Before the oily mortician could inquire who I was—or ask on whose authority I was permitted to view the contents of the plywood container—Owen Meany introduced me.
“THIS IS MISTER WHEELWRIGHT—OUR BODY EXPERT,” Owen said. “THIS IS INTELLIGENCE BUSINESS,” Owen told the mortician. “I MUST ASK YOU NOT TO DISCUSS THIS.”
“Oh no—never!” the mortician said; clearly, he didn’t know what there was—or might be—to DISCUSS. Major Rawls rolled his eyes and concealed a dry laughter by pretending to cough. A carpeted hall led to a room that smelled like a chemistry lab, where two inappropriately cheerful attendants were loosening the screws on the transfer case—another man stacked the plywood against a far wall. He was finishing an ice-cream cone, so he clumsily stacked the wood with his free hand. It took four people to lift the heavy coffin—perhaps twenty-gauge steel—onto the mortuary’s chrome dolly. Major Rawls spun three catches that looked like those fancy wheel locks on certain sports cars.
Owen Meany opened the lid and peered inside. After a while, he turned to Rawls. “IS IT HIM?” he asked the major.
Major Rawls looked into the coffin for a long time. The mortician knew enough to wait his turn.
Finally, Major Rawls turned away. “I think it’s him,” Rawls said. “It’s close enough,” he added. The mortician started for the coffin, but Owen stopped him.
“PLEASE LET MISTER WHEELWRIGHT LOOK FIRST,” he said.
“Oh yes—of course!” the mortician said, backing away. To his attendants, the mortician whispered: “This is intelligence business—there will be no discussion of this.” The two attendants, and even the mild-looking fellow who was handling the plywood and eating ice cream, glanced nervously at one another.
“What was the cause of death?” the mortician asked Major Rawls.
“THAT’S PRECISELY WHAT’S UNDER INVESTIGATION,” Owen snapped at him. “THAT’S WHAT WE’RE NOT DISCUSSING!”
“Oh yes—of
course!” the idiot mortician said.
Major Rawls again tried not to laugh; he coughed.
I avoided looking too closely at the body of the warrant officer. I was so prepared for something not even recognizably human that, at first, I felt enormously relieved; almost nothing appeared to be wrong with the man—he was a whole soldier in his greens and aviator wings and warrant officer brass. He had a makeup tan, and the skin on his face appeared to be stretched too tightly over his bones, which were prominent. There was an unreal element to his hair, which resembled a kind of wig-in-progress. Then certain, specific things began to go a little wrong with my perception of the warrant officer’s face—his ears were as dark and shriveled as prunes, as if a set of headphones had caught fire when he’d been listening to something; and there were perfectly goggle-shaped circles burned into the skin around his eyes, as if he were part raccoon. I realized that his sunglasses had melted against his face, and that the tautness of his skin was, in fact, the result of his whole face being swollen—his whole face was a tight, smooth blister, which gave me the impression that the terrific heat he’d been exposed to had been generated from inside his head.
I felt a little ill, but more ashamed than sick—I felt I was being indecent, invading the warrant officer’s privacy … to the degree that a thrill-seeker who’s pressed too close to the wreckage of an automobile accident might feel guilty for catching a glimpse of the bloody hair protruding through the fractured windshield. Owen Meany knew that I couldn’t speak.
“IT’S WHAT YOU EXPECTED—ISN’T IT?” Owen asked me; I nodded, and moved away.
Quickly the mortician darted to the coffin. “Oh, really—you’d think they’d make a better effort than this!” he said. Fussily, he took a tissue and wiped some leakage—some fluid—from the corner of the warrant officer’s mouth. “I don’t believe in open caskets, anyway,” the mortician said. “That last look can be the heartbreaker.”
“I don’t think this guy had a gift for breaking hearts,” Major Rawls said. But I could think of one heart that the warrant officer had broken; his tall younger brother was heartbroken—he was much worse than heartbroken, I thought.
Owen and I had an ice-cream cone, next door, while Major Rawls and the mortician argued about the “asshole minister.” It was a Saturday. Because tomorrow was a Sunday, the service couldn’t be held in the Baptist Church—it would conflict with the Sunday services. There was a Baptist minister who “traveled” to the mortuary and performed the service in the mortuary’s flexible chapel.
“You mean he travels because he’s such an asshole that he doesn’t have a church of his own!” said Major Rawls; he accused the mortician and the minister of frequently working together—“for the money.”
“It costs money in a church, too—wherever you die and have a service, it costs money,” the mortician said.
“MAJOR RAWLS IS JUST TIRED OF LISTENING TO THIS PARTICULAR BAPTIST,” Owen explained to me.
Back in the car, Rawls said: “I don’t believe anyone in this family ever went to church—not ever! That fucking funeral director—I know he talked the family into being Baptists. He probably told them they had to say they were something—then he told them to be Baptists. He and that fucking minister—they’re a match made in hell!”
“THE CATHOLICS REALLY DO THIS SORT OF THING BETTER THAN ANYBODY,” said Owen Meany.
“The fucking Catholics!” said Major Rawls.
“NO, THEY REALLY DO THIS SORT OF THING THE BEST—THEY HAVE THE PROPER SOLEMNITY, THE PROPER SORT OF RITUALS, AND PROPER PACING,” Owen said.
I was amazed to find that Owen Meany had praised the Catholics; but he was absolutely serious. Even Major Rawls didn’t wish to argue with him.
“No one does ‘this sort of thing’ well—that’s all I know,” the major said.
“I DIDN’T SAY ANYONE DID IT ‘WELL,’ SIR—I SAID THE CATHOLICS DID IT ‘BETTER’; THEY DO IT BEST,” said Owen Meany.
I asked Owen what had been the stuff I’d seen leaking from the warrant officer’s mouth.