“Not mine,” said Larry Lish. “I bought my card—like everyone else.”
I can only imagine that the headmaster was trembling with excitement; this interrogation took place in the Police Department offices of Gravesend’s own chief of police—our old “murder weapon” and “instrument of death” man, Chief Ben Pike! Chief Pike had already informed Larry Lish that falsifying a draft card carried “criminal charges.”
“Who was selling and making these fake draft cards, Larry?” Randy White asked.
Larry Lish would make his mother proud of him—I have no doubt about that.
“Owen Meany,” said Larry Lish.
And so the spring vacation of 1962 did not come quite soon enough. The headmaster made a deal with Police Chief Pike: no “criminal charges” would be brought against anyone at the academy if the headmaster could turn over to Chief Pike all the fake draft cards at the school. That was pretty easy. The headmaster told every boy at morning meeting to leave his wallet on the stage before he left The Great Hall; boys without their wallets would return immediately to their dormitory rooms and hand them over to an attendant faculty member. Every boy’s wallet would be returned to him in his post-office box.
There were no morning classes; the faculty was too busy looking through each boy’s wallet and removing his fake draft card.
In the emergency faculty meeting that Randy White called, Dan Needham said: “What you’re doing isn’t even legal! Every parent of every boy at this school should sue you!”
But the headmaster argued that he was sparing the school the disgrace of having “criminal charges” brought against Gravesend students. The academy’s reputation as a good school would not suffer by this action of confiscation as much as that reputation would suffer from “criminal charges.” And as for the criminal who had actually manufactured and sold these false identification cards—“for a profit!”—naturally, the headmaster said, that student’s fate would be decided by the Executive Committee.
And so they crucified him—it happened that quickly. It didn’t matter that he told them he had given up his illegal enterprise; it didn’t matter to them that he said he had been inspired to correct his behavior by JFK’s inaugural speech—or that he knew the fake draft cards were being used to illegally purchase alcohol, and that he didn’t approve of drinking; it didn’t matter to them that he didn’t even drink! Larry Lish, and everyone in possession of a fake draft card, was put on disciplinary probation—for the duration of the spring term. But the Executive Committee crucified Owen Meany—they axed him; they gave him the boot; they threw him out.
Dan tried to block Owen’s dismissal by calling for a special vote among the faculty; but the headmaster said that the Executive Committee decision was final—“vote or no vote.” Mr. Early telephoned each member of the Board of Trustees; but there were only two days remaining in the winter term—the trustees could not possibly be assembled before the spring vacation, and they would not overrule an Executive Committee decision without a proper meeting.
Th
e decision to throw Owen Meany out of school was so unpopular that the former headmaster, old Archibald Thorndike, emerged from his retirement to express his disapproval; old Archie told one of the students who wrote for The Grave—and a reporter from the town paper, The Gravesend News-Letter—that “Owen Meany is one of the best citizens the academy has ever produced; I expect great things from that little fella,” the former headmaster said. Old Thorny also disapproved of what he called “the Gestapo methods of seizing the students’ billfolds,” and he questioned Randy White’s tactics on the grounds that they “did little to teach respect for personal property.”
“That old fart,” Dan Needham said. “I know he means well, but no one listened to him when he was headmaster; no one’s going to listen to him now.” In Dan’s opinion, it was self-serving to credit the academy with “producing” students; least of all, Dan said, could the academy claim to have “produced” Owen Meany. And regarding the merits of teaching “respect for personal property,” that was an old-fashioned idea; and the word “billfolds,” in Dan’s opinion, was outdated—although Dan agreed with old Archibald Thorndike that Randy White’s tactics were pure “Gestapo.”
All this talk did nothing for Owen. The Rev. Lewis Merrill called Dan and me and asked us if we knew where Owen was—Pastor Merrill had been trying to reach him. But whenever anyone called the Meanys’ house, either the line was busy—probably the receiver was off the hook—or else Mr. Meany answered the phone and said that he thought Owen was “in Durham.” That meant he was with Hester; but when I called her, she wouldn’t admit he was there.
“Have you got some good news for him?” she asked me. “Is that fucking creep school going to let him graduate?”
“No,” I said. “I don’t have any good news.”
“Then just leave him alone,” she suggested.
Later, I heard Dan on the telephone, talking to the headmaster.
“You’re the worst thing that ever happened to this school,” Dan told Randy White. “If you survive this disaster, I won’t be staying here—and I won’t leave alone. You’ve permitted yourself a fatal and childish indulgence, you’ve done something one of the boys might do, you’ve engaged in a kind of combat with a student—you’ve been competing with one of the kids. You’re such a kid yourself, you let Owen Meany get to you. Because a kid took a dislike to you, you decided to pay him back—that’s just the way a kid thinks! You’re not grown-up enough to run a school.
“And this was a scholarship boy!” Dan Needham yelled in the telephone. “This is a boy who’s going to go to college on a scholarship, too—or else he won’t go. If Owen Meany doesn’t get the best deal possible, from the best college around—you’re responsible for that, too!”
Then I think the headmaster hung up on him; at least, it appeared to me that Dan Needham had much more to say, but he suddenly stopped talking and, slowly, he returned the receiver to its cradle. “Shit,” he said.
Later that night, my grandmother called Dan and me to say that she had heard from Owen.
“MISSUS WHEELWRIGHT?” Owen had said to her, over the phone.
“Where are you, Owen?” she asked him.
“IT DOESN’T MATTER,” he told her. “I JUST WANTED TO SAY I WAS SORRY THAT I LET YOU DOWN. I DON’T WANT YOU TO THINK I’M NOT GRATEFUL FOR THE OPPORTUNITY YOU GAVE ME—TO GO TO A GOOD SCHOOL.”
“It doesn’t sound like such a good school to me—not anymore, Owen,” my grandmother told him. “And you didn’t let me down.”
“I PROMISE TO MAKE YOU PROUD OF ME,” Owen told her.
“I am proud of you, Owen!” she told him.
“I’M GOING TO MAKE YOU PROUDER!” Owen said; then—almost as an afterthought—he said, “PLEASE TELL DAN AND JOHN TO BE SURE TO GO TO CHAPEL IN THE MORNING.”