A prayer for Owen Meany: a novel

by John Irving

  "You can give him this message when you give him his clothes," she hissed to me, her fingers digging into my shoulder and shaking me. "Tell him he's to come see me before he's allowed back in this church-before the next Sunday school class, before he comes to another service. He comes to see me first. He's not allowed here until he sees me!" she repeated, giving me one last shake for good measure.

  I was so upset that I blurted it all out to Dan, who was hanging around the altar area with Mr. Fish, who, in turn, was staring at the scattered hay in the manger and at the few gifts abandoned by the Christ Child there, as if some meaning could be discerned from the arrangement of the debris. I told Dan what Barb Wiggin had said, and how she'd given Owen a hard-on, and how there had been virtual warfare between them-and now, I was sure, Owen would never be "allowed" to be an Episcopalian again. If seeing her was a prerequisite for Owen to return to Christ Church, then Owen, I knew, would be as shunning of us Episcopalians as he was presently shunning of Catholics. I became quite exercised in relating this scenario to Dan, who sat beside me in a front-row pew and listened sympathetically. Mr. Fish came and told us that was still "on-high." He wondered if this was a part of the script-to leave Harold Crosby hanging in the rafters long after the manger and the pews had emptied? Harold Crosby, who thought both his God and Barb Wiggin had abandoned him forever, swung like the victim of a vigilante killing among the mock flying buttresses; Dan, an accomplished mechanic of all theatrical equipment, eventually mastered the angel-lowering apparatus and returned the banished angel to terra firma, where Harold collapsed in relief and gratitude. He had thrown up all over himself, and-in attempting to wipe himself with one of his wings-he'd made quite an unsalvageable mess of his costume. That was when Dan carried out his responsibilities as a stepfather in most concrete, even heroic terms. He carried the sodden Harold Crosby to the parish-house vestibule, where he asked Barb Wiggin if he might have a word with her.

  "Can't you see . . ." she asked him, "that this isn't the best of times?"

  "I should not want to bring up the matter-of how you left this boy hanging-with the Vestry members," Dan said to her. He held Harold Crosby with some difficulty-not only because Harold was heavy and wet, but because the stench of vomit, especially in the close air of the vestibule, was overpowering.

  ' 'This isn 't the best of times to bring up anything with me,'' Barb Wiggin cautioned, but Dan Needham was not a man to be bullied by a stewardess.

  "Nobody cares what sort of mess-up happens at a children's pageant," Dan said, "but this boy was left hanging-twenty feet above a concrete floor! A serious accident might have occurred-due to your negligence." Harold Crosby shut his eyes, as if he feared Barb Wiggin was going to hit him-or strap him back in the angel-raising apparatus.

  "I regret-" Barb Wiggin began, but Dan cut her off.

  "You will not lay down any laws for Owen Meany," Dan Needham told her.' 'You are not the rector, you are the rector's wife. You had a job-to return this boy, safely, to the floor-and you forgot all about it. / will forget all about it, too-and you will forget about seeing Owen. Owen is allowed in this church at any time; he doesn't require your permission to be here. If the rector would like to speak with Owen, have the rector call me." And here Dan Needham released the slippery Harold Crosby, whose manner of groping for his clothes suggested that apparatus had cut off all circulation to his legs; he wobbled unsteadily about the vestibule-the other children getting out of his way because of his smell. Dan Needham put his hand on the back of my neck; he pushed me gently forward until I was standing directly between Barb Wiggin and him. "This boy is not your messenger, Missus Wiggin," Dan said. "I should not want to bring up any of this with the Vestry members," he repeated. Stewardesses have, at best, marginal authority; Barb Wiggin knew when her authority had slipped. She looked awfully ready-to-please, so ready-to-please that I was embarrassed for her. She turned her attention, eagerly, to the task of getting Harold Crosby into fresher clothes. She was just in time; Harold's mother entered the vestibule as Dan and I were leaving the parish house. "My, that looked like fun!" Mrs. Crosby said. "Did you have fun, dear?" she asked him. When Harold nodded, Barb Wiggin spontaneously hugged him against her hip. Mr. Fish had found the rector. The Rev. Dudley Wiggin was occupying himself with the Christmas candles, measuring them to ascertain which were still long enough to be used again next year. The Rev. Dudley Wiggin had a pilot's healthy instinct for looking ahead; he did not dwell on the present-especially not on the disasters. He would never call Dan and ask to speak to Owen; Owen would be "allowed" at Christ Church without any consultation with the rector.

  "I like the way Joseph and Mary carry the Baby Jesus out of the manger," Mr. Fish was saying.

  "Ah, do you? Ah, yes," the rector said.

  "It's a great ending-very dramatic," Mr. Fish pointed out.

  "Yes, it is, isn't it?" the rector said. "Perhaps we'll work out a similar ending-next year.''

  "Of course, the part requires someone with Owen's presence," Mr. Fish said. "I'll bet you don't get a Christ Child like him every year."

  "No, not like him," the rector agreed.

  "He's a natural," Mr. Fish said.

  "Yes, isn't he?" Mr. Wiggin said.

  "Have you seen A Christmas Carol!" Mr. Fish asked.

  "Not this year," the rector said.

  "What are you doing on Christmas Eve?" Mr. Fish asked him. I knew what I wished I was doing on Christmas Eve: I wished I was in Sawyer Depot, waiting with my mother for Dan to arrive on the midnight train. That's how our Christmas Eves had been, since my mother had gotten together with Dan. Mother and I would enjoy the Eastmans' hospitality, and I would exhaust myself with my violent cousins, and Dan would join us after the Christmas Eve performance of The Gravesend Players. He would be tired when he got off the train from Gravesend, at midnight, but everyone in the Eastman house-even my grandmother-would be waiting up for him. Uncle Alfred would fix Dan a "nightcap," while my mother and Aunt Martha put Noah and Simon and Hester and me to bed. At a quarter to twelve, Hester and Simon and Noah and I would bundle up and cross the street to the depot; the weather in the north country on a Christmas Eve, at midnight, was not inviting to grown-ups-the grown-ups all approved of letting us kids meet Dan's train. We liked to be early so we could make plenty of snowballs; the train was always on time-in those days. There were few people on it, and almost no one but Dan got off in Sawyer Depot, where we would pelt him with snowballs. As tired as he was, Dan put up a game fight. Earlier in the evening, my mother and Aunt Martha sang Christmas carols; sometimes my grandmother would join in. We children could remember most of the words to the first verses; it was in the later verses of the carols that my mother and Aunt Martha put their years in the Congregational Church Choir to the test. My mother won that contest; she knew every word to every verse, so that-as a carol progressed-we heard nothing at all from Grandmother, and less and less from Aunt Martha. In the end, my mother got to sing the last verses by herself.

  "What a waste, Tabby!" Aunt Martha would say. "It's an absolute waste of your memory-knowing all those words to the verses no one ever sings!"

  "What else do I need my memory for?" my mother asked her sister; the two women would smile at each other-my Aunt Martha coveting that part of my mother's memory that might tell her the story of who my father was. What really irked Martha about my mother's total recall of Christmas carols was that my mother got to sing those last verses solo; even Uncle Alfred would stop what he was doing-just to listen to my mother's voice. I remember-it was at my mother's funeral-when the Rev. Lewis Merrill told my grandmother that he'd lost my mother's voice twice. The first time was when Martha got married, because that was when both girls started spending Christmas vacations in Sawyer Depot-my mother would still practice singing carols with the choir, but she was gone to visit her sister by the Sunday of Christmas Vespers. The second time that Pastor Merrill lost my mother's voice was when she moved to Christ Church-when he lost it forever. But I had not lost he
r voice until Christmas Eve, , when the town I was bom in and grew up in felt so unfamiliar to me; Gravesend just never was my Christmas Eve town. Of course, I was grateful to have something to do. Although I'd seen every production of A Christmas Carol-including the dress rehearsal-I was especially glad that the final production was available to take up the time on Christmas Eve; I think both Dan and I wanted our time taken up. After the play, Dan had scheduled a cast party-and I understood why he'd done that: to take up every minute until midnight, and even past midnight, so that he wouldn't be thinking of riding the train to Sawyer Depot (and my mother in the Eastmans' warm house, waiting for him). I could picture the Eastmans having a hard time on Christmas Eve, too; after the first verse, Aunt Martha would be struggling with each carol. Dan had wanted to have the cast party at Front Street- and I understood that, too: he wanted my grandmother to be just as busy as he was. Of course, Grandmother would have complained bitterly about the party revelers-and about such a "sundry" guest list, given the diverse personalities and social

  stations of a typical Dan Needham cast; but Grandmother would, at least, have been occupied. As it was, she refused; Dan had to beg her to get her to see the play. At first, she gave him every excuse-she couldn't possibly leave Lydia alone, Lydia was sick, there was some congestion in her lungs or bronchial tubes, and it was out of the question that Lydia could go out to a play; furthermore, Grandmother argued, it being Christmas Eve, she had allowed Ethel to visit her next of kin (Ethel would be gone for Christmas Day, and the next day, too), and surely Dan knew how Lydia hated to be left alone with Germaine. Dan pointed out that he thought Germaine had been hired, specifically, to look after Lydia. Yes, Grandmother nodded, that was certainly true-nevertheless, the girl was dismal, superstitious company, and what Lydia needed on Christmas Eve was company. It was, Dan politely reasoned, "strictly for company's sake" that he wanted my grandmother to see A Christmas Carol, and even spend a short time enjoying the festive atmosphere of the cast party. Since my grandmother had refused him the use of Front Street, Dan had decorated the entire third floor of Waterhouse Hall-opening a few of the less-cluttered boys' rooms, and the common room on that floor, for the cast; his own tiny apartment just wouldn't suffice. He'd alerted the Brinker-Smiths that there might be a rumpus two floors above them; they were welcome to join the festivities, or plug up the twins' ears with cotton, as they saw fit. Grandmother did not see fit to do a damn thing, but she enjoyed Dan's efforts to cajole her out of her veteran, antisocial cantankerousness, and she agreed to attend the play; as for the cast party, she would see how she felt after the performance. And so it fell to me: the task of escorting Grandmother to the closing-night enactment of A Christmas Carol in the Graves-end Town Hall. I took many precautions along the way, to protect Grandmother from fracturing her hip-although the sidewalks were safely sanded, there'd been no new snowfall, and the well-oiled wood of the old Town Meeting place was slipperier than any surface Grandmother was likely to encounter outdoors. The hinges of the ancient folding chairs creaked in unison as I led Harriet Wheelwright to a favored center-aisle seat in the third row, our townspeople's heads turning in the manner that a congregation turns to view a bride-for my grandmother entered the theater as if she were still responding to a curtain call, following her long-ago performance in Maugham's The Constant Wife. Harriet Wheelwright had a gift for making a regal entry. There was even some scattered applause, which Grandmother quieted with a well-aimed glower; respect, in the form of awe-preferably, silent awe-was something she courted, but hand-clapping was, under the circumstances, vulgar. It took a full five minutes for her to be comfortably seated-her mink off, but positioned over her shoulders; her scarf loosened, but covering the back of her neck from drafts (which were known to approach from the rear); her hat on, despite the fact that no one seated behind her could see over it (graciously, the gentleman so seated moved). At last, I was free to venture backstage, where had grown used to the aura of spiritual calm surrounding Owen Meany at the makeup mirror. The trauma of the Christmas Pageant shone in his eyes like a death in the family; his cold had settled deep in his chest, and a fever drove him to alternate states-first he burned, then he sweated, then he shivered. He needed very little eyeliner to deepen the darkness entombing his eyes, and his nightly, excessive applications of baby powder to his face-which was already as white as the face of a china doll-had covered the makeup table with a silt as fine as plaster dust, in which Owen wrote his name with his finger in square, block letters, the style of lettering favored in the Meany Monument Shop. Owen had offered no explanation regarding the offense he took at his parents' attendance at the Christ Church Nativity. When I suggested that his response to their presence in the congregation had been radical and severe, he dismissed me in a fashion he'd perfected-by forgiving me for what I couldn't be expected to know, and what he would never explain to me: that old UNSPEAKABLE OUTRAGE that the Catholics had perpetrated, and his parents' inability to rise above what amounted to the RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION they had suffered; yet it was my opinion that Owen was persecuting his parents. Why they accepted such persecution was a mystery to me. From backstage I was uniquely positioned to search the audience for the acquiescent presence of Mr. and Mrs. Meany; they were not there. My search was rewarded, however, by the discovery of a sanguinary Mr. Morrison, the cowardly mail-

  man, his eyes darting daggers in all directions, and wringing his hands-as he might around a throat-in his lap. The look of a man who's come to see What Might Have Been is full of both bloodshed and nostalgia; should Owen succumb to his fever, Mr. Morrison looked ready to play the part. It was a full house; to my surprise, I'd seen many of the audience at earlier performances. The Rev. Lewis Merrill, for example, was back for a second, maybe even a third time! He always came to dress rehearsals, and often to a later performance; he told Dan he enjoyed watching the actors "settle into" their parts. Being a minister, he must have especially enjoyed A Christmas Carol; it was such a heartfelt rendering of a conversion-not just a lesson in Christian charity, but an example of man's humbleness before the spiritual world. Even so, I could not find Rector Wiggin in the audience; I had no expectations of finding Barb, either-I would guess their exposure to Owen Meany's interpretations of the spiritual world was sufficient to inspire them, until next Christmas. Lewis Merrill, forever in the company of the sour stamina that radiated from his wife, was also in the company of his troubled children; often rebellious, almost always unruly, uniformly sullen, the Merrill children acted out their displeasure at being dragged to an amateur theatrical. The tallish boy, the notorious cemetery vandal, sprawled his legs into the tenter aisle, indifferently creating a hazard for the elderly, the infirm, and the unwary. The middle child, a girl-her hair so brutally short, in keeping with her square, shapeless body, that she might have been a boy-brooded loudly over her bubble gum. She had sunk herself so low in her seat that her knees caused considerable discomfort to the back of the neck of the unfortunate citizen who sat in front of her. He was a plump, mild, middle-aged man who taught something in the sciences at Gravesend Academy; and when he turned round in his seat to reprove the girl with a scientific glance, she popped a bubble at him with her gum. The third and youngest child, of undetermined sex, crawled under the seats, disturbing the ankles of several surprised theatergoers and coating itself with a film of grime and ashes-and all manner of muck that the patrons had brought in upon their winter boots. Through all the unpleasantness created by her children, Mrs. Merrill suffered silently. Although they caused her obvious pain, she was unprotesting-since nearly everything caused her pain, she thought it would be unfair to single them out for special distinction. Mr. Merrill gazed undistracted toward center stage, apparently transfixed by the crack where the curtain would part; he appeared to believe that by his special scrutiny of this opening, by a supreme act of concentration, he might inspire the curtains to open. Why, then, was he so surprised when they did? Why was / so surprised by the applause that greeted old Scrooge in his countingh
ouse? It was the way the play had opened every night; but it wasn't until Christmas Eve that it occurred to me how many of these same townspeople must have been present in those bleacher seats that summer day- applauding, or on the verge of applauding, the force with which Owen Meany struck that ball. And, yes, there was fat Mr. Chickering, whose warm-up jacket had kept me from too close a view of the mortal injury; yes, there was Police Chief Pike. As always, he was stationed by the door, his suspicious eyes roaming the audience as much as they toured the stage, as if Chief Pike suspected that the culprit might have brought the stolen baseball to the play!

  " 'If I could work my will,' " said Mr. Fish indignantly, " 'every idiot who goes about with "Merry Christmas" on his lips should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart.' '' I saw Mr. Morrison silently move his mouth to every word-in the absence of any lines to learn (as the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come), he had learned all of Scrooge's lines by heart. What had he made of that so spectacularly spun my mother around? Had he been there to see Mr. Chickering pinch her splayed knees together, for modesty's sake? Just before Owen made contact, my mother had noticed someone in the bleachers; as I remembered it, she was waving to someone just before she was struck. She had not been waving to Mr. Morrison, I was sure; his cynical presence didn't inspire a greeting as unselfconscious as a wave-that lugubrious mailman did not invite so much as a nod of recognition. Yet who was that someone my mother had been waving to, whose was the last face she'd seen, the face she'd singled out in the crowd, the face she'd found there and had closed her eyes upon at the moment of her death? With a shudder, I tried to imagine who it could have been-if not my grandmother, if not Dan . . .