“My half brother,” she mumbled. “But I still loved him!” she added. Her other half brother—the one who was alive—needed to ferociously restrain himself from spitting again. So they were a family torn in halves, or worse, I thought.
In the major’s car—where Owen and I were first able to acknowledge each other, to hug each other, and to pat each other on our backs—the major explained the family to us.
“They’re a mess, of course—they may all be criminally retarded,” the major said. His name was Rawls—Hollywood would have loved him. In close-up, he looked fifty, a gruff old type; but he was only thirty-seven. He’d earned a battlefield commission during the final days of the Korean War; he’d completed a tour of duty in Vietnam as an infantry battalion executive officer. Major Rawls had enlisted in the Army in 1949, when he’d been eighteen. He’d served the Army for nineteen years; he’d fought in two wars; he’d been passed over for promotion to lieutenant colonel, and—at a time when all the good “field grade” officers were in Washington or Vietnam—he’d ended up as a ROTC professor for his twilight tour of duty.
If Major Rawls had earned a battlefield commission, he had earned his measure of cynicism, too; the major spoke in sustained, explosive bursts—like rounds of fire from an automatic weapon.
“They may all be fucking each other—I wouldn’t be surprised about a family like this,” Major Rawls said. “The brother is the chief wacko—he hangs around the airport all day, watching the planes, talking to the soldiers. He can’t wait to be old enough to go to ’Nam. The only one in the family who might have been wackier than him is the one who’s dead—this was his third fucking tour ‘in country’! You should’ve seen him between tours—the whole fucking tribe lives in a trailer park, and the warrant officer just spent all his time looking in his neighbors’ windows through a telescopic sight. You know what I mean—lining up everyone in the crosshairs! If he hadn’t gone back to ’Nam, he’d have gone to jail.
“Both brothers have a different father—a dead one, not this clown,” Major Rawls informed us. “This clown’s the father of that unfortunate girl—I can’t tell you who knocked her up, but I’ve got a feeling it was a family affair. My odds are on the warrant officer—I think he had sighted her in his crosshairs, too. You know what I mean? Maybe both brothers were banging her,” Major Rawls said. “But I think the younger one is too crazy to get it up—he just can’t wait to be old enough to kill people,” the major said.
“Now the mother—she’s not just in space, she’s in fucking orbit,” Major Rawls said. “And wait till you get to the wake—wait till you meet the rest of the family! I tell you—they shouldn’t’ve sent the brother home from ’Nam, not even in a box. What they should’ve done is send his whole fucking family over there! Might be the only way to win the fucking war—if you know what I mean,” Major Rawls said.
We were following the silver-gray hearse, which the chauffeur drove ploddingly along a highway called Black Canyon. Then we turned onto something called Camelback Road. In the wind, the palm trees sawed over us; on the Bermuda grass, in one neighborhood, some old people sat in metal lawn chairs—as hot as it was, even at night, the old people wore sweaters, and they waved to us. They must have been crazy.
Owen Meany had introduced me to Major Rawls as his BEST FRIEND.
“MAJOR RAWLS—THIS IS MY BEST FRIEND, JOHN WHEELWRIGHT. HE’S COME ALL THE WAY FROM NEW HAMPSHIRE!” Owen had said.
“That’s better than coming from Vietnam. It’s nice to meet you, John,” Major Rawls had said; he had a crushing handshake and he drove his car as if every other driver on the road had already done something to offend him.
“Wait till you see the fucking funeral parlor!” the major said to me.
“IT’S A KIND OF SHOPPING-MALL MORTUARY,” Owen said, and Major Rawls liked that—he laughed.
“It’s a fucking ‘shopping-mall’ mortician!” Rawls said.
“THEY HAVE REMOVABLE CROSSES IN THE CHAPEL,” Owen informed me. “THEY CAN SWITCH CROSSES, DEPENDING ON THE DENOMINATION OF THE SERVICE—THEY’VE GOT A CRUCIFIX WITH AN ESPECIALLY LIFELIKE CHRIST HANGING ON IT, FOR THE CATHOLICS. THEY’VE GOT A PLAIN WOODEN CROSS FOR THE PLAIN, PROTESTANT TYPES. THEY’VE EVEN GOT A FANCY CROSS WITH JEWELS IN IT, FOR THE IN-BETWEENS,” Owen said.
“What are ‘in-betweens’?” I asked Owen Meany.
“That’s what we’ve got on our hands here,” Major Rawls said. “We’ve got fucking Baptists—they’re fucking ‘in-betweens,’ all right,” he said. “You remember that asshole minister, Meany?” Major Rawls asked Owen.
“YOU MEAN THE BAPTIST THE MORTUARY USES? OF COURSE I DO!” Owen said.
“Just wait till you meet him!” Major Rawls said to me.
“I can’t wait,” I said.
Owen made me put on the extra black armband. “DON’T WORRY,” he told me. “WE’LL HAVE A LOT OF FREE TIME.”
“Do you guys want dates?” Major Rawls asked us. “I know some hot coeds,” he said.
“I KNOW YOU DO,” Owen said. “BUT NO THANKS—WE’RE JUST GOING TO HANG OUT.”
“I’ll show you where the porn shop is,” Major Rawls offered.
“NO THANKS,” Owen said. “WE JUST WANT TO RELAX.”
“What are you—a couple of fags?” the major asked—he laughed at his joke.
“MAYBE WE ARE,” said Owen Meany, and Major Rawls laughed again.
“Your friend’s the funniest little fucker in the Army,” the major said.
It actually was a kind of shopping-mall mortuary, surrounded by an unfathomable inappropriateness for a funeral home. In the style of a Mexican hacienda, the mortuary—and its chapel with the changeable crosses—formed one of several L-joints in a long, interconnected series of pink- and white-stuccoed buildings. Immediately adjacent to the mortuary itself was an ice-cream shop; adjoined to the chapel was a pet shop—the windowfront displayed an arrangement of snakes, which were on sale.
“It’s no fucking wonder the warrant officer wanted to go back to ’Nam,” Major Rawls said.