A Prayer for Owen Meany

by John Irving

  Sometimes, after dinner, we would listen to music on the living-room couch—or else Hester would sing something to Owen and me. But the couch was at present uninviting, the result of Hester taking pity on one of Durham’s stray dogs; the mutt had demonstrated its gratitude by bestowing upon Hester’s living-room couch an infestation of fleas. This was the life that Hester and I thought Owen valued too little.

  “I DON’T WANT TO BE A HERO,” said Owen Meany. “IT’S NOT THAT I WANT TO BE—IT’S THAT I AM A HERO. I KNOW THAT’S WHAT I’M SUPPOSED TO BE.”

  “How do you know?” I asked him.

  “IT’S NOT THAT I WANT TO GO TO VIETNAM—IT’S WHERE I HAVE TO GO. IT’S WHERE I’M A HERO. I’VE GOT TO BE THERE,” he said.

  “Tell him how you ‘know’ this, you asshole!” Hester screamed at him.

  “THE WAY YOU KNOW SOME THINGS—YOUR OBLIGATIONS, YOUR DESTINY OR YOUR FATE,” he said. “THE WAY YOU KNOW WHAT GOD WANTS YOU TO DO.”

  “God wants you to go to Vietnam?” I asked him.

  Hester ran out of the kitchen and shut herself in the bathroom; she started running the water in the bathtub. “I’m not listening to this shit, Owen—not one more time, I told you!” she cried.

  When Owen got up from the kitchen table to turn the flame down under the tomato sauce, we could hear Hester being sick in the bathroom.

  “It’s this dream, isn’t it?” I asked him. He stirred the tomato sauce as if he knew what he was doing. “Does Pastor Merrill tell you that God wants you to go to Vietnam?” I asked him. “Does Father Findley tell you that?”

  “THEY SAY IT’S JUST A DREAM,” said Owen Meany.

  “That’s what I say—I don’t even know what it is, but I say it’s just a dream,” I said.

  “BUT YOU HAVE NO FAITH,” he said. “THAT’S YOUR PROBLEM.”

  In the bathroom, Hester was sounding like New Year’s Eve; the tomato sauce just simmered.

  Owen Meany could manifest a certain calmness that I had never quite liked; when he got like that when we were practicing the shot, I didn’t want to touch him—when I passed him the ball, I felt uneasy; and when I had to put my hands on him, when I actually lifted him up, I always felt I was handling a creature that was not exactly human, or not quite real. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he had twisted in the air, in my hands, and bitten me; or if—after I’d lifted him—he’d just kept on flying.

  “It’s only a dream,” I repeated.

  “IT’S NOT YOUR DREAM,” said Owen Meany.

  “Don’t be coy, don’t play around with me,” I told him.

  “I’M NOT PLAYING AROUND,” he said. “WOULD I REQUEST A COMBAT ASSIGNMENT IF I WERE PLAYING AROUND?”

  I began again. “In this dream, you’re a hero?” I asked him.

  “I SAVE THE CHILDREN,” said Owen Meany. “I SAVE LOTS OF CHILDREN.”

  “Children?” I said.

  “IN THE DREAM,” he said—“THEY’RE NOT SOLDIERS, THEY’RE CHILDREN.”

  “Vietnamese children?” I asked.

  “THAT’S HOW I KNOW WHERE I AM—THEY’RE DEFINITELY VIETNAMESE CHILDREN, AND I SAVE THEM. I WOULDN’T GO TO ALL THIS TROUBLE IF I WAS SUPPOSED TO SAVE SOLDIERS!” he added.

  “Owen, this is so childish,” I said. “You can’t believe that everything that pops into your head means something! You can’t have a dream and believe that you ‘know’ what you’re supposed to do!”

  “THAT ISN’T EXACTLY WHAT FAITH IS,” he said, turning his attention to the tomato sauce. “I DON’T BELIEVE EVERYTHING THAT POPS INTO MY HEAD—FAITH IS A LITTLE MORE SELECTIVE THAN THAT.”

  Some dreams, I suppose, are MORE SELECTIVE, too. Under the big pot of water for the pasta, Owen turned the flame on—as if the sounds of Hester’s dry heaves in the bathroom were an indication to him that her appetite would be returning soon. Then he went into Hester’s bedroom and fetched his diary. He didn’t show it to me; he simply found the part he was looking for, and he began to read to me. I didn’t know I was hearing an edited version. The word “dream” was never mentioned in his writing, as if it were not a dream he was describing but rather something he had seen with much more certainty and authority than anything appearing to him in his sleep—as if he were describing an order of events he had absolutely witnessed. Yet he remained removed from what he saw, like someone watching through a window, and the tone of the writing was not at all as urgent as the tone so often employed by The Voice; rather, the certainty and authority that I heard reminded me of the plain, less-than-enthusiastic report of a documentary, which is the tone of voice of those undoubting parts of the Bible.

  “I NEVER HEAR THE EXPLOSION. WHAT I HEAR IS THE AFTERMATH OF AN EXPLOSION. THERE IS A RINGING IN MY EARS, AND THOSE HIGH-PITCHED POPPING AND TICKING SOUNDS THAT A HOT ENGINE MAKES AFTER YOU SHUT IT OFF; AND PIECES OF THE SKY ARE FALLING, AND BITS OF WHITE—MAYBE PAPER, MAYBE PLASTER—ARE FLOATING DOWN LIKE SNOW. THERE ARE SILVERY SPARKLES IN THE AIR, TOO—MAYBE IT’S SHATTERED GLASS. THERE’S SMOKE, AND THE STINK OF BURNING; THERE’S NO FLAME, BUT EVERYTHING IS SMOLDERING.

  “WE’RE ALL LYING ON THE FLOOR. I KNOW THE CHILDREN ARE ALL RIGHT BECAUSE—ONE BY ONE—THEY PICK THEMSELVES UP OFF THE FLOOR. IT MUST HAVE BEEN A LOUD EXPLOSION BECAUSE SOME OF THE CHILDREN ARE STILL HOLDING THEIR EARS; SOME OF THEIR EARS ARE BLEEDING. THE CHILDREN DON’T SPEAK ENGLISH, BUT THEIR VOICES ARE THE FIRST HUMAN SOUNDS TO FOLLOW THE EXPLOSION. THE YOUNGER ONES ARE CRYING; BUT THE OLDER ONES ARE DOING THEIR BEST TO BE COMFORTING—THEY’RE CHATTERING AWAY, THEY’RE REALLY BABBLING, BUT THIS IS REASSURING.

  “THE WAY THEY LOOK AT ME, I KNOW TWO THINGS. I KNOW THAT I SAVED THEM—I DON’T KNOW HOW. AND I KNOW THAT THEY’RE AFRAID FOR ME. BUT I DON’T SEE ME—I CAN’T TELL WHAT’S WRONG WITH ME. THE CHILDREN’S FACES TELL ME SOMETHING IS WRONG.

  “SUDDENLY, THE NUNS ARE THERE; PENGUINS ARE PEERING DOWN AT ME—ONE OF THEM BENDS OVER ME. I CAN’T HEAR WHAT I SAY TO HER, BUT SHE APPEARS TO UNDERSTAND ME—MAYBE SHE SPEAKS ENGLISH. IT’S NOT UNTIL SHE TAKES ME IN HER ARMS THAT I SEE ALL THE BLOOD—HER WIMPLE IS BLOOD-STAINED. WHILE I’M LOOKING AT THE NUN, HER WIMPLE CONTINUES TO BE SPLASHED WITH BLOOD—THE BLOOD SPATTERS HER FACE, TOO, BUT SHE’S NOT AFRAID. THE FACES OF THE CHILDREN—LOOKING DOWN AT ME—ARE FULL OF FEAR; BUT THE NUN WHO HOLDS ME IN HER ARMS IS VERY PEACEFUL.

  “OF COURSE, IT’S MY BLOOD—SHE’S COVERED WITH MY BLOOD—BUT SHE’S VERY CALM. WHEN I SEE SHE’S ABOUT TO MAKE THE SIGN OF THE CROSS OVER ME, I REACH OUT TO TRY TO STOP HER. BUT I CAN’T STOP HER—IT’S AS IF I DON’T HAVE ANY ARMS. THE NUN JUST SMILES AT ME. AFTER SHE’S MADE THE SIGN OF THE CROSS OVER ME, I LEAVE ALL OF THEM—I JUST LEAVE. THEY ARE STILL EXACTLY WHERE THEY WERE, LOOKING DOWN AT ME; BUT I’M NOT REALLY THERE. I’M LOOKING DOWN AT ME, TOO. I LOOK LIKE I DID WHEN I WAS THE BABY JESUS—YOU REMEMBER THOSE STUPID SWADDLING CLOTHES? THAT’S HOW I LOOK WHEN I LEAVE ME.

  “BUT NOW ALL THE PEOPLE ARE GROWING SMALLER—NOT JUST ME, BUT THE NUNS AND THE CHILDREN, TOO. I’M QUITE FAR ABOVE THEM, BUT THEY NEVER LOOK UP; THEY KEEP LOOKING DOWN AT WHAT USED TO BE ME. AND SOON I’M ABOVE EVERYTHING; THE PALM TREES ARE VERY STRAIGHT AND TALL, BUT SOON I’M HIGH ABOVE THE PALM TREES, TOO. THE SKY AND THE PALM TREES ARE SO BEAUTIFUL, BUT IT’S VERY HOT—THE AIR IS HOTTER THAN ANY PLACE I’VE EVER BEEN. I KNOW I’M NOT IN NEW HAMPSHIRE.”

  I didn’t say anything; he put his diary back in Hester’s bedroom, he stirred the tomato sauce, he looked under the lid of the water pot to see if the water was near to boiling. Then he went and knocked on the bathroom door; it was quiet in there.

  “I’ll be out in a minute,” Hester said.

  Owen returned to the kitchen and sat down at the table with me.

  “It’s just a dream, Owen,” I said to him. He folded his hands and regarded me patiently. I remembered that time he untied the safety rope when we’d been swimming in the old quarry. I remembered how angry he was—when we hadn’t immediately jumped in the water to save him.

  “YOU LET ME DROWN!” he’d said. “YOU DIDN’T DO ANYTHING! YOU J
UST WATCHED ME DROWN! I’M ALREADY DEAD!” he’d told us. “REMEMBER THAT: YOU LET ME DIE.”

  “Owen,” I said. “Given your sensitive feelings for Catholics, why wouldn’t you dream that a nun was your own special Angel of Death?”

  He looked down at his hands folded on top of the table; we could hear Hester’s bath emptying.

  “It’s just a dream,” I repeated; he shrugged. There was in his attitude toward me that same mild pity and mild contempt I had seen before—when The Flying Yankee had passed over the Maiden Hill trestle bridge, precisely as Owen and I had passed under it, and I’d called this a “coincidence.”

  Hester came out of the bathroom wrapped in a pale-yellow towel, carrying her clothes. She went into the bedroom without looking at us; she shut the door, and we could hear her shaking the chest of drawers, the coat hangers protesting her roughness in the closet.

  “Owen,” I said. “You’re very original, but the dream is a stereotype—the dream is stupid. You’re going in the Army, there’s a war in Vietnam—do you think you’d have a dream about saving American children? And, naturally, there would be palm trees—what would you expect? Igloos?”

  Hester came out of the bedroom in fresh clothes; she was roughly toweling her hair dry. Her clothes were almost an exact exchange for what she’d worn before—she wore a different pair of blue jeans and a different, ill-fitting turtleneck jersey; the extent to which Hester ever changed her clothes was a change from black to navy blue, or vice versa.

  “Owen,” I said. “You can’t believe that God wants you to go to Vietnam for the purpose of making yourself available to rescue these characters in a dream!”

  He neither nodded nor shrugged; he sat very still looking at his hands folded on top of the table.

  “That’s exactly what he believes—you’ve hit the nail on the head,” Hester said. She gripped the damp, pale-yellow towel and rolled it tightly into what we used to call a “rat’s tail.” She snapped the towel very close to Owen Meany’s face, but Owen didn’t move. “That’s it, isn’t it? You asshole!” she yelled at him. She snapped the towel again—then she unrolled it and ran at him, wrapping the towel around his head. “You think God wants you to go to Vietnam—don’t you?” she screamed at him.

  She wrestled him out of his chair—she held his head in the towel in a headlock and she lay on her side across his chest, pinning him to the kitchen floor, while she began to pound him in the face with the fist of her free hand. He kicked his feet, he tried to grab for her hair; but Hester must have outweighed Owen Meany by at least thirty pounds, and she appeared to be hitting him as hard as she could. When I saw the blood seep through the pale-yellow towel, I grabbed Hester around her waist and tried to pull her off him.

  It wasn’t easy; I had to get my hands on her throat and threaten to strangle her before she stopped hitting him and tried to hit me. She was very strong, and she was hysterical; she tried to demonstrate her headlock on me, but Owen got the towel off his head and tackled Hester at her ankles. Then it was his turn to attempt to get her off me. Owen’s nose was bleeding and his lower lip, which was split and puffy, was bleeding, too; but together we managed to take control of her. Owen sat on the backs of her legs, and I kneeled between her shoulder blades and pulled her arms down flush to her sides; this still left her free to thrash her head all around—she tried to bite me, and when she couldn’t, she began to bang her face on the kitchen floor until her nose was bleeding.

  “You don’t love me, Owen!” Hester screamed. “If you loved me, you wouldn’t go—not for all the goddamn children in the world! You wouldn’t go if you loved me!”

  Owen and I stayed on top of her until she started to cry, and she stopped banging her face on the floor.

  “YOU BETTER GO,” Owen said to me.

  “No, you better go, Owen,” Hester said to him. “You better get the fuck out of here!”

  And so he took his diary from Hester’s bedroom, and we left together. It was a warm spring night. I followed the tomato-red pickup to the coast; I knew where he was going. I was sure that he wanted to sit on the breakwater at Rye Harbor. The breakwater was made of the slag—the broken slabs—from the Meany Granite Quarry; Owen always felt he had a right to sit there. From the breakwater, you got a pretty view of the tiny harbor; in the spring, not that many boats were in the water—it didn’t quite feel like summer, which was the time of year when we usually sat there.

  But this summer would be different, anyway. Because I was teaching ninth-grade Expository Writing at Gravesend Academy in the fall, I wasn’t going to work this summer. Even a part-time job at Graves-end Academy would more than compensate for my graduate-school expenses; even a part-time job—for the whole school year—was worth more than another summer working for Meany Granite.

  Besides: my grandmother had given me a little money, and Owen would be in the Army. He had treated himself to thirty days between his graduation and the beginning of his active duty as a second lieutenant. We’d talked about taking a trip together. Except for his Basic Training—at Fort Knox or Fort Bragg—Owen had never been out of New England; I’d never been out of New England, either.

  “Both of you should go to Canada,” Hester had told us. “And you should stay there!”

  The salt water rushed in and out of the breakwater; pools of water were trapped in the rocks below the high-tide mark. Owen stuck his face in one of these tide pools; his nose had stopped bleeding, but his lip was split quite deeply—it continued to bleed—and there was a sizable swelling above one of his eyebrows. He had two black eyes, one very much blacker than the other and so puffy that the eye was closed to a slit.

  “YOU THINK VIETNAM IS DANGEROUS,” he said. “YOU OUGHT TO TRY LIVING WITH HESTER!”

  But he was so exasperating! How could anyone live with Owen Meany and, knowing what he thought he knew, not be moved to beat the shit out of him?

  We sat on the breakwater until it grew dark and the mosquitoes began to bother us.

  “Are you hungry?” I asked him.

  He pointed to his lower lip, which was still bleeding. “I DON’T THINK I CAN EAT ANYTHING,” he said, “BUT I’LL GO WITH YOU.”

  We went to one of those clam-shack restaurants on “the strip.” I ate a lot of fried clams and Owen sipped a beer—through a straw. The waitress knew us—she was a University of New Hampshire girl.

  “You better get some stitches in that lip before it falls off,” she told Owen.

  We drove—Owen in the tomato-red pickup, and I followed him in my Volkswagen—to the emergency room of the Gravesend Hospital. It was a slow night—not the summer, and not a weekend—so we didn’t have to wait long. There was a hassle concerning how he intended to pay for his treatment.

  “SUPPOSE I CAN’T PAY?” he asked. “DOES THAT MEAN YOU DON’T TREAT ME?”

  I was surprised that he had no health insurance; apparently, there was no policy for coverage in his family and he hadn’t even paid the small premium asked of students at the university for group benefits. Finally, I said that the hospital could send the bill to my grandmother; everyone knew who Harriet Wheelwright was—even the emergency-room receptionist—and, after a phone call to Grandmother, this method of payment was accepted.

  “WHAT A COUNTRY!” said Owen Meany, while a nervous-looking young doctor—who was not an American—put four stitches in his lower lip. “AT LEAST WHEN I GET IN THE ARMY, I’LL HAVE SOME HEALTH INSURANCE!”

  Owen said he was ashamed to take money from my grandmother—“SHE’S ALREADY GIVEN ME MORE THAN I DESERVED!” But when we arrived at 80 Front Street, a different problem presented itself.

  “Merciful Heavens, Owen!” my grandmother said. “You’ve been in a fight!”

  “I JUST FELL DOWNSTAIRS,” he said.

  “Don’t you lie to me, Owen Meany!” Grandmother said.

  “I WAS ATTACKED BY JUVENILE DELINQUENTS AT HAMPTON BEACH,” Owen said.

  “Don’t you lie to me!” Grandmother repeated.

  I co
uld see that Owen was struggling to ascertain the effect upon my grandmother of telling her that her granddaughter had beaten the shit out of him; Hester—except for her vomiting—was always relatively subdued around Grandmother.

  Owen pointed to me. “HE DID IT,” Owen said.

  “Merciful Heavens!” my grandmother said. “You should be ashamed of yourself!” she said to me.

  “I didn’t mean to,” I said. “We weren’t having a real fight—we were just roughhousing.”

  “IT WAS DARK,” said Owen Meany. “HE COULDN’T SEE ME VERY CLEARLY.”

  “You should still be ashamed of yourself!” my grandmother said to me.

  “Yes,” I said.

  This little misunderstanding seemed to cheer up Owen. My grandmother commenced to wait on him, hand and foot—and Ethel was summoned and directed to concoct something nourishing for him in the blender: a fresh pineapple, a banana, some ice cream, some brewer’s yeast. “Something the poor boy can drink through a straw!” my grandmother said.

  “YOU CAN LEAVE OUT THE BREWER’S YEAST,” said Owen Meany.

  After my grandmother went to bed, we sat up watching The Late Show and he teased me about my new reputation—as a bully. The movie on The Late Show was at least twenty years old—Betty Grable in Moon over Miami. The music, and the setting, made me think of the place called The Orange Grove and my mother performing as “The Lady in Red.” I would probably never know any more about that, I thought.

  “You remember the play you were going to write?” I asked Owen. “About the supper club—about ‘The Lady in Red’?”

  “SURE, I REMEMBER. YOU DIDN’T WANT ME TO DO IT,” he said.