A Prayer for Owen Meany

“HE’S IN INTELLIGENCE,” Owen said. Dick appeared impressed, but—like his hatred—the feeling drifted and passed.

“You carry a gun?” Dick asked me.

“NOT THAT KIND OF INTELLIGENCE,” said Owen Meany, and Dick closed his eyes again—there being, in his view, clearly no intelligence that didn’t carry a gun.

“I’M SORRY ABOUT YOUR BROTHER,” Owen said—as we were leaving.

“See you at the funeral,” Major Rawls said to the boy.

“I don’t go to fuckin’ funerals!” Dick snapped. “Close the door, Mister Intelligence Man,” he said to me, and I closed it behin

d me.

“That was a nice try, Meany,” Major Rawls said, putting his hand on Owen’s shoulder. “But that fucking kid is beyond saving.”

Owen said, “IT’S NOT UP TO YOU OR ME, SIR—IT’S NOT UP TO US: WHO’S ‘BEYOND SAVING.’”

Major Rawls put his hand on my shoulder. “I tell you,” the major said, “Owen’s too good for this world.”

As we left the turquoise house, the pregnant daughter was trying to revive her mother, who was lying on the kitchen floor. Major Rawls looked at his watch. “She’s right on schedule,” he said. “Same as last night, same as the night before. I tell you, picnics aren’t what they used to be—not to mention, ‘picnic wakes,’” the major said.

“WHAT’S WRONG WITH THIS COUNTRY?” Owen Meany asked. “WE SHOULD ALL BE AT HOME, LOOKING AFTER PEOPLE LIKE THIS. INSTEAD, WE’RE SENDING PEOPLE LIKE THIS TO VIETNAM!”

Major Rawls drove us to our motel—a modestly pretty place of the hacienda-type—where a swimming pool with underwater lights had the disturbing effect of substantially enlarging and misshaping the swimmers. But there weren’t many swimmers, and after Rawls had invited himself to a painfully late dinner—and he’d finally gone home—Owen Meany and I were alone. We sat underwater, in the shallow end of the swimming pool, drinking more and more beer and looking up at the vast, southwestern sky.

“SOMETIMES I WISH I WAS A STAR,” Owen said. “YOU KNOW THAT STUPID SONG—‘ WHEN YOU WISH UPON A STAR, MAKES NO DIFFERENCE WHO YOU ARE’—I HATE THAT SONG!” he said. “I DON’T WANT TO ‘WISH UPON A STAR,’ I WISH I WAS A STAR—THERE OUGHT TO BE A SONG ABOUT THAT,” said Owen Meany, who was drinking what I estimated to be his sixth or seventh beer.

Major Rawls woke us up with an early-morning telephone call.

“Don’t come to the fucking funeral—the family is raising hell about the service. They want no military to be there, they’re telling us we can keep the American flag—they don’t want it,” the major said.

“THAT’S OKAY WITH ME,” said Owen Meany.

“So you guys can just go back to sleep,” the major said.

“THAT’S OKAY WITH ME, TOO,” Owen told him.

So I never got to meet the famous “asshole minister,” the so-called “traveling Baptist.” Major Rawls told me, later, that the mother had spit on the minister and on the mortician—perhaps regretting that she’d given up her opportunity to spit on Owen when he handed her the American flag.

It was Sunday, July 7, 1968.

After the major called, I went back to sleep; but Owen wrote in his diary.

“WHAT’S WRONG WITH THIS COUNTRY?” he wrote. “THERE IS SUCH A STUPID ‘GET EVEN’ MENTALITY—THERE IS SUCH A SADISTIC ANGER.” He turned on the TV, keeping the volume off; when I woke up, much later, he was still writing in the diary and watching one of those television evangelists—without the sound.

“IT’S BETTER WHEN YOU DON’T HAVE TO LISTEN TO WHAT THEY’RE SAYING,” he said.

In the diary, he wrote: “IS THIS COUNTRY JUST SO HUGE THAT IT NEEDS TO OVERSIMPLIFY EVERYTHING? LOOK AT THE WAR: EITHER WE HAVE A STRATEGY TO ‘WIN’ IT, WHICH MAKES US—IN THE WORLD’S VIEW—MURDERERS; OR ELSE WE ARE DYING, WITHOUT FIGHTING TO WIN. LOOK AT WHAT WE CALL ‘FOREIGN POLICY’: OUR ‘FOREIGN POLICY’ IS A EUPHEMISM FOR PUBLIC RELATIONS, AND OUR PUBLIC RELATIONS GET WORSE AND WORSE. WE’RE BEING DEFEATED AND WE’RE NOT GOOD LOSERS.

“AND LOOK AT WHAT WE CALL ‘RELIGION’: TURN ON ANY TELEVISION ON ANY SUNDAY MORNING! SEE THE CHOIRS OF THE POOR AND UNEDUCATED—AND THESE TERRIBLE PREACHERS, SELLING OLD JESUS-STORIES LIKE JUNK FOOD. SOON THERE’LL BE AN EVANGELIST IN THE WHITE HOUSE; SOON THERE’LL BE A CARDINAL ON THE SUPREME COURT. ONE DAY THERE WILL COME AN EPIDEMIC—I’LL BET ON SOME HUMDINGER OF A SEXUAL DISEASE. AND WHAT WILL OUR PEERLESS LEADERS, OUR HEADS OF CHURCH AND STATE … WHAT WILL THEY SAY TO US? HOW WILL THEY HELP US? YOU CAN BE SURE THEY WON’T CURE US—BUT HOW WILL THEY COMFORT US? JUST TURN ON THE TV—AND HERE’S WHAT OUR PEERLESS LEADERS, OUR HEADS OF CHURCH AND STATE WILL SAY: THEY’LL SAY, ‘I TOLD YOU SO!’ THEY’LL SAY, ‘THAT’S WHAT YOU GET FOR FUCKING AROUND—I TOLD YOU NOT TO DO IT UNTIL YOU GOT MARRIED.’ DOESN’T ANYONE SEE WHAT THESE SIMPLETONS ARE UP TO? THESE SELF-RIGHTEOUS FANATICS ARE NOT ‘RELIGIOUS’—THEIR HOMEY WISDOM IS NOT ‘MORALITY.’

“THAT IS WHERE THIS COUNTRY IS HEADED—IT IS HEADED TOWARD OVERSIMPLIFICATION. YOU WANT TO SEE A PRESIDENT OF THE FUTURE? TURN ON ANY TELEVISION ON ANY SUNDAY MORNING—FIND ONE OF THOSE HOLY ROLLERS: THAT’S HIM, THAT’S THE NEW MISTER PRESIDENT! AND DO YOU WANT TO SEE THE FUTURE OF ALL THOSE KIDS WHO ARE GOING TO FALL IN THE CRACKS OF THIS GREAT, BIG, SLOPPY SOCIETY OF OURS? I JUST MET HIM; HE’S A TALL, SKINNY, FIFTEEN-YEAR-OLD BOY NAMED ‘DICK.’ HE’S PRETTY SCARY. WHAT’S WRONG WITH HIM IS NOT UNLIKE WHAT’S WRONG WITH THE TV EVANGELIST—OUR FUTURE PRESIDENT. WHAT’S WRONG WITH BOTH OF THEM IS THAT THEY’RE SO SURE THEY’RE RIGHT! THAT’S PRETTY SCARY—THE FUTURE, I THINK, IS PRETTY SCARY.”

That was when I woke up and saw him pause in his writing. He was staring at the TV preacher, whom he couldn’t hear—the preacher was talking on and on, waving his arms, while behind him stood a choir of men and women in silly robes … they weren’t singing, but they were swaying back and forth, and smiling; all their lips were so firmly and uniformly closed that they appeared to be humming; or else they’d eaten something that had entranced them; or else what the preacher was saying had entranced them.

“Owen, what are you doing?” I asked him.

That was when he said: “IT’S BETTER WHEN YOU DON’T HAVE TO LISTEN TO WHAT THEY’RE SAYING.”