A Prayer for Owen Meany

by John Irving

  Once—in the fresh snow upon his Volkswagen’s windshield—a first-year German student had written with his finger: Herr Doktor Dolder hat zu viel betrunken! I could usually tell—when I saw Owen, either at breakfast or at morning meeting—if Dr. Dolder had had too much to drink the night before; if it was winter, and if Owen was surly-looking, I knew he’d faced an early-morning parking problem. I knew when the pickup had failed to start—and there was no room for him to park the trailer-truck—just by looking at him.

  “What’s up?” I would ask him.

  “THAT TIGHT-ASS TIPSY SWISS DINK!” Owen Meany would say.

  “I see,” I would say.

  And this particular February morning, I can imagine how the Swiss psychiatrist’s Beetle would have affected him.

  I guess Owen must have been sitting in the frigid cab of the truck—you could drive that big hauler for an hour before you’d even notice that the heater was on—and I’ll bet he was smoking, and probably talking to himself, too, when he looked into the path of his headlights and saw about three quarters of the basketball team walking his way. In the cold air, their breathing must have made him think that they were smoking, too—although he knew all of them, and knew they didn’t smoke; he entertained them at least two or three times a week by his devotion to practicing the shot.

  He told me later that there were about eight or ten basketball players—not quite the whole team. All of them lived in the same dorm—it was one of the traditional jock dorms on the campus; and because the basketball team was playing at some faraway school, they were on their way to the dining hall for an early breakfast with the waiters who had dining-hall duty. They were big, happy guys with goofy strides, and they didn’t mind being out of bed before it was light—they were going to miss their Saturday morning classes, and they saw the whole day as an adventure. Owen Meany was not quite in such a cheerful mood; he rolled down the window of the big truck’s frosty cab and called them over.

  They were friendly, and—as always—extremely glad to see him, and they jumped onto the flatbed of the trailer and roughhoused with each other, pushing each other off the flatbed, and so forth.

  “YOU GUYS LOOK VERY STRONG TODAY,” said Owen Meany, and they hooted in agreement. In the path of the truck’s headlights, the innocent shape of Dr. Dolder’s Volkswagen Beetle stood encased in ice and dusted very lightly with last night’s snow. “I’LL BET YOU GUYS AREN’T STRONG ENOUGH TO PICK UP THAT VOLKSWAGEN,” said Owen Meany. But, of course, they were strong enough; they were not only strong enough to lift Dr. Dolder’s Beetle—they were strong enough to carry it out of town.

  The captain of the basketball team was an agreeable giant; when Owen practiced the shot with this guy, the captain lifted Owen with one hand.

  “No problem,” the captain said to Owen. “Where do you want it?”

  Owen swore to me that it wasn’t until that moment that he got THE IDEA.

  It’s clear to me that Owen never overcame his irritation with Randy White for moving morning chapel from Hurd’s Church to the Main Academy Building and calling it morning meeting, that he still thought of that as the headmaster’s GRANDSTANDING. The sets for Dan’s winter-term play had already been dismantled; the stage of The Great Hall, as it was called, was bare. And that broad, sweeping, marble stairway that led up to The Great Hall’s triumphant double doors … all of that, Owen was sure, was big enough to permit the easy entrance of Dr. Dolder’s Volkswagen. And wouldn’t that be something: to have that perky little automobile parked on center stage—a kind of cheerful, harmless message to greet the headmaster and the entire student body; a little something to make them smile, as the dog days of March bore down upon us and the long-awaited break for spring vacation could not come soon enough to save us all.

  “CARRY IT INTO THE MAIN ACADEMY BUILDING,” Owen Meany told the captain of the basketball team. “TAKE IT UPSTAIRS TO THE GREAT HALL AND CARRY IT UP ON THE STAGE,” said The Voice. “PUT IT RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE STAGE, FACING FORWARD—RIGHT NEXT TO THE HEADMASTER’S PODIUM. BUT BE CAREFUL YOU DON’T SCRATCH IT—AND FOR GOD’S SAKE DON’T DROP IT! DON’T PUT A MARK ON ANYTHING,” he cautioned the basketball players. “DON’T DO THE SLIGHTEST DAMAGE—NOT TO THE CAR AND NOT TO THE STAIRS, NOT TO THE DOORS OF THE GREAT HALL, NOT TO THE STAGE,” he said. “MAKE IT LOOK LIKE IT FLEW UP THERE,” he told them. “MAKE IT LOOK LIKE AN ANGEL DROVE IT ONSTAGE!” said Owen Meany.

  When the basketball players carried off Dr. Dolder’s Volkswagen, Owen thought very carefully about using the available parking space; he decided it was wiser to drive all the way over to Waterhouse Hall and park next to Dan’s car, instead. Not even Dan saw him park the truck there; and if anyone had seen him running across the campus, as it was growing light, that would not have seemed strange—he was just a faculty waiter with dining-hall duty, hurrying so he wouldn’t be late.

  He ate his breakfast in the dining-hall kitchen with the other waiters and with an extraordinarily hungry and jolly bunch of basketball players. Owen was setting the head faculty table when the captain of the basketball team said good-bye to him.

  “There wasn’t the slightest damage—not to anything,” the captain assured him.

  “HAVE A GOOD GAME!” said Owen Meany.

  It was one of the janitors in the Main Academy Building who discovered the Beetle onstage—when he was raising the blinds on the high windows that welcomed so much morning light into The Great Hall. Naturally, the janitor called the headmaster. From the kitchen window of his obtrusive house, directly across from the Main Academy Building, Headmaster White could see the small rectangle of bare ground where Dr. Dolder’s Volkswagen had spent the night.

  According to Dan Needham, the headmaster called him while he was getting out of the shower; most of the faculty made breakfast for themselves at home, or they skipped breakfast rather than eat in the school dining hall. The headmaster told Dan that he was rounding up all able-bodied faculty for the purpose of removing Dr. Dolder’s Volkswagen from the stage of The Great Hall—before morning meeting. The students, the headmaster told Dan, were not going to have “the last laugh.” Dan said he didn’t feel particularly able-bodied himself, but he’d certainly try to help out. When he hung up the phone, he was laughing to himself—until he looked out the window of Waterhouse Hall and saw the Meany Granite Company trailer-truck parked next to his own car. Dan suddenly thought that THE IDEA of putting Dr. Dolder’s Volkswagen on the stage of The Great Hall had Owen Meany’s name written all over it.

  That was exactly what the headmaster said, when he and about a dozen, not-very-able-bodied faculty members, along with a few hefty faculty wives, were struggling with Dr. Dolder’s Beetle.

  “This has Owen Meany’s name written all over it!” the headmaster said.

  “I don’t think Owen could lift a Volkswagen,” Dan Needham ventured cautiously.

  “I mean, the idea!” the headmaster said.

  As Dan describes it, the faculty were ill-trained for lifting anything; even the athletic types were neither as strong nor as flexible as young basketball players—and they should have considered something basic to their task: it is much easier to carry something heavy and awkward upstairs than it is to lug it down.

  Mr. Tubulari, the track-and-field coach, was overzealous in his descent of the stairs from the stage; he fell off and landed on the hard, wooden bench in the front row of assembled seats—a hymnal fortunately cushioned the blow to his head, or he might have been knocked senseless. Dan Needham described Mr. Tubulari as “already senseless, before his fall,” but the track-and-field coach severely sprained his ankle in the mishap and had to be carried to the Hubbard Infirmary. That left even fewer less-than-able-bodied faculty—and some beefy wives—to deal with the unfortunate wreck of Dr. Dolder’s Volkswagen, which now stood on its rear end, which is a Beetle’s heavy end, where its engine is. The little car, standing so oddly upright, appeared to be saluting or applauding the weary faculty who had so ungracefully dropped it offstage.


  “It’s a good thing Dr. Dolder isn’t here,” Dan observed.

  Because the headmaster was so riled up, no one wished to point out the obvious: that they would have been better off to let the students have “the last laugh”—then the faculty could have ordered a strong, healthy bunch of students to carry the car safely offstage. If the students wrecked the car in the course of its removal from the Main Academy Building, then the students would have been responsible. As it was, things went from bad to worse, as they often will when amateurs are involved in an activity that they perform in bad temper—and in a hurry.

  The students would be arriving for morning meeting in another ten or fifteen minutes; a smashed Volkswagen sitting on its rear end in the front of The Great Hall might very well produce a louder and longer laugh than a natty, well-cared-for car facing them, undamaged, onstage. But there was brief discussion, if any, of this; the headmaster, bright-red in the face with the strain of lifting the solid little German marvel of the highways, urged the faculty to put their muscles into the chore and spare him their comments.

  Bur there had been ice, and a little snow, on the VW; this was melted now. The car was wet and slippery; puddles of water were underfoot. One of the faculty wives—one especially prolific with progeny, and one whose maternal girth was more substantial than well coordinated—slipped under the Volkswagen as it was being returned to its wheels; although she was not hurt, she was wedged quite securely under the stubborn automobile. Volkswagens were pioneers in sealing the bottoms of their cars, and the poor faculty wife discovered that there was no gap beneath the car that would allow her to wriggle free.

  This presented—with less than ten minutes before morning meeting—a new humiliation for the headmaster: Dr. Dolder’s damaged Volkswagen, leaking its engine and transmission oil upon the prostrate body of a trapped faculty wife; she was not an especially popular faculty wife among the students, either.

  “Jesus Fucking Christ!” said Randy White.

  Some of the “early nerds” were already arriving. “Early nerds” were students who were so eager for the school day to begin that they got to morning meeting long before the time they were required to be there. I don’t know what they are called today; but I’m sure that such students are never called anything nice.

  Some of these “early nerds” were quite startled to be shouted at by the headmaster, telling them to “come back at the proper time!” Meanwhile, in tilting the VW to its side—enough to allow the safe deliverance of the rotund faculty wife—the inexperienced car handlers tilted the Beetle too far; it fell flat on the driver’s side (there went that window and that sideview mirror; the debris, together with the tail-light glass from the VW’s inexpert fall from the stage, was hastily swept under the front-row wooden bench where the injured Mr. Tubulari had fallen).

  Someone suggested getting Dr. Dolder; if the doctor unlocked the car, the stalwart vehicle could be rolled, if not driven, to the head of the broad and sweeping marble stairway. Perhaps it would be easier to navigate the staircase with someone inside, behind the wheel?

  “Nobody’s calling Dolder!” the headmaster cried. Someone pointed out that—since the window was broken—it was, in any case, an unnecessary step. Also, someone else pointed out, the Volkswagen could not be driven, or rolled, on its side; better to solve that problem. But according to Dan, the untrained faculty were unaware of their own strength; in attempting to right the car upon its wheels, they heaved too hard and tossed it from the driver’s side to the passenger side—flattening the front-row wooden bench (and there went the passenger-side window, and the other sideview mirror).

  “Perhaps we should cancel morning meeting?” Dan Needham cautiously suggested. But the headmaster—to everyone’s astonishment—actually righted the Volkswagen, upon its wheels, by himself! I guess his adrenal glands were pumping! Randy White then seized his lower back with both hands and dropped, cursing, to his knees.

  “Don’t touch me!” the headmaster cried. “I’m fine!” he said, grimacing—and coming unsteadily to his feet. He sharply kicked the rear fender of Dr. Dolder’s car. Then he reached through the hole where the driver’s-side window had been and unlocked the door. He sat behind the wheel—with apparent jolts of extreme discomfort assailing him from the region of his lower back—and commanded the faculty to push him.

  “Where?” Dan Needham asked the headmaster.

  “Down the Jesus Fucking Christly stairs!” Headmaster White cried. And so they pushed him; there was little point in trying to reason with him, Dan Needham later explained.

  The bell for morning meeting was already ringing when Randy White began his bumpy descent of the broad and sweeping marble stairway; several students—normal students, in addition to the “early nerds”—were milling around in the foyer of the Main Academy Building, at the foot of the staircase.

  Who can really piece together all the details of such a case—I mean, who can ever get straight what happened exactly? It was an emotional moment for the headmaster. And there is no overestimating the pain in his lower back; he had lifted the car all by himself—whether his back muscles went into spasms while he was attempting to steer the VW downstairs, or whether he suffered the spasms after his spectacular accident … well, this is academic, isn’t it?

  Suffice it to say that the students in the foyer fled from the wildly approaching little vehicle. No doubt, the melted snow and ice were on the Beetle’s tires, too—and marble, as everyone knows, is slippery. This way and that way, the dynamic little car hopped down the staircase; great slabs of marble appeared to leap off the polished handrails of the stairway—the result of the Volkswagen’s gouging out hunks of marble as it skidded from side to side.

  There’s an old New Hampshire phrase that is meant to express extreme fragility—and damage: “Like a robin’s egg rollin’ down the spout of a rain gutter!”

  Thus did the headmaster descend the marble staircase from The Great Hall to the foyer of the Main Academy Building—except that he didn’t quite arrive at his destination. The car flipped and landed on its roof, and jammed itself sideways—and upside down—in the middle of the stairway. The doors could not be opened—nor could the headmaster be removed from the wreckage; such spasms assailed his lower back that he could not contort himself into the necessary posture to make an exit from the car through the space where the windshield had been. Randy White, sitting upside down and holding fast to the steering wheel, cried out that there was a “conspiracy of students and faculty” who were—clearly—“against” him. He said numerous, unprintable things about Dr. Dolder’s “fussy-fucking drinking habits,” about all German-manufactured cars, about what “wimps and pussys” were masquerading as “able-bodied” among the faculty—and their wives!—and he shouted and screamed that his back was “killing” him, until his wife, Sam, could be brought to the scene, where she knelt on the chipped marble stairs and gave her upside-down husband what comfort she could. Professionals were summoned to extricate him from the destroyed Volkswagen; later—long after morning meeting was over—they finally rescued the headmaster by removing the driver’s-side door of Dr. Dolder’s poor car with a torch.

  The headmaster was confined to the Hubbard Infirmary for the remainder of the day; the nurses, and the school doctor, wanted to keep him—for observation—overnight, but the headmaster threatened to fire all of them if he was not released.

  Over and over again, Randy White was heard to shout or cry out or mutter to his wife: “This has Owen Meany’s name written all over it!”

  It was an interesting morning meeting, that morning. We were more than twice as long being seated, because only one staircase ascending to The Great Hall was available for our passage—and then there was the problem of the front-row bench being smashed; the boys who regularly sat there had to find places for themselves on the floor, or onstage. There were crushed beads of glass, and chipped paint, and puddles of engine and transmission oil everywhere—and except for the opening and cl
osing hymn, which drowned out the cries of the trapped headmaster, we were forced to listen to the ongoing drama on the stairway. I’m afraid this distracted us from the Rev. Mr. Merrill’s prayer, and from Mr. Early’s annual pep talk to the seniors. We should not allow our anxieties about our pending college admission (or our rejection) to keep us from having a good spring holiday, Mr. Early advised us.

  “Goddamn Jesus Fucking Christ—keep that blowtorch away from my face!” we all heard the headmaster cry.

  And at the end of morning meeting, the headmaster’s wife, Sam, shouted at those students who attempted to descend the blocked staircase by climbing over the ruined Volkswagen—in which the headmaster was still imprisoned.

  “Where are your manners?” Mrs. White shouted.

  It was after morning meeting before I had a chance to speak to Owen Meany.

  “I don’t suppose you had anything to do with all of that?” I asked him.

  “FAITH AND PRAYER,” he said. “FAITH AND PRAYER—THEY WORK, THEY REALLY DO.”

  Toronto: July 23, 1987—Katherine invited me to her island; no more stupid newspapers; I’m going to Georgian Bay! Another stinking-hot day.

  Meanwhile—on the front page of The Globe and Mail (it must be a slow day)—there’s a story about Sweden’s Supreme Court making “legal history”; the Supreme Court is hearing an appeal in a custody case involving a dead cat. What a world! MADE FOR TELEVISION!

  I haven’t been to church in more than a month; too many newspapers. Newspapers are a bad habit, the reading equivalent of junk food. What happens to me is that I seize upon an issue in the news—the issue is the moral/philosophical, political/intellectual equivalent of a cheeseburger with everything on it; but for the duration of my interest in it, all my other interests are consumed by it, and whatever appetites and capacities I may have had for detachment and reflection are suddenly subordinate to this cheeseburger in my life! I offer this as self-criticism; but what it means to be “political” is that you welcome these obsessions with cheeseburgers—at great cost to the rest of your life.