Owen Meany wrote to me: “DON’T BE SO CYNICAL—NOT EVERYTHING IS ‘UP FOR GRABS.’ YOU THINK THAT ANYTHING YOU DECIDE TO DO DOESN’T MATTER? LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT THE BODIES. SAY YOU’RE LUCKY—SAY YOU NEVER GO TO VIETNAM, SAY YOU NEVER HAVE A WORSE JOB THAN MY JOB. YOU HAVE TO TELL THEM HOW TO LOAD THE BODY ON THE AIRPLANE, AND HOW TO UNLOAD IT—YOU HAVE TO BE SURE THEY KEEP THE HEAD HELD HIGHER THAN THE FEET. IT’S PRETTY AWFUL IF ANY FLUID ESCAPES THROUGH THE ORIFICES—PROVIDED THERE ARE ANY ORIFICES.
“THEN THERE’S THE LOCAL MORTICIAN. PROBABLY HE NEVER KNEW THE DECEASED. EVEN SUPPOSING THAT THERE’S A WHOLE BODY—EVEN SUPPOSING THAT THE BODY ISN’T BURNED, AND THAT IT HAS A WHOLE NOSE, AND SO FORTH—NEITHER OF YOU KNOWS WHAT THE BODY USED TO LOOK LIKE. THE MORTUARY SECTIONS BACK AT THE COMMAND POSTS IN VIETNAM ARE NOT KNOWN FOR THEIR ATTENTION TO VERISIMILITUDE. IS THAT FAMILY GOING TO BELIEVE IT’S EVEN HIM? BUT IF YOU TELL THE FAMILY THAT THE BODY ISN’T ‘SUITABLE FOR VIEWING,’ HOW MUCH WORSE IS IT GOING TO BE FOR THEM?—JUST IMAGINING WHAT A HORRIBLE THING IS UNDER THE LID OF THAT CASKET. SO IF YOU SAY, ‘NO, YOU SHOULDN’T VIEW THE BODY,’ YOU FEEL YOU SHOULD ALSO SAY, ‘LISTEN, IT ISN’T REALLY THAT BAD.’ AND IF YOU LET THEM LOOK, YOU DON’T WANT TO BE THERE. SO IT’S A TOUGH DECISION. YOU’VE GOT A TOUGH DECISION, TOO—BUT IT’S NOT THAT TOUGH, AND YOU BETTER MAKE IT SOON.”
In the spring of 1967, when I received the notice from the local Gravesend draft board to report for my preinduction physical, I still wasn’t sure what Owen Meany meant. “You better call him,” Hester said to me; we
kept reading the notice, over and over. “You better find out what he means—in a hurry,” she said.
“DON’T BE AFRAID,” he told me. “DON’T REPORT FOR YOUR PHYSICAL—DON’T DO ANYTHING,” he said. “YOU’VE GOT A LITTLE TIME. I’M TAKING A LEAVE. I’LL BE THERE AS SOON AS I CAN MAKE IT. ALL YOU’VE GOT TO KNOW IS WHAT YOU WANT. DO YOU WANT TO GO TO VIETNAM?”
“No,” I said.
“DO YOU WANT TO SPEND THE REST OF YOUR LIFE IN CANADA—THINKING ABOUT WHAT YOUR COUNTRY DID TO YOU?” he asked me.
“Now that you put it that way—no,” I told him.
“FINE. I’LL BE RIGHT THERE—DON’T BE AFRAID. THIS TAKES JUST A LITTLE COURAGE,” said Owen Meany.
“What takes ‘just a little courage’?” Hester asked me.
It was a Sunday in May when he called me from the monument shop; U.S. planes had just bombed a power plant in Hanoi, and Hester had only recently returned from a huge antiwar protest rally in New York.
“What are you doing at the monument shop?” I asked him; he said he’d been helping his father, who had fallen behind on a few crucial orders. Why didn’t I meet him there?
“Why don’t we meet somewhere nicer—for a beer?” I asked him.
“I’VE GOT PLENTY OF BEER HERE,” he said.
It was odd to meet him in the monument shop on a Sunday. He was alone in that terrible place. He wore a surprisingly clean apron—and the safety goggles, loosely, around his neck. There was an unfamiliar smell in the shop—he had already opened a beer for me, and he was drinking one himself; maybe the beer was the unfamiliar smell.
“DON’T BE AFRAID,” Owen said.
“I’m not really afraid,” I said. “I just don’t know what to do.”
“I KNOW, I KNOW,” he said; he put his hand on my shoulder.
Something was different about the diamond wheel.
“Is that a new saw?” I asked him.
“JUST THE BLADE IS NEW,” he said. “JUST THE DIAMOND WHEEL ITSELF.”
I had never seen it gleam so; the diamond segments truly sparkled.
“IT’S NOT JUST NEW—I BOILED IT,” he said. “AND THEN I WIPED IT WITH ALCOHOL.” That was the unfamiliar smell! I thought—alcohol. The block of wood on the saw table looked new—the cutting block, we called it; it didn’t have a nick in it. “I SOAKED THE WOOD IN ALCOHOL AFTER I BOILED IT, TOO,” Owen said.
I’ve always been pretty slow; I’m the perfect reader! It wasn’t until I caught the whiff of a hospital in the monument shop that I realized what he meant by JUST A LITTLE COURAGE. Behind the diamond wheel was a workbench for the lettering and edging tools; it was upon this bench that Owen had laid out the sterile bandages, and the makings for a tourniquet.
“NATURALLY, THIS IS YOUR DECISION,” he told me.
“Naturally,” I said.
“THE ARMY REGULATION IN QUESTION STATES THAT A PERSON WOULD NOT BE PHYSICALLY QUALIFIED TO SERVE IN THE CASE OF THE ABSENCE OF THE FIRST JOINT OF EITHER THUMB, OR THE ABSENCE OF THE FIRST TWO JOINTS ON EITHER THE INDEX, MIDDLE, OR RING FINGER. I KNOW TWO JOINTS WILL BE TOUGH,” said Owen Meany, “BUT YOU DON’T WANT TO BE WITHOUT A THUMB.”
“No, I don’t,” I said.
“YOU UNDERSTAND THAT THE MIDDLE OR RING FINGER IS A LITTLE HARDER FOR ME: I SHOULD SAY IT’S HARDER FOR THE DIAMOND WHEEL TO BE AS PRECISE AS I WOULD LIKE TO BE—IN THE CASE OF EITHER A MIDDLE OR A RING FINGER. I WANT TO PROMISE YOU THERE’LL BE NO MISTAKE. THAT’S AN EASIER PROMISE FOR ME TO MAKE IF IT’S AN INDEX FINGER,” he said.
“I understand you,” I said.