A prayer for Owen Meany: a novel

by John Irving

  "FROM WHAT YOU TELL ME ABOUT YOUR COUSINS," Owen said, "I DON'T THINK YOU SHOULD TAKE TO SAWYER DEPOT." It had never occurred to me to take with me, but Owen had clearly given some thought to the potential tragedy of such a journey. "YOU MIGHT FORGET IT ON THE TRAIN," he said, "OR THAT DOG OF THEIRS MIGHT CHEW ON IT. WHAT'S THE DOG'S NAME?"

  "Firewater," I said.

  "YES, FIREWATER-HE SOUNDS DANGEROUS TO TO ME," Owen said. "AND IF YOUR COUSINS ARE THESE RUFFIANS, LIKE YOU SAY, THERE'S NO TELLING WHAT KIND OF GAME THEY MIGHT THINK UP-THEY MIGHT RIP TO PIECES. OR LOSE IT IN THE SNOW."

  "Yes, you're right," I said.

  "IF THEY WANTED TO TAKE WATERSKIING, COULD YOU STOP THEM?" he asked.

  "Probably not," I said.

  "THAT'S JUST WHAT I THOUGHT," he said. "YOU BETTER NOT TAKE WITH YOU."

  "Right," I said.

  "YOU BETTER LET ME TAKE IT HOME. I CAN LOOK AFTER IT WHILE YOU'RE AWAY- IF IT'S ALL ALONE HERE, ONE OF THE MAIDS MIGHT DO SOMETHING STUPID-OR THERE COULD BE A FIRE," he said.

  "I never thought of that," I said.

  "WELL, IT WOULD BE VERY SAFE WITH ME," Owen said. Of course, I agreed. "AND I'VE BEEN THINKING," he added. "OVER NEXT THANKSGIVING, WHEN YOUR COUSINS ARE HERE, YOU BETTER LET ME TAKE HOME WITH ME THEN, TOO. IT SOUNDS TO ME LIKE THEY'D BE TOO VIOLENT WITH IT. IT HAS A VERY DELICATE NOSE-AND THE TAIL CAN BREAK, TOO. AND I DON'T THINK IT'S A GOOD IDEA TO SHOW YOUR COUSINS THAT GAME WE PLAY WITH IN THE CLOSET WITH YOUR GRANDFATHER'S CLOTHES," he said. "IT SOUNDS TO ME LIKE THEY'D TRAMPLE ON IN THE DARK." Or else they'd throw it out the window, I thought.

  "I agree," I said.

  "GOOD," Owen said. "THEN IT'S ALL SETTLED: I'LL LOOK AFTER WHEN YOU'RE AWAY, AND WHEN YOUR COUSINS ARE HERE, I'LL LOOK AFTER IT, TOO-OVER NEXT THANKSGIVING, WHEN YOU'RE GOING TO INVITE ME OVER TO MEET YOUR COUSINS. OKAY?"

  "Okay, Owen," I said.

  "GOOD," he said; he was very pleased about it, if a trifle nervous. The first time he took home with him, he brought a box stuffed with cotton-it was such an elaborately conceived and strongly built carrying case that could have been mailed safely overseas in it. The box, Owen explained, had been used to ship some granite-carving tools-some grave-marking equipment-so it was very sturdy. Mr. Meany, in an effort to bolster the disappointing business at the quarry, was expanding his involvement in monument sales. Owen said his father resented selling some of his best pieces of granite to other granite companies that made gravestones, and charged an arm and a leg for them-according to Mr. Meany. He had opened a gruesome monument shop downtown-Meany Monuments, the store was called-and the sample gravestones in the storefront window looked not so much like samples as like actual graves that someone had built a store around.

  "It's absolutely frightful," my grandmother said. "It's a cemetery in a store," she remarked indignantly, but Mr. Meany was new to monument sales; it was possible he needed just a little more time to make the store look right. Anyway, was packed in a box designed for transporting chisels-for something Owen called WEDGES AND FEATHERS-and Owen solemnly promised that no harm would corne to the diminutive beast. Apparently, Mrs. Meany was frightened by it-Owen gave his parents no forewarning that was visiting; but Owen maintained that this small shock served his mother right for going into his room uninvited. Owen's room (what little I ever saw of it) was as orderly and as untouchable as a museum. I think that is why it was so easy for me to imagine, for years, that the baseball that killed my mother was surely a resident souvenir in Owen's odd room. I will never forget the Thanksgiving vacation when I introduced Owen Meany to my reckless cousins. The day before my cousins were to arrive in Gravesend, Owen came over to Front Street to pick up the armadillo.

  "They're not getting here until late tomorrow," I told him.

  "WHAT IF THEY COME EARLY?" he asked. "SOMETHING COULD HAPPEN. IT'S BETTER NOT TO TAKE A CHANCE."

  Owen wanted to come over to meet my cousins immediately following Thanksgiving dinner, but I thought the day after Thanksgiving would be better; I suggested that everyone always felt so stuffed after Thanksgiving dinner that it was never a very lively time.

  "BUT I WAS THINKING THAT THEY MIGHT BE CALMER, RIGHT AFTER THEY HAD EATEN," Owen said. I admit, I enjoyed his nervousness. I was worried that my cousins might be in some rare, mellow condition when Owen met them, and therefore he'd think I'd just been making up stories about how wild they were-and that there was, therefore, no excuse for my never inviting him to Sawyer Depot. I wanted my cousins to like Owen, because / liked him-he was my best friend-but, at the same time, I didn't want everything to be so enjoyable that I'd have to invite Owen to Sawyer Depot the next time I went. I was sure that would be disastrous. And I was nervous that my cousins would make fun of Owen; and I confess I was nervous that Owen would embarrass me-I am ashamed of feeling that, to this day. Anyway, both Owen and I were nervous. We talked on the phone in whispers Thanksgiving night.

  "ARE THEY ESPECIALLY WILD?" he asked me.

  "Not especially," I said.

  "WHAT TIME DO THEY GET UP? WHAT TIME TOMORROW SHOULD I COME OVER?" he asked.

  "The boys get up early," I said, "but Hester sleeps a little later-or at least she stays in her room longer."

  "NOAH IS THE OLDEST?" Owen said, although he had checked these statistics with me a hundred times.

  "Yes," I said.

  "AND SIMON IS THE NEXT OLDEST, ALTHOUGH HE'S JUST AS BIG AS NOAH-AND EVEN A LITTLE WILDER?" Owen said.

  "Yes, yes," I said.

  "AND HESTER'S THE YOUNGEST BUT SHE'S BIGGER THAN YOU," he said. "AND SHE'S PRETTY, BUT NOT THAT PRETTY, RIGHT?"

  "Right," I said. Hester just missed the Eastman good looks. It was an especially masculine good looks that Noah and Simon got from my Uncle Alfred-broad shoulders, big bones, a heavy jaw-and from my Aunt Martha the boys got their blondness, and their aristocracy. But the broad shoulders, the big bones, and the heavy jaw-these were less attractive on Hester, who did not receive either my aunt's blondness or her aristocracy. Hester was as dark and hairy as Uncle Alfred-even including his bushy eyebrows, which were actually one solid eyebrow without a gap above the bridge of the nose-and she had Uncle Alfred's big hands. Hester's hands looked like paws. Yet Hester had sex appeal, in the manner-in those days-that tough girls were also sexy girls. She had a large, athletic body, and as a teenager she would have to straggle with her weight; but she had clear skin, she had solid curves; her mouth was aggressive, flashing lots of healthy teeth, and her eyes were taunting, with a dangerous-looking intelligence. Her hair was wild and thick.

  "I have this friend," I told Hester that evening. I thought I would begin with her, and try to win her over-and then tell Noah and Simon about Owen; but even though I was speaking

  quietly to Hester and I thought that Noah and Simon were engaged in finding a lost station on the radio, the boys heard me and were instantly curious.

  "What friend?" Noah said.

  "Well, he's my best friend," I said cautiously, "and he wants to meet all of you."

  "Fine, great-so where is he, and what's his name?" Simon said.

  "Owen Meany," I said as straightforwardly as possible.

  "Who?" Noah said; the three of them laughed.

  "What a wimp name!" Simon said.

  "What's wrong with him?" Hester asked me.

  ' 'Nothing's wrong with him,'' I said, a little too defensively. "He's rather small."

  "Rather small," Noah repeated, sounding very British.

  "Rather a wimp, is he?" said Simon, imitating his brother.

  "No, he's not a wimp," I said. "He's just small. And he has a funny voice," I blurted out.

  "A funny voice!" Noah said in a funny voice.

  "A funny voice?" said Simon in a different funny voice.

  "So he's a little guy with a funny voice," Hester said. "So what? So what's wrong with him?"

  "Nothing!" I repeated.

  "Why should anything be wrong with him, Hester?" Noah asked her.

  "Hester probably wants to molest him," Simon said.


  "Shut up, Simon," Hester said.

  "Both of you shut up," Noah said. "I want to know why Hester thinks there's something wrong with everybody."

  "There's something wrong with all of your friends, Noah," Hester said. "And every friend of Simon's," she added. "I'll just bet there's something wrong with Johnny's friends, too."

  "I suppose there's nothing wrong with your friends," Noah said to his sister.

  'Hester doesn't have any friends!" Simon said.

  'Shut up!" Hester said.

  'I wonder why?" Noah said.

  'Shut up!" Hester said.

  'Well, there's nothing wrong with Owen," I said. "Except he

  s small, and his voice is a little different."

  'He sounds like fun," Noah said pleasantly. 'Hey," Simon said, patting me on the back. "If he's your friend, don't worry-we'll be nice to him."

  "Hey," Noah said, patting me on the back, too. "Don't worry. We'll all have fun."

  Hester shrugged. "We'll see," she said. I had not kissed her since Easter. In my summer visit to Sawyer Depot, we had been outdoors every waking minute and there'd been no suggestion to play "Last One Through the House Has to Kiss Hester." I doubted we'd get to play that game over Thanksgiving, either, because my grandmother did not allow racing all over the house at Front Street. So maybe I'll have to wait until Christmas, I thought.

  "Maybe your friend would like to kiss Hester," Simon said.

  "/ decide who kisses me," Hester said.

  "Whoa!" Noah said.

  "I think Owen will be a little timid around all of you," I ventured.

  "You're saying he wouldn't like to kiss me?" Hester asked.

  "I'm just saying he might be a little shy-around all of you," I said.

  "You like kissing me," Hester said.

  "I don't," I lied.

  "You do," she said.

  "Whoa!" said Noah.

  "There's no stopping Hester the Molester!" Simon said.

  "Shut up!" Hester said. And so the stage was set for Owen Meany. That day after Thanksgiving, my cousins and I were making so much noise up in the attic that we didn't hear Owen Meany creep up the attic stairs and open the trapdoor. I can imagine what Owen was thinking; he was probably waiting to be noticed so that he wouldn't have to announce himself-so that the very first thing my cousins would know about him wouldn't be that voice. On the other hand, the sight of how small and peculiar he was might have been an equal shock to my cousins. Owen must have been weighing these two ways of introducing himself: whether to speak up, which was always startling, or whether to wait until one of them saw him, which might be more than startling. Owen told me later that he just stood by the trapdoor-which he had closed loudly, on purpose, hoping that the door would get our attention. But we didn't notice the trapdoor. Simon had been pumping the foot pedals of the sewing machine so vigorously that the needle and bobbin were a blur

  of activity, and Noah had managed to shove Hester's arm too close to the plunging needle and thread, so that the sleeve of Hester's blouse had been stitched to the piece of sample cloth she'd been sewing, and it was necessary for her to take her blouse off-in order to free herself from the machine, which Simon, insanely, refused to stop pedaling. While Owen was watching us, Noah was whacking Simon about his ears, to make him stop with the foot pedals, and Hester was standing in her T-shirt, tensed and flushed, wailing about her only white blouse, from which she was trying to extract a very random pattern of purple thread. And I was saying that if we didn't stop making such a racket, we could expect a ferocious lecture from Grandmother-regarding the resale value of her antique sewing machine. All this time, Owen Meany was standing by the trapdoor, observing us-alternately getting up the nerve to introduce himself, and deciding to bolt for home before any of us noticed that he was there. At that moment, my cousins must have seemed even worse than his worst dreams about them. It was shocking how Simon loved to be beaten; I never saw a boy whose best defense against the beating routinely administered by an older brother was to adore being beaten. Just as much as he loved to roll down mountains and to be flung off sawdust piles and to ski so wildly that he struck glancing blows to trees, Simon thrived under a hail of Noah's punches. It was almost always necessary for Noah to draw blood before Simon would beg for mercy-and if blood was drawn, somehow Simon had won; the shame was Noah's then. Now Simon appeared committed to pedaling the sewing machine into destruction-both hands gripping the taWetop, his eyes squinted shut against Noah's pounding fists, his knees pumping as furiously as if he were pedaling a bicycle in too-low a gear down a steep hill. The savagery with which Noah hit his brother could easily have misled any visitor regarding Noah's truly relaxed disposition and steadily noble character; Noah had learned that striking his brother was a workout requiring patience, deliberation, and strategy-it was no good giving Simon a bloody nose in a hurry; better to hit him where it hurt, but where he didn't bleed easily; better to wear him down. But I suspect that Hester must have impressed Owen Meany most of all. In her T-shirt, there was little doubt that she would one day have an impressive bosom; its early blossoming was as apparent as her manly biceps. And the way she tore the thread out of her damaged blouse with her teeth-snarling and cursing in the process, as if she were eating her blouse-must have demonstrated to Owen the full potential of Hester's dangerous mouth; at that moment, her basic rapaciousness was quite generously displayed. Naturally, my pleas regarding the inevitable, grandmotherly reprimand were not only unheeded; they went as unnoticed as Owen Meany, who stood with his hands clasped behind his back, the sun from the attic skylight shining through his protrusive ears, which were a glowing pink-the sunlight so bright that the tiny veins and blood vessels in his ears appeared to be illuminated from within. The powerful morning sun struck Owen's head from above, and from a little behind him, so that the light itself seemed to be presenting him. In exasperation with my unresponsive cousins, I looked up from the sewing machine and saw Owen standing there. With his hands clasped behind his back, he looked as armless as Watahantowet, and in that blaze of sunlight he looked like a gnome plucked fresh from a fire, with his ears still aflame. I drew in my breath, and Hester-with her raging mouth full of purple thread-looked up at that instant and saw Owen, too. She screamed.

  "I didn't think he was human," she told me later. And from that moment of his introduction to my cousins, I would frequently consider the issue of exactly how human Owen Meany was; there is no doubt that, in the dazzling configurations of the sun that poured through the attic skylight, he looked like a descending angel-a tiny but fiery god, sent to adjudicate the errors of our ways. When Hester screamed, she frightened Owen so much that he screamed back at her-and when Owen screamed, my cousins were not only introduced to his rare voice; their movements were suddenly arrested. Except for the hairs on the backs of their necks, they froze-as they would if they'd heard a cat being slowly run over by a car. And from deep in a distant part of the great house, my grandmother spoke out: "Merciful Heavens, it's that boy again!"

  I was trying to catch my breath, to say, "This is my best friend, the one I told you about," because I had never seen my cousins gape at anyone with such open mouths-and, in Hester's case, a mouth from which spilled much purple thread-but Owen was quicker.

  "WELL, IT SEEMS I HAVE INTERRUPTED WHAT-

  EVER GAME THAT WAS YOU WERE PLAYING," Owen said. "MY NAME IS OWEN MEANY AND I'M YOUR COUSIN'S BEST FRIEND. PERHAPS HE'S TOLD YOU ALL ABOUT ME. I'VE CERTAINLY HEARD ALL ABOUT YOU. YOU MUST BE NOAH, THE OLDEST," Owen said; he held out his hand to Noah, who shook it mutely. "AND OF COURSE YOU'RE SIMON, THE NEXT OLDEST-BUT YOU'RE JUST AS BIG AND EVEN A LITTLE WILDER THAN YOUR BROTHER. HELLO, SIMON," Owen said, holding out his hand to Simon, who was panting and sweating from his furious journey on the sewing machine, but who quickly took Owen's hand and shook it. "AND OF COURSE YOU'RE HESTER," Owen said, his eyes averted. "I'VE HEARD A LOT ABOUT YOU, AND YOU'RE JUST AS PRETTY AS I EXPECTED."

  "Thank you," Hester mumbled, pulling
thread out of her mouth, tucking her T-shirt into her blue jeans. My cousins stared at him, and I feared the worst; but I suddenly realized what small towns are. They are places where you grow up with the peculiar-you live next to the strange and the unlikely for so long that everything and everyone become commonplace. My cousins were both small-towners and outsiders; they had not grown up with Owen Meany, who was so strange to them that he inspired awe-yet they were no more likely to fall upon him, or to devise ways to torture him, than it was likely for a herd of cattle to attack a cat. And in addition to the brightness of the sun that shone upon him, Owen's face was blood-red-throbbing, I presumed, from his riding his bike into town; for a late November bike ride down Maiden Hill, given the prevailing wind off the Squamscott, was bitter cold. And even before Thanksgiving, the weather had been cold enough to freeze the freshwater part of the river; there was black ice all the way from Gravesend to Kensington Corners.

  "WELL, I'VE BEEN THINKING ABOUT WHAT WE COULD DO," Owen announced, and my unruly cousins gave him their complete attention. "THE RIVER IS FROZEN, SO THE SKATING IS VERY GOOD, AND I KNOW YOU ENJOY VERY ACTIVE THINGS LIKE THAT-THAT YOU ENJOY THINGS LIKE SPEED AND DANGER AND COLD WEATHER. SO SKATING IS ONE IDEA," he said, "AND EVEN THOUGH THE RIVER IS FROZEN, I'M SURE THERE ARE CRACKS SOMEWHERE, AND EVEN The Armodiifo PLACES WHERE THERE ARE HOLES OF OPEN WATER-I FELL IN ONE LAST YEAR. I'M NOT SUCH A GOOD SKATER, BUT I'D BE HAPPY TO GO WITH YOU, EVEN THOUGH I'M GETTING OVER A COLD, SO I SUPPOSE I SHOULDN'T BE OUTSIDE FOR LONG PERIODS OF TIME IN THIS WEATHER."

  "No!" Hester said. "If you're getting over a cold, you should stay inside. We should play indoors. We don't have to go skating. We go skating all the time."

  "Yes!" Noah agreed. "We should do something indoors, if Owen's got a cold."

  "Indoors is best!" Simon said. "Owen should get over his cold." Perhaps my cousins were all relieved to hear that Owen was "getting over a cold" because they thought this might partially explain the hypnotic awfulness of Owen's voice; I could have told them that Owen's voice was uninfluenced by his having a cold-and his "getting over a cold" was news to me-but I was so relieved to see my cousins behaving respectfully that I had no desire to undermine Owen's effect on them.