUTED.”

  “Well, I suppose there were other animals in the manger,” the rector said.

  “Are you going to make the costumes?” Barb Wiggin asked him.

  “Now now,” Mr. Wiggin said.

  “COWS GO WELL WITH DONKEYS,” Owen suggested.

  “Cows?” the rector said. “Well well.”

  “Who’s going to make the cow costumes?” Barb Wiggin asked.

  “I will!” Mary Beth Baird said. She had never volunteered for anything before; clearly her election as the Virgin Mary had energized her—had made her believe she was capable of miracles, or at least cow costumes.

  “Good for you, Mary!” the rector said.

  But Barb Wiggin and Harold Crosby closed their eyes; Harold did not look well—he seemed to be suppressing vomit, and his face took on the lime-green shade of the grass at the feet of Christ’s disciples, who loomed over him.

  “THERE’S ONE MORE THING,” said Owen Meany. We gave him our attention. “THE CHRIST CHILD,” he said, and we children nodded our approval.

  “What’s wrong with the Christ Child?” Barb Wiggin asked.

  “ALL THOSE BABIES,” Owen said. “JUST TO GET ONE TO LIE IN THE MANGER WITHOUT CRYING—DO WE HAVE TO HAVE ALL THOSE BABIES?”

  “But it’s like the song says, Owen,” the rector told him. “‘Little Lord Jesus, no crying he makes.’”

  “OKAY, OKAY,” Owen said. “BUT ALL THOSE BABIES—YOU CAN HEAR THEM CRYING. EVEN OFFSTAGE, YOU CAN HEAR THEM. AND ALL THOSE GROWN-UPS!” he said. “ALL THOSE BIG MEN PASSING THE BABIES IN AND OUT. THEY’RE SO BIG— THEY LOOK RIDICULOUS. THEY MAKE US LOOK RIDICULOUS.”

  “You know a baby who won’t cry, Owen?” Barb Wiggin asked him—and, of course, she knew as soon as she spoke … how he had trapped her.

  “I KNOW SOMEONE WHO CAN FIT IN THE CRIB,” Owen said. “SOMEONE SMALL ENOUGH TO LOOK LIKE A BABY,” he said. “SOMEONE OLD ENOUGH NOT TO CRY.”

  Mary Beth Baird could not contain herself! “Owen can be the Baby Jesus!” she yelled. Owen Meany smiled and shrugged.

  “I CAN FIT IN THE CRIB,” he said modestly.

  Harold Crosby could no longer contain himself, either; he vomited. He vomited often enough for it to pass almost unnoticed, especially now that Owen had our undivided attention.

  “And what’s more, we can lift him!” Mary Beth Baird said excitedly.

  “There was never any lifting of the Christ Child before!” Barb Wiggin said.

  “Well, I mean, if we have to, if we feel like it,” Mary Beth said.

  “WELL, IF EVERYONE WANTS ME TO DO IT, I SUPPOSE I COULD,” Owen said.

  “Yes!” cried the kings and shepherds.

  “Let Owen do it!” said the donkeys and the cows—the former turtledoves.

  It was quite a popular decision, but Barb Wiggin looked at Owen as if she were revising her opinion of how “cute” he was, and the rector observed Owen with a detachment that was wholly out of character for an ex-pilot. The Rev. Mr. Wiggin, such a veteran of Christmas pageants, looked at Owen Meany with profound respect—as if he’d seen the Christ Child come and go, but never before had he encountered a little Lord Jesus who was so perfect for the part.

  It was only our second rehearsal of the Christmas Pageant when Owen decided that the crib, in which he could fit—but tightly—was unnecessary and even incorrect. Dudley Wiggin based his entire view of the behavior of the Christ Child on the Christmas carol “Away in a Manger,” of which there are only two verses.

  It was this carol that convinced the Rev. Mr. Wiggin that the Baby Jesus mustn’t cry.

  The cat-tle are low-ing, the ba-by a-wakes,

  But lit-tle Lord Je-sus, no cry-ing he makes.

  If Mr. Wiggin put such stock in the second verse of “Away in a Manger,” Owen argued that we should also be instructed by the very first verse.

  A-way in a man-ger, no crib for his bed,

  The lit-tle Lord Je-sus laid down his sweet head.

  “IF IT SAYS THERE WAS NO CRIB, WHY DO WE HAVE A CRIB?” Owen asked. Clearly, he found the crib restraining. “‘THE STARS IN THE SKY LOOKED DOWN WHERE HE LAY, THE LIT-TLE LORD JE-SUS, A-SLEEP ON THE HAY,’” Owen sang.

  Thus did Owen get his way, again; “on the hay” was where he would lie, and he proceeded to arrange all the hay within the crèche in such a fashion that his comfort would be assured, and he would be sufficiently elevated and tilted toward the audience—so that no one could possibly miss seeing him.

  “THERE’S ANOTHER THING,” Owen advised us. “YOU NOTICE HOW THE SONG SAYS, ‘THE CATTLE ARE LOWING’? WELL, IT’S A GOOD THING WE’VE GOT COWS. THE TURTLEDOVES COULDN’T DO MUCH ‘LOWING.’”

  If cows were what we had, they were the sort of cows that required as much imagination to identify as the former turtledoves had required. Mary Beth Baird’s cow costumes may have been inspired by Mary Beth’s elevated status to the role of the Virgin Mary, but the Holy Mother had not offered divine assistance, or even divine workmanship, toward the making of the costumes themselves. Mary Beth appeared to have been confused mightily by all the images of Christmas; her cows had not only horns but antlers—veritable racks, more suitable to reindeer, which Mary Beth may have been thinking of. Worse, the antlers were soft; that is, they were constructed of a floppy material, and therefore these astonishing “horns” were always collapsing upon the faces of the cows themselves—obliterating entirely their already impaired vision, and causing more than usual confusion in the crèche: cows stepping on each other, cows colliding with donkeys, cows knocking down kings and shepherds.

  “The cows, if that’s what they are,” Barb Wiggin observed, “should maintain their positions and not move around—not at all. We wouldn’t want them to trample the Baby Jesus, would we?” A deeply crazed glint in Barb Wiggin’s eye made it appear that she thought trampling the Baby Jesus would register in the neighborhood of a divine occurrence, but Owen, who was always anxious about being stepped on—and excessively so, now that he was prone and helpless on the hay—echoed Barb Wiggin’s concern for the cows.

  “YOU COWS, JUST REMEMBER. YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO BE ‘LOWING,’ NOT MILLING AROUND.”

  “I don’t want the cows ‘lowing’ or milling around,” Barb Wiggin said. “I want to be able to hear the singing, and the reading from the Bible. I want no ‘lowing.’”

  “LAST YEAR, YOU HAD THE TURTLEDOVES COOING,” Owen reminded her.

  “Clearly, this isn’t last year,” Barb Wiggin said.

  “Now now,” the rector said.

  “THE SONG SAYS ‘THE CATTLE ARE LOWING,’” Owen said.

  “I suppose you want the donkeys hee-hawing!” Barb Wiggin shouted.

  “THE SONG SAYS NOTHING ABOUT DONKEYS,” Owen said.

  “Perhaps we’re being too literal about this song,” Mr. Wiggin interjected, but I knew there was no such thing as “too literal” for Owen Meany, who grasped orthodoxy from wherever it could be found.

  Yet Owen relented on the issue of whether or not the cattle should “low”; he saw there was more to be gained in rearranging the order of music, which he had always found improper. It made no sense, he claimed, to begin with “We Three Kings of Orient Are” while we watched the Annou
ncing Angel descend in the “pillar of light”; those were shepherds to whom the angel appeared, not kings. Better to begin with “O Little Town of Bethlehem” while the angel made good his descent; the angel’s announcement would be perfectly balanced if delivered between verses two and three. Then, as the “pillar of light” leaves the angel—or, rather, as the quickly ascending angel departs the “pillar of light”—we see the kings. Suddenly, they have joined the astonished shepherds. Now hit “We Three Kings,” and hit it hard!

  Harold Crosby, who had not yet attempted a first flight in the apparatus that enhanced his credibility as an angel, wanted to know where “Ory and R” were.

  No one understood his question.

  “‘We Three Kings of Ory and R,’” Harold said. “Where are ‘Ory’ and ‘R’?”

  “‘WE THREE KINGS OF ORIENT ARE,’” Owen corrected him. “DON’T YOU READ?”

  All Harold Crosby knew was that he did not fly; he would ask any question, create any distraction, procrastinate by any means he could imagine, if he could delay being launched by Barb Wiggin.

  I—Joseph—had nothing to do, nothing to say, nothing to learn. Mary Beth Baird suggested that, as a helpful husband, I take turns with her in handling Owen Meany—if not exactly lifting him out of the hay, because Barb Wiggin was violently opposed to this, then at least, Mary Beth implied, we could fondle Owen, or tickle him, or pat him on the head.

  “NO TICKLING,” Owen said.

  “No nothing!” Barb Wiggin insisted. “No touching Baby Jesus.”

  “But we’re his parents!” proclaimed Mary Beth, who was being generous to include poor Joseph under this appellation.

  “Mary Beth,” Barb Wiggin said, “if you touch the Baby Jesus, I’m putting you in a cow costume.”

  And so it came to pass that the Virgin Mary sulked through our rehearsal—a mother denied the tactile pleasures of her own infant! And Owen, who had built a huge nest for himself—in a mountain of hay—appeared to radiate the truly untouchable quality of a deity to be reckoned with, of a prophet who had no doubt.