“I can’t remember if I’ve seen this one,” Hester said.
“I know I’ve seen it, but I can’t remember it,” I said.
“IT’S THE ONE WITH THE JEWEL ON THE TRAIN?—IT’S A PRETTY GOOD ONE,” said Owen Meany. He curled up next to Hester on the couch; he laid his head against her bosom, and she cradled him in her arms. In a few minutes, he was fast asleep.
“Better turn the volume down,” Hester whispered to me. When I looked at her—to see if I’d lowered the volume enough—she was crying.
“I think I’ll go to bed,” I told her quietly. “I’ve seen Sherlock Holmes a hundred times.”
“We’ll stay a while,” Hester said. “Good night.”
“He wants to go to Sawyer Depot,” I told her.
“I know,” she said.
I lay in bed awake a long time. When I heard their voices in the driveway, I got up and went into my mother’s empty bedroom; from the window there, I could see them. The curtains were never drawn in my mother’s bedroom, in memory of how she had hated the darkness.
It was almost dawn, and Hester and Owen were discussing how they would drive back to Durham.
“I’ll follow you,” Hester said.
“NO, I’LL FOLLOW YOU,” he told her.
Then I graduated from the University of New Hampshire—a B.A. in English, cum laude. Owen just plain graduated—Second Lieutenant Paul O. Meany, Jr., with a B.S. in Geology. He was not reassigned to a combat branch; he was ordered to report to Fort Benjamin Harrison in Indiana, where he would undertake an eight- to ten-week course in Basic Administration for the Adjutant General’s Corps. After that, the Army wanted him to report to a communications command in Arizona. Although the Army might later send him anywhere in the country—or even to Saigon—they were assigning him to a desk job.
“SECOND LIEUTENANTS ARE SUPPOSED TO BE PLATOON LEADERS!” said Owen Meany. Naturally, Hester and I had to conceal how pleased we were. Even in Vietnam, the Adjutant General’s Corps was not a branch with a high rate of casualties. We knew he wouldn’t give up; every few months he would fill out another Personnel Action Form, requesting a new assignment—and he claimed that Colonel Eiger had provided him with the name and telephone number of someone in the Pentagon, a certain major who allegedly supervised the personnel files and assignments of the junior officers. Hester and I knew better than to ever underestimate Owen’s powers of manipulation.
But, for the moment, we thought he was safe; and the U.S. Army, I believed, was not as easy to manipulate as a children’s Christmas pageant.
“What exactly does the Adjutant General’s Corps do?” I asked him cautiously. But he wouldn’t discuss it.
“THIS IS JUST AN INTERIM ASSIGNMENT,” said Owen Meany.
Dan and I had to laugh; it was funny to think of him suffering through a Basic Administration course in Indiana when what he had imagined for himself was jumping out of a helicopter and hacking his way through a jungle with his machete and his M-16. Owen was angry, but he wasn’t depressed; he was irritable, but he was determined.
Then one evening I was walking through the Gravesend Academy campus and I saw the tomato-red pickup parked in the circular driveway from which poor Dr. Dolder’s Volkswagen Beetle had been elevated to its moment in history. The headlights of the pickup were shining across the vast lawn in front of the Main Academy Building; the lawn was full of chairs. Rows upon rows of chairs, and the benches from The Great Hall, were spread out across the lawn—I would estimate that there was seating for five hundred people. It was that time of the year when Gravesend Academy hoped it wouldn’t rain; the chairs and benches were assembled for the annual commencement. If it rained—to everyone’s sorrow—there was no place large enough to hold the commencement, except the gym; not even The Great Hall would hold the crowd.
Commencement had been outdoors the year I graduated—the year Owen should have graduated, the year he should have been our class valedictorian.
Hester was sitting by herself in the cab of the pickup; she motioned to me to get in and sit beside her.
“Where is he?” I asked her. She pointed into the path of the pickup truck’s headlights. Beyond the rows upon rows of chairs and benches was a makeshift stage, draped with the Gravesend Academy banner and dotted with chairs for the dignitaries and the speakers; at the center of this stage was the podium, and at the podium was Owen Meany. He was looking out over the hundreds of empty seats—he appeared to be a little blinded by the pickup truck’s headlights, but he needed the light in order to see his valedictory speech, which he was reading.
“He doesn’t want anyone to hear it—he just wants to say it,” Hester said.
When he joined Hester and me in the cab of the pickup, I said to him: “I would have liked to hear that. Won’t you read it to us?”
“IT’S OVER,” said Owen Meany. “IT’S JUST SOME OLD HISTORY.”
And so we departed for the north country—for Sawyer Depot, and Loveless Lake. We took the pickup; we did not take Hester. I’m not sure if she wanted to come. She had made the effort to speak to her parents; Uncle Alfred and Aunt Martha were always happy to see me, and they were polite—if not exactly warm—to Owen Meany. We spent the first night of our trip in the Eastmans’ house in Sawyer Depot. I slept in Noah’s bed; Noah was in the Peace Corps—I believe he was teaching Forestry, or “Forest Management,” to Nigerians. Uncle Alfred referred to what Noah was doing as a “ticket”—Africa, or the Peace Corps, was Noah’s “ticket out of Vietnam,” Uncle Alfred said.
That summer, Simon was running the sawmill; over the years, Simon had injured his knees so often—skiing—that Simon’s knees were his ticket out of Vietnam. Simon had a 4-F deferment; he was judged physically unfit for service. “Unless the country is invaded by aliens,” Simon said, “good old Uncle Sam won’t take me!”
Owen referred to his course in Basic Administration for the Adjutant General’s Corps as TEMPORARY. Arizona would also be TEMPORARY, Owen said. Uncle Alfred was very respectful of Owen’s desire to go to Vietnam, but Aunt Martha—over our elegant dinner—questioned the war’s “morality.”
“YES, I QUESTION THAT, TOO,” said Owen Meany. “BUT I FEEL ONE HAS TO SEE SOMETHING FIRSTHAND TO BE SURE. I’M CERTAINLY INCLINED TO AGREE WITH KENNEDY’S ASSESSMENT OF THE VIETNAMESE PROBLEM—WAY BACK IN NINETEEN SIXTY-THREE. YOU MAY RECALL THAT THE PRESIDENT SAID: ‘WE CAN HELP THEM, WE CAN GIVE THEM EQUIPMENT, WE CAN SEND OUR MEN OUT THERE AS ADVISERS, BUT THEY HAVE TO WIN IT, THE PEOPLE OF VIETNAM.’ I THINK THAT POINT IS STILL VALID—AND IT’S CLEAR TO ALL OF US THAT THE ‘PEOPLE OF VIETNAM’ ARE NOT WINNING THE WAR. WE APPEAR TO BE TRYING TO WIN IT FOR THEM.
“BUT LET’S SUPPOSE, FOR A MOMENT, THAT WE BELIEVE IN THE STATED OBJECTIVES OF THE JOHNSON ADMINISTRATION’S VIETNAM POLICY—AND THAT WE SUPPORT THIS POLICY. WE AGREE TO RESIST COMMUNIST AGGRESSION IN SOUTH VIETNAM—WHETHER IT COMES FROM THE NORTH VIETNAMESE OR THE VIET CONG. WE SUPPORT THE IDEA OF SELF-DETERMINATION FOR SOUTH VIETNAM—AND WE WANT PEACE IN SOUTHEAST ASIA. IF THESE ARE OUR OBJECTIVES—IF WE AGREE THAT THIS IS WHAT WE WANT—WHY ARE WE ESCALATING THE WAR?