“WHEN I GET OUT OF HERE,” he said, “I’VE GOT MY ACTIVE DUTY TO SERVE, AND I DON’T WANT TO SERVE IT AT A DESK—WHO WANTS TO BE IN THE ARMY FOR THE PAPERWORK?”
“Who wants to be in the Army at all?” I asked him. “You ought to sit at a desk a little more often than you do—the way you’re going to college, you might as well be in the Army already. I don’t understand you—with your natural ability, you ought to be sailing through this place with the highest honors.”
“IT DID ME A LOT OF GOOD TO SAIL THROUGH GRAVESEND ACADEMY WITH THE HIGHEST HONORS, DIDN’T IT?” he said.
“Maybe if you weren’t a stupid Geology major, you could be a little more enthusiastic about your courses,” I told him.
“GEOLOGY IS EASY FOR ME,” Owen said. “AT LEAST, I ALREADY KNOW SOMETHING ABOUT ROCKS.”
“You didn’t used to do things just because they were easy,” I said.
He shrugged. Remember when people “dropped out”—remember that? Owen Meany was the first person I ever saw “drop out.” Hester, of course, was born “dropped out”; maybe Owen got the idea from Hester, but I think he was more original than that. He was original, and stubborn.
I was stubborn, too; twenty-two-year-olds are stubborn. Owen tried to keep me working in the monument shop the whole summer of ’64. I said that one whole summer in the monument shop was enough—either he would let me work in the quarries or I would quit.
“IT’S FOR YOUR OWN GOOD,” he said. “IT’S THE BEST WORK IN THE BUSINESS—AND THE EASIEST.”
“So maybe I don’t want what’s ‘easiest,’” I said. “So maybe you should let me decide what’s ‘best.’”
“GO AHEAD AND QUIT,” he said.
“Fine,” I said. “I guess I should speak to your father.”
“MY FATHER DIDN’T HIRE YOU,” said Owen Meany.
Naturally, I didn’t quit; but I matched his stubbornness sufficiently—I hinted that I was losing my interest in practicing the shot. In the summer of ’64, Owen Meany resembled a dropout—in many ways—but his fervor for practicing the shot had reappeared. We compromised: I apprenticed myself to the diamond wheel until August; and that August—when the USS Maddox and the USS Turner Joy were attacked in the Tonkin Gulf—Owen set me to work as a signalman in the quarries. When it rained, he let me work with the sawyers, and by the end of the summer he apprenticed me to the channel-bar drillers.
“NEXT SUMMER, I’LL LET YOU TRY THE DERRICK,” he said. “NEXT AUGUST, I’LL GIVE YOU A LITTLE DYNAMITE LESSON—WHEN I GET BACK FROM BASIC TRAINING.”
Just before we began our junior year at the University of New Hampshire—just before the students returned to Gravesend Academy, and to all the nation’s other schools and universities—Owen Meany slam-dunked the basketball in the Gravesend Academy gym in under three seconds.
I suggested that the retarded janitor might have started the official scorer’s clock a little late; but Owen insisted that we had sunk the shot in record time—he said that the clock had been accurate, that our success was official.
“I COULD FEEL THE DIFFERENCE—IN THE AIR,” he said excitedly. “EVERYTHING WAS JUST A LITTLE QUICKER, A LITTLE MORE SPONTANEOUS.”
“Now I suppose you’ll tell me that under two seconds is possible,” I said.
He was dribbling the ball—crazily, in a frenzy, like a speeded-up film of one of the Harlem Globetrotters. I didn’t think he’d heard me.
“I suppose you think that under two seconds is possible!” I shouted.
He stopped dribbling. “DON’T BE RIDICULOUS,” he said. “THREE SECONDS IS FAST ENOUGH.”
I was surprised. “I thought the idea was to see how fast we can get. We can always get faster,” I said.
“THE IDEA IS TO BE FAST ENOUGH,” he said. “THE TRICK IS, CAN WE DO IT IN UNDER THREE SECONDS EVERY TIME? THAT’S THE IDEA.”
So we kept practicing. When there were students in the Gravesend Academy gym, we went to the playground at St. Michael’s. We had no one to time us—we had nothing resembling the official scorer’s clock in the gym, and Hester was unwilling to participate in our practices; she was no substitute for the retarded janitor. And the rusty hoop of the basket was a little crooked, and the net long gone—and the macadam of the playground was so broken up, we couldn’t even dribble the ball; but we could still practice. Owen said he could FEEL when we were dunking the shot in under three seconds. And although there was no retarded janitor to cheer us on, the nuns in the saltbox at the far end of the playground often noticed us; sometimes, they even waved, and Owen Meany would wave back—although he said that nuns still gave him the shivers. And always Mary Magdalene watched over us; we could feel her silent encouragement. When it snowed, Owen would brush her off. It snowed early that fal
l—long before Thanksgiving. I remember practicing the shot with my ski hat and my gloves on; but Owen Meany would always do it bare-handed. And in the afternoons, when it grew dark early, the lights in the nuns’ house would be lit before we finished practicing. Mary Magdalene would turn a darker shade of gray; she would almost disappear in the shadows.
Once, when it was almost too dark to see the basket, I caught just a glimpse of her—standing at the edge of total darkness. I imagined that she resembled the angel that Owen thought he had seen at my mother’s bed. I said this to him, and he looked at Mary Magdalene; blowing on his cold, bare hands, he looked at her very intently.
“NO, THERE’S NOT REALLY ANY RESEMBLANCE,” he said. “THAT ANGEL WAS VERY BUSY—SHE WAS MOVING, ALWAYS MOVING. ESPECIALLY, HER HANDS—SHE KEPT REACHING OUT WITH HER HANDS.”
It was the first I’d heard that the angel had been moving—about what a busy angel he thought he’d seen.
“You never said it was moving,” I said.