A prayer for Owen Meany: a novel

by John Irving

  "SOMETIMES I WISH I WAS A STAR," Owen said. "YOU KNOW THAT STUPID SONG-'WHEN YOU WISH UPON A STAR, MAKES NO DIFFERENCE WHO YOU ARE'-I HATE THAT SONG!" he said. "I DON'T WANT TO 'WISH UPON A STAR,' I WISH I WAS A STAR-THERE OUGHT TO BE A SONG ABOUT THAT," said Owen Meany, who was drinking what I estimated to be his sixth or seventh beer. Major Rawls woke us up with an early-morning telephone call.

  "Don't come to the fucking funeral-the family is raising

  hell about the service. They want no military to be there, they're telling us we can keep the American flag-they don't want it," the major said.

  "THAT'S OKAY WITH ME," said Owen Meany.

  "So you guys can just go back to sleep," the major said.

  "THAT'S OKAY WITH ME, TOO," Owen told him. So I never got to meet the famous "asshole minister," the so-called ' 'traveling Baptist.'' Major Rawls told me, later, that the mother had spit on the minister and on the mortician- perhaps regretting that she'd given up her opportunity to spit on Owen when he handed her the American flag. It was Sunday, July , . After the major called, I went back to sleep; but Owen wrote in his diary.

  "WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS COUNTRY?" he wrote. ' 'THERE IS SUCH A STUPID 'GET EVEN' MENTALITY- THERE IS SUCH A SADISTIC ANGER." He turned on the TV, keeping the volume off; when I woke up, much later, he was still writing in the diary and watching one of those television evangelists-without the sound.

  "IT'S BETTER WHEN YOU DON'T HAVE TO LISTEN TO WHAT THEY'RE SAYING," he said. In the diary, he wrote: "IS THIS COUNTRY JUST SO HUGE THAT IT NEEDS TO OVERSIMPLIFY EVERYTHING? LOOK AT THE WAR: EITHER WE HAVE A STRATEGY TO 'WIN' IT, WHICH MAKES US-IN THE WORLD'S VIEW-MURDERERS; OR ELSE WE ARE DYING, WITHOUT FIGHTING TO WIN. LOOK AT WHAT WE CALL 'FOREIGN POLICY': OUR 'FOREIGN POLICY' IS A EUPHEMISM FOR PUBLIC RELATIONS, AND OUR PUBLIC RELATIONS GET WORSE AND WORSE. WE'RE BEING DEFEATED AND WE'RE NOT GOOD LOSERS.

  "AND LOOK AT WHAT WE CALL 'RELIGION': TURN ON ANY TELEVISION ON ANY SUNDAY MORNING! SEE THE CHOIRS OF THE POOR AND UNEDUCATED- AND THESE TERRIBLE PREACHERS, SELLING OLD JESUS-STORIES LIKE JUNK FOOD. SOON THERE'LL BE AN EVANGELIST IN THE WHITE HOUSE; SOON THERE'LL BE A CARDINAL ON THE SUPREME COURT. ONE DAY THERE WILL COME AN EPIDEMIC-I'LL BET ON SOME HUMDINGER OF A SEXUAL DISEASE. AND WHAT WILL OUR PEERLESS LEADERS, OUR HEADS OF CHURCH AND STATE . . . WHAT WILL THEY SAY TO US? HOW WILL THEY HELP US? YOU CAN BE SURE THEY WON'T CURE US-BUT HOW WILL THEY COMFORT US? JUST TURN ON THE TV- AND HERE'S WHAT OUR PEERLESS LEADERS, OUR HEADS OF CHURCH AND STATE WILL SAY: THEY'LL SAY, 'I TOLD YOU SO!' THEY'LL SAY, 'THAT'S WHAT YOU GET FOR FUCKING AROUND-I TOLD YOU NOT TO DO FT UNTIL YOU GOT MARRIED.' DOESN'T ANYONE SEE WHAT THESE SIMPLETONS ARE UP TO? THESE SELF-RIGHTEOUS FANATICS ARE NOT 'RELIGIOUS'-THEIR HOMEY WISDOM IS NOT 'MORALITY.'

  "THAT IS WHERE THIS COUNTRY IS HEADED-IT IS HEADED TOWARD OVERSIMPLIFICATION. YOU WANT TO SEE A PRESIDENT OF THE FUTURE? TURN ON ANY TELEVISION ON ANY SUNDAY MORNING-FIND ONE OF THOSE HOLY ROLLERS: THAT'S HIM, THAT'S THE NEW MISTER PRESIDENT! AND DO YOU WANT TO SEE THE FUTURE OF ALL THOSE KIDS WHO ARE GOING TO FALL IN THE CRACKS OF THIS GREAT, BIG, SLOPPY SOCIETY OF OURS? I JUST MET HIM; HE'S A TALL, SKINNY, FIFTEEN-YEAR-OLD BOY NAMED 'DICK.' HE'S PRETTY SCARY. WHAT'S WRONG WITH HIM IS NOT UNLIKE WHAT'S WRONG WITH THE TV EVANGELIST-OUR FUTURE PRESIDENT. WHAT'S WRONG WITH BOTH OF THEM IS THAT THEY'RE SO SURE THEY'RE RIGHTl THAT'S PRETTY SCARY-THE FUTURE, I THINK, IS PRETTY SCARY."

  That was when I woke up and saw him pause in his writing. He was staring at the TV preacher, whom he couldn't hear-the preacher was talking on and on, waving his arms, while behind him stood a choir of men and women in silly robes . . . they weren't singing, but they were swaying back and forth, and smiling; all their lips were so firmly and uniformly closed that they appeared to be humming; or else they'd eaten something that had entranced them; or else what the preacher was saying had entranced them.

  "Owen, what are you doing?" I asked him. That was when he said: "IT'S BETTER WHEN YOU DON'T HAVE TO LISTEN TO WHAT THEY'RE SAYING."

  I ordered a big breakfast for us-we had never had room

  service before! While I took a shower,-he wrote a little more in the diary.

  "HE DOESN'T KNOW WHY HE'S HERE, AND I DON'T DARE TELL HIM," Owen wrote. "/ DON'T KNOW WHY HE'S HERE-I JUST KNOW HE HAS TO BE HERE! BUT I DON'T EVEN 'KNOW' THAT-NOT ANYMORE. IT DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE! WHERE IS VIETNAM-IN ALL OF THIS? WHERE ARE THOSE POOR CHILDREN? WAS IT JUST A TERRIBLE DREAM? AM I SIMPLY CRAZY? IS TOMORROW JUST ANOTHER DAY?"

  "So," I said-while we were eating breakfast. "What do you want to do today?"

  He smiled at me. "IT DOESN'T MATTER WHAT WE DO-LET'S JUST HAVE A GOOD TIME," said Owen Meany. We inquired at the front desk about where we could play basketball; Owen wanted to practice the shot, of course, and-especially in the staggering midday heat-I thought that a gym would be a nice, cool place to spend a couple of hours. We were sure that Major Rawls could gain us access to the athletic facilities at Arizona State; but we didn't want to spend the day with Rawls, and we didn't want to rent our own car and look for a place to play basketball on our own. The guy at the front desk said: "This is a golf and tennis town."

  "FT DOESN'T MATTER," Owen said. "I'M PRETTY SURE WE'VE PRACTICED THAT DUMB SHOT ENOUGH."

  We tried to take a walk, but I declared that the heat would kill us. We ate a huge lunch on the patio by the swimming pool; we went in and out of the pool between courses, and when we finished the lunch, we kept drinking beer and cooling off in the pool. We had the place practically to ourselves; the waiters and the bartender kept looking at us-they must have thought we were crazy, or from another planet.

  "WHERE ARE ALL THE PEOPLE?" Owen asked the bartender.

  "We don't do a lot of business this time of year," the bartender said. "What business are you in?" he asked Owen.

  "I'M IN THE DYING BUSINESS," said Owen Meany. Then we sat in the pool, laughing about how the dying business was not a seasonal thing. About the middle of the afternoon, Owen started playing what he called "THE REMEMBER GAME."

  Owen asked me: "DO YOU REMEMBER THE FIRST TIME YOU MET MISTER FISH?"

  I said I couldn't remember-it seemed to me that Mr. Fish had always been there.

  "I KNOW WHAT YOU MEAN," Owen said. "DO YOU REMEMBER WHAT YOUR MOTHER WAS WEARING WHEN WE BURIED SAGAMORE?"

  I couldn't remember. "IT WAS THAT BLACK V-NECK SWEATER, AND THOSE GRAY FLANNEL SLACKS-OR MAYBE IT WAS A LONG, GRAY SKIRT," he said.

  "I don't think she had a long, gray skirt," I said.

  "I THINK YOU'RE RIGHT," he said. "DO YOU REMEMBER DAN'S OLD SPORTS JACKET-THE ONE THAT LOOKED LIKE IT WAS MADE OF CARROTS!"

  "It was the color of his hair!" I said.

  "THAT'S THE ONE!" said Owen Meany.

  "Do you remember Mary Beth Baud's cow costumes?" I asked him.

  "THEY WERE AN IMPROVEMENT ON THE TURTLEDOVES," he said. "DO YOU REMEMBER THOSESTUPID TURTLEDOVES?"

  "Do you remember when Barb Wiggin gave you a hard-on?" I asked him.

  "I REMEMBER WHEN GERMAINE GAVE YOU A HARD-ON!" he said.

  "Do you remember your first hard-on?" I asked him. We were both silent. I imagined that Hester had given me my first hard-on, and I didn't want to tell Owen that; and I imagined that my mother might have given Owen his first hard-on, which was probably why he wasn't answering. Finally, he said: "IT'S LIKE WHAT YOU SAY ABOUT MISTER FISH-I THINK I ALWAYS HAD A HARD-ON."

  "Do you remember Amanda Dowling?" I asked him.

  "DON'T GIVE ME THE SHIVERS!" he said. "DO YOU REMEMBER THE GAME WITH THE ARMADILLO?"

  "Of course!" I said. "Do you remember when Maureen Early wet her pants?"

  "SHE WET THEM TWICEl" he said. "DO YOU REMEMBER YOUR GRANDMOTHER WAILING LIKE A BANSHEE?"

  "I'll never forget it," I said. "Do you remember when you

  untied the rope in the quarry-when you hid yourself, when we were swimming?"

  "YOU LET ME DROWN-YOU LET ME DIE," he said. We ate dinner by the pool; we drank beer in the pool until long after midnight-when the bartender informed us that he was not permitted to ser
ve us anymore.

  "You're not supposed to be drinking while you're actually in the pool, anyway," he said. "You might drown. And I'm supposed to go home," he said.

  "EVERYTHING'S LIKE IN THE ARMY," Owen said. "RULES, RULES, RULES."

  So we took a six-pack of beer and a bucket of ice back to our room; we watched The Late Show, and then The Late, Late Show-while we tried to remember all the movies we'd ever seen. I was so drunk I don't remember what movies we saw in Phoenix that night. Owen Meany was so drunk that he fell asleep in the bathtub; he'd gotten into the bathtub because he said he missed sitting in the swimming pool. But then he couldn't watch the movie-not from the bathtub-and so he'd insisted that I describe the movie to him.

  "Now she's kissing his photograph!" I called out to him.

  "WHICH ONE IS KISSING HIS PHOTOGRAPH-THE BLOND ONE?" he asked. "WHICH PHOTOGRAPH?"

  I went on describing the movie until I heard him snoring. Then I let the water out of the bath, and I lifted him up and out of the tub-he was so light, he was nothing to lift. I dried him off with a towel; he didn't wake up. He was mumbling hi his drunken sleep.

  "I KNOW YOU'RE HERE FOR A REASON," he said. When I tucked him into his bed, he blinked open his eyes and said: "O GOD-WHY HASN'T MY VOICE CHANGED, WHY DID YOU GIVE ME SUCH A VOICE? THERE MUST BE A REASON." Then he shut his eyes and said: "WATA-HANTOWET."

  When I got into my bed and turned out the light, I said good night to him.

  "Good night, Owen," I said.

  "DON'T BE AFRAID. NOTHING BAD IS GOING TO HAPPEN TO YOU," said Owen Meany. "YOUR FATHER'S NOT THAT BAD A GUY," he said. When I woke up in the morning, I had a terrible hangover; Owen was already awake-he was writing in the diary. That was his last entry-that was when he wrote: "TODAY'S THE DAY!'. . . HE THAT BELIEVETH IN ME, THOUGH HE WERE DEAD, YET SHALL HE LIVE; AND WHOSOEVER LIVETH AND BELIEVETH IN ME SHALL NEVER DIE.' "

  It was Monday, July , -die date he had seen on Scrooge's grave. Major Rawls picked us up at our motel and drove us to die airport-to die so-called Sky Harbor. I thought that Rawls behaved oddly out of character-he wasn't at all talkative, he just mumbled something about having had a "bad date"-but Owen had told me that die major was very moody.

  "HE'S NOT A BAD GUY-HE JUST KNOWS HIS SHIP ISN'T EVER GOING TO COME IN," Owen had said about Rawls. "HE'S OLD-FASHIONED, BROWN-SHOE ARMY --HE LIKES TO PRETEND HE'S HAD NO EDUCATION, BUT ALL HE DOES IS READ; HE WON'T EVEN GO TO THE MOVIES. AND HE NEVER TALKS ABOUT VIETNAM-JUST SOME CRYPTIC SHIT ABOUT HOW THE ARMY DIDN'T PREPARE HIM TO KILL WOMEN AND CHILDREN, OR TO BE KILLED BY THEM. FOR WHATEVER REASON, HE DIDN'T MAKE LIEUTENANT COLONEL; HIS TWENTY YEARS IN THE ARMY ARE ALMOST UP, AND HE'S BITTER ABOUT IT--HE'S JUST A MAJOR. HE'S NOT EVEN FORTY AND HE'S ABOUT TO BE RETIRED."

  Major Rawls complained that we were going to die airport too early; my flight to Boston didn't leave for another two hours. Owen had booked no special flight to Tucson- apparently, mere were frequent flights from Phoenix to Tucson, and Owen was going to wait until I left; then he'd take die next available plane.

  "There are better places to hang around than this fucking airport," Major Rawls complained.

  "YOU DON'T HAVE TO HANG AROUND WITH US-SIR," said Owen Meany. But Rawls didn't want to be alone; he didn't feel like talking, but he wanted company-or else he didn't know what he wanted. He wandered into the game room and hustled a few young recruits into playing pinball widi him. When they found out he'd been in Vietnam, diey pestered him for stories; all he would tell diem was: "It's an asshole war-and you're assholes if you want to be diere."

  Major Rawls pointed Owen out to the recruits. "You want to go to Vietnam?'' he said. "Go talk to him-go see that little lieutenant. He's another asshole who wants to go there."

  Most of the new recruits were on their way to Fort Huachuca; their hair was cut so short, you could see scabs from the razor nicks-most of them who were assigned to Fort Huachuca would probably be on orders to Vietnam soon.

  "They look like babies," I said to Owen.

  "BABIES FIGHT THE WARS," said Owen Meany; he told the young recruits that he thought they'd like Fort Huachuca. "THE SUN SHINES ALL THE TIME," he told them, "AND IT'S NOT AS HOT AS IT IS HERE." He kept looking at his watch.

  "We have plenty of time," I told him, and he smiled at me-that old smile with the mild pity and the mild contempt in it. Some planes landed; other planes took off. Some of the recruits left for Fort Huachuca. "Aren't you coming, sir?" they asked Owen Meany.

  "LATER," he told them. "I'LL SEE YOU LATER."

  Fresh recruits arrived, and Major Rawls went on making a killing-he was a pro at pinball. I complained about the extent of my hangover; Owen must have had a worse hangover-or one at least as bad as mine-but I imagine, now, that he was savoring it; he knew it was his last hangover. Then the confusion would return to him, and he must have felt that he knew absolutely nothing. He sat beside me and I could see him changing-from nervousness to depression, from fear to elation. I thought it was his hangover; but one minute he must have been thinking, "MAYBE IT HAPPENS ON THE AIRPLANE." Then in another minute, he must have said to himself: "THERE ARE NO CHILDREN. I DON'T EVEN HAVE TO GO TO VIETNAM-I CAN STILL GET OUT OF IT."

  In the airport, he said to me-out of the blue: "YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE A GENIUS TO OUTSMART THE ARMY."

  I didn't know what he was talking about, but I said: "I suppose not."

  In another minute, he must have been thinking: "IT WAS JUST A CRAZY DREAM! WHO THE FUCK KNOWS WHAT GOD KNOWS? I OUGHT TO SEE A PSYCHIATRIST!"

  Then he would stand up and pace; he would look around for the children; he was looking for his killer. He kept glancing at his watch. When they announced my flight to Boston-it was scheduled to depart in half an hour-Owen was grinning ear-to-ear. "THIS MAY BE THE HAPPIEST DAY OF MY LIFE!" he said. "MAYBE NOTHING'S GOING TO HAPPEN!"

  "I think you're still drunk," I told him. "Wait till you get to the hangover."

  A plane had just landed; it had arrived from somewhere on the West Coast, and it taxied into view. I heard Owen Meany gasp beside me, and I turned to look where he was looking.

  "What's the matter with you?" I asked him. "They're just penguins."

  The nuns-there were two of them-were meeting someone on the plane from the West Coast; they stood at the gate to the runway. The first people off the plane were also nuns-two more. The nuns waved to each other. When the children emerged from the airplane-they were closely following the nuns-Owen Meany said: "HERE THEY ARE!"

  Even from the runway gate, I could see that they were Asian children-one of the nuns leaving the plane was an Oriental, too. There were about a dozen kids; only two of them were small enough to be carried-one of the nuns carried one of the kids, and one of the older children carried the other little one. They were both boys and girls-the average age was maybe five or six, but there were a couple of kids who were twelve or thirteen. They were Vietnamese orphans; they were refugee children. Many military units sponsored orphanages in Vietnam; many of the troops donated their time-as well as what gifts they could solicit from home-to help the kids. There was no official government-sponsored refugee program to relocate Vietnamese children-not before the fall of Saigon in April, -but certain churches were active in Vietnam throughout the course of the war. Catholic Relief Services, for example; the Catholic Relief groups were responsible for escorting orphans out of Vietnam and relocating them in the United States-as early as the mid-sixties. Once in the United States, the orphans would be met by social workers from the archdiocese or diocese of the particular city of their arrival. The Lutherans were also involved in sponsoring the relocation of Vietnamese orphans. The children that Owen Meany and I saw hi Phoenix were

  being escorted by nuns from Catholic Relief Services; they were being delivered into the charge of nuns from the Phoenix Archdiocese, who would take them to new homes, and new families, in Arizona. Owen and I could see that the children were anxious about it. If the heat was no shock to them-for it was certainly very hot where they'd come from-
the desert and the hugeness of the sky and the moonscape of Phoenix must have overwhelmed them. They held each other's hands and stayed together, circling very closely around the nuns. One of the little boys was crying. When they came into the Sky Harbor terminal, the blast of air conditioning instantly chilled them; they were cold-they hugged themselves and rubbed their arms. The little boy who was crying tried to wrap himself up in the habit of one of the nuns. They all milled around in lost confusion, and-from the game room-the young recruits with their shaved heads stared out at them. The children stared back at the soldiers; they were used to soldiers, of course. As the kids and the recruits stared back and forth at each other, you could sense the mixed feelings. Owen Meany was as jumpy as a mouse. One of the nuns spoke to him.

  "Officer?" she said.

  "YES, MA'AM-HOW MAY I HELP YOU?" he said quickly.

  "Some of the boys need to find a men's room," the nun said; one of the younger nuns tittered.' 'We can take the girls," the first nun said, "but if you'd be so kind-if you'd just go with the boys."

  "YES, MA'AM-I'D BE HAPPY TO HELP THE CHILDREN," said Owen Meany.

  "Wait till you see the so-called men's room," I told Owen; I led the way. Owen just concentrated on the children. There were seven boys; the nun who was also Vietnamese accompanied us-she carried the smallest boy. The boy who was crying had stopped as soon as he saw Owen Meany. All the children watched Owen closely; they had seen many soldiers-yes-but they had never seen a soldier who was almost as small as they were! They never took their eyes off him. On we marched-when we passed by the game room, Major Rawls had his back to us; he didn't see us. Rawls was humping the pinball machine in a fury. In the mouth of a corridor I'd walked down before-it led nowhere-we marched past Dick Jarvits, the tall, lunatic brother of the dead warrant officer, standing in the shadows. He wore the jungle fatigues; he was strapped up with an extra cartridge belt or two. Although it was dark in the corridor, he wore the kind of sunglasses that must have melted on his brother's face when the helicopter had caught fire. Because he was wearing sunglasses, I couldn't tell if Dick saw Owen or me or the children; but from the gape of his open mouth, I concluded that something Dick had just seen had surprised him. The "Men's Temporary Facilities" were the same as I had left them. The same mops and pails were there, and the unhung mirror still leaned against the wall. The vast mystery sink confused the children; one of them tried to pee in it, but I pointed him in the direction of the crowded urinal. One of the children considered peeing in a pail, but I showed him the toilet in the makeshift, plywood stall. Owen Meany, the good soldier, stood under the window; he watched the door. Occasionally, he would glance above him, sizing up the deep window ledge below the casement window. Owen looked especially small standing under that window, because the window ledge was at least ten feet high-it towered above him. The nun was waiting for her charges, just outside the door. I helped one of the children unzip his fly; the child seemed unfamiliar with a zipper. The children all jabbered in Vietnamese; the small, high-ceilinged room-like a coffin standing upright on one end-echoed with their voices. I've already said how slow I am; it wasn't until I heard their shrill, foreign voices that I remembered Owen's dream. I saw him watching the door, his arms hanging loosely at his sides.