A prayer for Owen Meany: a novel

Screen doors whapped throughout the night, cats fought and fucked without cease, a cacophony of dogs malingered in the vicinity of each outdoor barbecue-in-progress, and an occasional flash of heat-lightning lit up the night, casting into silhouette the tangled maze of television antennas that towered over the low-level houses-as if a vast network of giant spider webs threatened the smaller, human community below.

"I tell you, the only thing preventing a murder here is that everyone would be a witness," said Major Rawls. Tents-for the children-filled the small backyard of the dead warrant officer's home; there were two cars on cinder blocks in the backyard, and for the duration of the "picnic wake" some of the smaller children had been sleeping in these; and there was also a great boat on cinder blocks-a fire-engine-red racing boat with a gleaming chrome railing running around its jutting bow. The boat appeared more comfortable to sleep in than the turquoise house, at every orifice of which there popped into view the heads of children or adults staring out at the night. One of the boat's big twin engines had been removed from the stern and was fastened to the rim of a large iron barrel, full of water; in the barrel, the noisy engine ran and ran-at least half a dozen grown men surrounded this display of spilled gasoline and oil, and the powerful propellers that churned and churned the water in the sloshing barrel. The men stood with such reverence around this demonstration of the engine's power that Major Rawls and Owen and I half expected the barrel to take flight-or at least drive itself away. By the marvel of a long extension cord, a TV was placed in a prime position on the dry, brown lawn; a circle of men were watching a baseball game, of course. And where were the women? Clustered in their own groups, according to age or marriage or divorce or degree of pregnancy, most of the women were inside the sweltering house, where the ovenlike temperature appeared to have wilted them, like the limp raw vegetables that were plunked in assorted bowls alongside the assorted ' 'dips" that were now in their third day of exposure to this fetid air. Inside, too, the sink was filled with ice, through which one could search in vain for a cold beer. The mother with her high-piled, sticky, pink hair slouched against the refrigerator, which she seemed to be guarding from the others; occasionally, she flicked the ash from her cigarette into what she vacantly assumed was an ashtray-rather, it was a small plate of nuts that had been creatively mixed with a breakfast cereal.

"Here comes the fuckin' Army!" she said-when she saw us. She was drinking what smelled like bourbon out of a highball glass-this one was etched with a poor likeness of a pheasant or a grouse or a quail. It was not necessary to introduce me, although-several times-Owen and Major Rawls tried. Not everyone knew everyone else, anyway; it was hard to tell family from neighbors, and specifics such as which children were the offspring of whose previous or present marriage were not even considered. The relatives from Yuma and Modesto-aside from the uncomfortable fact that their children, and perhaps they themselves, were housed in tents and dismantled cars- simply blended in. The father who'd struck his stepson at the airport was dead drunk and had passed out in a bedroom with the door open; he was sprawled not on the bed but on the floor at the foot of the bed, upon which four or five small children were glued to a second television set, their attention riveted to a crime drama that surely held no surprises for them.

"You find a woman here, I'll pay for the motel," Rawls said to me. "I've been working this scene for two nights-this is my third. I tell you, there's not one woman you'd dare to put a move on-not here. The best thing I've seen is the pregnant sister-imagine that!"

Dutifully, I imagined it: the pregnant sister was the only one who tried to be nice to us; she tried to be especially nice to Owen.

"It's a very hard job you have," she told him.

"IT'S NOT AS HARD AS BEING IN VIETNAM," he said politely. The pregnant sister had a hard job, too, I thought; she looked as if she needed to make a nearly constant effort not to be beaten by her mother or her father, or raped by the latter, or raped and beaten by her younger half brother-or some combination of, or all of, the above. Owen said to her: "I'M WORRIED ABOUT YOUR BROTHER-I MEAN YOUR HALF BROTHER, THE TALL BOY. I'LL HAVE A WORD WITH HIM. WHERE IS HE?"

The girl looked too frightened to speak. Then she said: "I know you have to give my mother the flag-at the funeral. I know what my mother's gonna do-

when you give her the flag. She said she's gonna spit on you," the pregnant sister told Owen. "And I know her-she will!" the girl said. "She'll spit in your face!"

"IT HAPPENS, SOMETIMES," Owen said. "WHERE'S THE TALL BOY-YOUR HALF BROTHER? WHAT'S HIS NAME?"

"If Vietnam hadn't killed that bastard, somethin' else would have-that's what/ say!" said the pregnant sister, who quickly looked around, fearful that someone in the family might have overheard her.

"DON'T WORRY ABOUT THE FUNERAL," Owen told her. "WHERE'S THE TALL BOY? WHAT'S HIS NAME?" There was a closed door off a narrow hall, and the girl cautiously pointed to it.

"Don't tell him I told you," she whispered.

"WHAT'S HIS NAME?" Owen asked her. She looked around, to make sure no one was watching her; there was a gob of mustard on the swollen belly of her wrinkled dress. "Dick!" she said; then she moved away. Owen knocked on the door.

"Watch yourself, Meany," Major Rawls said. "I know the police, at die airport-they never take their eyes off this guy.'' Owen knocked on the door a little more insistently.

"Fuck you!" Dick shouted through the closed door.

"YOU'RE TALKING TO AN OFFICER*." said Owen Meany.

"Fuck you, sir!" Dick said.

"THAT'S BETTER," Owen said. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN THERE-BEATING OFF?"

Major Rawls pushed Owen and me out of the path of the door; we were all standing clear of the door when Dick opened it. He was wearing a different pair of fatigue pants, he was barefoot and bare-chested, and he'd blackened his face with something like shoe polish-as if, after the merrymakers all settled down, he planned to engage in undercover activities in the dangerous neighborhood. With the same black marker, he had drawn circles around his nipples-like twin bull's-eyes on his chest.

"Come on in," he said, stepping back into his room, where-no doubt-he dreamed without cease of butchering the Viet Cong. The room reeked of marijuana; Dick finished the small nub of a roach he held with a pair of tweezers-not offering us the last toke. The dead helicopter pilot, the warrant officer, was named Frank Jarvits-but Dick preferred to call him by his "Cong killer name," the name his buddies in 'Nam had given him, which was "Hubcap." Dick showed us, proudly, all the souvenirs that Hubcap had managed to smuggle home from Vietnam. There were several bayonets, several machetes, a collection of plastic-encased "water beetles," and one helmet with an overripe sweatband-with the possessive "Hubcap's Hat" written on the band in what appeared to be blood. There was an AK- assault rifle that Dick broke down into the stock group, the barrel, the receiver, the bolt-and so forth. Then he quickly reassembled the Soviet-made weapon. His stoned eyes flickered with a passing, brief excitement in gaining our approval; he'd wanted to show us how Hubcap had broken down the rifle in order to smuggle it home. There were two Chicom grenades, too-those bottle-shaped grenades, with the fat part serrated and the fuse cord at the pipelike end of the bottleneck.

"They don't blow as good as ours, but you can get sent to Leavenworth for sneakin' home an M-sixty-seven-Hubcap told me," Dick said. He stared sadly at the two Chinese-made grenades; then he picked up one. "Fuckin* Chink Commie shit," he said, "but it'll still do a job on ya." He showed us how the warrant officer had taped up the end of the grenade, where the firing-pin cord is; then Hubcap had taped up the whole grenades in cardboard, placing one of them in a shaving kit and the other in a combat boot. "They just come home like carry-on luggage," Dick told us. Apparently, various "buddies" had been involved in bringing home the AK- assault rifle; different guys brought home different parts. "That's how it's done," Dick said wisely-his head still nodding to whatever tune the pot was playing to nun. "It got tough after sixty-six, 'cause of the drug traffickin'- everyone's gear got inspected more, you know," he said. The walls of the room were festooned with hanging cartridge belts and an assortment of fatigues and unmatching parts of uniforms. The ungainly boy lived for reaching the legal age for legal slaughter.

"How come you ain't in 'Nam?" Dick asked Owen. "You too small-or what?"

Owen chose to ignore him, but Major Rawls said: "Lieutenant Meany has requested transfer to Vietnam-he's scheduled to go there."

"How come you ain't over there?" Dick asked the major.

" 'HOW COME YOU AIN'T OVER THERE,' SIRl" said Owen Meany. Dick shut his eyes and smiled; he dozed off, or dreamed away, for a second or two. Then he said to Major Rawls: "How come you ain't over there, sir!"

"I've already been there," Rawls said.

"How come you ain't back there?" Dick asked him. "Sir . . ."he added nastily.

"I've got a better job here," Major Rawls told the boy.

"Well, someone's got to have the dirty jobs-ain't that how it is?" Dick said.

"WHEN YOU GET IN THE ARMY, WHAT KIND OF JOB DO YOU THINK WU'LL HAVE?" Owen asked the boy. "WITH YOUR ATTITUDE, YOU WON'T GET TO VIETNAM-YOU WON'T GO TO WAR, YOU'LL GO TO JAIL. YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE SMART TO GO TO WAR," said Owen Meany. "BUT YOU HAVE TO BE SMARTER THAN YOU"

The boy closed his eyes and smiled again; his head nodded a little. Major Rawls picked up a pencil and tapped it on the barrel of the assault rifle. That brought Dick, momentarily, back to life.

"You better not bring this baby to the airport, pal," Major Rawls said. "You better never show up there with the rifle, or with the grenades," the major said. When the boy shut his eyes again, Rawls tapped him on his forehead with the pencil. The boy's eyes blinked open; hatred came and went in them-a drifting, passing hatred, like clouds or smoke. "I'm not even sure those bayonets or machetes are legal-you understand me?" Major Rawls said. "You better be sure you keep them in their sheaths," he said.

"Sometimes the cops take "em from me-sometimes they give 'em back the same day," Dick said. I could count each of his ribs, and his stomach muscles. He saw me staring at him and he said: "Who's the guy outta uniform?"

"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' funeralsl" Dick snapped. "Close the door, Mister Intelligence Man," he said to me, and I closed it behind 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 , . 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 FT 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 RIGHTl 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."

I ordered a big breakfast for us-we had never had room

service before! While I took a shower,-he wrote a little more in the diary.

"HE DOESN'T KNOW WHY HE'S HERE, AND I DON'T DARE TELL HIM," Owen wrote. "/ DON'T KNOW WHY HE'S HERE-I JUST KNOW HE HAS TO BE HERE! BUT I DON'T EVEN 'KNOW' THAT-NOT ANYMORE. IT DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE! WHERE IS VIETNAM-IN ALL OF THIS? WHERE ARE THOSE POOR CHILDREN? WAS IT JUST A TERRIBLE DREAM? AM I SIMPLY CRAZY? IS TOMORROW JUST ANOTHER DAY?"

"So," I said-while we were eating breakfast. "What do you want to do today?"

He smiled at me. "IT DOESN'T MATTER WHAT WE DO-LET'S JUST HAVE A GOOD TIME," said Owen Meany. We inquired at the front desk about where we could play basketball; Owen wanted to practice the shot, of course, and-especially in the staggering midday heat-I thought that a gym would be a nice, cool place to spend a couple of hours. We were sure that Major Rawls could gain us access to the athletic facilities at Arizona State; but we didn't want to spend the day with Rawls, and we didn't want to rent our own car and look for a place to play basketball on our own. The guy at the front desk said: "This is a golf and tennis town."

"FT DOESN'T MATTER," Owen said. "I'M PRETTY SURE WE'VE PRACTICED THAT DUMB SHOT ENOUGH."

We tried to take a walk, but I declared that the heat would kill us. We ate a huge lunch on the patio by the swimming pool; we went in and out of the pool between courses, and when we finished the lunch, we kept drinking beer and cooling off in the pool. We had the place practically to ourselves; the waiters and the bartender kept looking at us-they must have thought we were crazy, or from another planet.

"WHERE ARE ALL THE PEOPLE?" Owen asked the bartender.

"We don't do a lot of business this time of year," the bartender said. "What business are you in?" he asked Owen.

"I'M IN THE DYING BUSINESS," said Owen Meany. Then we sat in the pool, laughing about how the dying business was not a seasonal thing. About the middle of the afternoon, Owen started playing what he called "THE REMEMBER GAME."

Owen asked me: "DO YOU REMEMBER THE FIRST TIME YOU MET MISTER FISH?"

I said I couldn't remember-it seemed to me that Mr. Fish had always been there.

"I KNOW WHAT YOU MEAN," Owen said. "DO YOU REMEMBER WHAT YOUR MOTHER WAS WEARING WHEN WE BURIED SAGAMORE?"

I couldn't remember. "IT WAS THAT BLACK V-NECK SWEATER, AND THOSE GRAY FLANNEL SLACKS-OR MAYBE IT WAS A LONG, GRAY SKIRT," he said.

"I don't think she had a long, gray skirt," I said.

"I THINK YOU'RE RIGHT," he said. "DO YOU REMEMBER DAN'S OLD SPORTS JACKET-THE ONE THAT LOOKED LIKE IT WAS MADE OF CARROTS!"

"It was the color of his hair!" I said.

"THAT'S THE ONE!" said Owen Meany.

"Do you remember Mary Beth Baud's cow costumes?" I asked him.

"THEY WERE AN IMPROVEMENT ON THE TURTLEDOVES," he said. "DO YOU REMEMBER THOSESTUPID TURTLEDOVES?"

"Do you remember when Barb Wiggin gave you a hard-on?" I asked him.

"I REMEMBER WHEN GERMAINE GAVE YOU A HARD-ON!" he said.

"Do you remember your first hard-on?" I asked him. We were both silent. I imagined that Hester had given me my first hard-on, and I didn't want to tell Owen that; and I imagined that my mother might have given Owen his first hard-on, which was probably why he wasn't answering. Finally, he said: "IT'S LIKE WHAT YOU SAY ABOUT MISTER FISH-I THINK I ALWAYS HAD A HARD-ON."

"Do you remember Amanda Dowling?" I asked him.

"DON'T GIVE ME THE SHIVERS!" he said. "DO YOU REMEMBER THE GAME WITH THE ARMADILLO?"

"Of course!" I said. "Do you remember when Maureen Early wet her pants?"

"SHE WET THEM TWICEl" he said. "DO YOU REMEMBER YOUR GRANDMOTHER WAILING LIKE A BANSHEE?"

"I'll never forget it," I said. "Do you remember when you

untied the rope in the quarry-when you hid yourself, when we were swimming?"

"YOU LET ME DROWN-YOU LET ME DIE," he said. We ate dinner by the pool; we drank beer in the pool until long after midnight-when the bartender informed us that he was not permitted to serve us anymore.

"You're not supposed to be drinking while you're actually in the pool, anyway," he said. "You might drown. And I'm supposed to go home," he said.

"EVERYTHING'S LIKE IN THE ARMY," Owen said. "RULES, RULES, RULES."

So we took a six-pack of beer and a bucket of ice back to our room; we watched The Late Show, and then The Late, Late Show-while we tried to remember all the movies we'd ever seen. I was so drunk I don't remember what movies we saw in Phoenix that night. Owen Meany was so drunk that he fell asleep in the bathtub; he'd gotten into the bathtub because he said he missed sitting in the swimming pool. But then he couldn't watch the movie-not from the bathtub-and so he'd insisted that I describe the movie to him.

"Now she's kissing his photograph!" I called out to him.

"WHICH ONE IS KISSING HIS PHOTOGRAPH-THE BLOND ONE?" he asked. "WHICH PHOTOGRAPH?"

I went on describing the movie until I heard him snoring. Then I let the water out of the bath, and I lifted him up and out of the tub-he was so light, he was nothing to lift. I dried him off with a towel; he didn't wake up. He was mumbling hi his drunken sleep.

"I KNOW YOU'RE HERE FOR A REASON," he said. When I tucked him into his bed, he blinked open his eyes and said: "O GOD-WHY HASN'T MY VOICE CHANGED, WHY DID YOU GIVE ME SUCH A VOICE? THERE MUST BE A REASON." Then he shut his eyes and said: "WATA-HANTOWET."

When I got into my bed and turned out the light, I said good night to him.

"Good night, Owen," I said.

"DON'T BE AFRAID. NOTHING BAD IS GOING TO HAPPEN TO YOU," said Owen Meany. "YOUR FATHER'S NOT THAT BAD A GUY," he said. When I woke up in the morning, I had a terrible hangover; Owen was already awake-he was writing in the diary. That was his last entry-that was when he wrote: "TODAY'S THE DAY!'. . . HE THAT BELIEVETH IN ME, THOUGH HE WERE DEAD, YET SHALL HE LIVE; AND WHOSOEVER LIVETH AND BELIEVETH IN ME SHALL NEVER DIE.' "

It was Monday, July , -die date he had seen on Scrooge's grave. Major Rawls picked us up at our motel and drove us to die airport-to die so-called Sky Harbor. I thought that Rawls behaved oddly out of character-he wasn't at all talkative, he just mumbled something about having had a "bad date"-but Owen had told me that die major was very moody.

"HE'S NOT A BAD GUY-HE JUST KNOWS HIS SHIP ISN'T EVER GOING TO COME IN," Owen had said about Rawls. "HE'S OLD-FASHIONED, BROWN-SHOE ARMY --HE LIKES TO PRETEND HE'S HAD NO EDUCATION, BUT ALL HE DOES IS READ; HE WON'T EVEN GO TO THE MOVIES. AND HE NEVER TALKS ABOUT VIETNAM-JUST SOME CRYPTIC SHIT ABOUT HOW THE ARMY DIDN'T PREPARE HIM TO KILL WOMEN AND CHILDREN, OR TO BE KILLED BY THEM. FOR WHATEVER REASON, HE DIDN'T MAKE LIEUTENANT COLONEL; HIS TWENTY YEARS IN THE ARMY ARE ALMOST UP, AND HE'S BITTER ABOUT IT--HE'S JUST A MAJOR. HE'S NOT EVEN FORTY AND HE'S ABOUT TO BE RETIRED."

Major Rawls complained that we were going to die airport too early; my flight to Boston didn't leave for another two hours. Owen had booked no special flight to Tucson- apparently, mere were frequent flights from Phoenix to Tucson, and Owen was going to wait until I left; then he'd take die next available plane.

"There are better places to hang around than this fucking airport," Major Rawls complained.

"YOU DON'T HAVE TO HANG AROUND WITH US-SIR," said Owen Meany. But Rawls didn't want to be alone; he didn't feel like talking, but he wanted company-or else he didn't know what he wanted. He wandered into the game room and hustled a few young recruits into playing pinball widi him. When they found out he'd been in Vietnam, diey pestered him for stories; all he would tell diem was: "It's an asshole war-and you're assholes if you want to be diere."

Major Rawls pointed Owen out to the recruits. "You want to go to Vietnam?'' he said. "Go talk to him-go see that little lieutenant. He's another asshole who wants to go there."

Most of the new recruits were on their way to Fort Huachuca; their hair was cut so short, you could see scabs from the razor nicks-most of them who were assigned to Fort Huachuca would probably be on orders to Vietnam soon.

"They look like babies," I said to Owen.

"BABIES FIGHT THE WARS," said Owen Meany; he told the young recruits that he thought they'd like Fort Huachuca. "THE SUN SHINES ALL THE TIME," he told them, "AND IT'S NOT AS HOT AS IT IS HERE." He kept looking at his watch.

"We have plenty of time," I told him, and he smiled at me-that old smile with the mild pity and the mild contempt in it. Some planes landed; other planes took off. Some of the recruits left for Fort Huachuca. "Aren't you coming, sir?" they asked Owen Meany.

"LATER," he told them. "I'LL SEE YOU LATER."

Fresh recruits arrived, and Major Rawls went on making a killing-he was a pro at pinball. I complained about the extent of my hangover; Owen must have had a worse hangover-or one at least as bad as mine-but I imagine, now, that he was savoring it; he knew it was his last hangover. Then the confusion would return to him, and he must have felt that he knew absolutely nothing. He sat beside me and I could see him changing-from nervousness to depression, from fear to elation. I thought it was his hangover; but one minute he must have been thinking, "MAYBE IT HAPPENS ON THE AIRPLANE." Then in another minute, he must have said to himself: "THERE ARE NO CHILDREN. I DON'T EVEN HAVE TO GO TO VIETNAM-I CAN STILL GET OUT OF IT."

In the airport, he said to me-out of the blue: "YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE A GENIUS TO OUTSMART THE ARMY."

I didn't know what he was talking about, but I said: "I suppose not."

In another minute, he must have been thinking: "IT WAS JUST A CRAZY DREAM! WHO THE FUCK KNOWS WHAT GOD KNOWS? I OUGHT TO SEE A PSYCHIATRIST!"

Then he would stand up and pace; he would look around for the children; he was looking for his killer. He kept glancing at his watch. When they announced my flight to Boston-it was scheduled to depart in half an hour-Owen was grinning ear-to-ear. "THIS MAY BE THE HAPPIEST DAY OF MY LIFE!" he said. "MAYBE NOTHING'S GOING TO HAPPEN!"

"I think you're still drunk," I told him. "Wait till you get to the hangover."

A plane had just landed; it had arrived from somewhere on the West Coast, and it taxied into view. I heard Owen Meany gasp beside me, and I turned to look where he was looking.

"What's the matter with you?" I asked him. "They're just penguins."

The nuns-there were two of them-were meeting someone on the plane from the West Coast; they stood at the gate to the runway. The first people off the plane were also nuns-two more. The nuns waved to each other. When the children emerged from the airplane-they were closely following the nuns-Owen Meany said: "HERE THEY ARE!"

Even from the runway gate, I could see that they were Asian children-one of the nuns leaving the plane was an Oriental, too. There were about a dozen kids; only two of them were small enough to be carried-one of the nuns carried one of the kids, and one of the older children carried the other little one. They were both boys and girls-the average age was maybe five or six, but there were a couple of kids who were twelve or thirteen. They were Vietnamese orphans; they were refugee children. Many military units sponsored orphanages in Vietnam; many of the troops donated their time-as well as what gifts they could solicit from home-to help the kids. There was no official government-sponsored refugee program to relocate Vietnamese children-not before the fall of Saigon in April, -but certain churches were active in Vietnam throughout the course of the war. Catholic Relief Services, for example; the Catholic Relief groups were responsible for escorting orphans out of Vietnam and relocating them in the United States-as early as the mid-sixties. Once in the United States, the orphans would be met by social workers from the archdiocese or diocese of the particular city of their arrival. The Lutherans were also involved in sponsoring the relocation of Vietnamese orphans. The children that Owen Meany and I saw hi Phoenix were

being escorted by nuns from Catholic Relief Services; they were being delivered into the charge of nuns from the Phoenix Archdiocese, who would take them to new homes, and new families, in Arizona. Owen and I could see that the children were anxious about it. If the heat was no shock to them-for it was certainly very hot where they'd come from-the desert and the hugeness of the sky and the moonscape of Phoenix must have overwhelmed them. They held each other's hands and stayed together, circling very closely around the nuns. One of the little boys was crying. When they came into the Sky Harbor terminal, the blast of air conditioning instantly chilled them; they were cold-they hugged themselves and rubbed their arms. The little boy who was crying tried to wrap himself up in the habit of one of the nuns. They all milled around in lost confusion, and-from the game room-the young recruits with their shaved heads stared out at them. The children stared back at the soldiers; they were used to soldiers, of course. As the kids and the recruits stared back and forth at each other, you could sense the mixed feelings. Owen Meany was as jumpy as a mouse. One of the nuns spoke to him.

"Officer?" she said.

"YES, MA'AM-HOW MAY I HELP YOU?" he said quickly.

"Some of the boys need to find a men's room," the nun said; one of the younger nuns tittered.' 'We can take the girls," the first nun said, "but if you'd be so kind-if you'd just go with the boys."

"YES, MA'AM-I'D BE HAPPY TO HELP THE CHILDREN," said Owen Meany.

"Wait till you see the so-called men's room," I told Owen; I led the way. Owen just concentrated on the children. There were seven boys; the nun who was also Vietnamese accompanied us-she carried the smallest boy. The boy who was crying had stopped as soon as he saw Owen Meany. All the children watched Owen closely; they had seen many soldiers-yes-but they had never seen a soldier who was almost as small as they were! They never took their eyes off him. On we marched-when we passed by the game room, Major Rawls had his back to us; he didn't see us. Rawls was humping the pinball machine in a fury. In the mouth of a corridor I'd walked down before-it led nowhere-we marched past Dick Jarvits, the tall, lunatic brother of the dead warrant officer, standing in the shadows. He wore the jungle fatigues; he was strapped up with an extra cartridge belt or two. Although it was dark in the corridor, he wore the kind of sunglasses that must have melted on his brother's face when the helicopter had caught fire. Because he was wearing sunglasses, I couldn't tell if Dick saw Owen or me or the children; but from the gape of his open mouth, I concluded that something Dick had just seen had surprised him. The "Men's Temporary Facilities" were the same as I had left them. The same mops and pails were there, and the unhung mirror still leaned against the wall. The vast mystery sink confused the children; one of them tried to pee in it, but I pointed him in the direction of the crowded urinal. One of the children considered peeing in a pail, but I showed him the toilet in the makeshift, plywood stall. Owen Meany, the good soldier, stood under the window; he watched the door. Occasionally, he would glance above him, sizing up the deep window ledge below the casement window. Owen looked especially small standing under that window, because the window ledge was at least ten feet high-it towered above him. The nun was waiting for her charges, just outside the door. I helped one of the children unzip his fly; the child seemed unfamiliar with a zipper. The children all jabbered in Vietnamese; the small, high-ceilinged room-like a coffin standing upright on one end-echoed with their voices. I've already said how slow I am; it wasn't until I heard their shrill, foreign voices that I remembered Owen's dream. I saw him watching the door, his arms hanging loosely at his sides.

"What's wrong?" I said to him.

"STAND BESIDE ME," he said. I was moving toward him when the door was kicked wide open and Dick Jarvits stood there, nearly as tall and thin as the tall, thin room; he held a Chicom grenade-carefully-in both hands.

"HELLO, DICK," said Owen Meany.

"You little twitl" Dick said. One of the children screamed; I suppose they'd all seen men in jungle fatigues before-I think that the little boy who screamed had seen a Chicom grenade before, too. Two or three of the children began to cry.

"DOONG SA," Owen Meany told them. "DON'T BE AFRAID," Owen told the children. "DOONG SA, DOONG SA," he said. It was not only because he spoke their language; it was his voice that compelled the children to listen to him-it was a voice like their voices. That was why they trusted him, why they listened. "DOONG SA," he said, and they stopped crying.

"It's just the place for you to die," Dick said to Owen. "With all these little gooks-with these little dinksV Dick said.

' 'NAM SOON!'' Owen told the children.' 'NAM SOONl LIE DOWN!" Even the littlest boy understood him. "LIE DOWN!" Owen told them. "NAM SOON! NAM SOON!" All the children threw themselves on the floor-they covered their ears, they shut their eyes.

"NOW I KNOW WHY MY VOICE NEVER CHANGES," Owen said to me. "DO YOU SEE WHY?" he asked me.

"Yes," I said.

"WE'LL HAVE JUST FOUR SECONDS," Owen told me calmly. "YOU'LL NEVER GET TO VIETNAM, DICK," Owen told the terrible, tall boy-who ripped the fuse cord and tossed the bottle-shaped grenade, end over end, right to me.

"Think fast-Mister Fuckin' Intelligence Man!" Dick said. I caught the grenade, although it wasn't as easy to handle as a basketball-I was lucky. I looked at Owen, who was already moving toward me.

"READY?" he said; I passed him the Chicom grenade and opened my arms to catch him. He jumped so lightly into my hands; I lifted him up-as easily as I had always lifted him. After all: I had been practicing lifting up Owen Meany- forever. The nun who'd been waiting for the children outside the door of the "Men's Temporary Facilities"-she hadn't liked the looks of Dick; she'd run off to get the other soldiers. It was Major Rawls who caught Dick running away from the temporary men's room.

"What have you done, you fuck-face?" the major screamed at Dick. Dick had drawn the bayonet. Major Rawls seized Dick's machete-Rawls broke Dick's neck with one blow, with the dull edge of the blade. I'd sensed that there was something more bitter than anger in the major's uncommon, lake-green eyes; maybe it was just his contact lenses, but Rawls hadn't won a battlefield commission in Korea for nothing. He may not have been prepared to kill an unfortunate, fifteen-year-old boy; but Major Rawls was even less prepared to be killed by such a kid, who-as Rawls had said to Owen-was (at least on this earth) "beyond saving."

When Owen Meany said "READY?" I figured we had about two seconds left to live. But he soared far above my arms-when I lifted him, he soared even higher than usual; he wasn't taking any chances. He went straight up, never turning to face me, and instead of merely dropping the grenade and leaving it on the window ledge, he caught hold of the ledge with both hands, pinning the grenade against the ledge and trapping it there safely with his hands and forearms. He wanted to be sure that the grenade couldn't roll off the ledge and fall back in the room. He could just manage to wriggle his head-his whole head, thank God-below the window ledge. He clung there for less than a second. Then the grenade detonated; it made a shattering "crack!"- like lightning when it strikes too close to you. There was a high-velocity projection of fragments-the fragmentation is usually distributed in a uniform pattern (this is what Major Rawls explained to me, later), but the cement window ledge prevented any fragments from reaching me or the children. What hit us was all the stuff that ricocheted off the ceiling- there was a sharp, stinging hail that rattled like BB's around the room, and all the chips of cement and tile, and the plaster debris, fell down upon us. The window was blown out, and there was an instant, acrid, burning stink. Major Rawls, who had just killed Dick, flung the door open and jammed a mop handle into the hinge assembly-to keep the door open. We needed the air. The children were holding their ears and crying; some of them were bleeding from their ears-that was when I noticed that my ears were bleeding, too, and that I couldn't actually hear anything. I knew-from their faces-that the children were crying, and I knew from looking at Major Rawls that he was trying to tell me to do something. What does he want me to do? I wondered, listening to the pain in my ears. Then the nuns were moving among the children-all the children were moving, thank God; they were more than moving, they were grasping each other, they were tugging the habits of the nuns, and they were pointing to the torn-apart ceiling of the coffin-shaped room, and the smoking black hole above the window ledge.

Major Rawls was shaking me by my shoulders; I tried to read die major's lips because I still couldn't hear him. The children were looking all around; they were pointing up and down and everywhere. I began to look around with them. Now the nuns were also looking. Then my ears cleared; there was a popping or a ripping sound, as if my ears were late in echoing die explosion, and then the children's voices were jabbering, and I heard what Major Rawls was screaming at me while he shook me.

"Where is he? Where is Owen?" Major Rawls was screaming. I looked up at the black hole, where I'd last seen him clinging. One of the children was staring into the vast sink; one of the nuns looked into die sink, too-she crossed herself, and Major Rawls and I moved quickly to assist her. But die nun didn't need our help; Owen was so light, even die nun could lift him. She picked him up, out of die sink, as she might have picked up one of die children; then she didn't know what to do with him. Another nun kneeled in die bomb litter on die floor; she settled back on her haunches and spread her habit smoodily across her thighs, and die nun who held Owen in her arms rested his head in die lap of die sister who'd thus arranged herself on die floor. The diird and fourth nuns tried to calm die children-to make diem move away from him-but die children crowded around Owen; they were all crying.

"DOONG SA-DON'T BE AFRAID," he told them, and they stopped crying. The girl orphans had gathered hi die doorway. Major Rawls removed his necktie and tried to apply a tourniquet-just above die elbow of one of Owen's arms. I removed Owen's tie and tried to apply a tourniquet-in the same fashion-to his other arm. Both of Owen Meany's arms were missing-they were severed just below his elbows, perhaps three quarters of die way up his forearms; but he'd not begun to bleed too badly, not yet. A doctor told me later that-in the first moments-die arteries in his arms would have gone into spasm; he was bleeding, but not as much as you might expect from such a violent amputation. The tissue that hung from die stumps of his arms was as filmy and delicate as gossamer-as fine and intricate as old lace. Nowhere else was he injured. Then his arms began to bleed more; the tighter Major Rawls and I applied our tourniquets, die more Owen bled.

"Go get someone," the major told one of the nuns.

"NOW I KNOW WHY YOU HAD TO BE HERE," Owen said to me. "DO YOU SEE WHY?" he asked me.

"Yes," I said.

"REMEMBER ALL OUR PRACTICING?" he asked me.

"I remember," I said. Owen tried to raise his hands; he tried to reach out to me with his arms-I think he wanted to touch me. That was when he realized that his arms were gone. He didn't seem surprised by the discovery.

"REMEMBER WATAHANTOWET?" he asked me.

"I remember," I said. Then he smiled at the "penguin" who was trying to make him comfortable in her lap; her wimple was covered with his blood, and she had wrapped as much of her habit around him as she could manage-because he was shivering.

" '. . . WHOSOEVER LIVETH AND BELIEVETH IN ME SHALL NEVER DIE,' " Owen said to her. The nun nodded in agreement; she made the sign of the cross over him. Then Owen smiled at Major Rawls. "PLEASE SEE TO IT THAT I GET SOME KIND OF MEDAL FOR THIS," he asked the major, who bowed his head-and cranked his tourniquet tighter. There was only the briefest moment, when Owen looked stricken-something deeper and darker than pain crossed over his face, and he said to the nun who held him: "I'M AWFULLY COLD, SISTER-CAN'T YOU DO SOMETHING?" Then whatever had troubled him passed over him completely, and he smiled again-he looked at us all with his old, infuriating smile. Then he looked only at me. "YOU'RE GETTING SMALLER, BUT I CAN STILL SEE YOU!" said Owen Meany. Then he left us; he was gone. I could tell by his almost cheerful expression that he was at least as high as the palm trees. Major Rawls saw to it that Owen Meany got a medal. I was asked to make an eyewitness report, but Major Rawls was instrumental in pushing the proper paperwork through the military chain of command. Owen Meany was awarded the so-called Soldier's Medal: "For heroism that involves the voluntary risk of life under conditions other than those of conflict with an opposing armed force." According to Major Rawls, the Sol-

dier's Medal rates above the Bronze Star but below the Legion of Merit. Naturally, it didn't matter very much to me-exactly where the medal was rated-but I think Rawls was right in assuming that the medal mattered to Owen Meany. Major Rawls did not attend Owen's funeral. When I spoke on the telephone with him, Rawls was apologetic about not making the trip to New Hampshire; but I assured him that I completely understood his feelings. Major Rawls had seen his share of flag-draped caskets; he had seen his share of heroes, too. Major Rawls never knew everything that Owen had known; the major knew only that Owen had been a hero-he didn't know that Owen Meany had been a miracle, too. There's a prayer I say most often for Owen. It's one of the little prayers he said for my mother, the night Hester and I found him in the cemetery-where he'd brought the flashlight, because he knew how my mother had hated the darkness.

" 'INTO PARADISE MAY THE ANGELS LEAD YOU,' " he'd said over my mother's grave; and so I say that one for him-I know it was one of his favorites. I am always saying prayers for Owen Meany. And I often try to imagine how I might have answered Mary Beth Baird, when she spoke to me-at Owen's burial. If I could have spoken, if I hadn't lost my voice-what would I have said to her, how could I have answered her? Poor Mary Beth Baird! I left her standing in the cemetery without an answer.

"Do you remember how we used to lift him up?" she'd asked me. "He was so easy to lift up!" Mary Beth Baird had said to me. "He was so light-he weighed nothing at all! How could he have been so light?" the former Virgin Mother had asked me. I could have told her that it was only our illusion that Owen Meany weighed "nothing at all." We were only children-we are only children-I could have told her. What did we ever know about Owen? What did we truly know? We had the impression that everything was a game-we thought we made everything up as we went along. When we were children, we had the impression that almost everything was just for fun-no harm intended, no damage done. When we held Owen Meany above our heads, when we passed him back and forth-so effortlessly-we believed that Owen weighed nothing at all. We did not realize that there were forces beyond our play. Now I know they were the forces that contributed to our illusion of Owen's weightlessness; they were the forces we didn't have the faith to feel, they were the forces we failed to believe in-and they were also lifting up Owen Meany, taking him out of our hands. O God-please give him back! I shall keep asking You. ABOUT THE AUTHOR John Winslow Irving was born in Exeter, New Hampshire, in ; he was graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy, where he was captain of the wrestling team. He is the author of six previous novels, including THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP, THE HOTEL NEW HAMPSHIRE, and THE CIDER "HOUSE RULES. Mr. Irving lives in Toronto and eastern Long Island.