“That’s what I thought!” the janitor said.
Dan and I went to the school dining hall, where we were unfamiliar faces at breakfast; but we were very hungry, after driving around all night—and besides, I wanted to pass the word: “Tell everyone to get to morning meeting a little early,” I told my friends. I heard Dan passing the word to some of his friends on the faculty: “If you go to only one more morning meeting for the rest of your life, I think this should be the one.”
Dan and I left the dining hall together. There wasn’t time to return to Waterhouse Hall and take a shower before morning meeting, although we badly needed one. We were both anxious for Owen, and agitated—not knowing how his presentation of the mutilated Mary Magdalene might make his dismissal from the academy appear more justified than it was; we were worried how his desecration of the statue of a saint might give those colleges and universities that were sure to accept him a certain reluctance.
“Not to mention what the Catholic Church—I mean, Saint Michael’s—is going to do to him,” Dan said. “I better have a talk with the head guy over there—Father What’s-His-Name.”
“Do you know him?” I asked Dan.
“No, not really,” Dan said; “but I think he’s a friendly sort of fellow—Father O’Somebody, I think. I wish I could remember his name—O’Malley, O’Leary, O’Rourke, O’Somebody,” he said.
“I’ll bet Pastor Merrill knows him,” I said. And that was why Dan and I walked to Hurd’s Church before morning meeting; sometimes the Rev. Lewis Merrill said his prayers there before walking to the Main Academy Building; sometimes he was up early, just biding his time in the vestry office. Dan and I saw the trailer-truck from the Meany Granite Company parked behind the vestry. Owen was sitting in the vestry office—in Mr. Merrill’s usual chair, behind Mr. Merrill’s desk, tipping back in the creaky old chair and rolling the chair around on its squeaky casters. There was no sign of Pastor Merrill.
“I HAVE AN EARLY APPOINTMENT,” Owen explained to Dan and me. “PASTOR MERRILL’S A LITTLE LATE.”
He looked all right—a little tired, a little nervous, or just restless. He couldn’t sit still in the chair, and he fiddled with the desk drawers, pulling them open and closing them—not appearing to pay any attention to what was inside the drawers, but just opening and closing them because they were there.
“You’ve had a busy night, Owen,” Dan told him.
“PRETTY BUSY,” said Owen Meany.
“How are you?” I asked him.
“I’M FINE,” he said. “I BROKE THE LAW, I GOT CAUGHT, I’M GOING TO PAY—THAT’S HOW IT IS,” he said.
“You got screwed!” I said.
“A LITTLE BIT,” he nodded—then he shrugged. “IT’S NOT AS IF I’M ENTIRELY INNOCENT,” he added.
“The important thing for you to think about is getting into college,” Dan told him. “The important thing is that you get in, and that you get a scholarship.”
“THERE ARE MORE IMPORTANT THINGS,” said Owen Meany. He opened, in rapid succession, the three drawers on the right-hand side of the Rev. Mr. Merrill’s desk; then he closed them, just as rapidly. That was when Pastor Merrill walked into the vestry office.
“What are you doing?” Mr. Merrill asked Owen.
“NOTHING,” said Owen Meany. “WAITING FOR YOU.”
“I mean, at my desk—you’re sitting at my desk,” Mr. Merrill said. Owen looked surprised.
“I GOT HERE EARLY,” he explained. “I WAS JUST SITTING IN YOUR CHAIR—I WASN’T DOING ANYTHING.” He got up and walked to the front of Pastor Merrill’s desk, where he sat down in his usual chair—at least, I guess it was his “usual” chair; it reminded me of “the singer’s seat” in Graham McSwiney’s funny studio. I was disappointed that I hadn’t heard from Mr. McSwiney; I guessed that he had no news about Big Black Buster Freebody.
“I’m sorry if I snapped at you, Owen,” Pastor Merrill said. “I know how upset you must be.”
“I’M FINE,” Owen said.
“I was glad you called me,” Mr. Merrill told Owen.
Owen shrugged. I had not seen him sneer before, but it seemed to me that he almost sneered at the Rev. Mr. Merrill.
“Oh, well!” Mr. Merrill said, sitting down in his creaky desk chair. “Well, I’m very sorry, Owen—for everything,” he said. He had a way of entering a room—a classroom, The Great Hall, Hurd’s Church, or even his own vestry office—as if he were offering an apology to everyone. At the same time, he was struggling so sincerely that you didn’t want to stop or interrupt him. You liked him and just wished that he could relax; yet he made you feel guilty for being irritated with him, because of how hard and unsuccessfully he was trying to put you at ease.
Dan said: “I came here to ask you if you knew the name of the head guy at Saint Michael’s—it’s the same guy, for the church and for the school, isn’t it?”
“That’s right,” Pastor Merrill said. “It’s Father Findley.”
“I guess I don’t know him,” Dan said. “I thought it was a Father O’Somebody.”
“No, it’s not an O’Anybody,” said Mr. Merrill. “It’s Father Findley.” The Rev. Mr. Merrill did not yet know why Dan wanted to know who the Catholic “head guy” was. Owen, of course, knew what Dan was up to.