A Prayer for Owen Meany

by John Irving

  I saw nothing, but heard much, through the closed closet door. (I had never heard Dan with my mother.) As usual, Owen Meany had a closer, more intense perception of this passionate event than I had: the Brinker-Smiths’ clothes fell on both sides of Owen; Ginger Brinker-Smith’s legendary nursing bra was tossed within inches of Owen’s face. He had to turn his face to the side, Owen told me, in order to avoid the sagging bedspring, which began to make violent, chafing contact with Owen’s nose. Even with his face sideways, the bedspring would occasionally plunge near enough to the floor to scrape against his cheek.

  “IT WAS THE NOISE THAT WAS THE WORST OF IT,” he told me tearfully, after the Brinker-Smiths had returned to their twins. “I FELT LIKE I WAS UNDERNEATH THE FLYING YANKEE!”

  That the Brinker-Smiths were engaged in a far more creative and original use of Waterhouse Hall than Owen and I could make of the old dormitory had a radical effect on the rest of our Christmas vacation. Shocked and battered, Owen suggested we return to the tamer investigations of 80 Front Street.

  “Hardness! Hardness!” Ginger Brinker-Smith had screamed.

  “Wetness! Wetness!” Mr. Brinker-Smith had answered her. And bang! bang! bang! beat the bedspring on Owen Meany’s head.

  “STUPID ‘HARDNESS,’ STUPID ‘WETNESS,’” Owen complained. “SEX MAKES PEOPLE CRAZY.”

  I had only to think of Hester to agree.

  And so, because of Owen’s and my first contact with the act of love, we were at 80 Front Street—just hanging around—the day our mailman, Mr. Morrison, announced his resignation from the role of the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come.

  “Why are you telling me?” my grandmother asked. “I’m not the director.”

  “Dan ain’t on my route,” the glum mailman said.

  “I don’t relay messages of this kind—not even to Dan,” my grandmother told Mr. Morrison. “You should go to the next rehearsal and tell Dan yourself.”

  Grandmother kept the storm door ajar, and the bitter December air must have been cold against her legs; it was plenty cold for Owen and me, and we were positioned deeper into the hall, behind my grandmother—and were both wearing wool-flannel trousers. We could feel the chill radiating off Mr. Morrison, who held my grandmother’s small bundle of mail in his mittened hand; he appeared reluctant to give her the mail, unless she agreed to carry his message to Dan.

  “I ain’t settin’ foot in another of them rehearsals,” Mr. Morrison said, shuffling his high-topped boots, shifting his heavy, leather sack.

  “If you were resigning from the post office, would you ask someone else to tell the postmaster?” my grandmother asked him.

  Mr. Morrison considered this; his long face was alternately red and blue from the cold. “It ain’t the part I thought it was,” he said to Grandmother.

  “Tell Dan,” Grandmother said. “I’m sure I don’t know the first thing about it.”

  “I KNOW ABOUT IT,” said Owen Meany. Grandmother regarded Owen uncertainly; before she allowed him to replace her at the open door, she reached outside and snatched her mail from Mr. Morrison’s tentative hand.

  “What do you know about it?” the mailman asked Owen.

  “IT’S AN IMPORTANT PART,” Owen said. “YOU’RE THE LAST OF THE SPIRITS WHO APPEAR TO SCROOGE. YOU’RE THE GHOST OF THE FUTURE—YOU’RE THE SCARIEST GHOST OF ALL!”

  “I got nothin’ to say!” Mr. Morrison complained. “It ain’t even what they call a speakin’ part.”

  “A GREAT ACTOR DOESN’T NEED TO TALK,” Owen said.

  “I wear this big black cloak, with a hood!” Mr. Morrison protested. “No one can see my face.”

  “There’s some justice, anyway,” my grandmother said under her breath to me.

  “A GREAT ACTOR DOESN’T NEED A FACE,” Owen said.

  “An actor needs somethin’ to do!” the mailman shouted.

  “YOU SHOW SCROOGE WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO HIM IF HE DOESN’T BELIEVE IN CHRISTMAS!” Owen cried. “YOU SHOW A MAN HIS OWN GRAVE! WHAT CAN BE SCARIER THAN THAT?”

  “But all I do is point,” Mr. Morrison whined. “Nobody would even know what I was pointin’ at if old Scrooge didn’t keep givin’ speeches to himself—‘If there is any person in the town who feels emotion caused by this man’s death, show that person to me, Spirit, I beseech you!’ That’s the kind of speech old Scrooge is always makin’!” Mr. Morrison shouted. “‘Let me see some tenderness connected with a death,’ and so on and so forth,” the mailman said bitterly. “And all I do is point! I got nothin’ to say and all anybody sees of me is one finger!” Mr. Morrison cried; he pulled his mitten off and pointed a long, bony finger at Owen Meany, who retreated from the mailman’s skeletal hand.

  “IT’S A GREAT PART FOR A GREAT ACTOR,” Owen said stubbornly. “YOU HAVE TO BE A PRESENCE. THERE’S NOTHING AS SCARY AS THE FUTURE.”

  In the hall, behind Owen, an anxious crowd had gathered. Lydia in her wheelchair, Ethel—who was polishing a candlestick—and Germaine, who thought Owen was the Devil … they huddled behind my grandmother, who was old enough to take Owen’s point of view to heart: nothing is as scary as the future, she knew, unless it’s someone who knows the future.

  Owen threw up his hands so abruptly that the women were startled and moved away from him. “YOU KNOW EVERYTHING YET TO COME!” he screamed at the disgruntled mailman. “IF YOU WALK ONSTAGE AS IF YOU KNOW THE FUTURE—I MEAN, EVERYTHING!—YOU’LL SCARE THE SHIT OUT OF EVERYONE.”

  Mr. Morrison considered this; there was even a glimmer of comprehension in his gaze, as if he saw—albeit momentarily—his own, terrifying potential; but his eyes were quickly fogged over by his breath in the cold air.

  “Tell Dan I quit, that’s all,” he said. Thereupon, the mailman turned and left—“most undramatically,” my grandmother would say, later. At the moment, despite her dislike of vulgar language, Grandmother appeared almost charmed by Owen Meany.

  “Get away from the open door now, Owen,” she said. “You’ve given that fool much more attention than he deserves, and you’ll catch your death of cold.”

  “I’M CALLING DAN, RIGHT AWAY,” Owen told us matter-of-factly. He went directly to the phone and dialed the number; the women and I wouldn’t leave the hall, although I think we were all unconscious of how very much we had become his audience. “HELLO, DAN?” he said into the phone. “DAN? THIS IS OWEN!” (As if there could have been any doubt concerning who it was!) “DAN, THIS IS AN EMERGENCY. YOU’VE LOST THE GHOST OF CHRISTMAS YET TO COME. YES, I MEAN MORRISON—THE COWARDLY MAILMAN!”

  “The cowardly mailman!” my grandmother repeated admiringly.

  “YES, YES—I KNOW HE WASN’T ANY GOOD,” Owen told Dan, “BUT YOU DON’T WANT TO BE STUCK WITHOUT A SPIRIT FOR THE FUTURE.”

  That was when I saw it coming; the future—or at least one, small part of it. Owen had failed to talk Mr. Morrison into the role, but he had convinced himself it was an important part—far more attractive than being Tiny Tim, that mere goody-goody. Furthermore, it was established that the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come was not a speaking part; Owen would not have to use his voice—not as the Christ Child and not as the Ghost of the Future.

  “I DON’T WANT YOU TO PANIC, DAN,” Owen said into the phone, “BECAUSE I THINK I KNOW SOMEONE WHO’D BE PERFECT FOR THE PART—WELL, IF NOT PERFECT, AT LEAST DIFFERENT.”

  It was with the word DIFFERENT that my grandmother shivered; it was also the first time she looked at Owen Meany with anything resembling respect.

  Once again, I thought, the little Prince of Peace had taken charge. I looked at Germaine, whose lower lip was captured in her teeth; I knew what she was thinking. Lydia, rocking in her wheelchair, appeared to be mesmerized by the one-sided phone conversation; Ethel held the candlestick like a weapon.

  “WHAT THE PART REQUIRES IS A CERTAIN PRESENCE,” Owen told Dan. “THE GHOST MUST TRULY APPEAR TO KNOW THE FUTURE. IRONICALLY, THE OTHER PART I’M PLAYING THIS CHRISTMAS—YES, YES, I MEAN THE STUPID PAGEANT—IRONICALLY, THIS PREPARES ME FOR THE ROL
E. I MEAN, THEY’RE BOTH PARTS THAT FORCE YOU TO TAKE COMMAND OF THINGS, WITHOUT WORDS … YES, YES, OF COURSE I MEAN ME!” There was a rare pause, while Owen listened to Dan. “WHO SAYS THE GHOST OF CHRISTMAS YET TO COME HAS TO BE TALL?” Owen asked angrily. “YES, OF COURSE I KNOW HOW TALL MISTER FISH IS. DAN, YOU’RE NOT USING YOUR IMAGINATION.” There was another brief pause, and Owen said: “THERE’S A SIMPLE TEST. LET ME REHEARSE IT. IF EVERYBODY LAUGHS, I’M OUT. IF EVERYONE IS SCARED, I’M THE ONE. YES, OF COURSE—‘INCLUDING MISTER FISH.’ LAUGH, I’M OUT. SCARED, I’M IN.”

  But I didn’t need to wait to know the results of that test. It was necessary only to look at my grandmother’s anxious face, and at the attitudes of the women surrounding her—at the fear of Owen Meany that was registered by Lydia’s transfixed expression, by Ethel’s whitened knuckles around the candlestick, by Germaine’s trembling lip. It wasn’t necessary for me to suspend my belief or disbelief in Owen Meany until after his first rehearsal; I already knew what a presence he could summon—especially in regard to the future.

  That evening, at dinner, we heard from Dan about Owen’s triumph—how the cast stood riveted, not even knowing what dwarf this was, for Owen was completely hidden in the black cloak and hood; it didn’t matter that he never spoke, or that they couldn’t see his face. Not even Mr. Fish had known who the fearful apparition was.

  As Dickens wrote, “Oh cold, cold, rigid, dreadful Death, set up thine altar here, and dress it with such terrors as thou hast at thy command, for this is thy dominion!”

  Owen had a way of gliding across stage; he several times startled Mr. Fish, who kept losing his sense of where Owen was. When Owen pointed, it was all of a sudden, a convulsive, twitchy movement—his small, white hand flashing out of the folds of the cloak, which he flapped. He could glide slowly, like a skater running out of momentum; but he could also skitter with a bat’s repellent quickness.

  At Scrooge’s grave, Mr. Fish said: “‘Before I draw nearer to that stone to which you point, answer me one question. Are these the shadows of the things that Will be or are they shadows of the things that May be, only?’”

  As never before, this question seemed to seize the attention of every amateur among The Gravesend Players; even Mr. Fish appeared to be mortally interested in the answer. But the midget Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come was inexorable; the tiny phantom’s indifference to the question made Dan Needham shiver.

  It was then that Mr. Fish approached close enough to the gravestone to read his own name thereon. “‘Ebenezer Scrooge … am I that man?’” Mr. Fish cried, falling to his knees. It was from the perspective of his knees—when Mr. Fish’s head was only slightly above Owen Meany’s—that Mr. Fish received his first full look at the averted face under the hood. Mr. Fish did not laugh; he screamed.

  He was supposed to say, “‘No, Spirit! Oh, no, no! Spirit, hear me! I am not the man I was!’” And so on and so forth. But Mr. Fish simply screamed. He pulled his hands so fiercely away from Owen’s cowl that the hood was yanked off Owen’s head, revealing him to the other members of the cast—several of them screamed, too; no one laughed.

  “It makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up, just to remember it!” Dan told us, over dinner.

  “I’m not surprised,” my grandmother said.

  After dinner, Mr. Fish made a somewhat subdued appearance.

  “Well, at least we’ve got one good ghost,” Mr. Fish said. “It makes my job a lot easier, really,” he rationalized. “The little fellow is quite effective, quite effective. It will be interesting to see his … effect on an audience.”

  “We’ve already seen it,” Dan reminded him.

  “Well, yes,” Mr. Fish agreed hastily; he looked worried.

  “Someone told me that Mr. Early’s daughter wet her pants,” Dan informed us.

  “I’m not surprised,” my grandmother said. Germaine, clearing one teaspoon at a time, appeared ready to wet hers.

  “Perhaps you might hold him back a little?” Mr. Fish suggested to Dan.

  “Hold him back?” Dan asked.

  “Well, get him to restrain whatever it is he does,” Mr. Fish said.

  “I’m not at all sure what it is he does,” Dan said.

  “I’m not either,” Mr. Fish said. “It’s just … so disturbing.”

  “Perhaps, when people are sitting back a few rows—in the audience, I mean—it won’t be quite so … upsetting,” Dan said.

  “Do you think so?” Mr. Fish asked.

  “Not really,” Dan admitted.

  “What if we saw his face—from the beginning?” Mr. Fish suggested.

  “If you don’t pull his hood off, we’ll never see his face,” Dan pointed out to Mr. Fish. “I think that will be better.”

  “Yes, much better,” Mr. Fish agreed.

  Mr. Meany dropped Owen off at 80 Front Street—so he could spend the night. Mr. Meany knew that my grandmother resented the racket his truck made in the driveway; that was why we didn’t hear him come and go—he let Owen out of the cab on Front Street.

  It was quite magical; I mean, the timing: Mr. Fish saying good night, opening the door to leave—precisely at the same time as Owen was reaching to ring the doorbell. My grandmother, at that instant, turned on the porch light; Owen blinked into the light. From under his red-and-black-checkered hunter’s cap, his small, sharp face stared up at Mr. Fish—like the face of a possum caught in a flashlight. A dull, yellowish bruise, the sheen of tarnished silver, marked Owen’s cheek—where the Brinker-Smiths’ mobile bed had struck him—giving him a cadaver’s uneven color. Mr. Fish leaped backward, into the hall.

  “Speak of the Devil,” Dan said, smiling. Owen smiled back—at us all.

  “I GUESS YOU HEARD—I GOT THE PART!” he said to my grandmother and me.

  “I’m not surprised, Owen,” my grandmother said. “Won’t you come in?” She actually held the door open for him; she even managed a charming curtsy—inappropriately girlish, but Harriet Wheelwright was gifted with those essentially regal properties that make the inappropriate gesture work … those being facetiousness and sarcasm.

  Owen Meany did not miss the irony in my grandmother’s voice; yet he beamed at her—and he returned her curtsy with a confident bow, and with a little tip of his red-and-black-checkered hunter’s cap. Owen had triumphed, and he knew it; my grandmother knew it, too. Even Harriet Wheelwright—with her Mayflower indifference toward the Meanys of this world—even my grandmother knew that there was more to The Granite Mouse than met the eye.

  Mr. Fish, perhaps to compose himself, was humming the tune to a familiar Christmas carol. Even Dan Needham knew the words. As Owen finished knocking the snow off his boots—as the little Lord Jesus stepped inside our house—Dan half-sang, half-mumbled the refrain we knew so well: “Hark! the her-ald an-gels sing, ‘Glo-ry to the new-born King!’”

  5

  The Ghost of the Future

  * * *

  Thus did Owen Meany remodel Christmas. Denied his long-sought excursion to Sawyer Depot, he captured the two most major, non-speaking roles in the only dramatic productions offered in Gravesend that holiday season. As the Christ Child and as the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, he had established himself as a prophet—disquietingly, it was our future he seemed to know something about. Once, he thought, he had seen into my mother’s future; he had even become an instrument of her future. I wondered what he thought he knew of Dan’s or my grandmother’s future—or Hester’s, or mine, or his own.

  God would tell me who my father was, Owen Meany had assured me; but, so far, God had been silent.

  It was Owen who’d been talkative. He’d talked Dan and me out of the dressmaker’s dummy; he’d stationed my mother’s heartbreaking figure at his bedside—to stand watch over him, to be his angel. Owen had talked himself down from the heavens and into the manger—he’d made me a Joseph, he’d chosen a Mary for me, he’d turned turtledoves to cows. Having revised the Holy Nativity, he had moved on; he was reinterpreting Dickens—f
or even Dan had to admit that Owen had somehow changed A Christmas Carol. The silent Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come had stolen the penultimate scene from Scrooge.

  Even The Gravesend News-Letter failed to recognize that Scrooge was the main character; that Mr. Fish was the principal actor was a fact that entirely eluded The News-Letter’s drama critic, who wrote, “The quintessential Christmas tale, the luster of which has been dulled (at least, for this reviewer) by its annual repetition, has been given a new sparkle.” The critic added, “The shopworn ghost-story part of the tale has been energized by the brilliant performance of little Owen Meany, who—despite his diminutive size—is a huge presence onstage; the miniature Meany simply dwarfs the other performers. Director Dan Needham should consider casting the Tiny Tim–sized star as Scrooge in next year’s A Christmas Carol!”

  There was not a word about this year’s Scrooge, and Mr. Fish fumed over his neglect. Owen responded crossly to any criticism.

  “WHY IS IT NECESSARY TO REFER TO ME AS ‘LITTLE,’ AS ‘DIMINUTIVE,’ AS ‘MINIATURE’?” Owen raved. “THEY DON’T MAKE SUCH QUALIFYING REMARKS ABOUT THE OTHER ACTORS!”

  “You forgot ‘Tiny Tim–sized,’” I told him.