He’d started calling me Mr. Responsibility in the fall of ’61, when we were engaged in that senior-year agony commonly called college-entrance applications and interviews; because I’d applied to only the state university, Owen said I’d taken zero responsibility for my own self-improvement. Naturally, he’d applied to Harvard and Yale; as for the state university, the University of New Hampshire had offered him a so-called Honor Society Scholarship—and Owen hadn’t even applied for admission there. The New Hampshire Honor Society gave a special scholarship each year to someone they selected as the state’s best high-school or prep-school student. You had to be a bona fide resident of the state, and the prize scholarship was usually awarded to a public-school kid who was at the top of his or her graduating class; but Owen was at the top of our Gravesend Academy graduating class, the first time a New Hampshire resident had achieved such distinction—“Competing Against the Nation’s Best, Gravesend Native Wins!” was the headline in The Gravesend News-Letter: the story appeared in many of New Hampshire’s papers. The University of New Hampshire never imagined that Owen would accept the scholarship; indeed, the Honor Society Scholarship was offered every year to New Hampshire’s “best”—with the tragic understanding that the recipient would probably go to Harvard or Yale, or to some other “better” school. It was obvious to me that Owen would be accepted—and offered full scholarships—at Harvard and Yale; Hester was the only reason he might accept the scholarship to the University of New Hampshire—and what would be the point of that? Owen would begin his university career in the fall of ’62 and Hester would graduate in the spring of ’63.
“YOU MIGHT AT LEAST TRY TO GET INTO A BETTER UNIVERSITY,” Owen told me.
I was not asking him to give up Harvard or Yale to keep me company at the University of New Hampshire. I thought it was unfair of him to expect me to go through the motions of applying to Harvard and Yale—just to experience the rejections. Although Owen had substantially improved my abilities as a student, he could do little to improve my mediocre college-board scores; I simply wasn’t Harvard or Yale material. I had become a good student in English and History courses; I was a slow but thorough reader, and I could write a readable, well-organized paper; but Owen was still holding my hand through the Math and Science courses, and I still plodded my dim way through foreign languages—as a student, I would never be what Owen was: a natural. Yet he was cross with me for accepting that I could do no better than the University of New Hampshire; in truth, I liked the University of New Hampshire. Durham, the town, was no more threatening than Gravesend; and it was near enough to Gravesend so that I could continue to see a lot of Dan and Grandmother—I could even continue to live with them.
“I’M SURE I’LL END UP IN DURHAM, TOO,” Owen said—with just the smallest touch of self-pity in his voice; but it infuriated me. “I DON’T SEE HOW I CAN LET Y
OU FEND FOR YOURSELF,” he added.
“I’m perfectly capable of fending for myself,” I said. “And I’ll come visit you at Harvard or Yale.”
“NO, WE’LL BOTH MAKE OTHER FRIENDS, WE’LL DRIFT APART—THAT’S THE WAY IT HAPPENS,” he said philosophically. “AND YOU’RE NO LETTER-WRITER—YOU DON’T EVEN KEEP A DIARY,” he added.
“If you lower your standards and come to the University of New Hampshire for my sake, I’ll kill you,” I told him.
“THERE ARE ALSO MY PARENTS TO CONSIDER,” he said. “IF I WERE IN SCHOOL AT DURHAM, I COULD STILL LIVE AT HOME—AND LOOK AFTER THEM.”
“What do you need to look after them for?” I asked him. It appeared to me that he spent as little time with his parents as possible!
“AND THERE’S ALSO HESTER TO CONSIDER,” he added.
“Let me get one thing straight,” I said to him. “You and Hester—it seems to be the most on-again, off-again thing. Are you even sleeping with her—have you ever slept with her?”
“FOR SOMEONE YOUR AGE, AND OF YOUR EDUCATION, YOU’RE AWFULLY CRUDE,” Owen said.
When he got up off the basketball court, he was limping. I passed him the basketball; he passed it back. The idiot janitor reset the scorer’s clock: the numbers were brightly lit and huge.
00:04
That’s what the clock said. I was so sick of it!
I held the ball; he held out his hands.
“READY?” Owen said. On that word, the janitor started the clock. I passed Owen the ball; he jumped into my hands; I lifted him; he reached higher and higher, and—pivoting in the air—stuffed the stupid basketball through the hoop. He was so precise, he never touched the rim. He was midair, returning to earth—his hands still above his head but empty, his eyes on the scorer’s clock at midcourt—when he shouted, “TIME!” The janitor stopped the clock.
That was when I would turn to look; usually, our time had expired.
00:00
But this time, when I looked, there was one second left on the clock.
00:01
He had sunk the shot in under four seconds!
“YOU SEE WHAT A LITTLE FAITH CAN DO?” said Owen Meany. The brain-damaged janitor was applauding. “SET THE CLOCK TO THREE SECONDS!” Owen told him.
“Jesus Christ!” I said.
“IF WE CAN DO IT IN UNDER FOUR SECONDS, WE CAN DO IT IN UNDER THREE,” he said. “IT JUST TAKES A LITTLE MORE FAITH.”
“It takes more practice,” I told him irritably.
“FAITH TAKES PRACTICE,” said Owen Meany.
Nineteen sixty-one was the first year of our friendship that was marred by unfriendly criticism and quarreling. Our most basic dispute began in the fall when we returned to the academy for our senior year, and one of the privileges extended to seniors at Gravesend was responsible for an argument that left Owen and me feeling especially uneasy. As seniors, we were permitted to take the train to Boston on either Wednesday or Saturday afternoon; we had no classes on those afternoons; and if we told the Dean’s Office where we were going, we were allowed to return to Gravesend on the Boston & Maine—as late as 10:00 P.M. on the same day. As day boys, Owen and I didn’t really have to be back to school until the Thursday morning meeting—or the Sunday service at Hurd’s Church, if we chose to go to Boston on a Saturday.
Even on a Saturday, Dan and my grandmother frowned upon the idea of our spending most of the night in the “dreaded” city; there was a so-called milk train that left Boston at two o’clock in the morning—it stopped at every town between Boston and Gravesend, and it didn’t get us home until 6:30 A.M. (about the time the school dining hall opened for breakfast)—but Dan and my grandmother said that Owen and I should live this “wildly” on only the most special occasions. Mr. and Mrs. Meany didn’t make any rules for Owen, at all; Owen was content to abide by the rules Dan and Grandmother made for me.