“I DON’T THINK IT’S DAN YOU’RE WORRIED ABOUT,” said Owen Meany.
“What do you mean, Owen?” I asked him; he shrugged—sometimes I think that Owen Meany invented shrugging.
“I THINK YOU’RE AFRAID TO FIND OUT WHO YOUR FATHER IS,” he said.
“Fuck you, Owen,” I said; he shrugged again.
“LOOK AT IT THIS WAY,” said Owen Meany. “YOU’VE BEEN GIVEN A CLUE. NO EFFORT FROM YOU WAS REQUIRED. GOD HAS GIVEN YOU A CLUE. NOW YOU HAVE A CHOICE: EITHER YOU USE GOD’S GIFT OR YOU WASTE IT. I THINK A LITTLE EFFORT FROM YOU IS REQUIRED.”
“I think you care more about who my father is than I do,” I told him; he nodded. It was the day of New Year’s Eve, December 31, 1961, about two o’clock in the afternoon, and we were sitting in the grubby living room of Hester’s apartment in Durham, New Hampshire; it was a living room we routinely shared with Hester’s roommates—two university girls who were almost Hester’s equal in slovenliness, but sadly no match for Hester in sex appeal. The girls were not there; they had gone to their parents’ homes for Christmas vacation. Hester was not there, either; Owen and I would never have discussed my mother’s secret life in Hester’s presence. Although it was only two o’clock in the afternoon, Hester had already consumed several rum and Cokes; she was sound asleep in her bedroom—as oblivious to Owen’s and my discussion as my mother was.
“LET’S DRIVE TO THE GYM AND PRACTICE THE SHOT,” said Owen Meany.
“I don’t feel like it,” I said.
“TOMORROW IS NEW YEAR’S DAY,” Owen reminded me. “THE GYM WILL BE CLOSED TOMORROW.”
From Hester’s bedroom—even though the door was closed—we could hear her breathing; Hester’s breathing, when she’d been drinking, was something between a snore and a moan.
“Why does she drink so much?” I asked Owen.
“HESTER’S AHEAD OF HER TIME,” he said.
“What’s that mean?” I asked him. “Do we have a generation of drunks to look forward to?”
“WE HAVE A GENERATION OF PEOPLE WHO ARE ANGRY TO LOOK FORWARD TO,” Owen said. “AND MAYBE TWO GENERATIONS OF PEOPLE WHO DON’T GIVE A SHIT,” he added.
“How do you know?” I asked him.
“I DON’T KNOW HOW I KNOW,” said Owen Meany. “I JUST KNOW THAT I KNOW,” he said.
Toronto: June 9, 1987—after a weekend of wonderful weather here, sunny and clear-skyed and as cool as it is in the fall, I broke down and bought The New York Times; thank God, no one I know saw me. One of the Brocklebank daughters got married on the weekend in the Bishop Strachan chapel; the BSS girls tend to do that—they come back to the old school to tie the knot, even the ones who were miserable when they were students here. Sometimes, I’m invited to the weddings—Mrs. Brocklebank invited me to this one—but this particular daughter had managed to escape ever being a student of mine, and I felt that Mrs. Brocklebank invited me only because I ran into her while she was fiercely trimming her hedge. No one sent me a formal invitation. I like to stand on a little ceremony; I felt it wasn’t my place to attend. And besides: the Brocklebank daughter was marrying an American. I think it’s because I ran into a carload of Americans on Russell Hill Road that I broke down and bought The New York Times.
The Americans were lost; they couldn’t find The Bishop Strachan School or the chapel—they had a New York license plate and no understanding of how to pronounce Strachan.
“Where’s Bishop Stray-chen?” a woman asked me.
“Bishop Strawn,” I corrected her.
“What?” she said. “I can’t understand him,” she told her husband, the driver. “I think he’s speaking French.”
“I was speaking English,” I informed the idiot woman. “They speak French in Montreal. You’re in Toronto. We speak English here.”
“Do you know where Bishop Stray-chen is?” her husband shouted.
“It’s Bishop Strawn!” I shouted back.
“No, Stray-chen!” shouted the wife.
One of the kids in the back seat spoke up.
“I think he’s telling you how to pronounce it,” the kid told his parents.
“I don’t want to know how to pronounce it,” his father said, “I just want to know where it is.”
“Do you know where it is?” the woman asked me.
“No,” I said. “I’ve never heard of it.”