A prayer for Owen Meany: a novel

LITTLE LORD JESUS

THE FIRST CHRISTMAS following my mother's death was the first Christmas I didn't spend in Sawyer Depot. My grandmother told Aunt Martha and Uncle Alfred that if the family were all together, my mother's absence would be too apparent. If Dan and Grandmother and I were alone in Gravesend, and if the Eastmans were alone in Sawyer Depot, my grandmother argued that we would all miss each other; then, she reasoned, we wouldn't miss my mother so much. Ever since the Christmas of ', have felt that the yuletide is a special hell for those families who have suffered any loss or who must admit to any imperfection; the so-called spirit of giving can be as greedy as receiving-Christmas is our time to be aware of what we lack, of who's not home. Dividing my time between my grandmother's house on Front Street and the abandoned dormitory where Dan had his small apartment also gave me my first impressions of Graves-end Academy at Christmas, when all the boarders had gone home. The bleak brick and stone, the ivy frosted with snow, the dormitories and classroom buildings with their windows all closed-with a penitentiary sameness-gave the campus the aura of a prison enduring a hunger strike; and without the students hurrying on the quadrangle paths, the bare, bone-colored birches stood out in black-and-white against the snow, like charcoal drawings of themselves, or skeletons of the alumni. The ringing of the chapel bell, and the bell for class hours, was suspended; and so my mother's absence was underlined by the absence of Gravesend's most routine music, the academy chimes I'd taken for granted-until I couldn't hear them. There was only the solemn, hourly bonging of the great clock in the bell tower of Kurd's Church; especially on the most brittle-cold days of December, and against the landscape of old snow-thawed and refrozen to the dull, silver-gray sheen of pewter-the clock-bell of Kurd's Church tolled the time like a death knell.

'Twas not the season to be jolly-although dear Dan Needham tried. Dan drank too much, and he filled the empty, echoing dormitory with his strident caroling; his rendition of the Christmas carols was quite painfully a far cry from my mother's singing. And whenever Owen would join Dan for a verse of' 'God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen," or-worse-' 'It Came Upon the Midnight Clear," the old stone stairwells of Dan's dorm resounded with a dirgeful music that was not at all Christmasy but strictly mournful; they were the voices of the ghosts of those Gravesend boys unable to go home for Christmas, singing to their faraway families. The Gravesend dormitories were named after the long-ago, dead-and-buried faculty and headmasters of the school: Abbot, Amen, Bancroft, Dunbar, Oilman, Gorham, Hooper, Lambert, Perkins, Porter, Quincy, Scott. Dan Needham lived in Water-house Hall, so named for some deceased curmudgeon of a classicist, a Latin teacher named Amos Waterhouse, whose rendering of Christmas carols in Latin-I was sure-could not have been worse than the gloomy muddle made of them by Dan and Owen Meany. Grandmother's response to my mother being dead for Christmas was to refuse to participate in the seasonal decoration of Front Street; the wreaths were nailed too low on the doors, and the bottom half of the Christmas tree was overhung with tinsel and ornaments-the result of Lydia applying her heavy-handed touch at wheelchair level.

"We'd all have been better off in Sawyer Depot," Dan Needham announced, in his cups. Owen sighed. "I GUESS I'LL NEVER GET TO GO TO SAWYER DEPOT," he said morosely. Where Owen and I went instead was into every room of every boy who'd gone home for Christmas from Waterhouse

Hall; Dan Needham had a master key. Almost every afternoon, Dan rehearsed The Gravesend Players for their annual version of A Christmas Carol; it was becoming old hat for many of the players, but-to freshen their performances-Dan made them change roles from one Christmas to the next. Hence, Mr. Fish, who one year had been Marley's Ghost-and another year, the Ghost of Christmas Past-was now Scrooge himself. After years of using conventionally adorable children who muffed their lines, Dan had begged Owen to be Tiny Tim, but Owen said that everyone would laugh at him-if not on sight, at least when he first spoke-and besides: Mrs. Walker was playing Tiny Tim's mother. That, Owen, claimed, would give him THE SHIVERS. It was bad enough, Owen maintained, that he was subject to seasonal ridicule for the role he played in the Christ Church Christmas Pageant. "JUST YOU WAIT," he said darkly to me. "THE WIGGINS ARE NOT GOING TO MAKE ME THE STUPID ANGEL AGAIN!"

It would be my first Christmas pageant, since I was usually in Sawyer Depot for the last Sunday before Christmas; but Owen repeatedly complained that he was always cast as the Announcing Angel-a role forced upon him by the Rev. Captain Wiggin and his stewardess wife, Barbara, who maintained that there was "no one cuter" for the part than Owen, whose chore it was to descend-in a' 'pillar of light'' (with the substantial assistance of a cranelike apparatus to which he was attached, with wires, like a puppet). Owen was supposed to announce the wondrous new presence that lay in the manger in Bethlehem, all the while flapping his arms (to draw attention to the giant wings glued to his choir robe, and to attempt to quiet the giggles of the congregation). Every year, a grim group of shepherds huddled at the communion railing and displayed their cowardice to God's Holy Messenger; a motley crew, they tripped on their robes and knocked off each other's turbans and false beards with their staffs and shepherding crooks. Barb Wiggin had difficulty locating them in the "pillar of light," while simultaneously illuminating the Descending Angel, Owen Meany. Reading from Luke, the rector said, " 'And in that region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with/ear.' " Whereupon, Mr. Wiggin paused for the full effect of the shepherds cringing at the sight of Owen struggling to get his feet on the floor-Barb Wiggin operated the creaky apparatus that lowered Owen, too, placing him dangerously near the lit candles that simulated the campfires around which the shepherds watched their flock.

" 'BE NOT AFRAID,' " Owen announced, while still struggling in the air; " 'FOR BEHOLD, I BRING YOU GOOD NEWS OF A GREAT JOY WHICH WILL COME TO ALL THE PEOPLE; FOR TO YOU IS BORN THIS DAY IN THE CITY OF DAVID A SAVIOR, WHO IS CHRIST THE LORD. AND THIS WILL BE A SIGN FOR YOU: YOU WILL FIND A BABE WRAPPED IN SWADDLING CLOTHES AND LYING IN A MANGER.' " Whereupon, the dazzling, if jerky, "pillar of light" flashed, like lightning, or perhaps Christ Church suffered an electrical surge, and Owen was raised into darkness-sometimes, yanked into darkness; and once, so quickly that one of his wings was torn from his back and fell among the confused shepherds. The worst of it was that Owen had to remain in the air for the rest of the pageant-there being no method of lowering him out of the light. If he was to be concealed in darkness, he had to stay suspended from the wires-above the babe lying in the manger, above the clumsy, nodding donkeys, the stumbling shepherds, and the unbalanced kings staggering under the weight of their crowns. An additional evil, Owen claimed, was that whoever played Joseph was always smirking-as if Joseph had anything to smirk about. "WHAT DOES JOSEPH HAVE TO DO WITH ANY OF IT?" Owen asked crossly. "I SUPPOSE HE HAS TO STAND AROUND THE MANGER, BUT HE SHOULDN'T SMIRK!" And always the prettiest girl got to play Mary. "WHAT DOES PRETTY HAVE TO DO WITH IT?" Owen asked. "WHO SAYS MARY WAS PRETTY?"

And the individual touches that the Wiggins brought to the Christmas Pageant reduced Owen to incoherent fuming-for example, the smaller children disguised as turtledoves. The costumes were so absurd that no one knew what these children were supposed to be; they resembled science-fiction angels, spectacular life-forms from another galaxy, as if the Wiggins had decided that the Holy Nativity had been attended by beings

A PRAYER FOR OWEN ME ANY from faraway planets (or should have been so attended). "NOBODY KNOWS WHAT THE STUPID TURTLEDOVES ARE!" Owen complained. As for the Christ Child himself, Owen was outraged. The Wiggins insisted that the Baby Jesus not shed a tear, and in this pursuit they were relentless in gathering dozens of babies backstage; they substituted babies so freely that the Christ Child was whisked from the manger at the first unholy croak or gurgle-instantly replaced by a mute baby, or at least a stuporous one. For this chore of supplying a fresh, silent baby to the manger-in an instant-an extended line of ominous-looking grown-ups reached into the shadows beyond the pulpit, behind the purple-and-maroon curtains, under the cross. These large and sure-handed adults, deft at baby-handling, or at least certain not to drop a quickly moving Christ Child, were strangely out of place at the Nativity. Were they kings or shepherds-and why were they so much bigger than the other kings and shepherds, if not exactly larger than life? Their costumes were childish, although some of their beards were real, and they appeared less to relish the spirit of Christmas man they seemed resigned to their task-like a bucket brigade of volunteer firemen. Backstage, the mothers fretted; the competition for the most properly behaved Christ Child was keen. Every Christmas, in addition to the Baby Jesus, the Wiggins' pageant gave birth to many new members of that most monstrous sorority: stage mothers. I told Owen that perhaps he was better off to be "above" these proceedings, but Owen hinted that I and other members of our Sunday school class were at least partially responsible for his humiliating elevation-for hadn't we been the first to lift Owen into the air? Mrs. Walker, Owen suggested, might have given Barb Wiggin the idea of using Owen as the airborne angel. It's no wonder that Owen was not tickled by Dan's notion of casting him as Tiny Tim. "WHENISAY, 'BENOT AFRAID; FOR BEHOLD, I BRING YOU GOOD NEWS,' ALL THE BABIES CRY AND EVERYONE ELSE LAUGHS. WHAT DO YOU THINK THEY'LL DO IF I SAY, 'GOD BLESS US, EVERY ONE!'?"

It was his voice, of course; he could have said, "HERE COMES THE END OF THE WORLD!" People still would have fallen down, laughing. It was torture to Owen that he was without much humor-he was only serious-while at the same time he had a chiefly comic effect on the multitude. No wonder he commenced worrying about the Christmas Pageant as early as the end of November, for in the service bulletin of the Last Sunday After Pentecost there was already an announcement, "How to Participate in the Christmas Pageant." The first rehearsal was scheduled after the Annual Parish Meeting and the Vestry elections-almost at the beginning of our Christmas vacation. ' 'What would you like to be?'' the sappy bulletin asked. "We need kings, angels, shepherds, donkeys, turtledoves, Mary, Joseph, babies, and morel"

" 'FATHER, FORGIVE THEM; FOR THEY KNOW NOT WHAT THEY DO,' " Owen said. Grandmother was testy about our playing at Front Street; it's no wonder that Owen and I sought the solitude of Waterhouse Hall. With Dan out of the dorm in the afternoons, Owen and I had the place almost to ourselves. There were four floors of boys' rooms, the communal showers and urinals and crapper stalls on every floor, and one faculty apartment at the end of the hall on each floor, too. Dan's apartment was on the third floor. The second-floor faculty occupant had gone home for Christmas-like one of the boys himself, young Mr. Peabody, a fledgling Math instructor, and a bachelor not likely to improve upon his single status, was what my mother had called a "Nervous Nelly." He was fastidious and timid and easily teased by the boys on his floor; on the nights he was given dorm duty-for the entire four floors-Waterhouse Hall seethed with revolution. It was during an evening of Mr. Peabody's duty that a first-year boy was dangled by his heels from the yawning portal of the fourth-floor laundry chute; his muffled howls echoed through the dorm, and Mr. Peabody, opening the laundry portal on the second floor, was shocked to peer two floors up and see the youngster's screaming face looking down at him. Mr. Peabody reacted in a fashion that could have been imitated from Mrs. Walker. "Van Arsdale!" he shouted upward. "Get out of the laundry chute! Get a grip on yourself, man! Get your feet on the floor!"

He never dreamed, poor Mr. Peabody, that Van Arsdale was held fast at both ankles by two brutal linemen from the Gravesend football team; they tortured Van Arsdale daily.

So Mr. Peabody had gone home to his parents, which left the second floor free of faculty; and the Physical Education fanatic on the fourth floor-the track-and-field coach, Mr. Tubulari- was also away for Christmas, He was also a bachelor, and he had insisted on the fourth floor-for his health; he claimed to relish running upstairs. He had many female visitors; when they wore dresses or skirts, the boys loved to watch them ascending and descending the stairwell from one of the lower floors. The nights that Waterhouse Hall suffered his turn at dorm duty, the boys were very well behaved. Mr. Tubulari was fast and silent and thrived on catching boys "in the act"-in the act of anything: shaving-cream fights, smoking in their rooms, even masturbation. Each floor had a designated common room, a butt room, so-called, for the smokers; but smoking in the dorm rooms was forbidden-as was sex in any form, alcohol in any form, and drugs that had not been prescribed by the school physician. Mr. Tubulari even had reservations about aspirin. According to Dan, Mr. Tubulari was off competing in some grueling athletic event over Christmas-actually, a pentathlon of the harshest-possible wintertime activities; a "winterthon," Mr. Tubulari had called it. Dan Needham hated made-up words, and he became quite boisterous on the subject of what wintertime events Mr. Tubulari was competing in; the fanatic had gone to Alaska, or maybe Minnesota. Dan would entertain Owen and me by describing Mr. Tubulari's pentathlon, his "winterthon."

"The first event," Dan Needham said, "is something wholesome, like splitting a cord of wood-points off, if you break your ax. Then you have to run ten miles in deep snow, or snowshoe for thirty. Then you chop a hole in the ice, and-carrying your ax-swim a mile under a frozen lake, chopping your way out at the opposite shore. Then you build an igloo-to get warm. Then comes the dogsledding. You have to mush a team of dogs-from Anchorage to Chicago. Then you build another igloo-to rest."

"THAT'S SIX EVENTS," Owen said. "A PENTATHLON IS ONLY FIVE."

"So forget the second igloo," Dan Needham said.

"I WONDER WHAT MISTER TUBULARI DOES FOR NEW YEAR'S EVE," Owen said.

"Carrot juice," Dan said, fixing himself another whiskey. "Mister Tubulari makes his own carrot juice."

Anyway, Mr. Tubulari was gone. When Dan was out in the afternoons, Owen and I were in total control of the top three floors of Waterhouse Hall. As for the first floor, we had only the Brinker-Smiths to contend with, and they were no match for us-if we were quiet. A young British couple, the Brinker-Smiths had recently launched twins; they were entirely and, for the most part, cheerfully engaged in how to survive life with twins. Mr. Brinker-Smith, who was a biologist, also fancied himself an inventor; he invented a double-seater high chair, a double-seater stroller, a double-seater swing-the latter hung in a doorway, where the twins could dangle like monkeys on a vine, in close enough proximity to each other to pull each other's hair. In the double-seater high chair, they could throw food into each other's faces, and so Mr. Brinker-Smith improvised a wall between them-too high for them to throw their food over it. Yet the twins would knock at this wall, to assure themselves that the other was really there, and they would smear their food on the wall, almost as a form of finger painting-a preliterate communication among siblings. Mr. Brinker-Smith found the twins' methods of thwarting his various inventions "fascinating"; he was a true scientist-the failures of his experiments were almost as interesting to him as his successes, and his determination to press forward, with more and more twin-inspired inventions, was resolute. Mrs. Brinker-Smith, on the other hand, appeared a trifle tired. She was too pretty a woman to look harried; her exhaustion at the hands of her twins-and with Mr. Brinker-Smith's inventions for a better life with them-manifested itself in fits of distraction so pronounced that Owen and Dan and suspected her of sleepwalking. She literally did not notice us. Her name was Ginger, in reference to her fetching freckles and her strawberry-blond hair; she was an object of lustful fantasies for Gravesend boys, both before and after my time at the academy-given the need of Gravesend boys to indulge in lustful fantasies, I believe that Ginger Brinker-Smith was seen as a sex object even when she was pregnant with her twins. But for Owen and me-during the Christmas of '-Mrs. Brinker-Smith's appearance was only mildly alluring; she looked as if she slept in her clothes, and I'm sure she did. And her fabled voluptuousness, which I would later possess as firm a memory of as any Gravesend boy, was quite concealed by the great, loose blouses she wore-for such clothes, no doubt, enhanced the speed with which she could snap open her nursing bra. In

a European tradition, strangely enlarged by its travel to New Hampshire, she seemed intent on nursing the twins until they were old enough to go to school by themselves. The Brinker-Smiths were big on nursing, as was evidenced by Mr. Brinker-Smith's demonstrative use of his wife in his biology classes. A well-liked teacher, of liberal methods not universally favored by the stodgier Gravesend faculty, Mr. Brinker-Smith enjoyed all opportunities to bring "life," as he called it, into the classroom. This included the eye-opening spectacle of Ginger Brinker-Smith nursing the twins, an experience-sadly-that was wasted on the biology students of Gravesend, in that it happened biefore Owen and I were old enough to attend the academy. Anyway, Owen and I were not fearful of interference from the Brinker-Smiths while we investigated the boys' rooms on the first floor of Waterhouse Hall; in fact, we were disappointed to see so little of the Brinker-Smiths over that Christmas- because we imagined that we might be rewarded with a glimpse of Ginger Brinker-Smith in the act of nursing. We even, occasionally, lingered in the first-floor hall-in the faraway hope that Mr. Brinker-Smith might open the door to his apartment, see Owen and me standing there, clearly with nothing educational to do, and therefore invite us forthwith into his apartment so that we could watch his wife nurse the twins. Alas, he did not. One icy day, Owen and I accompanied Mrs. Brinker-Smith to market, taking turns pushing the bundled-up twins in their double-seater-and even carrying the groceries into the Brinker-Smith apartment, after a trip in such inclement weather that it might have qualified as a fifth of Mr. Tubulari's winter pentathlon. But did Mrs. Brinker-Smith bring forth her breasts and volunteer to nurse the twins in front of us? Alas, she did not. Thus Owen and I were left to discover what Gravesend prep-school boys kept in their rooms when they went home for Christmas. We took Dan Needham's master key from the hook by the kitchen can opener; we began with the fourth-floor rooms. Owen's excitement with our detective work was intense; he entered every room as if the occupant had not gone home for Christmas, but in all likelihood was hiding under the bed, or in the closet-with an ax. And there was no hurrying Owen, not even in the dullest room. He looked in every drawer, examined every article of clothing, sat in every desk chair, lay down on every bed-this was always his last act in each of the rooms: he would lie down on the bed and close his eyes; he would hold his breath. Only when he'd resumed normal breathing did he announce his opinion of the room's occupant-as either happy or unhappy with the academy; as possibly troubled by distant events at home, or in the past. Owen would always admit it-when the room's occupant remained a mystery to him. "THIS GUY IS A REAL MYSTERY," Owen would say. "TWELVE PAIRS OF SOCKS, NO UNDERWEAR, TEN SHIRTS, TWO PAIRS OF PANTS, ONE SPORT JACKET, ONE TIE, TWO LACROSSE STICKS, NO BALL, NO PICTURES OF GIRLS, NO FAMILY PORTRAITS, AND NO SHOES."

"He's got to be wearing shoes," I said.

"ONLY ONE PAIR," Owen said.

"He sent a lot of his clothes to the cleaners, just before vacation," I said.

"YOU DON'T SEND SHOES TO THE CLEANERS, OR FAMILY PORTRAITS," Owen said. "A REAL MYSTERY."

We learned where to look for the sex magazines, or the dirty pictures: between the mattress and bedspring. Some of these gave Owen THE SHIVERS. In those days, such pictures were disturbingly unclear-or else they were disappointingly wholesome; in the latter category were the swimsuit calendars. The pictures of the more disturbing variety were of the quality of snapshots taken by children from moving cars; the women themselves appeared arrested in motion, rather than posed-as if they'd been in the act of something hasty when they'd been caught by the camera. The acts themselves were unclear-for example, a woman bent over a man for some undetermined purpose, as if she were about to do some violence on an utterly helpless cadaver. And the women's sex parts were often blurred by pubic hair-some of them had astonishingly more pubic hair than either Owen or I thought was possible-and their nipples were blocked from view by the censor's black slashes. At first, we thought the slashes were actual instruments of torture-they struck us as even more menacing than real nudity. The nudity was menacing-to a large extent, because the women weren't pretty; or else their troubled, serious expressions judged their own nakedness severely.

Many of the pictures and magazines were partially destroyed by the effects of the boys' weight grinding them into the metal bedsprings, which were flaked with rust; the bodies of the women themselves were occasionally imprinted with a spiral tattoo, as if the old springs had etched upon the women's flesh a grimy version of lust's own descending spiral. Naturally, the presence of pornography darkened Owen's opinion of each room's occupant; when he lay on the bed with his eyes closed and, at last, expelled his long-held breath, he would say, "NOT HAPPY. WHO DRAWS A MOUSTACHE ON HIS MOTHER'S FACE AND THROWS DARTS AT HIS FATHER'S PICTURE? WHO GOES TO BED THINKING ABOUT DOING FT WITH GERMAN SHEPHERDS? AND WHAT'S THE DOG LEASH IN THE CLOSET FOR? AND THE FLEA COLLAR IN THE DESK DRAWER? IT'S NOT LEGAL TO KEEP A PET IN THE DORM, RIGHT?"

"Perhaps his dog was killed over the summer," I said. "He kept the leash and the flea collar."

"SURE," Owen said. "AND I SUPPOSE HIS FATHER RAN OVER THE DOG? I SUPPOSE HIS MOTHER DID IT WITH THE DOG?"

"They're just things," I said. "What can we tell about the guy who lives here, really?"

"NOT HAPPY," Owen said. We were a whole afternoon investigating the rooms on just the fourth floor, Owen was so systematic in his methods of search, so deliberate about putting everything back exactly where it had been, as if these Gravesend boys were anything at all like him; as if their rooms were as intentional as the museum Owen had made of his room. His behavior in the rooms was remindful of a holy man's search of a cathedral of antiquity-as if he could divine some ancient and also holy intention there. He pronounced few boarders happy. These few, in Owen's opinion, were the ones whose dresser mirrors were ringed with family pictures, and with pictures of real girlfriends (they could have been sisters). A keeper of swimsuit calendars could conceivably be happy, or borderline-happy, but the boys who had cut out the pictures of the lingerie and girdle models from the Sears catalog were at least partially unhappy-and there was no saving anyone who harbored pictures of thoroughly naked women. The bushier the women were, the unhappier the The Little Lard Jesus boy; the more the women's nipples were struck with the censor's slash, the more miserable the boarder.

"HOW CAN YOU BE HAPPY IF YOU SPEND ALL YOUR TIME THINKING ABOUT DOING ITT' Owen asked. I preferred to think that the rooms we searched were more haphazard and less revealing than Owen imagined-after all, they were supposed to be the monastic cells of transient scholars; they were something between a nest and a hotel room, they were not natural abodes, and what we found there was a random disorder and a depressing sameness. Even the pictures of the sports heroes and movie stars were the same, from room to room; and from boy to boy, there was often a similar scrap of something missed from the life at home: a picture of a car, with the boy proudly at the wheel (Gravesend boarders were not allowed to drive, or even ride in, cars); a picture of a perfectly plain backyard, or even a snapshot of such a deeply private moment-an unrecognizable figure shambling away from the camera, back turned to our view- that the substance of the picture was locked in a personal memory. The effect of these cells, with the terrible sameness of each boy's homesickness, and the chaos of travel, was what Owen had meant when he'd told my mother that dormitories were EVIL. Since her death, Owen had hinted that the strongest force compelling him to attend Gravesend Academy-namely, my mother's insistence-was gone. Those rooms allowed us to imagine what we might become-if not exactly boarders (because I would continue to live with Dan, and with Grandmother, and Owen would live at home), we would still harbor such secrets, such barely restrained messiness, such lusts, even, as these poor residents of Waterhouse Hall. It was our lives in the near future that we were searching for when we searched in those rooms, and therefore it was shrewd of Owen that he made us take our time. It was in a room on the third floor that Owen discovered the prophylactics; everyone called them "rubbers," but in Grave-send, New Hampshire, we called them "beetleskins." The origin of that word is not known to me; technically, a "beetleskin" was a used condom-and, even more specifically, one found in a parking lot or washed up on a beach or floating in the urinal at the drive-in movie. I believe that only

those were authentic "beetleskins": old and very-much-used condoms that popped out at you in public places. It was in the third-floor room of a senior named Potter-an advisee of Dan's-that Owen found a half-dozen or more prophylactics, in their foil wrappers, not very ably concealed in the sock compartment of the dresser drawers.

"BEETLESKINS!" he cried, dropping them on the floor; we stood back from them. We had never seen unused rubbers in their drugstore packaging before.

"Are you sure?" I asked Owen.

"THEY'RE FRESH BEETLESKINS," Owen told me. "THE CATHOLICS FORBID THEM," he added. "THE CATHOLICS ARE OPPOSED TO BIRTH CONTROL."

"Why?" I asked.

"NEVER MIND," Owen said. "I'VE NOTHING MORE TO DO WITH THE CATHOLICS."

"Right," I said. We tried to ascertain if Potter would know exactly how many beetleskins he had in his sock drawer-whether he would notice if we opened one of the foil wrappers and examined one of the beetleskins, which naturally, then, we could not put back; we would have to dispose of it. Would Potter miss it? That was the question. Owen determined that an investigation of how organized a boarder Potter was would tell us. Was his underwear all in one drawer, were his T-shirts folded, were his shoes in a straight line on the closet floor, were his jackets and shirts and trousers separated from each other, did his hangers face the same way, did he keep his pens and pencils together, were his paper clips contained, did he have more than one tube of toothpaste that was open, were his razor blades somewhere safe, did he have a necktie rack or hang his ties willy-nilly? And did he keep the beetleskins because he used them-or were they for show? In Potter's closet, sunk in one of his size- hiking boots, was a fifth of Jack Daniel's Old No. , Black Label; Owen decided that if Potter risked keeping a bottle of whiskey in his room, the beetleskkis were not for show. If Potter used them with any frequency, we imagined, he would not miss one. The examination of the beetleskin was a solemn occasion; it was the nonlubricated kind-I'm not even sure if there were lubricated rubbers when Owen and I were eleven-and with some difficulty, and occasional pain, we took turns putting the thing on our tiny penises. This part of our lives in the near future was especially hard for us to imagine; but I realize now that the ritual we enacted in Potter's daring room also had the significance of religious rebellion for Owen Meany-it was but one more affront to the Catholics whom he had, in his own words, ESCAPED. It was a pity that Owen could not escape the Rev. Dudley Wiggin's Christmas Pageant. The first rehearsal, in the nave of the church, was held on the Second Sunday of Advent and followed a celebration of the Holy Eucharist. We were delayed discussing our roles because the Women's Association Report preceded us; the women wished to say that the Quiet Day they had scheduled for the beginning of Advent had been very successful-that the meditations, and the following period of quiet, for reflection, had been well received. Mrs. Walker, whose own term as a Vestry member was expiring-thus giving her even more energy for her Sunday school tyrannies- complained that attendance at the adult evening Bible study was flagging.

"Well, everyone's so busy at Christmas, you know," said Barb Wiggin, who was impatient to begin the casting of the pageant-not wanting to keep us potential donkeys and turtledoves waiting. I could sense Owen's irritation with Barb Wiggin, in advance. Quite blind to his animosity, Barb Wiggin began-as, indeed, the holy event itself had begun-with the Announcing Angel. "Well, we all know who our Descending Angel is," she told us.

"NOT ME," Owen said.

"Why, Owen!" Barb Wiggin said.

"PUT SOMEONE ELSE UP IN THE AIR," Owen said. "MAYBE THE SHEPHERDS CAN JUST STARE AT THE 'PILLAR OF LIGHT.' THE BIBLE SAYS OF THE LORD APPEARED TO THE SHEPHERDS-NOT TO THE WHOLE CONGREGATION. AND USE SOMEONE WITH A VOICE EVERYONE DOESN'T LAUGH AT," he said, pausing while everyone laughed.

"But Owen-" Barb Wiggin said.

"No, no, Barbara," Mr. Wiggin said. "If Owen's tired of being the angel, we should respect his wishes-this is a democracy," he added unconvincingly. The former stewardess glared at her ex-pilot husband as if he had been speaking, and thinking, in the absence of sufficient oxygen.

"AND ANOTHER THING," Owen said. "JOSEPH SHOULD NOT SMIRK."

"Indeed not!" the rector said heartily. "I had no idea we'd suffered a smirking Joseph all these years."

"And who do you think would be a good Joseph, Owen?" Barb Wiggin asked, without the conventional friendliness of the stewardess. Owen pointed to me; to be singled out so silently, with Owen's customary authority, made the hairs stand up on the back of my neck-in later years, I would think I had been chosen by the Chosen One. But that Second Sunday of Advent, in the nave of Christ Church, I felt angry with Owen-once the hairs on the back of my neck relaxed. For what an uninspiring role it is; to be Joseph-that hapless follower, that stand-in, that guy along for the ride.

"We usually pick Mary first," Barb Wiggin said. "Then we let Mary pick her Joseph."

"Oh," the Rev. Dudley Wiggin said. "Well, this year we can let Joseph pick his Mary! We musn't be afraid to change!" he added cordially, but his wife ignored him.

"We usually begin with the angel," Barb Wiggin said. "We still don't have an angel. Here we are with a Joseph before a Mary, and no angel," she said. (Stewardesses are orderly people, much comforted by following a familiar routine.)

"Well, who would like to hang in the air this year?" the rector asked. "Tell them about the view from up there, Owen."

"SOMETIMES THE CONTRAPTION THAT HOLDS YOU IN THE AIR HAS YOU FACING THE WRONG WAY," he warned the would-be angels. "SOMETIMES THE HARNESS CUTS INTO YOUR SKIN."

"I'm sure we can remedy that, Owen," the rector said.

"WHEN YOU GO UP OUT OF THE 'PILLAR OF LIGHT,' IT'S VERY DARK UP THERE," Owen said. No would-be angel raised his or her hand.

"AND IT'S QUITE A LONG SPEECH THAT YOU HAVE TO MEMORIZE," Owen added. "YOU KNOW, 'BE NOT AFRAID; FOR BEHOLD, I BRING YOU GOOD NEWS OF A GREAT JOY . . . FOR TO YOU IS BORN ... IN THE CITY OF DAVID A SAVIOR, WHO IS CHRIST THE LORD' . . ."

"We know, Owen, we know," Barb Wiggin said.

"IT'S NOT EASY," Owen said.

"Perhaps we should pick our Mary, and come back to the angel?" the Rev. Mr. Wiggin asked. Barb Wiggin wrung her hands. But if they thought I was enough of a fool to choose my Mary, they had another think coming; what a no-win situation that was-choosing Mary. For what would everyone say about me and the girl I chose? And what would the girls I didn't choose think of me?

"MARY BETH BAIRD HAS NEVER BEEN MARY," Owen said. "THAT WAY, MARY WOULD BE MARY."

"Joseph chooses Mary!" Barb Wiggin said.

"IT WAS JUST A SUGGESTION," Owen said. But how could the role be denied Mary Beth Baird now that it had been offered? Mary Beth Baird was a wholesome lump of a girl, shy and clumsy and plain.

"I've been a turtledove three times," she mumbled.

"THAT'S ANOTHER THING," Owen said, "NOBODY KNOWS WHAT THE TURTLEDOVES ARE."

"Now, now-one thing at a time," Dudley Wiggin said.

"First, Joseph-choose Mary!" Barb Wiggin said.

"Mary Beth Baird would be fine," I said.

"Well, so Mary is Mary!" Mr. Wiggin said. Mary Beth Baird covered her face in her hands. Barb Wiggin also covered her face.

"Now, what's this about the turtledoves, Owen?" the rector asked.

"Hold the turtledoves!" Barb Wiggin snapped. "I want an angel."

Former kings and shepherds sat in silence; former donkeys did not come forth-and donkeys came in two parts; the hind part of the donkey never got to see the pageant. Even the former hind parts of donkeys did not volunteer to be the angel. Even former turtledoves were not stirred to grab the part.

"is so important," the rector said. "There's a special apparatus just to raise and lower you, and-for a while-you occupy the 'pillar of light' all by yourself. All eyes are on you!"

The children of Christ Church did not appear enticed to play by the thought of all eyes being on them. In the rear of the nave, rendered even more insignificant than usual by his proximity to the giant painting of "The Call of the Twelve,"

pudgy Harold Crosby sat diminished by the depiction of Jesus appointing his disciples; all eyes rarely feasted on fat Harold Crosby, who was not grotesque enough to be teased-or even noticed-but who was enough of a slob to be rejected whenever he caused the slightest attention to be drawn to himself. Therefore, Harold Crosby abstained. He sat in the back; he stood at the rear of the line; he spoke only when spoken to; he desked to be left alone, and-for the most part-he was. For several years, he had played a perfect hind part of a donkey; I'm sure it was the only role he wanted. I could see he was nervous about the silence that greeted the Rev. Mr. Wiggin's request for an angel; possibly the towering portraits of the disciples in his immediate vicinity made Harold Crosby feel inadequate, or else he feared that-in the absence of volunteers-the rector would select an angel from among the cowardly children, and (God forbid) what if Mr. Wiggin chose him ? Harold Crosby tipped back in his chair and shut his eyes; it was either a method of concealment borrowed from the ostrich, or else Harold imagined that if he appeared to be asleep, no one would ask him to be more than the hind part of a donkey.

"Someone has to be the angel," Barb Wiggin said menacingly. Then Harold Crosby fell over backward in his chair; he made it worse by attempting to catch his balance-by grabbing the frame of the huge painting of "The Call of the Twelve"; then he thought better of crushing himself under Christ's disciples and he allowed himself to fall freely. Like most things that happened to Harold Crosby, his fall was more astonishing for its awkwardness than for anything intrinsically spectacular. Regardless, only the rector was insensitive enough to mistake Harold Crosby's clumsiness for volunteering.

"Good for you, Harold!" the rector said. "There's a brave boy!"

"What?" Harold Crosby said.

"Now we have our angel," Mr. Wiggin said cheerfully. "What's next?"

"I'm afraid of heights," said Harold Crosby.

"All the braver of you!" the rector replied. "There's no time like the present for facing our fears."

"But the crane," Barb Wiggin said to her husband. "The apparatus-"she started to say, but the rector silenced her with an admonishing wave of his hand. Surely you're not going to The Little Lard Jesus make the poor boy feel self-conscious about his weight, the rector's glance toward his wife implied; surely the wires and the harness are strong enough. Barb Wiggin glowered back at her husband.

"ABOUT THE TURTLEDOVES," Owen said, and Barb Wiggin shut her eyes; she did not lean back in her chair, but she gripped the seat with both hands.

"Ah, yes, Owen, what was it about the turtledoves?" the Rev. Mr. Wiggin asked.

"THEY LOOK LIKE THEY'RE FROM OUTER SPACE," Owen said. "NO ONE KNOWS WHAT THEY'RE SUPPOSED TO BE."

"They're dovesl" Barb Wiggin said. "Everyone knows what doves are!"

"THEY'RE GIANT DOVES," Owen said. "THEY'RE AS BIG AS HALF A DONKEY. WHAT KIND OF BIRD IS THAT? A BIRD FROM MARS? THEY'RE ACTUALLY KIND OF FRIGHTENING."

"Not everyone can be a king or a shepherd or a donkey, Owen," the rector said.

"BUT NOBODY'S SMALL ENOUGH TO BE A DOVE," Owen said. "AND NOBODY KNOWS WHAT ALL THOSE PAPER STREAMERS ARE SUPPOSED TO BE."

"They're feathersl" Barb Wiggin shouted.

"THE TURTLEDOVES LOOK LIKE CREATURES," Owen said. "LIKE THEY'VE BEEN ELECTROCUTED."

"Well, I suppose there were other animals in the manger," the rector said.

"Areyo" going to make the costumes?" Barb Wiggin asked him.

"Now now," Mr. Wiggin said.

"COWS GO WELL WITH DONKEYS," Owen suggested.

"Cows?" the rector said. "Well well."

"Who's going to make the cow costumes?" Barb Wiggin asked.

"/ will!" Mary Beth Baird said. She had never volunteered for anything before; clearly her election as the Virgin Mary had energized her-had made her believe she was capable of miracles, or at least cow costumes.

"Good for you, Mary!" the rector said. But Barb Wiggin and Harold Crosby closed their eyes; Harold did not look well-he seemed to be suppressing vomit,

and his face took on the lime-green shade of the grass at the feet of Christ's disciples, who loomed over him.

"THERE'S ONE MORE THING," said Owen Meany. We gave him our attention. "THE CHRIST CHILD," he said, and we children nodded our approval.

"What's wrong with the Christ Child?" Barb Wiggin asked.

"ALL THOSE BABIES," Owen said. "JUST TO GET ONE TO LIE IN THE MANGER WITHOUT CRYING-DO WE HAVE TO HAVE ALL THOSE BABIES?"

"But it's like the song says, Owen," the rector told him. " 'Little Lord Jesus, no crying he makes.' "

"OKAY, OKAY," Owen said. "BUT ALL THOSE BABIES-YOU CAN HEAR THEM CRYING. EVEN OFFSTAGE, YOU CAN HEAR THEM. AND ALL THOSE GROWN-UPS!" he said. "ALL THOSE BIG MEN PASSING THE BABIES IN AND OUT. THEY'RE SO B/G^-THEY LOOK RIDICULOUS. THEY MAKE US LOOK RIDICULOUS."

"You know a baby who won't cry, Owen?" Barb Wiggin asked him-and, of course, she knew as soon as she spoke . . . how he had trapped her.

"I KNOW SOMEONE WHO CAN FIT IN THE CRIB," Owen said. "SOMEONE SMALL ENOUGH TO LOOK LIKE A BABY," he said. "SOMEONE OLD ENOUGH NOT TO CRY."

Mary Beth Baird could not contain herself! "Owen can be the Baby Jesus!" she yelled. Owen Meany smiled and shrugged.

"I CAN FIT IN THE CRIB," he said modestly. Harold Crosby could no longer contain himself, either; he vomited. He vomited often enough for it to pass almost unnoticed, especially now that Owen had our undivided attention.

"And what's more, we can lift him!" Mary Beth Baird said excitedly.

"There was never any lifting of the Christ Child before!" Barb Wiggin said.

"Well, I mean, if we have to, if we feel like it," Mary Beth said.

"WELL, IF EVERYONE WANTS ME TO DO IT, I SUPPOSE I COULD," Owen said.

"Yes!" cried the kings and shepherds.

"Let Owen do it!" said the donkeys and the cows-the former turtledoves. The Littie Lord Jesus It was quite a popular decision, but Barb Wiggin looked at Owen as if she were revising her opinion of how "cute" he was, and the rector observed Owen with a detachment that was wholly out of character for an ex-pilot. The Rev. Mr. Wiggin, such a veteran of Christmas pageants, looked at Owen Meany with profound respect-as if he'd seen the Christ Child come and go, but never before had he encountered a little Lord Jesus who was so perfect for the part. It was only our second rehearsal of the Christmas Pageant when Owen decided that the crib, in which he could fit-but tightly-was unnecessary and even incorrect. Dudley Wiggin based his entire view of the behavior of the Christ Child on the Christmas carol "Away in a Manger," of which there are only two verses. It was this carol that convinced the Rev. Mr. Wiggin that the Baby Jesus mustn't cry. The cat-tie are low-ing, the ba-by a-wakes, But lit-tle Lord Je-sus, no cry-ing he makes. If Mr. Wiggin put such stock in the second verse of "Away in a Manger," Owen argued that we should also be instructed by the very first verse. A-way in a man-ger, no crib for his bed, The lit-tle Lord Je-sus laid down his sweet head.

"IF IT SAYS THERE WAS NO CRIB, WHY DO WE HAVE A CRIB?" Owen asked. Clearly, he found the crib restraining. " 'THE STARS IN THE SKY LOOKED DOWN WHERE HE LAY, THE LIT-TLE LORD JE-SUS, A-SLEEP ON THE HAY,' " Owen sang. Thus did Owen get his way, again; "on the hay" was where he would lie, and he proceeded to arrange all the hay within the creche in such a fashion that his comfort would be assured, and he would be sufficiently elevated and tilted toward the audience-so that no one could possibly miss seeing him.

"THERE'S ANOTHER THING," Owen advised us. "YOU NOTICE HOW THE SONG SAYS, 'THE CATTLE ARE LOWING'? WELL, IT'S A GOOD THING WE'VE GOT COWS. THE TURTLEDOVES COULDN'T DO MUCH 'LOWING.' "

If cows were what we had, they were the sort of cows that required as much imagination to identify as the former turtledoves had required. Mary Bern Baird's cow costumes may have been inspired by Mary Beth's elevated status to the role of the Virgin Mary, but the Holy Mother had not offered divine assistance, or even divine workmanship, toward the making of the costumes themselves. Mary Beth appeared to have been confused mightily by all the images of Christmas; her cows had not only horns but antlers-veritable racks, more suitable to reindeer, which Mary Beth may have been thinking of. Worse, the antlers were soft; that is, they were constructed of a floppy material, and therefore these astonishing "horns" were always collapsing upon the faces of the cows themselves-obliterating entirely their already impaired vision, and causing more than usual confusion in the creche: cows stepping on each other, cows colliding with donkeys, cows knocking down kings and shepherds.

' "The cows, if that's what they are, "Barb Wiggin observed, "should maintain their positions and not move around-not at all. We wouldn't want them to trample the Baby Jesus, would we?" A deeply crazed glint in Barb Wiggin's eye made it appear that she thought trampling the Baby Jesus would register in the neighborhood of a divine occurrence, but Owen, who was always anxious about being stepped on-and excessively so, now that he was prone and helpless on the hay- echoed Barb Wiggin's concern for the cows.

"YOU COWS, JUST REMEMBER. YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE 'LOWING,' NOT MILLING AROUND."

"I don't want the cows 'lowing' or milling around," Barb Wiggin said. "I want to be able to hear the singing, and the reading from the Bible. I want no 'lowing.' "

"LAST YEAR, YOU HAD THE TURTLEDOVES COOING," Owen reminded her.

"Clearly, this isn't last year," Barb Wiggin said.

"Now now," the rector'said.

"THE SONG SAYS 'THE CATTLE ARE LOWING,' " Owen said.

"I suppose you want the donkeys hee-hawing I" Barb Wiggin shouted.

"THE SONG SAYS NOTHING ABOUT DONKEYS," Owen said.

"Perhaps we're being too literal about this song," Mr. The Little. Lord Jesus Wiggin interjected, but I knew there was no such thing as "too literal" for Owen Meany, who grasped orthodoxy from wherever it could be found. Yet Owen relented on the issue of whether or not the cattle should "low"; he saw there was more to be gained in rearranging the order of music, which he had always found improper. It made no sense, he claimed, to begin with "We Three Kings of Orient Are" while we watched the Announcing Angel descend in the ' 'pillar of light''; those were shepherds to whom appeared, not kings. Better to begin with "O Little Town of Bethlehem" while made good his descent; the angel's announcement would be perfectly balanced if delivered between verses two and three. Then, as the "pillar of light" leaves the angel-or, rather, as the quickly ascending angel departs the "pillar of light"-we see the kings. Suddenly, they have joined the astonished shepherds. Now hit "We Three Kings," and hit it hard! Harold Crosby, who had not yet attempted a first flight in the apparatus that enhanced his credibility as an angel, wanted to know where "Ory and R" were. No one understood his question.

" 'We Three Kings of Ory and R,' " Harold said. "Where are 'Ory' and 'R'?"

" 'WE THREE KINGS OF ORIENT ARE,' " Owen corrected him. "DON'T YOU READ?"

All Harold Crosby knew was that he did notify; he would ask any question, create any distraction, procrastinate by any means he could imagine, if he could delay being launched by Barb Wiggin. I-Joseph-had nothing to do, nothing to say, nothing to learn. Mary Beth Baird suggested that, as a helpful husband, I take turns with her in handling Owen Meany-if not exactly lifting him out of the hay, because Barb Wiggin was violently opposed to this, then at least, Mary Beth implied, we could fondle Owen, or tickle him, or pat him on the head.

"NO TICKLING," Owen said.

"No nothing*." Barb Wiggin insisted. "No touching Baby Jesus."

"But we're his parents'." proclaimed Mary Beth, who was being generous to include poor Joseph under this appellation.

"Mary Beth," Barb Wiggin said, "if you touch the Baby Jesus, I'm putting you in a cow costume."

And so it came to pass that the Virgin Mary sulked through our rehearsal-a mother denied the tactile pleasures of her own infant! And Owen, who had built a huge nest for himself-in a mountain of hay-appeared to radiate the truly untouchable quality of a deity to be reckoned with, of a prophet who had no doubt. Some technical difficulties with the harness spared Harold Crosby his first sensation of angelic elevation; we noticed that Harold's anxiety concerning heights had caused him to forget the lines of his all-important announcement-or else Harold had not properly studied his part, for he couldn't get past "Be not afraid; for behold, I bring you good news ..." without flubbing. The kings and shepherds could not possibly move slowly enough, following the "pillar of light" in front of the altar toward the arrangement of animals and Mary and Joseph surrounding the commanding presence of the Christ Child enthroned on his mountain of hay; no matter how slowly they moved, they arrived at the touching scene in the stable before the end of the fifth verse of "We Three Kings of Orient Are." There they had to wait for the end of the carol, and appear to be unsurprised by the choir charging immediately into "Away in a Manger."

The solution, the Rev. Dudley Wiggin proposed, was to omit the fifth verse of "We Three Kings," but Owen denounced this as unorthodox. To conclude with the fourth verse was a far cry from ending with the hallelujahs of the fifth; Owen begged us to pay special attention to the words of the fourth verse-surely we did not wish to arrive in the presence of the Christ Child on such a note. He sang for us, with emphasis-" 'SOR-ROWING, SIGHING, BLEED-ING, DY-ING, SEALED IN A STONE-COLD TOMB.' "

"But then there's the refrain!" Barb Wiggin cried. " 'O star of won-der, star of night,' " she sang, but Owen was unmoved. The rector assured Owen that the church had a long tradition of not singing every verse of each hymn or carol, but somehow Owen made us feel that the tradition of the church-however long-was on less sure footing than the written word. Five verses in print meant we were to sing all five.

" 'SORROWING, SIGHING, BLEEDING, DYING,' " he repeated. "SOUNDS VERY CHRISTMASY."

The Littk Lord Jesus Mary Beth Baird let everyone know that the matter could be resolved if she were allowed to shower some affection upon the Christ Child, but it seemed that the only agreements that existed between Barb Wiggin and Owen were that Mary Beth should not be permitted to maul the Baby Jesus, and that the cows not move. When the creche was properly formed, which was finally timed upon the conclusion of the fourth verse of "We Three Kings," the choir then sang "Away in a Manger" while we shamelessly worshiped and adored Owen Meany. Perhaps the "swaddling clothes" should have been reconsidered. Owen had objected to being wrapped in them up to his chin; he wanted to have his arms free-possibly, in order to ward off a stumbling cow or donkey. And so they had swaddled the length of his body, up to his armpits, and then crisscrossed his chest with more "swaddling," and even covered his shoulders and neck-Barb Wiggin made a special point of concealing Owen's neck, because she said his Adam's apple looked "rather grown-up." It did; it stuck out, especially when he was lying down; but then, Owen's eyes looked "rather grown-up," too, in that they bulged, or appeared a trifle haunted in their sockets. His facial features were tiny but sharp, not in the least baby like-certainly not in the "pillar of light," which was harsh. There were dark circles under his eyes, his nose was too pointed for a baby's nose, his cheekbones too prominent. Why we didn't just wrap him up in a blanket, I don't know. The "swaddling clothes" resembled nothing so much as layers upon layers of gauze bandages, so that Owen resembled some terrifying burn victim who'd been shriveled to abnormal size in a fire that had left only his face and arms uncharted-and the "pillar of light," and the worshipful postures of all of us, surrounding him, made it appear that Owen was about to undergo some ritual unwrapping in an operating room, and we were his surgeons and nurses. Upon the conclusion of "Away in a Manger," Mr. Wiggin read again from Luke: " 'When went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us." And they went with haste, and found Mary and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger. And when they saw it they made known the saying which had been told them concerning this child; and all who

heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them. But Mary kept all these things, pondering them in her heart.' "

While the rector read, the kings bowed to the Baby Jesus and presented him with the usual gifts-ornate boxes and tins, and shiny trinkets, difficult to distinguish from the distance of the congregation but somehow regal in appearance. A few of the shepherds offered more humble, rustic presents; one of the shepherds gave the Christ Child a bird's nest.

"WHAT WOULD I DO WITH A BIRD'S NEST?" Owen complained.

"It's for good luck," the rector said.

"DOES IT SAY SO IN THE BIBLE?" Owen asked. Someone said that from the audience the bird's nest looked like old, dead grass; someone said it looked like "dung."

"Now now," Dudley Wiggin said.

"It doesn't matter what it looks like!" Barb Wiggin said, with considerable pitch in her voice. "The gifts are symbolic."

Mary Beth Baird foresaw a larger problem. Since the reading from Luke concluded by observing that "Mary kept all these things, pondering them in her heart"-and surely the "things" that Mary so kept and pondered were far more matterful than these trivial gifts-shouldn't she do something to demonstrate to the audience what a strain on her poor heart it was to do such monumental keeping and pondering?

"What?" Barb Wiggin said.

"WHAT SHE MEANS IS, SHOULDN'T SHE ACT OUT HOW A PERSON PONDERS SOMETHING," Owen said. Mary Beth Baird was so pleased that Owen had clarified her concerns that she appeared on the verge of hugging or kissing him, but Barb Wiggin moved quickly between them, leaving the controls of the ' 'pillar of light'' unattended; eerily, the light scanned our little assembly with a will of its own-appearing to settle on the Holy Mother. There was a respectful silence while we pondered what possible thing Mary Beth Baird could do to demonstrate how hard her heart was working; it was clear to most of us that Mary Beth would be satisfied only if she could express her adoration of the Christ Child physically.

"I could kiss him," Mary Beth said softly. "I could just bow down and kiss him-on the forehead, I mean."

"Well, yes, you could try that, Mary Beth," the rector said cautiously.

"Let's see how it looks," Barb Wiggin said doubtfully.

"NO," Owen said. "NO KISSING."

"Why not, Owen?" Barb Wiggin asked playfully. She thought an opportunity to tease him was presenting itself, and she was quick to pounce on it.

"THIS IS A VERY HOLY MOMENT," Owen said slowly.

"Indeed, it is," the rector said.

"VERY HOLY," Owen said. "SACRED," he added.

"Just on the forehead," Mary Beth said.

"Let's see how it looks. Let's just try it, Owen," Barb Wiggin said.

"NO," Owen said. "IF MARY IS SUPPOSED TO BE PONDERING-'IN HER HEART'-THAT I AM CHRIST THE LORD, THE ACTUAL SON OF GOD ... A SAVIOR, REMEMBER THAT ... DO YOU THINK SHE'D JUST KISS ME LIKE SOME ORDINARY MOTHER KISSING HER ORDINARY BABY? THIS IS NOT THE ONLY TIME THAT MARY KEEPS THINGS IN HER HEART. DON'T YOU REMEMBER WHEN THEY GO TO JERUSALEM FOR PASSOVER AND JESUS GOES TO THE TEMPLE AND TALKS TO THE TEACHERS, AND JOSEPH AND MARY ARE WORRIED ABOUT HIM BECAUSE THEY CAN'T FIND HIM-THEY'RE LOOKING ALL OVER FOR HIM-AND HE TELLS THEM, WHAT ARE YOU WORRIED ABOUT, WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR ME FOR, 'DID YOU NOT KNOW THAT I MUST BE IN MY FATHER'S HOUSE?' HE MEANS THE TEMPLE. REMEMBER THAT? WELL, MARY KEEPS THAT IN HER HEART, TOO."

"But shouldn't I do something, Owen?" Mary Beth asked. "What should I do?"

"YOU KEEP THINGS IN YOUR HEART!" Owen told her.

"She should do nothing?" the Rev. Mr. Wiggin asked Owen. The rector, like one of the teachers in the temple, appeared "amazed." That is how the teachers in the temple are described-in their response to the Boy Jesus: "All who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers."

"Do you mean she should do nothing, Owen?" the rector repeated. "Or that she should do something less, or more, than kissing?"

"MORE," Owen said. Mary Beth Baird trembled; she

would do anything that he required. "TRY BOWING," Owen suggested.

"Bowing?" Barb Wiggin said, with distaste. Mary Beth Baird dropped to her knees and lowered her head; she was an awkward girl, and this sudden movement caused her to lose her balance. She assumed a three-point position, finally-on her knees, with her forehead resting on the mountain of hay, the top of her head pressing against Owen's hip. Owen raised his hand over her, to bless her; in a most detached manner, he lightly touched her hair-then his hand hovered above her head, as if he meant to shield her eyes from the intensity of the "pillar of light." Perhaps, if only for this gesture, Owen had wanted his arms free. The shepherds and kings were riveted to this demonstration of what Mary pondered in her heart; the cows did not move. Even the hind parts of the donkeys, who could not see the Holy Mother bowing to the Baby Jesus-or anything at all- appeared to sense that the moment was reverential; they ceased their swaying, and the donkeys' tails hung straight and still. Barb Wiggin had stopped breathing, with her mouth open, and the rector wore the numbed expression of one struck silly with awe. And I, Joseph-I did nothing, I was just the witness. God knows how long Mary Beth Baird would have buried her head in the hay, for no doubt she was ecstatic to have the top of her head in contact with the Christ Child's hip. We might have maintained our positions in this tableau for eternity-we might have made creche history, a pageant frozen in rehearsal, each of us injected with the very magic we sought to represent: Nativity forever. But the choirmaster, whose eyesight was failing, assumed he had missed the cue for the final carol, which the choir sang with special gusto. Hark! the her-ald an-gels sing, "Glory to the new-born King; Peace on earth, and mer-cy mild, God and sin-ners rec- on-ciled!"

Joy-ful, all ye na-tions, rise, Join the tri-umph of the skies; With the an-gel-ic host pro-claim, "Christ is born in Beth-le-hem!" Hark! the her-ald an-gels sing, "Glo-ry to the new-born King!"

The Little Lard Jesus Mary Beth Baird's head shot up at the first' 'Hark!'' Her hair was wild and flecked with hay; she jumped to her feet as if the little Prince of Peace had ordered her out of his nest. The donkeys swayed again, the cows-their horns falling about their heads-moved a little, and the kings and shepherds regained their usual lack of composure. The rector, whose appearance suggested that of a former immortal rudely returned to the rules of the earth, found that he could speak again. "That was perfect, I thought," he said. "That was marvelous, really."

"Shouldn't we run through it one more time?" Barb Wiggin asked, while the choir continued to herald the birth of "the ever-lasting Lord."

"NO," said the Prince of Peace. "I THINK WE'VE GOT IT RIGHT."

Weekdays in Toronto: : A.M., Morning Prayer; : P.M., Evening Prayer; Holy Eucharist every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday. I prefer these weekday services to Sunday worship; there are fewer distractions when I have Grace Church on-the-Hill almost to myself-and there are no sermons. Owen never liked sermons-although I think he would have enjoyed delivering a few sermons himself. The other thing preferable about the weekday services is that no one is there against his will. That's another distraction on Sundays. Who hasn't suffered the experience of having an entire family seated in the pew in front of you, the children at war with each other and sandwiched between the mother and father who are forcing them to go to church? An aura of stale arguments almost visibly clings to the hasty clothing of the children. "This is the one morning I can sleep in!" the daughter's linty sweater says. "I get so bored!" says the upturned collar of the son's suit jacket. Indeed, the children imprisoned between their parents move constantly and restlessly in the pew; they are so crazy with self-pity, they seem ready to scream. The stern-looking father who occupies the aisle seat has his attention interrupted by fits of vacancy-an expression so perfectly empty accompanies his sternness and his concentration that I think I glimpse an underlying truth to the man's churchgoing: that he is doing it only for the children, in the manner that some men with much vacancy of expression are committed to a marriage. When the children are old enough to

decide about church for themselves, this man will stay home on Sundays. The frazzled mother, who is the lesser piece of bread to this family sandwich-and who is holding down that part of the pew from which the most unflattering view of the preacher in the pulpit is possible (directly under the preacher's jowls)-is trying to keep her hand off her daughter's lap. If she smooths out her daughter's skirt only one more time, both of them know that the daughter will start to cry. The son takes from his suit jacket pocket a tiny, purple truck; the father snatches this away-with considerable bending and crushing of the boy's fingers in the process. "Just one more obnoxious bit of behavior from you," the father whispers harshly, '' and you will be grounded-for the rest of the day.''

"The whole rest of the day?" the boy says, incredulous. The apparent impossibility of sustaining wnobnoxious behavior for even part of the day weighs heavily on the lad, and overwhelms him with a claustrophobia as impenetrable as the claustrophobia of church itself. The daughter has begun to cry.

"Why is she crying?" the boy asks his father, who doesn't answer. "Are you having your period?" the boy asks his sister, and the mother leans across the daughter's lap and pinches the son's thigh-a prolonged, twisting sort of pinch. Now he is crying, too. Time to pray! The kneeling pads flop down, the family flops forward. The son manages the old hymnal trick; he slides a hymnal along the pew, placing it where his sister will sit when she's through praying.

"Just one more thing," the father mutters in his prayers. But how can you pray, thinking about the daughter's period? She looks old enough to be having her period, and young enough for it to be the first time. Should you move the hymnal before she's through praying and sits on it? Should you pick up the hymnal and bash the boy with it? But the father is the one you'd like to hit; and you'd like to pinch the mother's thigh, exactly as she pinched her son. How can you pray? It is time to be critical of Canon Mackie's cassock; it is the color of pea soup. It is time to be critical of Warden Harding's wart. And Deputy Warden Holt is a racist; he is always complaining that "the West Indians have taken over Bathurst Street"; he tells a terrible story about standing in line in the copying-machine store-two young black men are having the entire contents of a pornographic magazine duplicated. For this offense, Deputy Warden Holt wants to have the young men arrested. How can you pray? The weekday services are almost unattended-quiet, serene. The drumming wing-whir of the slowly moving overhead fan is metronomic, enhancing to the concentration-and from the fourth and fifth rows of pews, you can feel the air moving regularly against your face. In the Canadian climate, the fan is supposed to push the warm, rising air down-back over the chilly congregation. But it is possible to imagine you're in a missionary church, in the tropics. Some say that Grace Church is overly lighted. The dark-stained, wooden buttresses against the high, vaulted, white-plaster ceiling accentuate how well lit the church is; despite the edifice's predominance of stone and stained glass, there are no corners lost to darkness or to gloom. Critics say the light is too artificial, and too contemporary for such an old building; but surely the overhead fan is contemporary, too-and not propelled by Mother Nature-and no one complains about the fan. The wooden buttresses are quite elaborate-they are wainscoted, and even the lines of the wainscoting are visible on the buttresses, despite their height; that's how brightly lit the church is. Harold Crosby, or any other Announcing Angel, could never be concealed in these buttresses. Any angel-lowering or angel-raising apparatus would be most visible. The miracle of the Nativity would seem less of a miracle here- indeed, I have never watched a Christinas pageant at Grace Church. I have already seen that miracle; once was enough. The Nativity of ' is all the Nativity I need. That Christmas, the evenings were long; dinners with Dan, or with my grandmother, were slow and solemn. My enduring perception of those nights is that Lydia's wheelchair needed to be oiled and that Dan complained, with uncharacteristic bitterness, about what a mess amateurs could make of A Christmas Carol, Dan's mood was not improved by the frequent presence of our neighbor-and Dan's most veteran amateur-Mr. Fish.

"I'd so looked forward to being Scrooge," Mr. Fish would say, pretending to stop by Front Street, after dinner, for some other reason-whenever he saw Dan's car in the driveway. Sometimes it was to once again agree with my grand-

mother about Gravesend's pending leash law; Mr. Fish and my grandmother were in favor of leashing dogs. Mr. Fish gave no indication that he was even slightly troubled by his hypocrisy on this issue-for surely old Sagamore would roll over in his grave to hear his former master espousing canine restraints of any kind; Sagamore had run free, to the end. But it was not the leash law Mr. Fish really cared about; it was Scrooge-a plum part, ruined (in Mr. Fish's view) by amateur ghosts.

"The ghosts are only the beginning of what's wrong," Dan said. "By the end of the play, the audience is going to be rooting for Tiny Tim to die-someone might even rush the stage and kill that brat with his crutch." Dan was still disappointed that he could not entice Owen to play the plucky cripple, but the little Lord Jesus was unmoved by Dan's pleas.

"What wretched ghosts!" Mr. Fish whined. The first ghost, Marley's Ghost, was a terrible ham from the Gravesend Academy English Department; Mr. Early embraced every part that Dan gave him as if he were King Lear- madness and tragedy fueled his every action, a wild melancholy spilled from him in disgusting fits and seizures. " 'I am here tonight to warn you,' " Mr. Early tells Mr. Fish, " 'that you have yet a chance and hope of escaping my fate . . .' " all the while unwrapping the bandage that dead men wear to keep their lower jaws from dropping on their chests.

" 'You were always a good friend to me,' " Mr. Fish tells Mr. Early, but Mr. Early has become entangled in his jaw bandage, the unwinding of which has caused him to forget his lines.

" 'You will be haunted by ... Four Spirits,' " Mr. Early says; Mr. Fish shuts his eyes.

"Three, not Four!" Dan cries.

"But aren't I the fourth?" Mr. Early asks.

"You're the first!" Mr. Fish tells him.

"But there are three others," Mr. Early says.

"Jesus Christ!" Dan says. But Marley's Ghost was not as bad as the Ghost of Christmas Past, an irritating young woman who was a member of the Town Library Board and who wore men's clothes and chain-smoked, aggressively; and she was not as bad as the Ghost of Christmas Present, Mr. Kenmore, a butcher at our local A&P, who (Mr. Fish said) smelled like raw chicken and shut his eyes whenever Mr. Fish spoke-Mr. Kenmore needed to concentrate with such fervor on his own role that he found Scrooge's presence a distraction. And none of them was as bad as the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come-Mr. Morrison, our mailman, who had looked so perfect for the part. He was a tall, thin, lugubrious presence; a sourness radiated from him-dogs not only refrained from biting him, they slunk away from him; they must have known that the taste of him was as toxic as a toad's. He had a gloomy, detached quality that Dan had imagined would be perfect for the grim, final phantom-but when Mr. Morrison discovered that he had no lines, that the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come never speaks, he became contemptuous of the part; he threatened to quit, but then remained in the role with a vengeance, sneering and scoffing at poor Scrooge's questions, and leering at the audience, attempting to seize their attention from Mr. Fish (as if to accuse Dan, and Dickens, of idiocy-for denying this most important spirit the power of speech). No one could remember Mr. Morrison ever speaking-as a mailman-and yet, as a harbinger of doom, the poor man clearly felt he had much to say. But the deepest failure was that none of these ghosts was frightening. "How can I be Scrooge if I'm not frightened?" Mr. Fish asked Dan.

"You're an actor, you gotta fake it," Dan said. To my thinking, which was silent, Mrs. Walker's legs were again wasted-in the part of Tiny Tim's mother. Poor Mr. Fish. I never knew what he did for a living. He was Sagamore's master, he was the good guy in Angel Street-at the end, he took my mother by the aim-he was the unfaithful husband in The Constant Wife, he was Scrooge. But what did he do never knew. I could have asked Dan; I still could. But Mr. Fish was the quintessential neighbor; he was all neighbors-all dog owners, all the friendly faces from familiar backyards, all the hands on your shoulders at your mother's funeral, I don't remember if he had a wife. I don't even remember what he looked like, but he manifested the fussy concentration of a man about to pick up a fallen leaf; he was all rakers of all lawns, all snow-shovelers of all sidewalks. And although he began the Christmas season as an unfrightened Scrooge, I saw Mr. Fish when he was frightened, too. I also saw him when he was young and carefree, which is how he appeared to me before the death of Sagamore. I remember a

brilliant September afternoon when the maples on Front Street were starting to turn yellow and red; above the crisp, white clapboards and the slate rooflines of the houses, the redder maples appeared to be drawing blood from the ground. Mr. Fish had no children but he enjoyed throwing and kicking a football, and on those blue-sky, fall afternoons, he cajoled Owen and me to play football with him; Owen and I didn't care for the sport-except for those times when we could include Sagamore in the game. Sagamore, like many a Labrador, was a mindless retriever of balls, and it was fun to watch him try to pick up the football in his mouth; he would straddle the ball with his fore-paws, pin it to the ground with his chest, but he never quite succeeded in fitting the ball in his mouth. He would coat the ball with slobber, making it exceedingly difficult to pass and catch, and ruining what Mr. Fish referred to as the aesthetics of the game. But the game had no aesthetics that were available to Owen Meany and me; I could not master the spiral pass, and Owen's hand was so small that he refused to throw the ball at all-he only kicked it. The ferocity with which Sagamore tried to contain the ball in his mouth and the efforts we made to keep the ball away from him were the most interesting aspects of the sport to Owen and me-but Mr. Fish took the perfection of passing and catching quite seriously.

"This will be more fun when you boys get a little older," he used to say, as the ball rolled under the privet, or wobbled into my grandmother's rose beds, and Owen and I purposely fumbled in front of Sagamore-such was our pleasure in watching the dog lunge and drool, lunge and drool. Poor Mr. Fish. Owen and I dropped so many perfect passes. Owen liked to run with the ball until Sagamore ran him down; and then Owen would kick the ball in no particular or planned direction. It was dogball, not football, that we played on those afternoons, but Mr. Fish was ever optimistic that Owen and I would, miraculously-one day-grow up and play pass-and-catch as it was meant to be played. A few houses down Front Street lived a young couple with a new baby; Front Street was not much of a street for young couples, and the street had only one new baby. The couple cruised the neighborhood with the air of an entirely novel species-as if they were the first couple in New Hampshire to have given birth. Owen shrieked so loudly when we played football with Mr. Fish that the young father or mother from down the street would fretfully appear, popping up over a hedge to ask us if we would keep our voices down ". . . because of the baby."

His years in The Gravesend Players would exercise Mr. Fish's natural ability at rolling his eyes; and after the young parent had returned to guard the precious newborn, Mr. Fish would commence rolling his eyes with abandon.

"STUPE) BABY," Owen complained, "WHO EVER HEARD OF TRYING TO CONTROL THE NOISE OUTDOORS?"

That had just happened-for about the hundredth time-the day Owen managed to punt the football out of the yard ... out of my grandmother's yard, and beyond Mr. Fish's yard, too; the ball floated over the roof of my grandmother's garage and rolled end-over-end down the driveway, toward Front Street, with Owen and me and Sagamore chasing after it. Mr. Fish stood sighing, with his hands on his hips; he did not chase after errant passes and kicks-these were imperfections that he sought to eliminate from our game-but on this day he was impressed by the unusual power of Owen Meany's kick (if not the kick's direction).

"That's getting your foot into the ball, Owen!" Mr. Fish called. As the ball rolled into Front Street with Sagamore in close pursuit, the baby-rattle tinkle of the odd bell of the diaper truck dinged persistently, even at the moment of the truck's sudden confluence with Sagamore's unlucky head. Poor Mr. Fish; Owen ran to get him, but Mr. Fish had heard the squealing tires-and even the dull thud-and he was halfway down the driveway when Owen met him. "I DON'T THINK YOU WANT TO SEE IT," Owen said to him. "WHY DON'T YOU GO SIT DOWN AND LET US TAKE CARE OF THINGS?"

Mr. Fish was on his porch when the young parents came up Front Street, to complain again about the noise-or to investigate the delay of the diaper truck, because their baby was the sole reason the truck was there. The diaper truck driver sat on the running board of the cab. "Shit," he said. Up close, the odor of urine radiated from the truck in waves. My grandmother had her kindling delivered in burlap sacks, and my mother helped me empty one; I helped Owen get Sagamore into the sack. The football, still smeared with saliva, had gathered some gravel and a candy-bar wrapper; it lay uninvitingly at the curb. In late September, in Gravesend, it could feel like August or

like November; by the time Owen and I had dragged Sagamore in the sack to Mr. Fish's yard, the sun was clouded over, the vividness seemed muted in the maple trees, and the wind that stirred the dead leaves about the lawn had grown cold. Mr. Fish told my mother that he would make a "gift" of Sagamore's body-to my grandmother's roses. He implied that a dead dog was highly prized, among serious gardeners; my grandmother wished to be brought into the discussion, and it was quickly agreed which rose bushes would be temporarily uprooted, and replanted, and Mr. Fish began with the spade. The digging was much softer in the rose bed than it would have been in Mr. Fish's yard, and the young couple and their baby from down the street were sufficiently moved to attend the burial, along with a scattering of Front Street's other children; even my grandmother asked to be called when the hole was ready, and my mother-although the day had turned much colder-wouldn't even go inside for a coat. She wore dark-gray flannel slacks and a black, V-necked sweater, and stood hugging herself, standing first on one foot, then on the other, while Owen gathered strange items to accompany Sagamore to the underworld. Owen was restrained from putting the football in the burlap sack, because Mr. Fish-while digging the grave-maintained that football was still a game that would give us some pleasure, when we were "a little older." Owen found a few well-chewed tennis balls, and Sagamore's food dish, and his dog blanket for trips in the car; these he included in the burlap sack, together with a scattering of the brightest maple leaves-and a leftover lamb chop that Lydia had been saving for Sagamore (from last night's supper). The lights were turned on in some houses when Mr. Fish finished digging the grave, and Owen decided that the attendant mourners should hold candles, which Lydia was reluctant to provide; at my mother's urging, Lydia produced the candles, and my grandmother was summoned.

"HE WAS A GOOD DOG," Owen said, to which there were murmurs of approval.

"I'll never have another one," said Mr. Fish.

"I'll remind you of that," my grandmother remarked; she must have found it ironic that her rose bushes, having suffered years of Sagamore's blundering, were about to be the beneficiaries of his decomposition. The candlelit ritual must have looked striking from the Front Street sidewalk; that must be why the Rev. Lewis Merrill and his wife were drawn to our yard. Just as we were faced with a loss for words, the Rev. Mr .-Merrill-who was already as pale as the winter months-appeared in the rose garden. His wife, red-nosed from the autumn's first good dose of the common cold, was wearing her winter coat, looking prematurely sunk in deepest January. Taking their fragile constitutional, the Mer-rills had detected the presence of a religious ceremony. My mother, shivering, seemed quite startled by the Merrills' appearance.

"It makes me cold to look at you, Tabby," Mrs. Merrill said, but Mr. Merrill glanced nervously from face to face, as if he were counting the living of the neighborhood in order to determine which poor soul was at rest in the burlap sack.

"Thank you for coming, Pastor," said Mr. Fish, who was born to be an amateur actor. "Perhaps you could say a few words appropriate to the passing away of man's best friend?"

But Mr. MerruTs countenance was both stricken and uncomprehending. He looked at my mother, and at me; he stared at the burlap sack; he gazed into the hole in the rose bed as if it were his own grave-and no coincidence that a short walk with his wife had ended here. My grandmother, seeing her pastor so tense and tongue-tied, took his arm and whispered to him, "It's just a dog. Just say a little something, for the children."

But Mr. Merrill began to stutter; the more my mother shivered, the more the Rev. Mr. Merrill shivered in response, the more his mouth trembled and he could not utter the simplest rite-he failed to form the first sentence. Mr. Fish, who was never a frequenter of any of the town churches, hoisted the burlap sack and dropped Sagamore into the underworld. It was Owen Meany who found the words: " 'I AM THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE, SAITH THE LORD: HE THAT BELIEVETH IN ME, THOUGH HE WERE DEAD, YET SHALL HE LIVE; AND WHOSOEVER LIVETH AND BELIEVETH IN ME SHALL NEVER DIE.' "

It seemed a lot to say-for a dog-and the Rev. Mr. Merrill, freed from his stutter, was struck silent.

" '. . . SHALL NEVER DIE,' " Owen repeated. The wind, gusting, covered my mother's face with her hair as she reached for Owen's hand.

Over all rituals, over all services-over every rite of passage-Owen Meany would preside. That Christmas of ', whether rehearsing the Nativity, or testing Potter's prophylactic on the third floor of Waterhouse Hall, I was only dimly aware of Owen as the conductor of an orchestra of events-and totally unaware that this orchestration would lead to a single sound. Not even in Owen's odd room did I perceive enough, although no one could escape the feeling that-at the very least-an altar-in-progress was under construction there. It was hard to tell if the Meanys celebrated Christmas. A clump of pine boughs had been crudely gathered and stuck to the front farmhouse door by a huge, ugly staple-the kind fired from a heavy-duty, industrial staple gun. The staple looked strong enough to bind granite to granite, or to hold Christ fast to the cross. But there was no particular arrangement to the pine boughs-it certainly did not resemble a wreath; it was as shapeless a mass as an animal's nest, only hastily begun and abandoned in a panic. Inside the sealed house, there was no tree; there were no Christmas decorations, not even candles in the windows, not even a decrepit Santa leaning against a table lamp. On the mantel above the constantly smoldering fire- wherein the logs were either chronically wet, or else the coals had been left unstirred for hours-there was a creche with cheaply painted wooden figures. The cow was three-legged- nearly as precarious as one of Mary Beth Baud's cows; it was propped against a rather menacing chicken that was almost half the cow's size, not unlike the proportions of Barb Wiggin's turtledoves. A gouge through the flesh-toned paint of the Holy Mother's face had rendered her obviously blind and so ghastly to behold that someone in the Meany family had thoughtfully turned her face away from the Christ Child's crib-yes, there was a crib. Joseph had lost a hand- perhaps he had hacked it off himself, in a jealous rage, for there was something darkly smoldering in his expression, as if the smoky fire that left the mantel coated with soot had also colored Joseph's mood. One angel's harp was mangled, and from another angel's O-shaped mouth it was easier to imagine the wail of a mourner than the sweetness of singing. But the creche's most ominous message was that the little Lord Jesus himself was missing; the crib was empty-that was why the Virgin Mary had turned her mutilated face away; why one angel dashed its harp, and another screamed in anguish; why Joseph had lost a hand, and the cow a leg. The Christ Child was gone-kidnapped, or run away. The very object of worship was absent from the conventional assembly. There appeared to be more order, more divine management in evidence in Owen's room; still, there was nothing that represented anything as seasonal as Christmas-except the poinsettia-red dress that my mother's dummy wore; but I knew that dress was all the dummy had to wear, year 'round. The dummy had taken a position at the head of Owen's bed-closer to his bed than my mother had formerly positioned it in relationship to her own bed. From where Owen lay at night, it was instantly clear to me that he could reach out and touch the familiar figure.

"DON'T STARE AT THE DUMMY," he advised me. "IT'S NOT GOOD FOR YOU."

Yet, apparently, it was good for him-for there she was, standing over him. The baseball cards, at one time so very much on display in Owen's room, were not-I was sure-gone; but they were out of sight. There was no baseball in evidence, either-although I was certain that the murderous ball was in the room. The foreclaws of my armadillo were surely there, but they were also not on display. And the Christ Child snatched from the crib ... I was convinced that the Baby Jesus was somewhere in Owen's room, perhaps in company with Potter's prophylactic, which Owen had taken home with him but which was no more visible than the armadillo's claws, the abducted Prince of Peace, and the so-called instrument of my mother's death. It was not a room that invited a long visit; our appearances at the Meanys' house were brief, sometimes only for Owen to change his clothes, because-during that Christmas vacation, especially-he stayed overnight with me more than he stayed at home. Mrs. Meany never spoke to me, or took any notice of me at all, when I came to the house; I could not remember the last time Owen had bothered to announce my presence-or, for that matter, his own presence-to his mother. But Mr. Meany was usually pleasant; I wouldn't say he was cheerful, or even enthusiastic, and he was not a fellow for small talk, but he

offered me his cautious version of humor. "Why, it's Johnny Wheelwright!" he'd say, as if he were surprised I was there at all, or he hadn't seen me for years. Perhaps this was his unsubtle way of announcing my presence to Mrs. Meany, but that lady was unchanged by her husband's greeting; she remained in profile to both the window and to us. For variety, she would at times gaze into the fire, although nothing she saw there ever prompted her to tend to the logs or the coals; possibily she preferred smoke to flames. And one day, when he must have been feeling especially conversational, Mr. Meany said: "Why, it's Johnny Wheelwright! How goes all that Christmas rehearsin'?"

"Owen's the star of the pageant," I said. As soon as I spoke, I felt the knuckles of his tiny fist in my back.

"You never said you was the star," Mr. Meany said to Owen.

"He's the Baby Jesus!" I said. "I'm just old Joseph."

"The Baby Jesus?" said Mr. Meany. "I thought you was an angel, Owen."

"NOT THIS YEAR," Owen said. "COME ON, WE GOTTA GO," he said to me, pulling the back of my shirt.

"You're the Christ Child?" his father asked him.

"I'M THE ONLY ONE WHO CAN FIT IN THE CRIB," Owen said.

"Now we're not even using a crib," I explained. "Owen's in charge of the whole thing-he's the star and the director." Owen yanked my shirt so hard he untucked it.

"The director," Mr. Meany repeated flatly. That was when I felt cold, as if a draft had pushed itself into the house in an unnatural way-down the warm chimney. But it was no draft; it was Mrs. Meany. She had actually moved. She was staring at Owen. There was confusion in her expression, a mix of terror and awe-of shock; but also of a most familiar resentment. By comparison to such a stare, I realized what a relief his mother's profile must be to Owen Meany. Outside, in the raw wind off the Squamscott, I asked Owen if I had said anything I shouldn't have said.

"I THINK THEY LIKE ME BETTER AS AN ANGEL," he said. The snow never seemed to stick on Maiden Hill; it could never get a grip on the huge, upthrust slabs of granite that marked the rims of the quarries. In the pits themselves the snow was dirty, mixed with sand, tracked by birds and squirrels; the sides of the quarries were too steep for dogs. There is always so much sand around a granite quarry; somehow, it works its way to the top of the snow; and around Owen's house there was always so much wind that the sand stung against your face-like the beach in winter. I watched Owen pull down the earflaps of his red-and-black-checkered hunter's cap; that was when I realized that I'd left my hat on his bed. We were on our way down Maiden Hill; Dan had said he'd meet us with the car, at the boathouse on the Swasey Parkway.

"Just a second," ItoldOwen. "I forgot my hat." Iran back to the house; I left him kicking at a rock that had been frozen in the ruts of the dirt driveway. I didn't knock; the clump of pine boughs on the door was blocking the most natural place to knock, anyway. Mr. Meany was standing by the mantel, either looking at the creche or at the fire. "Just forgot my hat," I said, when he looked up at me. I didn't knock on the door of Owen's room, either. At first, I thought the dressmaker's dummy had moved; I thought that somehow it had found a way to bend at the waist and had sat down on Owen's bed. Then I realized that Mrs. Meany was sitting on the bed; she was staring quite intently at my mother's figure and she did not interrupt her gaze when I entered the room.

"Just forgot my hat," I repeated; I couldn't tell if she heard me. I put on my hat and was leaving the room, closing the door as quietly as I could behind me, when she said, "I'm sorry about your poor mother." It was the first time she had ever spoken to me. I peeked back into the room. Mrs. Meany hadn't moved; she sat with her head slightly bowed to the dressmaker's dummy, as if she were awaiting some instructions. It was noon when Owen and I passed under the railroad trestle bridge at the foot of the Maiden Hill Road, a few hundred yards below the Meany Granite Quarry; years later, the abutment of that bridge would be the death of Buzzy Thurston, who had successfully evaded the draft. But that Christmas of ', when Owen and I walked under the bridge, was the first time our being there coincided with the passing of The Flying Yankee-the express train that raced between Portland and Boston, in just two hours. It screamed through Gravesend every day at noon; and although Owen and I had watched it hurtle through town

from the Gravesend depot, and although we had put pennies on the tracks for The Flying Yankee to flatten, we had never before been directly under the trestle bridge exactly as The Flying Yankee was passing over us. I was still thinking of Mrs. Meany's attitude of supplication before my mother's dummy when the trestlework of the bridge began to rattle. A fine grit sifted down between the railroad ties and the trestles and settled upon Owen and me; even the concrete abutments shook, and-shielding our eyes from the loosened sand-we looked up to see the giant, dark underbelly of the train, speeding above us. Through the gaps between the passing cars, flashes of the leaden, winter sky blinked down on us.

"IT'S THE FLYING YANKEES Owen managed to scream above the clamor. All trains were special to Owen Meany, who had never ridden on a train; but The Flying Yankee-its terrifying speed and its refusal to stop in Gravesend- represented to Owen the zenith of travel. Owen (who had never been anywhere) was a considerable romantic on the subject of travel.

"What a coincidence!" I said, when The Flying Yankee had gone; I meant that it was a farfetched piece of luck that had landed us under the trestle bridge precisely at noon, but Owen smiled at me with his especially irritating combination of mild pity and mild contempt. Of course, I know now that Owen didn't believe in coincidences. Owen Meany believed that "coincidence" was a stupid, shallow refuge sought by stupid, shallow people who were unable to accept the fact that their lives were shaped by a terrifying and awesome design-more powerful and unstoppable than The Flying Yankee. The maid who looked after my grandmother, the maid who was Lydia's replacement after Lydia suffered her amputation, was named Ethel, and she was forced to endure the subtle comparisons that both Lydia and my grandmother made of her job-effectiveness. I say "subtle," only because my grandmother and Lydia never discussed these comparisons with Ethel directly; but in Ethel's company, Grandmother would say, "Do you remember, Lydia, how you used to bring up the jams and jellies from those shelves in the secret passageway-where they get so dusty-and line them all up in the kitchen, according to the dates when you'd put them up?"

"Yes, I remember," Lydia would say.

"That way, I could look them over and say, 'Well, we should throw out that one-it doesn't seem to be a favorite around here, and it's two years old.' Do you remember?" my grandmother would ask.

"Yes. One year we threw out all the quince," Lydia said.

"It was just pleasant to know what we had down there in the secret passageway," my grandmother remarked.

"Don't let things get the upper hand on you, I always say," Lydia said. And the next morning, of course, poor Ethel-properly, albeit indirectly instructed-would haul out all the jams and jellies and dust them off for my grandmother's inspection. Ethel was a short, heavyset woman with an ageless, blocky strength; yet her physical power was undermined by a slow mind and a brutal lack of confidence. Her forward motion, even with something as basic as cleaning the house, was characterized by the strong swipes of her stubby arms-but these confident efforts were followed or preceded by the hesitant, off-balance steps of her short, broad feet upon her thick ankles; she was a stumbler. Owen said she was too slow-witted to frighten properly, and therefore we rarely bothered her-even when we discovered opportunities to surprise her, in the dark, in the secret passageway. In this way, too, Ethel was Lydia's inferior, for Lydia had been great fun to terrorize, when she had two legs. The maid hired to look after Lydia was-as we used to say in Gravesend-"a whole other ball game." Her name was Germaine, and both Lydia and Ethel bullied her; my grandmother purposefully ignored her. Among these contemptuous women, poor Germaine had the disadvantage of being young- and almost pretty, in a shy, mousy way. She possessed the nonspecific clumsiness of someone who makes such a constant effort to be inconspicuous that she is creatively awkward- without meaning to, Germaine hoarded attention to herself; her almost electric nervousness disturbed the atmosphere surrounding her. Windows, when Germaine was attempting to slip past them, would suddenly shut themselves; doors would open. Precious

vases would totter when Germaine approached them; when she reached to steady them, they would shatter. Lydia's wheelchair would malfunction the instant Germaine took tremulous command of it. The light in the refrigerator would burn out the instant Germaine opened the door. And when the garage light was left on all night, it would be discovered-in my grandmother's early-morning investigation-that Germaine had been the last to bed.

"Last one to bed turns out the lights," Lydia would say, in her litanic fashion.

"I was not only in bed but I was asleep, when Germaine came to bed," Ethel would announce. "I know I was asleep because she woke me up."

"I'm sorry," Germaine would whisper. My grandmother would sigh and shake her head, as if several rooms of the great house had been consumed in a fire overnight and there was nothing to salvage-and nothing to say, either. But I know why my grandmother sought to ignore Germaine. Grandmother, in a fit of Yankee frugality, had given Germaine all my mother's clothes. Germaine was a little too small for the clothes, although they were the nicest clothes Germaine had ever owned and she wore them both happily and reverentially-Germaine never realized that my grandmother resented seeing her in such painfully familiar attire. Perhaps my grandmother never knew how much she would resent seeing those clothes on Germaine when she gave them to her; and Grandmother had too much pride to admit her error. She could only look away. That the clothes didn't fit Germaine was referred to as Germaine's fault.

"You should eat more, Germaine," Grandmother would say, not looking at her-and never noticing what Germaine ate; only that my mother's clothes hung limply on her. But Germaine could have gorged herself and never matched my mother's bosom.

"John?" Germaine would whisper, when she would enter the secret passageway. The one overhead bulb at the bottom of those winding stairs never lit that passageway very brightly. "Owen?" she would ask. "Are you in here? Don't frighten me."

And Owen and I would wait until she had turned the L-shaped corner between the tall, dusty shelves at shoulder level-the odd shadows of the jam and jelly jars zigzagging across the cobwebbed ceiling; the higher, more irregular shadows cast by the bigger jars of tomato and sweet-pepper relish, and the brandied plums, were as looming and contorted as volcanic conformations.

" 'BE NOT AFRAID,' " Owen would whisper to Ger-maine in the dark; once, over that Christmas vacation, Ger-maine burst into tears. "I'M SORRY!" Owen called after her. "IT'S JUST ME!"

But it was Owen whom Germaine was especially afraid of. She was a girl who believed in the supernatural, in what she was always calling "signs"-for example, the rather commonplace mutilation and murder of a robin by one of the Front Street cats; to witness this torture' was "a sure sign'' you would be involved with an even greater violence yet to come. Owen himself was taken as a "sign" by poor Germaine; his diminutive size suggested to her that Owen was small enough to actually enter the body and soul of another person-and cause that person to perform unnatural acts. It was a dinner table conversation about Owen's voice that revealed to me Germaine's point of view concerning that unnatural aspect of him. My grandmother had asked me if Owen or his family had ever taken any pains to inquire if something could be "done" about Owen's voice-"I mean medically," Grandmother said, and Lydia nodded so vigorously that I thought her hair pins might fall onto her dinner plate. I knew that my mother had once suggested to Owen that her old voice and singing teacher might be able to offer Owen some advice of a corrective kind-or even suggest certain vocal exercises, designed to train Owen to speak more . . . well. . . normally. My grandmother and Lydia exchanged their usual glances upon the mere mention of that voice and singing teacher; I explained, further, that Mother had even written out the address and telephone number of this mysterious figure, and she had given the information to Owen. Owen, I was sure, had never contacted the teacher.

"And why not?" Grandmother asked. Why not, indeed! Lydia appeared to ask, nodding and nodding. Lydia's nodding was the most detectable manifestation of how her senility was in advance of my grandmother's senility-or so my grandmother had observed, privately, to me. Grandmother was

extremely-almost clinically-interested in Lydia's senility, because she took Lydia's behavior as a barometer regarding what she could soon expect of herself. Ethel was clearing the table in her curious combination of aggression and slow motion; she took too many dishes at one time, but she lingered at the table with them for so long that you were sure she was going to put some of them back. I think now that she was just collecting her thoughts concerning where she would take the dishes. Germaine was also clearing-the way a crippled swallow might swoop down for a crumb off your plate at a picnic. Germaine took too little away-one spoon at a time, and often the wrong spoon; or else she took your salad fork before you'd been served your salad. But if her disturbance of your dinner area was slight and fanciful, it was also fraught with Germaine's vast potential for accident. When Ethel approached, you feared a landslide of plates might fall in your lap-but this never happened. When Germaine approached, you guarded your plate and silverware, fearing that something you needed would be snatched from you, and that your water glass would be toppled during the sudden, flighty attack-and this often happened. It was therefore within this anxious arena-of having the dinner table cleared-that I announced to my grandmother and Lydia why Owen Meany had not sought the advice of Mother's voice and singing teacher.

"Owen doesn't think it's right to try to change his voice," I said. Ethel, lumbering away from the table under the considerable burden of the two serving platters, the vegetable bowl, and all our dinner plates and silver, held her ground. My grandmother, sensing Germaine's darting presence, held her water glass in one hand, her wine glass in the other. "Why on earth doesn't he think it's rightT' she asked, as Germaine pointlessly removed the peppermill and let the salt shaker stay.

"He thinks his voice is for a purpose; that there's a reason for his voice being like that," I said.

"What reason?" my grandmother asked. Ethel had approached the kitchen door, but she seemed to be waiting, shifting her vast armload of dishes, wondering- possibly-if she should take them into the living room, instead. Germaine positioned herself directly behind Lydia's chair, which made Lydia tense.

"Owen thinks his voice comes from God," I said quietly, as Germaine-reaching for Lydia's unused dessert spoon- dropped the peppermill into Lydia's water glass.

"Merciful Heavens!" Lydia said; this was a pet phrase of my grandmother's, and Grandmother eyed Lydia as if this thievery of her favorite language were another manifestation of Lydia's senility being in advance of her own. To everyone's astonishment, Germaine spoke. "I think his voice comes from the Devil," Germaine said.

"Nonsense!" my grandmother said. "Nonsense to it coming from God-or from the Devil! It comes from granite, that's what it comes from. He breathed in all that dirt when he was a baby! It made his voice queer and it stunted his growth!"

Lydia, nodding, prevented Germaine from trying to extract the peppermill from her water glass; to be safe, she did it herself. Ethel stumbled into the kitchen door with a great crash; the door swung wide, and Germaine fled the dining room- with absolutely nothing in her hands. My grandmother sighed deeply; even to Grandmother's sighing, Lydia nodded-a more modest little nod. "From God," my grandmother repeated contemptuously. And then she said: "The address and phone number of the voice and singing teacher ... I don't suppose your little friend would have kept it-not if he didn't intend to use it, I mean?'' To this artful question, my grandmother and Lydia exchanged their usual glances; but I considered the question carefully-its many levels of seriousness were apparent to me. I knew this was information that my grandmother had never known-and how it must have interested her! And, of course, I also knew that Owen would never have thrown this information away; that he never intended to make use of the information was not the point. Owen rarely threw anything away; and something that my mother had given him would not only have been saved--it would have been enshrined! I am indebted to my grandmother for many things-among them the use of an artful question. "Why would Owen have kept it?" I asked her innocently. Again, Grandmother sighed; again, Lydia nodded. "Why indeed," Lydia said sadly. It was my grandmother's turn to nod. They were both getting old and frail, I observed, but what I was thinking was why I had decided to keep Owen's probable possession of the singing teacher's address and phone number

to myself. I didn't know why-not then. What I know now is that Owen Meany would have quickly said it was NO COINCIDENCE. And what would he have said regarding our discovery that we were not alone in the Christmas use we made of the empty rooms in Waterhouse Hall? Would he have termed it NO COINCIDENCE, too, that we (one afternoon) were engaged in our usual investigations of a second-floor room when we heard another master key engage the lock on the door? I was into the closet in a hurry, fearful that the empty coat hangers would not entirely have stopped chiming together by the time the new intruder entered the room. Owen scooted under the bed; he lay on his back with his hands crossed upon his chest, like a soldier in a hasty grave. At first, we thought Dan had caught us-but Dan was rehearsing The Gravesend Players, unless (in despair) he had fired the lot of them and canceled the production. The only other person it could be was Mr. Brinker-Smith, the biologist-but he was a first-floor resident: Owen and I were so quiet, we didn't believe our presence could have been detected from the first floor.

"Nap time!" we heard Mr. Brinker-Smith say; Mrs. Brinker-Smith giggled. It was instantly apparent to Owen and me that Ginger Brinker-Smith had not brought her husband to this empty room in order to nurse him; the twins were not with them-it was "nap time" for the twins, too. It strikes me now that the Brinker-Smiths were blessed with good-spirited initiative, with an admirable and inventive sense of mischief-for how else could they have maintained one of the pleasures of conjugal relations without disturbing their demanding twins? At the time, of course, it struck Owen and me that the Brinker-Smiths were dangerously oversexed; that they should make such reckless use of the dormitory beds, including-as we later learned-systematic process through all the rooms of Waterhouse Hall . . . well, it was perverse behavior for parents, in Owen's and my view. Day by day, nap by nap, bed by bed, the Brinker-Smiths were working their way to the fourth floor of the dorm. Since Owen and I were working our way to the first floor, it was perhaps inevitable-as Owen would have suggested-and NO COINCIDENCE that we should have encountered the Brinker-Smiths in a second-floor room. I saw nothing, but heard much, through the closed closet door. (I had never heard Dan with my mother.) As usual, Owen Meany had a closer, more intense perception of this passionate event than I had: the Brinker-Smiths' clothes fell on both sides of Owen; Ginger Brinker-Smith's legendary nursing bra was tossed within inches of Owen's face. He had to turn his face to the side, Owen told me, in order to avoid the sagging bedspring, which began to make violent, chafing contact with Owen's nose. Even with his face sideways, the bedspring would occasionally plunge near enough to the floor to scrape against his cheek.

"IT WAS THE NOISE THAT WAS THE WORST OF IT," he told me tearfully, after the Brinker-Smiths had returned to their twins. "I FELT LIKE I WAS UNDERNEATH THE FLYING YANKEE!"

That the Brinker-Smiths were engaged in a far more creative and original use of Waterhouse Hall than Owen and I could make of the old dormitory had a radical effect on the rest of our Christmas vacation. Shocked and battered, Owen suggested we return to the tamer investigations of Front Street.

'' Hardness! Hardness!'' Ginger Brinker-Smith had screamed.

"Wetness! Wetness!" Mr. Brinker-Smith had answered her. And bang! bang! bang! beat the bedspring on Owen Meany's head.

"STUPID 'HARDNESS,' STUPID 'WETNESS,' " Owen complained. "SEX MAKES PEOPLE CRAZY."

I had only to think of Hester to agree. And so, because of Owen's and my first contact with the act of love, we were at Front Street-just hanging around-the day our mailman, Mr. Morrison, announced his resignation from the role of the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come.

"Why are you telling me?" my grandmother asked. "I'm not the director."

"Dan ain't on my route," the glum mailman said.

"I don't relay messages of this kind-not even to Dan,'' my grandmother told Mr. Morrison. "You should go to the next rehearsal and tell Dan yourself."

Grandmother kept the storm door ajar, and the bitter December air must have been cold against her legs; it was plenty cold for Owen and me, and we were positioned deeper

into the hall, behind my grandmother-and were both wearing wool-flannel trousers. We could feel the chill radiating off Mr. Morrison, who held my grandmother's small bundle of mail in his mittened hand; he appeared reluctant to give her the mail, unless she agreed to carry his message to Dan.

"I ain't settin' foot in another of them rehearsals," Mr. Morrison said, shuffling his high-topped boots, shifting his heavy, leather sack.

"If you were resigning from the post office, would you ask someone else to tell the postmaster?" my grandmother asked him. Mr. Morrison considered this; his long face was alternately red and blue from the cold."It ain't the part I thought it was," he said to Grandmother.

"Tell Dan," Grandmother said. "I'm sure I don't know the first thing about it."

"/ KNOW ABOUT IT," said Owen Meany. Grandmother regarded Owen uncertainly; before she allowed him to replace her at the open door, she reached outside and snatched her mail from Mr. Morrison's tentative hand.

"What do you know about it?" the mailman asked Owen.

"IT'S AN IMPORTANT PART," Owen said. "YOU'RE THE LAST OF THE SPIRITS WHO APPEAR TO SCROOGE. YOU'RE THE GHOST OF THE FUTURE- YOU'RE THE SCARIEST GHOST OF ALL!"

"I got nothin' to say!" Mr. Morrison complained. "It ain't even what they call a speakin' part."

"A GREAT ACTOR DOESN'T NEED TO TALK," Owen said.

"I wear this big black cloak, with a hood\" Mr. Morrison protested. "No one can see my face."

"There's some justice, anyway," my grandmother said under her breath to me.

"A GREAT ACTOR DOESN'T NEED A FACE," Owen said.

"An actor needs somethin' to do\" the mailman shouted.

"YOU SHOW SCROOGE WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO HIM IF HE DOESN'T BELIEVE IN CHRISTMAS!" Owen cried. "YOU SHOW A MAN HIS OWN GRAVE! WHAT CAN BE SCARIER THAN THAT?"

"But all I do is point," Mr. Morrison whined. "Nobody would even know what I was pointin' at if old Scrooge didn't keep givin' speeches to himself-'If there is any person in the town who feels emotion caused by this man's death, show that person to me, Spirit, I beseech you!' That's the kind of speech old Scrooge is always makinM" Mr. Morrison shouted. " 'Let me see some tenderness connected with a death,' and so on and so forth," the mailman said bitterly. "And all I do is point! I got nothin' to say and all anybody sees of me is one J?ngeH" Mr. Morrison cried; he pulled his mitten off and pointed a long, bony finger at Owen Meany, who retreated from the mailman's skeletal hand.

"IT'S A GREAT PART FOR A GREAT ACTOR," Owen said stubbornly. "YOU HAVE TO BE A PRESENCE. THERE'S NOTHING AS SCARY AS THE FUTURE."

In the hall, behind Owen, an anxious crowd had gathered. Lydia in her wheelchair, Ethel-who was polishing a candlestick-and Germaine, who thought Owen was the Devil . . . they huddled behind my grandmother, who was old enough to take Owen's point of view to heart: nothing is as scary as the future, she knew, unless it's someone who knows the future. Owen threw up his hands so abruptly that the women were startled and moved away from him."YOU KNOW EVERY-'THING YET TO COMET' he screamed at the disgruntled mailman. "IF YOU WALK ONSTAGE AS IF YOU KNOW THE FUTURE-I MEAN, EVERYTHING!-YOU'LL SCARE THE SHIT OUT OF EVERYONE."

Mr. Morrison considered this; there was even a glimmer of comprehension in his gaze, as if he saw-albeit momentarily- his own, terrifying potential; but his eyes were quickly fogged over by his breath in the cold air.

"Tell Dan I quit, that's all," he said. Thereupon, the mailman turned and left-"most undramatically," my grandmother would say, later. At the moment, despite her dislike of vulgar language, Grandmother appeared almost charmed by Owen Meany.

"Get away from the open door now, Owen," she said. "You've given that fool much more attention than he deserves, and you'll catch your death of cold."

"I'M CALLING DAN, RIGHT AWAY," Owen told us matter-of-factly. He went directly to the phone and dialed the number; the women and I wouldn't leave the hall, although I think we were all unconscious of how very much we had

become his audience. "HELLO, DAN?" he said into the phone. "DAN? THIS IS OWEN!" (As if there could have been any doubt concerning who it was!) "DAN, THIS IS AN EMERGENCY. YOU'VE LOST THE GHOST OF CHRISTMAS YET TO COME. YES, I MEAN MORRISON-THE COWARDLY MAILMAN!"

"The cowardly mailman!" my grandmother repeated admiringly.

"YES, YES-I KNOW HE WASN'T ANY GOOD," Owen told Dan, "BUT YOU DON'T WANT TO BE STUCK WITHOUT A SPIRIT FOR THE FUTURE."

That was when I saw it coming; the future-or at least one, small part of it. Owen had failed to talk Mr. Morrison into the role, but he had convinced himself it was an important part-far more attractive than being Tiny Tim, that mere goody-goody. Furthermore, it was established that the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come was not a speaking part; Owen would not have to use his voice-not as the Christ Child and not as the Ghost of the Future.

"I DON'T WANT YOU TO PANIC, DAN," Owen said into the phone, "BECAUSE I THINK I KNOW SOMEONE WHO'D BE PERFECT FOR THE PART-WELL, IF NOT PERFECT, AT LEAST DIFFERENT."

It was with the word DIFFERENT that my grandmother shivered; it was also the first time she looked at Owen Meany with anything resembling respect. Once again, I thought, the little Prince of Peace had taken charge. I looked at Germaine, whose lower lip was captured in her teeth; I knew what she was thinking. Lydia, rocking in her wheelchair, appeared to be mesmerized by the onesided phone conversation; Ethel held the candlestick like a weapon.

"WHAT THE PART REQUIRES IS A CERTAIN PRESENCE," Owen told Dan. "THE GHOST MUST TRULY APPEAR TO KNOW THE FUTURE. IRONICALLY, THE OTHER PART I'M PLAYING THIS CHRISTMAS-YES, YES, I MEAN THE STUPID PAGEAJSTIWflCW-ICALLY, THIS PREPARES ME FOR THE ROLE. I MEAN, THEY'RE BOTH PARTS THAT FORCE YOU TO TAKE COMMAND OF THINGS, WITHOUT WORDS . . . YES, YES, OF COURSE I MEAN ME!" There was a rare pause, while Owen listened to Dan. "WHO SAYS THE GHOST OF CHRISTMAS YET TO TO COME HAS TO BE TALL?" Owen asked angrily. "YES, OF COURSE I KNOW HOW TALL MISTER FISH IS. DAN, YOU'RE NOT USING YOUR IMAGINATION." There was another brief pause, and Owen said: "THERE'S A SIMPLE TEST. LET ME REHEARSE IT. IF EVERYBODY LAUGHS, I'M OUT. IF EVERYONE IS SCARED, I'M THE ONE. YES, OF COURSE- 'INCLUDING MISTER FISH.' LAUGH, I'M OUT. SCARED, I'M IN."

But I didn't need to wait to know the results of that test. It was necessary only to look at my grandmother's anxious face, and at the attitudes of the women surrounding her-at the fear of Owen Meany that was registered by Lydia's transfixed expression, by Ethel's whitened knuckles around the candlestick, by Germaine's trembling lip. It wasn't necessary for me to suspend my belief or disbelief in Owen Meany until after his first rehearsal; I already knew what a presence he could summon-especially in regard to the future. That evening, at dinner, we heard from Dan about Owen's triumph-how the cast stood riveted, not even knowing what dwarf this was, for Owen was completely hidden in the black cloak and hood; it didn't matter that he never spoke, or that they couldn't see his face. Not even Mr. Fish had known who the fearful apparition was. As Dickens wrote, "Oh cold, cold, rigid, dreadful Death, set up thine altar here, and dress it with such terrors as thou hast at thy command, for this is thy dominion!"

Owen had a way of gliding across stage; he several times startled Mr. Fish, who kept losing his sense of where Owen was. When Owen pointed, it was all of a sudden, a convulsive, twitchy movement-his small, white hand flashing out of the folds of the cloak, which he flapped. He could glide slowly, like a skater running out of momentum; but he could also skitter with a bat's repellent quickness. At Scrooge's grave, Mr. Fish said: " 'Before I draw nearer to that stone to which you point, answer me one question. Are these the shadows of the things that Will be or are they shadows of the things that May be, only?' "

As never before, this question seemed to seize the attention of every amateur among The Gravesend Players; even Mr. Fish appeared to be mortally interested in the answer. But the midget Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come was inexorable; the

tiny phantom's indifference to the question made Dan Need-ham shiver. It was then that Mr. Fish approached close enough to the gravestone to read his own name thereon.'' 'Ebenezer Scrooge ... am / that man?' " Mr. Fish cried, falling to his knees. It was from the perspective of his knees-when Mr. Fish's head was only slightly above Owen Meany's-that Mr. Fish received his first full look at the averted face under the hood. Mr. Fish did not laugh; he screamed. He was supposed to say, " 'No, Spirit! Oh, no, no! Spirit, hear me! I am not the man I was!' " And so on and so forth. But Mr. Fish simply screamed. He pulled his hands so fiercely away from Owen's cowl that the hood was yanked off Owen's head, revealing him to the other members of the cast-several of them screamed, too; no one laughed.

"It makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up, just to remember it!" Dan told us, over dinner.

"I'm not surprised," my grandmother said. After dinner, Mr. Fish made a somewhat subdued appearance.

"Well, at least we've got one good ghost," Mr. Fish said. "It makes my job a lot easier, really," he rationalized. "The little fellow is quite effective, quite effective. It will be interesting to see his ... effect on an audience."

"We've already seen it," Dan reminded him.

"Well, yes," Mr. Fish agreed hastily; he looked worried.

"Someone told me that Mr. Early's daughter wet her pants," Dan informed us.

"I'm not surprised," my grandmother said. Germaine, clearing one teaspoon at a time, appeared ready to wet hers.

"Perhaps you might hold him back a little?" Mr. Fish suggested to Dan.

"Hold him back?" Dan asked.

"Well, get him to restrain whatever it is he does," Mr. Fish said.

"I'm not at all sure what it is he does," Dan said.

"I'm not either," Mr. Fish said. "It's just ... so disturbing."

"Perhaps, when people are sitting back a few rows-in the audience, I mean-it won't be quite so ... upsetting," Dan said.

"Do you think so?" Mr. Fish asked.

"Not really," Dan admitted.

"What if we saw his face-from the beginning?" Mr. Fish suggested.

"If you don't pull his hood off, we'll never see his face," Dan pointed out to Mr. Fish. "I think that will be better."

"Yes, much better," Mr. Fish agreed. Mr. Meany dropped Owen off at Front Street-so he could spend the night. Mr. Meany knew that my grandmother resented the racket his truck made in the driveway; that was why we didn't hear him come and go-he let Owen out of the cab on Front Street. It was quite magical; I mean, the timing: Mr. Fish saying good night, opening the door to leave-precisely at the same time as Owen was reaching to ring the doorbell. My grandmother, at that instant, turned on the porch light; Owen blinked into the light. From under his red-and-black-checkered hunter's cap, his small, sharp face stared up at Mr. Fish-like the face of a possum caught in a flashlight. A dull, yellowish bruise, the sheen of tarnished silver, marked Owen's cheek-where the Brinker-Smiths' mobile bed had struck him-giving him a cadaver's uneven color. Mr. Fish leaped backward, into the hall.

"Speak of the Devil," Dan said, smiling. Owen smiled back-at us all.

"I GUESS YOU HEARD-I GOT THE PART!" he said to my grandmother and me.

"I'm not surprised, Owen," my grandmother said. "Won't you come in?" She actually held the door open for him; she even managed a charming curtsy-inappropriately girlish, but Harriet Wheelwright was gifted with those essentially regal properties that make the inappropriate gesture work . . . those being facetiousness and sarcasm. Owen Meany did not miss the irony in my grandmother's voice; yet he beamed at her-and he returned her curtsy with a confident bow, and with a little tip of his red-and-black-checkered hunter's cap. Owen had triumphed, and he knew it; my grandmother knew it, too. Even Harriet Wheelwright- with her Mayflower indifference toward the Meanys of this world-even my grandmother knew that there was more to The Granite Mouse than met the eye. Mr. Fish, perhaps to compose himself, was humming the tune to a familiar Christmas carol. Even Dan Needham

knew the words. As Owen finished knocking the snow off his boots-as the little Lord Jesus stepped inside our house- Dan half-sang, half-mumbled the refrain we knew so well: "Hark! the her-ald an-gels sing, 'Glo-ry to the new-born King!' "