A Prayer for Owen Meany

by John Irving

  “I thought you might have done it, anyway,” I said.

  “I STARTED IT—A COUPLE OF TIMES,” he said. “IT WAS HARDER THAN I THOUGHT—TO MAKE UP A STORY.”

  Carole Landis was in Moon over Miami, and Don Ameche; remember them? It’s a story about husband-hunting in Florida. Just the glow of the television lit Owen’s face when he said, “YOU’VE GOT TO LEARN TO FOLLOW THINGS THROUGH—IF YOU CARE ABOUT SOMETHING, YOU’VE GOT TO SEE IT ALL THE WAY TO THE END, YOU’VE GOT TO TRY TO FINISH IT. I’LL BET YOU NEVER EVEN LOOKED IN A BOSTON TELEPHONE DIRECTORY—FOR A BUSTER FREEBODY,” he said.

  “It’s a made-up name,” I said.

  “IT’S THE ONLY NAME WE KNOW,” Owen said.

  “No, I didn’t look it up,” I said.

  “YOU SEE?” he said. “THERE ACTUALLY ARE A FEW FREEBODYS—BUT NO ‘BUSTER,’” he said.

  “Maybe ‘Buster’ is just a nickname,” I said—with more interest now.

  “NONE OF THE FREEBODYS I SPOKE WITH HAD EVER HEARD OF A ‘BUSTER,’” said Owen Meany. “AND THE OLD PEOPLE’S HOMES WON’T RELEASE A LIST OF NAMES—DO YOU KNOW WHY?” he asked me.

  “Why?” I asked him.

  “BECAUSE CRIMINALS COULD USE THE NAMES TO FIND OUT WHO’S NO LONGER LIVING AT HOME. IF THE SAME NAME IS STILL IN THE PHONE BOOK—AND IF THE HOUSE OR THE APARTMENT HASN’T BEEN REOCCUPIED—THEN THE CRIMINALS HAVE FOUND AN EASY PLACE TO ROB: NOBODY HOME. THAT’S WHY THE OLD PEOPLE’S HOMES DON’T GIVE OUT ANY NAMES,” he said. “INTERESTING, HUH? IF IT’S TRUE,” he added.

  “You’ve been busy,” I said; he shrugged.

  “AND THE LISTINGS IN THE YELLOW PAGES—THOSE PLACES THAT OFFER ‘LIVE MUSIC,’” he said. “NOT ONE OF THOSE PLACES IN ALL OF BOSTON HAS EVER HEARD OF A BIG BLACK BUSTER FREEBODY! IT WAS SO LONG AGO, BUSTER FREEBODY MUST BE DEAD.”

  “I’d hate to see your phone bill,” I told him.

  “I USED HESTER’S PHONE,” he said.

  “I’m surprised she didn’t beat the shit out of you for that,” I said.

  “SHE DID,” Owen said; he turned his face away from the glowing light of the TV. “I WOULDN’T TELL HER WHAT THE PHONE CALLS WERE ABOUT, AND SHE THOUGHT I HAD ANOTHER GIRLFRIEND.”

  “Why don’t you have another girlfriend?” I asked him; he shrugged again.

  “SHE DOESN’T BEAT ME UP ALL THE TIME,” Owen said.

  What could I say? I didn’t even have a girlfriend.

  “We ought to think about our trip,” I said to him. “We’ve got thirty days coming up—where do you want to go?”

  “SOMEWHERE WARM,” said Owen Meany.

  “It’s warm everywhere—in June,” I reminded him.

  “I’D LIKE TO GO WHERE THERE ARE PALM TREES,” Owen said.

  We watched Moon over Miami for a while, in silence.

  “We could drive to Florida,” I said.

  “NOT IN THE PICKUP,” he said. “THE PICKUP WOULDN’T MAKE IT TO FLORIDA.”

  “We could take my Volkswagen,” I said. “We could drive to California in the Beetle—no problem.”

  “BUT WHERE WOULD WE SLEEP?” Owen asked me. “I CAN’T AFFORD MOTELS.”

  “Grandmother would lend us the money,” I said.

  “I’VE TAKEN ENOUGH MONEY FROM YOUR GRANDMOTHER,” he said.

  “Well, I could lend you the money,” I said.

  “IT’S THE SAME MONEY,” said Owen Meany.

  “We could take a tent—and sleeping bags,” I said. “We could camp out.”

  “I’VE THOUGHT OF THAT,” he said. “IF WE CARRY A LOT OF CAMPING STUFF, WE’D BE BETTER OFF IN THE PICKUP—BUT THE PICKUP WOULD DIE ON US, ON A TRIP OF THAT DISTANCE.”

  Was there anything Owen Meany hadn’t thought of before I’d thought of it? I wondered.

  “WE DON’T HAVE TO GO WHERE THERE ARE PALM TREES—IT WAS JUST AN IDEA,” Owen said.

  We weren’t in the mood for Moon over Miami; a story about husband-hunting requires a special mood. Owen went out to the pickup and got his flashlight; then we walked up Front Street to Linden Street—past the Gravesend High School to the cemetery. The night was still warm, and not especially dark. As graves go, my mother’s grave looked pretty nice. Grandmother had planted a border of crocuses and daffodils and tulips, so that even in the spring there was color; and Grandmother’s touch with roses was evident by the well-pruned rosebush that took very firm grasp of the trellis that stood like a comfortable headboard directly behind my mother’s grave. Owen played the flashlight over the beveled edges of the gravestone; I’d seen better work with the diamond wheel—Owen’s work was much, much better. But I never supposed that Owen had been old enough to fashion my mother’s stone.

  “MY FATHER WAS NEVER AN EXPERT WITH THE DIAMOND WHEEL,” Owen observed.

  Dan Needham had recently placed a fresh bouquet of spring flowers in front of the gravestone, but Owen and I could still manage to see the lettering of my mother’s name—and the appropriate dates.

  “If she were alive, she’d be forty-three!” I said. “Imagine that.”

  “SHE’D STILL BE BEAUTIFUL!” said Owen Meany.

  When we were walking back along Linden Street, I was thinking that we could take a trip “Down East,” as people in New Hampshire say—by which they mean, along the coast of Maine, all the way to Nova Scotia.

  “Could the pickup make it to Nova Scotia?” I asked Owen. “Suppose we just took it easy, and drove along the coast of Maine—not in any hurry, not caring about when we arrived in Nova Scotia, not even caring if we ever arrived there—do you think the pickup could handle that?”

  “I’VE BEEN THINKING ABOUT THAT,” he said. “YES, I THINK WE COULD DO THAT—IF WE DIDN’T TRY TO DRIVE TOO MANY MILES IN ONE DAY. WITH THE PICKUP WE COULD CERTAINLY CARRY ALL THE CAMPING GEAR WE’D EVER NEED—WE COULD EVEN PITCH THE TENT IN THE BACK OF THE PICKUP, IF WE EVER HAD A PROBLEM FINDING DRY OR LEVEL GROUND....”

  “That would be fun!” I said. “I’ve never been to Nova Scotia—I’ve never been very far into Maine.”

  On Front Street, we stopped to pet someone’s cat.

  “I’VE ALSO BEEN THINKING ABOUT SAWYER DEPOT,” said Owen Meany.

  “What about it?” I asked him.

  “I’VE NEVER BEEN THERE, YOU KNOW,” he said.

  “It’s not really very interesting in Sawyer Depot,” I said cautiously. I didn’t think my Aunt Martha and Uncle Alfred would welcome Owen Meany into their home with open arms; and considering what had just happened with Hester, I wondered what attraction Sawyer Depot still had for Owen.

  “I’D JUST LIKE TO SEE IT,” he said. “I’VE HEARD SO MUCH ABOUT IT. EVEN IF THE EASTMANS WOULDN’T WANT ME IN THE HOUSE, PERHAPS YOU COULD SHOW ME LOVELESS LAKE—AND THE BOATHOUSE, AND MAYBE THE MOUNTAIN WHERE ALL OF YOU WENT SKIING. AND FIREWATER!” he said.

  “Firewater’s been dead for years!” I told him.

  “OH,” he said.

  My grandmother’s driveway looked like a parking lot. There was Grandmother’s old Cadillac, and my Volkswagen Beetle, and the dusty tomato-red pickup; and parked at the rear of the line was Hester’s hand-me-down ’57 Chevy.

  She must have been out looking for Owen; and when she’d seen the pickup in Grandmother’s driveway, she must have gone into 80 Front Street to find him. We found her asleep on the couch; the only light that flashed over her was the ghastly, bone-colored glow from the TV, which she had turned to another channel—apparently, Hester hadn’t been in the mood for Moon over Miami, either. She had fallen asleep watching Duchess of Idaho.

  “HESTER HATES ESTHER WILLIAMS, UNLESS ESTHER IS UNDERWATER,” said Owen Meany. He went and sat beside Hester on the couch; he touched her hair, then her cheek. I switched the channel; there was never just one Late Show—not anymore. Moon over Miami was over; something called The Late, Late Show had begun in its place—John Wayne, in Operation Pacific.

  “HESTER HATES JOHN WAYNE,” Owen said, and Hester woke up.

  John Wayne was in a submarine in World War Two; he was battl
ing the Japanese.

  “I’m not watching a war movie,” Hester said; she turned on the lamp on the end table next to the couch—she examined the stitches in Owen’s lip closely. “How many?” she asked him.

  “FOUR,” he told her.

  She kissed him very softly on his upper lip and on the tip of his nose, and on the corners of his mouth—being very careful not to kiss the stitches. “I’m sorry! I love you!” she whispered to him.

  “I’M OKAY,” said Owen Meany.

  I flicked through the channels until I found something interesting—Sherlock Holmes in Terror by Night, with Basil Rathbone.

  “I can’t remember if I’ve seen this one,” Hester said.

  “I know I’ve seen it, but I can’t remember it,” I said.

  “IT’S THE ONE WITH THE JEWEL ON THE TRAIN—IT’S A PRETTY GOOD ONE,” said Owen Meany. He curled up next to Hester on the couch; he laid his head against her bosom, and she cradled him in her arms. In a few minutes, he was fast asleep.

  “Better turn the volume down,” Hester whispered to me. When I looked at her—to see if I’d lowered the volume enough—she was crying.

  “I think I’ll go to bed,” I told her quietly. “I’ve seen Sherlock Holmes a hundred times.”

  “We’ll stay a while,” Hester said. “Good night.”

  “He wants to go to Sawyer Depot,” I told her.

  “I know,” she said.

  I lay in bed awake a long time. When I heard their voices in the driveway, I got up and went into my mother’s empty bedroom; from the window there, I could see them. The curtains were never drawn in my mother’s bedroom, in memory of how she had hated the darkness.

  It was almost dawn, and Hester and Owen were discussing how they would drive back to Durham.

  “I’ll follow you,” Hester said.

  “NO, I’LL FOLLOW YOU,” he told her.

  Then I graduated from the University of New Hampshire—a B.A. in English, cum laude. Owen just plain graduated—Second Lieutenant Paul O. Meany, Jr., with a B.S. in Geology. He was not reassigned to a combat branch; he was ordered to report to Fort Benjamin Harrison in Indiana, where he would undertake an eight- to ten-week course in Basic Administration for the Adjutant General’s Corps. After that, the Army wanted him to report to a communications command in Arizona. Although the Army might later send him anywhere in the country—or even to Saigon—they were assigning him to a desk job.

  “SECOND LIEUTENANTS ARE SUPPOSED TO BE PLATOON LEADERS!” said Owen Meany. Naturally, Hester and I had to conceal how pleased we were. Even in Vietnam, the Adjutant General’s Corps was not a branch with a high rate of casualties. We knew he wouldn’t give up; every few months he would fill out another Personnel Action Form, requesting a new assignment—and he claimed that Colonel Eiger had provided him with the name and telephone number of someone in the Pentagon, a certain major who allegedly supervised the personnel files and assignments of the junior officers. Hester and I knew better than to ever underestimate Owen’s powers of manipulation.

  But, for the moment, we thought he was safe; and the U.S. Army, I believed, was not as easy to manipulate as a children’s Christmas pageant.

  “What exactly does the Adjutant General’s Corps do?” I asked him cautiously. But he wouldn’t discuss it.

  “THIS IS JUST AN INTERIM ASSIGNMENT,” said Owen Meany.

  Dan and I had to laugh; it was funny to think of him suffering through a Basic Administration course in Indiana when what he had imagined for himself was jumping out of a helicopter and hacking his way through a jungle with his machete and his M-16. Owen was angry, but he wasn’t depressed; he was irritable, but he was determined.

  Then one evening I was walking through the Gravesend Academy campus and I saw the tomato-red pickup parked in the circular driveway from which poor Dr. Dolder’s Volkswagen Beetle had been elevated to its moment in history. The headlights of the pickup were shining across the vast lawn in front of the Main Academy Building; the lawn was full of chairs. Rows upon rows of chairs, and the benches from The Great Hall, were spread out across the lawn—I would estimate that there was seating for five hundred people. It was that time of the year when Gravesend Academy hoped it wouldn’t rain; the chairs and benches were assembled for the annual commencement. If it rained—to everyone’s sorrow—there was no place large enough to hold the commencement, except the gym; not even The Great Hall would hold the crowd.

  Commencement had been outdoors the year I graduated—the year Owen should have graduated, the year he should have been our class valedictorian.

  Hester was sitting by herself in the cab of the pickup; she motioned to me to get in and sit beside her.

  “Where is he?” I asked her. She pointed into the path of the pickup truck’s headlights. Beyond the rows upon rows of chairs and benches was a makeshift stage, draped with the Gravesend Academy banner and dotted with chairs for the dignitaries and the speakers; at the center of this stage was the podium, and at the podium was Owen Meany. He was looking out over the hundreds of empty seats—he appeared to be a little blinded by the pickup truck’s headlights, but he needed the light in order to see his valedictory speech, which he was reading.

  “He doesn’t want anyone to hear it—he just wants to say it,” Hester said.

  When he joined Hester and me in the cab of the pickup, I said to him: “I would have liked to hear that. Won’t you read it to us?”

  “IT’S OVER,” said Owen Meany. “IT’S JUST SOME OLD HISTORY.”

  And so we departed for the north country—for Sawyer Depot, and Loveless Lake. We took the pickup; we did not take Hester. I’m not sure if she wanted to come. She had made the effort to speak to her parents; Uncle Alfred and Aunt Martha were always happy to see me, and they were polite—if not exactly warm—to Owen Meany. We spent the first night of our trip in the Eastmans’ house in Sawyer Depot. I slept in Noah’s bed; Noah was in the Peace Corps—I believe he was teaching Forestry, or “Forest Management,” to Nigerians. Uncle Alfred referred to what Noah was doing as a “ticket”—Africa, or the Peace Corps, was Noah’s “ticket out of Vietnam,” Uncle Alfred said.

  That summer, Simon was running the sawmill; over the years, Simon had injured his knees so often—skiing—that Simon’s knees were his ticket out of Vietnam. Simon had a 4-F deferment; he was judged physically unfit for service. “Unless the country is invaded by aliens,” Simon said, “good old Uncle Sam won’t take me!”

  Owen referred to his course in Basic Administration for the Adjutant General’s Corps as TEMPORARY. Arizona would also be TEMPORARY, Owen said. Uncle Alfred was very respectful of Owen’s desire to go to Vietnam, but Aunt Martha—over our elegant dinner—questioned the war’s “morality.”

  “YES, I QUESTION THAT, TOO,” said Owen Meany. “BUT I FEEL ONE HAS TO SEE SOMETHING FIRSTHAND TO BE SURE. I’M CERTAINLY INCLINED TO AGREE WITH KENNEDY’S ASSESSMENT OF THE VIETNAMESE PROBLEM—WAY BACK IN NINETEEN SIXTY-THREE. YOU MAY RECALL THAT THE PRESIDENT SAID: ‘WE CAN HELP THEM, WE CAN GIVE THEM EQUIPMENT, WE CAN SEND OUR MEN OUT THERE AS ADVISERS, BUT THEY HAVE TO WIN IT, THE PEOPLE OF VIETNAM.’ I THINK THAT POINT IS STILL VALID—AND IT’S CLEAR TO ALL OF US THAT THE ‘PEOPLE OF VIETNAM’ ARE NOT WINNING THE WAR. WE APPEAR TO BE TRYING TO WIN IT FOR THEM.

  “BUT LET’S SUPPOSE, FOR A MOMENT, THAT WE BELIEVE IN THE STATED OBJECTIVES OF THE JOHNSON ADMINISTRATION’S VIETNAM POLICY—AND THAT WE SUPPORT THIS POLICY. WE AGREE TO RESIST COMMUNIST AGGRESSION IN SOUTH VIETNAM—WHETHER IT COMES FROM THE NORTH VIETNAMESE OR THE VIET CONG. WE SUPPORT THE IDEA OF SELF-DETERMINATION FOR SOUTH VIETNAM—AND WE WANT PEACE IN SOUTHEAST ASIA. IF THESE ARE OUR OBJECTIVES—IF WE AGREE THAT THIS IS WHAT WE WANT—WHY ARE WE ESCALATING THE WAR?

  “THERE DOESN’T APPEAR TO BE A GOVERNMENT IN SAIGON THAT CAN DO VERY WELL WITHOUT US. DO THE SOUTH VIETNAMESE PEOPLE EVEN LIKE THE MILITARY JUNTA OF MARSHAL KY? NATURALLY, HANOI AND THE VIET CONG WILL NOT NEGOTIATE FOR A PEACEFUL SETTLEMENT IF THEY THINK THEY CAN WIN THE WAR! THERE’S EVER
Y REASON FOR THE UNITED STATES TO KEEP ENOUGH OF OUR GROUND FORCES IN SOUTH VIETNAM TO PERSUADE HANOI AND THE VIET CONG THAT THEY COULD NEVER ACHIEVE A MILITARY VICTORY. BUT WHAT DOES IT ACCOMPLISH FOR US TO BOMB THE NORTH?

  “SUPPOSING THAT WE MEAN WHAT WE SAY—THAT WE WANT SOUTH VIETNAM TO BE FREE TO GOVERN ITSELF—WE SHOULD BE PROTECTING SOUTH VIETNAM FROM ATTACK. BUT IT APPEARS THAT WE ARE ATTACKING THE WHOLE COUNTRY—FROM THE AIR! IF WE BOMB THE WHOLE COUNTRY TO BITS—TO PROTECT IT FROM COMMUNISM—WHAT KIND OF PROTECTION IS THAT?

  “I THINK THAT’S THE PROBLEM,” said Owen Meany, “BUT I’D LIKE TO SEE THE SITUATION FOR MYSELF.”

  My Uncle Alfred was speechless. My Aunt Martha said: “Yes, I see!” Both of them were impressed. I realized that a part of the reason why Owen had wanted to come to Sawyer Depot was to give himself an opportunity to impress Hester’s parents. I’d heard Owen’s Vietnam thesis before; it was not very original—I think it was borrowed from something Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., had written or said—but Owen’s delivery was impressive. I thought it was sad that Hester made so little effort to impress Uncle Alfred and Aunt Martha, and that she was so unimpressed by them.

  At bedtime, I could hear Owen babbling away to Aunt Martha—she had put him in Hester’s room. Owen was inquiring about the specific teddy bears and dolls and figurines.

  “AND HOW OLD WAS SHE WHEN SHE LIKED THIS ONE?” he would ask Aunt Martha. “AND I SUPPOSE THAT THIS ONE DATES BACK TO THE FIREWATER ERA,” he would say.

  Before I went to bed, Simon said to me appreciatively: “Owen’s just as weird as ever! Isn’t he great?”

  I fell asleep remembering how Owen had first appeared to my cousins—that day in the attic at 80 Front Street when we were contending over the sewing machine and Owen stood in the sun from the skylight that blazed through his ears. I remembered how he had appeared to all of us: like a descending angel—a tiny but fiery god, sent to adjudicate the errors of our ways.

  In the morning, Owen suggested that we move on to Loveless Lake. Simon advised us to use the boathouse as a base camp. When he got off work at the sawmill, Simon said, he would come take us waterskiing; we could sleep in the boathouse at night. There were a couple of comfortable couches that unfolded to make beds, and the boathouse had new screens on the windows. There were some kerosene lamps; there was an outhouse nearby, and a hand pump drew the lake water into a sink by the bar; there was a propane-gas stove, and some kettles for boiling water—for drinking. In those days, we were allowed to bathe (with soap!) in the lake.