“FAITH AND PRAYER,” he said. “FAITH AND PRAYER—THEY WORK, THEY REALLY DO.”
Toronto: July 23, 1987—Katherine invited me to her island; no more stupid newspapers; I’m going to Georgian Bay! Another stinking-hot day.
Meanwhile—on the front page of The Globe and Mail (it must be a slow day)—there’s a story about Sweden’s Supreme Court making “legal history”; the Supreme Court is hearing an appeal in a custody case involving a dead cat. What a world! MADE FOR TELEVISION!
I haven’t been to church in more than a month; too many newspapers. Newspapers are a bad habit, the reading equivalent of junk food. What happens to me is that I seize upon an issue in the news—the issue is the moral/philosophical, political/intellectual equivalent of a cheeseburger with everything on it; but for the duration of my interest in it, all my other interests are consumed by it, and whatever appetites and capacities I may have had for detachment and reflection are suddenly subordinate to this cheeseburger in my life! I offer this as self-criticism; but what it means to be “political” is that you welcome these obsessions with cheeseburgers—at great cost to the rest of your life.
I remember the independent study that Owen Meany was conducting with the Rev. Lewis Merrill in the winter term of 1962. I wonder if those cheeseburgers in the Reagan administration are familiar with Isaiah 5:20. As The Voice would say: “WOE UNTO THEM THAT CALL EVIL GOOD AND GOOD EVIL.”
After me, Pastor Merrill was the first to ask Owen if he’d had anything to do with the “accident” to Dr. Dolder’s Volkswagen; the unfortunate little car would spend our entire spring vacation in the body shop.
“DO I UNDERSTAND CORRECTLY THAT THE SUBJECT OF OUR CONVERSATION IS CONFIDENTIAL?” Owen asked Pastor Merrill. “YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN—LIKE YOU’RE THE PRIEST AND I’M THE CONFESSOR; AND, SHORT OF MURDER, YOU WON’T REPEAT WHAT I TELL YOU?” Owen Meany asked him.
“You understand correctly, Owen,” the Rev. Mr. Merrill said.
“IT WAS MY IDEA!” Owen said. “BUT I DIDN’T LIFT A FINGER, I DIDN’T EVEN SET FOOT IN THE BUILDING—NOT EVEN TO WATCH THEM DO IT!”
“Who did it?” Mr. Merrill asked.
“MOST OF THE BASKETBALL TEAM,” said Owen Meany. “THEY JUST HAPPENED ALONG.”
“It was completely spur-of-the-moment?” asked Mr. Merrill.
“OUT OF THE BLUE—IT HAPPENED IN A FLASH. YOU KNOW, LIKE THE BURNING BUSH,” Owen said.
“Well, not quite like that, I think,” said the Rev. Mr. Merrill, who assured Owen that he only wanted to know the particulars so that he could make every effort to steer the headmaster away from Owen, who was Randy White’s prime suspect. “It helps,” said Pastor Merrill, “if I can tell the headmaster that I know, for a fact, that you didn’t touch Doctor Dolder’s car, or set foot in the building—as you say.”
“DON’T RAT ON THE BASKETBALL TEAM, EITHER,” Owen said.
“Of course not!” said Mr. Merrill, who added that he didn’t think Owen should be as candid with Dr. Dolder—should the doctor inquire if Owen knew anything about the “accident.” As much as it was understood that the subject of conversation between a psychiatrist and his patient was also “confidential,” Owen should understand the degree to which the fastidious Swiss gentleman had cared for his car.
“I KNOW WHAT YOU MEAN,” said Owen Meany.
Dan Needham, who said to Owen that he didn’t want to hear a word about what Owen did or didn’t know about Dr. Dolder’s car, told us that the headmaster was screaming to the faculty about “disrespect for personal property” and “vandalism”; both categories of crimes fell under the rubric of “punishable by dismissal.”
“IT WAS THE HEADMASTER AND THE FACULTY WHO TRASHED THE VOLKSWAGEN,” Owen pointed out. “THERE WASN’T ANYTHING THE MATTER WITH THAT CAR UNTIL THE HEADMASTER AND THOSE OAFS GOT THEIR HANDS ON IT.”
“As one of ‘those oafs,’ I don’t want to know how you know that, Owen,” Dan told him. “I want you to be very careful what you say—to anybody!”
There were only a few days left before the end of the winter term, which would also mark the end of Owen Meany’s “disciplinary probation.” Once the spring term started, Owen could afford a few, small lapses in his adherence to school rules; he wasn’t much of a rule-breaker, anyway.
Dr. Dolder, naturally, saw what had happened to his car as a crowning example of the “hostility” he often felt from the students. Dr. Dolder was extremely sensitive to both real and imagined hostility because not a single student at Gravesend Academy was known to seek the psychiatrist’s advice willingly; Dr. Dolder’s only patients were either required (by the school) or forced (by their parents) to see him.
In their first session together following the destruction of his VW, Dr. Dolder began with Owen by saying to him, “I know you hate me—yes? But why do you hate me?”
“I HATE HAVING TO TALK WITH YOU,” Owen admitted, “BUT I DON’T HATE YOU—NOBODY HATES YOU, DOCTOR DOLDER!”
“And what did he say when you said that?” I asked Owen Meany.
“HE WAS QUIET FOR A LONG TIME—I THINK HE WAS CRYING,” Owen said.
“Jesus!” I said.
“I THINK THAT THE ACADEMY IS AT A LOW POINT IN ITS HISTORY,” Owen observed. That was so typical of him; that in the midst of a precarious situation, he would suggest—as a subject for criticism—something far removed from himself!
But there was no hard evidence against him; not even the zeal of the headmaster could put the blame for the demolished Beetle on Owen Meany. Then, as soon as that scare was behind him, there was a worse problem. Larry Lish was “busted” while trying to buy beer at a local grocery store; the manager of the store had confiscated Lish’s fake identification—the phony draft card that falsified his age—and called the police. Lish admitted that the draft card had been created from a blank card in the editorial offices of The Grave—his illegal identification had been invented on the photocopier. According to Lish, “countless” Gravesend Academy students had acquired fake draft cards in this fashion.
“And whose idea was that?” the headmaster asked him.